Dark Mirror Chapter 4, a startrek: voyager fanfic

Kathryn sat at her couch looking through the viewport. Her thoughts were swirling around her head. All during the party, she kept thinking back to the events of the past few days and a battle was being waged in her head. All the could of's were running around the should of's battling the is's. For the first time in her life, Kathryn found that she couldn't not gather her thoughts. She needed to talk it out, but it seemed to be a vicious catch 22. She needed to talk it out, but the one person whom she could talk it out with was the one for whom she needed her thoughts most ordered.

Kathryn got up and faced the viewport.

"Computer begin recording, visual as well as audio."

Personal Log, Kathryn Janeway:

Thinking about this is getting me nowhere. The events, thoughts and the feelings are going round and round my head with no end in sight, with no resolution. I stepped across the line the line yesterday and the lives of two crews hung in the balance. And that's not all. The relationship between myself and my First Officer also hung in the balance. We were divided over this …again. It seems to be our fate to encounter situations like that. I wonder if other Captains find themselves facing situations when the Captain and First Officer disagree on what's the best way to proceed. Maybe it's just us. Maybe it's just the nature of who we are.

Chakotay is my best friend. There is no one on this ship who I trust more, with my life, with this crew. He is one of the best officers that I have ever served with and I know that if something were to happen to me, the crew would get home under his leadership. He would take a little longer than I would like, but he would get them home. Tuvok, who is my oldest friend on board, has accused me more than once of being reckless. When the time warrants it, Chakotay lets me be. But he covers me by ensuring that we are as protected as we can be against all contingencies. When it comes to the safety of this crew and my own safety as we journey, Chakotay is vigilant, especially when the danger is coming from within. No matter what we have been through, I have always known that Chakotay has kept the promise that he made to me when we first entered this Quadrant. He is with me Always. I act at all times with that assurance from him. We both know that this doesn't mean that we will always agree, but he will not undercut my authority as the Captain. But I have always known that no matter what, Chakotay will always act in accordance with his conscience even if it means challenging me. And yesterday, he had to.

How did it get to that? What was the sequence of events that lead us to the point of no return when we had pulled so far apart from each other that my only option left was to relieve him of duty? With all of the situations before, one in particular, I stopped just short of doing that. No, that's not right. He told me that he would follow my orders during the first encounter with the Borg in their space. In this case, he challenged me and made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would appose me. So I had no choice but to strip him of rank. But when, where, did I have the choice to prevent it from coming to that and how did I miss it?

Maybe if I start at the beginning.

Five days ago, we received a distress call, a Federation distress call in the Delta Quadrant, from Captain Ransom of the Equinox. I knew him, he was one of my early Federation heroes. He had accomplished something in his lifetime that most people only dream of. He had made first contact with the Yridians. Even the Borg considered them extinct. He was an excellent scientist, but more than that, he was alone in the Delta Quadrant and that was something I could relate to and I wanted to talk to him face to face about our experiences in this Quadrant. I had been so alone in my Captaincy since being stuck in this Quadrant, to have another Captain to commiserate with seemed like a dream come true. I couldn't wait. I just prayed that we wouldn't be too late.

We weren't, and we found them in them in the middle of an alien attack. We were able to defend them and secure both ships. When I went to his ship as part of the rescue effort, I was amazed. I didn't think that Voyager had ever been so damaged in our entire five years in this Quadrant. And I could see that the damage wasn't recent. Some of the debris looked old and others looked as if they had just fallen. One thing I knew after that visit; of the two crews, Captain Ransom's had the harder journey. I felt almost guilty then. Voyager was pristine compared to the Equinox, and it looked as if it came right out of space dock to rendezvous with them. The feeling continued throughout the memorial service; five crew men lost in one attack. Not even in the worst fire fights with the Kazon did we lose so many of our members at one time.

What struck me was the attitude of the remaining Equinox crew members at the Memorial service for their fallen colleges. Captain Ransom sounded casual and the crew members seemed to be equally bereft of shock. It seemed almost as though they had expected that people would be killed during the encounter with the aliens, or maybe it seemed as though they had held so many of these services that the emotional resonance that normally accompanies them was gone.. Maybe they had been under constant attack for so long that they had resigned themselves to their fate a long time ago and it would take them some time to hope again.

We set out finding all that we could about the aliens that were attacking the Equinox and why. I think it was then when the knot in my gut started. Ransom seemed to allow Burke to be the one who spoke for Equinox. And the way that Ransom and Burke addressed each other, I must confess that I had begun to wonder who was really in command given the nature of their conversations.

