CHAP 2

'First officers personal log: Its been nearly two weeks since we realized we were not the only alien ship in the void. There are more Marlon ships than we thought. A lot of things are different than what I expected. Captain Janeway has remained in her quarters but I think she is at least trying to make an effort. Her behavior is strange, but the doctor has found nothing wrong with her. I think she just has too much on her mind.'

For the past few days Chakotay had been in a daze. The crew once again had nothing to do. At least now there was something to scan for. He had seen Kathryn once since the situation that had occurred. Neither mentioned it but it interfered with his work. He was trying to make sense of her actions, and why he almost felt pleasure with it. He was having dinner with her that evening as they usually did on was mid morning, Chakotay was on the bridge. Everyone was staying into the radiated space looking for a star that Tom Paris swore he saw. They were staring for ten minutes.

"It's around here somewhere" Tom said squinting holding back a small laugh. He had thought he'd seen something but had given up minutes ago. He just wanted to see how they would keep it up. He was dying for a good laugh.

"I really don't think that there is anything out there, even if there is it's probably just a void alien ship." Chakotay said but still not giving up on the light. Tom started laughing and Chakotay stopped looking. He slumped in his chair thinking of something to do. It had been almost an hour since he clued engineering, that would pass the time; but the last time he did B'Elanna threatened to choke the spirit out of him. He stood up.

"Alright, I'm done with this. Ill be in the..." Chakotay was cut short when the ship was hit, and hit hard. Chakotay was thrown to the floor as the ship was rocked to the left. The ship immediately went to red alert. The bridge darkened and red lights flashed from the bulkheads. You could here something coming towards them from inside the ship. They stabilized for a short moment, and they listened to the noises outside. There were little tapping noises on the hull. Tom turned to Chakotay and they had the same expression for they knew exactly what it was. Chakotay sent a message to the entire crew,

"Brace for impact! Meteor storm!" He turned to tuvok." How are they going through our shields?"

"Unknown, but it may be due to the constant thefts radiation in this particular area of the void. These may have been in it for a long time and eventually effected. Perhaps.." Tuvok was cut short as another ten ton rock hit against the hull. The crew was jerked to the left again. Now hundreds of rocks came hurling towards Voyager, sending her in all general directions. The hull began to buckle. Tuvok still at his station trying to stay standing, began trying to reconfigure the shields. Plasma conduits started overheating, the computer would not respond to verbal commands, and more rocks were damaging voyager. Casualty reports were coming in from all decks, deck four even reported a hull breach. Things were falling from ceilings, panels were overloading and sparking. The rocks were causing major damage.

"Activating newly configured shields!" The sound continued outside the ship but the ship wasn't being hit anymore. Chakotay and the rest of the crew who were on there knees stood up and waited. There was no sign of shield collapse, so they stood down red alert. The casualties came in with 31 injured including Harry and young Naomi. Main systems reported three hull breaches but no fatalities, the force fields had been activated a second before it could do any damage. Some of the outer plating was scraped off my some rocks that had grazed it before the new shields had been activated. The nassels had once again been damaged and were now even more damaged because of its earlier injury; that was the most critical damage, besides all of the hurt crew members. The repairs would take almost five days, five days on just impulse power! The warp core was undamaged but with the nassels not being able to function properly there was no use for it. Not many interior functions were damaged, but the amount outside could have been catastrophic.

"Mister Tuvok," Chakotay said gathering himself,"why didn't our censors detect that meteor storm?"

"I believe for the same reason we cannot detect the void species ships. Shall i tell the captain of our current issues?"

"No!"Cakotay said hastily."No i'll tell her about it, if she hasen't figured it out already herself." There was nothing left to be said. They started repairs starting with the engineering station on the bridge. The comm system was online but the quality was rather bad, there were small hull breaches all over the ship and they still had no idea how the meteors averted the censers. It was a mystery of how the rocks caused so much interior damage to Voyager, all of the engineers and scientists were spending all their time trying to unravel the strange phenomenon.

The crew worked for hours focusing mainly on the nassels and external censors. They were moving on impulse power alone. It made their stay in the void even less enjoyable, for now not only did it not look like they were moving, they actually weren't. At least not anywhere fast. People's previous wishes for a distraction, or an alien attack were becoming a reality and l people wanted was to have it go back to the boring simple times when they were moving and there was no chance of a plasma conduit exploding in your face. Chakotay and Kim worked on the engineering consuls, Wildman searched for any anomalies on the censors, and Tuvok was preparing a report documenting the ships structural status. Three hours and there was no progress. There was damage that no one knew how to repair. The few science officers on board concluded that the meteors were in a state of flux and they were coated with Malon chemicals they had dumped inside the void. It had a resistant chemical property that allowed it to go through the hull in a gaseous state causing major interior damage auto anything in its path before it evaporated.

One mystery was solved but another and another was forming. Now the crew had to fix the damage and how to make them start moving again. Chakotay,had to keep the crews spirits up but it was hard when a lot of people seemed to distance themselves from him,"Harry as much as I hate to leave you to do all the work I have to go inform the captain on what's been going on." Chakotay said. Harry's eyes lit up whenever the captain was mentioned.

"Um, can I maybe do that for you sir?" He asked sheepishly.

"I would love for you to I really would." He said thinking back to the last few awkward encounters. "But the captain instructed that only myself and the doctor are permitted to visit her.

That evening Chakotay made his way to Kathryn's quarters. There were rafters from the ceiling on the ground just outside them. She opened the door before he could even chime in. She had her civilian clothes on again and her hair was brushed. It was good that she was doing things in her quarters, she had padds oh information sitting on her table.

