Author's note:

Glad you all liked B'Elanna's POV and the Jefferies tube wrestling matches.

JadziaKathryn: Glad you liked the chapter. It wasn't so much to depersonalize the characters as a) it's a little late in the game to introduce a whole slew of Section 31 crew and b) I was being lazy. :)

Katharina-B: Yes, that's all they have to do, isn't it? Well, here's where that starts. I figured Noah would help Marla (along with everyone else), so he did.

Webster82: B'Elanna was fun to write (she and Seven are probably the least qualified to help a crewman having psychological issues, so I figured they ought to be the ones to go after her.)

Brigid: It is quite an image, isn't it? I couldn't resist.

The ship rocked and trembled under the onslaught of quantum torpedoes. Kathryn Janeway had been in command of this ship for a long time, and she knew that wasn't good. By the time she gained the bridge, the atmosphere had become determined and grim. The bridge was bathed in flaring red light.

She'd transported back to Voyager only to discover that she had been right; her prisoners had not beamed back with her. Gilmore had. That had pleased her; she'd suspected that the cloaked ship would track them by combadge just as Voyager normally did. Putting her combadge on Marla had done the trick. Bashir and their EMH could handle Gilmore for right now. She'd gotten back her prodigal crewman; now she had to make sure that the rest of them didn't get blown to smithereens. Ransom and Burke were the least of her problems right now.

Marla Gilmore's lonely battle had ended. Kathryn Janeway's had not. She still had to defeat the other ship.

"Tactical status," she ordered as she entered the bridge. Chakotay vacated the captain's chair and moved to his own.

"That last volley went right through our shields," he said grimly.

"Damage?" Janeway asked.

He consulted a console. "Heavy damage to the hull on decks 9, 10, and eleven, but it's holding. For now."

"Remodulate the shields," Janeway ordered. "Harry, any sign of that ship?"

Harry Kim scowled at his screen. "Nothing. They can hit us and we can't see them at all." He frowned. "Captain, there's strange activity in the computer system. I saw it just before you beamed back. Locking it out now."

Janeway paused. Just before she'd beamed back...and Ransom and Burke had been mysteriously whisked away. Another explosion rocked the ship.

"Shields remodulated and holding at sixty percent...only minor damage," Harry reported.

"Back us off from Equinox," Janeway said. So far, their unseen enemy had not fired on the Nova-class ship. She understood that; Equinox – or whatever ship it really was – couldn't see them either, and Voyager was the bigger threat of the two. If she lost, the cloaked ship would be able to mop up the survivors on Equinox at its leisure.

It was unnerving. Sensors couldn't pick up a thing. Then, four little specks would appear on the viewscreen, jetting silently towards Voyager. Firing phasers at that position never worked. All they could do was play defense; Tom was performing evasive maneuvers as best he could, and the shields were holding, but this was a battle they couldn't win. How could you fight an enemy you couldn't see?

Chakotay gave her a concerned look. "Maybe we should retreat," he said quietly. "We've got Gilmore. If we put some distance between us and them, make it to Deep Space Nine, they might back off."

Janeway bit her lip. It was sound advice. It was doubtful the other ship could match their maximum warp anyway, and it certainly couldn't do it while it was cloaked. If they stayed here, they might lose that advantage. She could have her away team beamed back to the ship and get out of there.

But if she did that, then these men would simply get away, except for the one in her brig. They'd be free to try their evil deeds again. They hadn't found enhanced warp technology on the ship, but she didn't know what they did have. Cutting and running had its own dangers.

She wanted these men to face justice for what they had done. They had already kidnapped and stolen. They had planned mass murder on a planetary scale. Men like this had to be stopped. No, she could not retreat here. The job was not finished.

"No," she said resolutely. "Keep scanning. Look for venting plasma, energy readings, anything we can use to get a weapons lock."

The ship slewed again as Paris swung around sharply and the inertial dampers couldn't keep up. Those damn torpedoes kept following them. Each one carried three times the explosive force of a photon torpedo, and their foe was good about keeping close enough that they had a hard time shaking any of them.

"Shields down to forty-two percent," Kim reported grimly.

"They'll hold," Janeway said just as grimly.

Another torpedo blast shook the ship. Klaxons sounded.

"Fore shield has collapsed!" Kim said.

"Paris, turn us about! Harry, get those shields back online!" Janeway shouted.

Tom Paris wrenched the ship to one side, and managed to coax just another few meters out of the ship, enough that the incoming volley of torpedoes struck the battered aft shields. Harry Kim stared at his console, his fingers flickering over the panel, trying to bring the shields online.

"One more hit on the aft shields and we'll be defenseless," Chakotay said, and his eyes stared into hers, knowing the choice she had to make.

"How long until the fore shields are back online?" she asked.

Harry did not look up from what he was doing. "Forty-five seconds."

