Author's note: There was a technical problem with the last time I posted a chapter, and I think no email notifications were sent out as a result, so make sure you have actually read chapter 3 before you start this one! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed my story!

Chapter 4

The last time I saw her, she was my savior.

There's no warning this time. The Red Alert doesn't even sound until after the fact.

The impact is so powerful that it knocks me off my bed and I roll into the forcefield, getting a powerful shock for a wake-up call. I lay there for a breathless moment, stunned and disoriented. On the other side of the forcefield, the security guard - it's Durst again - painfully gets up from where he has been flung against the bulkhead.

The lights flicker erratically until the auxiliary power kicks in, just as the Red Alert finally goes off.

Durst scrambles back over to his station, his eyes rapidly scanning the readouts there.

"What's happening?" I ask him.

He doesn't have to answer me, but he does.

"It's the Vetar," he says. "We're under attack!"

Gul Evek. Apparently my arrest isn't good enough for him. Is he really so desperate to kill me that he would engage a Federation starship to get at me?

No. Much as I would like to think the Cardassians see me as that big of a threat, I know immediately that this can't be it. After years of cold war with the Federation, it would be foolhardy for the Cardassians to launch an unprovoked attack against a starship just to get at one man, or even one crew. There has to be something else going on here. Something I'm not seeing.

Another massive blow rocks the ship, but this time I'm ready, braced in the corner, and I manage to stay upright. When the inertial dampeners stabilize, I realize Voyager's warp engines are silent. The attack must have knocked us out of warp. I wonder how the Cardassians managed to track us. Surely Janeway was smart enough to alter course as soon as the Vetar left scanning range yesterday.

Another security officer arrives to back up Durst. If the auxiliary power fails and my forcefield goes down, the last thing they want is a Maquis prisoner running around loose on the ship.

I can only imagine what Janeway's thinking right now: Do we shoot back? Try to hail them? Try to escape? A violent encounter at this stage is going to be devastating to diplomatic relations, no matter who is actually at fault. The Cardassians are not exactly known for playing fair, in battle or at the bargaining table.

Then I hear the distinctive whump-whump-whump of Voyager's torpedo launchers. Apparently Janeway isn't going to take this lying down. She isn't as naive as I thought.

More blows rattle the ship. The Vetar is hitting us pretty hard. I hate this feeling of helplessness and I desperately wish I could be on the Bridge right now. I know a few tricks for targeting Cardassian ships… assuming anyone on the Bridge would even listen to my advice. They don't trust me any more than they trust the Cardassians.

BOOM!

I feel the next concussion more than I hear it. It shakes me to my very bones, and through the wall of reverberation crashing through my head I can hear the tenor screech of rending metal, very much like the last thing I heard on the Val Jean before Voyager beamed us away. Less than a second later, the shock of the impact rumbles through the room. Despite being braced, my guards and I all lose our footing and tumble to the deck.

When I get back on my feet, the auxiliary lights are flickering and black smoke is pouring in through the vents in the ceiling. It's impossible not to notice that the room is growing hot, and the acrid smell of melted tritanium is heavy in the air. Durst and the other guard share alarmed looks. They guess what I guess: that a torpedo has likely pierced the hull, and dangerously close to us.

A voice comes on over the intercom and confirms our worst fears. "This is Lieutenant Commander Cavit. Evacuate Decks 7 and 8. Repeat, evacuate Decks 7 and 8. We've lost shielding in that section!"

My guards don't hesitate. In moments they have my forcefield down and the door unsealed, and they pull me out of my cell, leading me toward the door. I wonder what alternate destination they have in mind for me, and if it will be any safer than here.

I never find out. There's another bone-shaking impact on the hull, the room tilts like a carnival ride, and the three of us go flying.

I slam into a bulkhead, shoulder-first, but instead of falling back down to the deck, I ricochet upwards and bump against the ceiling. My stomach lurches wildly as I flail around and it takes me a moment to understand that the artificial gravity has failed. We're in free-fall.

My guards are still tumbling out of control in mid-air when I bounce down against the security console and manage to get a grip on the edge, halting my momentum.

I don't even hesitate. Chances like this don't come along every day. I launch myself toward the door, and since they've already unsealed it, it helpfully slides open for me as I float through.

As I escape, Durst fires a phaser at me through the smoky air. But he isn't stationary, or even anchored to any surface, and I know from experience how hard it is to aim accurately in those conditions. The beam misses me by a meter, and then I'm out the door, propelling myself rapidly through the air by pushing off the bulkheads. The zero-G conditions are making me feel nauseated, but I'm in too much of a hurry to care.

