THE LOST VOYAGES
The "Star Trek – Voyager" that could have been
by Soledad
CARETAKER
Alternate pilot episode
Disclaimer: All Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry and Viacom or whoever owns the rights at this moment. I don't make any profit out of this – I wish I would, but I don't, so suing me would be pointless.
Rating: PG-13, for some rather disturbing images.
Author's note: Writing this chapter was arduous work. I wanted to stay as true to canon as possible, while portraying the Kazon as a real people, unlike the caricatures they were in the series. Also, I never found Neelix' actions quite so harmless as they were handled in the series. Stealing water in a desert is a serious crime that can have dire consequences, for both the thief and the victims.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: TRICKEDThe away team was chosen quickly. Janeway took Tuvok and two of his security people with her – and Paris, in case Kim and the Maquis engineer needed medical help. Chakotay only took Ayala, leaving Seska in charge of the Crazy Horse once again.
They beamed down about a hundred meters from where – according to Neelix' description – the encampment had to be. It was like beaming directly into a furnace. There was nothing but sand as far as they could see. With the sustained drought, the very surface of the ground had been shrunken and cracked open in irregular intervals, creating an intricate pattern of hard-baked patches of soil and deep fissures that seemed to breathe even more heat. The visitors had to watch their steps or they would have been caught in one of those cracks.
They were standing in the dried-out bed of an ancient river. Miles away to left and to the right, the banks clearly indicated a vast floodplain. Maybe there had been open fields once, Chakotay thought sadly. His experienced eye, schooled on countless archeological digs during his Academy years, registered the broken structures beyond those ancient plains. They had the height and regularity of artificial structures, revealing clearly to anyone who could read the signs that once there had been cities. Spacious cities, inhabited by people with plans and great hopes, with a civilization and a culture that had apparently long returned to the dust from which it had once arisen.
The sight reminded Chakotay a little of the Egyptian desert, the sand swallowing the faded greatness of that ancient culture and to what it had turned for centuries after its fall. It was not until the last two hundred years that the restoration of all that which had remained of Ancient Egypt had begun, and Chakotay recalled clearly the documentary reports of the poverty and misery in which the descendants of this once great empire had lived for so long.
The rude tent camp in the middle of the hard-baked riverbed was not all that different from those old reports. The people around the tents were lean and wiry, with sun-darkened skin and thick, unruly, originally dark hair that had been bleached to the colour of dried clay by the merciless sun and patched together, probably with some sort of grease or clay itself, to a bizarre hairdo that looked like frozen flames but apparently provided a natural, protective helmet against the murderous rays of the unveiled sun. They wore several layers of rough, sand-blasted clothes to protect themselves as well as they could; their sunken faces and burning eyes told of a hard life full of struggle, hatred and deprivation. Most of them had disruptor-like weapons slung across their backs.
Beyond their camp a row of space-capable ships was waiting to be boarded. Obviously, these people were used to surviving in very harsh conditions, and – according to the number of the wounded among them – they were used to fighting as well.
Tom Paris, whose tastes were honed by his upper-class background, looked around in mild disgust. Despite all that he had gone through since the Admiral had disowned him he still couldn't completely suppress his instinctive reactions to dirt and poverty.
"Why would anyone want to live in a place like this?" he asked, mostly of himself. The deep thrumming that he could feel through his feet – most likely a result of the energy pulses sent from the Array – made him almost as jumpy as the sight of the savage natives. He could actually see the pulses, like quick flashes of light, flying high over his head and hitting the planet surface somewhere beyond them.
Neelix, however, had apparently never heard of rhetorical questions before.
"The rich cormaline deposits are very much in demand," he told Paris.
"The Ocampa use it for barter?" Chakotay asked with a frown. How could they be dependant on the alien on the Array if they had such excellent resources?
"Not the Ocampa!" Neelix looked at him as an unnerved pre-school teacher would look at a particularly stupid child. "The Kazon-Ogla."
"The Kazon-Ogla?" Janeway repeated in frustration. These new species popping up every five minutes made her head spin. "Who are the Kazon-Ogla?"
Neelix shrugged and waved impatiently toward the camp in the dry riverbed. "They are." With that, he started forward already, without waiting for them to follow. "The various Kazon sects control different part of this sector. Some have food. Some have ore. Some have water. They all trade and they all try to kill each other for it."
"Sound like a lovely people," Tom Paris commented sarcastically, loud enough only for Ayala – who stood next to him – to hear. The big Maquis nodded grimly.
