STILL NOT IN KANSAS

by Soledad

Author's notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc., see Part One.

To tell the truth, this chapter wasn't planned in advance. But Ch. 13 has grown long enough as it is, so I decided to split the material.

Some of the dialogue, as before, is more or less directly taken from the episode "Grey 17 Is Missing". The details about Kes and Janeway's pasts are from the Voyager episodes "Resolutions" and "Coda".

PART FOURTEEN

Brown Sector – Marcus' quarters

"Marcus, are you certain that you want to do this?" Harry Kim asked worriedly. "I don't like the sound of it; interfering with a purely Minbari affair could cause serious diplomatic issues."

"I'm a Ranger; that's a Minbari organization, even though it accepts humans, too. Therefore, I'm involved anyway," Marcus shrugged. "And Delenn is our leader; the One, as we call her. We live for the One – we die for the One. It's that simple."

"Not everyone has sworn to the Prime Directive, Starfleet," B'Elanna pointed out teasingly.

"B'Elanna, I've told you a hundred times: don't call me Starfleet," Harry protested automatically. The joke between the two of them was so old that it practically ran on autopilot. Then he turned back to Marcus. "So, you are really determined to confront this… this Neroon, aren't you? Why do I have the feeling as if you were about to provoke a seven-foot-tall Klingon into beating you to bloody pulp?"

"Because he most likely is," B'Elanna commented cynically. "What are you planning to do anyway? And, above everything else, how?"

"Neroon has probably gone into hiding," Marcus answered thoughtfully. "Lennier, can you probably find him before the ceremony?"

Lennier hesitated for a moment. "It would be difficult. He won't appear again before he is ready to move, but… yes, it can be done."

Marcus grinned. "I knew you must still have contacts to the Minbari community here. Even to the Warrior Caste."

"Of course I do, I'm Delenn's aide; I need to be informed." Lennier hesitated again. "Marcus, you need only to delay Neroon until the ceremony is complete. Once it's done, it cannot be undone."

"Which still could be long enough for him to break every bone in Marcus' body, right?" Harry asked, worried about his new friend. Lennier nodded.

"Unfortunately, yes. Minbari are stronger than humans. Try to avoid confronting Neroon directly," he warned Marcus. "He is one of the best of the Warrior Caste. He is trained to killing your people. He is very good at what he does."

"Does this sound vaguely Klingon to you?" Harry whispered to B'Elanna, earning a sharp elbow into his ribs for his efforts.

"Just tell me when and where," Marcus said to Lennier, "and leave the rest to me."

B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "Yep, definitely Klingon," she replied to Harry. "It seems that every species has the urge to get in touch with their inner Klingon time and again. How utterly glorious and honourable."

The biting sarcasm in her voice surprised both Marcus and Lennier a little. But Harry, who new her personal background, only nodded in understanding.

Green Sector – Delenn's quarters

When (after finishing some overdue paperwork) Captain Sheridan entered Delenn's quarters, he found the three very different women in deep conversation. Delenn waved him to join them and handed him some herbal tea, but her attention was focused on Janeway. It seemed that the captain of Voyager was telling stories from her childhood.

"So, when we were big enough to keep up with them, my parents took us – that is, my sister Phoebe and me – on backpacking trips," she remembered. "They thought we should all keep a connection to our pioneer roots," she added with a snort.

"That was remarkable insight from a Starfleet admiral," Delenn offered mildly. Janeway wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"That might be. But I hated it nevertheless. No bed, no replicators, no bathtubs… I guess I was always a child of the 24th century."

That careless remark put a damper on the conversation for a moment. The fact that the Voyager crew came from a hundred years in the future was almost harder to imagine than the fact that they came from a different universe. Meeting Babylon 4 was one thing – that had been an isolated incident – but sitting across someone who had came from the future and was determined to return there was… well, a little unsettling.

"So, what else were you forced to learn as a child?" Sheridan asked jokingly after a moment of silence.

"Gardening," Janeway replied with a sigh. "I grew up among farmers. My parents were naturalists – a rather popular philosophy on our Earth – and insisted we learn some basic gardening skills."

