Disclaimer: Only the story is mine. Everything else belongs to Paramount. kicks Paramount But they've abandoned their characters and stuff and did really nutso things to them, so I delete Paramount. I'm not making any money off this, so leave me alone, Paramount minions! I wrote this story, which was my very first ever Voyager fanfic, in August, 2000. It was not beta'd. This story contains a relationship between two women, so if that offends you, please read something else.
Code: T/7.
Genre: Romance, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Ghosts, Chapter 5
The Ssckerellon ship loomed on the viewscreen, nearly four times the size of Voyager. Neither ship moved, as if frozen in the cold blackness above the lonely scorched planet. Chakotay wanted desperately to beam the away team to Voyager, but couldn't risk dropping their shields. He leaned forward in the command chair and ordered that the other ship be hailed.
"They're not responding, sir," the crewman at Harry's console announced. Chakotay flinched inwardly. Of all times for Voyager to be missing her captain, chief of security and operations officer. He thanked the gods that he still had B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris. With Tom at the helm and B'Elanna at the engines, they could make a run for it if necessary.
But right that moment, neither ship gave anything away about its commander or situation. They simply sat in space, staring each other down. The Ssckerellon ship was pitch black and in stark contrast to the little pale Voyager. Like a great chess match, they waited for the next move—neither quite sure whose turn it was.
Arynlliana blinked up at the shadowed figure standing over her. Her head throbbed and her stomachs heaved, but she leapt up to her feet and pranced away from the stranger. He chuckled and a moment later a light flared into existence.
"Easy, child. I'm not going to hurt you." Arynlliana gasped at the sight of him. His long, blood-red horn was broken and cracked, his black mane long and matted. Gentle green eyes met her own from the dark golden skinned male. He wore a torn robe that matched his horn in color and condition. He stood nearly a foot taller than her, making him over two meters high easily, though he was so thin he looked frail. In the tradition of the males of her species, his mane ran under his chin and down to his clavicle in front as well as in back. It was thick and stained with dirt and blood.
"Who are you?" She asked quietly. He closed his eyes and growled in relief, his head thrown back
"It has been so long since I heard a living voice!" He lowered his head, opened his eyes and smiled at her. "You have no idea how beautiful it is to me. I am Laj Raykma, of the Western Sand Valley. You are...?"
"Arynlliana Arturo. I think I'm from the Northern Grass Beach of the Second Continent."
"I'd say so, with your coloring. How have you reached here? By star vessel? Or sky ship? Is there still a colony alive?" He stepped towards her hopefully, touching his horn to hers. Immediately his face fell and he roared in hopelessness. Arynlliana shook with the memories she had received from him. Brief and fleeting, but strong and frightening. She had forgotten touching her horn to her mother's for comfort at night when the predators closed in on their escape pod.
With her mother, it had been comforting. With this male, however... it was disturbing. She saw the land being torn by fire and weapons, her people screaming and dying, dark blood boiling. She shook her head, tears running down her face and covered her eyes with the palms of her hands. She fell to her knees once again in despair.
"Who, Laj? Why?" Laj looked at her, his horn dark and dull, his skin pale.
"They were like insects. A plague of them. Our starfarers had sent us reports on them—how they hunted us and did lethal experiments on those that they caught. We thought that surely, nothing like they could truly exist. But we were wrong. And they found our homeworld. Just to hunt us for game and amusement. They took some of our children as slaves.
"The screams were deafening. We had no defenses. We never created anything so destructive as they had. We had no chance—horn, tooth and claw was not enough, it couldn't be." Laj hung his head, tears running down his cheeks, leaving clean tracks. "I hid. Spirits help me; I hid. After my great-grandchildren were ripped from me by their weapons and fire, I hid down here. I waited to die, wanted to die. They took my wife, children, and their children and theirs. So many dead. I'm the only one who survived. I had hoped..." He sagged to the ground.
"I've been alone here for about seven seasons, though it's so hard to tell them apart without ground growth."
"How have you survived this long?"
"There's a spring, about thirty steps that way," he said, pointing. "Mushrooms and small roots grow by it, little crustaceans swim in it. Not much to live on, but it has kept me alive. Once a season a small shrub that grows in the water produces berries. Hard to know how it knows to do it every season, but it does. The best time-keeper in this place." Arynlliana noticed for the first time that his mane had several white streaks in it.
"So you never leave the cave?"
"Once or twice. But there's never anything up there but ashes. Sometimes it rains and the ashes become mud."
"How do you get out?"
"Same way you came in... But a little more gracefully." He stood up in an arthritic way and walked towards the only patch of natural light that Arynlliana saw. She followed him and looked up. There was a webwork of vines leading up for what looked like thirty meters. Arynlliana felt amazed that she had survived the fall, much less intact.
"They're strong enough to climb?" She took a patch in her hands and tugged, testing it.
"Strong enough for me, so there's no reason it shouldn't hold you. Just avoid the western side, there's a particularly vicious plant that grows over there. Took off part of my ear once," Laj pulled his hair aside to show the ravaged ear as he said this. "Stick to the east and you should be fine." He turned and began walking away.
"Aren't you coming with me?" Arynlliana watched Laj hobble to the far wall.
"No. I've gotten too old to climb up anymore. Besides that, I don't really want to live anywhere but here anymore. After all, I've got everything I need, can't ask for more."
"You don't look healthy. You should at least come with me and get a little more food and perhaps get cleaned up." Laj laughed heartily.
