Title: Kiss of the Spider People
Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Author: Singing Violin
Rating: T
Summary: Janeway gets into some hot water with some hostile aliens. Set shortly after "Coda."
Disclaimer: They're not mine (except the aliens), so don't send me money for my story. This one might count as parody, though it's not funny.
Feedback: Yes please.
Archiving: Anywhere.
Author's note: Sorry it took so long to get this one out. My only excuse is Real Life.

Chapter 7: Wake

Even now, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Even now, knowing that his life was, most likely, in its final moments, he wanted nothing more than to spend those moments in her presence. Even though she practically radiated hostility and anger towards him.

She flitted a digit over one of his legs, and he shivered in ecstasy. Finally, she spoke. "You have always been my favorite," she confirmed quietly, and her admission filled him with rapture. "But you have disappointed me."

"I understand," was his solemn reply. "I deserve to die for my failure. It has been an honor."

She acknowledged her assent, but made no more motion towards him. In this moment, he allowed himself to hope that perhaps his record of service – and her personal affection for him – would grant him mercy. Truly, he did not want to die, for to cease his existence would leave no more time to love her …

"I am curious," she prompted, "what you believe should be my next action. You have often provided useful advice, and as you might have observed, I could use some now."

His internal organs jittered with the promise of redemption. Perhaps this was the test, the trial that would determine his potential for survival.

She was giving him one last chance. Perhaps his love for her was not completely unrequited. Perhaps … but was she looking for honesty, sound advice, or a confirmation of her infallible leadership?

"Please," she urged. "Tell me what you think."

"My Queen," he began, still unsure of the best tactic, but opting for honesty, "you have executed many tinkerers in the recent cycles. Our ship is still not functional. Perhaps it is time to allocate the remaining personnel to repairs. We will not find the missing traitor unless we have the aid of the ship."

Her antennae gyrated as she mused. Finally, she spoke again. "You will always be my favorite," she repeated. She reached towards him, caressed his face, and punctured his skull. He slumped to the floor, expired.

Two guards came forward and lifted the body. One spoke. "Do you wish us to return the head?"

She motioned negatively. "I already know what was in his thoughts," she chided. "The head is of no use to me. He does not know anything."

The other spoke then. "Would you like us to bring you another prisoner for interrogation?"

Again, she gestured her refusal. "His advice was not unwise," she observed. "I believe it is time to halt the executions and focus on repairs. Supervise the remaining tinkerers closely; any evidence of conspiracy and we shall return to the interrogations."

They acknowledged their assent and perfunctorily carted the body away.

"I really did like him," she muttered to herself as they disappeared. "Such a shame he had to disappoint me. Males are all so daft …"

"What was that?" asked a guard, and she turned angrily.

"It was nothing," she replied. "Carry on."

With that, she made her way towards the command center to help supervise the repairs. She did not even trust the guards anymore …

"Why isn't it working?" asked Kes, her eyes pleading with the Doctor.

"I don't know," he answered. "I've injected her with thrice the amount that worked in the lab for the amount of venom that is in her body. It's just … ineffective. It's almost as if her own immune system – which seems to be the only one of her systems still highly functional – is fighting the cure as hard as it is fighting the poison."

"Is there anything we can do?" Kes queried.

The Doctor frowned. "Let me run some simulations. I have some ideas, but we will have to test them."

"Can I be of assistance?" she inquired.

He shook his head. "For now, no. But please stay here; I might require your help at any moment."

Solemnly, she nodded, and as he disappeared into his office, she sat beside the biobed and took the captain's hand in her own.

"Captain," she spoke quietly, as a tear meandered down her cheek, "the crew is worried about you. Chakotay was here before, nearly passing out from exhaustion. We knew you'd want him to rest, so the Doctor threatened to sedate him if he didn't go to his quarters. He wanted to be with you – I think his feelings for you …"

Her voice trailed off as she contemplated her words. Sobbing slightly, she began anew. "Please fight it, Captain. We need you; he needs you. You don't know how hard it was, when we didn't have either of you. We wouldn't have engaged the Vidiians if it hadn't meant so much to us to get you back. Tuvok's a good leader, but he's not you. And Chakotay – I don't know if he can manage without you – he'll miss you so much. We'll all miss you so much. Please, Captain, come back to us."

With that, she began to cry in earnest. All the times she could remember being this upset, the captain had been there to hold her as her own mother had done when she was small. But the captain didn't wake up now, didn't sit and take Kes into her arms as she had so many times before. The realization that perhaps the captain would never hug her again washed over her, calling forth a fresh bout of bitter tears.

Only the flashes of lightning and the emergency lights penetrated the darkness as Chakotay woozily lifted his head from the console.

He'd crashed … but he was alive. Perhaps a bit worse for wear, as everything ached, but he was conscious, and for that he thanked the spirits. There was, however, something else, some pressing matter with which he had to deal. He frantically searched his mind for the answer.

Eventually, it was supplied. I am not alone.

But who was with him, and where was his companion? He wracked his brain for an answer, finally realizing it was the captain he sought.

