What Legacies You Leave Behind (Part 5)
- A Voyager bedtime story
by Lt 17 of 26 aka fROzen TaTTooGaL™ (MERSTS)
The girl was curled up in bed, pretending to be asleep, when the angel arrived for the final time, dressed in a shimmering suit of dark ocher. "I will finish the tale today, no matter how late it gets," the angel promised her. "I am running out of time."
"Do all angels have a time schedule to run on?" the child asked curiously.
"This one does," the angel replied.
Weyoun smiled in satisfaction as the third deactivated transnucleic compression bomb was presented before him. "They have found no other bombs, Founder," he told the shapeshifter. He wasn't listening. The Founder was focused on the crippled Federation starship on the viewscreen, a maniacal light reflecting from his eyes. "Finally… we will reclaim our rightful places in the galaxy…"
A Jem'Hadar sublieutenant came up to him. "We have captured one of the Starfleet officers," he said in his deep baritone. He gestured to the back of the bridge.
Weyoun's line of sight followed the Jem'Hadar's hand, and his smile widened. "Ah, excellent…"
"Commencing beamup now!" exclaimed Harry as soon as the ship's sensors detected the tricobalt explosion. His fingers moved swiftly over the consoles. "I've got them!" Then the color drained from his face. There were only two signals he locked on to…
"Excellent. Mr. Paris, get us out of-"
"Wait." Harry's voice was trembling. "The captain didn't beam on board."
Chakotay whirled to face Harry. "What?"
Harry blanched. "I'm sorry, sir! I couldn't lock on to her signal and-"
The turbolift doors opened and out burst Seven, having obviously sprinted her way onto the bridge. "We must retrieve the captain, now."
"Seven, what happened?" demanded Chakotay, rising on his feet even as the deck shook and trembled.
"The Jem'Hadar took her," said Seven bluntly.
"The Jem'Hadar are hailing us," reported Harry tersely.
The Doctor was on his feet in Sickbay, able to keep his balance despite the shaking of the ship. Lights were dimmed, although most of the medical equipment was on emergency standby as dictated by Red Alert protocol. He was, at the moment, running a diagnostic over his subroutines, and had found an anomaly that explained his memory loss: yesterday someone had encrypted and isolated a whole unit from his memory buffers. At present he was trying hard to crack the encryption code, although the ship going through her paces in battle made it fairly difficult.
Eventually his hard work paid off. As he de-encrypted the memory files his subroutines quailed in horror. This is a terrible mistake! He hit his commbadge. "Doctor to the bridge. This is a medical emergency. Beam Captain Janeway onto the ship, now."
Kathryn stood on the bridge of the lead Jem'Hadar ship, taking in the sights and sounds of an agitated, galvanized battle. As she stepped in the not-Weyoun favored her with a dark, flinty smile. She glared defiantly at him.
The angular viewscreen displayed the bridge of the Voyager, where everything, if possible, was even tenser. The Founder was addressing Chakotay. "Maybe you'd better take a look at this." He gestured smugly to Kathryn standing behind him. "We have your captain hostage, found all your little transnucleic bombs, and fifteen polaron devices trained on your warp core. Why bother wasting your phaser banks firing at us? This isn't one battle you're going to win."
Kathryn glanced at the disassembled bombs on the table and smiled a tight, bitter smile of victory.
There were only three bombs on the table.
"Really, Captain," Weyoun addressed Kathryn disapprovingly, "did you really think we couldn't scan past your biosynthetic membranes around the transnucleic free radicals? We know that all your other sixteen bombs are fakes. We didn't even bother to retrieve them."
And underneath the storage cabinet, the fourth red-marked bomb lay unnoticed and unfound, it's display blinking down from 03:50.
In the pulsing crimson glow of Red Alert Chakotay shifted in his seat, unwilling to stand unbraced with the ship periodically shaking so violently. Behind him Seven and Harry labored with the transporter controls, trying to find a way to bypass the Jem'Hadar shields. Before him Tom sweated with the helm, and Tuvok was firing weapons with an intense frenzy.
Kathryn gazed at the ship with firm intensity. "Chakotay, get the ship out of here now. I don't want you to be caught in the explosions."