"Did you hate it as much as the camping trips?" Sheridan grinned. Janeway grinned back.

"Of course. Who wanted to muck around in the dirt when you could be studying quantum mechanics? Fortunately, aboard Voyager the hydroponic gardens are in Kes' very capable hands."

Delenn and Sheridan looked automatically at the fragile, fairy-like girl who had managed to defeat an angry Vorlon.

"Did your parents make you become a gardener, too?" Sheridan asked. Kes shook her head, a wistful smile on her delicate face.

"I do not remember my mother," she said, "but my father was a very wise man. More than anyone, he shaped the person I am; he was the great inspiration of my life. He never forced me to do anything, but he lived his ideals and taught me to live mine. If it hadn't been for him, I would have never questioned my people's beliefs. I would have never left our city to come to the surface. I would have never met Captain Janeway and the rest of the Voyager crew."

She fell silent for a moment, her attention turning inwards, re-evaluating her memories. Sheridan would have loved to ask questions – the idea of a subterranean culture fascinated him – but he didn't dare. Finally, Janeway touched Kes' arm in a motherly manner, bringing her back to the present.

"Then we owe your father a debt," she said gently. "It would difficult to imagine this journey without you." Kes nodded her thanks with a sad little smile.

"When he died, I had just turned one year old," she continued, and Sheridan had to remind himself that this 'girl' was actually a mature woman in her people's terms, at the age of just over four having half of her life beyond her already. "I didn't know how I'd get through the rest of my life without him. But then I started working with Tuvok, and I didn't miss him so much anymore."

"I'm sure that Mr. Tuvok would be honoured by the comparison," said Janeway. Then she smiled and turned to Delenn. "What about you, Ambassador?"

"Yes, Delenn, tell us about your family," Sheridan added. "You've never talked much about your life back home."

"It's difficult to explain to a non-Minbari…" Delenn began, and she was surprised to see identical grins on Kes and Janeway's faces.

"Spoken like a true Vulcan," Janeway commented. "Evasive and private to the bitter end. You should discuss philosophy with Mr. Tuvok when you find the time, Ambassador. I'm sure the results would be… fascinating."

Delenn couldn't understand what her guests found so funny (neither did Sheridan, though he realized that the last remark must have been some insider joke), but politeness demanded that she honour their request.

"After I was born, my mother entered the Sisters of Valeria," she said slowly. "I've seen her only twice since."

Janeway stared at her in shock. "What? That's horrible!"

"No, no," Delenn protested, "it's a great honour to be accepted by the Sisters. I miss her greatly, but… it's her wish."

"And that makes leaving a newborn child behind right?" Janeway asked. "What is it with people and monasteries anyway? B'Elanna's mother wanted to put her into a Klingon monastery… Tuvok spent decades in a Vulcan monastery… and I wouldn't be surprised if even Harry had planned to join a Buddhist monastery at some point of his young life."

"Well, I met the Dalai Lama once," Sheridan offered. It was a remarkable experience." As Janeway kept shaking her head, he turned to Delenn. "And your father?"

"He passed beyond the Veil, ten years ago," Delenn replied with a sorrowful little smile. "They say that making war against your people broke his heart."

"My father died over fifteen years ago," Janeway said quietly. "Drowned under the polar icecap on Tau Ceti Prime. It hit me so hard that I fell into depression. Spent months in bed, sleeping away my days rather than confronting my feelings. I'm not sure what would have happened if my sister hadn't forced me into the real world again. Granted, her methods were less than pleasant, but she was right. Grief is a barren thing. We should remember the lives of our loved ones… the good moments that we shared."

"I remember, when I was a child, my father would take me with him to the Temple," Delenn said with a smile full of fond memories. "He would carry me on his shoulders, so that I could see everything."

"How old were you?" Janeway asked.

