Part Three: Veins of a Traitor Run Deep

Kathryn Janeway made it to her quarters before breaking down completely. She locked the door and slumped against it, using it to ease herself to the ground where she crossed her legs and let her head fall into her hands. She sobbed quietly for a long time. Far too much of this was bringing back painful memories. It was the kidnapping on the Cardassian border, during that mission she had decided never to get involved with Starfleet Intelligence operations, and after Justin's death she wanted even less to do with it. Her position on the board of directors for the Romulan Senate Mission shouldn't have pushed her into this spiral. The worst part of it was Admiral Paris knew she couldn't handle it, or she thought he knew that. She finally calmed herself by breathing slowly, measuring each one. She tried to think back to the mental exercises Tuvok had taught her and kicked herself for not putting more time into it. Time was one of the things they had in abundance in the Delta Quadrant, but she always avoided it. What she remembered did the trick anyway and at long last she struggled to her feet. She made her way to the basin in the bathroom and filled it half way with cool water. She splashed it on her face and wiped it dry, staring at herself in the mirror as she did. So much of her life had been one devastating event after another, but she always held her head high through it. This would not get her down.

"Janeway to Gardner. Commander, will you join me a moment?"

"Yes, Admiral. I'm on my way."

It took him longer than she expected for him to get from his quarters to hers, but it was enough time for her to contain most evidence of her break down. The door chimed as she ran the brush through her hair and pushed it behind her ears. She straightened the uniform jacket, a habit she was sure she picked up from Paris in the early days as she couldn't remember a time she hadn't done that. Finally she responded. "Come in."

Justin stepped through the door, and instantly knew she had spent some time crying, although she had calmed herself better than most in the aftermath of a breakdown. "Are you alright, Admiral?"

She smirked. Of course he'd be able to tell. "Fine yes. I wanted to apologize for being short with you, I've…" She paused, not being one to divulge all, and especially not to a stranger.

"The name, I know. I regretted saying it the moment I did."

He'd know that too, she mused. "I'm glad you understand. I shocked myself, I don't know why it's so sensitive after so long."

"It has been a few years. How about we sit, discuss some things. I know you almost as well as you know yourself, but you don't know me at all."

She nodded and pointed to the little sitting area on the right side of the room before approaching the replicator with some hesitance. "This is a very, very new model."

"Speak to it." He teased lightly as he sat.

"Coffee, black." She tossed a glance at him before turning back. "You?"

"Please restate request." The computer chirped.

"Not you!" She growled.

He laughed lightly. "Coffee, black with a sugar."

She repeated the order and carried the two steaming mugs back to where he was. "Well, you're half right."

He took it with a slight nod. "Well, I need both the caffeine and the sugar rush to keep me going, I might as well combine it."

"Touché." She inhaled it for a moment before bothering to sip at it. "So… Justin." She took in a sharp breath as she did so. He was about what her Justin, Justin Tighe would have been in age now. Just thinking about him was causing her eyes to sting and she closed them as she continued to speak. "Where are you from?"

"Alaska. I went to school with William Riker, actually."

"Really?" She smiled, eyes still closed. "That's neat, I met him at the banquet when Voyager returned. Very intelligent man, smart to marry Deanna Troi, don't you think?"

"Did they finally do it?" He laughed and shook his head. "Riker and I made it through most of the Academy together before he began his Command courses and I dove into Intel Ops." He was studying her, and was pretty sure a tear had dripped down her cheek a bit ago.

"Did you know - never mind. Why aren't you commanding this ship?" She wiped at the tear confirming it was indeed one before taking another sip, eyes still closed.

He resisted the urge to question her. "Well, I thought it over, but from a purely tactical standpoint I can't command a specific starship while maintaining an operative position, despite the fact the Asteria is more or less ours to use."

"I see. The crew respects you, and Lieutenant Johnson knows you pretty well." She leaned against the sofa back and crossed one leg beneath her, finally daring to open her eyes.

He mimicked her relaxing as he rested his ankle atop his other knee and set the mug to balance on his calf. The curiosity of her unfinished question won him over and he asked, as gently as he could. "Did I know who?"

"Justin Tighe." She whispered, he barely heard it, but knew what name her lips were mouthing.

"I did. Fairly well for a while, we completed a few missions together prior to his assignment to the Cardassian border under Paris. After that mission we didn't see each other maybe twice. You were special to him though. Both times he mentioned you."

She smiled, a slow spreading one, her eyes not nearly as misty as they were before she shut them. "He… he was to me too." She was still whispering, but this time audibly.