The corridor is empty, but I know that won't last for long. I propel myself head-first to the first hatch I see, pull it open, and maneuver my body through.

It's cramped inside, but with so many hand-holds within reach, it's actually easier to reorient myself here than it was in the corridor. I already know from the Val Jean's initial scan of Voyager that the Cargo Bay is three decks up from here, so I make my way to the vertical tube and get myself into position. I push off a ladder rung with my feet, and now I'm soaring rapidly in the direction that used to be up, only lightly touching bulkheads with my fingertips now and then to fine-tune my vector.

Durst and the other guard will be in pursuit by now, and calling for backup. I just hope they assume I'm heading for the transporter room or the shuttlebay, the obvious choices. They don't know me well enough to know that I can't leave the rest of my crew behind.

A new alarm sounds over the top of the Red Alert. I recognize it as the signal that artificial gravity is about to be restored. Quickly I grab onto a rung of the ladder. My arms nearly get wrenched out of their sockets thanks to the sudden change in inertia, but I'm safely clinging to the ladder when the gravity comes back online. My body feels unnaturally heavy after several minutes of weightlessness, but I know I'll adjust quickly.

It looks like I've been able to travel up three decks in a short amount of time. If Durst and the other guard figure out which hatch I used and follow behind me, it will take them much longer to climb up the ladder the old-fashioned way. I just might make it.

I step off the ladder and starting crawling through a horizontal tube in the direction of the front of the ship. I estimate the Cargo Bay is 500 meters that way. But I've hardly gotten started when I hear soft noises ahead of me and to the right. I freeze.

I listen intently, but I can't hear anything now. Did I imagine it?

Then I hear a woman's voice calling out softly: "Chakotay!"

I frown. "Seska?"

There's a shuffling sound, and then she emerges from a horizontal tube intersecting mine, her brown hair flowing softly down her shoulders as she crawls toward me. Without saying a word, she throws her arms around me and presses her lips against mine. My relief is indescribable as my arms slip around her back in the darkness of the Jefferies tube. The ship has taken so much damage, I was afraid something might have happened to my crew.

"Where are the others?" I ask when she releases me.

Seska's eyes darken above her crinkled nose, and she hesitates for a moment.

"Chakotay…" she says slowly. "I overheard some of the Starfleet officers talking. One of the them said Section 4 took a direct hit."

I freeze. The Cargo Bay is in Section 4.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she whispers with glistening eyes, "but I don't think you'll find anyone in the Cargo Bay now."

I don't believe it. I can't.

"You weren't there when it happened?" I ask numbly.

She shakes her head. "I had escaped. Before the attack started. I was in the Jeffries tubes, trying to get to you." She swallows. "I guess I got lucky."

"We have to make sure-" I start to say, but I'm interrupted by another shipwide announcement. Janeway's voice rings out over the speakers, echoing in the confined space.

"All hands, this is the captain. Proceed to the escape pods and abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship. Program the pods for a heading of 178-mark-4. We'll rendezvous in orbit of an M-class planet at those coordinates. Repeat, all hands abandon ship."

My heart sinks. I knew when the gravity failed that that last blow must have hit a vital system. The warp core? Could we be heading for a breach? But no, the computer isn't giving a countdown. It's more likely that life support is failing.

Seska looks alarmed. "The crew is going to use the Jefferies tubes to get to the escape pods! We have to get out of here, quick."

"I'm not going anywhere but the Cargo Bay," I say forcefully. I pull a panel off and rapidly tap the controls.

Seska's eyes flash with sudden anger. "We don't have time for that! Chakotay-"

I ignore her and moments later my dedication pays off: it seems the security grid is down, but the transporters are not. I quickly hack into the controls and beam us both to the corridor just outside the Cargo Bay.

The deck is littered with debris, and there are no running feet in the distance. If a torpedo really hit this section, then it's already been evacuated. I try to open the door to the Cargo Bay, but it's sealed. I grab the manual release, say a quick prayer, and pull.

By some miracle, it opens. I rush into the room, Seska on my heels, and we stare in shock at the cavernous room.

The Cargo Bay is burned out. There are scorch marks on the deck, the bulkheads, the storage containers, everything. Both the upper and lower decks. Despite that, the air is so cold that my breath shows. The emergency system must have briefly depressurized the bay to starve the fire of oxygen and prevent its spread. The air's breathable now, but as for my crew...