When we went back to the Equinox and began working on the Bridge, I asked Ransom about the familiarity that seemed to exist between himself and his crew. He dismissed it saying that they had been through too much in the Delta Quadrant to stand on protocol; although he did point out that I seem to run a tight ship. I found out that he had lost half of his crew during his first week here, by attempting to cross and alien's space without permission. That got me. I don't think I can remember how many times we've sneaked across alien territory. I never lost half my crew. It would have been a bitter blow for me to and for the first time I began to understand what it must have been like for them. No wonder they were close. There were so little of them to begin with and after that loss, they must have clung to each other that much more.

Ransom told me that when he first started the journey home that he had told his crew that they would function as a Starfleet crew seeking out new life and new civilizations as they journeyed home, but as the time went on they began abandoning principles as well as protocols. They forgot that they were scientists and explorers and there were times when they forgot that they were human. He sounded so desolate, I reached out to him. I reminded him that the Equinox was a Nova Class ship and that he should take pride in the fact that he had made it this far on the resources that he had.

Then he asked a question that got my gut going again.

How many times have I broken the prime directive in the name of protecting my crew?

My response was quick and sure. "Never, but I have bent it on occasion."

I must confess, I don't know if my gut was churning because I was realizing that there was something going on aboard the Equinox or the fact that if someone else would review the evidence from my journey, they would find me guilty of violating the Prime Directive. The distinctions that I've made in interpretation were slight, and all of the incidences fell in the grey area of the general order number one. However I know if my former self from five years ago was sitting on the judgment seat of that court, I would be found guilty. So who am I to judge? The Prime Directive has been bent not broken in my case and I was sure for Ransom it was bent during the same sort of situations. He's a Starfleet Captain. Things may have been bad, but not as bad as the picture that he had painted.

Little did I know.

When it came down to crunch time, I knew that we couldn't salvage the Equinox. I hated to ask Ransom to surrender his vessel, but we were talking about our survival at that time. There simply wasn't enough resources to field off attacks on both ships and since Voyager was the ship in the best conditions to support both crews it made sense to sacrifice the Equinox. He fought, he didn't want to let his ship go, just like any good Captain wouldn't, but I couldn't understand why he would want to fight that hard for a ship that was almost a derelict.

Until later.

He was murdering innocent life forms just to get himself home faster. This wasn't just a violation of the Prime Directive. This was genocide. A Starfleet Captain, sworn to uphold the same oath and to act under the same principles that I have, was committing genocide to serve his own purpose. The man who had discovered new life for the benefit of the Federation was slaughtering it to get himself back home. He was reprehensible. The excuses that were given; how he started out investigating the life form and only when he accidentally killed it, he found out it could be use for fuel. And because he was starving and his ship was half destroyed, he decided continue hunting them down and murdering them. Those excuses made me want to lash out at him, to knock him down. Or maybe that wasn't the motivation. Maybe I wanted to stop him from talking because every time he opened his mouth he scared me. He started this journey as a Starfleet Captain in charge of a group of explorers and scientists. They swore to uphold their Starfleet principles no matter what. But the Delta Quadrant threw them the same challenges that it threw our way and in the end, they abandoned everything they were including their humanity. They had set out with literally one quarter of the resources that Voyager had, and in the beginning made the same choices that we made and yet they ended up starving and dying. Then they started making decisions in other situations that I would have never made. I have to ask myself. Did I make different choices in those same circumstances only because I had more resources?

Because of my obsession of getting Voyager home I have almost gotten us assimilated, I have allowed the ship to be destroyed and I am probably only here because two of my bridge officers changed history in order for my crew to survive. I have made some decisions to cross enemy territory that some of the crew paid for with their lives. I know that principles have been compromised and there have been times when protocol has gone out the window. I was on that slippery slope that led to the chasm that Ransom had fallen into. I have been lucky. If I had not been, would I have made the same decisions that he did? Would it be possible that I, as a scientist and an explorer could become a mass murderer given time? Questions that were beginning to form in my gut and maybe if I had time to listen to them and to separate the image of myself from that of Ransom in my own dark mirror, I would have done better during this crisis, but as usual there's never any time for such things when you're under attack.

And we were under attack from then until the nightmare was over.

