Author's note:

I was planning to end this here, but a few ideas have sparked, partially from reviewers who set my crazed imagination spinning in one way or the other. So here we are.

Katharina-B: Glad you like things so far; I see Janeway and Bashir as similar characters in their moral outlook. How long is the story going to be? I don't know. I usually don't, when I write these things. It's on the ending arc, though. Though a few reviews have given me ideas....

JadziaKathryn: You like tension? You'll like the next few chapters, then.

Bren: You may get your wish yet...

eScapefreak (whom I have added to spellcheck dictionary): Can Janeway trust anyone? Good question, isn't it?

Webster82: Glad you like things so far. Yes, Section 31 can't be brought down just by one person.

Worker72: Yeah, Section 31 is fun.

PG: The commodore may yet surprise you.

50Of47: Glad you like things so far. Here is your requested next installment.

She was the captain of the ship. The hero of the day. She'd remained true to her principles and she had won fairly. This was her ship, and her crew. Voyager was her domain.

So why was she nervous?

Captain Janeway stood in front of the door to guest quarters and tried not to fidget. In one hand she held a PADD. She could hear faint voices issuing from inside. It had only been a few moments since she had buzzed the doorchime. There was a security guard standing nearby; she had foreseen the possibility that Section 31 might attempt to capture or eliminate Noah Lessing and Marla Gilmore.

After being treated in sickbay, she had sent both of them here. Noah Lessing had been seen a few times in the messhall and holodeck. She hadn't talked to him – she'd been too busy – but those who had had told her he was cautious but sociable, clearly testing the waters of this brave new world. Marla Gilmore had secluded herself her. No one had seen her.

There had been some idle curiosity as to what the two Equinox survivors had been doing in there. More than a few had made it quite clear what they thought it was. Janeway didn't particularly care what it was they were doing, but she needed to talk to her former crewmen.

"Come in," a voice said, and the door slid open obediently at the sound. Janeway smiled diplomatically and stepped inside. Guest quarters aboard Voyager were among the plushest on the ship. The diplomatic aspects of the ship's mission required it.

Noah Lessing stepped to the door to greet her. His head dipped in a nod. His eyes did not seem as impenetrable as they had before. She scanned him for a moment and thought. There had always seemed to be a restrained tension between them. That felt absent now. It was doubtful they would ever be friendly, but this would do for now.

"Captain," he said.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Lessing," she said. "I need to speak with Marla Gilmore."

Before, there would have been a second's pause as he took in what she had said and weighed it. Is she telling the truth? Can I trust her this time, or is there some hidden agenda? That, too, was gone. He simply nodded.

"She's right back here, Captain," he said, and sounded vaguely friendly. It would do for now.

"I'll also want to speak to you," she added. "We have some arrangements to discuss."

He nodded.

Part of the reason that Marla Gilmore had not left her quarters in the time since the Voyager had recovered her was simply because she did not need to. Guest quarters supplied a food replicator, a living area, a computer terminal, a full bathroom – everything she could need was here.

She found the blonde engineer sitting on a couch near the window. Janeway peered through it and realized that from her quarters, Marla could see the fake Equinox docked at the next pylon over. Janeway's mouth quirked; that might not be exactly the best thing for her. All the same, she seemed to be lucid and reasonably calm. She was staring out at the ship on which she had been held as if hypnotized. When she heard the captain approach, she started and turned.

Her face was pinched and troubled; her eyes seemed haunted. Her time on the ship docked next to Voyager had been harrowing. She did not say anything when the captain approached. Janeway noted the flinch – instantly checked – and the flash of fear in the engineer's eyes.

"Hello, Marla," Janeway said calmly.

"Hello, captain," Marla answered softly.

"How are you feeling?"

"All right, I guess." Her voice was faint. "It's...it's hard to believe everything that's happened."

"I need to speak with you," Janeway said. "Come with me, please."

Gilmore paused and stared out at the Nova-class ship again. "Where are we going?"

"My readyroom," Janeway answered readily.

