To Stay Where You Are (Part 2)
A sillier Fanfic written by TaTTooGaL™
Commander Chakotay awoke with a start. His bed felt wrong…. his quarters looked wrong… what in the world had happened?
The it all came rushing back to him in an instant. The attack- he hadn't dreamt that, had he? He'd been attacked by an exact duplicate of himself. Most intriguing. Chakotay stood and examined his surroundings. He was in a spare metal room- three gunmetal gray walls, flat burnished ceiling and floor, a bed, lavatory cubicle in the corner, one flickering blue force-field which served as the fourth wall. Beyond that was another blank gray wall. Some sort of holding cell, he surmised. The question was, who brought him here, and why?
Suddenly a black leather-clad apparition appeared in front of the cell. "The Intendant wishes to see you," she said haughtily.
Something in the voice… Chakotay strained to see through the force field. "Seven of Nine?" He asked cautiously.
She reacted as it she'd been struck. "What did you say?"
"You're not Seven?" he asked, feeling more and more detached from reality every second.
"No," she snapped, "I am Science Director Annika Hansen, and if I ever hear you call me by that… aberration again, I'll personally break your neck."
Annika… so she was Seven after all. In a sense. Chakotay's mind reeled… trying to take in the possibilities. For one thing, he now reaffirmed that this was indeed, probably the source of the odd energy readings. So what could this be? A parallel reality? He decided to take that into his stride. After all stranger things had happened before, like the time the ship got duplicated...
The force field snapped off, and Chakotay saw that Sev- no, Annika- was armed with a fairly large phaser rifle. She gestured with it, indicating that he should step out of the cell.
As Annika marched him down the corridor past rows and rows of cells-some empty, some not-, he tried to recall everything he'd ever learnt about parallel universes. One of his Maquis friends had told him something about it once… something about jumping realities… about this Klingon-what was his name, Worf?- or something like that. And Kirk had encountered some kind of mirror universe on the original Enterprise, hadn't he? He tried to fit it all in. So he was on an alternate Voyager, being panhandled by an alternate, unassimilated Seven of Nine, being taken to see… who? The Indentant, she'd said. An alternate Janeway? And even so, what did they want with him? And where was his alternate self, wreaking havoc in his place? The thought worried Chakotay extremely.
Well, that just meant that the Intendant was going to have a heck of a lot of questions to answer.
The mess hall of Voyager was a clean burnished gray, neither overly cushy nor totally utilarian. It was a place where crewmembers could meet to socialize, discuss work over a cup of coffee or just relax, gazing out at the stars. Its spartan lines appealed to Chakotay, who wished that there was something similar to this on the Warrior. But then again, she was a ship of war, and everyone ate mostly sythethized rations.
The short guy in front of him led him over to a corner of the mess hall. "She's over there," he said, pointing. Chakotay turned to look- and stopped.
For a moment, it seemed as if he'd been transported back in time, back to Terra, 2347, on what was the still-lush continent of Europe back then. Spending days drenched in sunlight like golden honey in June, planning for another future, another time, amongst the verdant green grasses full of life and the trees full of song with … her. The memories came flooding back, a bittersweet torrent of love and hate and anger and loss. Even after all these years, he could not suppress them, no matter how hard he tried.
She was sitting curled up in a chair, concentrating over a bunch of padds, her short auburn hair framing her face as she frowned over the contents of the padd she was holding. Sensing Chakotay's gaze on her, she looked up and smiled. "Good morning, Commander. Have a seat."
He took a deep breath and nodded. "Thank you," he barely managed to get out. As he moved towards her, the short funny guy followed and put the steaming pot of coffee on the table. Janeway glanced at it. "Is that coffee I smell, Mr Neelix?" she asked.
He nodded in reply. "Thank you," she said, and proceeded to pour the contents into her cup.
Neelix. So that was the guy's name. He'd have to remember that. Chakotay's gaze followed his retreating figure all the way into the kitchen, unwilling to look at her. Afraid of giving away something too soon.
"Is there something wrong?" she asked gently. "You seem a little...off this morning."
"I'm just tired," said Chakotay, rubbing his eyes, which was more than just a little bit of an understatement.
"How much did you sleep last night?" she asked. Looking at Chakotay's uncertain look, she concluded, "Not enough, I see. Look." She put down her padd on the table and grasped his hand. "I don't want you to tire yourself out, okay? Get some rest tonight."
Chakotay only nodded.
"I think some shore leave for you is in order," she added. "Or at least something to take your mind off work." She folded her arms.
"That's going to be hard," muttered Chakotay.
She apparently heard him, for her mouth twisted upwards in amusement. "How does dinner tonight sound to you?"
Dinner? Chakotay didn't know whether he should be elated or horrified. On one hand, he wanted to get to know her better, to find that little girl again. On the other hand, he didn't want to jeopardize the mission. He gazed into her eyes and saw in it the pristine blue waters of France. "Yes," he finally said. "That sounds good." Unsure with what else to do, he mumbled a quick excuse to escape as fast as possible. "I have to go now," he said. "There's too many things to do."
He stood up to leave, but she had already latched a hand on his arm. "Could you do me a favor?"
Chakotay nodded.
She passed him a padd. "Give this to Seven and tell her to run an analysis through it. She should know what to do." She gave him an encouraging smile. "Thank you."
Chakotay glanced down at the padd. Neutrino emission graphs. "I'll try to find her," he promised. Not another unknown crewmember to find... with a barely perceptible sigh, he headed out of the mess hall.
Chakotay stood in the middle of the junction, holding out the padd uncertainly and wondering how he should go about finding this Seven person. A pretty odd name, for one. Perhaps he should ask the computer for her whereabouts. Yes. It seemed like a good idea. Chakotay headed for the nearest console when somebody passing on the other side of the junction caught his eye. Ah, better. He could ask someone he vaguely knew. In a sense.
