The Ring

Chapter 5 - Betrayal

The door chimed in Janeway and Chakotay's quarters, interrupting his pacing. He wheeled toward the door, then stood contemplating it with balled fists. Before he could give the command, the door opened on its own to reveal several Starfleet security officers, phasers trained on him. "What the hell?" he demanded.

"You are required for questioning, Commander," said the near one, a tall, dark human who reminded him slightly of Tuvok. They must breed these guys somewhere, he thought. Security Officer Version Theta.

Chakotay ran a hand over his face in a gesture of exasperation and exhaustion. He hadn't moved from his position on the far side of the room. "About what? I haven't been off Starfleet's sensor grid since I set foot on Earth. You'd know if I'd forgotten to brush my teeth."

"Regarding the murder of Admiral Owen Paris and the attempted murder of Captain Kathryn Janeway," Not-Tuvok responded. His weapon didn't waver from its position aimed at Chakotay's chest.

Chakotay took a half step toward the security officers, then stopped when they clenched their weapons tighter. "Where is Captain Janeway?" he asked. "Is she okay?"

"We will ask the questions," Not-Tuvok told him, gesturing with the phaser for Chakotay to step into the hall as he backed out of the dark room into the light. Chakotay slowly raised his hands and obeyed. The other two security officers took their places on either side of him as he followed Not-Tuvok toward the turbo lift. As the lift doors closed in front of the four of them, the most junior officer clamped a snug pair of manacles around Chakotay's wrists.

"Am I being accused of something?" He caught the man's brown eyes with a questioning look.

The young officer's eyes were angry. "Murder," he declared. "Of a good man."

"Silence!" ordered Not-Tuvok, with enough emotion to prove that he was no relation to the Vulcan.

#

After hours in a holding cell, Janeway started when the door slid open and two low-ranking security officers entered. One gestured for her to come with them. They walked her through the small detention facility in the bowels of Starfleet headquarters, opened a set of blast doors, and led her out to the tall glass doors at the front of the building. "You are free to go," said one of the security officers, the first time either of them had spoken.

Janeway paused and straightened her uniform. This was a surprise. She was still reeling in shock from Owen's assassination. Everything about it felt like a set up. She had been bracing herself for a long legal fight to clear her name, and this swift release seemed even more suspicious and alarming than the accusations she expected. But these low-ranking guards would have no idea what was really happening. She nodded at them and moved out the doors without further hesitation.

When she found her quarters empty, Janeway felt something cold tighten around her heart. She tapped her combadge and called out Chakotay's name. There was no reply. Next she tried B'Elanna. Nothing. She tried Tom.

"Captain!" a panicked voice responded. "Are they with you?"

"Tom?" Janeway answered. "Is that you?"

"Yes! Where are you? Are B'Elanna and Miral there? I've been hailing you and Chakotay for hours. I was worried they'd taken both of you."

Janeway sat down hard on the edge of the bed, almost slipping off. "It's almost dawn, Tom. Why would they be with me?"

"Because they took them, that's why! Over an hour ago! The security officers said she was being detained as an enemy combatant. She told me this would all be resolved quickly and insisted on taking Miral with her. I've been frantic. I can't reach my father. I'm confined to quarters. You and Chakotay weren't answering hails. Where have you been?" Tom sounded angry and accusatory over the comm link, barely able to restrain himself enough to speak politely to his former captain.

"I was just released from custody myself, Tom. Chakotay's missing from our quarters. I think it's likely this channel is being monitored. Let me see if…" her voice trailed off for a moment. "No, now I'm sealed into my quarters too."

Tom swore and she heard the sound of something heavy banging. "Tom," Janeway said, "just stay calm. We're all due back in debriefings in three hours. We'll get to the bottom of this then." She heard the connection click off abruptly. Janeway stared at her combadge for a long moment, then looked around the room. Chakotay's bag lay in the corner where he'd left it when they were first shown their quarters. She hurried to the bag and shoved through its contents. Nothing seemed to be missing. She rushed to the bathroom.

His shaving kit was there, next to his toothbrush and hers. Only hours ago she'd smiled in spite of herself at the unexpected sweetness of their things together on the unfamiliar bathroom counter, the proof they offered of a life shared, wherever life might lead. She'd straightened the toothbrushes so that they lay matched, side by side, as they should be. Suddenly, her stomach turned with the premonition that it would be a long time before she'd see him again. She braced herself against the counter and leaned low over the sink, struggling for control, for command. When she looked into the mirror, the eyes that met hers were feral and hunted.

#

Two hours and fifty minutes later, with sun pouring through long windows along one wall, all Starfleet members of the Voyager crew were assembled in the lecture hall designated as the primary debriefing venue. Nobody was sitting. Upon being released from their quarters and escorted to the hall by armed security officers, the crew had realized immediately that their former Maquis comrades were missing from the assembly. They began loudly demanding an explanation from the Starfleet officials filing onto the lecture stage at the front of the room. The admirals and their attachés looked genuinely shocked at the uproar.

