Chapter 5 - Ghosts
Jonas made a squeaky noise, his windpipe squeezed hard by Chakotay. Clara rocked on her feet, seeking to put some distance between her and the two men.
"Do you have something to say, Highweather?" Chakotay kept his attention on Jonas.
"No sir." She stiffened, her eyes firmly fixed ahead.
"Are you sure? Because after I finish with this excuse for a man here, it will be your turn."
Clara glanced at Tuvok who remained impassive. She was not certain, but he did look bored.
"So, I am asking again," Chakotay said with a hard smile. "Whose idea was it to bind the sentries and go on a little foray outside the camp?"
The fingers tightened. Jonas' face turned pink under his deep tan, and his eyes started to budge. Chakotay was slowly lifting him off his feet. Clara had never thought the Commander was that strong and began to fear for her own life.
"It was Anth'Ol," she let slip.
Wheezing, the strangled man threw a shaky punch at the Commander's head. Chakotay hit him underneath the ribs twice, then brought his face near the man's ear.
"You are a disgrace to your rank, Jonas. One more stunt like this one and I'll kill you myself. Is that clear, crewman?"
Jonas nodded weakly.
Chakotay opened his hand and the man collapsed on his knees, gasping for air. Clara thought Chakotay was going to spit on him. Instead he turned towards her.
"The names of the others." Steely calm, he adjusted the remnants of his uniform sleeves.
"It was just the three of us and Poinsan, sir."
"Ayala? Bring Poinsan and Anth'Ol here."
It took less than five minutes to find the crew members who had made themselves scarce since their co-conspirators had been sprung.
"What's all this about?" Anth'Ol asked, his voice cocky. He did not look at Jonas still crumpled in the dust. Poinsan said nothing.
"Highweather here just told me you were in charge of the overnight raid on Pâât's camp," Chakotay said, his voice loud enough to carry over to the small crowd surrounding them.
"So? Just wanted to see what the natives looked like up close."
He turned around, arms wide and a large grin on his face. The whole Alpha group lined the centre of the camp site, happy for the break in the tedium of the last few days.
"What's the big deal anyway? You seem to care more about them savages than your own people, Chakotay."
Quite a few heads nodded among the spectators.
The Commander walked slowly back and forth, waiting for the man to face him again. Clara had never seen her CO acting so predatory before, even when he was interrogating a Cardassian prisoner. It was like watching a bear appraising its dinner.
"Is that just your opinion or are there others here who think the same?" Chakotay asked those assembled. He put his hand to his ear. "I didn't hear that. Anybody who thinks I am treating you worse than the natives, please do step forward."
Clara glanced back. Half a dozen men and women came out of the crowd, looking around to see who else was supporting them. She knew there were more people who had voiced their resentment but it seemed that a sense of self-preservation had fallen like a blanket on the remainder of the group.
"Excellent," Chakotay said, his smile now wide. "You are going to find your suspicions well founded from now on. You are on latrine duty for the next month, in addition to your current tasks," he said, pointing at each of the six crew members who shuffled on their toes.
"But sir, it's not like—," one of the women pleaded.
"Two months," Chakotay said, stopping in front of her. She took a step back, copied by the others.
A murmur rose from the crowd. With more than fifty people in the group, the digging of the latrines in the hard soil was no small job, although the filling in at the start of each morning was even worst between the stomach-churning smells and the noxious vapours. Many had complained about the chore, but the officers had stuck to the regulation. They did not want to see hygiene standards compromised and diseases spread among the crew.
The woman opened her mouth once more but a well-placed elbow from the man at her side shut her up.
"Dismissed."
The six turned around smartly and walked as fast as they could back to the safety of their peers.
Anth'Ol was standing at ease with a smirk still plastered on his face. "There isn't worse than latrine duty, Chakotay. Are you going to put us four on reduced rations just to look tough?"
"I don't think so, Anth'Ol. Not for what you and your co-conspirators have done, leaving two of the natives with broken limbs, including a woman, and their chief with burns to his back and arms."
Some in the crowd flinched at the news.
"They got a bit twitchy, that's all," the man said, shrugging. "Didn't like it when we took the food they should have shared with us."
It had been fun to roughen up the natives. They had not had the time to reach their weapons before a few blows had quietened them down.
And he'd been right. They had plenty of food, and not just the ubiquitous tough hides and the slimy maggots he'd been eating for weeks on end. They also had bloody good spears and stone axes, which he had confiscated. Those savages could always make some more in their spare time.
The two men seized each other. The Commander radiated menace, and Anth'Ol's grin slipped.
"For a start," said Chakotay, his voice rising, "tell me how you know Pâât's group doesn't belong to a larger tribe, with people who are not going to like that we injured some of their own?"
Anth'Ol frowned. He had not thought of that. He had only ever seen the dozen of them seemingly hovering at the edge of the Alpha camp. He did not even know they had names. Pâât must have been the one who had come at him, jabbering something before a well calculated blow had tripped the large native man over the fire.
His hands went clammy. What if Chakotay was right? God knows how many natives there really were, spread all over the countryside and waiting for the night to strike.
"People who might think retributions are the order of the day. If we are lucky, they might attack the Beta or the Gamma teams instead of us. Isn't it what you thought?" Chakotay shouted in his face. "What are you going to do when you hear your friends have been injured or killed because of you?"
The man glanced around. Clara, Poinsan and Jonas were looking at an imaginary spot far on the horizon. The crowd had grown silent behind him. Only Chakotay and Tuvok were facing him and neither were smiling.
