I am so sorry I haven't updated in a long time, but anyway I hope you enjoy this latest chapter.

As usual, I don't own Star Trek in any way, although if I did the abomination known as Star Trek Discovery would either never have happened, or would have been completely different.

Let me know what you think.


The Voyager Exile.

Janeway had just returned to the bridge a few minutes before the entire bridge crew watched as the shuttle which had travelled a good distance away from Voyager itself flashed like an ancient lighthouse which had once guided in seafaring vessels and crews into a safe harbour before it suddenly exploded with bright blinding light.

She had been listening quietly to the reports, her scientifically trained mind trying to work out what the transformation Kes had explained was what was happening to her which accounted for all the strange phenomena happening to her recently, while also comparing it to the Starfleet accounts of similar phenomena, but none of them mentioned anything of the sub-atomic bonds of a body falling apart.

When she had witnessed Kes's body shimmer and warp with light, rendering her body semi-translucent and walked the Ocampan girl through the corridors which exploded in their wake as the transformation had affected the sub-atomic bonds of the ship itself, Janeway had wondered if what Kes was undergoing was similar in some ways to the evolutionary transformation of the Zalkonian transformation encountered by the Enterprise, but she had instantly dismissed it.

That transformation had been a natural process. In any case, the Zalkonian Dr Crusher had met and treated had some degree of control over his extraordinary abilities and while some moments of the Zalkonian transformation had been clearly painful, they hadn't shaken the Enterprise up.

"Report!" Chakotay demanded when the ship began to shake.

"Some sort of subspace field has enveloped the ship," Paris replied, instantly wrestling with the helm controls. "I can't break free."

"That subspace field is too strong," Harry said.

"Where's it coming from?" Janeway asked. "Could Kes have generated it somehow?"

"It just appeared, Captain," Harry said, his tone making it clear he was as baffled as they all were. "It's incredibly powerful, and judging from sensor readings the field is digging down into the lower subspace domains. And as for Kes.… well, since she could manipulate the subatomic, something like this shouldn't be too difficult."

"The lower domains?" Janeway whistled in spite of her self discipline. Subspace theory indicated there was an infinite number of domains. Subspace was essentially a honeycomb of domains, and there were dozens of propulsion theories which stated it was possible to manipulate one of those domains, but the tricky part came from the method and the power formula. "Incredible!"

"Torres to Bridge, the warp core is going crazy down here!" B'elanna's voice shouted from the com line, but they could all hear the strain in the chief engineer's voice while she struggled to get everything back under her control, but she clearly wasn't having that much luck. But Janeway heard something else in the background, a low rumbling sound that was all too familiar to her ears and had been a reassuring sound for her ever since they had arrived in the Delta Quadrant.

But now there was something up with the warp core.

"Matter-Antimatter reaction at 102%…..110%…..120!"

Janeway's neck ached with the sudden twist as she shared a shocked look at Chakotay, who was equally shocked by the announcement from main engineering. What B'elanna had just described…it was impossible, and it went against all the laws of subspace physics the worlds of the Federation had pioneered and expended great resources in order to design and build newer, more powerful engines capable of greater speeds in order to cross interstellar, and hopefully in time, intergalactic distances.

"Captain, look! The view screen!" Harry yelped as there was a flash of light and suddenly the ship accelerated forwards with the stars streaking past so fast that the streaks seemed to merge with each other. It was like warp drive, only faster. Janeway watched the view screen silently while she held onto the arms of her command chair, hoping the inertial dampeners didn't give out under the strain the acceleration was putting on them.

This reminded her of the time where she had been onboard the Cochrane when it had been augmented to break the maximum warp barrier, but somehow this was different but she hoped neither herself nor the rest of her crew was reduced to evolved salamanders again.

"This can't be right," Tom's voice drew her attention to the helm station, where Tom's hands were dancing over the controls. "Our speed-," he began but he stopped; clearly whatever he had seen from his displays was so weird and unthinkable Tom was having problems even saying what it was. "Its…it's impossible!"

"Give us an idea of what impossible means, Tom," Janeway called.

Tom looked over his shoulder, but because of the shaking bridge and the dim lighting it was hard for Janeway to really see his expression, but she knew him well enough to know from what she could see he could not believe what was going on. "We've just hit the maximum warp barrier, Captain," Tom answered, "and we're going even further."

"What?" Janeway gasped.

"How much faster are we going to go?" Chakotay demanded.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Tom stabbed futilely at the controls of his station, though what he hoped to achieve, Janeway didn't know, she surmised he was trying to find some way of getting the ship back under control but from the look of what he was doing, he was doing it halfheartedly because he simply had no idea what was happening. "I'd get the Doctor to run some serious tests on us once this is overall the same, just to be on the safe side."

Janeway nodded to herself in agreement, hearing the grim tone in Tom's voice. Tom was never likely to forget the time he had mutated into a salamander-like life form when they'd experimented with warp 10, and how he had kidnapped her. But as she thought about it, she had to admit there was something strange.