"I see you have done a lot of reading." He said striping inside. She nodded simply but did not say anything which was strange for Kathryn. They sat down to dinner but neither had anything to eat. Chakotay felt awkward. What were her intentions exactly? What were his? He had thought a great deal about the encounter days back and couldn't get it out of his head. He actually did feel an attraction, that was the scary part. Not to mention the captain's strange behavior and the fact that she had lacked human contact. But the doctor said she was mentally sound. They started at each other from the opposite sides of the table, neither one making a sound nor speaking a word. You could feel the attention in the air. Kathryn couldn't look him in the eye for too long, she felt the guilt of ruining their relationship, as she nearly had before, when they were on a planet, just the two of them.

"Chakotay," she started,"I am not sure what you are thinking, but I want to explain myself and eggs at I did." She said this in such a voice he had never heard before."I've been having a lot of time to myself, that time I use to think and I think about my mistakes the most. What we are is a mistake."

"Kathryn, we knew about how we could feel. We agreed that it wasn't good for the ship or the crew if we pursue our feelings. It's better."

"But why now? If there was anytime to do something different it would be now."

"Now is a lonely time for everyone. You can't tell me you're not." She faced down

"No I can't, but if we pursue anything, anything at all, I would like it to be out of the crews knowledge... And I need you to come out of hiding."

She looked up at him for a long time. He was a good man, good enough to run her ship and good enough to be her closest friend. They had so many opportunities, but with the ship lost so far from home, they both agreed that there was no time to pursue romantic relationships. Now he was being her friend, nearly begging her to leave her quarters.

"Are you saying that if I come out of here you'll start a relationship with me, as if it's a deal we're making? Sorry Chakotay but I have-"

"I'm not saying that Kathryn, I'm saying that a relationship with me would be hard when you're in the same room everyday. I mean, what if we want to go to my quarters sometime? Ha." Kathryn stared at him for a moment a bit puzzled. "Look I've never been good at these kinds of relationships. Not since my days at the academy. And you know how I don't talk about those days much. I need you to be around if we are going to do anything like this." Chakotay looked out the window, thinking. Relationships since the academy had been more than hard.

-Chakotay's academy days-

Chakotay sat under a large elm tree on the ground of Starfleet academy on a bench with too many engravings of past lovers who were long gone. It was his favorite place on the grounds to study. Recently he had been having trouble with the security officers on his attitude he'd been displaying.g toward the professors. Under the tree the problems didn't seem nearly as bad and so much farther away. He had been feeling strange recently about his place in the academy, he felt out of it and easily distracted. His grades were mainly C's not that he or his father really cared. He knew he was better but didn't have the passion to change anything. Now a days he was ha ing strong thought about leaving the academy a d pursue other and possible better opportunities that had been offered to him.

Even the tree was starting to loose its magic. There were only a few things that sparked his attention. On the bench with him sat a young human girl. Longish dark blonde hair, sweet determined face, and one well fit uniform. She was one of his sparks. Her name was Talia Ferren. They had known each other since Chakotay was eighteen, Talia had been sixteen. She had been a great friend of Chakotay, she had even met members of his father's tribe for the sake of scientific interest. She was fascinated in native beliefs and their culture, she was also fascinated in Chakotay. He found her just as interesting. A human, raised on the moon, whose parents worked in the Klingon embassy, who took, vacations yearly on Vulcan. She had a wide variety of cultures integrated within her personality.

At that time Chakotay had returned to the academy after two years on a starship for future training. He was 24, talia was in her final year. He was the reason she joined and she was the reason he stayed. It was hard for Chakotay to make friends being such a secluded person. He felt something special for Talia though, hell, he was in love with her.

Chakotay had spent the day in quantum mechanics class, now with a headache from too much irritating information he read chapter 42 of the temporal mechanics text book. They were the true moments that he hated the most. Talia, with her own padd in her hand looked at him with romantic intent. Chakotay had to smile whenever he saw she had a devious idea, she was a free spirit. Which was surprising since she spent so much time around Klingons.

"My roommate won't be back for another hour." She said smirking. Chakotay bit his lip trying to decide whether he should continue his work or go with Talia. She was so damn beautiful he thought. Hell of a temporary, but a great sense of adventure and gun. She was fun, and they would have fun. He grinned at her and casually stood up from his bench.

"Well what are we waiting for?"

Kathryn had no idea what Chakotay was thinking, but whatever it was made him silent. He had no emotion on his face but she knew something was hurting him, she knew him well enough that she knew. He did the same thing when something was truly bothering him.

"Alright Chakotay, I'll leave my quarters. But you will stay in command. That iS the best I can do."

Chakotay turned to her with a great smile. He leaned towards her sweeping her in a kiss that was as unexpected to her as it was to him. It was just such great news that he saw the real Kathryn for a moment. And it turned out he truly missed her. Kathryn missed her too, it would be good to feel like her true self again, at least for a little while. There were so many things that were unknown, but the kiss was understood fluently. It was good and it felt good. Chakotay had fun with it. It mea t something to him, especially as it became longer and longer.

"Seven of nine to Chakotay." Her voice announced from his badge. The kiss hastily stopped and he answered trying to shake it off." I think you should come to astrometrics. I reconfigured the censors and have discovered several phenomena inside the void. Including three more meteor fields in front of us." She said seriously.

"I'm on my way. Chakotay-"

"That's not all commander, I have also found evidence of eight more Malon freighters and debris of a single ship. Borg."

Chakotay and Kathryn looked at each other wide eyed. These obstacles had not been seen before by the censors, and would would make it a hell of a lot more difficult to get throughout the void in one piece. If there were Borg out there, there was going to be bloodshed.

So there's the second chapter. I hope you liked it and there will be more soon.

Sorry for spelling errors, I wrote this on a kindle but please comment, favorite and follow. Thanks!