When I found out what Ransom was doing, I was hard on him because he was doing yes, but also in my mind there were way too many similarities between us and I felt I was looking at myself after travelling on the road not taken. But then he did something that placed him firmly on the side of evil in my mind. He stole our only weapon to fight the aliens, who we had never provoked, and he left me and my crew to the wolves. He treated a fellow Starfleet Captain and her crew in the same manner that he treated this life form in the Delta Quadrant; as fuel to get him to where he really wanted to go. From that moment on, he became the enemy to be hunted down and captured by any means necessary. All possible sympathy and understanding for what he had lived through were gone at that moment, never to return.

When Chakotay first suggested trying to get in touch with the aliens, I dismissed it. In my mind, if we found the Equinox and apprehended the crew, the aliens would see that we had stopped Ransom, and punish his crew for what they had done, and call off their attack. I actually had visions of destroying the ship so that they would understand that they would never be hunted like that again. Luckily for us, we were able and willing to do both at the same time at that point. But when the communication failed and Chakotay wanted to try it again. I put my foot down. We needed to find the Equinox. Once we did, the aliens would stop their attack.

He followed me to the Ready Room and pointed out how much I was lying to myself. Oh, I gave the usual excuse; how finding the Equinox would stop the alien attacks and we would be able to get Seven back, but Chakotay brought me back to the truth. I didn't want Seven, I didn't even want the Equinox. I wanted Ransom. He had to pay for making the choices that he did in the Delta Quadrant, he had to pay for making me judge, jury and executioner as well as witness to his actions and for showing me what I could become given a different set of circumstances. How did Aunt Martha put it? There, but for the grace of God, go I. Not that I believe in God, but more in the principles and protocols that I have embraced as the building blocks of humanity. He swore to embrace and uphold those same principles and protocols had violated them in the worst way

And I was going to make him pay.

I can still hear the words in my head. How I remember them now is a mystery to me, because two days ago, I don't think I could have told you what Chakotay said if my life depended on it.

"I don't blame you for being angry, but you can't compromise the safety of this ship to satisfy some personal vendetta."

But I wasn't paying attention. I don't believe how obsessed I was that the words:

"I'm going to hunt him down no matter how long it takes…no matter what the cost. If you want to call that a vendetta . . . go right ahead."

Had no effect on me. That at that point I couldn't stop and consider what that vendetta could cost me. It could cost me everything. It could cost me First Officer, my crew and my ship and any chance of ever getting home. And if I were doing it just to stop him from murdering innocents, it would be worth it, but I wasn't doing it just for that. I was doing it for the satisfaction of metering out judgement, pure and simple and in that, I was doomed to failure.

Chakotay pitched his idea to contact the Ankari in writing, impersonally via Com. That was a clue of how bad things were getting and I picked up on it, but in the end, I swept it aside. The only thing on my agenda was finding the Equinox. And we found them and I began firing, to stop them or destroy them I don't know. But Ransom was slippery and he gave as good as he got. In the end, he decided to descend into a planet's atmosphere. I couldn't see that he wanted me to follow him. He read me like a book and he knew at that time that I was frothing at the mouth to get to him. So I did follow him. All I had to do was wait for him to come out, but I didn't want to take the chance of losing him and he was goading me, so I followed him in and I lost him

He got away from me, and he won and I lost it. I went over the edge at that point. It didn't matter what had to be sacrificed, I was going to stop Ransom. The senior officers on the bridge knew that I had crossed over when I ordered the ship into what had to be certain destruction. I see could it in Tom's face as he manoeuvred Voyager in the atmosphere, could hear it in Tuvok's and Harry's voices as they gave me the status of the ship's systems and finally in Chakotay's voice as he shouted trying to bring me to my senses. I didn't know at the time it was too late for that. I'm sure that he didn't know that either, but with what happened next, we both did.

I had a consolation prize. I had Noah Lessing brought for interrogation and for that little stunt that Ransom played on me, I was going to get something out of Lessing one way or the other. I wanted Equinox tactical status now and I was going to get or

"Or what? You'll hit me?" That's what Lessing had asked me. And then I told him what I was going to do.

He reminded me that what I was going to do was murder. I told him that from where I stood it was poetic justice. And I asked him again for the status. He told me

"No way in hell,"

"We all make our own hell, Mr. Lessing. I hope you enjoy yours."

Those were my words to him. Little did I know that in what I was attempting to do, I was making my own hell, just as sure as Ransom and every other crew member on the Equniox had been doing since that fateful decision to continue killing the life forms for fuel.

