Chapter 4. Kathryn
It's been a long time since I had to write a condolence message to a crewman's survivors.
This one was even harder than those others. Maybe because now we're in direct contact with Starfleet, and so I knew, in real time, the heartbreak my message was causing. Maybe because it was Joe.
I have often said that Starfleet would crumble in a month without people like Joe Carey. Their competence, dedication, reliability, and steady temperament are what keep ships intact and flying, through good times and bad. By rights Joe should have been Chief Engineer when Lieutenant Honigsberg was killed during our transit out here. Joe had more than earned the job over a long and impressive career, moving up the ranks, proving his mettle. But he understood at once my decision to give B'Elanna the job instead - didn't just accept it, supported it. Even though she came into his department like a bull in a china shop. Even when she broke his damn nose. It's unreal how much he put up with over our years in this quadrant, without everonce showing the strain.
More than I can say.
We didn't deserve Joe, B'Elanna and I. I'll need to check on her later, see how she's coping with this, on top of the pregnancy. Or maybe I'll just ask Tom. I guess this falls under his job description more than mine now.
Joe was the kind of man who would spend long shifts taking care of my ship, then his off-hours building this model of the very same ship. A craftsman's ethic and aesthetic. Focused. Patient. All in.
How can we possibly go on without Joe Carey.
That's what I was thinking when Chakotay entered Joe's quarters and found me staring at the ship in a bottle on his desk. We made small talk about the impressive detail of the model, how close Joe had come to finishing it. Keeping me above the surface of my own despair. Chakotay can read me like a PADD, sense my mood at a glance. Before he even gets a look at me, by now, I suspect.
I finally thought to ask Chakotay how Ensign Wildman had taken the news. He didn't answer immediately, and so I raised my head and looked directly at him. I knew that pain in his eyes, etched across his brow. You can see the same expression on my own face, in the recording I just sent to the Carey family via Starfleet. And that's when it hit me: at least on Voyager, close enough as makes no difference, Samantha is also Joe's widow.
Chakotay met my eyes, winced at whatever he saw there, glanced away. "It can be hard to tell with Samantha - she's very reserved. But I know she is taking this hard. They were close. He was a pretty key support in her life, and good with Naomi. She'll try to put on a brave face, to help Naomi through it, but … yeah. Sam isn't going to have an easy time with this."
We discussed plans for the memorial service. I asked him to oversee the details, consult with B'Elanna about any Engineering traditions, ask Ensign Wildman specifically if she would like to say a few words. To let me know if they want me to do anything in addition to the usual captain's lines.
I watched him leave, his broad back and determined, if weary, stride so familiar, so dear to me. As the doors to Joe's quarters slid closed between us I gasped silently. I was suddenly imagining that was the same view Samantha had had of Joe the last time she saw him, walking out the door to fulfill his duties. Red hair instead of black, gold uniform instead of red, but the same sight, the same feeling … and my heart clenched in my chest so painfully I cried out.
If I lost Chakotay … If I sent him, as I always do, to see to the ship's business, to carry out the mission, and he were sent back to me dead …
Would they see me as his widow?
Would I even let them see my own grief?
Would I have a choice?
I can't stay afloat, can't rise to the occasion. I thought I was encased in buoyant clear purpose, but I'm sinking like a stone in Lake George now. I was so filled with captainly pride, to have an actual assignment from Starfleet. To be set a task that would further Starfleet's mission, after more than six years of nothing but striving and failing to get my crew home. So proud to be doing Starfleet's bidding again, to be needed.
And it cost us Joe. Not worth it. Not worth whatever centuries-old data that probe contained. Not worth my sense of pride, my captaincy. I'd lay it all down now to get him back safe.
But no, that's not an option on the table. Never has been nor will be. Not while we're out here. My duty hasn't changed, and I'll be damned if I give in this time to the darkness that pulled me under in the Void.
I feel such guilt towards Anne Carey and Samantha Wildman. They loved the best of men, and my orders got him killed, for nothing worth the having.
And I feel such envy of them, too. They could love the best of men, a luxury I cannot afford.
I can only order such men to their deaths.