"And they seem to multiply at will," he added, pointing with his chin at the increasing number of Kazon who were spilling out of the tents like ants. "Chak, watch out, they are heavily armed."
"I see it," Chakotay replied through clenched teeth, moving already to follow on Neelix' heels with the Fleet security people. Janeway strode alongside them with long strides.
"I thought you said the Ocampa had our people," she said in obvious irritation, addressing her words to Neelix' back.
Alarm bells started ringing in Tom's head, as he watched the little alien scurry forward to greet the oncoming crowd of growling Kazon.
"My friends! It's good to see you again!" Neelix enthused. He sounded almost convincing.
"Greg," Tom muttered, "I don't like it. That little toad is going to betray us."
The words had barely left his mouth when he regretted them. He was considered a traitor, by both sides – bringing up the topic was not a wise thing to do. To his surprise, however, Ayala simply nodded again.
"I hear ya, Paris. He's using us for something…"
They had spoken in a low voice, but Chakotay heard them nevertheless. A quick look at the Vulcan's stoic face revealed that Tuvok had his suspicions, too. However guarded a Vulcan face might be, fighting together had taught Chakotay to read the subtle – very subtle – changes in those collected features and was now reasonably sure that Tuvok not only mistrusted the little alien but didn't like him a bit, either.
A sentiment that the Kazon obviously shared. When they recognized Neelix, they surged around him with an angry roar, grabbing him by his lapels, shaking him like a rag doll and dragging him towards their crude encampment. Other Kazon encircled the whole landing party within seconds, and Chakotay could see the panic of being trapped clearly written on Paris' face. The ex-pilot's hand was creeping to his phaser, and for a moment Chakotay was seriously worried that he would start shooting wildly, due to his frayed nerves. But Ayala, may the Spirits bless him, grabbed the pilot's hand and said something in a low voice that seemed to calm Paris down. Chakotay left out a breath he wasn't aware he had holding. Greg had always known how to handle Paris.
In the meantime the universal translator had finally kicked in, and now they could understand some of the quarrel the natives might have had with Neelix. Loose words like "water", "thief" and "cheat" could be made out of the harsh, guttural gibberish that seemed to be their language, giving the landing party a fairly good idea what might have happened.
"Wait! Wait!" Neelix squealed in a futile attempt of producing a friendly laughter, while still being dragged into the outskirts of the tent-town. "Yes, it's always wonderful to be back with you, but I must speak with your Maje, the ever-wise Jabin! I... "
Chakotay shook his head in disbelief. Did the little toad really think that flattery would help him, after having stolen from a people who lived in poverty? Neelix could be happy if they didn't tear him to pieces – or did he count on Voyager beaming them out in case of a true emergency? That was not entirely out of question. The little creature learned quickly; and ethical considerations didn't seem to hinder him in defending his own interests.
One of the Kazon – a whipcord-tough warrior with burning obsidian eyes, and a female, Chakotay realized at the second look – threw Neelix to the ground at the base of a crumbling wall, gave him a vicious kick that must have broken several of his ribs and continued yelling at him. The translator could only pick up the words "little ones" and "die", but that was more than enough. Children, even Kazon children, could not bear thirst in the same measure an adult could. Stealing water from their mouths was a death warrant.
Neelix had the presence of mind not to defend himself physically – he wouldn't stand a chance against the enraged female anyway. "Very amusing," he coughed scrambling on his hands and knees, and for a moment Chakotay felt the serious urge to kick him as well, if only for this answer. "Very amusing… I enjoy a joke as much as the next man…" Then, all of a sudden, he broke into a wide and obviously fake smile, exclaiming in false delight, "Jabin! My old friend!"
Following the hopeful look at his pig-like eyes, both the members of the landing party and the Kazon turned to the approaching sect leader. Even the black-eyed female stopped ranting and restrained herself to a few more kicks into Neelix' already abused ribs.
The tall, big-headed man who was making his way through the hurriedly parting crowd was more heavily-muscled than the rest of his people, but that seemed to be a result of genetics, as there was not a gram of fat on his bones, just heavy muscles and thick skin that had become leathery under the constant onslaught of the sand and the sun. He was clad like anyone else, his rank symbolized by a leather sash across his broad chest only and a goatee none of the others wore. His dark eyes, narrowed to mere slits under the bushy brows and heavy, swollen lids, glared at Neelix with open hatred and disgust.
