AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope that you enjoy! There's a lot coming up, but this moves us forward a great deal!
Let me know what you think!
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The goal for the day was simple. They collected a few samples that Ensign Reynolds needed for the planetary analysis that they would add to their database. She would also gather some samples that would help them determine—beyond their scans which were coming back with very little hopeful indication of minerals and resources that they could use on the ship—whether or not there was anything worth mining in the area. While she collected the samples that she needed, they explored the immediately surrounding area.
They beamed down into a clearing. Not far from the beam-down spot, there was a nice wooded area. Chakotay's tricorder picked up readings of animal life, but he hadn't seen anything. While they'd been wandering around, he'd taken the opportunity to show Daryl how to use the tricorder, since he and Carol had both been given one as part of their away team gear, and Daryl had talked excitedly with him about how much they could have benefitted from having tricorders before.
Daryl had also reminded them that the likelihood of seeing animals, on their first day on the planet, was not very good. They were new there. Their scents were new. They made unfamiliar noises. This was especially true if their scans were correct and they found no humanoid life signs while they wandered around. If they were the first humanoids to be present on the planet, the animals were absolutely going to run from them.
There were mountains in the distance. They could see them, but arriving there would be too much of a walk for a simple reconnaissance mission. If they were devoted enough to exploring the planet, or even if the samples that Ensign Reynolds took back to the ship offered enough hope of useful resources, they would have a team beamed down in the mountainous region to explore and begin extracting materials.
There was a river, too. It was wide and slow moving. It dipped and turned and ran off toward the mountains, cutting a line through the land of clear, blue water. There were fish in the water, and Daryl and Chakotay walked along the edge and pointed out the different colors and patterns that appeared on fish that neither of them had ever seen before.
Carol followed Kathryn when she waved her hand in a relaxed and inviting gesture, and the two of them walked a few good feet away from the river bank where Daryl and Chakotay were entertaining themselves with the fish.
Ensign Reynolds was in her element, so nobody bothered her as she filled the sample case she carried with her.
"This place is like Eden," Carol said.
"Eden?" Kathryn asked. Carol caught, for just a moment, that the woman closed her eyes as if to simply enjoy the moment a little more.
"The Garden of Eden?" Carol pressed. "Adam and Eve. Paradise."
"It is paradise," Kathryn agreed. "I'll give you that. Though—it would seem we're the first humans here."
"I keep looking for Walkers," Carol offered with a laugh. "I guess old habits die hard."
"Walkers?" Kathryn asked.
"The—I guess you'd call them the dead? But the living dead? From our—what'd you call our plague?"
"Oh. The Millennium Plague. The literature never did agree on what to call the reanimated dead. In the scientific journals I read, there was an effort to de-humanize the corpses because of the need to study the disease and to avoid too much contact with them. They called them the 'reanimated' more than anything."
"We heard lots of names for them," Carol said. "Every new person you met had a different name for them. We called them Walkers."
"It's a suitable name," Kathryn said. "For such a horrible…experience. I can't imagine what it must have been like for you."
Carol's stomach clenched. It seemed strange to be three hundred years in the future, talking about her past like it was another life entirely. It felt like another life entirely.
She and Daryl had talked about starting over. They really could.
And the distance felt better than Carol could have ever imagined it might. It happened. It had been her life. Her experiences had been her experiences, but they were so far away that she could let them go. She could work on truly putting down the weight of all she'd carried without fear—irrational or otherwise—that something would rear its head again.
Or, at least, she could begin putting things down.
"It was terrible," she said sincerely, but without any unnecessary drama to the words. This was just a conversation. Kathryn was reaching out to understand her. To empathize with her and share a moment. She didn't need to be convinced of Carol's suffering. For all that Carol knew, the woman in front of her, who offered very little of her private self, had known suffering that Carol had never imagined. "We lost so many people we cared about. And every person you met—you were always kind of aware that it might be temporary. Every good thing you found. It was temporary. Still—when you lost it…"
"Loss never gets any easier," Kathryn said.
She said it with conviction. She'd lost. Carol didn't need to know of what or whom she might be thinking to know that she was speaking from a place of experience.
"It makes it hard to trust the good," Carol offered.
Kathryn smiled to herself.
"You always worry about when the loss will come again," Kathryn agreed. "Poetically, I would tell you not to be afraid. That fear is a useless emotion. But we're all afraid. We have to face our fears, though. We have to keep going. Otherwise…"
"We'd all curl up and die," Carol offered.
