1 - Shiva exposed
"…and I estimate the explosion will happen in less than a week. There's been a significant increase in the binary stars' angular velocity over the past twenty-four hours, a sure sign that they'll collapse very soon," Seven told the senior officers gathered in the briefing room.
The wall screen showed a small planetary nebula, a mist of blood-coloured gases with two white dwarf stars spinning around each other at its centre, the ancient remnants of giant suns long ago stripped of their outer gas layers. An interesting spatial anomaly, but Chakotay was only half-listening.
The captain leaned over the table, her hands supporting her chin. No doubt she was looking for a distraction to break the monotony of her days since the Devore inspector had exited Voyager.
His heart missed a beat. What she had done…
He did understand opting for recklessness in the face of immediate danger, or the need for personal sacrifice when the circumstances demanded it. Under the punishing Devore inspections, one wrong move from the captain's part and the whole masquerade would have collapsed. The telepaths she had sworn to protect would have been sent to their death under the Imperium's xenophobic laws, the crew thrown in one of its many detention centres, the ship confiscated.
But in a virtuoso check-mate game, the captain had succeeded despite the odds, forcing the leather-clad inspector off the ship, tail between his legs. Yet, what she had done was as alien to him as Kashyk's dark poise and sneer. He had no name for her actions.
Janeway would most probably call them calculated risks. How very scientific of her. Was it the game of probabilities and counter-solutions that had attracted her in the first place, or had it been the pull of the dark and dangerous inspector?
Chakotay had to hand it to the captain. The skills she had flaunted had been impressive, the bridge dripping with innuendos, badly hidden leers and enough pheromones in the air to compete with an entire floor of over-sexed first-year cadets. Trust Janeway to keep it up for as long as was needed, until she'd lured the man to his fate. She was the one who was dangerous. Irresponsible. Heedless of her first officer's advice.
One thing was certain: the feelings he once harboured for the captain were now more remembrance of things past than actual sentiments. He had discarded the emotional burden of loving Kathryn Janeway, turned the page over what could have been, and that was fine by him.
The wall display changed, bringing him back to the presentation with a jolt.
Seven droned on. "The smaller star is rotating faster than its companion, creating a deep gravity well. This will cause a shaft of hot fluids originating within the larger star to expand outwards, drawn by the unescapable pull of its partner. The pulsing shaft will slowly penetrate the smaller star's outer surface before plunging straight into its core."
Chakotay felt the corner of his mouth curve upwards by itself.
"Now joined together, the stars will start to pulsate in unison, displaying slow-paced and long-wave oscillations at first. That phase will last for quite some time, before degenerating into a rapid and asynchronous rush of energy between the two stars which will eventually tear them apart."
The room had grown still. Harry's face was a dark pink, a shade Chakotay had never seen on him, while Neelix' eyes were ready to pop out his head.
Seven continued, seemingly unaware of the rising attention to her words. "The ensuing explosion will release a prodigious amount of energy across all bandwidths, including sound waves although this remains speculative. The climax will persist over several weeks, a mere moment though, compared with the length of time the two stars have circled each other."
B'Elanna stared straight through the bulkhead, focused on something on the other side of the galaxy. Tom was about the only one in the room enjoying himself quite openly. He was smirking.
The captain's jaw muscles played under the skin. She was probably thinking of calling a red alert, her senior officers fast losing control. Instead, she put on a feigned smile. "Thank you, Seven. Your presentation was quite…instructive."
"There's more, Captain," the former Borg said, hands behind her back.
Tom chuckled, and B'Elanna shoved an elbow in his ribs. The captain let out a small sigh before turning back to Seven. "Yes?"
"Icheb wishes to know if he could name the new star. I believe it is a Federation's tradition for the discoverer to name astronomical events such as this one."
It was another step in Icheb's integration with Voyager's crew and by extension, Federation culture. Chakotay liked the idea.
"Of course," said Janeway, nodding her agreement. "What name has he chosen?"
"Shiva, the god of destruction from one of Earth's great religions. He thought it was an appropriate description of the phenomenon."
Chakotay refrained a snort. Very apt indeed. If he remembered well a lecture at the academy on comparative religions, Shiva's symbolic form, the lingam, did not leave much to the imagination if one was so inclined.
Janeway stood. "Shiva it is, from now on. Is that all?"
"I would like to run a few more simulations, Captain," Seven said. "I believe I can pinpoint the exact time of the clima—."
Tom lost himself in a flurry of coughs.
"An excellent idea. You are dismissed, Seven." Janeway waited for the door to slide shut behind the young woman. She placed her hands flat on the table. "One more snigger from any of you, and you'll all spend the next shift cleaning the engine manifolds with a toothbrush. Is that understood?"
A murmur of assent sounded through the room. She sat back in her chair. "B'Elanna, will the ship handle the increased radiation levels?"
