AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

As I said, there are several chapters to this arc because there are things that are taking place all over the ship that I want to explore.

I hope that you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

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The replicators were up and running first, though the fact that the lights wouldn't brighten beyond their current level of dimness told Carol that it was likely that they were sending the power, in some way, directly to the replicators. A Kazon soldier came to share the news with Culluh that he could now use the replicators, and then the soldier disappeared to go about his work again.

They didn't have any communications from what Carol could tell. Either that, or they didn't know how to use them. That was good, and she hoped that B'Elanna failed to tell them how to get communication up and running throughout the ship.

Carol replicated the fresh linens, as requested by Culluh, and she made the bed. She fluffed his pillows and, for the added pleasure it would bring him, took a knee when she told him, in the living room, that his bed was ready for him, and that she hoped it pleased him.

Carol waited for some punishment from Culluh. She braced herself, at every step, for a slap across the face or a hard smack with electrical rod that he kept in case he needed it—though his lack of belief that he would need the rod was illustrated by the fact that he kept it leaning against the wall in the living area and, so far, he hadn't moved it once from its location. Carol waited to see if he would be the kind of man that would punish her, ahead of time, for mistakes she hadn't made yet—just so she would know that they wouldn't be tolerated if they came to pass. A few burns or slaps would hardly phase Carol at this point. She'd been through much worse. She simply wanted to know exactly what she was dealing with.

But Culluh seemed to at least be honest about what he'd told her so far—and, perhaps, Kazons were simply honest about such things. He hadn't punished her and it appeared that he didn't intend to punish her—not unless she disobeyed him. He helped her to her feet, and asked her to follow him and provide all that he needed to settle into his new quarters.

In the bedroom, he reclined on the bed like a man who had just been crowned king and was unaccustomed to such luxury. He ordered water to drink—a great deal of water—and a meal of food which Carol had never heard of before. She hoped the replicator would comply, and she knew that it would as long as Neelix had heard of the food, because he had programmed a great many dishes into the ship's replicator system that only he Kes seemed to find familiar.

Carol was relieved when the replicator produced the plate that Culluh required. She was pleased to see it was a healthy portion, as well, and appeared like the kind of food that weighed heavy in the stomach. She brought him the food, bowed as she served it to him, and returned a moment later with a pitcher of water and a glass. She filled the glass for him with another bow before she returned to the replicator with her next request—a surprise for her Maje.

The nightcap that she replicated for him was her own choice. Since he didn't seem familiar with the word whiskey, Carol was glad that she'd poured a decent sized glass of it—she'd ordered a bottle and glass—to serve him. It was far more than anyone even accustomed to drinking heavily should attempt to finish. Carol served it to him with another bow and the explanation that, on her planet, it was customary for royalty to drink a glass following each meal to help with digestion and sleep. Heavy consumption of the liquid, she told him, was the mark of good taste and nobility.

Carol tolerated when he instructed her to sit on the side of the bed beside him while he ate. She ducked her head and only let her eyes meet his occasionally. Men like Culluh liked that. They liked when you wouldn't meet their eyes because they read it as fear. Submission.

Carol tolerated it, too, when he reached his dirty hand out—greasy from whatever he was eating, the smell of which made Carol's stomach threaten to turn—to hold her chin and direct her toward him when he wanted to talk to her. She tried to at least pretend to listen to him, but it wasn't long before she knew that she was going to be sick.

Begging permission to be sick would probably get her a lesser punishment than emptying her stomach of whatever contents there were—because she couldn't recall eating or drinking lately—onto the bed.

"Please—I'm going to…be sick," Carol said. "The baby," she managed, before she covered her mouth.

Culluh didn't look angry. He looked amused and waved at Carol to go. She ran to the bathroom, leaving the door open as he commanded that she do. In the bathroom, she emptied her stomach of what there was—mostly what she would call bile—and she took the opportunity to swallow down some fresh air that wasn't quite poisoned with the stink of Kazon and Kazon cuisine. At the sink, she washed her mouth out and then gulped down a few handfuls of the water to serve as breakfast, or lunch, or whatever meal might be appropriate at whatever hour it happened to be.