Like hell I will. He had to find some way to distract them, somehow. "Precisely why do you want to open this wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant? There is already one in existence- the Bajoran wormhole." He tried to keep his expression open and sincere. "Maybe we can help you."
The Founder laughed. "Why, really. A small person such as you, help me?" He snickered. "Already he is not half the glorious man he used to be," he scoffed, gesturing to the not-Weyoun. "What makes you think you can restore us to our rightful place?" He raised his arms in the air. "For years we have been banished, denied of our rightful place. But now it will be over. We will be liberated. We will reclaim our former kingdom and glory. Our Temple will finally be ours yet again."
Chakotay merely stared at him like the megalomaniac he was. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
And the bomb's display ticked down to 02:00.
The Founder or not-Founder laughed and shook his head imperiously. "Have you not realized?"
Kathryn had. "You're not a Founder. He's not Weyoun. This ship and its Jem'Hadar crew were stolen. He's just an inferior clone with implanted memories. And you're a Pah-Wraith. "
"Excellent. You know then."
"You're one of those who miraculously managed to escape. That's why you want to destroy Bajor. Send a wormhole through it, so that the rest of your people can take control it. Wage war on the Bajoran wormhole entities." Her eyes grew hard, flinty. "But I won't let you."
The pah-Founder's eyes narrowed. "And how do you intend to stop us?"
"You've only found three bombs. There is a fourth, and you'll never find it in time. It's too heavily shielded."
"Oh? And why does it seem that one ship managed to do in two days what the whole of the Federation couldn't do in ten years and build a perfect biosignature imitator?" asked the pah-Founder sarcastically.
Kathryn just smiled.
A Pah-wraith? At Tactical Tuvok frowned. He'd heard of these entities before, evil incarnations of the Prophets in the Bajoran wormhole. It made a lot of sense to him
But the captain's last few words didn't. He dissected and examined them from every angle, hypothesizing and eliminating possibilities with an irrational touch of worry. He had the feeling he knew what was going to happen.
Then the Doctor hailed them from Sickbay. "Doctor to the bridge. This is a medical emergency. Beam Captain Janeway onto the ship, now. There's been a terrible accident!"
The last piece fell into place as Tuvok mentally recoiled from the idea in shock.
Yet it was too late to do anything.
Who knew what went through her head in those last few moments? Regret? Joy? Pride? None of it would ever be known. All they saw was her, standing proud and dignified on the bridge, surrounded by Vorta and Jem'Hadar and the Pah-wraith. A small smile on her lips as the pah-Founder asked his last question, her face a profound mixture of warring emotions.
Maybe she was sorry she didn't manage to bring them the other half of the way home.
Or happy that she'd brought them the first half.
She might have been sorry she wouldn't live to see the crew grow in strength and have families.
Or maybe she might have been happy that she'd helped them bond as one family.
So many questions, so many doubts and regrets and mysteries. And not enough answers. Nobody would ever know what went on in her mind before she laid herself down, once again, for her ship; her crew; her home.
All she ever cared about.
Beneath the cabinet the bomb's timer ticked down to 00:00.
And nothing happened.
That was because the fourth red-marked bomb was a dud.
"Oh? And why does it seem that one ship managed to do in two days what the whole of the Federation couldn't do in ten years and build a perfect biosignature imitator?" asked the pah-Founder sarcastically.
She smiled at the Founder. "That's because we didn't have to." She lifted her arms slightly to angle her body towards him. "It's in here."
And in one swift motion she hit the remote activation deadman's switch on her utility belt.
Detonation.
A white light washed over the ships as the bridge of the lead Jem'Hadar ship expanded in an actinic fireball. The blue wavefront rushing from the explosion engulfed the sixteen ships instantly.
Less than fifteen seconds later the first warp core breach ruptured one massive angular ship into a crimson blossom of fire. Followed by another, and another, and another.
Wave after wave of unimaginable energy pummeled the small Intrepid-class vessel in the center of it all. On the Voyager's bridge conduits ruptured, circuits blew and the deck heaved in seismic proportions as the ship absorbed the full impact of the massive destruction before them. But Chakotay, braced wildly on his chair, could only form one blinding word in his mind, obliterating all other thoughts.
"Kathryn!"
