Title: Divided
Author: SisterPet
Pairing: C&T
Rating: PG 13 for now. R later.
Disclaimer: I don't own them
Part 2
B'Elanna lay on the bunk trying to ignore the sound of hammering and cursing outside. Moments later Chakotay entered, his undershirt soaked with sweat. The sun had tanned his already dark skin to a deep mahogany and the last two weeks of hard manual labour had burned away any sign of softness, defining every muscle and sinew in mouth-watering detail. She felt a tiny flicker of something spark deep down inside her, but the depression she had slipped into had too strong a hold on her for it to survive longer than a nanosecond.
"Get up, I need your help, I can't move this heap alone." He snapped, trying to gentle the anger raging in him.
For two weeks he had fed her cared for her and worked alone, all the while waiting for her to deal with whatever demons were haunting her. She became more and more withdrawn, surly and uninterested. She slept from sun up to sun up and, if he did not force her to eat and drink, she would have slept herself into starvation. It had taken its toll on even his seemingly endless patience.
"What the hell do you want to move the shuttle for?" she snapped, to tired even to be irritated.
"We are too far out in the open, we need to move closer to the shelter of that forest. I have found evidence of intelligent life on this planet and I don't want to take the chance of assuming they will be friendly and then finding out they are not."
"This thing weighs over a ton. Were you planning to lift it on your shoulders and carry it? "She snarled sarcastically.
Chakotay sighed. She was making it very hard to remember that he was, by nature, a gentle man.
"I have cut some logs, the land is pretty even and there is a slight decline about 20 meters from here all the way to the forest. If we do this little by little, Egyptian style using the logs to roll it along, we should be able to get right into that tree line."
"It won't work."
So saying, she rolled over turning her back to him and, once again, prepared to sink into the blessed nothingness, where there was no memory and no pain. Her eyes snapped open when she was whipped around and two strong hands grasped her by the upper arms and lifted her off the bunk. His face inches from hers, he pulled her up until her feet were dangling off the floor.
"I did not ask for your opinion, I gave you an order. Now move your skinny butt outside and help me move this shuttle." He growled, forcefully plonking her back on her feet and shoving her towards the door.
B'Elanna rounded on him.
"And if I don't? What are you going to do? Throw me in the brig? Oh that's right I forgot. The brig is light years away, heading for the alpha quadrant. Gee Commander, I guess that means you're on your own, and that's exactly how you are going to have to move it. I sure as hell am not going to help you!"
The control over his stronger emotions, that had taken years for him to build, snapped and thought gave way to pure emotion. For the first time since he had landed on Voyager his instincts were given full reign, and he knew what he had to do. Though the thought sickened him, watching her wither away and die was not an option.
He picked her up by the shirtfront and bodily threw her out the door. She landed 10 feet away with a bone-jarring thud, not giving himself time to think he followed her out, grasping her up he threw her again.
"Get up, woman!" He ordered moving towards her, fists clenched.
"Have you gone mad? Leave me the hell alone or I swear…"
She never got to finish the sentence before she was picked up again and thrown. Her body screamed in agony, she tried to crawl away from the stalking figure. For one moment Chakotay hesitated. If he was wrong the damage he was doing to her, and their friendship, would be irreparable, but a voice deep down inside him assured him that this was the only way. She was a klingon and, if she was going to survive, she needed to let that half of her take over. It was her strength. He knew and had known enough klingons to know that they were a fierce warrior people. Gentleness and soft handling did not work with them. He also knew that only in extreme circumstances would she let the klingon temper loose.
"You'll do what? Break my neck? Eat my heart raw? Well come on, here I am, do it! Lets see what you can do." He dared her.
She staggered to her feet and took a weak swing at him. He dodged it easily and, with a shove, sent her sprawling again.
"I doubt very much that you could fight your way out of a wet paper bag. You really are pathetic. A snivelling pathetic coward with no honour." He spat at her before swivelling on his heels and walking away.