Raising a large hand, he snapped an order to his people, and about a dozen Kazon warriors encircled Neelix at once, pointing at him with their disruptor-like rifles. Apparently, Maje Jabin was not in talkative mode, and if Neelix wanted to survive, he had to be quick.
"Water!" he blurted out in a hurried, pig-like squeal. "Water, Jabin. I have water to replace all that I borrowed."
Borrowed, Chakotay thought with a snort, seeing his own disgust reflected in Janeway's eyes. What a harmless word for stealing life-saving water from the mouths of children! But again, who was he to judge Neelix? Could he say for sure that he would never do anything like that? He could hope for it, but despair could drive a person to horrible deeds, and he knew that.
Neelix' statement, however, stopped the Kazon from killing him – for the moment anyway. Eager to make the best of his barely earned chance, the little alien pointed a shaking finger at Janeway. "Their ship has technology that makes water out of thin air!"
Chakotay saw Paris wince and understood that the pilot's survival instincts, won for a high price in prison, no doubt, had just kicked in – understandably enough. His own alarm claxons were howling at top volume, too. Neelix had just made negotiations a lot harder with that thoughtless statement. Without the transporters they'd have no chance to escape these natives, desperate as they were for water.
Chakotay's eyes met Jabin's, and behind the Maje's savage looks the Maquis leader discovered a shrewd intellect, realizing that the other had not become the head of his sect – whatever that meant – through brute strength alone. To keep his people alive at all, Jabin certainly needed to be ruthless, sly and damn fast-thinking, too.
Paris seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because he unhooked the canteen from his belt without being told and tossed it to Jabin. They had to prove their worth if they wanted to get Kim and Torres back. Fortunately, with Voyager keeping a constant transporter lock on them, they also could escape at any moment, but there was no way for Jabin to know that.
And the Maje impressed Chakotay once again. Instead of drinking his fill, he barely touched the canteen long enough to wet his lips before handing it to one of the women, who ran with it to the wounded. And even those didn't take but a small mouthful from the precious gift; only so much that swallowing would become a little easier. Discipline must have been established by an iron fist in the sect.
But even so, the small canteen of water was not enough, not even for the wounded. Jabin, watching the desperate hope on his people's face, turned to Janeway, his eyes narrowing again. "You have more?"
Janeway hesitated for a moment, not quite sure if she should lay all her cards on the table at once. But another look at those chapped lips and burning eyes, the obvious suffering of these people and Neelix' apparent part in worsening their conditions finally persuaded her to respond. She tapped her comm badge.
"Janeway to Voyager. Energize."
The tall, cylindrical containers shimmered into existence, back where the landing party had first set down – seemingly out of thin air as though magic. With surprise, Chakotay realized that the cool freshness of water could actually be smelled on the parched air, despite its being sealed in the containers.
If he could smell it, of course, the Kazon could even more so. Their discipline crumbled in moments, and they surrounded the shimmering water tanks with small, strangled cries of hope and despair, forgetting everything else but the possible end of their suffering. Jabin alone held his ground, mistrust growing on his dark, cracked face instead of decreasing, as Janeway offered with a nonchalant gesture.
"There's more where that came from, if you can help us."
Paris winced again, seeing the cold glint of hatred in the Maje's narrow eyes. Janeway's gesture – the offer of even more water – doubtlessly undermined the authority of the sect leader, who was most likely seen not as the chief honcho only but also as the provider of water. The universal translator chose the Standard word "sect" to describe the sort of coexistence these people led, and since the translator was programmed to use context, the Maje's title must have had at least a semi-religious meaning.
Tom shot a quick look at Chakotay and saw that the big Indian was alert, too. Small wonder – the existence of the always hunted Maquis did have certain similarities with the life in prison… or with the life these natives obviously led. Questioning the authority of a leader was generally a bad idea, and it often ended badly.
"How can we help someone so powerful they can create water out of thin air?" Jabin asked with mock respect, but his eyes remained deadly cold.
Chakotay shook his head. Neelix' stupid lie had brought their negotiations to a dead end before they could actually start. There was no way to explain to the Kazon the ways of energy being converted into matter, even if there were no Prime Directive that forbade the sharing of technology with technically less developed cultures. They would never believe them, seeing only that the visitors refused to share their water sources.
Janeway, however, was not willing to give up just yet.
"This man," she said, pointing at the nervously cringing Neelix, "led us here suggesting we might find a people called the Ocampa. Do you know where they are?"
