Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and all characters therein are the property of Americans who are not me. No infringement of copyright is intended.
This is set post-Season 7 and is my 'feel good' ending to the show; I also try and provide as many plausible reasons for this alternative future as I can! NB – the 'main segment' of this story is sent ten years after the crew got back from the Delta Quadrant. Spoilers – entire series. Rating T/PG13 for odd risqué phrase.
NB –Certain chapters are longer than usual for my postings; however, to do otherwise would interrupt the flow of the narrative too much, so apologies.
ENCHANTED ENDGAME
Chapter 3
Light years away Chakotay's gamble was executed flawlessly. Ace pilot Tom Paris glided serenely out of the asteroid cluster over the unsuspecting transport at deceptive speed and beamed off everyone that was registered as being behind the containment field aboard the shuttle, before simply going to maximum warp. The shuttle had shuddered with the weight of those aboard. The prisoners were emaciated, starved, battered and filthily stinking. Every Maquis the Cardassians held had been crammed into the containment field like sardines and the shocked people hemmed in Harry, Chakotay and Tom on all sides as there was no room for anyone to move.
While Chakotay yelled to everyone to keep quiet and explained what was going on, Tom and Harry concentrated on keeping the shuttle going, but after an hour the enhanced warp drive burnt out, forcing them to go to impulse. The holomatrix projecting an image of the shuttle as a Cardassian patrol vessel lasted another hour and a half before it too failed; when a couple of real patrol vessels located them, the multi-phasic shielding effortlessly protected them for an hour and a half before finally failing, and they managed to lose their pursuers temporarily in a gas giant's atmosphere.
But all had seemed lost just as the boundary of Federation space came into view; the impulse engines were screaming as Tom pushed them way beyond capacity in a desperate attempt to outrun the few Cardassian ships that had been able to dog their route, but one direct hit was all the Cardassians needed to achieve and their aim was improving. Out of nowhere a huge ship of unknown configuration had appeared directly in front of the shuttle, and blown it apart – mere seconds after beaming everyone off it.
The ship had fled back into Federation territory at high warp, almost reaching the Badlands near Deep Space 9 before the holomatrix failed to reveal a Federation Nova-class science survey vessel to any observer. On board, Chakotay, Harry and Tom had found themselves beamed directly before the Captain's chair, in which sat a stone-faced Kathryn Janeway. The Doctor had been brought in on the plan to provide urgent and off-the-record medical treatment to the freed Maquis, and he had grimly reported that, as expected, all had obviously been subject to long-term maltreatment.
Captain Janeway had revealed that B'Elanna was providing cover on Earth by using her home's holo-emitters to create holo-images, making it look as if the missing people - Janeway, Chakotay, Tom, Harry, Seven, Tuvok, Icheb, Neelix and the Doctor - were all enjoying a week's vacation at the Paris home in San Francisco. But it was a deception that wouldn't hold up as soon as someone tried to get in touch with any of the real people, or checked up on why one insignificant suburban house was drawing more power from the national grid than the entire city. Tom Riker had declared that they could hide out and heal in the Badlands for several weeks, since it was the one place the Jem'Hadar had never been able to pursue the Maquis.
At the same time, Tom Paris had bearded the lion and the lioness in their den. Understanding Tom's discreet hand signal, Harry had followed him and kept everyone away from that corridor after Tom had followed the Captain and Chakotay into one of the research vessel's cabins and given them both what could only be described as a rollicking. Everyone knew that they loved each other, everyone knew that they had sacrificed their own personal desires for the good of the Voyager crew…
"'Now get over it!'" Seven had heard Tom bark in such a tone as to make her almost jump. "'The pair of you need your heads banging together! Your pride endangered the safety and life of my wife, a mistake that few live to regret. Right now B'Elanna is risking arrest by providing all of us with an alibi we only need because of you! I don't care what you decide, but you will resolve your situation before we leave the Badlands in one hour or I will dump you both here with the Maquis!'"
