Chapter 3 – Bounties

The large animal pivoted on its middle set of legs at a speed which took the hunting group by surprise. The man closest to the armoured head let out a cry as he found himself thrown in the air. Screams and an array of stones distracted the beast long enough for him to scramble to safety, and he put his hand up to let the other men and sole woman know he was all right.

The rhinoceros-like animal slowed down, its bloodied flanks heaving, an arrow hanging from an eye socket. The woman came from its blind side and hit it on the head with a heavy club. Its front legs collapsed, then it fell on its haunches. An avalanche of blows soon ended its life. Behind it, three smaller animals laid dead, spears poking from their tough hides.

"You're okay Chakotay?" Breathing heavily, B'Elanna slumped down near her friend, letting the others cut the meat off the carcasses with flaked stones and sharpened bones.

"Winded, but I'll live," he answered, flexing his upper torso. "That animal was a tough one."

"Not worth you getting hurt," B'Elanna said, watching him from the corner of her eyes. He was lean and tanned underneath the grime, but she could see the tell-tale signs of hunger in his hollow stubbled cheeks and bony hands. A couple of small gashes bled on his forehead. B'Elanna knew she looked as weary and filthy as he did.

"You are taking too many risks, old man."

"We've got many mouths to feed, B'E. These beasts won't last long."

"True, but thanks to you, they'll make a pleasant change from slithering worms and the few berries Neelix and Kes think won't make us sick or worse."

She shuddered, remembering Trevalla's painful death to the poisonous fruits he'd thought were safe to eat.

"I saw some tracks this morning," Chakotay said, pointing west.

He was often gone from morning to dusk, retracing the crew's steps or scouting their flanks for kilometres around, leaving the exploration ahead of the group to Ayala and Tuvok. That day, he'd come across the large beasts and had returned early to get help in bringing them down.

"More animals like these ones?" B'Elanna asked with little enthusiasm. She had welcomed the break from her day's chores and joined the hunt. Now that the adrenaline of the chase was dissipating, she was starting to feel nauseous at the massacre.

Chakotay shook his head. "No. People. Difficult to say how many. Ten, twelve maybe. They were travelling fast, moving parallel to us."

"Ayala thought he saw smoke yesterday's afternoon, but not the usual volcano smoke. Do you think we should expect trouble?" B'Elanna asked, scanning the environs.

"If I was one of the locals, I wouldn't be too happy so see a large group of people like ours trampling all over my hunting grounds. Our presence is making too much of an impact," he said, waving at the eviscerated animals. Flying insects the size of bumblebees were already buzzing around, the smell of stomach gases and spilled blood rising in the chilly air.

'We need to eat, Chakotay," B'Elanna said, knowing he was profoundly unhappy with what the planet was forcing them to do. The crew left a wide trail of destruction behind them, cutting down trees and uprooting bushes for their fires, eating everything in sight and draining water holes.

"We are hardly surviving as it is. We don't have a choice," she continued.

"We should contact these people. Convince them we are no threat and share knowledge."

And ask the question you want an answer to, Chakotay. An answer which is fading away the further south we walk.

"Tuvok won't be too happy," she said instead.

Chakotay looked at her, confused.

"The Prime Directive. You know, the one the Captain invoked before stranding us in the Delta quadrant," she explained, suddenly feeling very tired of the whole situation.

His eyes narrowed. "What are you saying, B'Elanna?"

"Just what I've heard." She glanced around. Me and my big mouth.

"Heard where? What?" Chakotay stood, looming above her.

"Well, some are saying that if the Captain hadn't followed the Prime Directive so… "

The word 'zealously' came to her mind, but she valued her life. "So closely, we wouldn't have found ourselves marooned on this planet."

"If I remember, she saved the Ocampa, or does anybody think we should have let the Kazon exterminate Kes' people so we could get home a bit faster?" Chakotay said with a warning in his voice, arms crossed.

"No, of course not. Empty stomachs are making people say things, I suppose." B'Elanna got up and kicked a few stones with her boots. She was getting pissed off at the planet, the flies, everything.

"When we get back to camp, I want the team leaders to meet with me before the meat is distributed. We need to stamp out these talks before somebody else thinks we can just abandon all we stand for."

"Why, Chakotay? What for?" she said, annoyance rising. "Don't get me wrong, I'll do whatever you want me to do, but if you are going to talk to the troops this evening, you better be prepared for what many have to say."

"Go on." His deep voice rumbled.

"This is hardly Starfleet country. If we are going to stay here for the rest of our lives, some say we've got to rethink a few things."