Another frightened look. "That's off the bridge," Marla said fearfully. Janeway watched her carefully, impassively. She was no psychologist, but she was a scientist. Was Marla all the way back? Probably not. She'd looked up the records of a few Starfleet officers who had been held captive by enemies; all of them had been scarred by the experience. One had written her back personally.

Was she back enough to understand what Janeway was looking for? Could she do the job and understand the terms? That seemed to be more likely. A lot of Starfleet officers had been able to resume their posts after some time.

"Yes."

"Why can't we talk here?" Marla asked.

Janeway sighed and put her hands on her hips. She had to resist the urge to employ the full-on glare that she would commonly have used on a crewman who disobeyed her orders. For one thing, Marla Gilmore had been through pure hell. For another, she wasn't Starfleet any longer, and Janeway couldn't order her to do anything anymore.

"Because," Janeway said gently, "you've been secluding yourself here for two days now. It'll be good for you to get outside. Interact a little."

Marla swallowed and looked longingly at the door. Her hands trembled a bit and she hid them behind her back. She let out a low breath, closed and eyes, and rose to her feet as if resigned to her fate.

"Besides," Janeway added, "people have been asking about you. We went to a fair amount of effort to get you here." She tried to make it sound friendly;

The engineer tensed. "I know," she breathed. "Thank you."

Janeway smiled. "Come on," she urged. "It'll be all right."

Gilmore went along with her willingly enough, although she seemed torn. She hesitated at the door to her refuge for just a moment, clearly torn. Janeway could understand that well enough; if she'd been held captive and drugged and terrorized, she'd probably want to hide out herself. But sometimes you had to push someone along just a bit to make them realize what they could do.

All the same, she kept a careful eye. Gilmore stopped and stared longingly at the transporter room for a moment. At the turbolift she stopped dead for several seconds, staring at it as if it were an agony booth. Janeway put a hand on her arm, not wanting the engineer to turn and bolt for the transporter room.

"It's all right," Janeway said gently, and went into the turbolift.

The other woman's hands bunched into fists, but she went along.

"Bridge," Janeway directed briskly, and Marla flinched as if the word was a prison sentence. She let out a shuddering breath and pressed herself into a corner. Was she afraid of the alien life forms? None had attacked Voyager or even appeared on the ship except when they had come to lead them to the spyship.

The graviton lift hummed and the car moved upwards. Neither woman spoke. Janeway glanced over at the engineer, trying to make it look casual. It didn't seem to be casual to Marla Gilmore. The color drained from her face as the car rose, leaving behind only frank, open terror. It didn't make much sense; after the hellhole she'd been held in, what was to be scared of on Voyager's bridge?

But Janeway knew. B'Elanna Torres and Seven – or Annika, as she was going by now – had both reported on the strange things that Marla had said on the fake Equinox. B'Elanna had dismissed them as the ranting of a woman temporarily gone insane. Seven could not comprehend what she had meant either; her experience with psychological torture was limited.

But they weren't complete nonsense either. Not her. Don't give me to her. Quit judging me.

It had made more sense once the fake Rudy Ransom's notes had indicated that they had tried to twist Marla's guilt and desire to make amends into fear and terror of the Voyager crew. She'd seen the notes on the nightmare generator that they had devised. It wasn't Voyager's bridge that Marla was afraid of: it was the command crew on it. The people against whom she could never measure up.

The real Rudy Ransom had realized the tremendous crime he had committed, and at the end he had tried to cleanse himself. He had remained on Equinox as it exploded as penance for his crimes. In the end, Janeway had forgiven him. Small wonder that Marla Gilmore had tried to follow his example.

Kathryn Janeway knew that the time of the Equinox hadn't been her best at the helm of Voyager, and time and distance had given her some perspective she had lacked. She wasn't the vengeful judge that she had seemed to be. It privately enraged her that Section 31 had concluded that she would look the other way at the disappearance of an Equinox crewman. There were plenty of crew on Voyager with a checkered past. Eventually, someone who tried would be accepted back into the fold.

Things hadn't gone quite that way with Marla Gilmore. Would they now? She hoped so; what she planned to accomplish would be easier with the Equinox engineer's help.

