Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager belongs to Paramount

Final Voyage

Sickbay was already at full capacity when B'Elanna and Chakotay materialized. There were several burn cases, an ensign with a broken arm and a lieutenant with a skull fracture. The doctor was running from bed to bed injecting hyposprays and setting diagnoses.

Chakotay lifted the still unconscious B'Elanna to the only vacant biobed. The doctor approached in the same manner he always did until he realized his next patient was B'Elanna

"Commander, what happened?"

"A consul exploded directly in front of her, the blast injured three other crew members but she took the hardest blow"

The doctor opened his medical tricorder and hoped the fetus was still a live. He immediately scanned her entire body starting with her abdomen and finishing with a scan of her cranial pathways.

"The baby is alive but has a very faint heartbeat. We need to get her out immediately. She has massive internal bleeding. Her thoracic aorta has been severed and she will bleed out in a matter of minutes if we don't operate"

"Then start the operation, save her!"

"Commander, I can't perform surgery and have time to save the baby as well it's one or the other."

"Captain, I have detected three ships uncloaking on our starboard. They are charging …"

Before Harry could finish his statement a ray of light struck the ship and violently shock it. Janeway tapped her commbadge.

"Janeway to Engineering, B'Elanna do we have any propulsion available?"

Janeway was surprised to be greeted by Vorik's voice instead of Lieutenant Torres's.

"Lieutenant Torres as been taken to sickbay she was involved in a console explosion. We don't have any engines available at this time. I can get impulse working in a half an hour but no sooner."

"Try to speed that time up. Janeway out"

Janeway's face turned white immediately. She knew there was no way that B'Elanna could have escaped the explosion unharmed. Her next instinct was to run to sickbay and check on B'Elanna and her unborn child but Kathryn knew she had more immediate dangers to deal with.

"Tuvok do we have any weaponry at our disposal." Janeway barked towards the tactical station.

"We have minimal phasers online. The photon torpedoes are un operational."

"Hit them with whatever we have. Target their weapons systems. Fire at will!"

"No effect. Their shields have been undamaged."

"We need a brilliant idea right about now. Who's got one for me?" Janeway was still calm though the circumstances were grim.

Tom chimed in "Our tractor beam is operational we could tractor them in and deploy a refractional pulse that would shut down there polarized shields and they would be defenseless. That might scare them off and if not our phasers would do the trick with their shields down"

Janeway turned to Tuvok with determination. "Do it!" Her gaze was fixed on the viewscreen. The green light of the tractor beam locked on to the lead ship and incapacitated it. The pulse was emitted as soon as the lock on the ship was secure.

"Their shields are offline." Tuvok reported.

Before he could finish the report, a second pulse cascaded toward Voyager. It hit the ship with a vengeance and shock Voyager to the point where Janeway thought the hule might breach. Voyage lost the tractor on the lead ship and by the time anyone could react the ships had jumped to warp and were out of sensor range. Janeway lifted herself from were she had been knocked to the floor.

"Report!"

" We were hit with a moderated version of the pulse we used to disable their shields. Weapons, engines and life support systems are at critical. The degraded gel packs are barely holding." Harry answered.

"Reroute all auxiliary power to sickbay and life support. Try to initialize a force field around essential gel packs and keep their containment. Send repair teams to engineering and all other critical areas. If our friends show up again, I want to be able to give them a warm welcome. Tuvok you have the bridge. I'll be in sickbay."

Janeway expected the worst when she entered sickbay and she wasn't far off. She saw Chakotay standing near the bed where B'Elanna was lying. What she hadn't expected was to see Chakotay's tear stained face. Janeway rushed to his side praying her fears were unfounded.

"I'm sorry Captain. We lost her." The doctor's voice said somberly.