A deep rasping growl behind him was the only warning he got before something hit him and sent him soaring through the air. With milliseconds to brace himself, he curled up and rolled, using his forward monument to propel him as he landed and rolled onto his feet, facing her in the classic fighting crouch. He suddenly realised that his plan had worked a little too well. Crouched before him was the real B'Elanna. Fierce, proud, stunning and deadly she stalked him. This woman would not pull her punches. She would hold nothing back. She was a warrior from a nation of undefeatable warriors. The only thing missing was the batlif. She also wanted him dead. "This is going to hurt," he muttered to himself.
"You are going to pay for those insults Chakotay. With blood!" She growled at him.
He was very much afraid she would get her wish. Despite her taunts, he knew how strong she was. He also knew that he could no more seriously hurt her than he could jump to warp. Using every ounce of speed and skill he possessed, he managed to dodge the flying fists and lethal kicks, but he knew it was going to be a close fight. He could not use the one advantage over her he had, his strength. The more he dodged her the angrier she became. Anger though, in this situation, was not going to help her. Something in her training fought its way through the red rage that clouded her mind. She stood back; fiery anger was channelled into cold fury. On a Klingon that was lethal. She studied him, letting her arms drop. Chakotay fell for it and relaxed his guard. With the speed of a striking snake she was on him, taking two fast steps her right fist caught him on the chin. He reeled back, arms wide. Pivoting on her heels until her back was to him, she slammed her elbow into his ribs, using all the power in her body to follow through on the blow. Chakotay felt the crunch of his ribs giving way. Pain, white hot and piercing, shot through him. His mind clouded and for a moment he felt sure he would loose conciseness but the instinct for survival forced him back. Now he was fighting for his life. He could no longer afford to play the gentleman. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he dropped to the ground using his legs to throw her up and over his head. B'Elanna landed badly, the breath whooshed out of her lungs. Fighting the nausea that rose to her throat she stumbled to her feet. Twice more he managed to toss her. Though she landed a few more blows to his face and body, she was unable to cause any more damage.
Battered and bloody they stumbled around each other. She lunged for him, letting rage take over. It was her last mistake. His backhand blow sent her staggering back, her knees gave in and she sank to the ground barley conscious. Fighting the red haze of pain that threatened to put him on the ground next to her, he braced his arms across his damaged ribs and straightened up as far as he could.
"Be ready to get to work in twenty minutes." He ordered before staggering back to the shuttle.
When he reached the privacy of the shuttle he sank onto the bunk. He hurt all over but the worst pain was stabbing through his chest with every breath that he took. He tried to shallow his breathing but it still felt like a vice squeezing his lungs. It was in his thoughts though, what the worst pain was. Nothing physical could match the horror of what he had done. He had fought long and hard to tame the angry warrior inside him. Not even Seska had managed to release the hold he had or destroy the inner peace that he had found. Violence, once so easy, was no longer something that he turned too. He had discovered that diplomacy worked far better. He had known that B'Elanna was no match for him in hand to hand fighting. He had fought many Klingon and knew that against a cool head and skill, they were not infallible. Now, not only had he broken a life long rule that he strongly believed in, by raising his hand to a woman, he had also attacked a friend. One he respected and cared for deeply. If, by some miracle she ever understood his reasons, and forgave him he doubted that he would ever be able to forgive himself. His self-flagregation ended when he slumped forward off the bunk, unconscious onto the floor.
B'Elanna fought back the darkness. The red haze of rage disappeared as if it had never been and she rose to her feet. Although she ached all over, she found that nothing was broken. She would be black and blue, with dashes of red where the skin had been grazed away, but otherwise undamaged.
She felt at once wonderfully alive and terribly sad. The depression that had suffocated her was gone. Her grief was deep and raw, and her razor sharp mind, so long in a dulled haze of self-pity, was working furiously. She circled the shuttle eyeing the damage, the distance to the forest and the best place to lift it onto the logs. Weight, size, velocity. Calculation after calculation going around her head. She walked toward the forest studying the terrain, the ground and the distance. A huge pile of logs, 30 in all, lay to one side. Each one a good 20 foot long and about 2 foot wide. A broken piece of metal, hammered twisted and sharpened at the end to resemble an axe, leaned against it. The pure determination and brute strength it must have taken for him to not only move them all the way here, but to cut down the trees using only that, was astounding.