It was all over in an instant. The fifteen Dominion ships were all obliterated in the space of a few seconds. Hundreds, maybe thousands of lives were lost. The Pah-wraith, frustrated from it's plans, fled back to the dimension it had sought refuge in, simmering and hatching ingenious new plans to free his fellows.
On the bridge of the Voyager all was silent as the painful white light faded. The smoke and dust hung in the air, an ominous pale shroud amongst the stillness. Seven stared at the fading debris and emptiness on the viewscreen in complete shock. She tried to gather her thoughts. But one refrain kept repeating itself over and over in her head: I let her die.
At Tactical Tuvok appeared outwardly calm and composed, but inside he churned with a strange mix of emotions. She was gone: his commanding officer, confidante, and long-standing friend. Barely middle-aged slightly past a hundred, he still found the brevity of human life slightly disconcerting. And she hadn't even lived to half that long. As much as he wanted to quiet and order his thoughts with calm and logic, he felt that it wouldn't be improper to reason out the untimely death of a friend so close. She'd never do it that way.
She'd never do it that way.
That point was the final blow which drove the sobriety of the situation home. She wouldn't be here any longer, with her illogical human behaviors and emotions that he'd gotten so used to over the years. Her smiles, odd little quirks and personality traits- none of it remained. He'd lost an irreplacable friend.
He was going to miss her.
Seven of Nine was in cargo bay, trying to focus on the repair job at hand. But her mind kept straying to the events of the past few days. It had only been three days but it had seemed like an eternity.
She put down her hygrospanner and sighed, settling on the floor, knees drawn to chin like a small child. Inevitably her gaze strayed to the padd and the holographic projector stacked on the floor of her damaged alcove. She picked the padd up and left the projector alone, unwilling to go down that painful path again. Instead she studied the new detailed scans of the Dominion ship, and the metaphasic shielding that Tuvok had pointed out to her on the exhaust port over the polaron beam generator. Her lips tightened as she glanced down at holoproj, drawing comfort from the last heartfelt words her captain had left for her. A legacy to keep.
Humans are irrational, illogical, and follow the paths of their own desires, thought Seven, and she told me how much she'd loved watching my growth as a human. What if there had been a better way to handle the Jem'Hadar? Seven rose and headed for the console terminal in Cargo Bay, determined to work this as much as she could.
Captain Chakotay sat on the floor of his quarters, feeling exhausted. He was surrounded by his captain's personal effects, sorting through them, relishing the memories, and feeling lonelier each passing minute. The past three days had been a frenzied mix of grieving, reshuffling and ultimately reparation on the ship. Life still went on even after a disaster. Life always went on.
He sighed and picked up his holoprojector again. He thumbed the On switch and gazed fondly at her image, so small and perfectly preserved. She was speaking, dressed in that same gray silk nightgown, eyes sparkling with deeply felt tears. She spoke of so many things: about their time together, the ship and crew, and most of all how sorry she was about the way things had gone between them. "I could have handled it better," she whispered. "Please forgive me."
"I never blamed you," he told the projection, "but… I guess you'll never know."
She gazed at him poignantly. "You told me once that one of the things you liked best about me was my smile. So… I guess that's the way I want you to remember me- smiling. Take care of yourself and the ship, please, Chakotay. I have absolute faith that you will." And she smiled up at him, sincere and brilliant.
Chakotay hit the Pause on the recording and stared at her frozen portrait for a long time. The way the light reflected in her eyes… the way her lips curved, lighting up her whole face like a beacon of hope… He felt the tears beginning to sting in his eyes and jammed the balls of his hands into them to stop it. "Oh, dammit, Kathryn…" He swore he wouldn't succumb to pointless grieving and maudlin sentimentality. He would be strong, just as she was.
The door chimed, and he turned the projector off. "Come."
The doors slid open and admitted Seven of Nine. She stood awkwardly at the door for a moment. " Captain. You are busy."
"No, not at all." Chakotay arranged the clutter on the floor into neater piles as Seven stepped in. "Are the repairs complete?"
"Not yet." Seven hesitated for a moment, then handed him a padd.
Chakotay took it, frowning. "What's this?"
"Post -mission reports."