"I just finished my first cycle when he took me with him for the first time," Delenn calculated for a moment. "That would make a year and a half in Earth terms. "He kept doing so for the next four cycles, and I was excited to go with him, every time. But one day, when I came outside to him to go to the Temple, as usual, he said, 'I am sorry, Delenn, but you are too big for me now to carry you.' I realized then that my father would never carry me again in his arms. I felt such loss…" she swallowed hard, unable to continue. The others waited patiently.

"And I knew, for the first time, that one day I would lose him. Then I looked in his eyes, and I saw that he was thinking the same thing. I don't think that I ever loved him more than in that moment," she swallowed again, almost audibly, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Kes reached out with a small hand and touched Delenn's gently, transferring comforting thoughts without words. Delenn looked at her, signalling her thanks with a slight nod.

In that moment, Sheridan would have given an arm to be in Kes' place.

Red Sector – Fresh Air Restaurant

Neroon followed the attaché of the Centauri ambassador and the blonde woman from Voyager to the hollow interior of Babylon 5's rotating section – the area called the Garden. The main purpose of the Garden was, of course, to provide food and oxygen and water reclamation for the station, as they couldn't be dependant on imported food. A small percentage of the 12 square miles of vegetation, however, was used for recreation.

Wrapped around the southern end of the Garden was Red Sector, the interior of which was lined with marketplaces, business areas – the Zocalo being the main one among them. But there were also hotel suites, casinos, bars, brothels, hundreds of shops, stands, bars, restaurants, and clubs.

The Garden itself offered various amenities to station inhabitants, among others a hedge maze, a Zen garden, sports fields, a recreation lake, a pavilion, and the high class Fresh Air Restaurant – the same one Vir and his companions were aiming. Starting from the Zocalo, where they had happened to run into each other (and rather literally, at that), they crossed leisurely the business area and reached the Garden's end. Usually, they should have booked a table in the Fresh Air Restaurant, but business had been low nowadays; and besides, diplomatic personnel had always been favoured to common customers.

Neroon was glad he had thought to take his credit chit with him when he had left his hideout. Not wearing his Warrior Caste uniform, he could easily blend in with the small crowd filling the expensive place, and he was even lucky enough to find an empty table within earshot to the one that Vir and his guest occupied. Meaning Minbari earshot, of course; a human would most likely not have heard a word of their quiet conversation.

Vir ordered Treel, a Centauri fish that Neroon knew and found tasty himself. The traditional preparation, using the most exotic spices, usually made humans cough and drink huge gulps of water to soothe the burning in their throat, but the blonde woman, whose name was apparently "Sam" (a fact that Neroon found confusing, as he had thought that was a male name among humans) didn't show any sign of trouble.

"I'm used to spicy food," she explained, smiling. "Mr. Neelix, our chef, has an exaggerated fondness for spices. Besides, my husband used them rather graciously, too, when he was cooking."

"Forgive my curiosity, but you speak of your husband in past tense," Vir said hesitatingly. "Are you no more together?"

Sam shook her head, a little sadly. "No, he is at Deep Space Nine, a space station back… back where we have come from. He doesn't even know what happened to us. We were only supposed to be out two or three weeks. Not four years… or who knows how much longer yet."

"You left your husband behind but took your child with you?" Vir tried to see clear in the matter. The blonde woman laughed.

"No, Naomi was born aboard Voyager, during the first year of our journey."

"She is only three?" Vir looked at the little girl in amazement. "She looks a lot older."

"That's a result of her mixed heritage," Sam Wildman smiled. "My husband is K'tarian. They are a robust species and grow up much faster than humans do. Naomi has inherited that trait from her father."

"Oh," Vir nodded in understanding, "so there is where those spikes on her forehead come from. I assume her birth was a great event in the life of your crew."

"Of course," Sam nodded. "She was the first, and to date only child born aboard. Strangely enough, for some reason I was so certain that it would be a boy. I even considered naming 'him' after my husband. It's been a tradition in his family for over five generations."

"I'm sure he'd have been very pleased," Vir replied politely. Tradition was something a Centauri understood very well.

"But the child probably wouldn't," Sam laughed. "My husband's name is Greskrendrek – not necessarily one a half-human child would like to wear."