He forced himself to rise from the chair, distantly aware of the warning klaxons sounding from the shuttle's computer.

"Warning, hydrozene gas levels at ten parts per million. Begin evacuation procedures."

"In a moment," he answered the computer, as if it would acknowledge his plight and allow him a few extra minutes somehow. "After I find Kathryn."

As lightning continued to briefly illuminate the cabin at irregular intervals, he began searching around, but found himself alone.

He called her name, but his only reply was from the shuttle itself.

"Warning, hydrozene gas levels at eleven parts per million. Begin evacuation procedures."

"No!" he cried out. "She's here! Kathryn, where are you?"

Just then, he nearly tripped on an obstruction on the floor. Cursing, he looked down, and found himself gazing upon the very body he had been seeking.

"No," he whispered to himself. Then, he knelt beside her. "Kathryn?" he called, praying she would answer.

She groaned softly. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"We need to get out of here," he told her.

She moaned, but made no movement. Lightning flashed, shedding an eerie light that made her appear pale and ghostly. He reached forward and took her in his arms, and with difficulty, lifted her off the floor.

She was quiet now. Too quiet …

As he carried her outside into the storm, searching for shelter amidst the rocks, he felt something wet trickle over his arm.

"Hang on," he begged, even as more moisture threatened to dampen his cheeks. "Stay with me."

She coughed, gurgled, and spat up on his uniform.

A tear, blown sideways by the strong winds, escaped his eye and ran down his nose. "Don't die on me now, Kathryn," he pleaded, even as he increased his pace towards the nearest indent in the rock.

Meanwhile, the body in his arms grew wetter, and, curiously, lighter. He glanced down, noting that every area of her exposed skin was glistening with moisture. She looked as if she were made of wet clay …

"No!" he cried once more, watching with horror as she melted in his arms, finally slipping through them onto the rocky ground, until all that was left was a puddle of goo and her dirty uniform.

He stared at the ground and screamed.

Chakotay bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat. He brought a hand to his mouth, wrestling the urge to be sick at the vivid picture lodged in his mind.

When he'd gathered the strength to will his body under control, he rose and dressed, knowing he could not sleep any more tonight. The peaceful star field outside seemed to mock him, contrasting starkly with the palpitations of his heart.

He headed towards Sickbay, desperately wanting a new vision of Kathryn – even if it be a comatose one on a biobed – to override the grotesque image from his nightmare. He hoped the Doctor would let him stay this time; before, when he'd returned to Sickbay after escorting their visitor to Engineering to consult with Lieutenant Torres, the holographic doctor had threatened to sedate him. Grudgingly, he'd retired to his quarters, leaving the captain in the capable hands of Kes and the EMH.

He felt as if his crew – no, he reminded himself, her crew – was conspiring against him. Before the Doctor had chided him, Tuvok had requested a meeting in the ready room, then suggested that Chakotay was not fit for bridge duty. "This crew will not benefit from the leadership of an exhausted commander," he'd reprimanded.

Chakotay almost laughed, remembering that. Hadn't Kathryn told him that the Vulcan had said something similar to her when they'd first gotten pulled into the Delta Quadrant? It was just another example of what she had to put up with on a daily basis, one of the many aspects of the job he wasn't looking forward to taking over …

He shook himself harshly. I won't be taking over. She's probably recovering now; the Doctor's found a cure and she just needs to rest …

His hopes were quickly quashed at the scene he encountered as the Sickbay doors opened before him.

On a biobed in the middle of the room lay the captain, as still as ever, and, if possible, even paler and thinner than when he'd left her last. Kes held vigil beside her, head bent as if in prayer. The Ocampa looked up, and he saw that her eyes were swollen from crying.

He shook his head. She can't be dead … they'd have told me right away …

Before he'd had time to fully process the sight in front of him, Kes stood and ran into his embrace, wrapping her thin arms around his torso. Stunned, he held her as she sobbed, and after a few minutes, he noticed his own tears running down his face.

He pulled back only when the beep of his communicator roused him. He kept a hand on Kes's shoulder even as he tapped the badge to reply.

B'Elanna eyed the alien with distrust. She was obligated to follow the commander's orders to work with it, but she didn't have to like it. Sighing, she pointed to the console. "Here," she demanded, "calibrate the phase coil."

The alien had demonstrated the device aboard its escape pod, and Chakotay had been impressed. B'Elanna had been … less so, but intrigued nonetheless. So here they were, attempting to implement the technology on a larger scale, with different characteristics of the object to be hidden, and, thus far, without success.

Honestly, she didn't understand why this "collaboration" was not a violation of the Prime Directive, but the alien insisted that there was no technology Voyager had that it didn't know about already. She'd doubted it – in fact, had barely suppressed a snort at the assertion – but its suggestion of outfitting the ship with some sort of cloak had swayed the commander – though, no doubt, in his condition, he wasn't exactly thinking rationally; Chakotay's visible distress over the captain's condition wasn't exactly subtle.