"Annika," he called out.
She stopped in the middle of her tracks and turned, giving Chakotay a highly confused look. "Commander?" From his vantage point she seemed to be wearing some sort of garish jewelry over eye left eye. Well, the Annika he knew was frivolous enough….
Chakotay turned his attention back to the present. Annika was staring strangely at him- not a good sign. "I'm looking for Seven," he told her, carefully omitting the someone called which had formed part of the sentence in his brain. "Do you know where she is?"
The strange look intensified. A warning bell went off in Chakotay's head: something was definitely not right here. He decided to tread with caution.
"Are you feeling all right, Commander?" she asked.
"Never better," replied Chakotay, shameless lying through his teeth. "I'm… just a little bit of a slow riser, that's all." That had better fit into my personality!
Annika frowned. "Then… perhaps it might surprise you to know that you are talking to me."
An odd sentence to counter and odd look. Chakotay quickly did a mental detachment and tried to logic his way out of the sticky situation. Obviously Annika felt that there was something wrong in him asking for this Seven person. What made that possible? Was Seven the name of the ship's computer? Unlikely. From what he'd heard, Fed computers weren't exactly christened. Then what else? Unless… in this universe… Annika's name was Seven. Yes. It made sense. Chakotay decided to take the risk. He handed Annika the padd. "Here. This is from the captain. She needs an analysis done of it."
Annika took the padd and scanned through it at a phenomenal rate, as far as he could tell. "Fluctuations in our energy grid… brief shield failures…" She looked back at Chakotay. "This is essential information."
Chakotay only nodded, feeling a fluttering in his heart. After all, they weren't supposed to detect all those results of his hasty transit.
"The captain could have given them to me directly."
Bingo. So she was Seven. Another thing to take note of. Chakotay shrugged. "She's very busy."
Seven seemed to accept the fact. "Tell her the report will be ready by 0900 hours," she told Chakotay crisply, before going on her way.
When she was gone, Chakotay let out a sigh of relief. That had been rather close. But first things first, he had his own report to make. And hell of a lot to learn before his first bridge duty at 1200 hours.
Lt. B'Elanna Torres was not in a good mood. But then again, she rarely was when things turned bad. Lack of sleep never had much positive effects on Klingons, and she was a shining example of that testament. Standing in a corner and feeling amused, Tom Paris watched equipment fly all over as Torres, growling and grumbling, searched for an elusive padd amongst the clutter on the table that was a result of one of her fanatic all-nighters. "It's probably on the floor," he suggested to her after a while.
Torres looked up from the wreckage on the table and glowered. "Go away and stop bumming around here, will you? Don't you have duty, or something?"
"Not until 1200 hours." He bent down and picked a padd off the floor. "Is this what you were looking for?"
"What? You knew where it was all the time and you didn't tell me?" She snatched the padd from his hand. "I could kill you for that."
"Kill me? For finding your long-lost padd?" asked Paris dolefully. "How grateful."
Grumpy as she was, Torres had to suppress a chuckle at Paris' supposedly hurt look. "Oh, go away. You're distracting me from work."
"Why are you laughing? It isn't funny. You've hurt me deeply." Paris' eyes grew wider and more melancholy. "And you know you can never make up for that."
Torres snorted as she popped open a wall panel to reveal the wiring beneath. As she wriggled inside to get to some deeply-buried connection, she muttered, "Trust you, Tom Paris, to always be my comic relief of the day… oh, damn!" The sentence ended abruptly as one of the leads gave her a nasty spark on her fingers.
Intrigued, Paris leaned forward, deciding to drop the hurt-puppy act for the moment. "What're you doing?"
Torres looked disgustedly at her singed fingers. "I'm rewiring our energy grid, that's what! The increased neutrino emissions from the asteroid's surface has been causing disruptions all over." She sighed. "But it looks like I'm going nowhere. Ten hours I've spent on it, and I've only managed to rewire four out of seventy junctions." She glared at the jumble of schematics and equipment on the table. "Whoever designed this system was either stone drunk when he did it, or else he has the mental capabilites of a spider."
"I think a team of designers came up with it," said Paris.
"Well," muttered Torres, diving back into the swarm of cables again, "I hope they all die an early death. By electrocution while fixing one of their hopeless systems." She finally managed to extricate the leads she wanted. Turning to Paris with the fat cords in her hand, she asked, "So what are you here for?"
Paris said nothing for a moment, suddenly realized how frivolous his reason for coming here was. "Well… actually, I was just thinking, you know." Paris scuffed his feet on the carpet. "That kind of thing. I thought I'd tell you about it. Do you want to hear about it? " It was an odd notion and an odd request.
Torres flipped the power switch, causing the lights in Engineering to flicker a little. "What were you thinking about?" She untwisted the two cords and set them down, like they were doing something perfectly normal. Tom was glad of that.
"You know, about paths not taken and everything. Like, I've been thinking about it ever since that time where we bumped into those strange what's their name guys. The sector of space they effectively threw us out of. And… I don't know why, but ever since then I keep thinking of how else life might have turned out for me… for us, I mean." Paris shrugged. "It's kind of odd, I guess. But, I mean, have you ever thought about it yourself? How we would have turned out if we were living somewhere else?"
Torres brought out the other set of leads and afforded him an odd glance. "I guess not. Like where, for example?"
"I don't know. Maybe Earth. Or Mars. It's a wonderful place, very carefree. I went there once and I was amazed at the amount of liberty they give themselves. They have so little inhibitions… you know what I mean?"
Torres nodded, attaching two cords together with a satisfying click. "It would be different, I guess." She frowned. "Have you ever thought of what it would be like to be living in turbulent conditions?"
"Like back in the Maquis?" He shrugged and gesture to the coils of tubing she was methodically reassembling. "Don't we already live in one?"