"Enjoy the water," Culluh called happily from the bedroom. "Now that we have Voyager's technology, we'll have all the water we want. And we'll be able to control the dry colonies like the mining colony in the Rikka system or the Hanon system where we'll probably sell that bastard you're carrying."

Carol's stomach twisted again and she swallowed, holding onto the bathroom sink, and reminded herself that there was nothing in her stomach except the water she'd just drank. She didn't need to be sick again.

But she wanted to be sick. Just hearing Culluh call her baby a bastard made her chest ache. The suggestion that—if they somehow failed to escape this—he would take her baby and sell it to some strange aliens made her lungs constrict. He would do the same to Kathryn. Kathryn didn't know, yet, the pain of losing a child. Her introduction to that soul-sucking pain would be them ripping away her infant to treat as though it were nothing more than some product to be traded.

They would trade people. Beat them. Hurt them. Kill them. They would subject them to lives of torture and mistreatment. People she cared about. People she loved.

They would sell Daryl, as an able-bodied man, to mine some ore she'd never heard of, and probably to die in some desolate location from exposure, if they didn't beat him to death first. And then they would take her baby from her, to meet the same fate. Carol dropped a hand to her stomach. She wished she could feel the little thing. She knew it was there, but she wished she knew even more assuredly than she simply knew. The wave of nausea in response to her suddenly overwhelming feelings almost made her smile. It made her chest ache more. The expression of distaste for the situation, the smells, and the chemicals caused by her emotions was the only way the little one could make itself known and express an opinion.

"No," she said. "You can't have it."

The words escaped her really before she realized that she'd said them. Culluh quickly called attention to them.

"What did you say?" He asked. There was a hint of warning in his tone. Carol detected it immediately. Ed, her first husband, had taught her to detect that kind of tonal warning. He'd also taught her that those kinds of questions weren't genuine. Culluh had heard her. He was feeling generous and forgiving—at least as he would see it—and he was giving her an opportunity to correct her misstep before she was punished.

Carol's throat ached and her head throbbed. She felt the constriction in her lungs. She felt the knotting in her stomach that she could force herself to forget. The tears burned at her eyes, and she didn't try to hold them back. She welcomed them. She dampened a fresh rag with sink water.

She turned and walked back toward the bed. She ignored the stench of Kazon and the disgusting food that he was polishing off. She took his hands and washed them reverently with the clean rag before removing the tray and placing it on the dresser, out of the way. She offered him the glass of whiskey without a word. She let the tears run hot and free down her cheeks. She let them drip off her jaw and fall around her.

He smiled at her pain. He was pleased by it. She reminded herself—ignoring the gnawing discomfort in her gut—that he was pleased by her pain. He would be pleased by other's pain. He would be happy to hear them suffering and dying. He would feed off that anguish. She needed to remember what kind of a person—creature, whatever she was supposed to call him—that he really was. She had to remember what kind of creatures they all were.

"Please," Carol said. "You can't take it. Please. My baby—you can't…you can't take it. I can't…you can't do that."

She closed her eyes a moment. The smile on Culluh's face was burned into her brain now. She could see it even with her eyes closed. She knew that he had no respect for her. He had no respect for any of them. He had no respect for their feelings or their lives, and his followers wouldn't either.

He touched Carol's face again. He dampened his fingertips with her tears.

"Please," she begged again. He laughed. The sound burned through her body like a hot bolt of lightning.

"I can see this is very important to you," Culluh said, not hiding his amusement. "However—it wouldn't do for slave women to have children to keep."

"It would mean—more slaves for you," Carol offered.

"If slave women keep their offspring," Culluh said, "they become too attached to them. Too wild when they're around them. They do better when you separate them as soon as possible."

"The babies will die," Carol said.

"Let the slaves nurse acquired infants," Culluh said. "Only the weak ones refuse to nurse and die. Nobody wants weak slaves. They're more trouble than they're worth. It's better to be rid of them sooner rather than later, or they're a drain on resources."

"Please," Carol said again. "Don't do this. You don't—you don't have to do this. None of it. You don't have to—hurt anyone. You can let us all go…"

"And do what with you?" Culluh asked, holding tightly enough to Carol's face, now, that she was sure he would leave bruises. There was warning in the pressure behind his fingertips. Ed had taught her that warning, too, before many of the beatings that had followed when she still failed to calm whatever had angered him. "This ship is mine, now. It belongs to the Kazon-Nistrim. It will make us some of the greatest warriors across all the sects."

