notes: oh gosh, it's been like two weeks now since I updated. I'm so, so sorry y'all. This chapter was even written already . Please forgive me. Anyway, it's extra long this week. Hopefully that'll somewhat make up for the delay. I hope you enjoy!
Part XVI: De Morte
Kes knew the instant Kathryn Janeway died.
Her cry for The Doctor was a scream. He came running, wide-eyed and as pale as a being programmed and constructed by photons could be, flurries of questions and demands already pouring from his tongue even as he entered Kathryn's bedroom.
"We're losing her," Kes said, stepping back to give The Doctor access to the bed. "She's not breathing and her heart stopped." She hesitated, seeing The Doctor do the same, and then explained, "I felt it happen, Doctor."
The Doctor hesitated only for a fraction of a second, hands poised over her neck in a half-aborted move—and then he stood back and ordered, "Begin mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. We need to get air to her brain until we can get her back to Sickbay."
Kes leapt forward and bent to force the captain's lips apart. In the background Kes heard The Doctor call for an emergency site-to-site transport for the three of them—and then all sound and sight and feeling was lost as the tingle of the transporter took hold. When sensation returned, Kes was kneeling on the floor in the middle of Sickbay, her mouth pressed to Captain Janeway's as she breathed for her.
The Doctor was a whirlwind of movement above and behind Kes. He knelt once to affix a cortical stimulator to the captain's forehead—it buzzed once, twice, three times at The Doctor's command, and the captain's body arched with the energy of it, her eyes remaining closed—then again to tear away the soft grey cotton of her shirt and press breath support nodes to her chest. They beeped once, then fell silent—and the captain's chest remained as unmoving as before.
The Doctor did not curse aloud, but by the look on his face, Kes suspected the words were in his heart and mind. He stood quickly, and moved off again, out of sight.
Kes looked down at the captain. Her skin was ashen under the bright Sickbay lights, her face still and pale. Kes wondered if anyone had ever seen the captain so still—so resolutely without movement, without spark, without life. Perhaps Tuvok, she thought. Perhaps Chakotay.
And then The Doctor was shouting at her to begin mouth-to-mouth again. "She's not responding—" Kes heard him say, only for the rest of his statement to be lost as The Doctor ran for the far side of the room. She bent, and again began to breathe for both her and her captain.
The Doctor returned a minute later, a laser scalpel and a piece of long, clear tube in his hands. He set the objects down on a tray beside the center biobed, then hurried over to kneel across from Kes.
"We need to get her up," he said. "Help me lift her."
They carried the captain to the biobed in an awkward shuffle, Kes holding her shoulders, The Doctor her legs. They laid her down, still and ashen and limp.
"Assist me," The Doctor ordered, not sparing Kes a look as he quickly sterilized his hands and then turned to retrieve the objects he had set down on the tray. "I've never performed this type of surgery before—it's halfway barbaric, and its use has only been recorded a handful of times in the last century or so."
"What do you need?" Kes asked, cutting him off before he could spiral. When he was nervous or uncertain, he had a tendency to lapse into giving increasingly superfluous lectures about obscure information—though he would, of course, deny that fact with his every photonic breath.
"Hold her head still," The Doctor ordered, returning firmly to the present.
Kes gripped either side of the captain's head in her small hands. Her skin was shockingly dark against the captain's, bronze against ivory.
"Ready?" The Doctor asked.
"Yes," Kes said, still not knowing what exactly she was saying she was ready for.
The Doctor turned on the laser scalpel and, moving with painful precision, lowered it to the captain's neck. Her skin split in a thin line, red and bloodless, beneath the scalpel's edge. One millimeter, two—then a centimeter, then an inch.
When he was satisfied with the breadth of the cut he had made, The Doctor switched off the scalpel and reached for the tube. With one hand, he pinched the split skin apart, and with the other he maneuvered the tube's lip to the opening. Then, with a deft movement, he slid the tube down into the captain's throat, then deeper into her chest.
"Done," The Doctor said, when all but the last inch of tubing had been threaded into the captain's body. He then reached for the breath support nodules and tried again to activate them.