"No," she said, tossing the wires back into the compartment. "I mean really chaotic conditions. Where every day is a struggle for survival. I mean, we didn't exactly get along so well even in the Maquis."
"But we didn't exactly get to know each other either," pointed out Paris, helping her to shove some of the leads back into the paneling. "But, after a lot of thought, I'm sure we'll function pretty well anywhere."
"I sure hope so," replied Torres, snapping the wall panel back into place. "Five out of seventy. Want to help me?"
"No problem," replied Paris, helping her pack up some of her equipment. As they headed for the next junction, Torres mumbled under her breath, "Stupid Starfleet capacitors… they can't even stand a few neutrino bombardments. Not like anyone was trying an illegal beam-in onto our ship or anything."
The room Chakotay had been brought into was large and ornately furnished in dark tones. With its crudish lines and grotesque symbolism, it reminded him of a gothic torture chamber. Carved furniture of a dark, smooth polished material arrayed all around the room. On closer inspection, Chakotay discovered with faint horror that it was made of bone. He looked around the room. There seemed to be all sorts of things hiding in the dark foreboding corners of the room. The various ceremonial knives hanging along the wall only served to reinforce the atmosphere of a torture chamber. How could anyone live here? he wondered. It was so… creepy.
It was also very heavily guarded. Six men were stationed outside with Annika, each carrying a large phaser rifle. Even with the fact that he was alone and there were very likely arrays of weapons hanging on the wall, Chakotay doubted that he could do much. Every move of his would surely be under constant surveillance. He turned back to examine the bone tables.
"They're rather unpalatable, aren't they?" came a low husky voice from behind him. Chakotay jumped. She'd just sneaked up on him. "One of those Klingon Regents gave them to me… Worf, that was his name. They are most unnerving, but they come in useful." She sat on one of the tables and stroked its glossy surface. "Most of the crew think they're made of human bone. Wouldn't put that beneath Worf, though."
Chakotay said nothing and merely stared at the Intendant. She was dressed in black, top to toe, just like Annika was. Leather jacket, tight polyester skirt, knee-length boots, and the tight bun which his own captain had given up on several years ago (too much of a bother, she'd said.). She looked the same… yet different. Older, somehow. Years of bitterness and anger and malice had etched their way onto her face, yet the lines served to make her look, more than ever, like a formidable opponent. He took a couple of involuntary steps back.
She smiled cryptically at him, obviously taking delight in his discomfort. "How has your stay here been so far?" she asked him, sliding down into an ornate ebony armchair beside her. "Wonderful? Awful? I'd like to know."
"Intriguing," was all that Chakotay conceded.
The derisive smile widened. "Ah. So you find us interesting." She deftly lifted a cup of dark bubbling liquid beside her and drank a sip, never taking her pale glittering eyes off Chakotay. "What's more interesting, the fact that you are in an alternate dimension, or the fact that your alternate self is running loose on your own ship?"
"What do you want with me?" countered Chakotay.
Some of the arrogance left her eyes and she put the glass back down. "A direct man, I see." He got off the chair and walked slowly towards him, oozing wicked sensuality with every step. Chakotay back away and found himself fetched up against a bone table. She came closer and circled him slowly, like a hawk. Or a vulture.
"It's very simple, Chakotay," she drawled. "You have something I want, and you're going to give it to me." She caught Chakotay's chin and drew him closer. "I want tactical information. Every single thing you know of the Voyager. You will tell me, and the rewards will be great."
Chakotay drew back. "I don't want any rewards."
"Really." She moved closer. "Anything and everything that you've ever wanted… wealth, power, luxury…" she leaned right on him. "Women…"
Chakotay fought the impulse to hit her and run. "No thank you. I've already got all I wanted."
She turned away from him slightly huffily. "So I see you're not going to cooperate."
"I do not betray my fellow crewmembers for my own sake. Nothing you try on me is ever going to work, and you can take my word on that."
"Not for your sake, maybe, but perhaps for others." A malicious smile flickered across her face. "Did you see the prisoners on the way out? Cowardly traitors, every single one of them, and a plague on board my ship. Now, Commander, their fate rests in your hands. I will kill one of them for every hour for which you refuse to cooperate. Women, children, everyone. So, the choice is up to you."
Chakotay's mouth went dry. "You wouldn't."
She stared back at him, and he imagined her fierce gaze boring a hole through his skull. "Try me."
A sort of bitter gall rose in his throat, grating on his conscience and moving him towards anger. Chakotay let it grow and intensify, matching the intensity of his glower with hers. "You're a monster," he hissed., bringing out the fire with it. "I don't care what you look like, and who you're supposed to be, and you'd better not expect me to cooperate with the likes of you. The Kathryn I know will never do anything like this."
For a second, something like a vulnerable look flashed across her face briefly, then her features hardened into a mask of scorn and anger, and it was gone. "Then you'll find out…. That I'm not anything like her." She stormed out of the room, leaving Chakotay alone. He could hear her telling Annika to keep him in the room, but he wasn't paying very much attention. In that moment, he'd seen something else in her face- something softer, something like regret. It was like a ray of hope. For a brief moment he'd managed to get something through to her. He could work on that- perhaps it would just be what he needed to knock some sense into this... person. Whatever his opinion of her, he was fairly sure that somewhere deep inside was the woman he knew as his captain. But he would have to probe deeply for that. Much like gold mining long ago on Earth. Or oil prospecting.
Chakotay leaned back on the table and smiled to himself. He knew now what he should do.
