Ship of the Valkryies (Part Eleven)
A Star Trek crossover fanfic by Lt Taya 17 Janeway (TaTTooGaL™)
They had stepped into a narrow mud corridor connecting to the next stage of the course. Leading the way, Kira opened the door at the other end of the mud corridor-
-to reveal the inky black waters of a lake surrounding them. On the far side was a strip of land, which ended in a rugged vertical cliff.
Kira and Janeway stared.
"Now what. Don't tell me they expect us to pull a miracle out of our hats and walk across water," said Janeway.
Kira poked her boot toe into the darkling water. Suddenly without warning a pair of giant reptilian jaws rose from the depths, lined with sharp serrated teeth. It aimed a snap at Kira's foot, and she barely withdrew it from the water in time. She yelped out loud.
"I guess that effectively rules out swimming across," said Janeway.
Then a set of toadstool-like stepping stones rose from the water. They hovered over the surface for a moment, then they began rising in and out of the water at different speeds and time, like some ballet of bowing dancers.
"Oh no!" Kira exclaimed, trying to watch for a pattern in the rising and falling mushrooms. "How am I supposed to know when to get across!"
"Wait… wait. On my mark…" Janeway watched the mushrooms carefully, counting phase differences in her head. "Wait some more…"
"They're oscillating faster!" wailed Kira in despair.
"Patience! A bit more…. MARK!" She gave Kira a little push onto the first mushroom as they all moved into phase and began oscillating together. Kira jumped from one toadstool stepping-stone to the next with almost impeccable timing: the toadstool she jumped off began going out of phase with the one in front of it just as she jumped off it.
But by the time she reached the last mushroom, it was too late. It had already sunk.
Frantic, Kira clapped her hands to her forehead as the mushroom she was standing on began sinking downwards. The moat monsters swam hungrily around her, jaws snapping. Yet the next mushroom did not rise.
In desperation at the last minute, Kira made a huge lunge for the shore. She barely made it, the toe of her left foot grazing the water's surface as she rolled away. She got up on somewhat shaky legs and dusted herself of the reddish clingy powder. Hands on her hips, she cast a baleful glance at Janeway.
Janeway shrugged apologetically. "I must have miscalculated." Observing the mushrooms closely again, she waited for that moment when they all started to rise in phase. Then she jumped onto the first one, and hopped from one mushroom to another, all the way across, without any incident.
Kira glared playfully at her. "Sure, make it look so easy…"
Janeway smirked at her. "Timing and skill is everything, my dear."
"Showoff." Kira punched Janeway in the arm teasingly.
Janeway gestured to the sheer cliff. "Looks like a simple spot of climbing coming up…" She shrugged. "Should be easy." She drew two spools of nylon fibres from her belt, one thick and one thin. "We'll use this."
Kira eyed the thin rope uneasily. "It won't support both our weights."
"It will," Janeway assured her. "You can use the thick rope to help you climb up, and the thin one will connect the two of us. It's safer that way. Look, they've even provided pitons for us." She gestured to the pile of slender metal rods with sharp ends stacked at the bottom of the cliff. "Do we have any karabiners?"
"I do," said Kira, exploring the pouch attached to her belt. "We can share."
"Then we're all set. You want to lead?"
"Why am I always first?"
"So that if there's something hungry on the other side, you can be the first one to get eaten."
"Thanks a lot." Kira finished fixing up the karabiners and fastened one end of the nylon string to the first loop on the rock wall. "I'm still not sure about the tensile strength of this rope…"
"Don't worry so much, Major. It'll hold. Now go on…"
Sighimg, Kira began ascending the rock wall, searching for arm and leg holds. The wall was perfectly straight, something to be thankful for. She hated climbing walls that inclined at an angle. She went twenty meters up to the next loop to attach the nylon rope to, then gestured to Janeway, tethered to her by another rope, to start climbing up after her.
Halfway through the climb Kira looked down to see how Janeway was progressing, and realized it was probably the biggest mistake she'd ever made. For she was perched at least a hundred and fifty meters up in the air, and the ground looked perilously far, far away. Janeway noticed her discomfort and laughed. "Just hold on tight to the wall and you won't fall off."
Kira, plastering herself to the wall and clutching the thick nylon rope with one hand like a lifeline, was inclined to agree.
