Chapter 3 – Remembrance Day
"Enjoy the good days, Captain Kim", she had said to him, pinning the four pips on his collar. "And relax …", she'd whispered.
"Or I am going to sprain something?" Harry had replied in her ear, a knowing smile on his face. Then he had straightened up and shaken her hand, his face all serious again. Chakotay had crushed his fingers while complementing him on his 'well overdue promotion'.
More scenes of the day flashed in his mind. Tom complaining about something in his eye as Janeway talked about the excellent example the former pilot and the Chief Engineer had set for Voyager's new Commander. The twins rushing to his side at the end of the handover ceremony. Getting ever so drunk at Sandrine's Mark 4. Hugging Kathryn very tightly and going on all maudlin.
Not his best memory of the day.
He put on the pips, checking in the mirror if they were lined up straight. Another twenty-seven years and he should be able to do it with his eyes closed.
Two months in the job and he still felt as if on probation. It was bloody hard to take over from Kathryn Janeway as Voyager's Captain. It was not that he did not have the experience. There had been many times over the past two decades when he had replaced the Commander, and a couple when both had been missing in action and he had sat in the captain's chair on the bridge for days on end. But he had never really felt in charge. He had just been only holding the fort until the command team was back. There was still something he was missing about that job which was so much more than just a job.
When Janeway had announced she would be stepping down, he had started reading Voyager's old logs. He wanted to go back to those first few years when she had taken command of the ship, thinking he would learn much by studying her decisions at a time when her command experience was relatively new.
It had not been enough. There was something intangible but important that he had not grasped yet. He had no idea what is was and was getting frustrated. Maybe he should relax a bit, as she had told him several times already.
10:05 hours. Time to leave for the service.
He'll be busy on the bridge after that. Maybe he should ask Chakotay if he could look after the twins afterwards. The kids worshipped the guy. Nothing to do with learning how to box, going on camping trips on every suitable planet Voyager visited, and talking to their personal animal guides.
He better not call on Tom if there was no other adult to supervise the three of them. The former pilot's experience with brooding quarter-Klingon teenagers made him an excellent god father to the twins, but their last piloting lesson had seen them lost for hours in a plasma storm. Today was not the day to risk a similar adventure.
There was Miral too, he thought. She was closer to his kids than to him, age wise. They looked up to her and Naomi. He was one of the Firsts as the youngsters now called the original crew members, while she was the second child to be born on Voyager. Although asking the new Commander to look after his children may not be quite what Starfleet had in mind when they had written her job description. Anyway, she'll be on the bridge with him.
He had timed his arrival on the holodeck. Not the first one in as he used to be when he was just an Ensign attending similar events. Not among the latest either, leaving that honour to the former command team. After all, this year he would still sit among the crew, all ranks intermingled.
He sat down near Chief Security Ayala, leaving two chairs on his left for the twins who were admiring the large winged spirit's sculpture at the front of the building.
The setting was impressive. It reminded him of a ruined cathedral, the large stone walls and spire pointing up to the sky, the absence of a ceiling emphasising the vast sky beyond, empty arches framing a tranquil rustic scenery outside.
When the Commander had first conceived the idea of remembering their fallen comrades on a special day some twelve years earlier, the EMH and the command team had worked closely together. Now the Doctor handled all the ceremonial details and quite thoughtfully at that. The design was solemn but not dark, the ceremony introspective and all-including.
Harry put a reminder on his cloud diary to congratulate the hologram at the end of the day.
The crowd settled in, the noise masking the soft music at times. A lump formed in his throat. It was going to be hard for him as it had been every year since Marla had gone, taken away too soon. Much too soon.
His son and daughter made their way to their seats, overawed by the significance of the occasion. Before he had the time to turn towards them, he saw the former command team entering the space left clear in front of the seated crew. Janeway stood on the raised platform while Chakotay stayed on the side.
She waited for a few heartbeats. "Friends," she started quietly.
Harry spent much of the ceremony closely observing the former Captain. Next year, it was going to be his turn to officiate so he distracted himself from the sad thoughts in his mind by watching how Janeway was able to lift the crew spirits while thanking all who had died in the line of duty 'to help us get home'. She was sombre and moving, the words just right, talking about family, the living 'left to grow old' as the poem said.
Her voice broke only once when evoking their latest loss. Decades after his brilliant mind had started its inexorably descent into darkness, Tuvok's physical health had suddenly deteriorated. He had faded away in a few weeks, his death the first on Voyager in more than five years.
Chakotay stood up when she faltered, putting his hand on her left shoulder and leaving it there for the remainder of her short speech.