"Such as?" He'd gone all cold on her, something that made her recoil more surely than his anger. A frosty Chakotay was not something she wanted to see at close range.

"Like keeping all of us together for one. The one ship, one crew isn't working down here. It would be better if we were divided into smaller groups, more spread out, don't you think? To start with, we wouldn't be scaring half of the planet's wildlife away."

"Split up the crew? How interesting," Chakotay's voice dripped contempt. "What else is being talked about behind my back?"

"Don't, Chakotay," she warned. "If you stayed with the rest of us instead of …"

"Spit it out, Torres."

"Instead of chasing a ghost," B'Elanna hissed. "She's dead. Nothing is going to bring her back."

He stared at her for a few seconds then spun on his heels and was gone.

###

Hardly breaking her pace, the woman shoved her staff underneath a small rock, grabbed a handful of fat juicy larvae and crunched them between her teeth as she walked on. Taking a well-chewed glob from her mouth, she pushed it gently between the baby's lips. The infant's eyes went wide. She moved the new food around her toothless gums, tasting the nutty flavour. A faint scowl marred her forehead at first, then she swallowed in earnest.

Smiling, the woman put the hood back over the baby's head to protect it from the rain, and followed the noise ahead of her. The others were pushing through a dense thicket of low bushes, picking shrivelled berries. Observing the women attentively, she savoured the tart tang of the dried fruits while leaving the plump ones well alone. Her hunger from the early days was a thing of the past as the land shared its bounties with her.

The days were getting shorter and colder, she'd noticed. However, the small group travelled in a leisurely manner, making their way towards a chain of volcanoes growing slowly at the edge of the flat rocky plain they'd been crossing since she'd caught up with them.

In the evenings, they stopped early, roasting the small animals they'd caught by hand, and the roots and fungus they'd gathered. The adults relaxed and talked among themselves, often laughing.

The elder had tried to include the strange woman in their conversations and teach her their language. He'd soon realised that she took no notice of the sounds they made. Words held as little meaning for her as the rain or the wind, so they resorted to simple gestures when addressing her, exaggerating them for her benefit. There was pity in their gaze when they chatted about her, but they generously accepted the stranger with eyes like the sky and hair the colour of sunset, among their midst.

Her strange-looking baby was an endless font of curiosity for all the adults. Both babies were passed from hand to hand as the need arose to feed them or clean them, or just make them giggle. The young mother was eager to relieve her heavy breasts, and the two infants thrived — warm, fed and loved, despite the cold and rain mixed with ash from the mountains now standing proud over them.

At night, the family group slept together, huddling close to the fire, limbs tangled underneath a mass of furs. The red-haired woman kept herself apart, a deep feeling of loneliness and loss she could not express leaving her awake, the infant snug against her chest. Deep in her heart, she knew this baby was not hers.

The days flowed one into another. The woman grew strong and wiry. Using skills her hands remembered from a past she knew nothing about, she fashioned a bow and arrows with the tools she'd collected, practising while she walked. The others gave her a wide berth, distrustful of the innovative weapon and her uncertain aim.

She learned to read the land, listening to the call of a bird-like creature flying high in the clouds, observing the mounds of seeds gathered by fat scurrying animals preparing for winter. Her first kill brought a sense of achievement that felt familiar and comforting.

The young man moved away when she brought the stiff body back to the camp. She prepared it and ate it alone, licking the hot fat off her fingers. Leaving half of it, she was not surprised when it was all gone the following morning. The older man gave her a wry smile as they left camp.

The day started with clear skies with no clouds in sight, a rare break from the monotonous drizzle that imparted a perpetual gloom to the landscape. The young mother pointed out three straight smoke pillars rising far to the east. The elder watched for some time then shook his head and the family continued their trek towards the mountain chain.

Hand over brow, the woman looked into the rising sun, wondering for the first time since she'd found herself on the bank of a raging river, if there were others huddling around bonfires at night, and what they might look like. She longed to go and investigate but the fidgeting baby reminded her of her responsibility to its young life. She lifted her staff and followed the small group into the foothills.

###

"I can send a message to the EMH, using a fake Kazon signal," Paris explained, realigning the shuttle long range communication unit. "If he can disable the backup phaser power couplings, they'll overload once we take out the primary couplings."

"We need to wait for Voyager to be isolated from the rest of the Kazon-Nistrim fleet. I've sent a message to my counterpart on Prema I. A few more days, Lieutenant, and the Kazon will become very busy. That will be our chance. In between times, let me see those schematics again," Paxim said.

Paris settled his lanky frame behind the shuttle conn console. A few more days. And then what? What if the whole crew was dead? It'd been too long.