Janeway released her hold on the thick rope and transferred all her weight to one hand and one leg. She was trying to scale up a particularly tricky section by lunging nearly five meters upwards using only her left arm, which had a much more decent grip than her right foot crammed into a small toehold, to propel her upwards. Kira felt the thin rope tremble with the increased tension.
"I wouldn't advise you to do that, captain," Kira warned. "This blasted thin rope feels like it's going to break any time. There's another small grip for your hand slightly to the right to bridge the gap between that five meters. It's a more tiring path, but at least the rope won't break."
"The rope's not going to break," Janeway assured her, and lunged upwards.
The rope broke.
The sudden deficit in rope tension totally threw Janeway off balance, and she fell backwards with a shriek. "Captain!" yelled Kira as she lost her grip on the wall and fell ten meters to the last hooked position of the not-so-blasted thick rope. She banged against the rough rock wall hard, and yelped.
She gazed down at the foot of the wall, trying to see if Janeway was alright, but the dust cloud raised by their violent falls obscured most of the ground from her vision.
Then she heard a cracking sound.
With a sinking heart, she realized that the force of her fall had weakened the rock holding the loop supporting her. With a final crack, the rock splintered, and down came Kira, nylon rope and all. She fell twenty meters to the next loop supporting her.
Which also gave way as well, causing her to fall another twenty meters.
And so on, and so forth.
Kira let out a yell of indignation as she crashed rather painfully into the ground. "Yeah, great," she raved. "The rope won't break… the rope won't break... sure, sure! I told her, but did she listen? Nooooo…. And look where we are now." She stood up and winced as every bone in her body protested. "Captain?"
Then she realized Janeway was lying unconscious on the floor, a few feet away from her.
Kira slapped a hand to her forehead and muttered a Bajoran expletive as she remembered Janeway had fallen the full hundred and fifty meters in one go. "Captain!" she yelled, heading over.
There was no response from Janeway. "Don't you dare get a concussion on me," she said sternly, bending over her comatose figure and giving her a good shake. "I'll kill you!"
Then with another sinking feeling, she realized that the fall had already done the job for her.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed in horror. "You're not dying on me!" She clapped her hands to her head. "Your crew is going to kill me!" She grabbed Janeway's hand. "Please… Kathryn… wake up."
Nothing happened. No pulse in the lifeless wrist.
"Damn!" Kira sank to the dusty floor and smacked her fist on it, at a loss for what to do. She couldn't really believe it nor comprehend it. Janeway couldn't really be dead, could she?
She glanced at the unmoving form beside her. Yes, she could.
Kira groaned and buried her face in her hands. She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. This has got to be some prank the universe is playing on me, she thought. A person as tough and wonderful as Janeway wouldn't be killed by a simple hundred and fifty meter fall, would she, right? Right?
Wrong.
What was she going to do?
Feeling helpless, Kira clasped her hands together and began praying as hard as possible for some form of divine intervention to either bring Janeway back to life, or else get her as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. Preferably to a certain other quadrant forty thousand light years away.
Then there was a flash of light, and Kira realized that her prayers might have been answered after all. She glanced up, and true enough, Q was standing there. A relieved smile spread across her face in what had to be the only time in her life she was glad to see the omnipotent being. "Q!"
Q glanced down at Kira and shook his head, making dramatic 'tsk tsk' sounds. "Such cheerfulness. Really, Major, how unseemly of you. She's barely dead five minutes, and you're already celebrating her absence?"
Kira gritted her teeth and reminded herself to play nice with Q, an amazing feat in itself. She got up and dusted herself off. "I'm glad to see you, Q," she said as pleasantly as possible, hoping none of it came out dripping with sarcasm, as she was tempted to do.
If it did, however, Q was definitely returning the favor. "Oh, how touching." He knelt down beside Janeway's still form. "What a pity."
Kira entwined her fingers across her stomach and smiled hopefully, saccharine sweet. "Yes, it's very tragic, isn't it? But, of course, she doesn't have to die. You do have the capability to bring her back... doing that would make everyone happier, and your precious game could go on without interruption!" Prophets! I sound like a sodding Ferengi!
Q gave her a wide-eyed look as if shocked. "Bring her back? Whatever for? These human women are nothing if not trouble." He put a hand out to her cold white cheek and sighed melodramatically. "Alas, Kathryn, we hardly knew you…"
Screw playing nice with Q. The asshole!
Dropping all pretense of civility, Kira stomped over to Q, fuming, and drove the heel of her boot viciously into his toes.