They beeped once, twice—and the captain's chest rose and fell, then rose again. The faintest whistle of air passing through the tube was just on the edge of Kes's hearing.
"Doctor?" Kes said, uncertain.
"I need twelve CCs of zolpidem-CV," The Doctor said by way of answering.
Kes prepared the hypospray with steady hands that belied the tremor of her heart. Just how close had they come to losing their captain? Too close—that much was certain. Her mind had gone dark, black as night and blacker still, until that third pulse of the cortical stimulator. Kes could now feel the faintest thread of light that was the captain's consciousness, pulsing and weak against Kes's own mind. But for how long? And what would it take to keep her body breathing, her mind alive?
"Here, Doctor," Kes said, returning to the biobed and placing the hypospray in The Doctor's hands. In turn, he pressed it to the captain's neck, and with a snick the drug bled into her veins.
Her eyelids fluttered.
"Captain?" The Doctor asked, drawing nearer to her and coming to a halt in her line of sight. "Captain, can you hear me?"
A long moment of silence. Then, slow and heavy, her eyes opened and she looked up at The Doctor. Her mouth opened, her lips and tongue moved—but no sound came out.
"Don't try to talk," The Doctor said quickly. "I had to perform a tracheotomy."
The captain blinked up at him. She shivered weakly, and her gaze slid toward Kes.
"I'm here, captain," Kes said, moving around the foot of the bed to stand across from The Doctor. She reached down and took the captain's hand in both of hers.
The captain's fingers tightened against Kes's, warm and thankful.
"Good," The Doctor said with a widening smile, seeing the movement. "That's good, captain! Now, can you wiggle your toes?"
In reply, the captain moved her toes. The Doctor beamed, and patted her on the shoulder. "That's good," he said again. "Very good. Now, I'm going to put you back to sleep. You need to rest if you are to continue fighting this disease, whatever it may be."
The captain jerked. Panicked, she looked over at him, eyes wide. She reached for him, trembling and struggling. Her fingers plucked at his sleeve. The Doctor looked down at her, confused and concerned.
"What is it?" he asked.
The captain shook her head, the smallest fraction of a movement. Her face was pale and lined with fresh sweat, and a small droplet of blood beaded at the edge of the tube where it met her skin.
"You don't want to sleep?"
Again, the captain shook her head.
"No, you don't want to sleep? Or no, that's not it?"
"Squeeze my hand if it's that you don't want to sleep," Kes said. "If it's not that shake your head."
The captain clutched at Kes's hands. Kes looked up at The Doctor, and gave a slight nod.
"Regardless of what you want," The Doctor said, "you need to sleep. I'm sorry, Captain, but—"
She cut him off, and moving from his sleeve to his hand. She clutched at him, and her chest rose and fell in rapidly. Between them, the cortical stimulator whined, warning them of an increase in heartrate.
The Doctor grasped the captain's hand. "Easy, Captain," he said. "Please, don't strain yourself. We can keep you awake for a short period of time," he said, relenting, "though not for more than a few minutes." She relaxed against the bed, and the tempo of her breathing eased, the whine of the cortical stimulator disappearing.
"In the meantime," The Doctor said, extricating his hand from hers and bustling around the head of the bed and toward a display, "I have a few ideas that might help bring down your fever. While you're awake I'd like to run a few tests, if that's alright with you, Captain."
The captain nodded.
The Doctor was halfway done preparing the first test when the attack came.
Kes fell as Voyager lurched, hitting the biobed in front of her and sprawling over the captain's chest. She felt the captain grunt beneath her, though there was no sound, and then gasp for breath. Kes picked herself up as quickly as she could, fighting the twinge of bruised ribs.
The Doctor, as a being made of photons and lines of code, had kept his balance. He turned, instruments in hand and eyes wide, to look at Kes and the captain. "What was that?" he asked, though by look in his depthless eyes he already knew the answer to his question.
Movement caught Kes's eye. She looked down at the captain, and watched as again she moved her lips. She spoke steadily, slowly, soundlessly enunciating each syllable.
Kaminoans.
"Kes," The Doctor ordered, springing into action, "prepare for casualties."