"No wonder he bested me." She muttered to herself, making a mental note not to piss him off again. On that thought she realised that 20 minutes had come and gone without a sign or sound from Chakotay. The last few moments of the fight flashed through her mind. The feeling of his ribs giving way under her elbow had not registered at the time. She sprinted back to the ship and found him as he had fallen, his breathing rasping and shallow. Turning him over gently she reached over for the medikit. The tricorder showed that he had three broken ribs and his internal organs were badly bruised. Thankfully, she could detect no internal bleeding or punctured lungs. Since the incident that had almost cost Captain Janeway her life, the medikits had been upgraded to hold far more than emergency medical utensils than was routinely Starfleet. They now had enough equipment to perform minor surgery if needed and, since her incidents with the holodeck, she had been taking a few basic first aid lessons from the doctor. She knew how to mend bones and heal wounds but nothing quite this delicate. She took out the ostriogenic stimulator and painstakingly repaired the worst of the damage to his ribcage.
Chakotay awoke to the smell of burning rubber and the ripe rich sounds of someone cursing inventively. Some of the words he had only heard in the worst places. The pain had dulled to an ache, but he knew the moment he moved it would return full force. He tried to get up anyway. The hand that pushed him back down was firm but gentle.
"If you move and undo all my hard work healing you, I will bust your head open." She stated calmly.
He relaxed back, eyeing her warily. Her expression was serene and she sounded like her old self, though for once he could not read her.
"What's burning?"
"That was dinner. I managed to catch a small animal unfortunately I have never cooked on an open fire before. It's inedible now." She muttered.
He decided now was not the time to remind her that he was a vegetarian. Settling back down, he waited while she ran the tricorder over him. Then, after handing him a plate of rations, she sat on the bunk beside him.
"I think the best place to lift would be the front. It's already slightly raised so we might be able to lever it a little higher to get the first few logs under it. If we push it at a 20 degree angle we might be able to zig zag it down hill……."
"B'Elanna we need to talk."
She debated for a moment, then nodded with a sigh.
"Commander we really don't need to talk it to death. I know why you did it and it worked. Lets just leave it at that."
"And us?" He rose up onto one elbow, studying her face.
"We are going to be here for a long time. I need to know where we stand."
"In a nutshell?" she grinned, mocking his favourite expression. "If I was going to slip a knife in you I could have done that while you were unconscious. We are as we have always been."
"Good enough." Chakotay nodded, settling back down and was, in moments, asleep.
It took them 2 days to move the shuttle. They worked from sun up to sun down, barely taking the time to rest. Sweating, cursing and straining they managed to heave the shuttle onto the logs and, little by little, roll it down the hill. Their first attempt bombed when the shuttle rolled away from them too fast and nose-dived into the ground before they could halt its momentum. But with every meter they moved it, they learned more. In the end they were so in sync that they needed no communication. Each knowing automatically what the other needed. The bond of respect and friendship between them grew deeper and stronger, neither of them noticed that the command structure had disappeared and they were just a man and a woman fighting the odds, and winning. At one point B'Elanna stepped back and watched him. The sight of him without his shirt or jacket struck her and, for the first time, she saw him as a man. Rippling cords of muscles, damp with the water they were constantly pouring over themselves to cool down, brought a low hum of desire in her belly. Guiltily she looked away, thinking about Tom.
"You have no right to be ogling other men when you're in love with Tom. No matter how hot they look." She muttered to herself, but could not resist one last peek. The next thought that came to mind was forcefully rejected and she focused back onto the work at hand. Finally, though they were done. Their small home was now safely tucked away inside the dark and cool forest, which gave them ample shelter all around. They would not easily be spotted from almost any angle. To make doubly sure, they spent another day clearing away any trace of their landing.
"If, by some miracle Voyager does come looking, they wont even find a trace of us." B'Elanna sighed.
"Voyager is a long gone, B'Elanna. We must start accepting that. Lieutenant Torres and Commander Chakotay are on that ship and they are getting on with their lives." He stated, gently sitting down next to her and taking her hand.
"Your thinking about Tom. I know it's hard but you have to accept that for him nothing has changed. He is still living, loving and fighting with B'Elanna as always."
She jumped up, moving away from him, prowling the small clearing, hands flaying the air.
