AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I wrote another chapter for this one earlier today. If you missed it, please make sure that you go back and read it. Also, don't forget to let me know what you think! I always love hearing from you!
There's a lot of borrowed technobabble and such in this chapter. I borrowed heavily from the show for different events in this chapter because they're simply good for setting things up. From here, we'll be doing quite a bit of departing from where the show takes us, but I won't spoil much more than that.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"B'Elanna—report," Kathryn demanded. She waited a moment. She closed her eyes. She tried to convince herself that this wasn't happening—none of this was happening. The lights on the bridge flickered on, flashed off again, and then flickered back to seemingly full power. Kathryn sucked in a breath and, upon releasing it, she touched her combadge. "I want a full report."
"Captain, we've got power again, temporarily," B'Elanna said.
"What happened?" Kathryn asked.
"It was an internal explosion," Tuvok said. "There are damage reports coming in from all decks. Casualties reports are coming in. The explosion appears to have originated on Deck 8."
"Deck 8—Tierna's quarters," Chakotay offered.
"In other news, Captain, we've got more company," Tom announced. "A third Kazon ship just showed up."
"Power failures are being reported on all decks," Tuvok said. "There was an explosion in engineering."
"B'Elanna, area you alright?" Kathryn asked.
"We're fine," B'Elanna said. "We've temporarily lost power to warp drive, and we blew a few consoles with that last electrical surge."
"We have more company, B'Elanna," Kathryn responded. "We need that warp drive online to get us some distance."
"I'm sorry, Captain," B'Elanna said. Her voice scrambled. The lights flickered again. They were hit, once more, hard enough that the whole ship rocked and lurched. The steady hits were starting to become commonplace. It was only the really direct hits that got their attention anymore.
Before Kathryn could even demand a report, they started pouring in. They were bombarding her. Drowning her. They came from every direction, and she heard them in every voice. She could hardly distinguish one from the other, now.
It was never supposed to happen like this, but it had.
It had all gotten out of hand much too quickly and much too completely.
Before they had even reached the coordinates transmitted to them with Seska's message, they'd encountered a small shuttlecraft. It was heavily damaged and floating in space without the use of its power systems. Its life support had been failing. Their scanners had detected a Kazon life sign onboard, and they'd immediately transported the Kazon to their sickbay. It had taken the doctor some time, but he'd brought the Kazon back around—a man named Tierna, which Chakotay could identify from his time spent being tortured by the Kazon.
After giving him time to think things over, Chakotay had chosen to go after his son because he knew he couldn't live without knowing what happened to the child. Kathryn understood his feelings and, when she made the announcement to the crew that they were going to try to rescue the infant, nobody had questioned her decision. Either they all understood and supported the decision or, at the very least, they weren't going to voice their disagreement with the plan.
The original plan had been to approach cautiously, figure out whether or not this was some kind of trap, and proceed from there. Their intention had really been to remain distant enough to see the trap befor they were ensnared. They had a few small tricks up their sleeves, just in case they discovered that this wasn't a trap and they really were going to have to engage the Kazon, but the greatest of their tricks involved using holoemitters to project a holographic fleet that would make it appear that Voyager was not travelling, and therefore not attacking, alone. The hope was that they could get out of the whole situation with little more than some very convincing threats.
Chakotay interrogated Tierna, but his story didn't shed too much light on anything. It only stood to confirm what Seska had said, and to further the story by letting Chakotay know that Seska was dead and Culluh intended to trade the infant as a slave among the other Kazon sects, given that slave trade was an acceptable form of obtaining goods and information among the various—and often warring—sects.
As it turned out, they hadn't even been given the chance to try to negotiate with Culluh. As they'd continued on into Kazon space, they'd been hit—and then they'd been hit again. First it was just one ship, and Kathryn had thought they might have a chance. Then it was two, but she'd held onto hope. Now a third had arrived and her optimism was fading quickly.
Holoemitters were gone and any dream they had of their smoke and mirrors trick working was gone with them.
The ship rocked hard again. Kathryn reached for the bar in front of her, meaning to steady herself. She hit her knees, but she was back on her feet, she hoped, before anyone else could even notice that she'd even gone down.
Reports of damage spilled in around her.
Everyone was doing their job. Everyone was working as steadily as they could.
"Evasive maneuvers Mr. Paris," Chakotay announced. "Gamma sequence five."
"Response teams are being sent to handle reports of electrical fires on Decks eight, nine, and sixteen," Tuvok announced.
"Heavy damage on Deck 8," Harry announced. "Reports are coming in of plasma leaks. It would be advisable to seal off the area."
