The Ring

Chapter 9 - Liberation

A rented storage unit in Los Angeles became the crew's command center for Commander Lowry's quiet raid on Galaxy News. He entered early the following Monday morning by the front door, in expensive civilian clothes, wearing a carefully reproduced Galaxy communications badge that gave him full access to the complex. As he passed by some of the unoccupied offices at the end of the executive suite, Lowry quickly stepped behind a computer station to launch a tracer program that would collect the history of transmissions to and from Starfleet Command for the last three years and download them to a tiny data chip, almost invisible when attached to the side of the unit.

Once the program was underway, he moved back into the light foot traffic in the corridors and found his way to an empty editing suite inside Galaxy's formidable computer firewall. There, he downloaded all images tagged with identifiers for Voyager crew members, a sizeable database that barely fit the data chip embedded in his fake combadge. Although the Voyager crew were tracing his movements, communications beyond the Galaxy complex might give him away, so he worked in silence. As the download proceeded, he stood with his back to the wall, watching movement in the corridor through the window in the door. He had no phaser – nothing physical that would identify him as anything other than a Galaxy executive – and he felt as vulnerable as a child.

On his way back through the building, Lowry picked up the results of the tracer program, holding the chip between two fingers as he passed quickly through the exit lane of Galaxy's elaborate security perimeter. He made his way to the designated rendezvous and handed over the data chips to Janeway, who began copying and reviewing the data immediately. As the images and comm transactions cascaded down her screen, she smiled in rich satisfaction. "This is it," she said. "This is everything we need. Let's go see our favorite admiral."

Tom turned to Lowry and offered a grudging handshake. "I guess you proved yourself."

They were on their way back to San Francisco on a small private shuttle before a Galaxy news editor arrived at her compromised work station and sounded the first firewall breach alarm.

#

Using Nechayev's security codes, acquired by Lowry, the team entered the research complex Janeway had visited weeks earlier to see Seven. When they reached her office, Seven was working at a big screen on the back wall, manipulating genome graphics with one hand. Janeway entered alone, the plush carpet muffling her steps. Seven only noticed her presence when Janeway stepped up beside her. Seven took a quick step backward. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "You have no access here."

"There's something I need you to see," Janeway ordered. She pulled her phaser and with the other hand, grabbed Seven's arm and pushed her toward the door.

Seven tapped at her combadge. "Security," she said, "intruder alert." There was no response.

"I think you'll find that gadget isn't working today," Janeway announced with a wicked little smile and prodded Seven with the phaser.

"You are not authorized to enter this facility," Seven protested, even as she moved toward the officer door ahead of Janeway's phaser. When Seven entered the corridor, she saw Tom, Harry, and Jack Lowry lined up along the wall, each carrying a phaser rifle. Tom carried a second weapon, which he handed to Janeway.

"This is my authorization," she said to Seven as she settled the strap on her shoulder. "Take us to Nechayev." Seven hesitated, looking around wildly, but the corridor was empty. Finally she turned and began to lead the team deeper into the research complex.

When they arrived at Nechayev's office, Nechayev and Bergen were together behind the desk, consulting the same padd. Both called for security before Janeway had crossed the threshold, only to meet with the same comm silence Seven had encountered.

"This is treason!" Nechayev declared, rising as Tom, Harry, and Jack filed in behind Janeway. "Commander Lowry, what is the meaning of this? Arrest these traitors at once!"

"No," Jack said, stepping even with Janeway. "I don't think I will. I think you're the one who will wind up in custody today, Admiral."

Janeway stepped forward and handed a padd to Nechayev. "This is a copy of some data we acquired this morning," she said. "It shows leaks of classified information about Voyager, coming from your office, starting with our first contact with the Alpha quadrant over two years ago. There's proof here that you collaborated with Galaxy News to defame and ultimately frame the Voyager crew, especially the Maquis, for crimes and protocol violations we didn't commit. If you turn on the Federation news channels, you'll find that this information is already broadcasting."

Nechayev tapped at her video console and the screen quickly filled with breaking news reports about the conspiracy against the Voyager crew. She gasped and fell back into her chair. "I – I didn't…" she began, but her voice cracked and broke.

"Are you going to deny it?" Janeway demanded. She stepped forward and Bergen backed into the corner behind the desk. Seven was inching around the other side of Nechayev's desk, distancing herself from the phaser rifles even as she looked around for something to use as a weapon. "Sit down, Seven," Janeway snapped. "Right there, on the floor. Hands in your lap."