When the doors opened, Marla decided the floor of the car was more interesting and set to staring at it. Sheer terror was written on her face. Janeway sighed.

"Come on," she directed. Slowly, unwillingly, Marla followed. She followed slowly, as if the bridge of Voyager was patrolled by wild targs.

The bridge crew was doing its work as it always did. At the security station, Tuvok was keeping a constant eye on Equinox in addition to his normal duties. A few people looked around, surprised to see Marla Gilmore on the bridge.

"As you were," Janeway said. "Mr. Chakotay, you're with me. Mr. Paris, you have the conn. This way, Ms. Gilmore." Everything was just business as usual.

She pretended not to see Marla's hands shake as Chakotay fell into step beside her. The readyroom doors opened. Janeway took her seat behind her desk and directed Marla to a chair. The engineer did not so much sit in it as collapse into it, drawing away and trying to make herself small. From her mien, she seemed to be expecting a phaser-armed firing squad or perhaps a hangman's noose or guillotine.

Chakotay crossed over to sit in the chair next to hers. She'd latched onto him when the two starships had first met. Would this work? Janeway thought so. Chakotay was a passionate man, but also a spiritual one. He understood all too well that hating hurt the hater more than the hated. If anyone could look past the prior crimes of the Equinox crew, he could.

"Hello, Marla," he said pleasantly. "You feeling all right?"

"Yes, sir," Marla said, the first word clearly a lie and the second one mere reflex.

Janeway cleared her throat. "Marla, we need to discuss the situation here. Your status on Voyager, specifically."

"Oh." Marla seemed relieved. "I...I understand. I'll leave. I can book transportation back to Earth on my own...," she essayed a smile. "I know, I don't really have a place here...,"

Janeway shook her head. "That's not what I had in mind," she said calmly.

Marla gave her a puzzled stare, then shifted it to Chakotay. She didn't reply.

"You realize I can never condone what happened aboard the real Equinox," Janeway began. Marla tried to press herself further down into her seat. "But I am aware of what happened aboard that one." She gestured at the ship, visible from her window as well as guest quarters.

Gilmore turned to follow her gesture and closed her eyes for a moment.

"You held out," Janeway said. "That wasn't easy. You were in a very difficult situation – worse, even than before. Whatever Rudy Ransom might have done, he cared deeply about his crew. These men didn't. I've read their logs. They were determined to break you, and you held out."

Gilmore stared glassily at the carpet in front of Janeway's desk.

"No, I didn't," she said in a very small voice.

Janeway tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

She found herself thinking that the engineer would sooner die than say what she was about to. Her pale face flushed in shame. Her shaking hands drew up in front of her.

"I broke," she whispered. "I...I started building it for them."

Janeway frowned. Was this delusion? It was certainly possible; according to Dr. Bashir's account of what she had suffered. Cerebral stimulation, drugs, perhaps she thought she had built it. "Marla, we didn't find anything," she said gently. "No trace of mutagenic particles."

"I started building the device," Gilmore repeated. "Then I disintegrated it."

"How?" Janeway asked.

"With a phaser," Marla said, still unable to raise her eyes to the captain's.

"I see," Janeway said, feeling silly for having asked the question. How else? Odd that they'd let her have a phaser that actually worked. . "So you did hold out. You just slipped a bit. Don't be so hard on yourself."

Gilmore shook her head. "I caved. I gave in. It's what I always do," she breathed.

This was not going quite the way she'd hoped. She wanted the other woman's help. There was part of her that felt this was too soon, and perhaps Marla would not be ready. But she had to at least try. She'd hoped to buck Gilmore up a bit, then explain what she wanted. The fact that Gilmore had lower self-esteem than a Borg drone wasn't helping.

"Marla, these people were not the crew on the Equinox. Their job was to break you, and they did it little by little. What happened was not your fault. They were expert and they were inhuman. You didn't have the capacity to make a rational choice by the time you gave in. That's not just my opinion; that's Dr. Bashir's."

"Why are you making excuses for me?" Marla asked suddenly.

"I'm not," Janeway said softly. "Do you know who Jean-Luc Picard is?"