Janeway's chest felt like it had collapsed upon itself and her heart had seized to beat. Her legs felt weak and she began to lose her balance. Before she could brace herself on the biobed, her knees hit the sickbay floor. Chakotay instinctively tried to catch her but failed and saw her frail form fall. Kathryn didn't begin to irrationally sob but rather sat very still and quietly as a solitary tear meet her cheek. She began to mumble under her breath.

"Why did I have to lose them both?"

Suddenly there was a muffled whine that caused Kathryn to lift her head. Chakotay knelt next to her with an infant in his arms. Grief and misery were still overwhelming to her but the most omitted joy surged through Kathryn's veins. She touched the infant's delicate skin and for a moment grasped the price that B'Elanna had to pay for this miracle. The realization caused Kathryn to move away from the child and rush out of sickbay.

Once in her quarters, Kathryn allowed herself to fall apart, to finally indulge in her inner most demons and feel unworthy of contentment. Had she wanted motherhood so much that she was oblivious to the risks it presented to B'Elanna? Was she to blame for her premature death and for the pain that would be caused by it?

Chakotay entered the room with a sullen express upon his face. "Kathryn?" She wasn't even aware of his presence. She was too engulfed in her own inner struggle to notice. He placed a hand on her arm and waited for her to acknowledge him. She slowly met his gaze with tormented eyes.

"Chakotay, what happened in there? Why did our baby survive but B'Elanna didn't?"

"At first she had extensive internal bleeding and the doctor was going to perform surgery but after the first weapons fire B'Elanna went into cardiac arrest. There was no way we could have saved her. The baby would have died to if the doctor hadn't performed an immediate fetal transport."

"Leave."

"Kathryn?"

"Please Chakotay, just leave."

It was discover that Voyager had been attacked by a native species to the area. Which according to Seven was known for their toxic pathogens and their looting of disabled ships. They had picked up Voyager bioneural systems on a long-range scan and had been intrigued by its advanced technology. They had been following Voyager for months waiting for their pathogens to full disable the ship. They hadn't realized the complexity of Voyager and had waited for longer than expected. They had been surprised by the ingenuity of the tractor beam disablement of their shield and wouldn't be back for a fight.

It took Kathryn a week to finally meet the infant. She had amerced herself in her work and didn't even acknowledge the baby's presence. Almost the entire crew had met the baby but for Kathryn the pain was still new and she still blamed herself for B'Elanna's death. She finally realized there was a child who needed a mother and Kathryn was it, weather she felt she deserved it or not. Chakotay had cared for the baby in his old quarters after Kathryn had asked him to leave. He knew she was grieving but so was everyone. He couldn't help but feel angry with her for blaming herself for something no one had any control over.

Kathryn entered the bedroom looking rather ashamed. An emotion she had never let be know to Chakotay before. He was cradling the child and rose to meet Kathryn. Her face was washed out and pale and he could only guess how agonizing the past week had been. He could tell she had spent her night crying her frustrations and guilt away. She slowly moved closer to her husband and child. It took her a minute to summon the courage to speak.

"I'm sorry."

"I know"

"May I see the baby?" Kathryn whispered.

"She's been waiting to met you."

"She?"

"I thought the doctor told you the baby's sex?"

"No. What's her name?"

"I thought I'd leave that to you."

He gently handed the sleeping infant to the trembling Kathryn. She began to softly cry when she felt the baby's chest rise and fall. She had been a fool to lose a week of her daughter's life, to succumb to her own selfish agenda.

Chakotay lightly rubbed her arm with reassurance. As he watched them he saw a single tear fall on the baby's arm and wake her. Kathryn saw her daughter's eyes for the first time and in her splendor knew what the baby's name was to be.

"B'Elanna."

The End

Author's note:

This story has taken a huge chunk of time to finish but I'm delighted to be able to rap it up and present it to you all. I sincerely apologize for the few months were there wasn't an update. I hope it was worth the wait. I'm trying to update and eventually finish my story 'Abandoned' as well. Thank you for reading.

Celine Janeway