Kes squeezed the captain's hand once and smiled encouragingly down at her. Then she pulled away from the captain's grasp and set to work.
She was halfway through tending to her third patient—a crewman named Gordon with a badly broken arm, two cracked ribs, and internal bleeding from a ruptured spleen—when Chakotay's announcement echoed through the ship. "All hands," he said, voice issuing from each combadge, a hundred voices from one, "prepare for boarding."
"I'm fine," Gordon said, as soon as Chakotay's voice had died away, trying to sit up out from under Kes's hands. "Let me go."
"You need to lay back," Kes said, soft but firm. "The Doctor will be here to perform surgery shortly."
"I need to help," Gordon said. "If you'll just—"
Kes laid a hand on Gordon's shoulder and pushed him down. He coughed, blood speckling his lips, and collapsed back against the bed. "Please," he mumbled.
"Lay still until The Doctor comes," Kes ordered.
The door opened and two more crew members came in, an Andorian ensign and a human lieutenant. Both bore burns on their faces, and the lieutenant was supporting the ensign with an arm around her waist.
"We were at a console that blew," the lieutenant said. Kes thought she remembered that his name was Doran. "Mayleen caught the worst of it. She was unconscious for twenty seconds."
Kes hurried over to them and wrapped Mayleen's free arm over her shoulders. "Let's get her to a biobed," she said, and guided the way over to the last remaining open biobed. Together she and Doran lifted Mayleen up, then helped her lay back. She groaned, and bit her lip.
From her peripheral vision, Kes saw The Doctor approach Gordon, medical tricorder in one hand, padd with Kes's appraisal of his injuries in the other.
"Just lay still," Kes ordered, pulling out a medical tricorder of her own. She scanned Mayleen's prone body, registering the numerous burn warnings that flashed across the screen and the multiple organ failures.
Kes laid a hand on Mayleen's, and gave a gentle squeeze. "You're going to be just fine," she lied, and then added, "I'm going to give you a mild sedative to help with the pain. The Doctor will be over shortly."
Once the sedative was administered, Kes turned to Doran. "Sit," she ordered, pointing to a chair between Mayleen's and Gordon's beds. "I need to treat those burns."
"Surely you have more important things to do," Doran protested.
"Not at the moment," Kes replied steadily. "Now sit."
He did as she bade, perching gingerly on the edge of the chair with hands clasped in his lap. Kes retrieved a dermal regenerator and began the arduous process of repairing the multiple third-degree burns smattered over the man's high-browed face and neck. He grit his teeth and bore the pain of skin and nerves regenerating with a tense jaw and knuckles white from clenching his hands together.
Four more crewmembers came in while Kes was tending to Doran. She directed them to empty chairs, assessed each of them for critical damage, and alerted The Doctor to the worst of the injuries. The smell of blood and bile slowly filled the infirmary, causing Kes's stomach to twist into knots. It had been a long time since she had been sick from the sight and smell of injured men and women, but even now it made her gut clench.
She was moments away from being finished healing Doran when she heard the doors open again. Kes turned, expecting to see more injured—but instead she saw five tall, looming Kaminoans dressed in dully shining armor and carrying guns.
"Do not move," the first Kaminoan said, advancing into the room, rifle sweeping across the line of biobeds and their occupants. "The first to move will be shot."
Tension gnawed through the room, every person frozen where they stood or sat, watching as the Kaminoans filed in, waiting for someone else to make the first move. The four following Kaminoans spread out in a semicircle once they had cleared the door, guns aimed at the Starfleeters, while their leader crept farther into the room.
When it was mere feet from the nearest biobed, the Kaminoan leader stopped, head bent and spines stiffening. Then it turned and, reaching up to tap a small ridge of skin beneath its ear slit, said, "K'or'n to Fleet Commander." A beat of silence, and K'or'n turned toward its troops, lifting a hand to signal, then aloud, "I've located Captain Janeway."
Whatever the Fleet Commander said in response was inaudible to Kes. K'or'n, however, must have heard something in reply, for it gave a curt nod and, turning to the four others standing just inside the doorway, made a cutting motion with one of its four hands. They moved forward as one, holding the crewmembers at bay with guns pointed at their chests.