He hadn't said anything explicitly, but it was clear the captain was at the forefront of his mind. It therefore fell to B'Elanna – who wasn't altogether unaffected herself – to make sure they didn't do anything stupid – that is, after the initial stupidity of working with the alien in the first place, which was a direct order. It was bad enough to disobey the captain during good times; she didn't want to find out what it was like to disobey an irritable commander – who was possibly following the captain's wishes – or what he guessed they might be. Of all the people on the ship, it was always the captain who gave the most benefit of the doubt, insisted that peaceful means were used whenever necessary, and the commander was obviously attempting to emulate her. If it were up to B'Elanna, they wouldn't be taking any chances. Take the thing's blood or whatever the Doctor needed from it, then space it …

It was the most joyous sound she had heard in quite some time.

"We are detecting the alien ship."

The sensors had been brought back on line less than one cycle ago, but there had been no luck in finding the wayward rogue. It was becoming increasingly clear that he had escaped not just to preserve his own life, but because he was harboring some great secret, perhaps of great value to her. Therefore, her primary goal was to recapture him. If he would not talk, she could always encode his brain and reveal his secrets that way …

She searched her mind, contemplating the situation. There was only one reason that ship would still be present in her space – and it was the same reason they could not find the escapee. Somehow, that little tinkerer had formed an alliance with that alien race, and was likely aboard their ship, perhaps selling technology to them … but for what? This, more than anything, she wanted to know. If the aliens would not share their technology with her, then why would they share with him? Obviously he knew something quite valuable indeed. And after she found out what that was, she could rid herself of the pesky annoyance that was the malnourished little tinkerer …

"Do we have weapons?" she asked.

The officer bowed before her. "Yes, my Queen. Shall we destroy them?"

Her antennae moved almost imperceptibly as she considered the offer. "No," she answered firmly. "Not yet. In fact, hail them."

"We are detecting the alien ship," Lieutenant Ayala announced tremulously, unable to conceal the worry in his voice. He too shared the unspoken thought circulating amongst the bridge crew: why are we still here?

Tuvok rose from the captain's chair, raising an eyebrow. He tapped his communicator as he moved to examine the image on Ayala's console. "Bridge to Engineering," he called. "What is the status of the cloaking device?"

"We've made some modifications," answered Lieutenant Torres. "It may be enough, though there's no way to test it from inside. Permission to send a probe?"

"Denied," answered the Vulcan. "There is no time for a 'dry run' at this moment. We must hope that the device is operational."

"Commander?" asked B'Elanna curiously.

"Stand by," he replied calmly. The initial dominant strategy was to wait.

He wished he could allow Commander Chakotay to continue resting, but to make an important decision regarding the aliens without at least informing him of the situation, while possibly a wise tactic given the commander's current distress, would be insubordination, and was therefore unacceptable.

He tapped his communicator. "Tuvok to Chakotay," he called. For a moment, silence was his only reply.

Belatedly, the commander answered, and even over the comm, the crack in his voice was audible. "Chakotay here."

"We have re-encountered the alien ship. We have reason to believe they cannot detect us at this time, but nevertheless, your presence on the bridge would be prudent."

"I'll be there momentarily," Chakotay announced.

His duty fulfilled, Tuvok resumed his vigil and awaited the commander's arrival. Within moments, they received a hail, proving that the efforts in Engineering had failed. Disappointed, but ready to negotiate – or at least stall until the commander arrived on the bridge – he ordered, "On screen."

The tinkerer overheard the conversation between the engineer with the bumpy face and the bridge officer in charge. He knew the device was not yet functional; how else could the ship have found them so quickly? It also meant that the repairs were likely nearing completion, if not complete already. And the only reason they had not yet attacked must be that they suspected his presence aboard the ship …

If he were recaptured, surely she would take the time to read him after his execution. He could not take that risk. For the future of his people, and for these aliens, he needed to act quickly. This was his last opportunity to make a difference, to free his comrades from the reign of brutal tyranny. The aliens would thank him for the favor, and he would return home a hero and be able to choose any female he wished to provide the offspring he'd lately desired.

Carefully, he began inputting commands into his console. With any luck, they had not changed the codes …

Chakotay let go of Kes and approached Kathryn's bedside. Gently, he reached over and brushed a hair from her forehead, and a lingering tear dripped from his eye onto her cheek. As the Ocampa looked on plaintively, he bent down and kissed his captain where the tear had fallen.

"I have to go now, Kathryn," he whispered. "Please hang on. The Doctor's doing everything he can; we'll get you back. But I have to keep the ship safe for you."

As if to defy him one last time, she jerked slightly and then was still, as an alarm sounded to notify the Doctor of her expiration. Instantly, the EMH appeared, pushing Chakotay out of his way and barking orders to Kes above the whine of the alarm.

For a moment, Chakotay hesitated, torn between staying in Sickbay – as if his mere presence could prevent the captain's death – and returning to the bridge.

As his eyes lingered on the captain's diminutive form and the EMH and Kes frantically administered to her, Voyager shuddered, and automatically, he tapped his communicator.

"Tuvok, what's going on?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Tuvok replied quickly, and his voice was tinged with as much surprise as a Vulcan would ever express. "The alien ship has been destroyed."