Chapter Three
Bitch
Janeway
It seemed so cruel. Just as we celebrated the new hope represented by B'Elanna, the Disease began its spread. Maybe even that night, maybe that very day was the day it was born, dragged up from
the ground by one of the farming team.
B'Elanna
The disease decimated us and changed us all forever. We had already been changed by the planet, but it was the disease which really ripped us apart.
First came the fevers, few at first, then more and more . The fevers and chills were violent, horrible. Worse were the muscle cramps, mild at first then getting stronger, pulling people into horrible, unnatural shapes, crying with pain. And finally, at the end, the hallucinations. The screams of total fear.
Klingons have a strange relationship with fear. For a supposedly fearless race, we spend much time considering fear, and have many different words for it in our language. I remember reading stories about an ancient Earth tribe who had seventy words for snow. On Qo'nos there are seventy words for fear. It's that one type, the paralysing fear, where the eyes seem to be gazing into the face of evil. Not just gazing into death, but gazing into evil. That was the fear the Disease brought to its victims, then they died.
Without the Doctor, we were helpless. The Captain tried desperately to find a cure, experimenting with many different herbs, leaves, fire. Everything. The disease claimed the Voth first, maybe that was worse. They may have warned us of the danger, but with nothing to be done to save them, they also foretold our doom.
Every time one more died, Tom was there, and every time they died, a little bit of Tom died too. He raged against life, raged against the disease, against the Voth. The others bore the brunt of his rage, but at night, I would hold his head to my swelling belly and he would cry.
We were immune, it seemed. Some of us, anyway. At first the disease seemed to spare the senior officers, we seemed to avoid it. It swept through my old Engineering teams, and I cried for them as they screamed and died, but it spared us. Until Tuvok.
Janeway
My friend, my rock, my supporter. My Vulcan. Lying wrapped in blankets, sweating, shivering, knowing what had happened. Later, bearing the pain of the muscle spasms in silence as his body contorted itself into unnatural forms along with his fellow sufferers. As he could no longer maintain physical control, he kept his mental control strong. Until the end. Until the fear consumed him too, and he looked into the face of Satan. I was with him when he screamed first, I held him through the terrors, sometimes for comfort, sometimes for protection. With the last physical control he had, he tried to scratch his own eyes out to stop whatever it was he was seeing. He was robbed of everything, and when he finally died, it was a relief in a way – a release.
But, as his body failed, he looked right into my eyes, right there and whispered one word
"Bitch"
He was right, I betrayed everyone and led them to this death.
By the spring, when B'Elanna was around 8 months gone, and the disease had run its course amongst us, only twenty of us survived.
Author's Note
The following chapter contains discussion of disability which some people may find upsetting. It will include a severely disabled child and discussions on the value of life. If this imagery would upset you, please skip that chapter. All I ask is that you read it with an open mind and consider it in the context of this story. Also, please note that even though I may write it, as I believe it is in context with the story, it is not what I believe at all, and I would ask that you consider this if you wish to respond to it.
Thank you