"Dispatching teams to evacuate and seal off the area," Tuvok said.
"Where are we evacuating Tierna?" Chakotay asked. "And isn't Suder on Deck 8?"
Suder was confined to quarters for the rest of their trip for murder. He was confined to quarters for his violent tendencies and delights. Somehow, Kathryn was starting to think that it wouldn't matter if he escaped the hold of his escorts or not.
"Move Suder and Tierna to the brig," Tuvok demanded.
Kathryn wondered how many of her crew were still capable of listening. The power flickered here and there. Sparks flew from consoles. Carol had wanted to come to the bridge. She'd wanted to experience what Kathryn experienced on a regular workday. Kathryn had given Carol a simple job of monitoring one of the consoles that would have required little more of her than making connections between lines that blinked requesting reconnections as station transfers were required. Normally, she would have needed to make one or two transfers a day. During all of this, she would have never been able to keep up, especially as systems shorted out and stations went dark.
Her station, however, had gone dark, already, in a shower of sparks. Kathryn had heard her surprised yelp, and she'd dared to cast a glance in her direction, but she was no more damaged than the rest of them. Terrified, probably, but not damaged.
"B'Elanna, how long until we can have warp drive?" Kathryn asked, keeping her voice as steady and calm as she could. Everyone around her was doing their best. She was doing her best. None of them would benefit, though, from feeling her stress. In fact, they would all perform better—think better—if they believed that Kathryn still believed they could come out of this with very little damage or, at the very least, with very little more damage than what they'd already suffered.
"Shields are at sixty percent, and falling," Harry announced.
Kathryn ignored him. She waited for B'Elanna's reply. She knew that engineering, very likely, was experiencing more trouble than anywhere else on the ship. B'Elanna, thankfully, was good at putting out fires—literally and figuratively—and she had some of her strongest team members on deck at the moment.
"B'Elanna, can you still read me?" Kathryn asked, hoping that the flickering power hadn't cut them off entirely from one another.
"I'm attempting to bypass the containment field generator," B'Elanna responded. Her voice crackled with the damaged lines. "At this time, I'm unable to say when we'll have warp."
"Continue evasive maneuvers, Mr. Paris," Kathryn demanded. "We can't outrun them, so we'll have to do our best to outsmart them."
"Aye, Captain," Tom announced.
"There's no outsmarting three ships, Captain," Chakotay offered. "We've tried every trick in the book. There's just too many of them targeting us at once."
Kathryn allowed herself to only glance at Chakotay. He was doing his best to control his emotions. He was tapping into his inner-captain, and he was doing everything he could to remain calm. Like Kathryn, he knew that the crew would benefit more from level-headed leadership. He was also doing everything he could to help Kathryn answer questions and field the incoming onslaught of reports.
She could hear it in his voice, though, and she could see it in his eyes. She could practically smell it in the air around them as it mixed with the scent of scorched electrical workings.
Chakotay was actively blaming himself. He was feeling guilty. Kathryn, too, could feel guilty for the whole thing, if she wanted to, but she knew that the middle of a firefight wasn't the place for guilt. It was an emotion, honestly, that was best consumed alone and in the quiet that followed the end—whatever that end might be.
They weren't at the end. Not yet. And she would hold on until she was certain that there was nothing else to hold onto.
"I'm certain Mr. Paris has a few more tricks up his sleeve," Kathryn offered as a way to bolster Tom's confidence while he flew the ship and did his best to dodge the fire that rocked them from time to time. Kathryn made her way to her command chair and sat down. Each time the ship strongly rocked and lurched, she lost her balance. Her bridge crew's morale didn't need to be brought down by seeing their captain hit her knees one too many times as the ship felt like it was being torn apart by enemy fire.
Another jolt shook the ship and the power that had been on for a moment flickered off again. Somewhere there was the crackle of electricity, but Kathryn was almost certain that there couldn't be too many consoles left to blow.
"Navigation is offline," Tom announced.
If they didn't get navigation up and running, they were practically dead in the water between three firing Kazon ships.
"We've lost power to forward phasers," Tuvok announced.
Now they couldn't even fight their way out of the situation—not that they were making their way out before.
"Shields are at thirty percent," Harry announced, the sound of his feelings about the situation starting to come through in his voice. She could hear it. Almost like a child, he was begging for answers. He was begging for her to do something. To save them all. Harry still believed that Kathryn was, somehow, immortal and something of a miracle worker. "They're buckling, Captain!"
The next round of sizzling explosions sent out the sounds of a few people screaming along with the electrical pops and hisses. Those people had been shocked, or worse.
"Report," Kathryn demanded, though she didn't want to hear what was being said.
