Under Orders
"You and your people will hit this target. It's heavily armed, but our surveillance has revealed tactical weaknesses. If you can get in... here and here... within the first few shots, it's yours. My ground team will be waiting, as soon as those shields go down we'll be in. Transport yours inside and lay down cover fire for us." T.J. was indicating two points with his forefinger and pinky against a crude sketch of the Prison Camp.
Chakotay shook his head slowly. "Barna and I were going over it-"
"Can't do it." Barna cut in angrily. "Teej, we hit those points and a shit storm of Cardassian cruisers will be on us before we're inside. They're rigged to send out distress signals automatically."
Chakotay had fallen silent, watching the Bajoran push T.J.'s finger's off the paper.
"Look, we're not leaving them in there."
"So let's sacrifice another twenty or thirty of us trying to get them out?" Barna angrily stabbed at different points on the sketch. "Once we break the perimeter a hundred armed pigs will come out through these barracks... us and the people we have held there will be killed on sight."
T.J. stared at the sketch. "The surveillance team didn't see-"
"Surveillance teams can be in error." Chakotay muttered, uncrossing his arms and pulling the sheet close. He leaned with a hand on either side of the table and stared hard at the massive camp in front of him. "I agree, they can't be left there. How many of our people are we talking about?"
"Thirty for sure... they're ours. But there are possibly as many as seventy more than that. Women and children too. Bajoran families." T.J. responded.
"That's no small number for us to rescue after tripping a distress signal. Can we dampen the relay? Somehow stall it from sending out?"
"That still leaves the hundred Cardassians." Barna growled in Chakotay's face.
Chakotay firmly pushed Barna back with his hand against the old man's chest. "Easy. I've been out of this for a long time."
Barna slouched back on a stool and watched as Chakotay eyed T.J. "I've been in these compounds, so have you. If they're still alive it's a miracle. If we're taken as well..."
"Should we write them off and assume they're dead? Should we leave them to their torturers? Is that the Starfleet way, Chakotay?"
Chakotay dropped his gaze back to the sheet. "No... they've never left me behind..."
"It's no different here and you know that. I won't abandon my men to be beat with iron rods and the women to be raped by those pigs." T.J.'s voice was oddly hushed as he finished.
Chakotay turned his head to see Erin in the doorway.
"I'm going with you."
He looked back to T.J., pain and desperation in his face.
"You've committed to this, you'll have to square with it on your own, old friend." His response was equally pained as he shook his head. "I'm giving you orders to lead that team in orbit."
"Yes, sir."
The others left the small room as Chakotay remained fixed against the table, his grip tight on the edges, sweat beginning to drip onto the sketch beneath him.
"Daddy?" Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, moving closer. "I chose to be here, you didn't."
"I chose as much as you did. My choice, however, was coerced." He didn't look up.
"I'm sorry about so much of this, but I'm not ready to walk away. That wouldn't be right."
He slammed his fist down on the center of the table and looked up angrily. "Wouldn't be right, Erin? You had no problem walking away from your duties and assignments at the Academy! Was it right to walk away from you friends and family and your home?" He leaned in near her. "Was it right to make your mother so sick worrying about you that she's not sleeping or eating? Was it right to make us so terrified for you that I've come out here to get you?"
She had stepped back slightly and stared at him. Only a handful of times in her life had she ever remembered him being mad, and now he was seething. "You said I'm an adult and can make my own decisions. Everyone has to respect that except for you?" She was whispering. When did she start challenging her parents or any authority for that matter?
Chakotay collapsed onto the stool Barna had been perched on. "Please come home."
He sounded weak to her. Tired and even old. She wanted to reassure him, but she was still mad. How could he expect others to respect her if he didn't? "Mom will be okay..." She started, softening her voice as much as she could. "I hope to come home, but if I don't... Daddy, this is something that's important to me. Nothing has been before now. Everything has been routine, expectations of me that I've filled almost too well. I see so much more, there's so much suffering outside our perfect little united world and no one seems to care."
Chakotay rested his hands on his lap and stared up at her. "I used to feel that way. I still feel there is too many who suffer, but if everyone runs off to fight their own wars who will be left to continue a peaceful world? How will peace continue if everyone is fighting one crusade or another?" He reached for her hands.
She reluctantly pulled them from her pockets and let him grasp them, instinctively tightening hers when he did.
"The things I said on the ship? Erin, can you kill a child? Can you raid a home, take their food and weapons, kill the family in their sleep?"
She was silent.
"I know on this side of the border it's hard to picture the Cardassians in their homes and with their babies, but just beyond prison camp raids is the old Bajoran colonies... just past the evil that happens in the camps there are Cardassians, who admittedly have no right to be in those homes on those worlds... with their families. But are you ready to march in on them because another wants the house back? Their home from ten, twenty, even thirty years ago? It wasn't right, it will have never been right, but is this any less wrong?"