The gigantic cavern several hundred meters below the surface of the asteroid was one in a series of linked chambers stretching halfway across the asteroid's mammoth perimeter. There were no winds, but the temperature was a biting 273 degrees Kelvin, and so dry it stung one's eyes. Ensign Harry Kim shivered under his regulation uniform and wished to hell that he'd worn an extra jacket. Doing his best to ignore the cold, he pointed his tricorder at another site and began scanning. He was beginning to feel tired of this mission. If there was any dilithium in this rock, it sure as hell was well hidden.
Kim's frustrations were not unfounded. For two days now away teams had been combing the interior for the elusive crystals, yet the searches had turned up nothing save for odd energy fluctuations and mere hints of where they might lie. This particular team had been on the surface for over two hours. Getting up early in the morning to hunt fruitlessly through a gigantic freezer wasn't exactly Kim's idea of fun. He found himself wishing for his nice warm bed.
"Harry," exclaimed a voice, "I think you'd better take a look at this."
The voice belonged to Jenny Delaney, one of the more enchanting crewmembers on board. Kim hurried over to see what she was so excited about. "Look," she said, turning her tricorder in his direction to let him see the readings. "This narrow passageway seems to lead to a chamber deeper within the crust- and it's the apparent locus of all our energy spikes."
One glance at the elevated neutrino readings and Kim nodded. "It seems worth investigating." He motioned to the third member of the away team. "Kesin, you stay here as backup." He motioned to Delaney. "I'll take the lead; you keep the rear."
Compared to the spaciousness of the outer chamber, the narrow passageway felt almost claustrophobic. Harry shone his wrist lamp forward, illuminating the path before.
Whatever the place they were heading to hadn't been used in a long time. The musty smell of the caverns grew stronger as the two headed deeper in. The atmosphere also seemed to be growing thicker, less rarified than the one in the previous cavern. It made sense- it was deeper in and more well protected from leaks into the hungry vacuum of space. Too bad it wasn't growing any warmer.
About 500 meters down the passageway abruptly widened into a cavernous blueness. Kim paused, unable to believe his eyes. Before him was an astonishing sight. Row and rows of neatly stacked gray containers stretched on as far as the eye could see, each accompanied by a softly humming black device that activated a softly glowing blue force field over it.
He checked his tricorder readings. The energy spikes indeed come from here. And the resonance spectrometry seemed to indicated that these containers hoarded a cache of treasure.
He walked over to the nearest stack and ran his tricorder over it. On a hunch, he rolled the phasing of the frequency of the blue field that he was getting to half a period ahead, and transmitted this new frequency to the black object. The blue field snapped off, allowing Kim a closer look at the stack of gray containers. They were nondescript, made of a matte gray metal that dully reflected light. Each was fastened by a simple magnetic clasp at the sight. Kim deactivated the switch of the one on top and popped the cover off. Beneath, arranged in orderly rows, were symmetrical white crystals that sparkled blue in his wrist lamp's beam.
"Bingo," he whispered. They'd struck gold.
"Kim to Voyager. I think I've found something of interest to you…"
Harry Kim was on the bridge of the Warrior, carefully monitoring the output of the ship's cloaking shields, keeping the outflux of particles to the minimum. Still, he wasn't very successful, for the ship was leaking neutrinos like an oversized sponge. If the other ship in orbit had sensors half the size of what he thought they would, their ship's presence would be detected-or at least suspected- in an instant.
He intended to keep it that way.
The Secant was manning Tactical Control when the alert trill sounded. Tuvok, ever alert, leaned over the panel and gestured to the Intendant. "Take a look at this, Kathryn. I believe that there's more to this rock chunk than meets the eye."
The Intendant walked over and leaned on his shoulder, studying the readouts of the panel. "Dilithium deposits? Is that what they were looking for?"
"I would guess so," replied the Secant. "Although I doubt they will get there first."
The Intendant's face split into a wolfish smile. "What say we take a little walk, Tuvok?"
The Vulcan gazed back at her with undisguised greed. "I think it's time for us to do a restocking of the Inventory again."
Kim watched the two leave the bridge hand-in-hand and glanced over at Paris. The moment they were gone, Paris doubled over in a fit of laughter. "Did you see that?"
Kim laughed. "Are you kidding? I nearly puked!" He glanced around at the bridge crew and said, "Heck, with the two of them on it, I hope the asteroid blows up just about now."
A small mumur rippled across the bridge crew, which by now completely consisted of Rebel members, which made up nearly half the ship's population. Paris leaned backwards and suggested, "You know, now that you have control of weapons and everything, we might just as well not leave that to nature…"
He cut his sentence short as Annika came sauntering onto the bridge. She winked at Paris. "Hi Tom." She swept her gaze across the bridge through lowered lids and sighed, blowing air through her pouty lips. "Isn't it boring here?"
Paris grunted back, focusing his attention on the navigation screen.
"I wonder…" said Annika slowly and provocatively, "if anyone has a moment to spare tonight?"
Paris shrugged, keeping his eyes on his screen. "I'm busy. I have an… appointment." He swiveled and turned to face Kim with a devilish glint in his eyes. "But I bet Hair's free."
Annika leaned on Kim's console. "Oh, are you?"
Kim grinned back. "For dinner, I'm always free."
"That's good." Annika grinned guilefully and patted him on the shoulder. "Then consider yourself volunteered for guard duty." Watching his incredulous reaction, she added, "You can take over my duty for me. Then I'd owe you one." She winked. "Wouldn't I?"
Kim gave one of those "dang you and your clever ideas" looks and nodded. "Of course. Dinner, tomorrow."
Annika giggled. "Only if you survive tonight." Then she sashayed her way off the bridge.
Kim turned to glare at Paris. "I'm gonna get you for that, Atoms."
"Get me? For helping you get a date with your girl?" replied Paris dryly. "Oh, that's nice. I'm dying with the gratitude, Hairs."
Kim rolled his eyes as the crew laughed, but found himself laughing as well. There were lots of worse places to be in the universe than with your friends, he reflected. Lots worse.
