Chapter Three

When Janeway awoke, she was no longer on the Array. Staggering to her feet, she grasped the rail that surrounded the warp core in Engineering. Beside her, Lieutenant Carey was attempting to do the same. Once she had found solid footing, and had determined that she wasn't suffering from any lingering symptoms from… whatever had been done to them on the Array… she knelt down to give Joe a leg up. Once he was standing, Janeway patted him on the shoulder and set him off to work on getting Voyager back up to optimal, then she left Engineering and made her way to Sickbay.

It seemed to her, as she made her way through the corridors, that the damage to her ship was mainly cosmetic. Computer consoles that had overloaded were everywhere, but that was to be expected – the damage to the major systems was not nearly as severe. Despite her battered interior and exterior, Voyager was essentially combat-ready.

The same, she knew, could not be said for Gul Evek's Vetar. Janeway had lost a third of her crew, but while on the Array she had seen the Cardassian crew – and she had counted maybe forty people from a ship that normally staffed over two hundred. If the damage to the Vetar's systems was similarly severe, chances were that repairing the Vetar was an exercise in futility. Well, Voyager was relatively understaffed to begin with, Janeway thought. Intrepid-class starships can carry up to two hundred themselves, but we were only carrying a hundred and fifty. We'll probably need more crewmen just to get the ship back up to her normal operating abilities. The thought of integrating Cardassian crewmen into her own was not one that filled Janeway with optimism. For now, lets focus on getting the ship back to the Alpha Quadrant. The Array brought us here; chances are the Array can get us home.

Janeway strode into Sickbay, where the holographic Emergency Medical Hologram was wandering about. When he noticed her arrival, his eyes lit up instantly. "Ah! Captain! Might someone care to tell me where you have all been for the last three days? And why the crew neglected to turn off my program when I was no longer needed?" Janeway grimaced. The EMH was a new experimental program, one that many members of Starfleet didn't quite approve of. Moreover, it was known for having an especially prickly bedside manner.

"We were on the Array, Doctor. Why, I don't know. How we got there, I don't know. And if we'd known we were about to be leaving, I'm sure someone would have taken the time to deactivate your program, as a courtesy to you," she said with a modicum of sarcasm. "Now, while we were over there some kind of medical procedure was performed on most, if not all, of the crew. I need to know if there will be any repercussions from it and, if possible, what that… Caretaker… was attempting to do."

"Well, if I had a medical staff, it might be easier. But I'll see what I can do." The EMH grabbed one of the medical tricorders and ran the examining unit over the Captain's body. When Paris came over to speak with her, he grasped him as well and ran the same series of scans. When he was finished, he grabbed another crewman and Paris let out an exasperated sigh before turning to speak with Janeway.

"Captain, Harry's missing."

Janeway looked up, shocked. She had assumed that all her crew had been returned – apparently that assumption had been mistaken. She grabbed Paris' arm and pulled him along, moving out of Sickbay on her way to take back command of the bridge. "Are you sure? Is anyone else missing along with Mr. Kim?"

Paris shook his head. He looked exceptionally worried – as was she. Just days before she had sworn to herself that she wouldn't let Ensign Kim's first assignment end as poorly as Ensign Janeway's had. Now, she hoped she would be able to make that declaration stand. "That was the first thing I checked, Captain. Harry's the only missing person. What I don't understand is why they'd take Harry in the first place."

Janeway didn't answer him as the turbolift rose up towards Deck One. Paris stood uncomfortably in the silence, then finally he opened his mouth to speak. "Captain… what the man on the Array said about me… he was right. I have nothing to fight for, and I never have. I've spent my life moving from one lost cause to another, looking for something that I could call me own, and when I finally found it at the Academy – when I realized I could pilot a ship better than anyone else – I threw it away with a stupid mistake that killed my friends. Having me here… it's a mistake."

Janeway cut him off, resting an arm on his shoulder. "Mr. Paris… Tom. One of the curses of youth is not knowing where to go, what to do, or how to act. When I first served under your father I wore a blue uniform, not a red one. I started in the sciences, then moved to command and somehow, along the way, I got certified in engineering. I made mistakes." Tom's eyes filled with pain, but Janeway continued on. "No, I never made a mistake quite as bad as the ones you have made in your life. But if there's anything I do believe in, it's giving people a second chance. I'm not doing this for your father, Tom. I'm doing it because I remember how he used to speak about you, his beloved son, and the potential I know you still have."