"I must appear frightening indeed, then. Not many reflective surfaces down here. No, no. I'm fine. A little thin, perhaps, but I'd prefer to remain down here. I've learned to become fairly good company for myself." He sat down and pulled out a long, stringy root to gnaw on. "Good-bye, friend Rinly." Arynlliana looked at him, a memory of her father calling her that flashing into her mind. Tears stung her eyes as she turned back and began climbing the vines.
"Good-bye, friend Laj," she whispered as she climbed toward daylight.
Janeway paced agitatedly from one group of her officers to the other. The first rescue attempt had ended in a medical situation. Nothing approaching an emergency had happened yet, but the captain was still being cautious. Chakotay's report of the Ssckerellon ship couldn't have come at a worse time, it seemed.
They were trapped. Kathryn felt helpless and frightened. It took all her strength to appear neutral and not scream 'We're all going to die!' She cursed the damn planet and its fatalistic influences. She felt panicked when she had heard of the ship and ordered Chakotay to raise shields and had to stop herself from ordering him to destroy it.
Her heart pounded in her chest and ears and she was almost dizzy from the ever-increasing panic eating at her inside. Another rescue attempt seemed pointless—Aryn was probably already dead anyway. Just like they would all be soon. Hopelessness began eating at her mind.
Kathryn shook her head, banishing the unproductive thoughts. 'Concentrate on what's right in front of you, Kathryn Janeway. Finding one of your crew and helping her.' Replacing the negative thoughts with thoughts of finding Aryn completely safe and grateful, Janeway began organizing another attempt at finding Arynlliana.
Just as the party was finished organizing, Aryn climbed out of the hole. She stood watching the party form itself, unnoticed for almost half a minute. Then Harry saw her and faster than Aryn thought that Humans could move, he was in front of her, grabbing her close to him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and just let him carry her away from the hole until she heard an authoritative "Ahem." She slid to the ground and hugged Tuvok.
This warranted two raised eyebrows from the Vulcan, but before he could protest or even react at all beyond his expressive brows, Aryn launched herself at Janeway to hug the captain. Kathryn briefly hugged her back firmly, then pulled back.
"I'm glad to have you back with us. It's amazing that you weren't seriously injured." Aryn, tired from emotional and physical exertions, merely nodded her agreement. Janeway smiled tightly then glanced at the sky. "Now if only we could get back to the ship..."
Neelix looked at the drawing Naomi had just handed him. It was really very good for someone her developmental age, but it didn't help alleviate any of the tension he was experiencing from the stalemate Voyager seemed to be having with the alien vessel. The drawing was of the Ssckerellon that had cornered Naomi in the turbolift—in quite a bit of detail and with smaller close-up drawings of the head, feet and hands.
"This is... very nice, Naomi. But don't you want to draw something a little more, er, cheery?" He gave her a big, encouraging smile and mentally prayed that he never had to see one of the 'bug people' himself.
"I don't feel very cheery." Naomi stared at the table in front of her. Neelix had tried, unsuccessfully, to lift her spirits since they had gone to red alert, but she just continued to be unhappy and withdrawn.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"I want to talk to Seven." Naomi rested her head in her arms and stared at nothing.
"Well, Naomi, you, uh, you know that, uh, Seven is busy with the ship."
"I know," she said, sounding lost. Neelix put a hand on her shoulder. Just then, the ship lurched and both Neelix and Naomi were pitched forward.
"Return fire!" Chakotay yelled at the young woman at tactical. Phasers cut angry, glowing slashes through the vacuum, missing the lumbering giant in front of them by far to wide a margin in the first shot. The Ssckerellon shields harmlessly deflected the second shot. Voyager was not so lucky.
Consoles exploded and the automatic fire suppression system released a gas that was harmless to the half-dozen humanoids scurrying about the bridge. Paris swerved Voyager away from as many shots as he could, but without the order to retreat, he couldn't do much but delay what would be inevitable if they stayed much longer.
In Engineering B'Elanna spit curses at the 'bug people', Tom Paris, the people around her and all of their parentage. She coaxed her engines gently, trying very hard to keep up with the strain of Tom's piloting, encouraging them by cursing Tom in as many different languages as she could for putting them through such a horrible strain. Vorik merely raised an eyebrow at her 'eccentricity.'
In Astrometrics, Seven discovered a weakness in the Ssckerellon's defenses. Within minutes she had devised a plan of attack, not realizing that it would come too late...
In Samantha Wildman's quarters, a Ssckerellon materialized through a break in Voyager's shields and knocked Neelix into a bulkhead across the room. It walked right up to the cowering form of Naomi Wildman who opened her mouth to scream. She felt something sharp pierce her right hand before she could make a sound. A second later, she thought no more.
"Commander! I-I don't understand! The Ssckerellon are withdrawing!" Chakotay whirled to stare down the crewman, as if expecting to confess that he was lying and that the next hit would tear them to pieces. He ran up behind the crewman and rechecked the data. They were leaving!
"What's going on?" Chakotay demanded as the Ssckerellon ship sped away at warp. "Why did they break off their attack? We were losing!"
"Sir!" cried the crewman at tactical. "Apparently, one of the bug people beamed over here, then beamed off right before they withdrew!"
"Why? What did they take?" Chakotay walked up to her quietly. "Where did they materialize?"
Seven of Nine scanned the sensor data coming in until they froze on just one thing. She ran from Astrometrics to Samantha Wildman's quarters. None of the furniture was disturbed and it was oddly quiet.
"Naomi Wildman?" Seven scanned the room until her optical implant ran across something her human eye had missed—the crumpled form of Neelix. She jogged over to him and noted the huge bruise forming on the right side of his face. She ran into Naomi's room and as soon as she saw that Naomi wasn't there, something inside her snapped and she screamed. "Naomi!"
To be continued...