A sillier Fanfic written by TaTTooGaL™
Commander Chakotay awoke with a start. His bed felt wrong…. his quarters looked wrong… what in the world had happened?
The it all came rushing back to him in an instant. The attack- he hadn't dreamt that, had he? He'd been attacked by an exact duplicate of himself. Most intriguing. Chakotay stood and examined his surroundings. He was in a spare metal room- three gunmetal gray walls, flat burnished ceiling and floor, a bed, lavatory cubicle in the corner, one flickering blue force-field which served as the fourth wall. Beyond that was another blank gray wall. Some sort of holding cell, he surmised. The question was, who brought him here, and why?
Suddenly a black leather-clad apparition appeared in front of the cell. "The Intendant wishes to see you," she said haughtily.
Something in the voice… Chakotay strained to see through the force field. "Seven of Nine?" He asked cautiously.
She reacted as it she'd been struck. "What did you say?"
"You're not Seven?" he asked, feeling more and more detached from reality every second.
"No," she snapped, "I am Science Director Annika Hansen, and if I ever hear you call me by that… aberration again, I'll personally break your neck."
Annika… so she was Seven after all. In a sense. Chakotay's mind reeled… trying to take in the possibilities. For one thing, he now reaffirmed that this was indeed, probably the source of the odd energy readings. So what could this be? A parallel reality? He decided to take that into his stride. After all stranger things had happened before, like the time the ship got duplicated...
The force field snapped off, and Chakotay saw that Sev- no, Annika- was armed with a fairly large phaser rifle. She gestured with it, indicating that he should step out of the cell.
As Annika marched him down the corridor past rows and rows of cells-some empty, some not-, he tried to recall everything he'd ever learnt about parallel universes. One of his Maquis friends had told him something about it once… something about jumping realities… about this Klingon-what was his name, Worf?- or something like that. And Kirk had encountered some kind of mirror universe on the original Enterprise, hadn't he? He tried to fit it all in. So he was on an alternate Voyager, being panhandled by an alternate, unassimilated Seven of Nine, being taken to see… who? The Indentant, she'd said. An alternate Janeway? And even so, what did they want with him? And where was his alternate self, wreaking havoc in his place? The thought worried Chakotay extremely.
Well, that just meant that the Intendant was going to have a heck of a lot of questions to answer.
The mess hall of Voyager was a clean burnished gray, neither overly cushy nor totally utilarian. It was a place where crewmembers could meet to socialize, discuss work over a cup of coffee or just relax, gazing out at the stars. Its spartan lines appealed to Chakotay, who wished that there was something similar to this on the Warrior. But then again, she was a ship of war, and everyone ate mostly sythethized rations.
The short guy in front of him led him over to a corner of the mess hall. "She's over there," he said, pointing. Chakotay turned to look- and stopped.
For a moment, it seemed as if he'd been transported back in time, back to Terra, 2347, on what was the still-lush continent of Europe back then. Spending days drenched in sunlight like golden honey in June, planning for another future, another time, amongst the verdant green grasses full of life and the trees full of song with … her. The memories came flooding back, a bittersweet torrent of love and hate and anger and loss. Even after all these years, he could not suppress them, no matter how hard he tried.
She was sitting curled up in a chair, concentrating over a bunch of padds, her short auburn hair framing her face as she frowned over the contents of the padd she was holding. Sensing Chakotay's gaze on her, she looked up and smiled. "Good morning, Commander. Have a seat."
He took a deep breath and nodded. "Thank you," he barely managed to get out. As he moved towards her, the short funny guy followed and put the steaming pot of coffee on the table. Janeway glanced at it. "Is that coffee I smell, Mr Neelix?" she asked.
He nodded in reply. "Thank you," she said, and proceeded to pour the contents into her cup.
Neelix. So that was the guy's name. He'd have to remember that. Chakotay's gaze followed his retreating figure all the way into the kitchen, unwilling to look at her. Afraid of giving away something too soon.
"Is there something wrong?" she asked gently. "You seem a little...off this morning."
"I'm just tired," said Chakotay, rubbing his eyes, which was more than just a little bit of an understatement.
"How much did you sleep last night?" she asked. Looking at Chakotay's uncertain look, she concluded, "Not enough, I see. Look." She put down her padd on the table and grasped his hand. "I don't want you to tire yourself out, okay? Get some rest tonight."
Chakotay only nodded.
"I think some shore leave for you is in order," she added. "Or at least something to take your mind off work." She folded her arms.
"That's going to be hard," muttered Chakotay.
She apparently heard him, for her mouth twisted upwards in amusement. "How does dinner tonight sound to you?"
Dinner? Chakotay didn't know whether he should be elated or horrified. On one hand, he wanted to get to know her better, to find that little girl again. On the other hand, he didn't want to jeopardize the mission. He gazed into her eyes and saw in it the pristine blue waters of France. "Yes," he finally said. "That sounds good." Unsure with what else to do, he mumbled a quick excuse to escape as fast as possible. "I have to go now," he said. "There's too many things to do."
He stood up to leave, but she had already latched a hand on his arm. "Could you do me a favor?"
Chakotay nodded.
She passed him a padd. "Give this to Seven and tell her to run an analysis through it. She should know what to do." She gave him an encouraging smile. "Thank you."
Chakotay glanced down at the padd. Neutrino emission graphs. "I'll try to find her," he promised. Not another unknown crewmember to find... with a barely perceptible sigh, he headed out of the mess hall.
Chakotay stood in the middle of the junction, holding out the padd uncertainly and wondering how he should go about finding this Seven person. A pretty odd name, for one. Perhaps he should ask the computer for her whereabouts. Yes. It seemed like a good idea. Chakotay headed for the nearest console when somebody passing on the other side of the junction caught his eye. Ah, better. He could ask someone he vaguely knew. In a sense.