She took her hand off his shoulder, and the pain in his eyes receded to a level that she recognized and related to. "That said, Mr. Paris, if you let me down, I'll leave you on the most uninhabitable asteroid I can find out here." She met his eyes with a challenge. I'm giving you a second chance, Tom. There won't be a third one, not from me, not from anyone. "Now," she said, "Lets go find Mr. Kim, capture the Maquis, make nice with Evek, and get back to the Alpha Quadrant."

Paris nodded slowly. "Yes, ma'am," he said.

Janeway and Paris arrived on the bridge. Rollins was the only senior officer on station – several junior officers were working to get the place back up to normal standards, but most of the crew was elsewhere on the ship. She nodded towards Paris. "Take the Conn, Mr. Paris," she said. His eyes widened, but then he nodded once firmly.

"Yes ma'am," he said, slipping into the seat. He winced for a second, and then reached back to adjust the height to suit him better. Stadi hadn't been nearly as tall as Paris was. Janeway took a second to glance across the bridge. Commander Cavit is dead. He was a good man, if a little stiff. And poor Stadi, the best pilot who ever served under me, a woman I was sure would command her own ship someday, will now never get the chance. Doctor Fitzgerald and his staff. Much of Engineering, including the Chief. The second lingered into several as Janeway allowed herself this time to mourn. Then, she adopted the Captain's mask – the emotionless, stoic façade that many members of Starfleet unknowingly fell into using once they moved from three pips to four.

"Ensign Rollins, what's our status?" Janeway asked. Rollins moved into the Tactical station, working to get Voyager's sensors working. Then he glanced up as the viewscreen came back to life at his urging. On the screen, the Array loomed largest and most prominent, firing some kind of energy blasts down at the planet. Ocampa, Janeway thought. The man on the array said he was caring for the Ocampa. Those energy blasts must be a means by which he does so. But her attention was drawn away from the Array and the planet. The Vetar was savagely damaged; one wing of the ship had been torn away entirely. Janeway knew, looking at the damage, that the ship was as badly hurt as she had feared. Next to the Vetar, the Maquis raider was stirring back to life. "Mr. Rollins, try to get us into tractor beam range of the Maquis vessel," Janeway ordered hurredly. "And open a hailing frequency."

The Maquis ship's engines lit up and the ship turned quickly away from Voyager, moving at impulse towards the planet. Janeway watched, Voyager lumbering in pursuit. "Com channel open, Captain," said Rollins.

"Maquis raider Val Jean, this is the Federation starship Voyager under Captain Kathryn Janeway. You are ordered to heave to and surrender your vessel," Janeway commanded over subspace. The Maquis ship didn't heed her instructions – Janeway suspected it would not. If the Cardassians were not here, she might have stood a better chance of negotiating, but with them present she lost any credibility she might have had. "Janeway to Val Jean, I repeat, you are ordered to surrender."

Rollins perked up behind her at tactical. "Captain, the Vetar is hailing us," he said. Janeway only took a second to glance at him before turning back to the chase.

"Tell Evek I'm a little busy at the moment," Janeway muttered. On the viewscreen, the Maquis vessel swung behind Ocampa and out of line of sight with Voyager. At the helm, Paris poured on all the speed Engineering could spare, and Voyager raced in pursuit. As they turned around the planet, Janeway expected the Maquis vessel to come back into sight – but the ship was gone. "Where'd they go, Ensign?" Janeway asked.

"I… don't know, ma'am. They must have gone to warp, but I'm not detecting an ion trail," said Rollins. "Evek is hailing again," he said. Janeway sighed.

"Put him through," she said.

On the viewscreen, the pale face of Gul Evek popped into existence. "Captain Janeway, Glinn Talek has gone missing. Is he aboard your vessel?"

Janeway's eyes widened in surprise. So, Harry isn't the only one to go missing today. "No, Gul, although an officer of mine – Ensign Kim – has also gone missing,"

Evek nodded. "Captain, you should pursue the Maquis raider, as your vessel still has warp capability. We will remain here in orbit and find the missing crewmen," Evek said.

