Ch. 21

Admiral Brislin stared out his office window. The San Francisco skyline was still dark, but the first traces of pink were starting to appear. He sighed. It was moments like this that were the only time he allowed himself to doubt. And after the events of last night, he knew he had every reason to worry. His office door slid open. Brislin already knew who had entered.

"Sir, what now?"

"There's a PADD on my desk. I've already approved your extended leave," Brislin said without turning around.

"My what?"

"Your leave. You're taking at least a month off." Brislin turned to his desk and took his seat. "If this all blows over you can come back as though you were simply away on vacation, if it doesn't, this should give you more than enough time to get yourself and my daughter far away from here."

The man in front of Brislin's desk scoffed. "I can't believe I ever went along with you."

"You had your reasons. Just as I did," Brislin bristled slightly. They'd been over this before. "So, are you going to do as I ask?"

"Of course," the man said bitterly, "I don't have much choice left anymore, do I?" He deflated slightly and slumped into the seat across from Brislin. "She's going to want to know."

"Of course, she'll want to know. She's my daughter, after all, she doesn't like being kept in the dark. You'll just have to tell her it's classified. She'll accept that." Brislin pulled a bottle out of his desk drawer and poured them both a drink. "Are you going to marry her?"

"If she'll have me," he said, accepting the drink. The younger man cradled the glass for a moment before asking, "Are you going to warn Milo?"

Brislin sipped the brandy and felt the warm burn as it slid down his throat. He'd been thinking about that ever since Chakotay had stormed away from Mercado's house earlier in the night. He didn't know what the former Maquis had planned, but if he caught up to Milo, he would no doubt garner enough information to lead him straight to Brislin's door. The Admiral didn't relish that idea, but he also had no desire to warn the pompous little auctioneer, either. It would serve Milo right to get caught after all this time. He chuckled, remembering their last conversation. "No, I won't warn him. He told me not to call him again."

The younger man nodded. "What about you?"

"I've made arrangements," Brislin answered coyly. "If Chakotay does manage to catch Milo, I'll hear about it. I'll have enough time to disappear before anything is linked back to me."

"What about Janeway?"

"What about her?"

"You aren't worried about her at all?"

"No," Brislin scoffed. "Janeway…is the least of my concerns. She'll be dead long before her crew manages to find her."

Chakotay lay staring at the ceiling above his bunk, listening to the ship's powerful engines. He couldn't help but think the smaller Defiant class ship was louder than Voyager had ever been but knew it was probably just his pride in Voyager. At any rate, he was simply thankful they had a ship at all as Voyager was still in the middle of a refit. The Pendragon was supposed to be in dry dock as well, but being an admiral still had some perks.

"You had better have a damn good reason for waking me up in the middle of the night, Captain."

Admiral Patterson answered the door of his private residence dressed in a bathrobe. Chakotay had called before having Harry beam him down from the Flyer, but he admittedly hadn't given the man much notice before his arrival.

"I do, sir. It's Kathryn. She's alive. I need your he-"

"Katie's alive?"

"Yes, sir, and so is my daughter, but I need your help to ensure they stay that way."

Patterson ushered Chakotay into the house, and he began to explain everything that had happened that night.

"Mercado?" Patterson said disbelievingly. "That's hard to believe. I've met the man, and I would never have thought…"

"Yes, sir. We obtained direct evidence of his involvement." Chakotay produced the tricorder that had recorded Kathryn's DNA. "There was also a witness who was there speaking with the security team when we left. He can implicate Mercado and others in everything I've said so far."

"And, you're telling me, one of these…predators has Katie?" Patterson asked, his voice having lost all traces of sleep.

"For all intents and purposes, yes. She's being taken to him as we speak."

"Taken where?"

"That's one of my problems, sir. I don't know the exact planet," Chakotay said and watched as Patterson's face fell slightly. "Mercado referred to it as a backwater planet, which makes me think it's a pre-warp society. He also said it takes about five days to travel there."

"Well, that narrows it down, then." Patterson opened his personal terminal and began scrolling through information. "There aren't too many systems within fifteen light years that still have pre-warp societies. Usually only a moon or something that's been left to evolve on its own," he paused before continuing. "If she is on the planet before you reach her, we would have to proceed with caution. The Prime Directive-"

"Yes, sir. That's why I intend for my team to be small. We'll get in and out with minimal exposure."

"You don't understand." Patterson shook his head. "A mission like this would take full approval from higher…"

"We don't have that kind of time, sir," Chakotay growled. "Kathryn doesn't have that kind of time."

Patterson looked hesitant but nodded his understanding.

"If we can get to Milo's ship before he makes delivery, that will simplify things even more, but in order to do that I need a fast ship," Chakotay pressed.

"I know of a ship that would be fast enough," the old admiral said cagily, "but how would you find this…Milo?"

"We have the specifications of his ship."

Patterson hit his desk with the palm of his hand. "Why didn't you say so? We can put it out to all ships to be on the lookout for him and have him detained."

This time it was Chakotay's turn to hesitate. "I'm afraid we can't do that, sir."

"Why the hell not?"

"I came to you in particular, sir, because Kathryn trusts you," Chakotay explained, "but I have reason to believe that there are people within Starfleet that are involved with this ring. If word gets out to the wrong person, they could alert Milo and he could…get rid of the evidence."

Patterson paled at the meaning behind Chakotay's words. "What reasons do you have?"

Chakotay outlined the false evidence the Doctor had discovered, thankful he did have something more than his gut instinct to tell the Admiral. He also mentioned the transport system in his home being deactivated as well as the lack of security footage. "Too many things don't add up, Admiral."