The Doctor stepped forward, ignoring the snap of movement as half of the guns in the room turned to point to him. "Captain Janeway is very ill," he said sharply. "Moving her now could kill her."
Still K'or'n came on.
"I'm warning you," The Doctor said, taking another step forward. "As her medical officer, and as a skilled physician, I—"
K'or'n had reached The Doctor. With a single, smooth motion, the Kaminoan drew one of its swords and brought it down on The Doctor's shoulder. He stumbled, shunted to the side by the force of the blow, his expression one of shock and dismay.
And still K'or'n moved toward the captain lying defenseless and weak on the biobed, blade drawn, spines bristling.
It was a meter from her when Gordon leapt from his bed with a wild scream. He crashed into K'or'n's back, knocking him two steps forward and then down to his knees. Kes watched in horror as, with a jerk and a jolt, three of K'or'n's spines ripped through the skin of Gordon's back. "You won't fucking touch her," he yelled, blood bubbling into his mouth and over his lips with every word, and reached for K'or'n's thin neck. With hands wrapped around its thin jaw, Gordon let himself drop. The sick crack of bone snapping rang out through the suddenly still and silent room, and man and alien fell in a tangled heap to the floor.
It was the key to the dam. As the two bodies struck the ground, the rest of the Starfleeters capable of standing rose to their feet and launched themselves at the invaders. Surprised, the Kaminoans did not immediately fire, and two of them fell beneath fists and boots before they could reach for the long, twin swords hanging at their hips.
The Starfleet victory was short-lived. Even as they were driven back to the Sickbay doors, one of the Kaminoans lifted its head and gave a great, undulating cry filled with an ear-wrenching series of clicks. Doran, who had pushed Kes aside when she had tried to keep him back, leapt at it—only to be struck to the ground as the doors opened and a fresh wave of Kaminoans poured in, swords and guns upraised.
A hand latching around Kes's elbow made her jump and gasp. She whirled, expecting to see a looming insectoid towering above her—but it was only The Doctor.
"Quick," he hissed, dragging her toward the central biobed. "We have to get her out of here."
"What about the risk of moving her?" Kes asked.
"I was lying. It's inadvisable, but it won't kill her."
"And what about them?" Kes asked, glancing over her shoulder at the swiftly falling crewmembers. The floor was daubed with blood and with the fallen, and Kes thought she could just glimpse a severed hand that looked like it belonged to Doran.
"What do you think we can do for them?" The Doctor asked. He shook his head. "The best thing we can do is use their distraction as a chance to get the captain out."
Kes forced herself to turn away from the battle. She knew The Doctor was right, even in that knowledge felt like a thorn inside her heart.
The captain was still conscious, if only just. She had pulled herself almost into a sitting position, and now lay propped up on her left elbow. Her face was as pale as bone, and a thin line of sweat had gathered at her hairline. Her mouth hung open in what could only be shock. She was trembling, and her right hand was clasped white-knuckled in the tattered ends of her split shirt. She was looking, Kes saw, at Gordon's body lying half-visible beneath K'or'n's.
"Come on, Captain," The Doctor said, coming to a quick halt at her bedside. "We have to get you out of here."
The captain shook her head, still looking first at Gordon's body, then up at the battle. When The Doctor reached for her she jerked away from his touch.
"Captain," Kes said softly, coming up to her side, "please. If we don't get out away from them, then Gordon's sacrifice will have been in vain."
Finally, finally the captain looked away from her people fighting and falling. She looked at Kes, trembling and pale and in shock, and reached for her with a grip like a drowning woman. Kes took her hand in her own and gripped it tightly.
"Come on," she said. "Please."
The captain nodded.
They helped her to her feet. She stumbled, and the air whistled from the tube in her throat. But then she steadied, in spite of the fine tremors wracking her body, her grip on their shoulders tightening and her spine straightening. She nodded again, and together the three of them made for the Jeffries tube hatch at the back of Sickbay.
They crawled in one after the other, The Doctor first, then the captain, then Kes. Kes turned back at the last second and looked at the waning battle. The Kaminoans were forcing the last standing Starfleet crewmember to his knees, one rifle in the small of his back and another at his temple.