Marla seemed surprised at the question. "Everyone knows who he is," she said. "Captain of the Enterprise."

"That's right. He was captured by Cardassians once, and tortured. I read his report. He also sent a message to Voyager when he heard what had happened. He told me that when he had been tortured, he talked. What happened to him wasn't too different from what happened to you. When it was all over, he said that his interrogator always asked him if he could see four lights or five. At the end...he thought he could see five. No one thinks any less of him."

"He's a hero," Marla said, as if that explained everything.

Chakotay leaned forward to chime in. "If you judge yourself by that standard, then I'm right in there with you," he said. "Did you ever hear of a race called the Vori?"

Marla seemed to think. "Yes," she said. "We tried to trade with them for supplies. They got Max for a while...he was never the same after he came back."

"They got me, too," Chakotay said. "They got me lock, stock, and barrel. I didn't believe it until Tuvok came down to get me. But I made a decision. You did too-- the right one. Give yourself some credit."

Janeway gave her errant a moment to digest that, and then smiled to make the pitch. "Marla, do you want to come back to Starfleet?"

Gilmore stared at the captain as if she had suggested growing a third eyeball. "I can't," she said. "I...I resigned."

"Yes, and any officer who resigns is permitted to request reinstatement within six months," Janeway pointed out.

"I'm not an officer any more," Gilmore said. "There's no way Starfleet would ever let me come back anyway."

Janeway sighed. This wasn't working. Maybe she had been too hard on the Equinox five. Maybe Gilmore simply wasn't ready for this. She couldn't seem to see the path Janeway was trying to lead her to.

"That can change," Janeway told her. She reached into her desk drawer and extracted a wooden box, which she slid across the surface of the desk. Obligingly, the other woman took it and opened it. Inside, on a plush background, a single rank pip sat, shining in the light.

"Marla, I'm offering you reinstatement at the rank of ensign. Just like before. I think you can be an asset to Starfleet, and I'd like to see you get the chance."

The blonde woman's eyes flitted down to the pip, up to Janeway, then over to the ship, then back down to the pip. Emotions played across the planes of her face: hope, fear, doubt, confusion.

"What do I have to do?" Marla asked. "And why do you want me back, anyway?"

"You've paid the price for what you did," Chakotay said, and smiled.

Janeway sighed. "I think you've made an effort to turn yourself around. And besides, we need your help." She waved a hand at the Nova-class ship.

"This won't be easy," she began. "If I had any other way of doing it, I would. We both know that ship out there is not Equinox. What we don't know is what ship it is. B'Elanna and Seven have been over it and they haven't found anything." Her eyes settled on the trembling blonde. "But they don't know the Nova class as well as you do. Actually, there probably isn't anyone in the fleet who knows Nova class ships like you do." Her face tightened.

"What I need from you is to help us find whatever we can. The men who did this are in custody, but they won't be forever. I want to have whatever evidence we can find, here on Voyager." She thought for a moment and decided that she didn't need to add that Commodore Bass seemed to be working for Section 31. Marla Gilmore had seen enough of Starfleet officers working against each other.

Gilmore stared out at the ship and shuddered.

"I don't blame you," Janeway said sympathetically. "If I had been in your shoes, I'd probably do anything I could to get away from that ship. All I can offer you is this: whatever help you need, we'll make sure that you get it. But we need your expertise. That's what I need from you, and that,--" she indicated the pip, "--is what I can offer you."

"Thank you, but...," the blonde struggled for words. "I can't see how you'd do this after what I did."

Janeway let out a long, slow breath. "I've done it with others," she said encouragingly. "I can never accept what happened on the real Equinox. But I can recognize that there were mitigating circumstances. Ultimately, it's a decision every captain has to make. I think you're worth a second chance."

"What about Noah?" Marla looked down at the pip and fingered it thoughtfully.

Janeway shrugged. "It's a different situation. We'll help him, too. But he was dishonorably discharged. I believe we can get that changed, but I can't reinstate him immediately." She pointed at the pip. "Well?"