"Easy for you to say, you have not lost the person your in love with. I am B'Elanna! That interloper on the ship has no right to take away what is mine. My name my rank my friends my job my boyfriend! If I ever get off this damn planet, I will find her and kill her!" She swore hotly.
"What makes you so sure she is the double? Don't you get it yet? She is you. The same as Naomi Wildman or Harry. They came from another Voyager but they are still the same and they are real." He rose, gripping her by the shoulders.
"You are not the only one who lost someone they loved deeply. But I am certain that the Chakotay on that ship will keep on loving, caring for and protecting her as I have. As hard as it is, I am trying to take comfort in that."
B'Elanna watched him walk away, furiously trying to figure out who on the ship he could have been seeing without the whole ship knowing about it.
"Captain Janeway." She gasped, Suddenly everything fell into place. Little things, that had been so out of character for him, became clear. It had always confused her how he could so quickly have given up the Marquee way and embraced Starfleet, after leaving it so long ago.
"One look at Janeway and you surrendered everything." She muttered, shaking her head.
They had waited weeks for a sign from him that they would mutiny and take over the ship. At first, they had thought he was waiting, biding his time until they dropped their guard. But gradually it had sunk in that he had genuinely given up, without so much as a token fight. Having fought beside him for so many years, B'Elanna had been at first shocked, and then wary of this sudden character change. More personal was his obvious lack of lovers after New Earth. Megan Delaney had commented about it on more than one occasion, especially since she had been the one of a select few he had previously occasionally 'visited'. His discreet rendezvous had been almost legendary and rivalled that of Tom's, before he had started living the life of a temple monk. The speculation had been rife though none had dared wonder in his hearing. Mild mannered or not, he still defended his privacy with a vicious right hook.
"B'Elanna you are such an idiot." She groaned, smacking herself on the forehead. It should have been as plain as the tattoo on his face.
A rustle in the bushes to her right had her crouching and reaching for the makeshift axe.
"Who or what ever you are, show yourself!" She demanded.
The figure that rose slowly had strange markings on his body and she could see that he was human, and unarmed.
"Who are you?" She asked moving towards him. He shrank back in fear, eyeing the axe in her hand. B'Elanna dropped the weapon and held up both hands.
"I wont hurt you, come a little closer." She urged, keeping her voice gentle and even.
"I have brought food to welcome you." he moved closer, holding out a woven basket of what looked like fruit. She judged his age to be about 18 or 19 years old and he was tall, blond with the classical Viking features. Strong, yet gently innocent.
"Thank you, but is it customary for your welcoming parties to hide in the bushes?" she asked taking the basket from him.
"We needed to make sure that you were not one of the mechanical people."
Chakotay returned to the campsite and the surprise that awaited him. B'Elanna was sitting deep in conversation with a stranger. Both rose as he approached.
"Chakotay this is York. He is one of the inhabitants of this Forrest. His village is about 2km away."
Chakotay greeted the young man and took one of the offered fruit, biting into it heartily.
"My village elders have invited you to join them tomorrow at midday for the rumatam feast." York offered eagerly.
"Rumatam?" B'Elanna asked
"Yes, it is the feast to thank the gods for a good harvest."
"Please tell the village elders we would be honoured to join you." Chakotay smiled.
"I must go now, the light is going and I must be back in the village before nightfall. You too must be careful Chakotay, this land is no longer safe for people alone." York warned earnestly.
Chakotay frowned, cocking a questioning eyebrow at B'Elanna.
"The Mechanical men. By the sound of things, they have been hunting and killing the villagers for the last two years and, by the description, it sounds like a larger group of androids."
Chakotay questioned the youngster for another few minutes, but could get nothing more from him.
That evening B'Elanna thought about their earlier conversation.
"How did you and the Captain manage to be together without the whole ship knowing?" She asked.
Chakotay did not answer at first, he seemed to be deliberating whether to answer her, finally though he spoke.
"We were never together in that way."
"I don't understand. Did she not return your feelings?" B'Elanna asked carefully, she was treading on the sacred ground of his privacy.
"No the feelings were mutual. At first it was because she was engaged to another man. Kathryn would never break a promise, even to a man 70 000 light years away. After that it was something else."
