Black smoke filled the Bridge. Every officer on the deck lay unconscious at their post. Consoles flashed and beeped wildly, sending out bursts of sparks as their circuits overloaded.
Janeway looked around, horrified. "I'm dreaming again." She rolled up her sleeve and pinched her good arm. Nothing happened.
"If this is a dream, then we're both having one hell of a nightmare," Chakotay said.
Janeway's commbadge chirped. "Torres to Bridge, respond!"
"Janeway here." She waved the smoke out of her face and heard Chakotay beside her start to cough.
"I've got an energy surge moving through the gel packs. I think it might be the cause of our malfunctions."
"Where is it now?"
"Somewhere on the Bridge."
A console exploded on her left. Sparks flew upward and a shadow darted along the wall.
"Found it," she said.
Another console exploded. The shadow moved again.
Janeway followed it to the center of the Bridge.
"Show yourself!" she shouted.
The smoke swirled and coalesced. But it did not form into the serpentine shape she had come to expect. Instead, it darted towards her and hit her square in the chest, sending her flying backwards into the back wall. She saw stars.
Another hand grasped her own and helped her to her feet. She looked up to see Chakotay looking down at her. But… there was something in his eyes. She saw an anger there she'd never seen in him before.
"Chakotay?"
"Guess again."
"How. Dare. You." Janeway stepped away, her fists balling up at her sides. "Leave him out of this!"
"But Captain," not-Chakotay said, "the fun is just beginning."
Suddenly, the ground shifted and hardened beneath her. The room swirled around her and changed. The grey walls turned to red-hot rock as she found herself in a cave, standing on a rock platform surrounded by burning, molten lava.
Janeway lunged at him. He sidestepped her easily and sent her tumbling to the deck.
"Now, Captain. Don't hurt yourself." He sneered. "I'd rather have you in one piece."
"What do you want?" Janeway picked herself up and eyed the monster in human form.
"Your devotion. Your loyalty. Your unending reverence. Put simply, Captain… I want you."
"Tough shit. You can't have me. And you can't have Chakotay's body either so leave!"
"Not yet."
The bracelet suddenly twisted tighter around her arm, and she hissed in pain.
"You're making this harder than it has to be," the snake said menacingly. "Just give in to me."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll kill you and try again with another member of your crew. And another, and so on until everyone is either kneeling at my feet or dead beneath them."
"I can promise you, not a single person on this crew would ever give in to you."
The bracelet twisted tighter.
The smoke thickened.
The being's grin widened.
"We'll see about that."
He lunged at her and wrapped his, or rather Chakotay's, hands around her throat. Her breath was coming in gasps now.
"You will bow to me," he snarled, "even if it is with your dying breath."
Grunting with the effort, Janeway forced his hands away from her throat. Then with a swift uppercut, she knocked him backwards. He retaliated with a sharp kick which knocked her down on her ass. Suddenly she found herself trapped beneath his strong body, his hands at her throat and a menacing grin on his face.
"If I can't have you, no one else will," he snarled.
Chakotay's brown eyes bored into her with a hatred she had never seen on his face before. His strong, rough hands clenched her throat with a strength she could not break free of. It's not Chakotay, she reminded herself.
Was this really how she would go out? Having beaten countless odds before, only to be taken down by a megalomaniacal non-corporeal snake?
Her vision started to cloud over.
The snake's brutal grip tightened.
Chakotay's face was just inches from her own, that evil smile the last thing she saw as she slipped into the encroaching darkness.
On the floor of the Bridge, behind the center chairs, the command team lay still, a deathly pallor upon their faces. Until Janeway's black eyes opened.