"Ocampa?" Jabin repeated with a distasteful grunt and spat to the ground – symbolically only, Chakotay realized, as no one in this desert hell would waste precious body fluids in this manner. "She is Ocampa," the Maje added, jabbing a finger towards one of the battered tents that apparently served as their excuse of an infirmary. Amidst a small group of young, injured Kazon, a pale, fragile figure stood – if to tend to the wounded or to be guarded by them, it was hard to tell.
At first sight Tom Paris was absurdly reminded of his early childhood, as the sprite-like girl looked exactly like the Flower Fairy from the fairy tales his Nanny used to tell him. She was small and delicate, with a porcelain skin that had been coloured on her face and arms by angry welts; with short-cropped, pale golden hair that gently floated in the dry air, despite being dirty; with large, incredibly blue eyes and pointed elfin ears. The only things missing were the butterfly wings.
Seeing the unmistakable proof of physical abuse made Tom angrier than he had been for years. Prison had taught him that innocents getting hurt was the general rule in certain places, not the exception, and that the wisest course of action was to mind his own business, unless he wanted to get between the wheels as well. After two foolish attempts to protect others, he had learned his lessons well. And still, the urge to throttle the first Kazon he could lay a hand on was surprisingly strong.
Jabin, not realizing the reactions he awakened in the visitors, added with a derisive snarl, "Why would you be interested in such worthless creatures? They live only nine years. And they make poor servants. We caught this one when she wandered to the surface."
"To the surface?" Janeway gave the little sprite an interested look. The girl looked back at her with frank curiosity but almost no fear at all. "You mean they live underground?"
The answer to that was so obvious – actually, it had been before they had beamed down to the planet in the first place – that Chakotay had a hard time withstanding the urge to roll his eyes. Nevertheless, he decided to let Janeway call the shots for now. With the Crazy Horse's transporter and replicators broken, he had nothing to bargain with himself.
Jabin seemed irritated by the apparent stupidity of these off-worlders. "The entity in space," he explained impatiently, jerking his head towards the white fire scarring the sky as the Array's pulses burned past, "the entity that gives them food and power also gives them sole access to the only water on this world." He scowled, hatred and jealousy darkening his face even more. "Two miles below the surface."
That was an interesting piece of information. And it seemed that the elusive alien was anything but popular in this area of space. That opened new possibilities.
"This same entity has abducted two of our people," Janeway said. That caught Jabin's interest, but his only reaction was a slight tilt of his head. "We believe they might be with the Ocampa."
Jabin shrugged. "There's no way to get to them. We've tried."
Oh, I can imagine you have, Chakotay thought grimly. Controlling the planet's only water resources would have put Jabin in a unique position. How come the Kazon couldn't take them over yet? If the girl was any indication, the Ocampa couldn't have put up much of a fight.
"The entity has established some kind of subterranean barrier we cannot penetrate," Jabin added, as if reading his thoughts.
"But she got out," Chakotay gestured at the girl who had, mostly unnoticed, crept up to the landing party during their discussion and was now standing in a line with Tuvok – and Neelix, who had, almost instinctively, sought the company of the Vulcan.
The Maje shot an angry glare at the girl. "Occasionally, some of them do find their way to the surface. We don't know how. But the Ocampa always seal the tunnels afterwards."
Neelix, surprisingly enough, seemed to find his courage again. Perhaps the presence of the Vulcan and the armed security detail played a role in it. Whatever the reason might be, he actually gave the silent girl a brilliant smile and dared to open his mouth again.
"M-m-maybe she can help these good people find a way down."
Jabin looked at him as he would at some poisonous beetle. "You'd be wasting your time, he told Janeway. "I've used every method of persuasion I know to get her to help us." Indeed, the bruises on the girl's face spoke clearly enough of that. "She won't."
Neelix' smile, now aimed at the Kazon leader, acquired a certain… slimy quality. "Then she's worthless to you. Let us trade you water for the scrawny little thing."
He tried to look as if he weren't desperately eager to get the girl away from the Kazon, but he was not good enough, Paris decided, remembering the nonchalant attitude the Ferengi, Quark, displayed every time he wanted to sell something. Neelix' voice sounded – false, much too uninterested to be believed, and his eyes had a hungry look that Tom knew all too well. He was sure that the little alien had met the girl before – he was just not certain what might have been between them.
Unfortunately for Neelix, Jabin was no fool either. His only answer was a dark and dirty smile before he turned to Janeway again.