"We will have order!" cried a short, round rear admiral, as he came to the podium and began bellowing into the sound system. "Control yourselves! Such a lack of discipline among commissioned officers and experienced crew is simply not seen at Headquarters. Perhaps in the far reaches of the Delta quadrant this sort of display might be tolerated, but …" and then Janeway entered the room, flanked by security. Her appearance seemed to mute everyone.

The assembled admiralty turned as one to look at Janeway. At the sight of their captain, the crew also fell silent and waited for her orders. The rear admiral's voice faded away into the newfound quiet. Janeway glared at the security officers who had followed her into the hall and they stepped back, allowing her to walk by herself to the front of the room, where she stopped in front of the podium and threw her head back to address the group assembled on the lecture stage. Aside from clenched fists and two high, bright red marks on her cheeks, she gave no physical sign of her degree of outrage.

"Would someone please explain," she said, in a steady voice that carried to the far corners of the hall, "why half my crew has been arrested and the rest of us confined to quarters?"

From the rear of the scrum of admirals, there was movement. A few seconds later, Alynna Nechayev emerged and took the rear admiral's place at the podium. She addressed the entire crew, giving Janeway only an occasional glance.

"As your captain is well aware, Admiral Owen Paris was assassinated last night. Your former captain also appeared to have been attacked. She was released when it was determined that she did not fire the weapon used against Admiral Paris. We believe the assailant, and likely other conspirators, to be members of the Voyager crew. Because they have engaged in hostilities against the Federation in the past, the Maquis crew members were immediately detained as enemy combatants. The rest of you will be confined to quarters until the investigation and debriefings are complete. Following debriefing, your security clearances will require additional review. The reasons for such decisive action should be clear when you view the confession we obtained last night from the Maquis Chakotay."

Nechayev pressed a few buttons on the podium console. Without further prelude, a video began to play on the screen at the front of the hall. In it, a gray utilitarian chair sat behind a similar table. From the left side of the scene, Chakotay entered, far larger than life, with a pad in hand. The camera took in the scene, then focused tightly on his face. His features were drawn, almost gray, and his pupils bizarrely dilated. He sat at the table, cleared his throat and began to read in a monotone none of them had ever heard him use.

This is my last public statement prior to transfer to an undisclosed penal colony as an enemy combatant. I am guilty of the assassination of Admiral Owen Paris. I also attacked Kathryn Janeway, in an attempt to divert suspicion. My marriage to Captain Janeway was part of a deception that I planned alone, to get close enough to the admiral to accomplish the crime. I stole her command codes and attempted to frame her for the murder, but I was unaware of new Starfleet security tracking methods that would reveal my actions. This was my mission before my ship was pulled into the Delta quadrant, and I have completed it.

Chakotay took a breath as if to say something else, but the vid ended abruptly. As if commanded by a hive mind, every person in the room turned toward Janeway, who was still in the well of the hall, in front of her crew, facing the screen with her head tilted all the way back to see Chakotay's face magnified before her. When the screen turned black, she stood frozen. Samantha Wildman and Harry Kim, who happened to be closest to her, stepped forward to put gentle hands on her shoulders, in the absence of any ability to find words. She seemed to fold inward for a moment, dropping her head, letting her shoulders slump under their hands as Chakotay's image disappeared.

Samantha and Harry exchanged a worried glance. Their indomitable captain appeared on the verge of collapse. Harry moved his hand to her waist, preparing to help her to a chair, still stunned into silence himself. His hand flew to his head as if a sudden pain had struck him, even as he tried to support Janeway.

Then, as a few of the Starfleet officials began to shift uncomfortably, beginning to move away from center stage toward side doors, Janeway raised her head and straightened her spine. "No," she declared, not loudly, but with enough force that everyone in the quiet room heard her clearly. "This is a lie. I was there. Chakotay did not do this. He is being coerced. Who is responsible for this video?"

Nechayev turned back to the podium and addressed Janeway like a wayward student who had interrupted class.

"Captain," she said, "I understand that this is difficult news to accept. I am very sorry that you too have been the victim of this devious criminal, and in such a – " Nechayev paused as if looking for the right word, and an expression that almost looked like amusement passed across her face for a split second, "personal way. We will suspend the debriefings for the rest of the day while the review panel discusses how to handle this shocking development."

Janeway took a few angry steps toward the podium. "I demand to see my husband! The Fifth Protocol on the Treatment of Prisoners requires that you allow me to see him!" she hissed.

Nechayev tilted her head in a show of sympathy. "I'm afraid that's not possible, Captain. You see, recent policy changes that may not be familiar to you dictate that the Federation Protocols do not apply to enemy combatants. You would be better advised to look into the steps necessary for annulment of this ill-advised and ill-timed union. That will be all for today."