I dropped the shields in the cargo bay where Lessing was and I waited for one of the aliens to attack. I was so sure that he would betray his Captain. That's what I wanted for Ransom's betrayal of me. I really didn't care about his tactical status, there were other ways of finding that out. I wanted Ransom to know what it felt like to be betrayed by one of your own. I don't know if I would have let the alien murder him just as surely as I don't know whether I would have been able to look at it as poetic justice or cold blooded murder, if he had died. But I didn't have to, thanks to my First Officer. He got Lessing out of there and we or I should say, he implemented his plan of contacting the Ankari from information he got out of Lessing.

I reminded him of our first priority, and he reminded me that I had almost killed someone. In his mind I had made a bad call; an error in judgment, one that had the potential of not only haunting me for the rest of my life, but one that might actually lower the respect that the crew had for me. And one that would make me more like Ransom that I would have ever liked.

I told him….I told him that I would make a note in my log. And he lost it at that point. He wasn't going to leave it as a note in my log, in this area of right and wrong, I had crossed the line with Lessing and he warned me that he wasn't going to let me do that again. And so the choice came and I had none. I relieved my first Officer of duty. I was the Captain and he had told me in no uncertain terms that he would stop me from asserting my rightful authority. There was nothing else that could be done for either one of us at that time.

The question is what happens now?

"What has happened to you Kathryn?"

He asked me that, but I couldn't see anything else but Ransom at this point because in my pursuit to destroy him for what he had done, for who he was, I was becoming more and more like him.

I told him that I was about to ask him the same question.

What I was doing in my mind at the time was perfectly reasonable and I could not understand why Chakotay would risk his rank and our friendship and possibly his freedom by hinting that he would stage a mutiny over the way that I was dealing with Ransom.

Chakotay left his insignia on the table as he headed to his quarters.

We contacted the Ankari and I actually tractored them in order for them to talk to us. When they realized that we were a Federation vessel, they wanted to head in the other direction. I couldn't blame them, but we needed to get those attacks called off. They called their "spirits of good fortune" and I began to negotiate for a cease fire. The Spirits were adamant that they only wanted to the Equinox and no other terms would be considered besides the complete surrender of the vessel. I shocked Tuvok when I agreed; to the point that I almost had to relieve him of duty also.

I didn't see what all the fuss was about, the aliens wanted what I wanted; the death of the Equinox.

We found her, near a class two nebula and as I had her, she slipped away and began damaging Voyager, landing shots that went right through our shields. I found out later on that the EMH minus ethical subroutines from the Equinox had displaced our doctor and was giving the Equinox our shield modulations. We took heavy damage. Our weapons were offline and theirs were going through our shields like they weren't there. We could only take about three more hits and we would be history. But luck again was on my side and it came in the form of the great white whale that I was hunting. A message came from the Equinox with the surrender, but with one hitch. There had been a mutiny on the ship and Ransom was not in control of it anymore, Burke was. I couldn't believe it, but as I looked at him over the Com lines and in that instant he ceased being a monster to me. He looked like a regular Captain and as everything that we had been through and everything that I had done for the past couple of days flashed through my head in an instant, I began to wonder who the monster really was. I knew if I continued down this road I would be.

I trusted him, and at the time that I gave the order for him to beam all his people back to Voyager, the entire bridge crew was confused. I had been gunning for his destruction up to this point and now I was allowing him to call the shots in his surrender. If I had allowed myself to turn around, I suppose I would have seen the relief on Tuvok's face. He and Chakotay are the only ones who knew how far gone I really was. Confusion gave way to relief on the bridge. The madness had gone on long enough.

In the end, Ransom sacrificed his ship to ensure that the Aliens stopped attacking us and he went down with the Equinox. His first Officer and two other crew men were also lost. Before he piloted the ship to a safe distance he made a request of me, one that I had already seen being made once before, by myself. He asked me to get my crew and now the rest of his crew by extension home. I promised him I would do it and I promised myself that I would give them the opportunity as so many others had gotten on this ship, an opportunity to prove themselves and to atone for what they had done in this quadrant.

I reinstated Chakotay and we began the slow work rebuilding. Not only the ship's systems, but the crew, it's morale and the relationship between the Captain and the First Officer.

And that is when I saw it. The Voyager Inaugural Plaque had fallen down. With all of the battles that we have had in the last five years, it has never fallen. Not once; and there it was on the ground. I lost my best friend in the conference room but I found him on the bridge around that plaque….and I also found myself fully.