Janeway didn't like it. Didn't I swear I wouldn't let Harry's first mission end up like mine? Right now it looks like it'll end exactly like mine – in the hands of the Cardassians, waiting for rescue. As the thought passed through her mind, she immediately felt guilty for it. Evek had been nothing but honorable thus far, despite the rather rash decision by his XO to blow up the holographic simulation on the Array. The Caretaker's suggestion – almost commandment – to stop fearing the Cardassians because of the unfortunate incidents of her youth returned to her mind, as did her words to Commander Sisko. I don't have to like him, but he's given me no reason not to trust him. If there's to be peace between our peoples, someone has to take the first step. "All right. You find out what happened to our people, I'll find and capture the Maquis," Janeway agreed.

Evek nodded once. "Vetar out," he said, ending the transmission.

When the Obsidian Order had recruited her, all those years ago, Seska had volunteered willingly. All Cardassians did whatever they could – whatever was necessary – to serve their people. A role in the civil government was something that almost everyone had, in one way or another. She had resigned herself to a small job – a bureau clerk, a secretary. Maybe, if she was lucky, she would find a job as an engineer and be recruited into the Cardassian Guard. That had been her dream as a young woman.

Being offered a position in the Obsidian Order was something that was entirely out of the blue. The Order worked from the shadows of Cardassian policy, a constant counter to the efforts of the Guard. Prohibited from owning military equipment of any kind, they made their impact in other ways – intelligence, interrogations, bribes, all the things that had to be done outside of the official channels, while the Guard owned the ships and the men. The opportunity she had been given had been one of a lifetime – a chance to become more than a clerk more than an engineer, more than she had ever imagined herself being.

Now, after so many years wearing a face that was not her own, she sometimes forgot she was a Cardassian at all. The ridges on her nose, the lack of the scales which should have adorned her shoulders… the pride of her accomplishments had long since fled, weighed down by the pressures of her position. She was a spy, tasked by the Obsidian Order long ago to infiltrate the Bajoran resistance movement. She spent the last years of the occupation working her way up the ranks, fighting to find that one piece of information that would be valuable to her superiors – that would be worth breaking her façade and give her back her own face. Something, anything, just to bring her home.

Then the occupation had ended. Her position was valuable – she had never been discovered, and despite the official correspondence between Cardassia and Bajor, something that her superiors feared would someday lead to peace between the two ancient enemies, the Order had left her in place. The Bajoran ridges still adorned her nose and her scales still refrained from growth. She had suspected, at first, her job would be to find a way to sabotage the still infantile peace process between Bajor and Cardassia. Instead, she had been ordered to join the Maquis.

So now she found herself here, on the ancient Maquis fighter Liberty, seventy thousand light years further away from her home. But for the first time in years Seska felt something other than barely restrained rage and frustration – for the first time since she had taken on her role as a spy and been given this face, Seska had hope. For the Federation starship that had pursued them was not alone – there was a Cardassian warship with them.

Seska suspected that the warship was not even aware of her presence on the Liberty. The Vetar was, after all, a warship of the Cardassian Guard, and the Guard and the Order did little speaking with one another. Their relationship was one of two spiteful siblings, each determined that they were the proper protector of Cardassia. Seska laughed slightly to herself. The Guard lost the last war against the Federation and doesn't have the courage to avenge their losses. The Guard lost Bajor. The Order is the true protector of Cardassia and always has been.

But the Vetar did offer something that she had not had before – a chance to be reunited with her people. The ship would be coming for the Liberty sooner or later, and Seska suspected it would be sooner. Then, she would reveal herself and use the authority of the Order to take a position of authority aboard. Once they were home she would be returned to the Order – she would be returned to Cardassia, and given back her own face.

Manipulating one of the panels in the Engineering section of the Liberty, Seska was far more open about her sabotage than she would have been otherwise. Conveniently for her, the ship's Chief Engineer, B'Elanna Torres, had disappeared, and Chakotay would never accuse her of doing anything against the "cause." She had him secured nicely under her thumb. She carefully modified the dampening field suppressing the Liberty's ion trail to create a short pulse of energy on a regular basis. It was far too small to be detected by the Liberty's own outdated sensors, but the Vetar was a state of the art warship. If nothing else, the Cardassian Guard did know how to build ships up to the proper specs. Evek would find them, she was sure. It would be the first step on the path to her liberation.