author's note: thanks to all who are reading this story! And thanks to my sister, who does a great job with proof-reading my chapters.
"Well doctor?", she asked, as soon as he was done scanning her.
"Captain, you apparently have a bad cold."
"And I apparently didn't know that!"
"What I want to know is how you managed to get sick in the first place?"
She just stared at him in disbelief.
The doctor sighed.
"Since it is you, I guess, I shouldn't ask. You probably didn't eat enough not to mention getting enough sleep. You probably tried to be at all places at once, at all times, of course. And at that last away mission three days ago you probably crawled through every cold cave you could find."
Captain Janeway started to look slightly angry.
"And I just want to know whether you have a treatment for my cold!", she demanded with her most captainly voice.
"We do no live in the 21st century, anymore", the EMH looked smug, "Of course I have a medicine. But it, as any other medication, requires you to rest to be fully efficient."
Now it was her turn to sigh.
"How long...?"
"Two days at least, Captain"
"What? I can't believe that it needs me to rest for that long!"
"Maybe the medicine doesn't, but I do."
"Definitely not!"
"Fine! How about I don't treat you at all? You can do your duty, by all means. After all, a cold isn't life threatening. You might feel like this or worse for five days or so, so enjoy it. It could be a lesson that actually sticks."
He was lucky that he was a Hologram, her death glare would have killed him by now.
She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the red alert klaxon.
The ship jerked sideways. As she raised her hand to her combadge the ship started to shake violently. She felt herself being flung across the room, and... knew no more.
She awoke, slightly dazed, on a biobed, intruder alert pounding in her aching head. The doctor rushed to her side when he noticed her being awake.
"Doctor, what is going on?", she asked.
"Nobody informed me", he helped her to sit up, she groaned.
"You are lucky, though, no major injuries."
"Am I your only patient?", she asked looking around. She couldn't believe there weren't any casualties the way Voyager was lurching just a few moments ago.
"It seem so, Captain. One reason could be..."
"Intruders!", she cut him off.
Intruders, of course, her brain still seemed to be a bit slow.
Now she really had to know what was going on. Right at this moment, someone started speaking on the shipwide com.
"All hands, this is Captain Chakotay speaking. Aliens have hijacked our ship. They want everybody to report to cargo bay two immediately. I repeat, this is Captain Chakotay, everybody report to cargo bay two!"
"Captain? What is he...oh!", sudden understanding hit her.
Without another glance at the bewildered doctor, she hopped off the biobed and raced over to the computer terminal in the doctor's office. Soon she found the staff list and started on top with Captain Janeway, K.
"Now lets see, half a year will be good enough", she muttered to herself, "Yes, died on an away mission..., four days of mourning should do it (you promised me to get my crew home, Chakotay, don't forget that)... and Chakotay finally gets his promotion, as well as Tuvok, of course."
She quickly changed their current ranks to that of a captain and first officer.
Now the hardest part. If the aliens looked at the list, the data would say: changed, well, just some minutes ago. That wouldn't do.
Voyager was still her ship, so she really hoped she would do her a favor. With the help of her codes she wrote a little program, that set the date behind the data she just changed to the date four days after she supposedly died. The program would explode as soon as it finished what she required of it, well not literally, but bits and bytes of it would fly all around the computer, making it impossible to trace.
"Well done, Kathryn", she smiled. Then she got up from the chair and with a sigh she plucked her combadge of her chest and placed it on the floor. She then aimed at it with her phaser and shot. Now it was nothing more than some piece of metal. Nevertheless, she picked it off the floor and put it in her pocket, you just never knew.
A hand on her shoulder made her jump. It was the doctor.
"Please Captain, sit down once more", he pointed to the nearest biobed and took a hypospray
in his hand.
"This will make you feel better, but it won't actually heal you, mind, neither does jumping all over the ship. So please don't overdo it! If your body gets too exhausted, you won't even have the strength to fight something as simple as a cold, do you understand?" She nodded. Then she felt coolness spreading through her body when the doctor pressed the hypospray to her neck.
The doctor was worried. He knew, that she had no desire to die young, apart from what some
crew members thought. She just always put the welfare or her ship and crew first, as any good captain should, and she would do anything to get her ship back.
He helped her opening the hidden doorway to the jeffrey's tubes and she crawled inside.
"Doctor, be ready. I think they are going to get you soon to tend to some injuries."
"I will be. Captain, please get back here, as soon as you got your ship back. I want to treat you properly."
She smiled at him, thanking him for his support, and nodded.
The doctor then closed the door behind her.