Seven obeyed, then glared up at Janeway like a petulant child. "You won't get away with this," she said in a high, whiny voice. "You'll be locked up like the rest of them. It's what you deserve."

Janeway spared a withering look for her former protégée. "I don't know what they've been telling you around here, Seven, but our crew aren't the guilty ones. You've been conned by the best. They've been setting us up since long before we got home. You were only spared because you were irrelevant to their plan."

"Irrelevant?" Seven repeated. The use of the ultimate Borg insult seemed to give her pause. She quieted as Nechayev rotated her chair to face Janeway.

All the arrogance and contempt of the debriefings was gone from her face and posture. "There's not much point now in denial, is there?" Nechayev said, still every inch an admiral.

"No. But tell me one thing," Janeway replied. Her hands flexed on her weapon. "What have you done with my crew? Where are they being held?"

Nechayev took a long breath and let it all out before answering. "I suppose there's no point in prolonging this either," she said. "The crew were dispatched to a Klingon prison planet, in exchange for the Federation taking on some of the Klingons' more … difficult prisoners. They're on an asteroid called Rura Penthe."

Janeway swallowed. "Klingons? What kind of conditions are they being held in?"

Nechayev rolled her eyes. "Oh, they're fine. Your half-Klingon officer and her baby are apparently great favorites in the prison colony."

Behind Janeway, Tom Paris made a growling sound and began to move toward Nechayev, but Janeway held up her hand. "Don't worry, Tom," she said, "you'll get your chance to testify against her. For now, it's more important that we get on our way to Rura Penthe, rather than waste time explaining an assault on an admiral."

By the time the publicity counter-offensive had broadcast for half an hour, Starfleet security showed up unsummoned to arrest Nechayev and Bergen, at the order of Admiral Hayes.

A transport left the same day for Rura Penthe, to retrieve the Maquis. Janeway went along for the three day journey, accompanied by Tom, Harry, and Commander Lowry. The asteroid was as bleak as they had imagined, but the domed prison colony itself was clean and well-supplied. When the new arrivals entered the main square of the colony, they found most of the Maquis seated at long tables, engaged in various forms of mechanical repair. Mike Ayala, who was seated close to the entrance, spotted Janeway first. His shout roused the whole complex. Those seated jumped up. Those indoors poured out, filled with excitement and confusion. Their lives had been a quiet, frustrated wait for many weeks.

Mike reached Janeway first, his face a mask of outrage. "They're locking you up too?" he cried. "On what charges?"

"No, Mike, you don't understand," she said and grabbed his upper arms. "We're here to free you! We've cleared your names! Where are B'Elanna and Miral? Where is Chakotay?"

Mike turned around just in time to usher B'Elanna and Miral through the crowd toward Tom, who lunged forward to clutch them to him.

"Are you okay? Is she okay? Are you both okay?" he babbled, as B'Elanna laughed and cried and tried to reassure him. "I thought I was losing my mind!"

"Not half as much as I was, I promise you!" she cried as she hugged him.

Harry embraced several old friends at once. Janeway moved among her liberated crew, rejoicing with them. Her head never stopped moving, looking for Chakotay, who had not yet surfaced in the crowd. As the celebration continued around her, she felt a hand on her arm and turned to see B'Elanna, Miral, and Tom at her side.

"It's about Chakotay," B'Elanna said.

Kathryn took a step back, reading something terrible in B'Elanna's face. "No," she breathed, raising her hands in a defensive gesture. B'Elanna grabbed her arm and stopped her retreat. Janeway shook her head. "He's not here, is he?" she asked.

B'Elanna's whole body sagged. "I'm so sorry, Captain. I'm not sure where he is. They took him away after he led an escape attempt our first month there."

Janeway raised her head. "He's alive, then?"

B'Elanna only looked more miserable. "I don't know. They told us he was in solitary confinement, but one of the guards finally told us he'd left the planet. There were rumors among the other prisoners …." She broke off and looked away, as if embarrassed.

"What rumors?" Janeway stepped closer.

B'Elanna brought big, desperate eyes to meet Janeway's. "They said that problem prisoners were shipped out to a place called Herod Minor. It's a privately run prison colony on the far side of the neutral zone, in Cardassian territory. They consider the prisoners slaves. Nobody is ever released."

Janeway's hand rose involuntarily to her mouth as she gasped. She staggered forward a little and steadied herself with a hand on B'Elanna's arm. Jack Lowry seemed to materialize out of the crowd to put an arm around Janeway's shoulders. "We'll find him, Kathryn. Don't worry. We'll find him."