There are bodies everywhere, a few in Starfleet uniforms, most not. Some of them are burned to the point of unrecognizability, though others look unharmed. They aren't moving, though. I know what has happened, and a chill moves down my back that has nothing to do with the temperature. The fire was so sudden, so severe, that it consumed most of the breathable air. They suffocated to death.

I get down on my knees and roll one body over. It's B'Elanna Torres, and my hands shake as I press my fingers against her neck. I can't find a pulse. I start to move her limp body into position for resuscitation.

"It's too late," Seska says, and the terse words slash across my consciousness. She's holding a tricorder in her hands, scanning the room. "They're all dead. I'm sorry, Chakotay."

My knees are going numb on the frigid metal deck plates, but I reach over to lightly touch B'Elanna's cooling cheek. I'm too stunned to feel the pain, but I know it will come later. It always does. I've lost so many comrades in this cursed conflict. It never gets any easier. I think it never will.

"We should beam them to Sickbay," I say hoarsely. "Their doctors will have to evacuate them and treat them. It might not be too late to revive some of them." In the distance, I can hear the faint thump-thump of deploying escape pods. Voyager is turning into a ghost ship.

"There is no Sickbay," Seska says. "That section took a direct hit, too. All of Deck 5 is decompressed. Chakotay, there's nothing we can do for them. We have to go. Now."

Reluctantly, I let her drag me away. As I jog behind her through the corridors, I find myself listing all their names in my head, one by one, as their faces flash before me. Torres. Bendera. Suder. Chell. Paris.

No, not Paris.

Yes, Paris too, I realize. He was probably still in Sickbay, which is now exposed to the vacuum of space. He's dead too.

The fact bothers me more than I expected it to. Janeway cared about him. Maybe she knew something I didn't.

Henley. Jonas. Ayala.

Fixated as I am on my fallen friends, I let Seska take the lead through the deserted corridors, until finally she turns into an auxiliary control room. She strides over to a console and begins tapping the controls. I realize this is a torpedo launching station.

"What are you doing?" I ask her. "The escape pods are that way."

Seska doesn't even glance up to see which way I'm pointing. "You know more about Starfleet security protocols than I do," she says, and I realize she's trying to hack into the station. "Give me a hand. We need to alter the timestamps so that it looks like Voyager fired at the Vetar first."

Her bizarre statement forces me to take note. "Are you insane?" I demand. "Do you have any idea what will happen if you do that?"

"Why don't you work on it while you enlighten me," she snaps.

I don't even touch the console. "If the investigation shows that Voyager started the fight," I say forcefully, "either Starfleet will be forced to crack down on the Maquis even harder to prove this was just the work of a rogue captain, or else the Cardassians will finally have the excuse they've been looking for to launch a full-scale attack on the entire Federation fleet! Either way, the Cardassians win!"

Seska laughs in a way I don't like. "So what's the problem? I thought you hated Starfleet. What do you care if the Cardassians blow them out of the sky? At least then no one will bother with you."

I can't believe her obtuseness. "How would a weaker Starfleet help the colonists? I may not like it, but we need them to keep the peace!"

She ignores me. I look at the console and realize to my astonishment that she has actually succeeded in circumventing the security lockout and is in the process of altering the record of the torpedo launch. I had no idea she was so proficient with security systems; on the Val Jean she's always just assisted B'Elanna with the engines.

"Stop it!" I shout, pushing her hands away from the console. She whirls toward me, and before I can react she's pointing a weapon at me that I didn't even know she had.

"Stay out of my way, Chakotay," she snaps. "Don't you understand that you're not in charge anymore? You're lucky I took the time to come and find you. I could have just left you to die in the Brig. But we've had some good times together, haven't we? We could have a few more. All you need is a good slap to get that Maquis heart of yours beating again!"

It sure feels like I've been slapped, all right. I've just noticed that Seska isn't holding a phaser, Starfleet issue or otherwise. It's a disruptor, the kind that's banned throughout the Federation because its victims suffer such excruciating deaths as their bodies are torn apart from the inside out.

"Where did you get that?" I ask numbly. "Why are you doing this?"

"What, this little beauty? Found it lying around," she says casually. "As for why... there aren't enough hours in the day, Chakotay." She keeps the disruptor trained on me while she taps a few more controls and then makes an exasperated sound.