"Augh!" Q leapt up, clutching his injured toes and hopping around comically on one foot. "Oh, the pain, the pain!"
"Shut up!" snapped Kira, not in a mood for anymore Q histrionics. "Or I'll hit you. I swear!"
Q afforded her an offended look. "That was uncalled for!"
"Uncalled for?" Kira jammed her hands on her hips and glared full-throttle at Q. "Let me tell you what's uncalled for. This woman"-she gestured to Janeway- "helped you end your little civil war, decided to put aside her grudges and play along with your ridiculous game, helped you find your daughter and prevented you from getting axe-murdered by your wife, and what do you do in return? You insult her, and stand around reciting poetry when she dies. Is that your idea of gratitude?"
Q rolled his eyes. "Morality lessons from a Bajoran… now that's a new one."
"Q. You said so yourself. You owe us one. The least you can do now… is to pay it back." She folded her arms and glanced at him imploringly.
Q sighed. "How you do go on…" he waved his fingers around, as if bored. "I suppose you do have a point. Very well, then…" He took Janeway's limp hand in his own and kissed it. "Awaken, my fair lady."
Fascinated, Kira crouched beside Janeway, waiting to see a miracle happen. For a moment nothing happened. Then she seemed to flutter her eyelids. Seemed, because although Kira thought she saw some movement, Janeway's eyes remained closed. "Kathryn?"
At the mention of her name, Janeway opened her eyes and blinked in confusion. And now Kira saw that there was something wrong: it seemed as if there were two Janeways, the living one superimposed over the dead one.
Janeway sat up, and Kira drew in a sharp, alarmed breath as she realized that there were, in fact, two Janeways: one alive, and one dead. Kira angled a questioning glance at Q. What the hell have you done now?
"Nerys?" The live Janeway was confused. "What just happened?"
She put her right hand out on Kira's, and it went right through.
Shocked, Janeway jumped up, and staggered backwards as she realized she'd just jumped out of her own body. "What the hell's going on?"
"Q!" exclaimed Kira, horrified. "You've turned her into a… a ghost!"
Q shrugged. "So? She's back, isn't she? Just what you wanted."
"I can't complete this Quest with a ghost for a partner! Q! What were you thinking?" Kira started to storm upon him.
Q, sensing the safety of the situation degenerate, quickly backed up. He shrugged. "That's none of my business, is it!"
"Ghost?" Janeway gave the two an odd stare. "What do you mean? What happened here?"
"His idea of a joke. You fell off a cliff and died, I asked this idiot here to bring you back, and he turns you into a ghost." Kira folded her arms severely and scowled at Q.
"Idiot?" Q clapped a hand to his chest and put on his best shocked manner, which did nothing to sway the two women before him. "You'll be thanking me for my genius later."
"Right," drawled Janeway dangerously. "Over my dead body."
"Speaking of which," said Q brightly, "you'd better get it back to your ship before it starts decomposing. It might come in handy later, you'd never know." He prodded it with his boot and shrugged. "Besides, it'd be such a waste to let a nice body like this rot."
Kira didn't know if she should hit Q on the head, or give him a good kick in the behind. So she elected to do both. Unfortunately Q saw it coming and wasted no time in disappearing from the scene, causing Kira to end up in a convoluted heap on the dusty floor. "Arrrgh!!!" she screamed in frustration.
The ghost of the Janeway present folded her arms. "Now what?"
Kira shook her head in frustration. "Don't ask me… I'm just as lost as you are." She muttered a curse under her breath. "I told you the rope was going to break… This is all your fault, you realize?"
Janeway stared at her, speechless. Then her brow creased, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Fine, blame it on me. You're not the one who's dead, at any rate."
Kira's lips tightened, mentally cursing Q for all eternity. Janeway had a point: it wasn't all her fault, anyway. Blame Q: this was his hare-brained idea's entire fault. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him. "I'm going back to the ship," she said tersely, picking Janeway's limp body up, and balancing it so that she could hit her commbadge. "Kira to Voyager. Standby for beamup."
Janeway's eyes widened. "Wait. What about the mission? And how am I supposed to get back to the ship?" She gestured downwards at her intangible self.
Kira, who was still in a mood for being mean to both people and ghosts alike, remarked snidely, "Try flying all the way back up. Should be easy for a ghost. Energize."
Janeway stared after the spot where Kira had just dematerialized, feeling pathetic. "Fly? How?"