Hostile, but efficient; the pair had been much chastised. Tom had managed to sneak everyone back to their original locations en route back to Earth with nobody being any the wiser. A few weeks later, Tom Riker and the rest of the Maquis had suddenly arrived on Earth, dramatically claiming asylum and providing a wealth of evidence by virtue of their own scarred bodies for their claims of daily torture and abuse. Cardassia had demanded the return of their 'legitimate prisoners' but hadn't pushed the issue when they were ignored.
The Maquis had told a fanciful tale of a lucky break and daring flight that everyone accepted and nobody believed. Chakotay had been seen around Deep Space 9 several days before the rescue, along with his Talaxian friend, Neelix. Rumours that the ex-Borg and Kathryn Janeway's Vulcan Tuvok had also not been on Vulcan as supposed also swirled around, and when Tom Paris missed a sporting event and a friend called his home, his wife B'Elanna had claimed he was too ill to come to the phone, yet there was no record of Lt Paris receiving any medical treatment or a medical examination as per Starfleet regulations.
People drew their own conclusions; the former Voyagers knew that Chakotay had been involved in rescuing the Maquis; they knew that where the Commander was, Captain Janeway would be; they knew that where Captain Janeway was involved, her most trusted staff would also be around. Now, ten years after the event, it was generally accepted though never uttered that the USS Voyager's senior crew had conspired to snatch the Maquis from the Cardassians.
The Captain must have known as soon as she left Tom Riker in the Badlands that the writing was on the wall, Seven mused. The problem was that she was the Captain.
Once back on Earth after helping Chakotay, Seven had announced her intention to accompany Tuvok to Vulcan, and indeed had found their species much less unnerving than humanity. They in turn had been happy to accommodate a human devoid of that species' usual proclivity for overexcitement. Being on Vulcan without the pressure to pair off or 'embrace' her humanity had enabled Seven to examine her feelings with clarity. She had realised that readjusting to being a woman in the fullest sense of the word would be a slow process, and considered her decision to break things off with Chakotay the right one. Her frequent visits to Earth gave her just as much human emotion as she was able to cope with, while providing her with a ringside seat as Chakotay and the Captain heeded Tom Paris's orders and finally got their act together now he was no longer her First Officer.
On paper, that was, though. The Voyagers had been and were a family, albeit an extremely strange one. Crewmen Jor and Baytart had transferred to the USS Excelsior along with the Ensigns Ashmore, who were brother and sister and who, despite being the only children of their parents, had elected to continue on active service. Others of the Voyagers who had chosen to remain on active duty, such as Jenny and Meghan Delaney, Freddie Bristow and Lts Baxter and Kashimuro, had also transferred to other Starfleet vessels. But while their work was exemplary, their psyches were not.
The Captain of the Excelsior had pointed out how his officers had overheard a dozen conversations wherein he was always defined in full: Captain Lucas, whereas Janeway was simply the Captain. Aboard the USS Prometheus First Officer Zarok reported that Lt Walter Baxter tended to call him 'Tuvok' when he wasn't concentrating. On the USS Al-Batani the ship's medical officer reported that the 'Voyager contingent' preferred being treated by the EMH rather than the flesh-and-blood physician. Aboard the USS Valiant the EMH had approached the Captain worried that he was missing vital subroutines because Lieutenants (junior grade) Marla Gilmore and Noah Lessing only ever relaxed around him when he was singing opera like the Doctor. There was also the issue of rank – not all the brevet ranks had been carried forward, but the Voyagers tended to act on the Delta Quadrant rank, such as aboard the USS Scott when the Captain noticed how Vulcan Lieutenant Vorik accepted orders from Ensign Ayala because on Voyager their ranks had been the other way around; nor was it an isolated happenstance.
Likewise the Voyagers kept in touch socially, and any occasion ships bearing a collective of them were at the same Deep Space Station at the same time, a holodeck would be activated for Chez Sandrine's, which had become an almost universal program these days; the real establishment had enjoyed a ten-fold increase in custom since it was popularised in media documentaries of Voyager's trip home. The Voyagers bickered and celebrated with each other to the – admittedly not deliberate – exclusion of others.
Nor had events such as this annual get-together helped matters, though their development was entirely accidental – but their catalyst had been extraordinary and impossible to factor into any theory of how the Voyagers would integrate back into Alpha Quadrant life.
Continued in Chapter 4…