B'Elanna looked up indignantly at the crisply groomed Starfleet officer embracing her former captain. "Who the hell are you?" she growled.

"It's okay, B'Elanna," Janeway mumbled, patting Jack's hand on her shoulder. "This is Commander Jack Lowry. Jack, Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres. He helped get you released. He's a friend."

B'Elanna snorted. "Getting us released when we never should have been in prison in the first place. Thanks a lot, Starfleet. Now get lost." She took a threatening step toward Jack, who backed off a few steps, hands in the air.

"I'm very sorry about what happened," he said. "I've been trying to make it right."

B'Elanna walked right up to him and snarled into his face, "You want to make it right? Find out what happened to Chakotay. Help us get him back. Or isn't that part of your plan?" She glanced back over her shoulder to where Tom was handing Miral to Janeway, as comfort and a reminder that there was still something to celebrate. B'Elanna closely watched Jack's eyes go to Janeway, the look on his face. As Janeway kissed Miral, distracted momentarily, B'Elanna lowered her voice to a whisper and reached up to speak into Jack's ear. "Or maybe you made sure the Cardies took care of Kathryn's inconvenient husband, huh Starfleet?"

Jack's face turned angry as he looked back at her. "You don't know me, and you've been through a lot. I understand why you wouldn't trust me, Lieutenant Torres. But I am an honorable man. I hope we'll have a chance to know each other well enough that you'll believe that."

"Go on, then," B'Elanna snapped, before turning back to her family. "Prove it."

#

Geordi La Forge's face plainly expressed his incredulity. "I can't believe what I'm looking at, Captain." He clicked through documents visible on his screen but not on Janeway's. "How could a Starfleet prisoner be transferred to a facility in Cardassian space? This goes against all known protocols for humane treatment of prisoners, regardless of their crimes. Who gave the order?"

Janeway treated him to her most compelling glower. "As far as I know, it didn't come from above, although I wouldn't put it past Nechayev. It appears to be a completely unauthorized transfer by lower level staff at the Starfleet facility who found it more convenient to offload problem prisoners through a black market arrangement rather than supervise their confinement. The whole thing is being investigated by Starfleet Command, but we can't wait for that."

Geordi nodded as he sat back in his chair. "A former Maquis in Cardassian hands wouldn't last too long," he said, steepling his fingers. "We need to move fast."

"I hear that the Dauntless is ready for its next mission," said Janeway.

"Your information is impeccable, as usual. And we'll be near the Neutral Zone. I wouldn't have to change our mission parameters significantly, and we could leave almost immediately."

"That's exactly what I was hoping to hear. There are five on my team: me, B'Elanna Torres, Harry Kim, Jack Lowry, and Voyager's EMH, who will be on hand if needed. We have a small, fast civilian shuttle, not traceable to Starfleet, upgraded with the technology necessary for the raid. We can be beamed up from these coordinates in exactly one hour." She tapped a few figures into her console and looked expectantly at Geordi. "Acceptable?"

Geordi examined the data as it appeared on his screen, then finally nodded. "I can take you as far as the Neutral Zone, and await your return for up to an hour," he told her. "I can make plausible excuses for that much. But if anything should happen to you, I will be unable to mount a rescue. It would be considered an act of war."

"That should be more than enough," Janeway acknowledged, already tapping at documents he couldn't see on the screen at her end of the connection.

"And you didn't mention several of your senior officers. I'm surprised that your whole senior staff isn't in on the rescue. Is there something going on that I should know about?" Geordi leaned into the screen, questioning her with his strange, pale eyes.

Janeway sighed. "Not really. I'd like to have them with me, and I know they'd like to do it, but Tuvok is still on Vulcan, receiving treatment for a chronic condition. Lieutenant Paris is staying behind with his daughter. We're all making sacrifices to do this."

"So I'm on the spot, is that it?" Geordi gave her a smile. "You know you can count on me, Kathryn. I'm just sorry you've had such a rough time. I thought of warning you back when we first rendezvoused, but I thought I was overreacting at the time. I didn't want to spoil your homecoming with my paranoia, and then everything turned out to be even worse than I imagined."

Janeway's face tightened, but she managed a small smile. "You've been a good friend, Geordi. I couldn't ask for more. My team will be at the transport coordinates in one hour." They exchanged nods and she ended the transmission.

#

Captain La Forge gestured to the chair he usually occupied at the head of the table in the Dauntless's briefing room. "This is your mission, Captain. I am here in a support capacity."