"The driver coil assembly has been destroyed," Harry said. "Impulse engines are offline."
They were dead in the water. Their shields wouldn't last through another hit like the one they'd just taken. They had no weapons. They were entirely vulnerable.
"We're being boarded through the shuttle bays, Captain," Tuvok offered. Kathryn's stomach tightened and lurched. More than any of the physical slinging about she'd suffered in the firefight, the words that came out of Tuvok's mouth, next, gave her the desire to empty the contents of her stomach right there on the bridge. She might have, if it were even possible for her to remember the last time she'd eaten or even drank something. She listened as Tuvok reported phaser fights throughout the ship.
The Kazons were boarding Voyager. They were swarming Voyager. As they moved through the ship, and closer to the bridge, they were taking control of as many areas as possible and overpowering crew members. Kathryn had no way of knowing how many of her people were dead and how many were injured.
She had no way of knowing how many more of them the Kazon would kill, and how many of them they'd take prisoner, bend to their will, and turn into slaves for their own sect and other Kazon sects.
They may have lost Voyager—Kathryn may have cost them that—but she'd do everything in her power to try and save them from suffering at the hands of the Kazon.
"Begin evacuation," Kathryn announced. Chakotay started the announcements to try to let crew members know what was going on. The hope was that some of them, at least, would be able to save themselves.
Kathryn glanced around at the people on the bridge. Many of them were looking at her. They were expecting answers. They were expecting some last minute, amazing salvation. She didn't have the answers to offer them that they hoped for. She knew, without any doubt, that those of them on the bridge would never make it to the evacuation pods. She let her eyes fall quickly over the faces around her, but she didn't dare to let them settle. She could hold her voice firm and strong, but she couldn't hide the sorrow in her eyes. The pain she felt at having failed them all.
"Computer," Kathryn announced, "initiate self-destruct sequence. Authorization Janeway pi 1-1-0. Set at ten minutes."
The computer beeped.
"Unable to comply due to damage to secondary command processors," the computer responded.
"The escape pods won't launch," Chakotay informed her, another report streaming in to go with the others that she heard announcing the few power and systems failures, throughout the ship, that they didn't already know about.
Kathryn's stomach knotted.
They couldn't evacuate. She couldn't get her people off the ship. She couldn't even set the ship to self-destruct to save them all, that way, from the Kazons.
Her heart pounded in her chest. She felt slightly dizzy. The sorrow she felt for her people washed over her. There wasn't time for her guilt. There wasn't room for it. Not here. She would deal with it later—not quite knowing what later may hold for any of them.
"Stay where you are, don't move!"
Kathryn felt a chill run through her as she heard the words announced. She turned to look at the bridge doors just in time to see two of her crewmen fire at the Kazons. One of the Kazons went down. Two of her crewmen dropped as they were struck by the Kazon's phaserfire.
"Hold your fire!" Kathryn commanded as sharply as she could. There was no need in seeing more death than was necessary—more than was inevitable.
Kathryn watched, for a moment, as the Kazons rounded up the bridge crew—those who were still conscious—and everyone that they'd apparently found close to the bridge. They brought in the few they'd gathered from outside the bridge—B'Elanna and Daryl among them. Kathryn could only imagine that, in the last moments, knowing that everything they could do was done, Daryl had made a run for the bridge and, for whatever personal reason, B'Elanna had followed.
Now, along with everyone else on the bridge, they were forced forward by phaser and told to kneel in a circle on the floor.
Kathryn moved when she felt the butt of the phaser rifle between her shoulder blades. She stepped forward, with the others, and she knelt down at the spot they indicated on the floor—next to B'Elanna, with only B'Elanna between her and Chakotay.
Kathryn wanted to tell them all that she was sorry, but the last thing she wanted to do was appear weak in front of the Kazons. She steeled herself entirely and turned toward the Kazon that held a rifle next to her head as though she were likely to make a run for it or attempt to disarm him.
"I want to speak to Maje Cullah," Kathryn demanded.
"That can be easily arranged, Captain."
Kathryn turned, just in time to see Culluh, smirking, as he stepped onto the bridge. He was flanked by Seska, who was holding the infant she'd used to lure them there.
"Hello everybody," she said, her voice sending shivers of annoyance up Kathryn's spine.
"Finally," Culluh said with a bit of an excited sigh, "Voyager belongs to the Kazon-Nistrim."
Kathryn's heart thundered in her chest. She wasn't sure what she was going to say, or how she was going to talk their way out of this, but she knew she had to try.
Otherwise, they were all going to belong to the Kazon-Nistrim.
