I don't own Star Trek Voyager, sadly. If I did then Voyager wouldn't look like it had just left space dock, and the characters would be better developed.
Please let me know what you think.
No Temporal Re-set Button.
Janeway flinched as she was thrown to the ground as the bridge violently shook - her last check of the helm station showed one of the ships allied with her against the Krenim and their Temporal Weapon Ship which was going around erasing ships and races from this part of the galaxy had lost powered and collided with Voyager, scraping against the already badly damaged saucer section - and she was thrown to the ground, but she ignored the slight pain as her tired and worn out body which had been sleep and food and even coffee deprived for a year made contact with the deck plates; for the last year, this had been a running theme, the Krenim would fire their chroniton weapons at Voyager and cripple the starship because the torpedoes 'bounced' through time.
The shields were useless before Seven and Tuvok studied an unexploded torpedo (she was still angry with how Seven had risked her life and endangered Tuvok's life, blinding the Vulcan in the process; but she was relieved by their work since it kept them alive since).
Janeway lifted her head and she began the slow but rapid crawl back to the command chair - she could have gone back to the helm but if she was going to go down with her ship, she wanted to do it in her chair.
As the captain of a starship, that was where she was expected to be. Ignoring the shaking all around her - she yelped when a conduit sparked, but she didn't let it stop her from reaching her chair. As soon as she was sitting in her chair, jumping as a console behind her exploded, Janeway's eyes widened when she saw the state of the view screen. It wasn't there anymore. The collision had torn out a large chunk of the saucer's hull near the bridge, leaving behind a nasty hole. The only thing separating her from the vacuum of space was the emergency forcefield which had automatically snapped into being.
Oh, thank you for that, my friend! Janeway thought to herself, feeling love for her beloved ship; Voyager might be in a worse state than she had ever been since the day the Caretaker had snatched them into the Delta Quadrant, even with the Vidiians and the Kazon repeatedly attacking them, but she hadn't let Janeway down yet.
But as she studied the sight of the Temporal Weapon Ship through the hole Janeway saw the forcefields flicker repeatedly. She wasn't surprised, but it did leave her worried about how long they would last; all Federation starships were equipped with forcefields to prevent people from being sucked out into the vacuum of space, but the system could only take so much damage. Voyager had survived this long but the hull was badly crippled, and she was trying not to think about how much longer the forcefields could take.
But as she studied the Krenim ship in the distance, captained by a man who was so desperately ripping history apart because he didn't like how it had turned out for his people, Janeway realised this was her only chance. They had already rescued Chakotay and Tom, who had kindly and thoughtfully provided them with the location of the Temporal Weapon Ship's temporal core.
Janeway nodded to herself as she reached her decision; that ship was the only reason the timelines had been shattered in the first place, but if it was destroyed then everything it had done, if she had her temporal physics right and she was sure she had, everything that ship had done would be undone. Usually, Janeway would baulk at the thought of creating or interfering with a temporal paradox, but on this occasion, she found it impossible to truly give a shit. For a whole year Janeway had been forced to see her ship ripped to pieces by the continuous Krenim attacks (she wished she had avoided Krenim space, but it was impossible now; but if she could change history…), forced to see her people die as more and more of the ship was too heavily damaged to support life, forced to order her crew to abandon ship.
Here was a chance to put history straight.
With that in mind, Janeway inputted a command into the computer via the terminal between her chair and the one used by Chakotay (it was at that point she realised what she had in mind would cost; she hadn't seen Chakotay, listened to his soft, wise voice, listened to his advice whenever he wasn't afraid to speak his mind. She missed him dearly, but she had to think of the bigger picture if she was going to stop Anorrax), setting a collision course with the Krenim ship.
She had just finished when she received a comm hail. "Janeway here," she said.
"Captain, Tuvok here. Are you alright?"
Despite the current mess, it was good to hear from her old friend again. "Yes, Tuvok, I'm fine. One of the ships collided with the saucer section, emergency forcefields have kicked in, and they're holding for now. What's your status?"
Tuvok's voice crackled over the channel. "All our ships have been disabled, Captain. Do you have weapons?"
Janeway was surprised by how upset she was to hear the Vulcan tactical officer say that. She had been busy setting the collision course with the Temporal Weapon Ship but it hadn't occurred to her to even ask the other ships involved in the attack to make the Krenim pay for what they'd done to history if they had weapons. It surprised her how much it hurt even if she had already accepted her fate. "Negative, torpedo launchers are down. I'm setting a collision course," she replied before she opened a wide hail with the surviving ships. "Janeway to the fleet, take your temporal shields offline."
"Captain, we won't be protected-!"
"Exactly. If that ship is destroyed, all of history might be restored. And this is one year I would like to forget," she added darkly, remembering every grim and horrifying moment of the year as it passed.
She clenched her hands around the armrests of her chair watching as Voyager moved closer and closer to the Temporal Weapon Ship. She had taken the coordinates of the Temporal core of the ship, and she'd programmed a path for Voyager to follow.
"Time's up," she finished, glaring at the sight of the ship.
"No, I don't think so, Kathy."
Janeway turned and she gaped when she saw the tall figure of a man wearing a Starfleet captain's uniform standing to the side. "Q!"