Janeway nodded and took her place. "Thank you, Captain," she said. Except for the Doctor, her team wore tactical assault gear: supple black body armor tricked out with loops and pockets designed for gear and weapons, which they would don before transporting to the surface. She addressed B'Elanna, Harry, and Jack.

"I've attempted every kind of trade and deal, but the prison administrators" – she spat out the word like a vulgarity, "say that they have an absolute policy against releasing any of their 'extremely dangerous' inmates. Since these are not the sort of people with any sort of ethics or morals, I suspect that someone else is paying them handsomely to hang onto him. Either that or" – she broke off and reached for a stack of padds on the table before her. Harry's eyes flickered. She wasn't using Chakotay's name, which struck him as unusual. He wondered if she was already steeling herself for the possibility that he was no longer alive.

"We'll get him back, Captain," he said as she distributed the padds. She nodded.

"These are schematics of the most secure part of the prison complex, provided by Jack from covert Starfleet scans conducted several years ago. They may not be completely up-to-date, but it's the best we have. I surmise that he is being held in one of these cells. Once we reach the surface, we should be able to scan for his biosigns and determine his exact location. B'Elanna?"

B'Elanna opened her tricorder. "I've been enhancing the tricorder bio-receptors to improve our ability to detect even faint life signs at greater than normal range. If the commander is within the high security compound, we will detect him," she confirmed and turned the device toward the floor. In a moment, she showed the display to the rest of the table. The readout pinpointed life signs for crew members several decks below.

Harry whistled. "Impressive."

Janeway leaned in to examine the display. "Thank you, B'Elanna. This is very helpful. Harry will keep a transporter link with the Dauntless at all times, and handle enhanced transport capacity if needed. And our cloaks, Jack?"

Lowry opened his right hand to display four tiny, blinking red lights. "Personal cloaking devices, the latest Cardassian military toys, direct from Admiral Nechayev's trade allies. We wear them on our collars and they'll emit a dampening field that blocks any sensor readings that might reveal our entry. We will, of course, still be visible to the naked eye or a video feed, but according to our intelligence, prison security operates primarily on bio-alarms. B'Elanna and I have integrated the technology into the tricorders, and Kathryn and I have modified the shuttle to use it."

Harry leaned forward to look. "If it's Cardassian technology, won't their sensors also be upgraded to detect this dampening field?"

Jack shook his head. "Fortunately, the Cardassian government is still trying to pretend that it has nothing to do with this mercenary little prison operation. They wouldn't risk letting them have this sort of thing. So once we're down there, we should be fine. Besides, the prison administrators, as Kathryn politely calls them, believe themselves to be invulnerable on the far side of the Neutral Zone. They don't think Starfleet's reach extends that far. And as I said, our tricorders would not be affected by the technology even if it were in place at the facility."

"And crossing the Neutral Zone illegally, using a Cardassian cloak?" Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Jack closed his hand back around the devices. "The cloak is only detectable, even with the proper technology, at relatively close range. I have information used by smugglers about the frequency of sensor scans along the border. We should be able to slip through undetected."

Harry sat back with a small frown. "You've got all the answers, Commander," he said in a cynical tone.

"That'll do, Harry," Janeway said, but her tone wasn't harsh. "We are a team and we'll act like one. Understood?"

Harry straightened in his chair. "Yes, Captain." When she looked away, he cast Jack a suspicious glance.

"Other questions?" she asked.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Captain, can you give me any idea what sort of … condition Commander Chakotay might be in? I'd like to be prepared to offer the most effective treatment."

There were no audible responses to the question, but every eye in the room flew to Janeway. She stood frozen for a long moment, then looked the Doctor in the eye. "In light of the length of his detention, and the parties detaining him, I expect him to need urgent medical care. That's why you're here. I have no other information. You'll just have to do your best, Doctor."

"Understood, Captain," he said, backing up a little in the face of the glare Harry was giving him.

Janeway glanced at Geordi, who stood waiting almost exactly where he'd stood to conduct a marriage ceremony several months earlier.

"We'll be at your departure coordinates in under an hour," he said. "Good luck, all of you."

"Dismissed," Janeway told them as she stood. Harry, B'Elanna, and Jack moved out of the room quickly to complete their preparations. Janeway hung back, standing beside Geordi.

"Is it a suicide mission?" she asked him in a low voice, without turning from her place at the head of the table.

"I don't know," Geordi answered. "But in your place, I'd do exactly the same thing."