Chakotay scanned down the padd and his lips tightened. "So there was another way to subjugate the Dominion…"
"Yes, by detonating a tricobalt device above the metaphasic shielding on the exhaust port over the lead ship's polaron device. It would eliminate the need for an away team beaming over to the Jem'Hadar ship. Furthermore the subsequent rupture in subspace would have engulfed the lead ship, trapping the Pah-Wraith indefinitely."
"So there was an alternative. Why didn't we think of it?"
"We didn't have enough information." She replied bitterly.
Chakotay read further on. Then he glanced sharply up at Seven. "Seven, as much as I appreciate your effort, we have already agreed that we are going to pick up the pieces and move on as well as we can. Coming up with plans like these-" he waved the padd around- "will only delay the healing process."
Seven nodded. "My apologies, Captain." She made as if to leave, and extended a hand towards him. "My proposal?"
Chakotay was about to return the padd when he abruptly changed his mind. "On second thoughts, maybe I'll read this," he told her.
She nodded. "May I inform the rest of the senior crew?"
He shrugged in reply. "By all means, go ahead."
B'Elanna was seated uneasily on the edge of the bed, waiting for Tom. She felt so lost and angry, like a little child. The past few days had been so hectic, one bombshell after another. First the captain had sacrificed herself, then the Doctor has announced that she was pregnant. She clutched tightly at her abdomen, feeling more shaky than usual. She hadn't even been brave enough to run the holographic recording Kathryn had left for them, and she'd just been waiting for this opportunity when Tom and herself had some free time together.
Tom stepped into their quarters, looking tired from a long day spent between the helm and Sickbay. He settled down on the bed beside B'Elanna and draped one hand over her shoulder. B'Elanna smiled and leant against him, feeling more secure than she did when she was alone. She held the holoproj in front of them, angling a questioning look at Tom. "Do we start?"
Tom nodded. "Whenever you're ready." The captain had left a separate recording for each of the bridge officers except the two of them, in recognition of their marital status. People had stopped seeing them separately as B'Elanna and as Tom, but rather in one unit as B'Elanna and Tom.
B'Elanna took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I think the first part is for you."
It was. "Tom," the captain began, dressed in a silk gray nightgown, " by the time you are receiving this, I will already be dead." She shut her eyes briefly. "There are some things which I never told you about when I was alive, so it is just as well that you find out now. I know that things between us have never been easy, partly because I once served with your father, and partly because you've never worked well with rules and regulations. Truth to tell, I wasn't very sure of myself when I approached you years ago in New Zealand. Part of me wondered if I was making a big mistake. But when I first saw you pilot the ship and working with such fervor, I knew that I hadn't been wrong in asking you to help me." She sighed in that motherly way that she had. "Oh, we've had difficulties every now and then, and a fair share of discontent, but…" She smiled slightly. "Things change so much over the years. You're a fine officer, Tom." Her voice softened to a gentle whisper. "Your father would be so proud of you."
Tom sucked in an anguished breath. "How are we ever going to tell him?"
B'Elanna gripped his arm tightly, seeking his comfort.
The door chose that inopportune moment to ring. Tom angled a glance at B'Elanna. She nodded wordlessly, focusing on the hologram.
The doors slid open and admitted Seven of Nine.
Tom glanced quizzically at B'Elanna, but she was too absorbed in the captain's last words to protest Seven's presence. Seven began heading back out of the door, but Tom motioned for her to stay. She paused by the door, uncertain.
"B'Elanna." Kathryn smiled tiredly, and her eyes sparkled with tears. "I don't know where to begin. When I first met you I always thought that you would be more trouble than you were worth. I was so wrong." She gazed up at the air, then back again. "In many ways you've surpassed my expectations of you. You're hardworking, a brilliant engineer, more than anybody could ask for. And… you've been a good friend. Do you remember those times, late at night, in the Mess Hall? Just the two of us, an a jug of coffee…" Her voice grew husky as she remembered. "Those were the times…"
B'Elanna could feel the tears coming, and buried her face in Tom's shoulder. She cursed softly. I swore I'd never let Seven see me cry. Tom patted her shoulder, at a loss for words, as the captain continued.