When she had been inside the Cochrane with Tom and passed the maximum warp barrier, Janeway had experienced much the same experience Tom had when he had passed the threshold the first time around. She had been everywhere thanks to the Infinite Velocity property of warp 10, and yet she hadn't moved an inch as the shuttle had accelerated.

But this time…

This time she wasn't everywhere in the cosmos. She was still sitting in the command chair, on Voyager's bridge. All around her were the rest of her crew who had been dragged into the Delta Quadrant thanks to the Caretaker and his dubious attempts at breeding so he could have a replacement to keep the Ocampans limited and incapable of doing anything for themselves without wondering if that was what their all-mighty God-like protector would have wanted in the long run.

Janeway was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard critical alarm sirens. As if he were a telepath and had picked up on her fears, Harry called out, "We're coming apart."

Janeway wasn't surprised. While Voyager was designed for high warp speeds - well, high as according to the Starfleet specs at the time when Voyager had been launched, and as they had pushed the ship during its shakedown cruises (she would not think about the misery and humiliation she had felt when they'd had to send out a distress call when the ship had stalled in space, requiring the Hood to rescue them), they had determined the inertial dampeners were capable of handling really high speeds, but those velocities were properly regulated and controlled for the ship. But now…this….this was like Voyager were a stone being hurled to skip over the surface of the water, skimming the top without sinking until it lost velocity.

Suddenly the ship started to slow down until whatever it was they had been in lost its power, and the ship had returned to impulse speed.

"We've just dropped out….whatever it was we were in," Tom reported while the rest of the bridge returned to normal after being thrown God knew how far.

"Systems are coming back online," Chakotay checked the monitor between himself and Janeway.

Yes, but where are we now? We were thrown quite a long way… Janeway thought to herself. She didn't bother asking right away just how far they had travelled. She could ask that in a moment when the navigational sensors which were probably recalibrating after the ship had been thrown across a large expanse of space, right now she had something else on her mind.

"On screen," she ordered.

The image on the screen changed. It was showing the image of a large gaseous nebula glowing with purple light. There was nothing else in the background of the screen. No ships, no asteroids, no planets. Just a nebula.

"Where are we?" Janeway asked.

"9.500 light-years from where we just were," Tom replied once he had checked the helm and navigational instruments which were probably checking their position against where they had been before.

Janeway gasped. With all the work B'elanna and her engineering staff had been forced to do in order to repair the damaged warp core, they had needed to travel slower than normal, but while the transwarp coils had been more than enough to get them moving, they hadn't moved this far before. But 9,500 light years…. Janeway quickly did the math, and she smiled in surprise over what Kes had done.

"She's thrown us out of Borg space. Ten years closer to home."

9,500 may not be an impressive distance if they discovered a means of getting across the Delta Quadrant that still lay ahead of them, but it was a start and she would gladly take it any time.

"But how? How did she do this?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"I don't know," Janeway replied, her mind going over what had just happened before she drew a blank. "But let's be grateful she's thrown us out of Borg space."

Thinking of the Borg spoiled this little victory in their journey back home to the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant. As far as they knew there was still a war going on, and it was getting worse and worse every day even though sympathy for the Borg Collective was extremely limited. But after seeing for herself what the war was doing to the Borg….

Janeway had no idea what Species 8472 had been doing to the Borg recently, but she was in two minds about it now. I don't get it. I should be over the moon we're no longer in Borg space, risking our lives trying to get through so we can get home, and I am…so why am I still worried it's not over just yet?

XXX

Janeway stood looking out into the black void of space in the observation lounge while she awaited the rest of the senior staff - she had arrived here a few minutes ago, just so she could be left on her own, so she could sort things out in her mind while she formulated plans and counter plans for the long term future.

For the first time in a while, she felt some of the tension and fear she had been feeling ever since the day they'd discovered the mummified remains of the Borg drone which was one of the first signs they were travelling dangerously close to Borg territory fade.

They were out of Borg space, thrown out by the power of Kes's transformation; Janeway wished Kes' transformation had been carefully studied and watched so they could understand it a little better. It infuriated the hell out of the scientist in Janeway they'd had someone on board the ship who had been transforming into something new, something more, and yet they hadn't joined the dots.

But she was still nervous.

While she had joined in with the crews' delight they'd been thrown out of Borg space, Janeway's fear had been replaced with a new fear. It could be summed up in just one question.

What was going to happen next?

They may have been thrown out of Borg space, sent farther than they had before and morale was high because they were ten years closer to home, to the Alpha Quadrant, but they still had a long voyage ahead of them. They were still at risk; they had no idea what was ahead of them, and Neelix had never come this far, so there was no way he could guide them as he had in the past, and warn them of any nasty pieces of history of different star systems they'd likely come across.

Janeway could say they were Starfleet explorers who followed in the tradition of legendary explorers like Jonathan Archer, Christopher Pike, and James T. Kirk, but those officers had always had the lifeline Starfleet Command had available, and they'd had allies in the Vulcans before the Federation was formed, so they had more opportunities available.