"I'd be more interested in acquiring this technology that allows you to create water from thin air."
Of course. Why trade for water itself when you can grab the technology that makes water, Chakotay thought. That would put him in the highest position among Kazon leaders – and probably lead to a brutal civil war among the sects.
He was reasonably certain that the very same thoughts shot through Janeway's mind as well. It was a Prime Directive affair if there ever had been one, and Janeway was renowned for her high regard for rules and regulations. Nevertheless, in this particular case even Chakotay agreed with the rules. They could not cause a sector-wide war due to Federation technology. Not even out of compassion for these people who suffered for the lack of something as common and simple as water. He was curious, though, how Janeway would solve the case.
To her credit, she found the simplest way to refuse – an answer that wasn't even a lie.
"That would be difficult," she said, shaking her head. "It's integrated into our ship's systems."
Which was the truth, actually, and when Jabin turned to him for confirmation (apparently, the Kazon were not used to female leadership), Chakotay nodded. He was not going to discuss the topic of portable replicators with the Maje.
Jabin turned to his people who were about to divide the water from the first container among them with great efficiency. Discipline had been re-established in the meantime, and the whole process went on in silence, except for the occasional snarl when some of the young ones, who suffered from the thirst most, tried to press forward. An elderly male with a vicious-looking whip oversaw the whole thing, his demeanour making clear that he wouldn't hesitate to deal out quick and merciless punishment if necessary.
The Maje barked a few orders and the Kazon guards, now refreshed and their strength recovered, encircled the landing party again. Jabin backed off a little, out of the visitor's earshot and waved some of the older males to him – most likely his advisors. They held an impromptu council in low, hoarse voices, and Chakotay began to wonder about the ways a Kazon sect might be led. Jabin was obviously their warlord and thus the highest authority – but could it be that the group of elders had some influence when it came to certain decisions?
Without warning, he felt something touching his mind and saw that the others – Janeway, Paris, Tuvok, even Ayala – turned to the girl in wonder. She looked at them intently, her face unmoved like that of a perfect porcelain doll's, but Chakotay could hear in his mind clearly what must have been her thoughts. Do not trust them. They will never let me go.
As if an answer to her warning, the Kazon council broke up, and Maje Jabin looked at them with dark satisfaction. "We have decided to keep the Ocampa female," he announced, confirming Chakotay's suspicion that he had not the right to decide about it alone. "And all of you," the sect leader added, waving his armed guards closer. They aimed their rifles directly at Janeway.
Janeway sighed and crossed her arms. They could have beamed out any second, of course. That was not the point. The point was to negotiate for some undisturbed time on the surface, so that they could search for their people. And even that chance seemed to dwindle in front of their eyes. It was frustrating.
Nobody expected Neelix to take action, but he did, all of a sudden. He launched himself from Tuvok's side with an ear-splitting scream, "Tell them to drop their weapons!"
He jumped at Jabin like a madman, grabbed the Kazon's tunic and shoved a small, hand-held weapon he obviously had been hiding under his own clothes all the time under the Maje's chin.
"Drop them, my friends," Neelix said in a falsely friendly voice when none of the Kazon seemed willing to obey. "Or he dies in an instant."
To Jabin's credit, he didn't even flinch. "You fool," he said, aiming his words at Neelix. "You pathetic little fool. Do you really think that my life would be more important than the water we could gain? Go on, kill me! You'll be dead before you touch that trigger a second time – and so will be your little Ocampa tramp and your wonderful new allies. They might have the better weapons, but we have the numbers – and we are willing to fight."
"He means it, Chak," Ayala murmured, unable to conceal a certain amount of admiration for the sect leader. "And his people won't back off just to save his life. He is expendable. Water is not."
"Then we need a little distraction, it seems," Janeway said, having overheard Ayala's remark. "Tuvok. Aim at the containers and fire!"
For one meaningful moment, the Vulcan hesitated, and Chakotay could understand him well. On Tuvok's own home planet water was almost as precious as here. Wasting it for strategic purposes was a sacrilege. But Tuvok was also a Starfleet officer, trained to carry out orders, even if he didn't agree with them. He nodded to his men, and in the next moment three needle-thin phaser beams penetrated the containers.
Chakotay felt a stab of guilt and regret, seeing the precious liquid being swallowed hungrily by the dry, infertile sand. The Kazon cried out in distress, trying desperately to save as much of the wasted water in their little, hand-held canteens as they could. Even Jabin forgot everything else and followed his people to help with the hopeless task.