"Double blow. I don't know how you got through that."

"Not by talking it out." She confessed

"No, obviously not. I'm well aware of the emotion you're holding back. If it's any help to you, you can trust me." He was comforting as he spoke in spite of the prying nature of his questions.

She shrugged. "I don't ever talk my feelings out, not even with my closest friends."

"This could be why it still hurts so much." He moved his hand from his knee to her lower arm and gripped it tight. "Well, anyway, I'm a good guy." He grinned like a school boy.

She had to return the enthusiasm, he was contagious. "Thank you. Now, how about we discuss the mission and get off of this emotional crap?"

"Oh yeah." He allowed himself to return to the present as he set the mug on the table beside him. "Why don't you access those files I sent now and we'll piece through them together? Oh and I left a few PADDs on your desk."

"Yes, I found them earlier." She set her mug down beside his and went to the desk console to do as he suggested.


Kathryn rubbed her tired eyes and set down her latest coffee mug, now empty like the last four. They'd been at it for three hours straight, delving into details about the possible traitor commanding the Renegade, every communication change, every staff issue, log and report. "I'm not cut out for intelligence work." She sighed and slumped down on the floor next to him, several PADDs between them. The carpeting on the decks plates was considerably thinner than the one on Voyager and she regretted sitting back onto it.

"It's one of those acquired tastes." He picked her mug up and his along with it to send through the replicator into the recycle setting. "Another?"

"No, please." She held her hand up before laughing at herself. It'd been a long time since she'd refused coffee, but it was making her sick at this point. "Perhaps we should consider food?"

"Yes, I suppose. The galley, Admiral?" He held his hand down to her.

She took it and let him help her to her feet. "While I may struggle with yours, you can call me Kathryn, Admiral still sounds awful to me."

He grinned. "Okay, Kathryn."

The two walked from her quarters down the four doors to the galley. When they entered most of the small crew was there. They nodded at the Admiral and Commander as they strolled in and ordered from one of the three replicators on the wall. They found an empty table near the farthest viewport and settled in.

"Four week mission is the shortest I've been on in some time." He commented as she fought with her corn cob.

"Yes, me too. Mind you my last deep space mission was seven years." She finally got it to stay still on the plate so she could coat the butter more evenly than the replicator had. "Well, I was hoping not to have it covered in the chicken sauce."

He shook his head. "Soup and sandwich. No mixing, no mess." He downed a spoonful of the vegetable filled broth and took a bite of his sandwich.

"Significantly less taste too, Commander."

He shrugged. "Eh, whatever."

"Am I interrupting?" Valerie's voice was rarely quiet, but it blended in with their surroundings, making it less intrusive.

"Not at all." Kathryn managed to respond without showing too many corn kernels as she did. "Please."

Ever the gentleman, Justin stood until Valerie had sat down next to Kathryn. He watched the two Midwestern ladies discussing their background and history living in traditionalist homes in the plains. Kathryn from Indiana, Valerie from Missouri.

As they conversed, Andrew bounded in and made it straight for their table, dropping to his knees next to it and supporting himself against it with his arms. "Hi, Admiral." He grinned.

She stared at him a moment before returning the smile. "Have you been relieved of duty, Mr. Starlin?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Ensign Velt decided I was getting tired."

"I don't see it." She teased. "Get something to eat and remind me to introduce you to ship command protocols."

"Aye-aye." He stood and hurried to find out what goodies he could access from the replicator.

Justin watched him closely as he went.

Valerie, clearly not clued in to the suspicions of Starfleet Intelligence regarding Kathryn's cadets, cocked her head to the side. "Justin, you don't like him do you?"

Justin shrugged and returned his attention to his soup. "Too peppy." He lied easily.

Kathryn finished her chicken and the remaining kernels on the cob before pushing the plate to the side of the table. Valerie had finished her macaroni and cheese and both women were now watching Justin pick at his remaining food.

"Damn, Justin, you're so difficult." Valerie ducked her head to catch his eye, which he lifted just enough to stare at her. She laughed and grabbed her plate and Kathryn's. "I'm going back to work. If I don't keep at it we'll drop to low impulse." There was a tone to her voice indicating her want for a big overhaul, but Justin ignored it. She sighed and left.

"Your mood changes without warning." Kathryn quipped as she slid around the table to sit beside him instead. She liked watching people, which didn't work too well if her back was to them. She leaned away from the table a little bit and nudged Justin.