"I know that the two of you have been through a lot together, and I know that the following months will be tough for the two of you. But you have each other, and that will be enough. I've watched the dynamics between the two of you for years, and I can't say how happy I am that both of you have found happiness with each other." She smiled again. "Tom… B'Elanna… you've come such a long way from where you started. I wish you peace and luck for the rest of your journey. Godspeed." The recording ended.
B'Elanna found it hard to breathe. She'd known it would be hard, but she hadn't expected the intensity of this. She guessed she wasn't truly ready to say her final farewell to this woman who'd shaped her life and her philosophies so deeply for the past half-decade or so. "She'll never get to see our daughter," she told Tom softly.
Seven said nothing, and B'Elanna glanced up at her, feeling bereft. "Did you know that? Our daughter will never get to meet her, or get to know what a great woman she was."
"There'll always be the legends," said Seven softly in reply as she handed the padd she was holding to B'Elanna. "Congratulations on the conception of your child." And she exited the room to leave the couple to their own thoughts.
She entered Sickbay and the doctor was there, working in his office like his life depended on it, barely glancing up when she came in. She paused in front of his door and angled her face inquisitively at him. "Doctor?"
He looked up at her and smiled grimly. "Is there something wrong, Seven?"
She walked over to his desk and slipped the padd she was holding onto it. The Doctor was obviously in great distress. "You seem upset."
He put down the work he was doing and sighed. "How could I not be? I planted that bomb, didn't I?"
Seven faced him with certainty. "You were acting against the wills of your ethical subroutines. You cannot be blamed."
He glanced vacantly into the air. "I should have realized earlier. It was all my fault."
"Even if you had realized the fact earlier, there was nothing we could have done," Seven pointed out.
He sighed. "What made her do it?" He wondered aloud.
Seven tilted her head slightly to one side. "She loved the ship. She loved the crew. She didn't want any of us to get harmed."
The Doctor nodded, then picked up the padd she had put on the table. "What's this?" He asked her.
"An… alternative plan."
He briefly scanned through it. "You really miss her, don't you."
Seven took a deep breath, trying to suppress the tear that welled up in her eye. "You cannot imagine how it feels." She clenched and unclenched her fist, trying to find a way to express what she felt. "She took me in when nobody would, refused to give up on me and taught me so much. I owe her so much, and I …" she clenched her jaw in anger. "I left her behind on the Jem'Hadar ship!"
The Doctor stood up and took her hand gently. "Now look who's blaming herself for something she couldn't avoid doing."
Seven afforded him a crooked smile. "She was like a mother to me."
"I know. But there's nothing much we can do about it now, can we? Grieving endlessly isn't going to bring her back."
"No, it doesn't. And I do not intend to grieve any longer." She picked the padd up and placed in his hand. "Please read this." She smiled sadly at him and left his office.
Later that day she stood in the Mess Hall by the observation ports. Beside the replicator unit, a hundred and forty white roses lined the deck, overflowing onto tables and chairs, placed beneath a new metallic plaque set into the wall with a single name written on it, followed by a few lines of poetry by June Yang. Seven stood by the memorial for a long period of time, pondering. Eventually Neelix came to her side. "I read your report," he told her. "It was… is… a daring plan."
"Do you think it might have worked? Or will work?" Seven asked him.
Neelix glanced thoughtfully up at her. "I don't know. I'm not an expert in that area."
Seven glanced at the chrono on the wall. "The alpha shift should be arriving soon." And true to her words, Tuvok entered the Mess Hall at that moment, followed by Harry, who looked more nervous and vulnerable than usual. They gathered around the long table, and Seven and Neelix joined them. Soon B'Elanna and Tom had arrived, hand in hand, with the Doctor. Tom held B'Elanna's waist protectively as he helped her settle in her seat. Chakotay was the last to arrive. By this time the Mess Hall was already teeming with officers taking a break after their duty shifts. Even Icheb and Naomi had come to talk and mingle with the crowd.
Chakotay faced Seven first. "I gave your proposal a lot of thought," he told her, "and the answer is yes." He looked down at his feet. "She knew, you know, that night she came to me. And she tried to make things right."
Seven nodded, feeling a strange thrill of adrenaline down her spine.