When I was on the Equinox Bridge with Ransom and we had finished talking about the prime directive, Ransom found his inaugural plaque under a pile of rubble. I remember he gave the impression that the plaque was always falling during battle…..or maybe it fell a long time ago and he wasn't able to find it until now, I'm not sure. But I remember I told him that it was a good omen and I told him that I'd help him put it back where it belonged.

Maybe it was a good omen for him and even though he did sink a little further before turning around, maybe it was my helping him put the plaque where it belonged that helped him start putting himself where he belonged again. In the end that's what saved both of us and both our crews.

And on our Bridge, after it was all over Chakotay told me he'd help me put Voyager's inaugural plaque back where it belonged.

It was at that moment that I understood everything, at that moment the full extent of how far I had fallen came to me. It was a moment of painful clarity as all at once I understood everything that happened, all that I did and why we were…..why I was at the place where I found myself.

That plaque, that damn plaque. On the Equinox, when I offered Ransom to help put it back to where it needed to be, it was a sign of hope; a sign that the Equinox could be restored to it's original glory. Maybe for Ransom it was a sign of the fact that the tides had to change. They had to change when he was exposed by another Federation Captain and judged, so that he would abandon his way of thinking which he had embraced for so long and find another way home… with the help of that other Captain…..

But for me…..

For me that plaque meant one thing. The ship is only as strong as the Captain and by extension the crew., Once the Captain falls the crew does and the ship bears the scars of that fall. The plaque cannot stand. I had fallen just as Ransom had. I had crossed the line, just as he did and even though my transgressions maybe arguably a lot less severe than his, the fact still remained that I had crossed.

I had helped Ransom put his crew, his ship back together and he in turn helped me realize that I needed to do so. But I was luckier than Ransom in one respect. I had a First Officer who more than being my right hand, was my conscience. Who, at whatever cost to him, not only prevented me from making too reckless a choice, but who also prevented me from making a choice that would have decreased my humanity.

Now that I saw Ransom at the end, I wonder whose decisions it was to continue the massacre of the aliens, Ransom's or Burke's. I also wonder how he thought he would get away with it when he got back home? How would he face the inquiry board? How would he make the whole crew keep silent about what they had done? How the crew themselves would live with the knowledge of what they had done once they were in Federation space and began to reclaim their humanity?

One thing I don't have to wonder about is what Chakotay would had done if I had proposed that we slaughter aliens for fuel to get ourselves back home a little faster. He would have asked me to drop him off at the nearest inhabitable planet. He would have no part in that. I would like to think that if I were a First Officer in Burke's place that I would do the same. That my obsession of getting home would not be worth hundreds of Alien lives.

In the end, while it was Ransom who made me realize how far I had crossed over, it was Chakotay who helped me…who is helping me rebuild Voyager and its crew now. At first I was so ashamed about what I had done in that moment of clarity, that I almost relinquished the responsibility for helping rebuild crew morale. I wanted to hide and leave it all in his capable hands but Chakotay would not let me.

"I can't do this alone Kathryn."

I watched him tonight. He disappeared with Tuvok and B'Elanna. He spoke to each member to the crew and in some cases was able to draw them out when they needed to be. Even the Equinox crew seems to hold him in high respect right now. More than I, but that is to be expected after what happened. But he will help them become part of this crew and whereas I had to promise myself to allow them to prove their worth to me, I know that he had to make no such promise, it flowed from him naturally. And I know that he is the one whom they would more than likely look to for healing their wounds and struggling to find peace and self-forgiveness for what they did. Looks like Gilmore already has.

Yes he could he could rebuild Voyager' crew without me, but it wouldn't be the same. The senior officers and by extension the rest of the crew, would follow me only because he was and that was unacceptable even though given his support of me it would work. I am the Captain and in the end I am also responsible and I have a part to play in their well being. I have forgotten that twice before and I hope that I will never forget it again.

So back to my original question. When was the point of no return? When I made the decision to try to coerce Lessing to betray Ransom? Something that I found out that Seven of Nine did not do even at the point of willing to die rather than to betray her Captain. When could I have stopped?

After thinking about it, it should have been when Chakotay pointed out my vendetta against Ransom. I should have stopped and seriously thought about it instead of adopting the policy of "the Captain is always right." That policy works for the rest of the crew, but I have already told Chakotay that he has earned the right to be my advisor and for me to listen, not just hear what he had to say. I think that if I did a little more listening and a little more recognizing of what my real motives were I would have been able to pull back before it was too late.

What happens now?

Now we rebuild and I think I have an idea of how to do just that.