"It's not the mood." He was cryptic as he stood up. "We'll be approaching coordinates for our rendezvous soon and I don't want to betray anything."

"I see. Are we returning to work, or will you be running off now?"

He picked his plate up and stepped back. "After you."

She rolled her eyes, hoping somewhat that he would have chosen the latter. "Thank you, Sir."

He dipped his head, all but bowing to her and she laughed. It'd been a while since she was on a ship, let alone commanding one. She could get used to the banter among crew again.

When they walked back into her quarters, the light mood dropped, both realizing how far they still had to go.

"This is tedious." She rubbed the back of her neck in anticipation of the work. "How do you do it?"

He shrugged and replicated still more coffee. "I just do. I keep in mind that everything in this job has a consequence, if I'm wrong someone will be punished unnecessarily. If I don't catch everything, the guilty party walks. In essence, I'm the victim's last hope." He grimaced as he handed her the sugarless mug. "A job I do not take lightly."

"Thank you very, very much." She giggled as she enunciated the words, more out of exhaustion, than enjoyment.

Justin rubbed his own eyes and picked an untouched PADD off of the table. He started pacing as he looked it over, his eyes darting back and forth. "This one concerned me the most." He laid the PADD in her open palm and spoke as she read it. "In his log entry, Stardate 56832.4, Captain Freemont had just been assigned to the Romulan Neutral Zone ordered to patrol the area. This was immediately before Praetor Shinzon requested a meeting with Starfleet. In this log entry he mentions the 'Romulan problem' and constantly uses the terms 'new leadership' and 'dying race.' Starfleet Intel has operatives decoding it now, but their preliminary theories rest on these code phrases being orders to someone on earth and that the constant mention would bring up this log in a search."

Kathryn scrolled up and down between the third and fourth paragraphs of the log. "Having been before the consult request, but after the attack on the Senate… he knew something.. He knew before we did, maybe even before his being reassigned?"

"That's what we picked up on. Also, many aboard deep space starships become curious when a subspace message goes interstellar and live from Command to the Enterprise rather than a standard subspace, but no one ever taps in. When we discovered the uplink from the Renegade to the live communiqué between you and Picard, there was a concern that if her were a traitor he assumed you knew more than you did."

"Making me more useful to Admiral Paris anyway." She mumbled as she took a swig of the hot liquid.

"If they're already watching you, yes it does."

"Where does Va'Ler fall into this, and how did the Admiral know she'd come to me?"

Justin took the PADD from her and scrolled down to the final paragraph before setting it back in her hand.

Tense times like these make me long for the gardens of the Academy, strolling from the common area after 8 in the evening, sun hitting my face as it sinks down, teachers leaving after a long day. She blinked hard. "It's like a physical map of what time I left every night this week and which direction I walked."

Justin sat on the coffee table and stared at her. "How many professors leave the Academy as late as you've been?"

"None." She sighed. "Just me, sometimes Tuvok, but he leaves a different direction than I, you can't see the sun setting from any other exit of that building and I'm the only one who lives in that direction."

"Admiral Paris read through that log hours before you showed up in his office looking for an assignment for eager cadets. It all fell into place. And what was a student doing at your door so early? Is that like her?"

"No." She whispered. "This could be entirely conjecture on Intelligence's part right?"

"It could be." He agreed, but said nothing to support that theory.

She shook her head again and set the PADD down. "How long has Freemont been in command of the Renegade?"

Justin stood back up and continued to pace, this time with a new PADD. "This is his second assignment, but first deep space mission. His first was a short escort mission to Vulcan, which is where we believe he made contact with Va'Ler."

"Before she enrolled?" It was a hypothetical question, she knew Va'Ler had not completed her entrance exam in time, but had squeezed her application in at the last possible moment before the semester began. "She was on Vulcan for a year prior to this semester, yes."

He nodded and held up a photo on the next PADD, the girl standing in front of Freemont was very similar to Va'Ler.

"Oh, no." She breathed.

"We can't ID her for sure, and most of this is circumstantial, against both of them, but there's a lot of it. Paris was going to send you with us at a later date, but the way it played out was too perfect, we had to dispatch."

"With or without half your officers." She commented lightly. "All three cadets knew about the orders to the Enterprise. Andrew himself said someone on board knew his father and the details spread like wildfire."

"Wherever they got their information, it wasn't from the Enterprise. There's a strict gag order on the crew. Andrew, Va'Ler, Phoebe, they may all be involved and were just using you to get more information, but we'll see."