The look on B'Elanna's face told him that he would not be able to get away with such a vague answer.
"Something else?"
"I screwed up badly. She trusted me and I let her down. When she decided to help the Borg fight species 8472, I was against it, we argued about it. Then, when I was in control, instead of keeping her word at all costs I welched. On a promise she had begged me to keep. As my Captain she understood my reasons. Even as my friend she could see my point but, somewhere deep inside, I destroyed something vital between us."
"Is that why you hate the Borg so much? I always wondered as it seemed so unnatural for you."
"No, but that hate was the reason I could not see her view. It blinded me to everything but the need to see them suffer. I was all for sitting back and watching them be destroyed. I think it stems from being in a collective, even if it was for only a short time. I had no will of my own, nor reason for existing beyond what they wanted from me. It's a terrible thing to live through. Though they never hurt me, they used me to go against my own beliefs and principals and endanger everyone I cared about."
Chakotay rose and headed to the shuttle. B'Elanna was surprised. In one short night he had revealed more of himself to her than he had in all the years she had known him.
York did not arrive as arranged the next morning. B'Elanna and Chakotay had worked form sunrise repairing the defence shield and power grid in the shuttle. With a bit of creative repair, they managed to piece together enough working parts to enable them to get not only the shields and replicator working, but two of the phasers too. By mid morning they had begun to get really concerned for their young friends safety.
B'Elanna took a walk out into the savannah to make sure that they had eradicated all trace of their landing. Now that they knew they were in danger, they wanted to take no chances. She noticed smoke billowing out from the trees in the distance. Fear gave her legs wings and she reached the shuttle in record time.
"Chakotay quickly! I think I know why York has not shown up."
Chakotay followed her out to where she saw the smoke.
"We must go and look, they may need our help." She urged him.
He weighed the danger to them against the need to follow his basic instinct.
"OK, but we go armed."
He studied the direction of the smoke and headed into the forest. There was no path at all yet they found their way easily, due to Chakotay's scouting skills. The smell of burning wood reached them first, along with the first slaughtered villagers. Chakotay checked for life signs, shaking his head. Weapons drawn, they moved forward cautiously. The village was in the midst of a clearing. Small tree huts were set at various angles around a curtail circle, obviously the town square. Various stalls were set up around displaying cloth, food, and what looked like tools. Bodies were strewn everywhere, most of them in obviously killed while trying to flee. The sight of so much death on these gentle people sickened them, but it was the body of one of the murderers that froze them in their step. Some of the villagers had tried to fight back and managed to kill one of them.
"Chakotay its Borg!" B'Elanna gasped.
"I can see that, the question is what the hell are they doing here?"
Chakotay ran the tricorder over it, "It's also like no Borg I have seen before, there is hardly anything biological left to this thing, its almost completely mechanical."
"Commander, I am reading life signs about two hundred yards from here. It looks like they are underground." B'Elanna urged.
They both headed in the direction, cautiously picking their way through the trees. The tricorder like a homing device, signalling that they were almost on top of the life signs. Yet there did not seem to be any tunnel or cave. They searched for a full ten minutes before they stumbled across a small clearing, in the centre was a huge rock. It looked quite normal. Chakotay checked around it and still found no sign that it had been moved, there were no scratches or gorges in the ground as would have been if it had been dragged or pushed.
"I don't get it, there are footprints of what looks to be women and children, leading right up to this rock, but how did they move it? They must be under there."
Placing his face close to the ground at the edge of the rock, he felt the faint breeze of air.
"If you can hear me, we have come to help you. The enemy is gone, you can come out now." He called.
Moments later he felt the ground rumbling and as the rock started to rise he flung himself back. The rock raised up slowly and, when it was at least 1 meter off the ground, he saw that it was being raised by a very elaborate elevator, made up of concertina logs and tubes of wood in a very simple, yet brilliant, lifter. The first people that climbed out of the tunnel were the warriors, twenty in all, with various sharp instruments that were makeshift weapons. Chakotay rose slowly, his hands held out.
"We come in peace." He said softly, hoping B'Elanna would not make any sudden moves.
York came forward from behind them, pale and shaken. They were glad to see he was unharmed.