Janeway eyed the viewscreen. One more volley of four quantum torpedoes was incoming, and another was not far away. Whoever had the conn of that cloaked ship was quick. She didn't need Chakotay to tell her the status of the battered aft shields; she could see it herself.

An eerie whine permeated the bridge. It didn't seem quite machine-made, and yet it was far from natural. Kathryn Janeway felt her blood chill. The siren call of the alien life forms that first the Equinox crew, and now Section 31, had killed to fuel the enhanced warp device was far too familiar.

"Captain, we have to withdraw," Chakotay said, and from his pallor she could tell he knew what it was too.

They can't do this. Not now. Don't they know we were the ones who saved them?

"Dimensional fissures opening on decks four, five...and one," Harry said.

Chakotay continued to press his case. "We have a cloaked hostile ship out there, and if they hit us a few more times we're finished. If the aliens take down our shields, we're dead. This is a battle we can't win."

Just behind Tom Paris's station at the helm, a yellowish hole in reality began to form. Janeway stared helplessly at it. Her bridge crew was not armed. They would have nothing to defend them against the creatures. Equinox was too far away to be of any help.

"Security to the bridge. Bring hand phasers for the bridge crew." she ordered. "Everyone keep calm."

Her eyes met Chakotay's. Was he right? She had Marla Gilmore; she had Equinox. She could flee with her prizes, or simply destroy Equinox along the way and beam her boarding party back. She had already won.

Or had she? There wasn't any sign of enhanced warp on the fake Equinox. That didn't mean the technology wasn't in Section 31's hands. Marla Gilmore had been more or less psychotic when brought on board. The doctors would have her in sickbay, but she wouldn't be able to supply the information that Kathryn Janeway would need before she could be at peace with the decision to flee. What did they have? Could they build the device on their own?

"I have an idea," she said stubbornly. "We need to see this through."

"We can't see it through," Chakotay said. "We have what we came for."

The risks were clear. If she stayed in battle, she might lose her crew to the aliens or to the cloaked ship. These people had served her loyally for seven years in the Delta Quadrant, and she had gotten them home. Would they all die here?

If she ran prematurely, she might be condemning billions of Romulans to death. The entire quadrant could be forever changed. Could she live in a Federation that had won its prominence through two genocides?

The choice was momentous. It had to be now. On this ship, in the next few minutes, the history of the Federation might be decided.

"Open a channel to Equinox," she directed. "And get me Seven. Tom, try and dodge those torpedoes."

"What are you planning to do?" Chakotay asked.

Kilbourne grinned fiercely at his viewscreen. Voyager was taking a pounding. That helmsman was doing a decent job of trying to dodge the torpedoes, but enough were hitting that he didn't need to worry. Eventually, their shields would buckle. He had plenty of quantum torpedoes. Even so, it was a shame to kill a helmsman who could make that ship dance like a pretty woman.

"Prepare an armed boarding party," he directed. "Take us in, closer. It's time to take them out."

Ransom and Burke stepped onto the bridge and looked around timidly. Kilbourne eyed them for a moment and felt his placid, calm exterior return. That was for the best.

"Gentlemen," he said.

"Mr. Kilbourne, I--," Ransom began.

"I'm not angry at you," Kilbourne said. He could afford to be merciful, couldn't he? In a few minutes more, Marla Gilmore would be back in his custody. A few minutes after that, there wouldn't be anything left of Voyager larger than an isolinear chip.

A strange-sounding whine echoed through the spyship. Agents looked up nervously, wondering what it was. Ransom paled.

"Those are the aliens," he said. "They're trying to break through."

"Our shields are fine," Kilbourne said. He turned and cleared his throat. "Ops agent?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Is Grambyo's field generator online?"

The ops agent scanned the smallest ship. "Yes."

Kilbourne shrugged. "See? Take us to five hundred meters off Grambyo's port. Match their shield frequency." He glanced at Ransom. "Happy now? They can't even see us. If they could, we have our shields. If that doesn't work, we'll be protected the same as Grambyo is." He chuckled.

"Voyager has lost their fore shields," the weapons agent said. "Aft shields are pretty low."

Kilbourne adjusted himself in his seat. "One more volley ought to do it, then. Target their engineering hull. Gilmore will be in sickbay. Blow a hole in the hull and then we'll beam aboard our party and retrieve what belongs to us."

"Aye, sir. Torpedoes launched."

Kilbourne chuckled. "Now, it ends."

She'd made her decision, and now it was time. All cards on the table, now. A quick hail to Equinox, a momentary question of Seven, and phasers handed out as damn quickly as she could.

"Harry, when I give the word, throw everything you've got into the shields,"

Chakotay's lips were pressed into a thin line. "You're betting everything on this," he said in a tone that clearly added and you're absolutely insane to do that to the end of the sentence.

"I know what I'm doing," she said. "Now...here's where it ends."