"Then take us to a planet," Carol said, "where we can live. Give us the chance to survive. You can stop this. You don't have to do this."

"Your captain wouldn't share her technology with us," Culluh said. "Your people contribute nothing to our people. To anybody. As slaves, you'll contribute in a very meaningful way. You should feel honored that we're allowing you the opportunity to do something, instead of simply killing you all immediately. You, of all of them, should be honored that I'm allowing you to serve me—your Maje."

Carol was no stranger to the message that she should be thankful for being allowed to exist. She should be thankful for any kindness shown to her. She should understand that she was nothing more than a burden, really.

She nodded her head.

"Yes, Maje," she agreed, not trying to slow her tears or to hide the grief that was seizing up every muscle in her body. He wanted her tears. He wanted her pain. She wanted him to have them. She offered him the glass of whiskey; she ducked her head. He took it and she accepted the caress of her cheek.

"You'll be better off without the bastard anyway," Culluh mused. "It would only get in the way of your work. Your devotion to the bastard would hinder your absolute devotion to your Maje."

Carol nodded. She slipped down off the side of the bed and took the fully submissive stance of kneeling beside the bed—and beside the man who was enjoying himself as some kind of kingly Maje. He thought nothing of her submissive position, other than the pleasure which seeing it brought him, because he was now accustomed to the fact that she naturally assumed a fully subservient position when possible. He drank the whiskey, shuddering at its taste. Convinced that it was the beverage of royalty and that Carol might identify him as less-than if he didn't drink it, he gulped a few mouthfuls of it to try to make it go faster.

Carol remained kneeling beside him. She slipped her hand down, as slowly as possible, and felt the space in the side of her right boot. She felt the hard handle that she was searching for. They had searched them all for phasers—someone's phaser, even now, hung on Culluh's belt. They had never suspected there might be a trench knife in Carol's boot.

It brought Carol comfort to know it was there. It helped soothe over the feeling—like razor blades slashing at her heart—that she felt when she thought of Culluh's plan to torture them all like animals and kill them if they didn't stay down—his plan to take the child that she would not give to him, no matter what.

He caressed her face lazily with his fingertips like he was petting a beloved lapdog. His touch was clumsy. There was too much whiskey there for him to metabolize well, especially not at the rate he was drinking it. It made him feel light and happy, though, and his happiness was increased exponentially by witnessing Carol quietly kneeling beside him, waiting to fulfill his every whim. She watched his eyelids. She saw them start to droop.

She slowly extracted the knife from her boot and its sheathe, and she slipped her fingers through the holes in the handle—no amount of blood would make it slippery enough to fall from her grasp. She flexed the muscles in her legs, prepared to use them as quickly as was necessary.

The tears naturally renewed themselves without effort from her.

"Do you still weep for the bastard?" Culluh asked, his voice slurring some.

"No," Carol said.

"What for, then?" He asked. "Some mate?"

"For myself," Carol offered. He patted her, as affectionately as she supposed a Kazon might ever pat their new, favorite slave—especially when they were clearly drunk.

"If you know your place, you'll be safe," Culluh assured her. He didn't understand that she wept, as she had what felt like a million times before, for what she knew needed to be done and, therefore, what she must do. She watched as his eyelids sagged closed for a split second before he pulled them open again. He was probably seeing double. The glass leaned to the side and some of the contents spilled out. He straightened it. He'd drank more than Carol imagined he would have been able to drink and remain conscious. She was glad she hadn't underestimated him the way that he'd clearly underestimated her. She flexed her fingers around the knife handle. Slowly, very slowly, it became entirely from her boot and sheathe. It rested beside her leg, waiting for her next move.

"Then," she said, letting her voice shake with the tears that came easily enough, "I'm sorry."

"You're—you are—you're going to be a very good slave. Why would—why should you be sorry?"

"Because," Carol said, shifting her position carefully enough that Culluh wouldn't notice how quickly she could rise, "I guess I weep—for you."