Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and all characters therein are the property of Americans who are not me. No infringement of copyright is intended.

This story is set approximately around Season 3-4, but no particular spoilers other than this happens before Thirty Days. Rating M/15 for mature themes. Thanks to Star Trek Voyager: Lower Decks for all factual/technical information pertaining to the layout of the USS Voyager, and Star Trek: Technobabble for the correct spelling of "Jefferies Tube".

FEEDING THE FURY

Chapter 3

Tom hissed with the pain, mentally castigating himself as he realised he was so wound up that he'd bitten his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Running his tongue over the tiny wound he again checked the time index on the Voyager computer's wall display. It was 5.27 minutes since he'd left Holodeck 2 and whatever he decided he shouldn't be standing in this main corridor where he could be seen by any crewmember who passed by! Glancing around to ensure nobody was imminently approaching, he quickly opened the hatch into the Jefferies Tube and climbed inside.

All he had to do was climb up the ladder and take the first left and it would take him straight to hydroponics. Yet again, however, Tom found himself torn by indecision.

If B'Elanna and Chakotay were having an illicit affair, they would have secret rendezvous. Extremely good secret meetings, considering that apparently nobody on Voyager was yet clued in that anything was going on despite the fact that around this place there was usually a time lapse of about 2½ minutes between someone having a secret and the farthest corner of deck 15 knowing all about it.

In the week since what he had witnessed in the Cargo Bay, he had endured a constant see-saw of emotions, but rage had been paramount, the one thing Tom had been unable to get past. His sleep was tormented by fragmented dreams of B'Elanna and Chakotay together and every second at the Con was an eternity of endurance as he constantly battled the urge to simply swing around in his chair and smash his fist into Chakotay's jaw. Being the Con Officer meant that everyone else on the Bridge was situated 'behind' you, but he had known whenever Chakotay had moved anywhere near him because his skin had literally crawled with prickles of fury. He couldn't go on like this – something had to give and if he wasn't careful, it would be him. He had to know, for sure.

It had taken Tom hours of almost second-by-second comparison of Chakotay and B'Elanna's respective duty rosters to locate two 'windows of opportunity' wherein Chakotay and B'Elanna would be able to each sneak a few minutes away from their respective duty stations. But the first window had been a living hell, since it had occurred right in the middle of Tom's duty shift. At the Con he had felt physically sick as Chakotay walked off the Bridge and it had taken all his willpower to carry out the simplest of his station's functions. Fortunately the duty shift hadn't consisted of anything more complex than piloting Voyager in a straight line at Warp 8, since that region of space had been devastated by a super-nova at some point and anything either interesting or useful had been obliterated. What planetary bodies had survived intact had been flash-fried into barren lumps of rock; no vegetation, no water, no useful minerals or ore or sentient species had survived the destruction.

This was the second window of opportunity that the two of them could utilise – in theory. Tom realised that he had probably wasted another five minutes stood here in the gloom of the Jefferies Tube dithering, but…an almost minute-by-minute check of the last 'window' had shown that Chakotay had gone to the Mess Hall and stayed there, while B'Elanna had never left engineering. But there had been sudden fluctuations in the plasma coils that B'Elanna had sorted out. What if they had some prearranged code that they exchanged if they were forced to cancel an assignation at short notice?

However, on this occasion the timing was perfect – as was their mutual proximity to an ideal place for a rendezvous with your illicit lover: hydroponics. Easily the most boring place on board (plants were not the most riveting conversationalists and there was no way to make turnips a fascinating subject of debate), hydroponics was never frequented by anyone other than Neelix and occasionally his goddaughter Naomi in 'little chef' mode. Deserted and with plenty of shadowed nooks and crannies. If Tom had been cheating on B'Elanna, it was the rendezvous he would have chosen.

But when he'd left Holodeck 2 ten minutes ago, the computer had confirmed that Chakotay was on Deck 4, nowhere near hydroponics, which meant that checking hydroponics was a wild goose chase. But Tom couldn't overcome the urge to go and have a look for himself, just to make sure, even as he acknowledged his own paranoia. However, it would be another three weeks before their three duty rotas – his, B'Elanna and Chakotay's – were 'synchronised' like this again where he could monitor another 'window of opportunity', and also where Harry's duty rota kept him out of the way.