"I didn't mean to get depressing," Kathryn said, her demeanor changing in an instant. She sucked in a breath, let it out in a sigh, and seemed to release her negativity with it. "I don't believe that you'll find any Walkers here, and the doctor assured me that he did enough replacement and rejuvenation work with you and Daryl, both, that you won't be spreading the virus to create Walkers."
Carol's stomach tightened again, reminding her of things she'd thought of as she'd lie awake with the excited anticipation of going on a mission with Kathryn and Chakotay.
"Does that mean that—when we die—we won't turn?" Carol asked.
"Turn?" Kathryn asked.
"Into Walkers," Carol said. "The virus—everyone was infected. When you died, if your brain hadn't been injured severely enough, you would turn into one of the Walkers. You would reanimate."
Kathryn nodded her head slowly.
"I understand," she said. "The doctor—as he explained it to me—had to, essentially, cleanse nearly every cell in your body. In Daryl's, too. Rejuvenate them. He removed the virus so that you could neither infect the ship nor any species we encounter—because the Millennium Plague was highly contagious—nor would you still carry the virus. You're clean of it. Essentially, you're just like you were before you were infected." She laughed to herself. "Our doctor is very thorough, and he loves a challenge—no matter how much he grumbles about it. You may even be in better health than you were before the infection. I hope that you both live very long lives, but when you die? You'll both die just the same as I would."
Carol swallowed against an unexpected lump in her throat. There was an inexplicable relief in knowing that the virus had been entirely eradicated from her body. She would not return as a Walker when she died. She would rest in peace without fear of reanimation. And, with any luck, she'd never see a Walker again except for in her nightmares. Because, for all his work with rejuvenation, the doctor had not taken those away, and Carol was sure that certain images from her past would haunt her until she drew her last breath—no matter where in time or space that may happen.
"But the captain doesn't die, right?" Carol asked.
Kathryn smiled.
"We are just as human as everyone else," Kathryn said. She made eye contact with Carol, and she held it, instead of glancing back and forth at the horizon where she was admiring the beauty of the mountains in the distance. "We will die for our crew, if that's what we're called to do."
Carol nodded her understanding. She'd never been in the military, but she understood a little about it. She didn't know as much about Starfleet, but she'd gathered that it was similar. Duty was important. It was a driving force to all of them. Kathryn, surely, had to have certain traits to make it to a point where she commanded an entire ship and crew—and kept them all relatively happy and unquestionably devoted to her.
"So, what happens now?" Carol asked. "The planet is obviously safe. You didn't even need us."
Kathryn laughed to herself.
"In any new situation, you never know what you're going to find. We could have beamed down here to find hostile aliens or apex predators surrounding us. We were lucky this was what we found. Still—Ensign Reynolds will take her samples back to the lab and she'll begin running an analysis. Some of the crew will begin to beam down with supplies. We'll start setting up a camping area. Probably over there. Closer to the lake, I think. The crew will get the R and R that's been coming to them for a while. They'll get a few days to rest and overcome some of their cabin fever. Lieutenant Tom Paris is the best helmsman we can ask for, and he'll land Voyager for B'Elanna and her crew to make some much needed repairs. If Ensign Reynolds' report comes back that there are resources here that we can use—and we can access them without causing any kind of serious damage to the planet—then we'll stay a few days longer to gather what we can."
"And then what?" Carol asked.
"Then we continue toward the Alpha Quadrant," Kathryn said. "We continue toward home."
While they were talking, the ensign in question came toward them carrying her case. Carol thought she looked young. She might have guessed the woman was in her early thirties at best. With the new knowledge she had about aging, though, she wasn't sure exactly how old the woman might be. She assumed it was still rude to ask, especially without knowing someone well.
The ensign was on her very first away mission, apparently, and was quite excited about it. She smiled hard enough that her face looked like it must hurt.
"I'm ready to beam up, Captain," Ensign Reynolds declared.
"Very well," Kathryn said. She touched her combadge. "Captain Janeway to Tuvok."
"Yes, Captain," Tuvok responded.
"Ensign Reynolds is ready to come aboard with her samples," Kathryn said. "Did you get the coordinates that Commander Chakotay sent you?"
"We have the coordinates," Tuvok confirmed.
"You can tell Lieutenant Paris to land the ship there. It's a large clearing and it should have no problem accommodating Voyager."
"He has requested a period of preparation for the landing," Tuvok responded.
"Tell him he has all the time he needs," Kathryn said. "I have prepared duty rosters in case we decided to land. Please distribute them to the crew. We'll need a skeleton crew onboard Voyager at all times, but I want there to be enough rotation that everyone who wants fresh air gets plenty of it."