"Bridge to Admiral Janeway and Commander Gardner."

She tapped her Commbadge. "Go ahead Bridge."

"We're an hour short of rendezvous, Admiral, but they've sent us a subspace hail."

"Put it through to my quarters." She got up and keyed in the communications frequency on the desk console.

She lit up as she saw Chakotay sitting in front of her. "Chakotay!"

"Hello, Kathryn. Admiral Paris didn't tell me we'd be meeting with you." Chakotay shifted in his seat, something he never did.

Kathryn picked up on it immediately and her tone became tight. "Send us your coordinates, Captain, and we'll get on with the mission at hand."

He nodded and cut transmission without another word.

Justin stared at Kathryn a moment. "Everything alright?"

"No, something's terribly wrong." She was surprised Justin didn't pick up on the change in his body posture, she was sure he could do that with people he'd never met before.

She turned sideways in the chair to face him directly. "I spent 18 hours a day with Chakotay for seven years straight, some days it was longer. Something has happened on that ship and we may be walking right into it."

"How well do you trust him?" His tone was cautiously even, knowing how close she was to her Voyager crew.

"I would never question his intention, honesty, and commitment, Commander." Her tone matched his.

"Than we have to assume he was trying to tell you something. They're cover may have been compromised."

She nodded and they left for the Bridge.


They emerged from the turbolift to discover only the officers on the bridge, no cadets.

The Ops Lieutenant in charge gave Ensign Ena a nod and she quickly spoke. "Admiral, it looks like they're operating at red alert, torpedo bays are armed and trained on us."

"Red alert, raise shields." Justin ordered firmly.

"So much for not getting into trouble." Kathryn mumbled to Justin before speaking louder. "Hail them!"

"No response, Admiral!" Ena Rose sounded concerned. "Admiral?"

"Yes?" Kathryn turned on her heel and stared at the Bajoran woman.

"It looks like all emergency pods have been launched and there are less than thirty people left on board, almost all… Reman." Her head shot up and she stared at Kathryn. "Two Humans, a Vulcan and a Klingon."

Kathryn spun around and shot a glance at Justin who was looking confused and concerned. "Remans? Commander, intelligence reported to the Board that the only vessel having left Remus was Shinzon's."

"We're watching the third planet closely, no one has left, none that we were aware of, only the one's on Shinzon's envoy." Justin sprinted to the ops station and started accessing the intelligence files cleared for the Bridge.

Kathryn tried desperately to keep her thoughts off of Chakotay and on their current problem, it wasn't working. She placed her hands firmly on her hips and thought for a moment. "Ensign Ena?"

"Admiral?" Her hands were shaking a little bit, clearly a desk job type of a girl.

"Fire phasers across their bow."

She hesitated before completing the order.

Justin smirked from the Ops station. "They're hailing us." He opened the channel and a tall, pale skinned Remun appeared before her.

"Janeway." His voice dripped with contempt. "They told us you were involved."

She dropped her arms to her side and stared him down, her diplomacy would not fail now. "What do you want with a Starfleet ship? You're one crew against an entire armada which could be here in a matter of moments."

"Your lead ship is caught up with our Praetor at the moment, who would command this armada?"

"Clearly you don't understand Starfleet protocol." She spun around. "End transmission. Fire at vital systems, I want their shields down and the remaining crew beamed aboard."

The ship banked hard to the side, throwing Kathryn with it. She recovered her footing with near grace as Justin came to the command level. He grabbed her arm and pulled her close to him to steady her and dropped his voice. "Kathryn, their warp trail emanates from the Renegade's position. They're a decoy, something to keep us occupied."

"Can you pick up the Renegade on sensors yet?" Kathryn whispered back.

"No, we're still too far off."

Another shot sent them both flying to the deck plates.

Kathryn pressed her hand against her head, she hit something and it was bleeding now. "Fire at will!" She ordered, at which Ena quickly responded. "Evasive pattern zero one delta!"

The Betazoid conn officer complied and the ship leapt forward before dipping down and rolling beneath the other.

Ena continued the barrage of phaser fire against the Remans, desperately trying to anticipate Velt's quick movements.

Kathryn struggled again to her feet and braced herself against the back of Ensign Velt's seat. Suddenly a volley of phaser fire and a single torpedo emitted from the other ship. "Hard to starboard!" She shouted over the alarms blaring.

It was too late.


To Be Continued…
*Warning - There will be blood, some violence. No major character deaths (mine or Paramount's), cross my heart, but the next is what T ratings are all about.*