Janeway had insisted that she would perform that last duty even though she was no longer captain. "The crew members we will remember on that day all died on my watch. I want to do this for the last time. I need to do this," she had said softly during a Senior Officer meeting. Chakotay had looked decidedly uneasy. Harry had just nodded. Her request was illogical, but former Captain Janeway could ask for whatever she wanted as far as he was concerned.
He let his body relaxed and his mind drift. The sounds of the crowd ebbed, just a buzz in the background. The light dimmed a little. He was aware of people about him but felt separate from them as if he was watching from afar.
He looked around. He could just make out Janeway and Chakotay standing close together. But now, they were receding slowly into the distance until they were mere silhouettes against a bright backdrop. The crowd opened up, leaving him alone on the podium. He was grey and hunched, speaking to young crew members he did not recognise, about people they had never met.
A deep feeling of unconceivable loss and sorrow overwhelmed him. He squeezed his son's hand tight.
A nervous Ensign replaced Janeway and read the names of those who had died, their faces shown on the wall behind her. Accidents, inexplicable disappearances, attacks, incurable diseases, all had taken their toll on Voyager's crew over the years.
Some Harry remembered well. Martin, Ballard, Bendera. Others he had only known for a few days before Voyager had been abducted by the Caretaker a generation ago. Cavit, Stadi.
He pondered the thought that if it had not been for another Captain Janeway, his name and that of Naomi would have joined that list. He had come to grips with his miraculous survival a long time ago, another strangeness to add to their long trek through the Delta quadrant.
The Val Jean crew members he had never met.
Seska. Her infamous role in putting Voyager in serious jeopardy still condemned, but not on this day.
The baby Borg the Doctor had been unable to save.
One.
Seven.
Marla Gilmore-Kim.
The familiar pain, not quite yet stilled by time. So many years without her.
Tuvok.
"We will remember them". Those last words were repeated by all, in one strong voice. Then they stood up for a minute of silence, heads bowed.
A baby's cry at the back of the seats broke the sombre mood a few seconds before the end of the quiet vigil.
"And now let's go back to the present, as our youngest crew member has just reminded us," said Janeway. She stood down from the podium for the last time, smiling. People begun to mingle among their friends, the younger kids left to run outside the splendid building.
After fussing over the twins, Harry accompanied Janeway and Chakotay in their tour of the crowd, talking to crew members as they walked past. He knew the former command team would spend more time with many of them over the next few evenings. They had visited him and the kids every year after Marla's death and he had always appreciated that private time, outside of any duty or rank. The children had been too young to remember their mother but the adults had done their best to get them to know her. To know her love for them.
They fell into a discussion with Tom about the get together at the end of the week. Now that Kim was the Captain he was less involved in the day to day stuff and he let the three friends chat away. He listened to the music, a classical composition he had heard before but could not quite place.
Definitely XIXth century Earth. A waltz of some sort? Very … pastoral. Not his favourite kind of music.
Chakotay abruptly stomped off, leaving Harry confused. He was going to ask what it was all about when Tom took him firmly by the elbow. "I need to talk to Captain Kim about the Delta Flyer VI. We'll see you later, Kathryn."
She took no heed of them, her hand keeping time with the melody while watching the Doctor and Chakotay having what seemed to be a heated argument.
Shaking Tom off, Harry suddenly remembered when he had first and last heard that particular piece. The violins and wind instruments had echoed loudly throughout the ship, accompanying the march of soldiers in hard boots and black uniforms in their never ending searches for victimised passengers the Captain had sworn to protect.
He recalled an arrogant leather-clad officer, gloved and masterful, who had sat in the Captain's chair and ruled the bridge, each inspection bringing him closer to the prize he coveted until he had lost it all and left Voyager's wake, never to be seen again.
The EMH was now retreating hastily towards the holodeck control panel, Chakotay looming behind him. The early theme of the piece started to repeat, the tempo accelerating and swirling in the vast space.
Harry turned towards Janeway. She was still watching Chakotay, a strange smile on her face. At the time, he had not grasped the subtleties of the dance between the dangerous alien man and the Captain. The undercurrents. The yearning for a different end.
He had been too young. Too naïve. Too many protocols in his head. He had seen much but understood very little.
The symphony stopped, replaced by an anodyne tune. Chakotay came back to Janeway's side, his brow still dark and angry. She placed a hand on his chest, calming him down. Then they left the holodeck together, the crowd already thinning, oblivious.
Harry laughed. No more log books and dissecting his former CO's decisions. He knew what had happened all these years back. He had been there.
He just had to remember.
Lest we forget.