"It's time." T.J. was standing in the doorway. "I need you, Chakotay."
Chakotay continued to stare at Erin, holding his breath for a response from her.
"I have to stay." She wriggled her hands free from his and moved past T.J. to be as far from her father's hurt gaze as possible.
The tiny form squirmed in his open hands, the blanket loosening as she moved. Her fists clenched and unclenched and she let out a wail. His hands trembled beneath her as he pulled her nearer, terrified he'd drop her. His tears dripped down onto the blanket as he whispered softly. "Hello, Erin. I'm going to be your daddy."
The cries quieted at his voice and he looked up to see the Doctor and Kathryn watching him. She was sitting on the biobed, the Doctor was holding a medical tricorder, but had finished whatever scans he'd started.
"She's beautiful." He grinned at Kathryn.
Kathryn nodded slowly, the color already coming back to her face.
Chakotay eased onto the bed beside her and passed the bundle to her. "Thank you... for letting me be here."
"You're her father, you should be here." The response was gentle and honest.
Chakotay touched her tiny hand and her fingers wrapped around his in an instinctively tight grip. The warmth radiated from her hand and he smiled at the baby. His baby...
"I'm sorry." T.J. whispered. "I am glad you're with me, though." He clapped his hand on Chakotay's back as he trudged past.
"I'm warning you, old friend, she's my priority. If I have to save her, even sacrificing the team to do it... I will."
T.J. stopped walking. "I don't think you could."
Chakotay turned slowly, closer to T.J. than he realized. "She's my baby. I won't lose her."
He sighed and put his hands on Chakotay's back, guiding him out to where the team was waiting. "They're all yours."
Chakotay felt a rush of memories as the two dozen faces staring at him quieted, waiting for their team leader to speak, to order them on some fool's errand in the name of freedom. He cleared his throat and stepped to center himself among the group. "You all know the goal here, we're getting our people out of that death camp. We'll board the ship, heading straight for the Pinnaire system. When we're in range of their sensors we'll drop out of Warp and proceed on a direct course for our target. We're only going to get off a few shots before they're defense net is activated and once we drop their shields we'll be exposed. We're going to try and dampen the distress signal that will emit when we hit those targets, but if it doesn't work we have to be ready to move. Two will remain on board." He pointed to two standing to his right. "Can you two pilot the ships?"
The man and woman he indicated both nodded firmly.
"You'll remain on board while the rest of us beam directly into the camp. We'll be positioning ourselves between T.J.'s team and the Cardassians. Estimated to be-"
"A hundred!" Barna barked, having to have his uneducated guess count for something by anyone.
Chakotay smirked without breaking eye contact with the team. "At least a hundred. We'll begin to fire immediately, giving the other team cover as they get to the prison block."
Erin watched her father's confidence grow as he expertly ordered the men onto the ship. Perhaps it was his Starfleet years, he started back as First Officer on Voyager and has since only commanded ships. She thought there was something else. Something natural about the way he was sending them to their deaths. "Dad...?" She whispered as he let his shoulders slump behind the backs of the team gearing up and boarding the ships.
"Erin...? He returned the tone and looked at her sadly.
"This really is a death errand, isn't it?"
He squeezed her shoulder. "Perhaps the best way to test how committed you are to the cause is to face death or torture head on."
"Have you prepared a message for mom... in case it's that bad?"
He smiled. "You know me pretty well."
"I've had 21 years to peg you, Daddy."
"I do not want you here." His hand tightened it's grip and she winced slightly under his strength.
"I'm not backing off."
He sighed and hugged her against him for a long moment. "Okay, then. The team runs as Maquis. They have orders, they can deviate to save a life, even their own. There isn't a lot of structure or expectation. You, Ms. Janeway, better heed every last one of my orders."
She sensed a dire warning stressed in his voice and a plea to obey him this one moment. "Aye, Sir."
He dropped his arm and reached a hand to T.J. "You want me back to send me to my end, ey?"
T.J. shook his hand in return and smiled. "I told you I need you. I have vital people in there. If we're to fail this time..."
"We may very well fail." Chakotay offered grimly. "Good luck."
"May the prophets guide you." T.J. mumbled the familiar Bajoran prayer to Chakotay and broke off to his own ship.
"Let's go." He tried to sound steady as he walked quickly to the ship, leading his daughter off to war.
An Unwelcome Confrontation
Kathryn headed straight for her office. She didn't need the questions everyone throughout Starfleet Command had. She didn't want to be asked by a dozen people if they'd found Erin yet or where Chakotay had disappeared to. She needed to get to her desk, lock her door and get her work done as quickly as possible. She was nearly to the massive old door when a voice stopped her.