Chakotay hovered for a few seconds, then stepped back, resuming his pacing, a feral smile on his face.
"Those savages have little time for Starfleet punishments. They are more into an eye for an eye kind of things. What do you think Tuvok?"
Sweat pearled above Anth'Ol's brows. Chakotay wasn't going to kill him and put his head on a spear, was he?
Tuvok was keeping an eye on the crowd for anybody foolish enough to come to the raid leader's help. There was unease on many faces. While he agreed the attack on the natives had been senseless and a grave act of insubordination, he was getting concerned.
Even with the help of the senior officers, the two remaining COs had not been able to counter the mounting apathy and sliding discipline standards among the crew since the Captain's death. Chakotay's current tactic at using raw intimidation was not only hardly becoming of a Starfleet officer but had the potential to backfire badly if the former Maquis leader went through with his veiled threats of harsh corporal punishment.
He wondered how the Captain would have treated the four crew members standing very pale in front of him. She often sought to edify those who erred, rather than punish them for the sake of blind retribution.
"If I may suggest, Commander." He stepped by Chakotay's side. "The natives these crew members have injured will need assistance to recover. We could attach these four crew members to see to their care."
The two men looked at Tuvok with wide eyes. "What?" they said in unison. The other three accused kept their counsel to themselves.
"These lawbreakers must be punished, Tuvok, not given an easy way out," Chakotay uttered.
"We cannot accept the natives among our midst because of our more advanced weapons, so the four crew members will have to stay at their camp. They'll have to carry the injured, clean their wounds, seek to their personal grooming and hygiene, bring water and firewood, gut and skin animals the hunters bring back."
Helping these savages? Staying at their camp? It was worse than getting trounced by the Maquis Mauler in public. Anth'Ol opened his mouth to protest.
Chakotay whirled back. "Anything you wish to say, crewman?"
Anth'Ol froze, his confidence well and truly snuffed out.
Tuvok continued. "In addition, this is an excellent opportunity to get to know these people's customs and consolidate our relationship before we meet with others like them, no doubt much larger groups as you mentioned. The four crew members will be charged with mastering their language and seeking as much information as they can about their destination and social mores, something we haven't been able to do yet."
Chakotay put his hand to his forehead, not hiding his tiredness. "I don't like it, but you are right. Something could still be salvaged from this mess. See to it, Lieutenant."
He looked at the crew members with disgust painted on his face.
"And make sure these four idiots understand what's at stake here. One complaint from Pâât's group and I'll beat them to a pulp myself, starting with him," he said glaring at Anth'Ol.
He walked off and the crowd dissipated slowly, cowed by their CO's demeanour.
"Thank you for saving our hides, Lieutenant," Clara said to the Vulcan when she was sure Chakotay was gone.
"Be assured, crewman Highweather, that I did not save your hide, as you call it, for your benefit," Tuvok said.
She could have sworn he was deeply troubled.
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Lifeless, the brown eyes followed the woman. Above the heavy brow, the top of the skull was gone, hacked away. Below the empty gaze, a bloodied mass of teeth and shattered bones oozed over the old woman's chest.
Where were you when we needed you? the eyes accused.
The two men had suffered the same fate, the skull tops and brains missing. Their bodies were strewn among scattered coals and furs, the camp raided by a senseless and merciless force, already gone by the time she'd reached them.
We welcomed you in our family, took care of you and your baby. The voice of the old man trailed into the dimness.
A naked male, barely a man, was lodged between the young mother's thighs, his grey skin a contrast against the surrounding red pool, shiny in the moonlight. The mother lay still, a spear embedded in the ribs, her hand still holding the stone she'd used to smash her attacker's face.
You repaid our kindness by abandoning us, said her frozen gaze.
The human woman pushed the grey corpse off the young mother, and searched for the dark-haired baby, before finding it a dozen paces away. Sinking to her knees, she gathered the small cold body. Its head flopped, mouth opened to the night sky. A loud tortured keening pulled at her chest and she screamed at the darkness until her throat was raw and the stars above moved along their tracks.
She dragged the four bodies side by side, and placed the dead baby in its mother's arms. No words of farewell came to her lips as she piled stones and rocks high on top of the bloodied and mutilated corpses.
The young woman's mate hovered at the edge of her awareness. You never asked our names, never said thank you.
By the time dawn came, only guilt kept her from collapsing, her tears long dried and her chest mute of cries.
The baby whimpered, wanting to be fed. She gave it a few mouthfuls of barely cooked meat she first chewed to make them softer. The infant fussed, expecting a warm breast, then settled down.
Blood was shed here, flesh eaten, lives destroyed. These are killing grounds, desecrated, the breeze whispered, carrying the stench of death.
Exhausted by sorrow and the punishing work that left her hands bleeding, the red-head woman watched the rising sun cast long shadows by the side of the four mounds. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around the baby.
You are a stranger to our world. Leave this place. It is time for you to go and find your own people, said the old man.
The murderous band with a taste for gruesome trophies had vanished towards the east, towards the large plumes of smoke she'd seen mornings before. Gathering her belongings, she set off, tracking the killers.
Do not forget us, Kathryn.
Her name lingered in the wind.
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"Voyager is following us into the nebula as planned. We're bringing your ship to you, Lieutenant."
Tom smiled. Ready and waiting.
Thanks to all the reviewers. It's good to know you keep enjoying this story.