"We'll have to go to the Bridge to implement the changes," she mutters. And then, with a waggle of the disruptor, she makes me march to the turbolift.

I have no choice but to go along with it, but it all seems like a bad dream. Can this be the same woman I've shared intimacy with? I always knew Seska wasn't exactly the kind of woman a man writes home about, but she has always devoted herself to me. Her attentions filled a need in me that nothing else could, this past year. Why is she doing this?

"Bridge," she says, and the turbolift starts to rise. The barrel of the disrupter digs into my back.

"You aren't who I thought you were," I say, looking back at her, and although I mean it as an accusation, I can't keep the disappointment out of my voice.

She looks steadily at me, and for a second she looks a little sad.

"I doubt any woman could ever live up to your ideals, Chakotay," she says quietly. "Still, it was fun pretending that I did, for as long as it lasted. Do you know, I used to wonder what it would be like to have your baby? I've never thought that about any other man before."

Her flattery has always worked on me… until now. "Do you always point disruptors at the prospective fathers of your children?" I ask bitterly.

"Only when I'm trying to save them from themselves," she replies coldly. "You can still walk out of this alive, Chakotay. All you have to do is obey me without question until we get off this ship. Understand?"

She's assuming that I want to walk out of this alive. I'm not sure I do. My friends are all dead. My ship was probably destroyed in the battle. Seska has just become the third person from my crew to betray me in the last three days, which means I'm apparently an utter failure at leading. I'm beginning to think the resistance will be better off without me.

It would have been much less painful if that Cardassian torpedo had ripped through the Brig instead.

When the turbolift stops, Seska pushes me forward through the door. The Bridge is littered with bodies, but there are two crewmembers still alive, standing at the helm together: one I haven't seen before - a young man wearing a gold uniform - and Captain Janeway. I realize that like any good captain, she's stayed behind long enough to ensure that all the escape pods successfully launch. There's no sign of the Vetar on the viewscreen. Apparently they only stuck around long enough to deliver the fatal blow to Voyager. Somehow I doubt Evek withdrew out of a sense of mercy. More likely, he wants it to look like Voyager was the aggressor, and that he and his crew barely escaped with their own lives. Seska's idiotic idea of tampering with Voyager's records is only going to reinforce that notion.

As one, Captain Janeway and her nameless crewman look back at us, startled by our sudden appearance on the Bridge.

It all happens so fast. Seska takes the disruptor off my back and points it at them.

"Don't-" I start to shout, but it's too late. Seska presses the trigger.

I catch only a glimpse of the ensign who throws himself in front of his captain, but his face is seared into my mind in the instant before the disruptor bolt hits him in the chest.

Round face, inky black hair, dark oriental eyes. Young, very young. Almost too young to believe he's a serving officer.

And then he starts to burn.

It takes him an excruciatingly long time to die. I don't remember turning away, but I must have, because I'm spared the sight of his disintegration. There's no way to block the smell of burned flesh that drifts across the Bridge, however.

I don't make a conscious decision about what to do next, but I don't need to. I take no thought for prudence, or for safety, or for the love that once burned in my breast for Seska.

There's nothing left but blind, red-hot rage.

I explode in a flurry of fists. The disruptor hits the deck, and then Seska hits the bulkhead. It doesn't satisfy me, so I pin her roughly against the bulkhead, my forearm pressing against her throat with all my strength, denying her the very breath of life. It doesn't even occur to me to try to restrain myself. She fights back viciously, and she's much stronger than I expected her to be, but she can't match my fury. The face inches from mine is so familiar, but it's a stranger's face. I don't know her. I don't know her.

The moment seems to hang suspended for an eternity. Suddenly, Seska goes limp, pinned between me and the bulkhead. For a terrifying second, I think I've killed her, and the shock is like a bucket of water dumped over my rage. I didn't mean to… I didn't want...

Then I see Tuvok, standing several feet away, a phaser gripped in his left hand, calmly moving his aim from Seska to me.

My blood was pounding so loudly in my ears, I never heard the phaser fire. I let up the pressure on Seska's throat, and she slides down until she's sitting on the deck, slumped against the bulkhead, head lolling to the side.

I wait for Tuvok to shoot me too, but he's just standing there, pointing his phaser at me, doing nothing, wearing the same poker face Vulcans always wear. I crouch down and look at Seska, somehow reluctant to touch her again. There's no rise and fall of her shoulders. Tuvok must have set his phaser to kill.