"We'll need to make changes to the shield harmonics, and—"
Reigning in his meandering thoughts, Chakotay focused on the technical details of the job at hand.
"Commander, was there something else?"
For all their estrangement, she could still sense when Chakotay was in the same room without having to look around, a skill borne from long years of sharing command, if nothing else anymore.
"They need to be told," Chakotay said in a voice which was neither supportive nor gentle.
The other officers had left ahead of him, keen to start the modifications she'd decided on. He had nearly made it to the door of the briefing room, but had turned back, apparently unable to quell his alarm any longer.
"Oh, I think Tom knows," Janeway conceded. Her hand touched the tempered transparent aluminium as she faced the nebula rendered a broiling mass of darkness by the window's depolarising filters.
Footsteps echoed behind her, and Chakotay came to a halt four feet from her, his body turned towards the show outside. The distance between them had widened in the past few weeks. He was no longer standing so close that she could feel his breath raising the small hair at the back of her neck. That if she was to lean back, his chest would be there for her to rest against. Her hand never found him anymore.
She missed that contact she had taken for granted for so long. Those stolen touches were now gone. In the same way she'd instigated most of them, she'd been the one to stop lest they pulled her in a direction she couldn't, wouldn't, contemplate.
After five years in space, she could have kicked the Starfleet fraternisation protocols out of the airlock any time if she'd really wanted to. Those rules had never been meant for a lone captain, seventy-five thousand degrees of separation from Starfleet command. But she didn't know how not to be alone anymore.
"You're right about Tom, he knows. He's a pilot and this," Chakotay pointed to the nebula, "will be the ultimate piloting experience."
"How did you guess?" Janeway asked. She tore herself from the view port and faced him when he didn't answer.
Maybe she had become partial to the moat and impenetrable walls she'd built around herself. It was more a prison than a castle, but apart was safer than too close. Chakotay had obviously arrived at the same conclusion.
The gloomy nebula pitched his profile into silent shadows, bringing to the fore the deep lines on his brow merging into his tattoo. She traced his aquiline nose, the full lips set into a rigid line, the strong jaw toughened by long years of fighting and pain. The Maquis leader she had been bent on pursuing, the angry warrior who had appeared on her bridge all those years ago had not looked that hard-edged, that…cold.
Her gaze shifted back to the nebula. It wasn't difficult to feel his concern for what she had in mind. His concern for the crew. For the ship.
Not for her though. Because the man who had once sworn to lighten her burden was no longer by her side, and she had no idea how to make their bond right again. Make them both right again. It was a colossal task she didn't have the strength to face any more.
"How did you know?" she repeated.
"The additional safety protocols," he said, not moving from his spot. "You asked for more than normal safeguard measures for a ship that should stay a few light-days away from a supernova. You want Voyager to go through that cli…that explosion."
She lifted her chin sharply. "I am not that irresponsible, Chakotay. We will maintain a safe distance at all times. But think about it," she said, her hands open. "This galaxy hasn't seen a supernova of that type since Kepler. That was almost eight hundred years ago, and nobody has ever been right there, at the birth of a new star, at the start of it all."
Waving at the marvel outside, she moved closer to him. "Observing from far away won't do. Don't you see how momentous this event is? Our findings could re-write astrophysics, settle years of scientific arguments and theories on the age of the universe and the fate of galaxies."
He kept his silence, still not looking at her. Once upon a time, he had been as eager as she was to explore what the Delta quadrant had to offer. His skill set and knowledge were different from hers, but he had always encouraged her thirst for exploration. Not any longer. One more spatial anomaly to add to her quiver did not make him smile, did not reach him any longer.
"Don't you agree?" she whispered, hating herself for sounding like she was pleading.
An air of surprise fleeted over his face before he looked down on her and gave her the full benefit of his sneer. "Are you asking for my approval, Captain?"
She lowered her gaze. Sarcasm did not suit him.
"Because it hasn't seemed to matter to you that you've disregarded my advice more often than not lately. I take one step in your direction and you sidle away, too busy with the newest attraction to cross your path to listen to your first officer."
Her cheeks stung under the semi-veiled insult. The last thread of professional friendship between them had stretched taut until the Devore incident had cut through it with the callousness of a photon torpedo. She had left him totally in the dark as to her plan about the inspector. She had not wanted his presence to distract her, to stop her from what she had set herself to do. No wonder he now felt redundant, replaceable, and who was she to blame him for pulling away.
"Chakotay—"
"I neither agree nor disagree. You're the captain." His tone moved into scorn. "If you so want to ride Shiva, that is your privilege."
Pain stabbed at her chest. She turned away, her shoulders locked.
Chakotay left the room without waiting for her dismissal.
The door of her quarters closed behind Kathryn with a soft hiss. Making her way to the bedroom, she kicked off her boots and threw the jacket on the couch.