"Annika," he called out.
She stopped in the middle of her tracks and turned, giving Chakotay a highly confused look. "Commander?" From his vantage point she seemed to be wearing some sort of garish jewelry over eye left eye. Well, the Annika he knew was frivolous enough….
Chakotay turned his attention back to the present. Annika was staring strangely at him- not a good sign. "I'm looking for Seven," he told her, carefully omitting the someone called which had formed part of the sentence in his brain. "Do you know where she is?"
The strange look intensified. A warning bell went off in Chakotay's head: something was definitely not right here. He decided to tread with caution.
"Are you feeling all right, Commander?" she asked.
"Never better," replied Chakotay, shameless lying through his teeth. "I'm… just a little bit of a slow riser, that's all." That had better fit into my personality!
Annika frowned. "Then… perhaps it might surprise you to know that you are talking to me."
An odd sentence to counter and odd look. Chakotay quickly did a mental detachment and tried to logic his way out of the sticky situation. Obviously Annika felt that there was something wrong in him asking for this Seven person. What made that possible? Was Seven the name of the ship's computer? Unlikely. From what he'd heard, Fed computers weren't exactly christened. Then what else? Unless… in this universe… Annika's name was Seven. Yes. It made sense. Chakotay decided to take the risk. He handed Annika the padd. "Here. This is from the captain. She needs an analysis done of it."
Annika took the padd and scanned through it at a phenomenal rate, as far as he could tell. "Fluctuations in our energy grid… brief shield failures…" She looked back at Chakotay. "This is essential information."
Chakotay only nodded, feeling a fluttering in his heart. After all, they weren't supposed to detect all those results of his hasty transit.
"The captain could have given them to me directly."
Bingo. So she was Seven. Another thing to take note of. Chakotay shrugged. "She's very busy."
Seven seemed to accept the fact. "Tell her the report will be ready by 0900 hours," she told Chakotay crisply, before going on her way.
When she was gone, Chakotay let out a sigh of relief. That had been rather close. But first things first, he had his own report to make. And hell of a lot to learn before his first bridge duty at 1200 hours.
Lt. B'Elanna Torres was not in a good mood. But then again, she rarely was when things turned bad. Lack of sleep never had much positive effects on Klingons, and she was a shining example of that testament. Standing in a corner and feeling amused, Tom Paris watched equipment fly all over as Torres, growling and grumbling, searched for an elusive padd amongst the clutter on the table that was a result of one of her fanatic all-nighters. "It's probably on the floor," he suggested to her after a while.
Torres looked up from the wreckage on the table and glowered. "Go away and stop bumming around here, will you? Don't you have duty, or something?"
"Not until 1200 hours." He bent down and picked a padd off the floor. "Is this what you were looking for?"
"What? You knew where it was all the time and you didn't tell me?" She snatched the padd from his hand. "I could kill you for that."
"Kill me? For finding your long-lost padd?" asked Paris dolefully. "How grateful."
Grumpy as she was, Torres had to suppress a chuckle at Paris' supposedly hurt look. "Oh, go away. You're distracting me from work."
"Why are you laughing? It isn't funny. You've hurt me deeply." Paris' eyes grew wider and more melancholy. "And you know you can never make up for that."
Torres snorted as she popped open a wall panel to reveal the wiring beneath. As she wriggled inside to get to some deeply-buried connection, she muttered, "Trust you, Tom Paris, to always be my comic relief of the day… oh, damn!" The sentence ended abruptly as one of the leads gave her a nasty spark on her fingers.
Intrigued, Paris leaned forward, deciding to drop the hurt-puppy act for the moment. "What're you doing?"
Torres looked disgustedly at her singed fingers. "I'm rewiring our energy grid, that's what! The increased neutrino emissions from the asteroid's surface has been causing disruptions all over." She sighed. "But it looks like I'm going nowhere. Ten hours I've spent on it, and I've only managed to rewire four out of seventy junctions." She glared at the jumble of schematics and equipment on the table. "Whoever designed this system was either stone drunk when he did it, or else he has the mental capabilites of a spider."
"I think a team of designers came up with it," said Paris.
"Well," muttered Torres, diving back into the swarm of cables again, "I hope they all die an early death. By electrocution while fixing one of their hopeless systems." She finally managed to extricate the leads she wanted. Turning to Paris with the fat cords in her hand, she asked, "So what are you here for?"
Paris said nothing for a moment, suddenly realized how frivolous his reason for coming here was. "Well… actually, I was just thinking, you know." Paris scuffed his feet on the carpet. "That kind of thing. I thought I'd tell you about it. Do you want to hear about it? " It was an odd notion and an odd request.
Torres flipped the power switch, causing the lights in Engineering to flicker a little. "What were you thinking about?" She untwisted the two cords and set them down, like they were doing something perfectly normal. Tom was glad of that.
"You know, about paths not taken and everything. Like, I've been thinking about it ever since that time where we bumped into those strange what's their name guys. The sector of space they effectively threw us out of. And… I don't know why, but ever since then I keep thinking of how else life might have turned out for me… for us, I mean." Paris shrugged. "It's kind of odd, I guess. But, I mean, have you ever thought about it yourself? How we would have turned out if we were living somewhere else?"
Torres brought out the other set of leads and afforded him an odd glance. "I guess not. Like where, for example?"
"I don't know. Maybe Earth. Or Mars. It's a wonderful place, very carefree. I went there once and I was amazed at the amount of liberty they give themselves. They have so little inhibitions… you know what I mean?"
Torres nodded, attaching two cords together with a satisfying click. "It would be different, I guess." She frowned. "Have you ever thought of what it would be like to be living in turbulent conditions?"
"Like back in the Maquis?" He shrugged and gesture to the coils of tubing she was methodically reassembling. "Don't we already live in one?"