With a tug, Kes latched the Jeffries tube hatch, cutting off her sight of the nightmare.
Two minutes into their crawl through the Jeffires tube, the captain collapsed. One second she was crawling behind The Doctor, and the next she was on the floor.
"Doctor," Kes cried, and then hurried forward on hands and knees to kneel by the captain's side. Her eyes were half open, but when Kes rolled her over all she could see was blood-shot white. Her head lolled against the floor, every muscle in her ravaged body limp. "Doctor!" Kes cried again.
"We'll have to get out of here," The Doctor said, crouching at Kes's side. "There's no way we'll be able to move her and protect ourselves, if the Kaminoans catch up."
"We don't even know if they've discovered the Jeffries tubes," Kes pointed out.
"Can we risk it?" The Doctor asked. "When they do, we'll be mice trapped in a fish bowl."
Grudgingly, Kes admitted he was right.
There was an access hatch ten feet down the tube. Working together, Kes and The Doctor dragged the captain to it. When they opened it, it was to a calm and silent corridor.
"You first," The Doctor whispered to Kes.
Kes climbed out of the Jeffries tube and, after peering both ways once more, turned back to the hatch. She opened her arms, and slid her hands beneath the captain's shoulders and back. Then, moving carefully backwards step by step, she slid the captain out into the corridor. The Doctor came behind, inching her forward and holding her legs.
As soon as the captain was free of the Jeffries tube, The Doctor motioned for them to set her down. He knelt by her head, felt for her pulse, pulled back an eyelid.
In the distance, back toward Sickbay, came the sound of heavy footsteps and murmured chittering. Kes and The Doctor looked at each other, both with eyes wide and breath shallow in their chests.
"We have to hide," Kes said, ignoring the surge of misplaced righteous anger—The Doctor had been right to suggest they leave the Jeffries tube. Their timing had simply been very poor.
The Doctor nodded. "No time to get her back in the Jeffries tube," he said, and looked frantically around. Then, "There," he said, and pointed to a supply closet half a dozen steps down the hall. "We'll hide in there until they're gone."
The closet was small and cramped. There was barely enough room for the three of them to fit; Kes stood with an ear pressed against the door, listening for the footsteps and voices of the Kaminoans coming and going, while The Doctor knelt on the floor with the captain propped half in his lap. It was dark, the only light a sliver of strobing red that crept in at the bottom and edges of the door, illuminating the shelves filled with cleaning supplies in vague half-shadows.
Kes barely dared to breathe. The light beneath the door was blocked, then freed, then blocked again as the Kaminoan soldiers marched past, speaking in the garbled tongue of their own language that the Universal Translator couldn't match. Then—silence.
"I think they're gone," Kes breathed, and opened the door a crack.
She peered out, looking both ways. Silence. She dared to open it another inch, tasting cool air and light. And then voices, and the tramp of footsteps on carpet. Kes yanked her head back and shut the door with a snap.
"They're still out there," she whispered. "I don't know how many, or where they are exactly, but they're in the hall. What should we do?"
"We need help," The Doctor said.
"Who can help us?" Kes asked.
"Maybe the commander," The Doctor suggested.
"How do we know he's not captured without alerting the Kaminoans to our presence?"
"We can only try."
Kes heard the shuffle of cloth against cloth, and then the ping of a combadge being activated. "The Doctor to Commander Chakotay," he murmured.
There was an awful moment of silence in which Kes held her breath and begged her heart to beat silently. And then, just as softly, "Chakotay here. What is it, Doctor?"
Thank the Caretaker, Kes thought briefly.
"We need your help," The Doctor said, speaking as hushed as possible while still being audible. "Kes and I are trapped in a supply closet on Deck Four. The captain is with us and needs medical attention. There are Kaminoans in the hall outside, and I fear it's only a matter of time before they find us."
"Understood," came Chakotay's prompt response. "We're on our way."
"Now what?" Kes asked.
"Now," The Doctor said, and in the half-light Kes caught a glimpse of him settling deeper into his crouch and pulling the captain more securely into his arms, "we wait."