Ruin
For the entire first week after the attack on Sinoso, I was in a state of shock.
Thankfully, my Starfleet training and a decade of experience were enough to carry me through each day. Still, the person performing my duties wasn't me—not really. I was going through the motions, but inside there was nothing. I was frozen, a soul trapped in a glass box unable to touch anyone else, a marionette body being manipulated by a well-conditioned brain.
I was less human than a Borg drone, less real than the illusions inside an orb experience, and less alive than bulkheads that housed us.
Eighty-two of us made it off Voyager. Eighty-two of one hundred thirty-five. Most of the senior officers made it—only Chakotay, assimilated on Sinoso, was gone. But Neelix was dead. Jen was dead. Ken Dalby and Mariah Henley were dead. Fifty-four people had gone down with Voyager. Then, of course, there was Mike, who stayed at Chakotay's side, and the eleven we sent to Sinoso.
In one day, we'd lost sixty-seven members of our crew.
Kes told us that she'd felt Neelix go the moment Voyager exploded. He hadn't been assimilated, but was trying to rescue people who were still on the ship. He died with love in his heart—love for the family he'd found on Voyager. A family he gave his life for.
Now Voyager was gone, and our family was more lost than we'd been the day we watched the caretaker's array fracture into countless tiny pieces.
Nobody slept well the first night if they slept at all. Most subsequent nights, the crew was plagued by nightmares. My sleep—the little I got—was blessedly dreamless. The more crew members that spoke to me, the more apparent it became that I was a rare exception. In that sense, my shock was an asset.
As the days and nights went on, I lost count of how many times Harry woke up gasping or shook me awake to make sure I was alive. "It's okay, ja'lat," I'd assure him, cupping his face with my hand, "I'm right here," and he'd cling to me as if he could lose me at any moment until he fell back asleep.
When the reality of our situation finally settled on me, numbness gave way to a torrent of emotions that seemed intent on drowning me. I did my best to hold myself together, knowing the crew was watching me as an example to follow, but there was no privacy on the sphere—nowhere to lock myself away to scream and cry. It had to come out eventually.
So it did.
It started with me snapping at Tuvok after he asked how the crew was doing. When he suggested I take a break, I asked where I was supposed to go.
He just pursed his lips.
People continued to seek me out and, after listening to their anxiety and grief, I just apologized because I was too exhausted to help them anymore. At night, I cried myself to sleep in Harry's arms only to wake up screaming three hours later. After that, many of the crew started keeping their distance.
I was hardly the only person having nightmares, but I was supposed to be the crew's emotional base. If even their counselor was broken, what hope was left for any of them?
Once the nightmares began, they were relentless. I saw Loran's silver eyes and bloody smile, felt myself becoming a monster as I carved hole after hole in First's chest, watched Chakotay sinking to his knees and crying out in agony while Equinox's crew assimilated him.
I heard Mike gasp and say, "It's them," but now I knew what he meant. Loran had beamed to the planet's surface with Equinox's crew flanking her on either side. I'd been so preoccupied with killing her, and then First, that I hadn't noticed anyone other than Burke, but the rest of the team did.
And it haunted us all.
As expected, the alliance sent a small fleet to analyze what happened at Sinoso. They concluded that although Equinox was the first ship to enter the system and the only one to remain after the planet was taken, they hadn't acted alone. Beyond that, the planet was entirely abandoned when the investigation teams arrived. Most likely, everyone we had lost on Sinoso was still out there somewhere within the collective—assimilated, but alive.
I didn't find much comfort in that.
It took two weeks for us to coordinate between alliance forces and Gik'tal's new commander, a man named Fasiman Tirgett, to make long-term plans for our crew. Eventually we were granted asylum on a Zahl world called Pasha, which was in the Beta Quadrant about two thousand lightyears from the farthest-reaching underspace corridor.
Because of its location, Pasha was less populated than Sinoso with about eight million people living on or around the planet. Still, it was an important base. We could help to expand the comm net further into the Beta Quadrant to better connect us with Unimatrix Zero forces there. In time, we'd be able to have live communications with the Federation, as well.
At this distance, we could have requested a transwarp ride to the Federation outpost where Bonchune was stationed, but Captain Janeway was committed to defeating the Borg now more than ever. Besides, spending a year or more at a tiny outpost in the middle of nowhere while we waited for Starfleet to pick us up was not an appealing idea.
One good thing to come out of the ordeal was that the Borg had been in Tuvok's quarters when Voyager and Equinox exploded. They'd seen the orb there, still on board while we escaped. Most likely, the collective believed it had been destroyed when Voyager was lost. It was doubtful they would come looking for us again. We didn't have anything they wanted.