At the nearby table, his face still shrouded by the wide hood of his robe, Neroon glared at them in utter disgust. Interbreeding! Hybrids! These humans were like vermin – swarming over all places, diluting the purity of their own race as well as that of other races, creating unnatural offspring…

The thought that they were now infesting Minbar as well was intolerable. It was bad enough that Delenn chose to deform herself in such unnatural way, becoming neither human nor Minbari but some freak in-between, but allowing the human presence to spread over Minbar like a plague was out of the question. A line had to be drawn here, and Neroon was determined to be the one who did the drawing.

He rose abruptly and left the restaurant with long strides, barely restraining his seething anger. He didn't notice the wide-eyed shock on the face of the red-haired human telepath sitting at a small table in the corner with a dark-skinned, pointy-eared alien, wearing the golden Voyager uniform.

Grey Sector – the unnumbered level

Against any hope, Ayala actually managed to stalk after Garibaldi's kidnapper unnoticed, following them into what seemed like a huge, abandoned industrial storeroom. The experienced eye of the ex-Maquis, however, realised that it was much, much more than that – it was the headquarters of whatever group of people lived in this hidden sector. Which was exactly the reason why they hadn't detected him so far. They didn't expect intruders here.

The seemingly random placing of metal containers and other pieces of equipment had a certain pattern that Ayala was all too familiar with. Whoever these people might have been, they clearly indulged themselves in guerrilla warfare – and since they were apparently human, their enemy must have been Babylon 5 itself, its commander, its security forces, and in the end, all people who lived on it.

Ayala remembered the station's recent history, described him in Garibaldi's unique storytelling style: the planned takeover by some elite EarthGov organization called the Nightwatch; the assassination of Ambassador Delenn, the open attack of EarthForce against their own station, the earlier attempts from other organizations like Home Guard and the likes…. Yep, Tuvok's second had a pretty good idea who these people could be. And considering the fact that they were wearing some sort of combat gear openly – and that they did not post guards around this particular room – showed that they felt safe… an arrogance almost worthy the Cardassians.

Well, the spoonheads had had to learn the hard way that overconfidence came right before the fall. With a grim expression on his usually stoic face, Gregor Ayala decided to try sneaking closer to hear them. He needed more information. Back in full Maquis mode again, an observer would have been amazed by the light-footed ease with which his massive form moved, like a ghost, among the huge chunks of debris covering the floor.

Nearer he crept, sliding from container to container, using them for cover. He could see – and hear – them without difficulty now. At first sight he counted six of them, all wearing the same dark coveralls and thick vests, with extra pockets for the reserve energy packs for their PPGs. Heavily armed, all of them; aside from the PPGs, they also had long knives in their combat boots.

The chief honcho – a tall, discretely greying guy with a surprisingly cultivated face – looked down at the unconscious form of Garibaldi, thrown practically at his feet, and shook his head in mock sympathy.

"Well, well, Chief," he said in the educated manner of a born propagandist, "have I not warned you that you would end up badly if you follow that treacherous path of yours? But you wouldn't listen. What a shame; it seems that I have been right, after all."

"We should have shot him, long ago," a young, black-haired man with a dimpled chin commented darkly.

"You tried that two years ago, Jack, when you used to be his right hand," the leader pointed out. "And to what end? Not only had he survived, he also managed to identify you. If not for the Home Guard's intervention, you would be rotting in prison now – or would have been spaced so fast as if you had been born in vacuum, to borrow the Chief's favourite speech."

"Besides, we need him alive," a smooth voice added, and to Ayala's utter shock, another man, this one sandy-haired and rather young, even handsome in that deceivingly harmless manner of his, stepped forth out of nowhere. "We need him at home, court-martialed and properly sentenced, to satisfy people's demand for justice."

"Damn right," the greying leader nodded. "So, lock him away in the back room and let's discuss our next step. We need to move; time is running out. If the Chief could find us, maybe other people would be able to do so, too. We can't take that kind of risk."