The older man rubbed the whiskers on his chin and was quiet for several minutes. Chakotay shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He'd been meeting with the Admiral for less than an hour, but he still felt like it was taking too long. Precious minutes that Kathryn was being ferried further away from him. Without saying a word, Patterson picked up a PADD and began inputting information.

"Here's the location and security codes for the USS Pendragon. It's the ship designated for my missions, and it's fast. It doesn't have a crew assigned to it right now since we don't have as much need for the Defiant class ships now that the war is over." He handed the PADD to Chakotay. "But you will need more than yourself to fly it. I assume you have a crew already."

"That's taken care of, sir."

Patterson nodded. "Go on up there and get her powered up. I'll clear you for departure, and I'll find this Milo or at least a record of which direction he's headed which ought to narrow down our search." He held up his hand when Chakotay started to interrupt. "I have my contacts, Captain. People I can trust. Not to mention there's plenty of satellites out there I can task that will track him when he goes by. I'll send you the updates as I get them."

Chakotay stood. "Thank you, sir."

"I have every intention of spoiling your daughter to no end. In order to do that, you have to bring them both back here." Patterson's tone lowered. "Get in and get out, Captain. We need to keep this as quiet as possible."

"Understood."

"Once you get Katie back here, I'm sure she'll take great pleasure in blowing the top off this whole thing herself."

Chakotay nodded. "I couldn't agree with you more, sir."

Now, days later, they were closing in on Milo's ship. By all indications, he was headed towards the Altair system. While a few of the planets in that system were long standing members of the Federation, they did have one planet and two moons which had pre-warp societies. And unfortunately, Milo had had a head start on them. Whether or not it was enough of a start to have already dropped off his human cargo remained to be seen.

Chakotay turned over on his side and stared at the desk that also occupied the space of the captain's quarters cum ready room. Apparently B'Elanna had been nominated by their small crew to inform him that he needed to rest, and that if he didn't, she would come up from the engine room and physically remove him from the command deck. He still wasn't sure if the threat alone made him acquiesce or if it was more that he didn't want to take her away from the engines. She had been working almost non-stop since they'd boarded the ship, tweaking the manifolds, adjusting relays, and anything else she could think of to get the slightest bit more speed available. She'd already ratcheted them from warp nine to warp nine point five.

And unfortunately, he agreed. He did need to sleep. He could feel fatigue dragging at him, pulling on him. Closing his eyes, he saw her. Just like he knew he would. Just like he had every time he'd tried to sleep since this whole thing started. Kathryn. His Kathryn. Sometimes she was lying on the bed in sickbay, sensors blaring at him that she was dead or dying. Other times he saw her bloodied and mangled, reaching for him to help her. Then there were the other times like how he saw her now. Defeated. Crumpled on a bare floor, holding tight to the body of their daughter. Her blue eyes were vacant and unseeing even as her hands tightened in Madelyn's clothes as though her grip alone could bring their daughter back to life.

"Where were you, Chakotay? We held on as long as we could, but you never came. You let her down. You let me down. And now we're both dead. You failed us." She turned to him and he could see now the hollow film of death had settled over her eyes. "You were too late."

Chakotay sat up, gasping for air. His heart felt like it would beat itself right out of his chest. Swinging his legs off the bunk and sitting up, he scrubbed shaking hands over his face and through his hair. It had just been another dream. They weren't dead yet. They couldn't be. Milo wouldn't have gone to all this trouble just to kill them now. Of course, that didn't mean any number of other horrible things couldn't have happened to them by now.

The door to the ready room slid open, and Tom's head poked inside. Spotting Chakotay sitting up on the bed, he walked the rest of the way into the room. "Everything okay?"

"Tom?" Chakotay asked, still feeling half way between waking and dreaming. "What are you doing in here?"

"You didn't answer the chime." Tom waved a hand absently towards the door. "It's been six hours."

"Six hours?" Chakotay shook his head and got to his feet. "Anything new?"

"We're still closing ground on his ship and Seven is working on the long range scans, but nothing new there. I did, however, want to show you this," Tom paused, tapping a PADD against his hand. "Lieutenant Nog came through for us and actually got an image from his uncle...this is Milo Cyronius."

Tom offered Chakotay the PADD with an image already captured on the screen. It wasn't a great image, obviously taken either by a surveillance camera or some other discreet recorder, but it was the first time Chakotay had actually laid eyes on the man. He was human. Older. Overweight. Beady eyes with a pasty white complexion. He hardly looked threatening. And yet, Chakotay loathed him on sight with every fiber in his being.

"He doesn't really look like what I imagined," Tom commented.

Chakotay tore his gaze away from the PADD with some effort. "What did you imagine?"

The tone was normal, the timber of his voice strong. The uncharacteristically stunted cadence of the words was the only thing off in his reply, and only a handful of people in the galaxy would have noticed it at all.

Tom swallowed, sympathizing with the untenable position the man in front of him was facing.

"If it means anything, from all indications, he doesn't run the kind of operation that you'd expect of someone in that...trade. His business is reputedly...clean. He doesn't deal in what his type call 'common trafficking'. Apparently, he's some sort of elitist in this circle, which means they probably haven't been as bad off as they could have been if they'd been in less...professional hands."

"Do you honestly think that makes me feel one tiny bit better?" The dangerous tinge in Chakotay's voice was clear to be heard now as he turned back from the pacing he'd begun, studying his companion. The muscles of Chakotay's cheek twitched as his teeth ground together. From anyone else, those statements might have been an invitation for a right hook to the jaw. From Tom Paris, who had a wife and daughter of his own, he knew the words were meant as the only form of comfort that could be offered right now. From one husband and father to another. That fact did not make the comfort any less cold.