"And I guess things more or less turned out right after all, just as she said it would. We pulled through, and in the meantime, we're not going to stray off our original mission: to get us all home." The new captain smiled at his senior crew as he sat in his seat. "She said we would have nothing to worry about as long as we stay together as a crew. Dinner, anyone?"
"Why not, we're starving."
"I've got a splendid Pendari meat dish I prepared in the gallery. I'll go get it."
"Did anyone see that piece of information from the Alpha Quadrant? They said they might just be a few steps away from bringing us back home."
"They did? Where?"
"It was in the official quarterly report from the Voyager Project branch of Starfleet Research. I believe your father heads that project."
"Dang! I knew I'd missed something in those reports."
"You're visually impaired, Tom Paris."
"Both his eyes still seem to be fully functional."
"They are. The part that isn't functioning is his brain."
"Hey! That was uncalled for."
"But it's true!"
"B'Elanna! I can't believe you're siding him on this."
"Here it is! Doesn't it smell good?"
"Neelix, that doesn't look like meat… more like the remains of a shuttle that's been immersed in plasma coolant."
"Come on, Captain. Give it a try. I'm sure you'll love it!"
"Really, Mr. Neelix. I must question the nutritional value of some of the more… dubious things you produce from your kitchen. Fortunately for me I am not equipped with a stomach."
"One thing I know: if I eat this, I'm going to be violently sick in the morning."
"Hey… speaking of morning sickness… did anyone know that B'Elanna's pregnant?"
"She is? Wow! Congratulations. You two sure work fast."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"You should."
"Keep out of this captain. It's between Harry and myself."
"So! Another generation has begun on our ship!"
"It would appear so. Would that be a son or a daughter, Lieutenant?"
"A daughter. We haven't decided on a name yet. I thought of naming her after Captain Janeway."
"Sounds good."
"Hey… maybe you could appoint Seven as her godmother."
"Don't get any funny ideas, Harry…"
"But seriously, don't you think it's a good idea, Tom?"
"If it's fine with you, honey, it's fine with me…"
"I would be flattered."
"So when is the baby due?"
"In a few months. It's going to be hectic trying to prepare ourselves for a new lifeform on this ship."
"Don't worry, we'll all be there to help you."
"Affirmative."
And the evening went, all of them seated down for dinner and talking through the night like a group of old friends who enjoyed nothing more than each other's company. Life still went on even after a disaster. Life always went on.
And maybe the hurting would eventually disappear over time.
As the angel finished the tale there were tears in the child's eyes. "She died!" exclaimed the girl. "That was so sad! And they all had to try to live on after that. And the worst part was, she didn't have to die…" She gathered the sheets around her. "Was it hard for them?"
"Yes, it was."
"But they made it home, didn't they? Just as she said they would."
"I don't know. That part is entirely up to you. You'll have the power to change the way the story ends."
The child frowned at the angel. "I do? So I'm going to be a writer when I grow up and write this story?" She paused. "That wasn't a true story, was it?"
"I hope not."
"What am I supposed to do with this story? Why did you tell it to me anyway? Don't angels always do things for a reason?"
"Remember it. Don't bother yourself with the details. Just remember the moral of the story." The angel brushed the child's hair gently.
"What's the moral then?"
"Did you not realize? The moral was that there was another way out… another solution, another alternative."
"The one about using the tricobalt device." The child struggled with the new word.
"Yes. Remember that there was always an alternative. Promise me that you won't forget."
"Always an alternative… always an alternative…" The child shut her eyes, conscripting the phrase to memory. Then she gazed up at the angel, who had gotten up. "Are you going to tell me another story?"
"I'm afraid not. I must leave now. I have other matters to attend to."
The child's eyes grew wide. "Then will I ever see you again?"
The angel's blue eyes sparkled with sudden tears. "Yes," she said softly. "Yes, I hope I will."
The child lay down on her pillow. "Me too."
"Remember." The angel leaned over to tuck her in the final time. "Please remember. It may one day save your life."
"I promise I will."
The angel kissed the girl gently. "Good night, Kathryn."
Kathryn Janeway snuggled deeply into her blankets and smiled to herself. As she drifted off to sleep, she vaguely saw the angel tap the shiny brooch she wore and say, "Seven of Nine to Voyager. One to beam up…"