And we weren't much of a threat anymore.
Despondency hit me like a kick in the gut the moment Harry and I stepped into our apartment on Pasha. Standing in the doorway, all I wanted to do was lean against the jam and slide to the floor, but if I let myself do that I'd never move past the threshold.
"It feels like we're giving up," Harry murmured.
"We lost," I said, forcing my feet forward, shuffling towards furniture that had been provided by the Zahl because we had no possessions of our own. "There's nothing left for us to give up. It's over. The only question now is when." With that, I collapsed on the unfamiliar brown couch and waited for the end of everything.
Harry gave me a long, sad look, then shook his head and disappeared in the bathroom.
For weeks I stayed curled up on the couch or in bed, barely moving, only getting up to eat, relieve myself, and shower on occasion. Sisko visited a few times, and I told him to fuck off. The last thing I needed was his gloating. Captain Janeway tried to rouse me with a job offer as a diplomatic expert, but I simply muttered, "No thanks," and rolled over to go back to sleep.
Others came to try cheering me up—Tom and B'Elanna, Lyndsay and Celes—but I didn't even have it in me to force a smile. Although Annika kept very busy, she and Meg did visit once briefly. They gave me a Zahl holoprojector programmed to display the night sky on my ceiling—San Francisco's night sky, but without the fog or light pollution that so often muted it.
When I activated the device after they left, I wept.
Other than Harry, Tuvok was the only person whose presence I could stand, mostly because he stayed relatively quiet and demanded nothing. Thanks to our bond, his visits also provided a small amount of relief from the crushing depression that suffocated me. It was probably the main reason for his regular visits—to give me brief periods of functionality so I could take care of myself for a bit. For him I'd shower, eat, and sit in front of his makeshift meditation lamp, watching the flame.
Losing sickbay, its database, and Federation-made medical replicators meant that Schmullis and Kes had to put their heads together with Zahl doctors in order to formulate medicines for us. It was two weeks before they synthesized an antidepressant they felt comfortable using on our crew, but it only made me suicidal. Another month and a half passed before they found a treatment that actually helped me.
Three weeks after that, I took a job as a test pilot at the small shipyard orbiting the planet. Staying busy helped me cope, and it was a relief to not feel responsible for anyone.
"It seems like you try to pin everything on yourself," Sinta told me in one of our comm therapy sessions. "You're carrying everyone else's burdens as well as your own. On top of that, you've found ways to blame yourself for events that were outside of your control. No wonder you feel crushed."
"I deserve it," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I've failed everyone. Sisko told me it was too soon, and Alixia warned me something was coming. If I'd just pushed Captain Janeway to listen, if we'd stayed away from Sinoso, none of this would have happened. It's my fault."
"Let's play through that alternate scenario. Say you did speak up. You informed Captain Janeway of what Captain Sisko and Alixia told you. What do you think she would have done with that information?"
My mouth opened, ready to regurgitate my belief that heeding and passing on their warnings could have changed everything. The words, however, refused to come.
"In the moment," I said, "after the distress call came in, she wouldn't have changed her plan. She would have ordered us to follow Korok to Sinoso anyway."
Sinta nodded. "And what if you'd told her earlier, after Alixia visited you?"
That was the question gnawing at me—the question I'd been avoiding because I was too scared to face it. The question that could damn me.
What would she have done if I'd talked to her right away? Would she have taken the warning seriously? Would that have changed the choice she made when the distress call came through and Korok expected her to accompany Gik'tal in rendering aid?
The truth was, I'd known the answer all along.
"No." My voice was small, almost a whisper, as feelings I couldn't name clawed their way up my throat. "It wouldn't have changed her mind. She'd still have ordered us to Sinoso."
Sinta's tone was gentle. "Then in what way is this your doing?"
It wasn't. In the rational part of my mind, I knew it wasn't. Still, there was something stubbornly refusing to let go of the belief that it was absolutely, unequivocally, my fault. Even though that belief was wrong.
Sinta was right. This wasn't my doing. I wanted so much to believe him, but it seemed impossible. Somehow, it had to be my fault.
All I could do in reply to his question was burst into tears.
One nice thing about living on the outskirts of a smaller city was that we could see the stars at night. They weren't familiar stars, but it still felt peaceful sitting in the park near our apartment building to stare at them.