Intending to double-check Chakotay's whereabouts, Tom tapped his chest in auto-reflex, but of course nothing happened. That galvanised him and he began to climb up the Jefferies Tube, grunting softly with effort despite his gym workouts/competitions with Lt Walter Baxter. He had booked an hour's Holodeck time commencing at the end of his duty shift. Since Harry would be on the Bridge for another couple of hours yet, Tom had had an excuse not to run Captain Proton, instead selecting a generic, basic Alpine skiing program that he had been able to leave running on its own. The big bad of leaving behind his com badge on the Holodeck so a the computer would register him as being in the Holodeck while he made a discreet exit to come down here had been a calculated risk. He could only hope that the Delta Quadrant's next batch of whatever bad guys didn't decide to launch an attack within the next three quarters of an hour until he could go back and retrieve the badge.

He found the entrance and began to crawl along the Jefferies Tube. All he had to do was check out hydroponics and once his own paranoid eyes saw there was nothing there, he could relax. It was unlikely that Chakotay would be able to come up with any plausible reason to go from Deck 4 to Hydroponics in the space of ten minutes.

Swallowing against a suddenly dry throat, Tom looked at the hatch that opened out onto the upper workman's gantry. Carefully he eased it open and wriggled through, but didn't stand up. Unlike the Cargo Bay, the only other access to this high gantry was via a ladder situated just inside the hydroponics bay doors, clearly visible to any casual glance. Apart from this small square footage of space, shadowed by a bulkhead, most of the gantry was bathed in bright light and was composed of a nastily echoing metal. Unless he was careful he might as well take out five minutes on Neelix's Good Morning Voyager to announce his presence.

Crouching down, Tom stretched his body forward so he was lying on his stomach on the gantry, and peered down at the assorted flora. True to his guess, the hydroponics bay seemed singularly deserted of personnel; understandable unless you found the growth cycle of cucumbers riveting. He couldn't see anyone, but trying to determine anything by relying on his ears was an exercise in futility. The hum of the artificial solar emitters for the green plants was constant, as was the soft bip-bip of the humidity gauges and the soft sh-sh of the moisture sprinklers on the seed beds. Relatively speaking hydroponics was as noisy as the Bridge; Chakotay and B'Elanna could be declaiming their lust for each other at a decibel level close to that of a Klingon aria and he might not be able to hear them.

Using his elbows and hips – how did frontline female military personnel do this without bruising vital anatomy? – Tom crawled forward over the metal slats of the gantry walkway to get a better view of the room below, but it seemed genuinely deserted…

Wait, a flash of colour? Red? Tom risked raising his head slightly and having another look…Neelix was experimenting with edible flowering plants – those roses were peach…the geraniums were pink…but red?...

They were in a slight alcove right at the back of hydroponics, shielded by luxuriant date-palm type miniature trees that effectively screened them off from anyone who might decide to walk in and get an eyeful as they passionately embraced – but not anyone who was looking down, say from the workman's gantry.

B'Elanna pulled back and stood up jerkily, almost hugging herself self-protectively. "I need to get back to engineering; I'll be missed."

Chakotay moved to grasp her upper arms with his own hands, "Just one more minute." He ordered/pleaded.

They kissed once more, lingeringly, before jumping apart guiltily as the moisture sprinklers beeped to indicate a change in setting. Tom flattened himself against the walkway of the gantry until he was sure they were both gone, before sitting up. Moving rapidly he crawled back through the Tube and down the shaft, going so fast that he banged his shins on the ladder rungs and was panting heavily by the time he managed to get out and get back to Holodeck 2, which had seven minutes of the program left to run. Hurrying inside as he heard the voices of Lt Ayala and Ensign Gerron, who had booked it next, Tom scooped up his com badge and attached it back to his uniform in the customary upper right section of his torso.

So now he knew.

Continued in Chapter 4…

© 2005, Catherine D. Stewart