"Admiral Janeway...?"
She spun around to see Commander Barclay standing in the hallway. "Hello, Reg."
"Have you heard anything from her?"
She shook her head and beckoned him in behind her, locking them in with a quick command to the computer.
Reg stared at her, looking somewhat perplexed.
"It feels as though I need to hide from all of Starfleet." She waved his concern off and went to the replicator. "Coffee. Black." She turned to Reg, inquiring with an eyebrow.
"Nothing, thanks." He seated himself near the floor to ceiling window that faced a series of gleaming Headquarters buildings. "You have the worst view in Starfleet."
"It was my father's office." She mumbled. "I hated being stuck in here as a kid and now it's my favorite place to work." She settled into a chair across from him and pulled her knees up, resting her mug atop them and watching him through the steam.
"My students have been... theorizing about where she's gone." Reg started quietly.
"Yeah, a few of them live in my neighborhood and have been spreading such theories about the tennis courts." She finished dryly.
"If it's the case, she won't be accepted back into the Academy."
"That's awful presumptuous, Reg. They've taken people back for worse."
"They haven't been though. Even well written and highly thought of sponsoring of cadets haven't changed the board's mind on most reentrants. I will be happy to submit my own, but it will be challenged. She didn't submit a formal resignation which caused her official absences... to start."
"With all due respect, Mr. Barclay, I can't be worried about this right now. I just want her home."
"I'm trying to tell you, Starfleet is already deciding where she's been and what the consequences will be."
The silence hung between them for a long time before Kathryn inhaled slowly and let it out. "They have no right to."
"I tried to stand up for her, but it's hard. I'm all but certain that's where she is as are the rest of the Academy Board."
A knock on the door startled them both.
Kathryn sat quiet through three more rounds of knocking before a voice came through.
"Admiral Janeway, I know you're there. You need to address this situation."
She slid her booted feet off the chair and they loudly thumped on the floor. She stood, coffee cup still in hand, and made her way to the door. A pass of her hand over the manual control unlocked it revealing two angry looking Admirals.
"The stolen shuttle we told you of early in the week? It's been seen by surveillance from DS9. It's been fitted with markings of the Maquis and we presume it's being flown by Captain Chakotay."
"Why would he be flying a stolen shuttle with Maquis markings?" She countered as the Admiral who hadn't spoke a word thrust a PADD into her free hand.
They let themselves in past her and she stood staring down at the PADD. The data image recorded showed the shuttle, registry markings gleaming clearly from the side.
Reg silently excused himself, squeezing her shoulder gently as he slipped out.
"Well?" The first Admiral prompted loudly.
She turned to see they were seated where Reg had been. She moved to the long desk farther away from them and seated herself, transferring the image to her desk console. "Computer, enhance shuttle forward screen, zoom in 300 percent."
"We tried, there's no showing who is flying the shuttle."
They all looked up at Admiral Paris' voice.
Kathryn set the coffee mug and PADD down and motioned for him to sit at the desk. "I assume you'll speak to me in a respectful manner." She muttered unnecessarily.
Both Admirals on the couch stirred, but remained silent. Paris' seniority was felt in most areas of Starfleet and respected by nearly everyone.
His eyes sparkled a bit at her irritation and he leaned into the desk. "We're unable to tell if the pilot is Chakotay, but whomever is piloting it eluded a Cardassian in much the same way he would. The shuttle went missing the same morning he did. Kathryn, he could be in a lot of trouble.
"Owen, I know less about where he might be than you do, I'm sure."
"We all assume he's gone after your daughter, but to what end?" The second Admiral was speaking, softer now, but with a measured tone.
She shook her head and stood. Neither man sitting on her couch outranked her in time. She'd been on assignments over the previous twenty years that would turn them gray in a heartbeat. Still, most of Command was hounding her for information she could only guess at. "I don't know where he is. There are rumors, everyone has been hearing them, that my daughter has gone off to join the Maquis. If it's true... she won't live through it. Chakotay was certain of that much."
Admiral Paris leaned back to follow her unsteady pacing. "If he assumed she went to the Bajoran system and the Cardassian border, it's reasonable to assume he's had to join them to track her down."
Kathryn nodded slowly. "Sir, you know better than anyone what can happen in those camps. Wouldn't you do anything to rescue your child from that fate?"
Paris swallowed hard. The memory was fast approaching forty years old, but the wounds still plagued his nightmares.
"The question than is not if he's gone there, but what will become of him when he returns home from the crimes one must commit when warring in Federation space... and shirking responsibility and duty." The first Admiral stood as he spoke. "Janeway, your husband will likely live the rest of his life in prison."
Kathryn stared at their backs as they left the room without another word.
"Let us hope he didn't have to join them." Admiral Paris whispered.