It was fall where we were. Summer heat had given way to cooler temperatures, but winter had yet to start creeping in. Leaves were changing from green to vibrant shades of yellow, orange, and red. Having only ever lived on starships, in San Francisco, and briefly in Ashalla, it was a thrill to see the changes in nature as Pasha circled her sun. The air was still and grew chilly after nightfall, but with a sweater on I could lay for hours and watch the sky.
Harry was working late tonight. He, B'Elanna, Lyndsay, and most of our other ops and engineering crew were kept busy adapting Srivani cloaking technology for use on Zahl ships, maintaining the fleet, or building up the comm net, so the complex was quiet.
The sound of feet rustling in the grass announced her approach long before her husky voice did.
"Mind if I join you?"
I glanced at Janeway, moonlight casting a faint glow on her fair skin and shoulder-length auburn hair. Even after five Earth-months on Pasha, it was rare to see her out of uniform. The linen pants and knit sweater she wore signaled that she'd been off-duty today, which was also a rarity.
"Have a seat," I said.
Settling on the blanket beside me, she laid back and cradled her head in her hands. "It's a beautiful night."
"It is."
Old habits made me want to ask how she was doing, probe for her feelings about the war and our losses, make mental notes of any symptoms I observed that might indicate a problem with her psychological health. But that wasn't my role anymore. As it stood now, I questioned if I ever wanted to counsel again.
Maybe we'd all be Borg before I recovered enough to decide, and it wouldn't matter.
So instead I said nothing, and neither did she. If I set aside all of our history, I could pretend that we were just neighbors enjoying a peaceful night of stargazing outside our homes.
What would neighbors do on a night like this, not weighed down by so much baggage and so many wounds, freed from the fucked-up boundaries our multiple relationships to each other inevitably caused? Captain and subordinate. Leader and advisor. Patient and counselor. Comrades. Community. It seemed hard to imagine something less complicated.
If we were only neighbors, would we chat? Get to know each other? Become friends? Borrow each other's punch bowls?
But that wasn't us, and it never would be. Pointless as it was now, we would always have our baggage, always beholden to our professionalism anywhere we went. All we could do was manage it somehow as we watched the universe burn.
"Seven years," I murmured. "Seven years I've jumped from one crisis to the next with only small breaks in between, if any. Before that, it was Starfleet. The academy. K-12. There was always something laid out for me to give my life meaning. All I had to do was pick a path and stay on it."
I didn't know what I was saying or why, but Janeway kept quiet as I processed it aloud. Only the buzz of insects filled the spaces between my words.
"I keep waiting for someone to give me orders, to tell me what to do with my life and why it matters, but no one does. And the truth is, I'm not sure if anything matters anymore." I turned to her. "Do you think it matters—what we're doing here?"
For a long moment, she didn't speak. When she did finally lick her lips and draw in a breath, her eyes remained firmly fixed on the stars. "I have to. I don't think I could get out of bed otherwise."
Ambient noise took over again as I pondered her words.
"If nothing else," she added, "it's our responsibility to try."
Tears welled up in my eyes, blurring the pinpricks of light in the sky. Fuck. I was so quick to cry lately, even with the antidepressants. Briefly, I wondered if I should request a higher dose.
"I'm sorry," I choked out, closing my eyes and letting the tears roll down the sides of my face. "Sisko and Alixia both warned me, but I didn't believe them. I should've told you."
"I doubt I would have listened," she said. "I'm not sure there's anything either of them could have said that would have made me abandon our crew on Sinoso when the distress call came through."
There. It was out in the open between us—my guilt and her confirmation that it would have happened anyway. Still, I couldn't forgive myself.
"I tried to stay," I murmured, more tears trickling down. "On Sinoso. I tried to stay behind and fight. I didn't want to abandon him, but by the time I realized what he was going to do…"
This time, it took Janeway several seconds to answer. "If I could trade places with him, I would. I'd give almost anything for him to be here." Her hair shifted against her palms as she looked at me. "But I wouldn't give up you, Tuvok, and the others. Chakotay did the same thing I would have done."
I shook my head. "Why do you both have to be so fucking noble?"
She snorted and turned back to the stars.
Betrayal. That's what I felt. It wasn't just my own guilt at failing to be Sisko's loyal pupil or Alixia's advocate. It wasn't even some distorted sense of failure for leaving Chakotay behind. I was angry at Chakotay for saving me.
In the Maquis, we'd fought side by side. He was my commander, but we trusted each other as equals. Back then, he wouldn't have sent me away. We would have gone down together.
Janeway's hand gripped mine, warmth seeping into my skin. "We'll get them back," she promised, the steel in her voice like a sharpened blade, "or we'll die trying."