Seven had narrowed the time of the supernova explosion to early morning the following day. Voyager had been flying in a large arc around the two colliding stars for five days, and now all was set to witness and record the spectacle of a lifetime.
Kathryn sat down on the edge of the bed, fingers rubbing her feet sore from standing for hours in Engineering or Astrometrics.
A dance. That's what she had glimpsed on the console screen when Seven had first brought her the news Icheb had discovered something wondrous. A dance—skilled, controlled, fast. Oh, so fast. An extravagant and frenetic dance it was, the partners well matched in their determination and talent. And they were close, so very close it was difficult to tell the two apart as they spun madly, energy leaping between them and blinding their audience. From the minute she'd seen the vision on the screen, she had felt drawn to these dancers so intent on each other and oblivious to all around them.
Now, the elation and wonder that had sustained her over the past few days were fast fading away. She could only watch the stars for so long before sadness and hopelessness overwhelmed her at the wanton destruction that was to come.
The eon-old partners were unable to let go of each other, the bond between them strengthened with each revolution. They would soon unite, but only for a fraction of time before their ultimate annihilation. Then there would be a rebirth and that was what everybody on the ship was getting so giddy about. But for now, the evening before the event, Kathryn mourned the passing of the two dancers.
She let herself fall against the mattress, not bothering to take off the rest of her uniform. Memories of other waltzes leaked into her mind as fatigue lulled her body into a semblance of rest.
How many times had she, the captain, taken the lead and danced with powerful aliens until she made sure they would honour their promises of supplies, information, safe passage, whatever Voyager needed most? How many times had she looked up into her partner's eyes, thanked them—often, but not always a him—before bowing an adieu and leaving, never to see them again?
Some of those dances had been fun. The steps well-rehearsed, the outcomes mutually understood from the start, she had relaxed in the hands of skilful partners. If truth be told, she had enjoyed the easy-going company, the suggestive words whispered in the ear, the discrete flirting. What was diplomacy if not the art of seduction?
At a more basic level, but equally craved, she'd also savoured the physical contact with another body, a hand warming the small of her back, fingers clasping hers, strong hips leading. On rare occasions, the dance had led to more for a few precious hours stolen from her responsibilities. As long as there were no strings attached, no repercussions for Voyager's reputation, she had enjoyed those occasional nights in someone else's bed. She wasn't made of steel and tritanium after all, and for a few days afterwards, her body hummed and glowed.
Those moments were fleeting. She couldn't afford lengthy distractions from her duty to ship and crew. The bare and ugly truth she had grasped during the weeks following her return from New Earth was that she didn't have the strength of character to be more than the captain. It was a failing she regretted but had come to accept after finding herself too many nights standing in the corridor, her hand an inch away from ringing the chime to Chakotay's quarters.
With the ever-lasting travel she had forced onto her crew, there was no point in pretending she could be both the captain and Kathryn. Whoever had written those fraternisation protocols, which predated Starfleet by centuries, had been wise. It was damn hard enough to be the captain, day-in, day-out, without adding the complications of a long-term relationship. So, she had left that dream behind, along with a bunch of tomatoes and a handmade bathtub.
She tossed and turned, the brooding glare from the twin stars seeping through the bedroom window. Who was she kidding? Her resolution had left her yearning for flesh-to-flesh contact, for a body to warm her nights. And when months had turned into years, she had gone from obsession with protocol to blatant carelessness, just because she could. With alien encounters merging into one another, she had become as extreme as those stellar dancers, and as insensitive to the consequences of her conduct.
Closing her eyes, she brought her fingers to her lips, the shadow of that hungry kiss in the shuttle bay just about gone. It was almost a fortnight now, but she still couldn't deal with what had happened during those few days before Kashyk had disappeared for good.
They'd danced. Danced to Mahler on the bridge. Danced in the ready room. In his quarters. That's what they'd done, and nothing more. Danced with words and barely hidden stares. It could have ended very badly for all, but had she really cared? Or had she become the victim of her own hubris in thinking that, with Kashyk gone, she would fly away whole and untouched once again, her name intact, a stolen kiss from the dark-haired alien man her only transgression?
She'd sensed Chakotay's searing eyes when the inspector swaggered around her. Heard his loud silence after they'd left Devore space. Glimpsed his smirk during Seven's presentation. Felt the chill of his absence even as he stood close by. His crude insinuation just before leaving the briefing room had made her recoil in humiliation.
Wiping her eyes, she let weariness clamber over her. Five hectic days and nights preparing Voyager for the event of the millennium was taking its toll. Surely, that was all that was wrong with her.
My thanks to Mia Cooper for her beta a long time ago when the story was going somewhere totally different. BlackVelvet42 picked up the pieces with her usual gusto.