"Its all right, these are the people we were expecting." He told the others, and they relaxed visibly. A few of them turned and helped an aged man out, who moved forward and touched his hand to his heart in formal greeting.
"I am Lotar, I welcome you to my Village."
A short while later they sat in the clearing while the rest of the villagers returned to their home and started the long sad job of cleaning up and burying their dead. Lotar told them how the Borg had started attacking the villagers about 2 years ago. Up until now they had not been able to find the village, having never gone that deep into the forest, the villagers had felt safe. Yet today they had appeared out of the blue and started attacking and killing for no apparent reason.
"That is very strange, the Borg don't usually kill for no reason, they assimilate. But by the looks of that body, they are not even trying to do that." Chakotay explained that they knew the Borg.
Lotar confirmed that they had never taken their people, they simply killed them, leaving their bodies wherever they fell.
B'Elanna took the tricorder and moved over to where the villagers had dragged the body of the Borg.
"I can't tell much without the proper instruments, but it seems that physically they have evolved into androids. They no longer have the ability to assimilate. I hate to say this but I could sure use 7 of 9 right about now."
"Whatever their reasoning is, they are obviously going to be back. I suggest that we start planning a way to defend this village and its people." Chakotay looked around and groaned to himself. It was going to take a lot of hard work to turn the Village into a fort and a lot of patience to teach the people to defend themselves.
"Lotar, we have faced many such threats from many different species so my people are very good at defending themselves. If you will allow it, we will work with your people and teach them how to protect themselves against this kind of threat."
Lotar studied the dark haired man for a moment.
"You have the eyes of a gentle man, and the heart of a warrior. I can see that you are a man of honour, my people and everything we have are in your hands, we will do whatever you wish."
Chakotay grasped his shoulder, deeply moved by what he had said.
"I thank you. B'Elanna, organise the villagers into work groups. I need the outer perimeter of the village cleared and a trench dug, I want trees cut."
"What have you got in mind?" She asked, though she had an idea.
"I will explain when I get back." He stated and headed into the forest.
"Hey, wait … get back from where?"
She was talking to empty air as he was already gone, melting into the surrounding trees like a ghost in the mist.
The Borg trail was easy to follow. They had not even bothered to cover their tracks and, after a brief stop at the shuttle, he headed out avoiding the village, going the quickest route to where he knew they must have gone. Following the path for about 2 hours, he cautiously kept himself hidden in case they had a few stragglers. One of the few things that he had managed to learn from his father had been to scout. In that he excelled.
The trees were thinning out and he had noticed that for the last few minutes he had been moving steadily up. He passed out of the last line of trees and found himself at the foot of the enormous mountain range. The tracks lead to the left. He was now fairly sure where they were headed, since he had studied the little bit of information their scanners had managed to pick up while the ship was on its way down. Taking a deep breath, he started up the mountain, free climbing. It was hard going but the last weeks of manual labour had conditioned his arms and body. At the academy he had excelled at climbing and found that the old moves soon came back to him. The higher he got, the harder the climb. There were some places where he hung suspended from his fingertips, swinging over 100 meters up over savage rocks. One slip and he was a dead man.
Higher and higher he climbed. In some places going straight up, in others a steep incline. Time lost its meaning, it was just one man against one mountain, one step after the next nothing else mattered. He felt the mountain, its strength, its grandeur, its agelessness and its majesty. He meant to conquer but was, himself, moved. For one short span of time it became a living thing to him with an ancient soul. He did not even know he had reached the top until he pulled himself up over the last ledge and found there were no more. He lay where he had landed, panting, sweating and bleeding from untold number of scratches and grazes his hands, knees, elbows and shins. Yet he felt euphoric.
When his heart rate had slowed and his chest eased he sat up and was at once struck dumb by the pure beauty and grandeur below him. The panorama of deep forest, open savannah, huge lakes and winding rivers unfolded below him in breathtaking wonder. He had stood once on a mountain range in Africa and seen a similar view there, for one brief moment the felt that he was back there. This planet was so like home, if he did not know better he would be certain that he was back on earth, but in another time.
The very best the world had to offer was right here as virgin land, unspoiled by the hand of men. No technology, no space vessels or buildings.