Marla touched the pip and thought for several moments. Janeway watched her. She could only open the door; Gilmore had to decide if she wanted to walk through it or not. It wouldn't be easy. She could be reinstated, but there would always be crewmen who held the events of Equinox against her. But there were still crewmen who didn't care for Seven, and there were still crewmen who hadn't been wild about the Maquis. It wouldn't have surprised her to learn that some of her former Maquis might still resent Starfleet after all these years. Their reception on their return had certainly warranted it.

"All right," Marla said finally. "Thank you, captain."

Janeway smiled and nodded. "Welcome back," she said. "Go get in uniform, Ensign. Take a few hours if you need them and get ready. B'Elanna will meet you at eleven hundred hours in main engineering." She patted Gilmore's hand. "Dismissed."

Chakotay seemed to be lost in thought as the engineer left to resume her post anew. He turned his head and watched her go, then put a hand to his chin reflectively. He looked back at her for several long moments.

"Penny for your thoughts," Janeway said.

"I was just thinking that was nice that she got a second chance."

Janeway shrugged. "It's a judgment call," she said. "You're a first officer; you've had some experience with it by now. Some people need to be punished. Some people need to be given a second chance. She's not the first. Tom did, and he's been a good officer, even if I want to strangle him from time to time." Her voice dropped a bit lower. "You got a second chance, you know."

Chakotay chuckled. "Not to Starfleet," he said.

"That will pass. You know that." She gave him a level, concerned look. "If you'd just consider a plea deal--,"

He shook his head. "No," he said stubbornly. "I'm not standing up and saying I'm guilty of anything other than protecting my planet. Especially now, with what we've learned. No plea deal. That's final."

He wouldn't bend on it; she could tell. She sighed heavily. "Chakotay, I know I can't decide your course for you, but you really--,"

"No." He shook his head. "I'm not afraid. If I have to stand trial, so be it. If I have to go to prison, so be it." He smiled conspiratorially. "Besides, if they put me on trial now, I'll have a public forum. I wonder how Section 31 would feel about me laying out the entire thing in a court transcript."

"We're thinking along the same lines, but we have to be careful," Janeway said. "You have to be careful. It all depends on how much Commodore Bass is in Section 31's pocket. If he orders you back to prison, they could quietly eliminate you there. We have to force his hand."

He nodded. "I suppose that's what you wanted Gilmore for."

"Yes," Janeway said instantly. It was easier to talk about that subject. "B'Elanna and Seven have tried, but they can't find out what ship that used to be. I don't know if Gilmore can, but she's our resident expert on Nova-class ships." She gestured at the ship. "This isn't over. Section 31 is going to get that ship back if they can. I mean to get everything I can from it before they do." Her eyes gleamed. "And then, I'll make sure that Commodore Bass receives the evidence. And I'll also make sure that everyone in Starfleet knows he got it. Section 31 thrives in the darkness. I mean to shed light onto their ratholes."

"Where are they now?" Chakotay asked.

"Deep Space Nine's brig. For now." She shook her head. "They're down but not out. They're already planning how to get out of this fix. I intend to use the advantage of time while I have it."

She turned and looked at the ship. It didn't look like much from here. Just a planetary surveyor ship. There were many like it in the fleet. She had it now. But she knew that the people she had taken it from would try to get it back.

She smiled coolly. As Seven liked to say, they would fail.

Things were not good. Things were, in fact, very bad. Kilbourne had been in tight spots before, and this wasn't his first time in a prison. It was his first time in a Federation prison, though.

Still, he'd gotten out of tight spots before. Fortunately, Section 31 took care of its own. The officer appointed as his counsel was part of Intelligence. He was allowed to speak with his counsel in privacy, so he had reasonable access to the outside world. Sometimes, those Federation principles that Janeway esteemed so highly came in handy.

Janeway. Damn Janeway. The spyship was out of her hands, but he'd have some serious answering to do when this was over. Never before had a craft specifically built for Section 31 fallen into enemy hands. Everything had been encoded, and according to his contacts nothing had been compromised.