Neelix stepped aside with a smug grin and looked at Janeway. "I strongly suggest you get us out of here."
Chakotay could hear Janeway calling Voyager for an emergency beam-out, but not even as the familiar tingle of the transporter beam engulfed him could he turn his eyes from those poor creatures, running around like ants, trying to save something so elusive as spilled water.
And before he was turned into a sparkling whirl of atoms, he could clearly hear the low, shocked voice of Tom Paris as the ex-pilot murmured to himself, "This is wrong."
They rematerialized in Voyager's transporter room, and Chakotay felt another stab of guilt, breathing in the clean, fresh air. There were so many things even the Maquis held for granted. He didn't know what he should – what he could – do for those people down on the planet, but Tom Paris was right. Destroying life-saving water in a desert, no matter for what reason, was wrong.
Not that Chakotay wouldn't do the same, should there be no other choice. He knew all too well that doing morally questionable things was something a leader sometimes simply couldn't avoid. He had done things he knew were wrong many times. He always felt awful afterwards, but he knew he would do so again. His first duty was to his people – nothing would change that.
But he also knew he would never forget the despair on those dark, wasted faces as the Kazon saw all their hopes vanish in the sand. And looking at the faces of Ayala, Paris, Tuvok or even Janeway, he knew he wouldn't be the only one.
Neelix, however, didn't seem particularly guilty. He only had eyes for the fragile girl who stood silently in the middle of half a dozen strangers.
"My dearest," Neelix exclaimed, gazing at the girl in naked admiration. "Didn't I promise to save you from those brutes? Now we can stay together all our life!"
The girl gave no answer. In fact, she didn't seem very excited about the prospect of spending her life in Neelix' company, even if said life only lasted nine years. Chakotay watched the scene with vague disgust. He was glad they got the girl out of the Kazon camp where she had obviously been mistreated and abused. But that didn't change the fact that Neelix cheated them all. He never intended to help find their people at all. He just wanted to get to the girl.
Janeway took a deep breath to calm herself. Chakotay couldn't blame her. After all, not only had they found no trace of their missing crewmembers but they had also managed to make an enemy out of the strongest group of the local population. And all that because Neelix repaid their hospitality with lies.
"Well, Mr. Neelix," Janeway said, displaying impressive self-restraint, "it seems that you owe us an explanation. I hope for your sake that it's a good one."
Neelix cringed from the unmistakable threat in her suddenly very cold voice. The girl, on the other hand, didn't seem frightened – just sad. She gently but decidedly withdrew her hand from Neelix' and stepped away from him a little, as if expressing her own integrity while still not denying him her support. It was an impressive display of complex emotions.
"But," Janeway added, "first we need Nurse T'Prena to check on our… guest's condition. Mr. Paris, please escort her to sickbay. She'll be assigned temporary quarters and given a little time to rest and recover. We'll all meet again in the conference room at 19.00 hours – if that's all right with you," she looked at Chakotay.
The Maquis leader nodded. This arrangement gave him almost three hours to debrief his own crew, check on the repairs of his ship and have a short rest himself. He took Ayala and beamed back to the Crazy Horse immediately.
"So," Janeway said, "let us have a short rest as well. I think we all need it. Mr. Paris, if you'd do your duties as our new chief medic…"
Tom shot her a surprised look, but then only shrugged.
"Yes, Ma'am!" he answered crisply, giving her an old-fashioned Earth military salute that cajoled an unintentional smile from her and gestured to the silent girl to go with him. Neelix, jealousy clearly written all over his spotted face, lunged after them, but the strong grip of a security officer on his upper arm stopped him mid-leap.
"Oh no, Mr. Neelix," Janeway said grimly. "The only place you are going right now is the brig. Ensign Ashmore will escort you there. You have almost three hours to think about why it's a very bad idea to lie to a Starfleet Captain. Ensign, take him away."
"Aye, Captain," Ashmore, having seen Neelix' spontaneous actions on the planet surface, quickly searched him and confiscated another small weapon. Then he grabbed Neelix by the lapels and dragged him out of the transporter room.
Janeway looked after them with unreadable eyes.
"Well, she finally said, "so much about a diplomatic approach. I'd suggest we try some bullying next."
"A most astute suggestion, Captain," Tuvok agreed, and they entered the turbolift to return to their respective quarters for a short rest.
TBC