"No," she said, tossing the wires back into the compartment. "I mean really chaotic conditions. Where every day is a struggle for survival. I mean, we didn't exactly get along so well even in the Maquis."
"But we didn't exactly get to know each other either," pointed out Paris, helping her to shove some of the leads back into the paneling. "But, after a lot of thought, I'm sure we'll function pretty well anywhere."
"I sure hope so," replied Torres, snapping the wall panel back into place. "Five out of seventy. Want to help me?"
"No problem," replied Paris, helping her pack up some of her equipment. As they headed for the next junction, Torres mumbled under her breath, "Stupid Starfleet capacitors… they can't even stand a few neutrino bombardments. Not like anyone was trying an illegal beam-in onto our ship or anything."
The room Chakotay had been brought into was large and ornately furnished in dark tones. With its crudish lines and grotesque symbolism, it reminded him of a gothic torture chamber. Carved furniture of a dark, smooth polished material arrayed all around the room. On closer inspection, Chakotay discovered with faint horror that it was made of bone. He looked around the room. There seemed to be all sorts of things hiding in the dark foreboding corners of the room. The various ceremonial knives hanging along the wall only served to reinforce the atmosphere of a torture chamber. How could anyone live here? he wondered. It was so… creepy.
It was also very heavily guarded. Six men were stationed outside with Annika, each carrying a large phaser rifle. Even with the fact that he was alone and there were very likely arrays of weapons hanging on the wall, Chakotay doubted that he could do much. Every move of his would surely be under constant surveillance. He turned back to examine the bone tables.
"They're rather unpalatable, aren't they?" came a low husky voice from behind him. Chakotay jumped. She'd just sneaked up on him. "One of those Klingon Regents gave them to me… Worf, that was his name. They are most unnerving, but they come in useful." She sat on one of the tables and stroked its glossy surface. "Most of the crew think they're made of human bone. Wouldn't put that beneath Worf, though."
Chakotay said nothing and merely stared at the Intendant. She was dressed in black, top to toe, just like Annika was. Leather jacket, tight polyester skirt, knee-length boots, and the tight bun which his own captain had given up on several years ago (too much of a bother, she'd said.). She looked the same… yet different. Older, somehow. Years of bitterness and anger and malice had etched their way onto her face, yet the lines served to make her look, more than ever, like a formidable opponent. He took a couple of involuntary steps back.
She smiled cryptically at him, obviously taking delight in his discomfort. "How has your stay here been so far?" she asked him, sliding down into an ornate ebony armchair beside her. "Wonderful? Awful? I'd like to know."
"Intriguing," was all that Chakotay conceded.
The derisive smile widened. "Ah. So you find us interesting." She deftly lifted a cup of dark bubbling liquid beside her and drank a sip, never taking her pale glittering eyes off Chakotay. "What's more interesting, the fact that you are in an alternate dimension, or the fact that your alternate self is running loose on your own ship?"
"What do you want with me?" countered Chakotay.
Some of the arrogance left her eyes and she put the glass back down. "A direct man, I see." He got off the chair and walked slowly towards him, oozing wicked sensuality with every step. Chakotay back away and found himself fetched up against a bone table. She came closer and circled him slowly, like a hawk. Or a vulture.
"It's very simple, Chakotay," she drawled. "You have something I want, and you're going to give it to me." She caught Chakotay's chin and drew him closer. "I want tactical information. Every single thing you know of the Voyager. You will tell me, and the rewards will be great."
Chakotay drew back. "I don't want any rewards."
"Really." She moved closer. "Anything and everything that you've ever wanted… wealth, power, luxury…" she leaned right on him. "Women…"
Chakotay fought the impulse to hit her and run. "No thank you. I've already got all I wanted."
She turned away from him slightly huffily. "So I see you're not going to cooperate."
"I do not betray my fellow crewmembers for my own sake. Nothing you try on me is ever going to work, and you can take my word on that."
"Not for your sake, maybe, but perhaps for others." A malicious smile flickered across her face. "Did you see the prisoners on the way out? Cowardly traitors, every single one of them, and a plague on board my ship. Now, Commander, their fate rests in your hands. I will kill one of them for every hour for which you refuse to cooperate. Women, children, everyone. So, the choice is up to you."
Chakotay's mouth went dry. "You wouldn't."
She stared back at him, and he imagined her fierce gaze boring a hole through his skull. "Try me."
A sort of bitter gall rose in his throat, grating on his conscience and moving him towards anger. Chakotay let it grow and intensify, matching the intensity of his glower with hers. "You're a monster," he hissed., bringing out the fire with it. "I don't care what you look like, and who you're supposed to be, and you'd better not expect me to cooperate with the likes of you. The Kathryn I know will never do anything like this."
For a second, something like a vulnerable look flashed across her face briefly, then her features hardened into a mask of scorn and anger, and it was gone. "Then you'll find out…. That I'm not anything like her." She stormed out of the room, leaving Chakotay alone. He could hear her telling Annika to keep him in the room, but he wasn't paying very much attention. In that moment, he'd seen something else in her face- something softer, something like regret. It was like a ray of hope. For a brief moment he'd managed to get something through to her. He could work on that- perhaps it would just be what he needed to knock some sense into this... person. Whatever his opinion of her, he was fairly sure that somewhere deep inside was the woman he knew as his captain. But he would have to probe deeply for that. Much like gold mining long ago on Earth. Or oil prospecting.
Chakotay leaned back on the table and smiled to himself. He knew now what he should do.
The gigantic cavern several hundred meters below the surface of the asteroid was one in a series of linked chambers stretching halfway across the asteroid's mammoth perimeter. There were no winds, but the temperature was a biting 273 degrees Kelvin, and so dry it stung one's eyes. Ensign Harry Kim shivered under his regulation uniform and wished to hell that he'd worn an extra jacket. Doing his best to ignore the cold, he pointed his tricorder at another site and began scanning. He was beginning to feel tired of this mission. If there was any dilithium in this rock, it sure as hell was well hidden.