Reason, and his mission, called him back to the present. Using his water supply sparingly, he rinsed off his wounds and headed to the other side of the flat mountaintop he found himself on. He could hardly believe his luck, at this one small place the mountain range was at it's thinnest. It opened up below him to frozen plateau as a glazier seemed to run through the centre, as if a great lake had been suddenly frozen in mid flow through the endless miles of mountains, one after the other, each more uninviting than the last. Taking his binoculars, he studied the land before him. Shock sang through his body. There in the centre were the ugly shattered remains of not one but two Borg Cubes. Scattered for 50 meters around were the parts and pieces of countless bodies and cube parts. He sat and watched as the raiding party returned, the whole area a hive of activity. The raiders emptied sacks of something that looked like bottles on the ground and the others fell onto them in frenzy. He studied what he could see of the rocks.
"Those look like container. Dilitium! That's what they are after" He muttered to himself.
He watched until it became to dark to see then, taking his thermos blanket out of the pack he had picked up at the shuttle, he found a small enclave about 20 meters down the cliff and rested there for the night, waking intermittently through the night. Each time he watched the camp below.
By sunrise the next day he had a clear enough picture of the comings and goings to head back down the mountain. Going down, while not easier, was at least faster than going up. It was late afternoon before he reached the camp.
B'Elanna fought valiantly with her temper, having spent the night waiting anxiously for his return, thoughts of his capture and possible death had finally driven her to the shuttle in agitation. Her relief at seeing him coming towards her unharmed was short as her klingon temper erupted and she flew at him, fists flying.
"You inconsiderate patah!" She hissed as she connected with his chin.
Chakotay reeled backwards and his legs buckled. Stars exploded behind his eyes. Fighting to get onto his feet, if he stayed down there he knew he was a goner she would kick him to death. She came at him with a booted foot and he grasped it yanking the other out from under her, she landed on top of him. With a flip he pinned her under him, using his weight to hold her down.
"Now will you stop and tell me what your so mad about." He murmured, trying not to think about the soft curves that squirmed under him.
"Ha….as if you did not know." She panted, pushing against him.
His groan of agony went unheard.
"You disappear for hours without telling anyone where you are going, or what you will be doing. I was worried about you! Now let me up pig, so that I can slap that tattoo off your face."
She bucked under him but he was too heavy for her to move. All that her struggles had managed to do was move him until he lay cradled between her thighs. As he pressed against her, she suddenly realised what this was doing to him. The evidence of it was pushing hard against her. Lust exploded inside her. It tore through her as charges of pure need electrified her. A raging fire started inside her, burning quickly out of control.
Fear gave her extra strength and she fought harder, twisting and turning, but she knew she was not fighting him as much as she was fighting herself.
Chakotay tried to shake the haze of desire and need that clouded his mind. He held onto her in a purely instinctive response to her and himself. His desire for B'Elanna was something that he had long ago locked away deep down inside him, knowing that if it ever got loose it would very quickly roar out of control. The after shock of such fiercely powerful needs and emotions would leave them both changed in the aftermath. Yet now, as she suddenly stopped struggling and looked up at him, he could see the same needs smouldering in her eyes. His monumental will snapped and instinct drove him. His lips crushed down onto hers. Her taste exploded on his tongue and when she moaned, he delved deeper. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. Quicksilver coursing through his veins, igniting his blood until it boiled with heat. There was no thought, no will, only reaction and an unbearable craving for more. His mind screamed it, his body demanded and his soul feared it.
B'Elanna felt as if she would burst out of her skin. The pressure inside building and swelling, mindlessly she surrendered to it, to him, to them. Passion tore through her, clawing at her with talons of fire. Lifting her hips, she pressed up against him, trying to ease the throbbing need that only he could fulfil.
The taste of her was intoxicating and he suddenly knew that it was something that he would forever crave. His brain shouted a warning, if he did not stop now he never would. Drawing on years of self-control, he fought his way back, inch by painful inch until he drew back, fighting the wrenching demands of his body.
They lay there looking at each other in dazed shock. Neither had any idea what to say or do, breaths coming out in gulping gasps as they fought for control.
To be continued…….