He was concerned about Janeway's threat to publicize him. The Romulans might know who he was; he wasn't sure. The sources they had in the Romulan government didn't give that sort of stuff out. The Klingons didn't know squat about who he was, but the Klingons weren't very good at counterintelligence work anyway.

They'd made the mistake of putting him in with a few of his senior agents. Benning was there, and had shamefacedly admitted that Janeway had caught him. He'd been cooling his heels in Voyager's brig the whole time, watched constantly by security officers. Kilbourne was hopeful. Commodore Bass had been helpful before. He might well be again.

He turned his head to see the distinguished commodore walking into the brig and up to his cell. The commodore did not look happy. Tense lines creased his face. His lips were pressed together into a thin line. Kilbourne had seen a lot of occasional Section 31 assets act that way.

"Commodore," he said neutrally. "Hello."

"Janeway isn't bending," Bass told him. "She's threatening to go to the Romulans and the Dominion."

Kilbourne sighed. "Well, then. We have a problem, don't we?"

The commodore's lips pulled apart in anger, showing Kilbourne his perfect white teeth.

"You have a problem," he spat. "Do you think I like working with you? I'm a judge. I believe in the law. Working with men like you makes me sick/"

"Having doubts, commodore?" Kilbourne said, smiling sarcastically. "Well, then. How about you confess everything to Janeway? I'm sure that the public humiliation of a judge deliberately circumventing the law will go over very well." He sighed. "If you release us, we'll take care of this."

The commodore eyed him distrustfully. Personally, Kilbourne reckoned that a smart move. His loyalty was not to the commodore and never would be; his loyalty was to the Federation and to Section 31. Too many of Section 31's Starfleet assets trusted their handlers.

"If I release you...,"

"We'll take care of it," Kilbourne repeated.

The commodore considered. "I don't want anyone to get killed. We've had enough death already."

Kilbourne smiled gently. "There will be no mess."

"I want your word," the commodore persisted.

Kilbourne sighed and eyed him calmly for several moments. He was through and through a practical man. If the commodore needed to hear that there would be no killing, he would say that. It wasn't like any of it could be traced back to him.

"Very well," he said.

The commodore stared at him through the force field the way a man will stare at a particularly clever wild animal. Then he sighed.

"Fine," he said. "I'll allow you house arrest on the station. No leaving the station, and any communications have to be monitored by myself or the station's security officers. You are to report back to the security office every twelve hours. If you screw me on this, Kilbourne, I'll toss you away and the consequences be damned. I'm doing what I can to keep Janeway from going off half-cocked and starting a war. No more attacking Voyager."

Kilbourne stood stock-still, watching the commodore. The spartan cell didn't bother him, nor the fact that too many people were crammed into it. He watched the commodore and pondered. Was he serious? He might be; some Starfleet officers remembered all their highfalutin duties when pushed into a corner. Some became crazed enough to do just about anything. It was ones like Janeway, who never forgot theirs in the first place, that could be the biggest pains in the ass.

"I realize you need to cover yourself, and that's fine. I assure you, Commodore. Everything will be fine."

"I shouldn't," the commodore said, and slumped as if he were the prisoner. "I should just leave you there."

Kilbourne watched the commodore bloodlessly. He wanted very badly to remind the officious judge that if you danced with the devil, the devil did not change; the devil changed you. Had Bass danced enough with him to change? He wasn't sure. If he did, then the commodore would get all high and mighty about it, so he simply kept his mouth shut.

"Fine," the commodore said heavily, and scribbled on a PADD.

Kilbourne smiled calmly as the force fields came down. His agents knew the routine as well as he did. There was no shouting or pushing as they filed out of the brig. They signed their release statements. It wasn't until they were out and heading for Quark's that he beckoned Benning closer.

"Do we know the status of X5573?" he asked.

"It's in Section hands. Five light-years away, in orbit of an asteroid. It has a skeleton crew."

Kilbourne nodded. "Get below and get to the station's communication beacons," he said. "Have them come back here under full cloak and at low impulse. When they're within transporter range, we'll go aboard and take care of this."

Benning nodded.

"Don't get cute," Kilbourne said. "We've only got twelve hours."