Kim's frustrations were not unfounded. For two days now away teams had been combing the interior for the elusive crystals, yet the searches had turned up nothing save for odd energy fluctuations and mere hints of where they might lie. This particular team had been on the surface for over two hours. Getting up early in the morning to hunt fruitlessly through a gigantic freezer wasn't exactly Kim's idea of fun. He found himself wishing for his nice warm bed.
"Harry," exclaimed a voice, "I think you'd better take a look at this."
The voice belonged to Jenny Delaney, one of the more enchanting crewmembers on board. Kim hurried over to see what she was so excited about. "Look," she said, turning her tricorder in his direction to let him see the readings. "This narrow passageway seems to lead to a chamber deeper within the crust- and it's the apparent locus of all our energy spikes."
One glance at the elevated neutrino readings and Kim nodded. "It seems worth investigating." He motioned to the third member of the away team. "Kesin, you stay here as backup." He motioned to Delaney. "I'll take the lead; you keep the rear."
Compared to the spaciousness of the outer chamber, the narrow passageway felt almost claustrophobic. Harry shone his wrist lamp forward, illuminating the path before.
Whatever the place they were heading to hadn't been used in a long time. The musty smell of the caverns grew stronger as the two headed deeper in. The atmosphere also seemed to be growing thicker, less rarified than the one in the previous cavern. It made sense- it was deeper in and more well protected from leaks into the hungry vacuum of space. Too bad it wasn't growing any warmer.
About 500 meters down the passageway abruptly widened into a cavernous blueness. Kim paused, unable to believe his eyes. Before him was an astonishing sight. Row and rows of neatly stacked gray containers stretched on as far as the eye could see, each accompanied by a softly humming black device that activated a softly glowing blue force field over it.
He checked his tricorder readings. The energy spikes indeed come from here. And the resonance spectrometry seemed to indicated that these containers hoarded a cache of treasure.
He walked over to the nearest stack and ran his tricorder over it. On a hunch, he rolled the phasing of the frequency of the blue field that he was getting to half a period ahead, and transmitted this new frequency to the black object. The blue field snapped off, allowing Kim a closer look at the stack of gray containers. They were nondescript, made of a matte gray metal that dully reflected light. Each was fastened by a simple magnetic clasp at the sight. Kim deactivated the switch of the one on top and popped the cover off. Beneath, arranged in orderly rows, were symmetrical white crystals that sparkled blue in his wrist lamp's beam.
"Bingo," he whispered. They'd struck gold.
"Kim to Voyager. I think I've found something of interest to you…"
Harry Kim was on the bridge of the Warrior, carefully monitoring the output of the ship's cloaking shields, keeping the outflux of particles to the minimum. Still, he wasn't very successful, for the ship was leaking neutrinos like an oversized sponge. If the other ship in orbit had sensors half the size of what he thought they would, their ship's presence would be detected-or at least suspected- in an instant.
He intended to keep it that way.
The Secant was manning Tactical Control when the alert trill sounded. Tuvok, ever alert, leaned over the panel and gestured to the Intendant. "Take a look at this, Kathryn. I believe that there's more to this rock chunk than meets the eye."
The Intendant walked over and leaned on his shoulder, studying the readouts of the panel. "Dilithium deposits? Is that what they were looking for?"
"I would guess so," replied the Secant. "Although I doubt they will get there first."
The Intendant's face split into a wolfish smile. "What say we take a little walk, Tuvok?"
The Vulcan gazed back at her with undisguised greed. "I think it's time for us to do a restocking of the Inventory again."
Kim watched the two leave the bridge hand-in-hand and glanced over at Paris. The moment they were gone, Paris doubled over in a fit of laughter. "Did you see that?"
Kim laughed. "Are you kidding? I nearly puked!" He glanced around at the bridge crew and said, "Heck, with the two of them on it, I hope the asteroid blows up just about now."
A small mumur rippled across the bridge crew, which by now completely consisted of Rebel members, which made up nearly half the ship's population. Paris leaned backwards and suggested, "You know, now that you have control of weapons and everything, we might just as well not leave that to nature…"
He cut his sentence short as Annika came sauntering onto the bridge. She winked at Paris. "Hi Tom." She swept her gaze across the bridge through lowered lids and sighed, blowing air through her pouty lips. "Isn't it boring here?"
Paris grunted back, focusing his attention on the navigation screen.
"I wonder…" said Annika slowly and provocatively, "if anyone has a moment to spare tonight?"
Paris shrugged, keeping his eyes on his screen. "I'm busy. I have an… appointment." He swiveled and turned to face Kim with a devilish glint in his eyes. "But I bet Hair's free."
Annika leaned on Kim's console. "Oh, are you?"
Kim grinned back. "For dinner, I'm always free."
"That's good." Annika grinned guilefully and patted him on the shoulder. "Then consider yourself volunteered for guard duty." Watching his incredulous reaction, she added, "You can take over my duty for me. Then I'd owe you one." She winked. "Wouldn't I?"
Kim gave one of those "dang you and your clever ideas" looks and nodded. "Of course. Dinner, tomorrow."
Annika giggled. "Only if you survive tonight." Then she sashayed her way off the bridge.
Kim turned to glare at Paris. "I'm gonna get you for that, Atoms."
"Get me? For helping you get a date with your girl?" replied Paris dryly. "Oh, that's nice. I'm dying with the gratitude, Hairs."
Kim rolled his eyes as the crew laughed, but found himself laughing as well. There were lots of worse places to be in the universe than with your friends, he reflected. Lots worse.