Blood is trickling from Seska's split lip, where I first hit her. The sight sickens me, and even though she has betrayed me, it doesn't change the fact that for a time, I loved her, and I'm sorry that she's gone.

There's something strange about the blood.

That fact manages to call attention to itself, even through my grief and confusion. It should be bright red, the same for Bajorans as it is for humans. But the blood is dark. And not even dark red… it's brown.

There's only one race I know of with brown blood. I've spilled some of it myself, and I know what it looks like when a Cardassian bleeds. Stunned, I meet Tuvok's eyes. He's noticed the contradiction too, and his brows contract.

"Fascinating," he says, his voice going deeper and a little husky.

Fascinating is not the word for it. I can't even find the word that does describe it. If I had known she was a Cardassian, I never would have let her on the ship, much less… much less...

Revulsion sweeps over me. I thought Seska loved me. I thought I loved her. All that time, she had been working under Gul Evek's orders. How much of our relationship was a game to her? Just a ruse to earn my trust and steal Maquis secrets? But it went on for so long. It felt so real. Can anyone be that good of a liar?

She said she wanted to have my baby.

She lied.

I can feel exhaustion down to my very bones, and I notice that the air in here is growing stale. Life support is failing. There's nothing I want more than to lay down and give into it - just peacefully drift off to the waiting arms of death - but Tuvok has other plans for me. "Stand up," he says.

"You might as well just kill me, too," I say, not budging.

"To kill an unarmed man who does not currently pose a threat to myself or others is not logical," Tuvok retorts.

I want to hate him, but I don't have the energy for it. I stand up and, at Tuvok's prompting, walk over to the helm with his phaser trained on me the whole way. In all the excitement, I had forgotten about Captain Janeway. She's lying on her back by the helm, her eyes open, her breathing labored. The smell of burned human flesh is still thick in the air. I'm shocked to see that the entire front of her uniform is scorched, with glimpses of red here and there where blood is seeping through the tattered fabric.

I thought her crewman had saved her life by taking the disruptor bolt himself, but it looks like the weapon was so powerful that some of the energy bled through his body and transferred to her. Janeway's conscious, but her eyes look glassy. It's a bad sign.

Tuvok kneels by Janeway's side. It's the first time I've ever seen uncertainty cross his face. His phaser wavers slightly, but he can't bring himself to put it down; unarmed or not, he doesn't trust me enough for that.

"I'll get a medkit," I say.

He considers me for a moment, dark eyes calculating.

"She brought me my medicine bundle," I say.

For all I know, Tuvok doesn't even know what I'm talking about, but for some reason he accepts this. He lowers his phaser and nods to me. I run over to the nearest console and get the kit. Tuvok takes the medical tricorder out and scans Janeway.

I can see the results of the scan over his shoulder, and it doesn't look good. With steady hands, Tuvok administers a hypospray, and then runs a dermal regenerator over her chest, trying to stop the bleeding.

Janeway grows a little more alert. She locks eyes with Tuvok and tries to say something, but she can't seem to draw the breath to do it. Finally, she lifts one small white hand, painfully grasps Tuvok's wrist, and pulls it toward her until his hand touches her face. I'm not sure what she's trying to do, but Tuvok seems to know. He puts down the dermal regenerator and cups her face in both his hands. Carefully, he adjusts his fingers so that his thumbs rest on her chin, his forefingers on her cheekbones, and his other fingers on her temples.

I hold my breath. I've never seen a Vulcan mind meld before. I've heard they are rarely shared between Vulcans, and even more rarely with other species. Janeway and Tuvok must have an unusual connection for him to be willing to open his mind to hers. I'm beginning to see why she was so protective of him. This is no mere command relationship, this is friendship.

"My mind to your mind," Tuvok says softly. "My thoughts to your thoughts."

There's no sound but Janeway's ragged breathing. Tuvok has a faraway look in his eyes. Suddenly I feel as though I'm the only person in the room. Several minutes tick by. Now I can feel my own lungs straining for oxygen, and the temperature on the Bridge is beginning to drop. Life support is nearly gone. There's no reason why I can't get in an escape pod now and reclaim my freedom - I doubt Tuvok would even notice if I left - but something transfixes me. My father always insisted on my respectful behavior during ceremonies and rituals, and my time at Starfleet Academy learning how to interact with alien cultures has only reinforced that tradition. I can't leave now.