"Understood, Captain," Tuvok responded. "Am I to assume that you do not intend to beam aboard at this time?"
"I think we're going to remain on the surface while we wait," Kathryn said. "Unless you need me on the ship at this time."
"Everything is under control, Captain," Tuvok said. "We'll beam Ensign Reynolds aboard, and we'll begin preparation to land Voyager."
"Very good, Lieutenant Tuvok," Kathryn responded. "You won't hesitate to contact me if I'm needed."
"Should the need arise, Captain, we'll contact you immediately," Tuvok assured her. "We're initiating transport for Ensign Reynolds."
"Janeway out," Kathryn offered.
She'd barely disconnected from the conversation before the excited ensign, holding her case like it was a treasured Christmas gift, disappeared in what Carol could only call something like a flash of static followed by nothing at all.
Being transported to the surface had been the oddest feeling, and upon appearing on the surface, Daryl had not worried a bit about decorum when he'd quickly hugged Carol. He was as pleased to find her in one piece—after the odd experience—as she was to find that he hadn't been scrambled. They were assured the transporter technology was safe, and they were assured that they'd get used to it, but the first trip had certainly been a wild ride. Carol was glad, honestly, that they weren't beaming back aboard the ship at the moment because she wished to put the experience off just a little.
"Ensign Reynolds has beamed up?" Chakotay asked, walking toward them with Daryl close behind. Daryl was holding a small bunch of grass, and he was splitting pieces of it with his fingertips as he walked.
"Tom's going to prepare Voyager and land her in the clearing," Kathryn said. "Tuvok's going to implement the new duty rosters. And we'll have R and R for a few days—unless there's some mining work to be done."
"If Neelix can't identify any of the plant life," Chakotay said, "I think we should test some of it to bring to airponics."
Before Kathryn could agree or disagree with the idea, her combadge chirped and Tuvok made connection with her once more.
"Captain—you need to scan yourself and the others in your party," Tuvok said. "I'm collecting data from your tricorder now."
Kathryn's brows knitted together, but she scanned each of them without hesitation. Then she turned the tricorder over to Chakotay and allowed him to scan her.
"Is there something wrong, Lieutenant?" She asked.
"I'm afraid there is," Tuvok responded after only little more than a second of hesitation. "I'm with the doctor. It appears that there's some kind of toxin that you've come into contact with."
"A toxin?" Kathryn asked.
"Captain, permission to contact you shortly with more information."
"Granted," Kathryn responded. "But don't leave us waiting too long. I expect to be kept informed."
"Aye, Captain."
They all looked at each other, but there was no need to ask any questions. It wasn't as though anyone there had any more information than anyone else. It seemed like the four of them stood in absolute silence for half an hour, though Carol was sure that it wasn't nearly that long. It only seemed longer because of their nervous anticipation of what Tuvok might say next.
When his voice returned over the combadge connection, he didn't bring them any of the words that Carol had hoped for—words that he was mistaken.
"Captain," Tuvok said. "Are you there?"
"We're here," Kathryn said. "Go ahead."
"The toxin appears to be inactive in your scans," Tuvok said. Carol thought that sounded like good news. The Vulcan that was speaking, however, sounded more solemn than he normally did—not that he ever sounded very excited or upbeat. "The doctor is unsure, at this time, about where you may have come into contact with the toxin on the surface. It is registering, however, in the scans of everyone in the away team."
"Understood," Kathryn said. "Beam us directly to sickbay so the doctor can begin working out a solution to the problem."
"I am afraid that is inadvisable," Tuvok responded. "Captain—the toxin is inactive in your scans. It would appear that, within the atmosphere of the planet, the toxin is present but harmless."
Carol saw something on Kathryn's expression change. She didn't fully understand what was happening, but she felt like she could feel what Kathryn was clearly feeling.
"Please be direct, Lieutenant," Kathryn said. "Do we have reason to believe the toxin is dangerous outside of the atmosphere?"
"I'm sorry, Captain," Tuvok said. Carol thought she heard a hint of that emotion in his voice—something she'd already learned was very uncharacteristic of him and his species. "It appears that the toxin is extremely fast-acting beyond the atmosphere."
"What has happened, Tuvok?" Kathryn asked. Carol saw the woman visibly brace herself as though she expected physical impact with something capable of taking her off her feet. "Report," she commanded with a great deal of authority.
"I'm sorry, Captain," Tuvok repeated. "The doctor tried everything he could. Ensign Reynolds did not survive."