Nechayev turned away and moved quickly for the nearest door, but Janeway was too quick and Samantha and Harry moved with her without hesitation. Janeway leapt onto the stage, followed closely by her crew. The security officers at the rear of the lecture hall began to rush forward. Harry and Samantha stood behind their captain, a line of defense as she stepped up close to Nechayev's face, in the few seconds she had. "I don't know what you think you'll get from me by doing this," she said in a low, fierce voice as security officers surrounded them, "but I will never accept it. I will free him, no matter how long it takes."

The look on Nechayev's face grew condescending. "You'll do what we tell you to do, Captain." She turned to the nearest security officer. "Remove them all to their assigned quarters and continue full communications lockdown." She swept by Janeway and left the room. As soon as Nechayev had stepped out, a swarm of additional armed security officers entered the hall and began to lead the crew away. Some went without resistance. Janeway heard a cry and turned just in time to see Tom Paris slump into the arms of a burly officer as another lowered his phaser. Strong hands closed around her upper arms and Janeway found herself marched every step back to the quarters she had so recently shared with Chakotay.

#

For Janeway, the rest of the debriefings took place in a room more like the holding cell she sat in after her arrest the night of Owen's death than the lecture hall in which they had begun. A series of command level officers, people she'd seen at official functions or in classrooms or briefing rooms but none of them very familiar, took the seat opposite her at the steel table, one after another. The questions were all about Chakotay and the Maquis.

How did you decide to make him First Officer? "It was the only answer." Were you coerced in any way? "Only in the sense that I was on the far side of the galaxy with an inadequate crew to run my starship." Has he ever threatened you? "Yes, but he was under mind control…." Janeway felt her answers twisting back against her, no matter what she said. The interrogators knew her logs too well. They only asked questions that had compromising, difficult answers. Did he ever disobey orders? Attack you? Did he ever steal Starfleet property? "Yes, yes, you know the answer is yes, and because you already know what happened, you know why his actions were justified."

When did you start having sex with your First Officer? "Do you want my answer in days or hours?" Janeway snapped. "There seems to be video."

Whose idea was the marriage? "His, it was his idea," she admitted. "He asked me the day after we arrived back in the Alpha quadrant." Did the timing seem suspicious to you? "No. Not at the … no." Had he ever made romantic advances toward you in the past? "He – we – not as such. That was not the nature of our relationship. But we were very close as a command team." You believed his sudden romantic interest in you to be sincere? "His proposal did not strike me as implausible," Janeway answered in her stiffest possible manner.

And was he the one who pushed for the abrupt ceremony aboard the Dauntless? "No," she insisted with an adamant shake of her head. "I wanted that. I've lost two fiancés. I had no interest in a long engagement." And he knew this, about the two fiancés? "Well yes, of course." So he could have anticipated your reaction? "You make it sound diabolical. He's not like that. I demand to see him. I have the right to see my husband, no matter what you're accusing him of!" Janeway jumped up and slammed her hands on the table.

The officer, an overweight commander named Grosventre, eyed her coolly. "If you can't remain calm, we will have you restrained," he told her. "There are no visitation rights where enemy combatants are concerned. You are clearly too emotionally conflicted to be objective, and I believe you've allowed yourself to be manipulated by a cunning criminal. If you don't cooperate fully with this investigation, you're at risk of court martial yourself." Without her own freedom, Janeway would have no chance of fighting for the freedom of the Maquis. Trembling with the effort of controlling her movements – and not knocking Grosventre out of his chair – she took her seat.

From another interrogator, this one a younger woman: Have you had sexual relations with other crew members? "No! Well, only while I was a giant salamander," Janeway replied. That gave the woman pause. She seemed not to have read the logs as thoroughly as Grosventre. "Has Commander Chakotay had sexual relations with other crew members? "I wouldn't – well, I do know that he had a relationship with one of his crewmembers before they boarded Voyager, but I had the impression that it was over before we joined the crews. After that … I don't think so, but I didn't have him under surveillance. You have both our personal logs," she threw back at her interrogator. "You tell me. If you're hoping to surprise me with something I don't know about Chakotay, don't waste your time. I wouldn't believe anything you told me at this point, anyway." Under the heat of Captain Janeway's glare, the woman shuffled screens on her pad and retreated from the briefing room.

At the end of each day's interrogation, armed security officers marched her back to her empty quarters, where Chakotay's abandoned belongings still sat in the corner. Janeway unfolded the items one by one as the days passed and the smell of him gradually faded from each item. She lined up her toothbrush next to his each time she finished using it. She sat at the window through the long nights, wrapped in a shirt that smelled less like him every day, falling asleep just before dawn after staring for hours at the somehow alien glow of the streetlights and the endless patrol of the sentries.