Four other men, wearing he same strange gear as the newcomer, stepped forth, seemingly out of thin air and dragged Garibaldi away. Ayala crouched low behind his containers, the rightness of Chakotay's mantra, often repeated and much too infrequently followed, hitting him like a brick wall, Never underestimate your enemy! The realization how easily those men with personal cloaking fields could have spotted him and shot him on the spot sent waves of cold fear throughout his body.

Obviously, he wasn't the only one without a fondness for those things. The young man named Jack shuddered as he looked after the four carrying Garibaldi away.

"I can't get used to these black light camouflage gears. They are… creepy. Besides, they only can be used when the wearer doesn't move and is in the dark or in the shadow."

"They are useful nevertheless," the newcomer corrected coldly. "It took EarthForce R&D years to reverse-engineer the changeling net in order to create these suits. And it cost a lot of money. Losing the prototypes two years ago was… unfortunate and caused a setback for the research. It's a good thing that Mr. Armstrong managed to get them out of the security locker just in time."

The greying leader – although Ayala began to wonder if he really was the leader of the whole operation or only that of the fighting troops – inclined his head. "Always glad to be of service, Mr. Biggs. Besides, these suits helped us to smuggle a great lot of our people back to the station. Now; do you have new orders for us?"

"They aren't exactly new," the man named Biggs, apparently some sort of link to EarthGov, shrugged. "The orders are still the same as they were when your people messed up the whole action. Our primary targets are still the Minbari… or Ambassador Delenn, to be more accurate. We need those Minbari cruisers off the station, so that our forces can move in and take over."

"We could hit her during that ridiculous inauguration ceremony that they are planning," Armstrong suggested. But Biggs shook his head.

"The Minbari might solve the problem for us themselves. Delenn has quite an opposition back home, mostly among the Warrior Caste. Her… transformation and the following actions haven't been widely accepted, and Mr. Stone did a nice job keeping the tempers boiling. Amazing, what a single empath can do with these dumb aliens, when he is motivated."

"Was he motivated, then?" Armstrong asked quietly, his voice cold. Biggs shrugged.

"Last time I heard, he was still alive. Isn't that motivation enough? One has to keep these PSI-freaks on a short lash, or else they'll start plotting their own little plans… which they are not supposed to do. They are useful tools, as long as they know their place – but expendable, if they do not."

Ayala's heart had grown ice cold while listening to this conversation. He realised that they had stumbled into a conspiracy that was a number or two too big for two simple security officers. He needed reinforcements. But to ask for an emergency beam-out, even though it only needed a touch on his comm badge and no speak at all, he had to neutralize the scattering field around this sector. Otherwise, his chances were virtually nonexistent. This was not the usual lonely fight against impossible odds anymore.

Voyager – Deck 3

Chakotay returned to his quarters in a rather depressed mood. He didn't understand what he had done wrong that had made Lillian so mad at him. He had really wanted to go slowly and explore the possibilities that this relationship could offer to them. Apparently, Lillian had had other expectations.

He shook his head, deciding that a spirit walk would be in order. After all, his animal guide was a female, too. Maybe she could enlighten him about the motivations and needs of a woman. The Spirits knew that he needed some guidance in this matter.

But barely had he got out his medicine bundle, he hadn't even time to sit down on the floor as was his wont, when his doorbell rang. Wonderful. As usual, some crisis seemed to have chosen this most inappropriate time to emerge. Well, that couldn't be helped. Chakotay put the medicine bundle back to its place and called out, "Come in!"

To his honest surprise – as he thought them to still be over on Babylon 5, visiting their new friend, the Ranger – in stormed B'Elanna and Harry, in a highly agitated state of mind.

"Chakotay, we have a problem," as usual, B'Elanna cut right to the core of things, without wasting her time with small talk or preamble.

"Actually, we have two," Harry added. Chakotay sighed.

"And you are absolutely sure that Ayala can't handle these problems of yours? He should have been returned from the station an hour ago or so."

"Quite sure," Harry replied with a nervous laughter. "You see, one of the problems is that Ayala disappeared."

TBC