The entity smirked at her. "You know something, Kathy, I don't think I've ever seen a Starfleet captain make a gesture like this before, ever. But then again my interest in Starfleet only came about when I learnt about Jean-Luc."
"Go away, Q. This is important."
"Yes, I know," Q walked casually around the bridge, clicking his fingers. To Janeway's surprise, one of the fleet ships flew past Voyager's bow and slammed straight into the Temporal Weapon Ship.
"What have you done?!" Janeway demanded as the Krenim ship started glowing blue.
"I am doing what you wanted, Kathy; put history back on track. However, there will be no temporal re-set button," Q replied.
"But why are you doing this? You have never interfered on this level before!" Janeway was at least positive the entity, despite his power, had never done anything like this before, ever.
Q sighed. "Oh, Kathy. You have had a charmed few years in the Delta Quadrant, haven't you? Have you never once felt you had a guardian angel watching over you?"
"Are you saying…you have been protecting us, all this time?" Janeway asked uncertainly she was mused over the implications of Q's questions.
"To a point. Think about it, Kathy. If you arrived back at Earth right now, as you are now, what do you think Starfleet could learn from you. This is the first time a Starfleet crew has ever encountered such a consistent alteration of history," Q flicked his gaze upward. "The Continuum were in two minds about what to do about this. Some of them felt you should have been left alone, but when the long-term benefits of what your experiences would provide were known, well the decision was easy to tweak history so Voyager as it currently is following the last year would not collide with that ship at all. Once the ship is destroyed, well you would go on your own way."
Janeway suddenly saw the implications behind Q's presence. "Are you here because something is going to happen to us later? Are you trying to make me and my crew stronger?"
"Something will always happen, however, your experiences will do more to shape your perceptions of the universe far better than if history is reversed. Nice reasoning, by the way," Q added with a smile.
"Thank you," Janeway bit back, unsure if the entity was paying her a genuine compliment or not, but right now she found it impossible to genuinely care.
"And yes."
"What?" Janeway asked in confusion.
"'Are you trying to make me and my crew stronger?' I believe you asked," Q said with a smile. "The answer is yes. You've had a charmed time in the Delta Quadrant, Kathy. Most of it was down to me and my protection of you. However, at the same time, it's time for you to grow up and leave the nest."
While she was annoyed by the implications Q and the rest of his kind viewed her and all humans as simple children, Janeway studied the entity in front of her. The entity who had threatened humanity if Jean-Luc was right about him, and yet had given Enterprise's captain a chance to change his own past. Was this a reverse of that moment, she wondered, was Q only doing this to teach her and her crew something important? She would have to think harder on that later. For now, she wanted to know what was going to happen right now.
"You could have done this at any time, couldn't you? You could have stopped the Krenim from rewriting history, but why didn't you?"
"Yes, we could have. But since the Continuum exists on a totally different temporal plane, the meaningless disruptions to history didn't bother us as they did you. And before you say anything, we had known you would succeed," Q smiled. "Because I knew you were already here, Kathy. If there's one thing the Continuum has learned over the last few decades, you Starfleet types are remarkably clever when it comes to time travel paradoxes. However, on this occasion, the Continuum wanted you to recall your knowledge of these events. When I leave, the whole of your crew will be returned to you, and I'll send your ship to an uninhabited solar system rich in minerals that it's positively embarrassed by them, and you can work on the repairs of your ship there. And before you say anything, as far as the rest of the universe is concerned, what's happened with the Krenim has been undone, but you will still remember it because you have been protected from the changes to the timeline. Aurevoir, Madam Captain. We will meet again."
The moment Q vanished, the senior staff appeared looking around themselves in disbelief as if they couldn't believe they were back on Voyager.
"Kathryn!" Chakotay wrapped her in a hug she gratefully returned. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, just. Q appeared just as I was about to collide with the Krenim. He basically said he's been protecting us from time to time, but the Continuum wanted us to take our experiences back to Earth," Janeway pressed her cheek against Chakotay's shoulder.
"So he did that by throwing temporal shields up around Voyager and he sent that ship towards the Weapon ship?" Harry said.
"Yes," Janeway replied while Chakotay let her go.
"Captain, look. There's a solar system ahead," Neelix reported, making everyone turn to the ripped open piece of the hull where the viewer used to be.
The hole was large enough to make out a large asteroid field and 3 planets nearby the glowing sun.
"Q said he would send us to a solar system so we could repair the ship," Janeway told the others.
"That will take a long time," B'Elanna pointed out while she went over to the ops console and checked the readouts. "According to this, the rest of the crew are back on board. It's almost as if nothing has changed."
Janeway took a deep breath. "Okay. Tom, take us into orbit. B'Elanna, see what we can make out of the solar system's resources. If we're going to be here for a while, we might as well make the best of things."
"Aye, Captain," B'Elanna replied.
As her crew worked behind her, Janeway stepped closer to the hole in front of her. The last year's weight made her clutch the nearest handrail tightly, and all she could do was lean against it so she didn't collapse to the ground.
She had survived. Her crew had survived, and they had a chance with the solar system ahead, but it would take ages before Voyager was fully repaired and made operational again. History had been restored, but not to the level she had hoped for. They had still lived through terrible experiences where they could have all been killed.
Janeway knew she would need to be brave for the next few months, but right now she didn't know what to do. She was too tired to think.