It's gotten so cold in here that I start to shiver uncontrollably. Just when I start to wonder if I should shake Tuvok out of his trance and get us all to safety, he slowly removes his hands from Janeway's face. Her labored breathing halts, and with sorrow I see a change come over her face that I am all too familiar with.

She's gone.

Tuvok takes a long, deep breath and then slowly lets it out. Then he leans forward and gently works his fingers inside Janeway's collar. He draws out a delicate silver chain and unfastens it from around her neck. Threaded on the chain is a ring with a diamond winking in the flashing red lights.

Without a word, he clutches the chain in one hand and stands up.

"Come with me, Captain," he says to me. He sounds remarkably calm for a man who just watched a friend die. Maybe I should have been born a Vulcan. What would I give to have such control over my passions?

I nod, but first I have one last thing to do. I bend over Janeway and gently close her eyes with my fingertips.

"A-koo-chee-moya," I whisper. "May your spirit fly home to the skies of your forefathers."

The auxiliary lights on the Bridge are slowly dimming. The ship is dying. Without another word, Tuvok turns away from his captain's body and disappears through a nearby door. I follow him into what must be the captain's Ready Room. Tuvok stoops and pulls up a hatch in the floor and motions for me to go down first. I climb down the ladder into the escape pod below.

Tuvok isn't coming down after me. He crouches above the hatch and says, "Set the pod's coordinates to 23-mark-1. There is a Class-M planet with several trading outposts where you may find transportation to your next destination."

"Aren't you coming?" I ask, confused. Technically Tuvok is the captain now, but surely he would not think it logical to go down with the ship for no reason, especially if it means setting me loose.

"I will take another escape pod after I have downloaded Voyager's memory core and set the self-destruct," he says. "I must rendezvous with my crew and then inform Starfleet Command of these events."

"The Cardassians will say you fired first," I tell Tuvok. "Seska was planning to alter Voyager's records to show that."

"Then it is fortunate we stopped her," Tuvok says.

"They'll use this to try to escalate the conflict," I insist. "More people will die."

"We will do what we can to ameliorate the situation," Tuvok says calmly. It's what Starfleet always says when the Cardassians antagonize them, but for once it doesn't make me angry. There's something about this ship that has revived the old Chakotay, and I hate to leave the ship - and him - behind now.

There's just one more thing I have to know. "Why are you letting me go?" I ask Tuvok.

He pauses a moment before responding.

"It was one of Captain Janeway's last requests," he says.

And like a good subordinate, Tuvok's obeying his captain. I know he'll get in trouble for this with his superiors. There's no chance he'll lie about it to them, being a Vulcan. It bothers me, but not enough to insist that he take me back into custody. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with my life now, but Janeway seemed to think it was worth saving. Now I have to go find out why.

The last thing I see as Tuvok shuts the hatch above me is the diamond ring hanging from its chain in his hand. I think I know what Janeway's other last request was. I hope her death doesn't break her fiance. She isn't the kind of woman that's easy to forget.

I launch the escape pod, and then watch through its tiny port as Voyager's burnt and broken form shrinks into the distance. After a minute or so, I see Tuvok's tiny escape pod moving away from the ship.

There's a pause. A heartbeat of profound stillness.

Voyager explodes.

Brilliant rays of light burst out from the heart of the ship, and I squint against the blaze of a warp core breach. It's over in seconds. The white light fades, and Voyager is nothing but debris floating across the dark immensity of space.

It pains me to see such a beautiful ship destroyed, but Tuvok made the right decision. At least the Cardassians won't be able to return to pick over Voyager's bones, gleaning more Starfleet secrets than they deserve to know. They won't even be able to recover the body of their own spy. I can just imagine Evek's rage when he realizes Seska failed in her mission.

I set course for the coordinates Tuvok gave me. I don't know yet what I'll do when I get there, but I have a day or so to figure it out. Whatever it is, I know it will have to be something good and noble, even great. Janeway bought my life. I need to make sure I'm worth the price.

I picture her as I first saw her, hair pulled up in a perfect bun, blue eyes bright with intelligence, voice steady and fearless, and I know I'm already putting her death into the same category as my Maquis comrades': a tragedy of proportions too immense to ever really grasp.

A warrior, a captor, an ambassador of peace, a woman of mercy.

I'll never know why Janeway saved me. What made her think I deserved it? She must have known something I didn't.

I barely knew her.

But I can't forget her.

I don't think I ever will.

THE END

Author's note: I hope you enjoyed this little foray into A/U. Let me know what you thought of it, good, bad or indifferent!