Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek Voyager or any of its characters

Chapter 6

"B'Elanna you've been working for almost 48 hours straight now, from what the rest of the engineering staff tell me you haven't even stopped to eat let alone sleep. Take a break"

Tom had followed B'Elanna from Engineering to transporter room two. He had gone to engineering to get her knowing that she would have to be forced to break when the ship was in this condition. He knew how Chakotay felt now, he had seen him many times over the years not just in the past couple of days trying to get the Captain to take a break. He had never realised before just how alike B'Elanna and the Captain were.

As soon as he had walked into engineering and inquired as to the location of his wife he had been hit with a barrage of concerns from the people near him. Harry had just slapped him on the back and told him to get the woman to take a break.

"Tom I have a tonne of work to do, the ship is a mess and in its current condition there's no way it will survive another attack from the Tambor"

"The rest of the engineering team has taken breaks, they can handle the repairs for a few hours whilst you eat and get some sleep. You'll be no good to anybody if you work yourself into the ground"

B'Elanna stopped what she was doing and stared at him for a moment and Tom was seriously hoping he had finally gotten through to her after following her around for 15 minutes.

"Fine" she said as she moved away from the console she was working at and gestured for someone else to take over.

Tom smiled and put his hand on her back as the two of them walked out of the room and headed for their quarters.

Chakotay was sitting at Kathryn's desk I her ready room, she sat across from him reading another damage report. The ship was very slowly getting back into shape and so far they hadn't run into anymore Tambor. That in itself was a blessing, if they ran into the Tambor again with the ship still in the state it was in they would probably be blown up from the first shot.

"Looks like Tom and the Doctor managed to take care of most of the injuries the crew sustained, there are still a few people in sickbay though" Kathryn said as she read through the report. There was emotion in her voice that she tried to hide but Chakotay always recognised when it was there. Guilt.

"Kathryn, this isn't your fault"

"Am I that easy to read?"

"Only to me"

She gave him a small smile but Chakotay could still see the emotion in her eyes and wasn't going to let her pretend it wasn't there.

"Kathryn don't do this to yourself, this is not your fault, it's no ones fault and stop pretending that you don't feel guilty right now because I can read you better than that"

Kathryn just stared at him, another emotion crossed her face which Chakotay recognised but decided to let go for now. He would deal with that one later.

"I hate seeing the ship like this and seeing my crew hurt, all because of decisions that I make" she finally relented.

"Kathryn in the last few days you have made all the right decisions, I don't think any of this could have been foreseen or avoided. You also mad the right decision when you destroyed the Caretakers array and I know that's where most of this guilt comes from, that's where it always comes from"

She nodded her head and smiled again, this time it was a genuine smile and Chakotay let the subject drop.

It had been almost four days since the last attack and Kathryn had been hoping that they had seen the last of the Tambor. As usual though her hopes were dashed as she stood on the bridge and looked at the Tambor ship that had just decloaked. At least the ship was in good enough condition to offer some kind of resistance, no where near ready for another fight but she would take what she could get.

"Tuvok, you know the drill by now" she said and was aware of Tuvok once again targeting the Tambor ship as Voyager was hit by the first shot of the fight. Tom was at his station once again trying to avoid the fire from the Tambor, Chakotay was as always stood by her side. Harry was still in engineering helping B'Elanna with the repairs and was no doubt on his way back to the bridge. Ensign Massel was currently manning his station, he was scanning the Tambor ship for any signs of a weakness.

"Captain I think I found something, there is an area of the ship where their shields are weaker" the ensign said triumphantly.

Kathryn moved around to join the young ensign at the console and could see what he was looking at. It was pretty close to their propulsion systems, not close enough or weak enough to destroy it but enough to do some serious damage.

"Send the information to Tuvok's console Tuvok target the weak spot" she said as she started to move away from the console. The ship was hit again and shook more violently this time. The last thing Kathryn was aware of was the console she and the Ensign had been working at exploding, then everything went black.

TBC