Here, they were on their own. They had made a few friends in their travels, but they were far behind them now, and they had no idea what was ahead of them. To make things worse, the Federation had no idea they were here in the Delta Quadrant at all (that business with the Romulan Telek R'Mor and the Harry Kim wormhole didn't count; with relations between the Federation and the Romulan Empire, the chances were remote Telek could get their letters to the Federation at all, and in any case, even if they had gotten through, the Federation would be as stuck as the Voyager crew in working out a means of communication, never mind figuring out a plan to get them home, but unlike the crew, they'd have the resources and the best scientific brains in the Federation to think of a plan, but Janeway wasn't going to get her hopes up), and they couldn't contact home at all.

Thinking of home, the Harry Kim wormhole even if it had been nothing more than another dead end, made Janeway think of something else they could have taken advantage of.

That mess with the Aeon time-ship commanded by Braxton. Janeway still wondered what in the name of God had convinced that alternate version of Braxton (God, temporal mechanics…she had long since decided not to even try to work out how it worked, but even her shaky grasp had been surprised someone from a later century had planned to destroy her ship without realising doing so would likely result in a paradox he had started) to attack them, but they had had the perfect opportunity to leave something behind somewhere where Earth pioneers would find it, something that would appear in the 24th century.

Janeway looked down with a bitter smile, remembering how she had planned to return to her century by making use of the slingshot method pioneered by the Enterprise crew a hundred years ago, but Braxton had stopped them and gave them an excuse of altering history if they had remained, and it made Janeway wonder and ask herself about the role in history Voyager played, even though she had known it would have been a waste of her time bothering to ask the time-traveller anything.

What were they going to discover? Did they make it back to Earth at all, or did some calamitous disaster strand the crew in the Delta Quadrant and they were forced to wait for the first major exploration missions into this half of the galaxy by the Federation? Q had hinted when he had boarded the ship in order to lock Quinn back in custody for eternity humans wouldn't arrive in the Delta Quadrant for another century, but did they make it back?

Voyager had been in the Delta Quadrant for a few years, but they had discovered a great deal. They had met new species, they had charted a great chunk of the Delta Quadrant although they hadn't travelled to all of it because of their fixed mission to return to the Federation in one piece, encountering phenomena no-one had dreamt of, so when they returned because she refused to give up no matter what then their knowledge would become invaluable to Starfleet explorers.

But she was still worried because they had no idea what kind of effect the war Species 8472 was having on the Borg, and where and when the aliens would strike next.

And they were going to strike. Ever since she had boarded that Cube, saw the damage the alien invaders had caused to the Collective, Janeway had asked herself if she was looking at the shape of things to come.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when the doors swished open and her command crew came in, and she turned to greet them.

"Sit down everyone," she ordered, taking her own seat. "Report."

Tom exchanged a look with the others before he turned his attention back to her. "I've performed a long-range scan, Captain," he said, "there are three M-class star systems, seven light-years away. It looks like at least three of them are inhabited."

"I can provide limited warp capabilities for us to get there," B'elanna gave her input now. "Whatever Kes did, it worked wonders; the warp engines are now online, but I would still like time to work on them to get them back up to specs, and hopefully in a new system we can find the materials to repair them properly."

Janeway mulled it over in her mind, and she nodded in approval. "Okay, that sounds good. Keep us at a fairly moderate warp speed," she added, "the solar system isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and the journey will give us plenty of time to send out long-range probes to give us an idea of the lay of the land. We're going to do this properly."

Chakotay frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked curiously.

"In the past, we had advice from Neelix and the few friendly traders and travellers we came across," Janeway paused while she sent a look in the direction of the Talaxian. Neelix was startled out of his morose thoughts at Kes' departure, and he looked at her curiously, surprised he had been mentioned. It was clear to anyone Neelix was shaken by Kes leaving them even if they hadn't been together for a while, they were still dear friends. Now she was gone, he was alone, and Janeway felt so sorry for him.

"We don't have that right now. Our knowledge of this sector of space is nonexistent, despite Stellar Cartography, so we're going to be doing everything from scratch. But we're not just going to keep going. Voyager needs a proper overhaul, and I want the ship to be in top condition. I know," she held up her hands against the protests, "I know it's a long job, but in the long term we need to do this, rather than be on the move all the time."

"What if there's a hostile species ahead?" Harry asked plaintively.

Janeway was beginning to wonder if the young ensign was always this pessimistic. "Then we will have to be careful, won't we? I won't deny there is a risk," she went on, regarding all of them. "But we're going to have to take it. Tom," she began, glancing at the pilot, "when you scanned those systems that looked like they were inhabited, did they show signs of having interstellar travel?"

"One did," Tom began thoughtfully, "the other two didn't."

"Then we're going to head for the nearest system. On the way, we can conduct more scans and long-distance surveys, launching long-range and short-range probes in order to discover what's nearby. When we get there, we can get to work on the ship," Janeway declared, looking around the room, thinking about any other plan she could make. She sighed and shook her head. "We are going to have to make plans later. It's too early right now, but for the time being, we must travel at slow speed, send out the probes, and get the results in so we can formulate the right plans for later."