Lotos Days
By Penny A. Proctor

Day 16 – Gunrath, Morning

Kathryn lay on her side, deliberately keeping still so she didn't disturb Chakotay. She wanted a few moments to herself, a few moments to study him and to think.

His face was peaceful as he slept, and his mouth was curved upward in the slightest of smiles. As well it should be, she thought with some satisfaction, after last night.

Last night. Last night had been extraordinary, she thought. Even though her body told her that last night was not her first experience, she had suddenly become as nervous as if it had been. He had sensed it and gone slowly, exploring her, letting her explore him, until the nervousness subsided and then was replaced by desire and need and urgency.

The intensity of the passion was not the only reason it had been so special. She had learned things about him, things that she had suspected and hoped. He was patient, far more patient than she; he was strong, but he knew when to keep the strength in check and when to use it; and he was seeking a partner, an equal. It was gratifying to know that her instincts about him had been right.

His mouth twitched slightly, and the smile deepened. She looked at him suspiciously. "You're awake, aren't you?"

Dark eyes opened, and the smile became a grin. "Good morning."

"Good morning." Now that he was awake, she felt free to surrender to the temptation she'd been fighting and began to stroke his chest lightly "Sleep well?"

His hand reached, his fingers threaded through her hair. "Very."

She shivered. The things this man could do to her with a simple touch. "Do – do you want some breakfast?"

"Maybe later."

She gave a soft sigh as he pressed a kiss against her neck, and let her head fall back, giving him better access. "Chakotay? That was our first time together, wasn't it?"

He stopped what he was doing and looked into her eyes. She meant more than simply their first time on Gunrath. "I think so," he said slowly. Then he smiled at her, a wicked smile that made her bones melt. "But it's not the last."

Breakfast could wait, she decided.

ACT THREE

Day 20- Voyager

It was well past 0200 when Tom finally made it to his quarters, and he expected to find B'Elanna asleep. Instead, she was sitting on the sofa with the television on but the sound turned off. "Hey," he said, "you should be in bed. You're sleeping for two, remember?"

"Tried," she said, and laid a hand on her belly. "Apparently she's not in the mood."

He sat down beside her and hooked an arm around her shoulders, but she didn't relax. "Uh huh. Something tells me she's not the only one in a mood."

"Don't patronize me."

"I'm not." He moved his arm, though. "I'm trying to find out what's wrong."

"Nothing."

"Right. That's why you're watching Bugs Bunny with no sound."

She frowned. "I don't understand why the duck isn't dead. The hunter keeps shooting him, but all that happens is that his beak gets rearranged. And the rabbit isn't even scorched."

"That's what makes it funny."

"What's so funny about it? Life isn't like that. In real life, if someone shoots, you're dead. Or you're vaporized. People get shot all the time and it isn't funny."

He finally understood, and closed a hand over hers. "I'm worried about them, too."

B'Elanna opened her mouth to argue, but then she let herself relax. Laying her head on Tom's shoulder, she said, "Gilmore is beside herself. I think she really cares about Harry."

"Yeah, I know."

"I gave Chakotay such a hard time about the shuttle. I hope he knows I was joking."

"He does."

"I've got this terrible feeling that we're never going to see them again. I want our daughter to know them. I want our family to be whole."

Tom nuzzled against her hair. "I do, too."

Day 20 – Gunrath

Chakotay set down the stem bolt and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The environmental controls of the fuel pod factory were malfunctioning again, and the place was heating up quickly. He and the three other workers in his unit had stripped down to the waist an hour ago. If the temperature didn't drop soon, production would have to shut down; the liquid fuel stored in the massive tanks was heat-sensitive until injected into the protective pods. In sustained high temperatures, the delicate chemical balance would begin to 'destabilize' – the supervisor's euphemism for 'explode'.

Most of the time, his job was mind-numbingly easy. The injection process was fully automated and generally worked well. Hollow pods, more than two meters tall and wide enough to hold three grown men, rolled up to four huge tanks filled with fuel. Robotic arms opened the three load ports and the infusion rods extended and the pumping began. When the precise amount of fuel was loaded, the rods retracted, the ports closed, and the pods rolled on to Logistics, in the next building.

His role as a technician was quality control, to take random samples and assure the integrity of the fuel and to be on hand for spot repairs if any glitches developed in the system. Glitches developed with some regularity, but usually could be handled in a matter of minutes. In fact, most of the time he was so completely bored that the rising heat was a welcome distraction.

If it weren't for Kathryn and the life they were building outside of work, he would have been despondent. When his mind wandered, it was to her and just thinking about her made him smile. Every day he discovered something new about her, and today he had realized that one of the things that drew him to her was the energy with which she attacked life. She brought the same passion to redesigning the Logistics and Transport process for greater efficiency as she did to her efforts to grow vegetables in a window box.

A red light began to flash. "That's it. We've got to drain the tanks," his supervisor called from the other side of the room. "Everyone over here."

'Everyone' consisted of Chakotay and two fellow technicians, and all three dutifully crossed to where the supervisor waited. The supervisor opened a panel, revealing a manual switch. With a great deal of effort, he twisted it. "Listen up," he said. "With the automated system down, we have to do this manually. I just opened the drains to the catchments below the building. Your job is to monitor the levels in the tanks and tell me when they're empty. We have to close the drains again or any residue that's left here will ignite and travel all the way down. And that, people, would not be good."

He showed them how to open the visual monitors and check the levels. It was the first time Chakotay had actually seen such a large volume of the liquid fuel; it was dark pink and so viscous it was almost a gel, and it drained very slowly.

His tank was almost empty when he thought of something – they had been spot-checking filled pods when the environmental controls went offline, and those were still sitting on the test beds across the room. "What about those pods?"

The supervisor shook his head. "They're sealed, so they should be safe."

The tech to Chakotay's right suddenly turned pale. "Oh, no, I left one open, I think -"

Chakotay realized he was flying through the air before he heard the explosion. At least, that was the way his mind processed it. He was flying, the room was engulfed in a white light, and then there was a thunderclap.

The wall stopped his flight and he was thrown to the floor. He felt a tearing and a burning in his throat, and then in his lungs as well as he breathed smoke. Coughing only increased the pain.

He dragged himself to his knees and looked around. One of the pods on the test beds had exploded, flinging fireballs of gelatinous fuel everywhere. Where was the fire suppression system? Why wasn't it active?

The room was beginning to fill with pinkish-gray smoke. It was getting hard to see. He began crawling toward the door, but his hand came down on another person. He knelt closer. It was the tech who had been on his right. He felt for a pulse, and found none.

There were others in the room, he remembered. He continued crawling, trying to stay below the rising smoke. The other tech was only a meter away, but she was also dead. He found the supervisor only when he heard the man groaning and followed the noise.

"We've got to get out," Chakotay told him. "Can you move?"

"Drain. Close the drain..." the supervisor moaned. "Then hit the emergency vent."

Chakotay understood. If they didn't close the drains, the fire could get into the tanks and travel to the catchments, resulting in an explosion that would probably destroy all the factories. Moving as best he could, he made his way to the panel on the wall and dragged himself upright. A sharp pain made it difficult to breathe, and he thought he must have at least one broken rib. Turning the drain control required more strength than he knew he possessed, but somehow he got it done.

Dropping to his knees, he returned to his supervisor and began to drag him toward the door. The room had never seemed so big before. Finally, he got them both into the corridor, and heard the door shut behind them.

The corridor was flashing with a red light and he heard people shouting. "Here!" he heard someone say.

"Vent," he gasped. They needed to hit the emergency control and vent the oxygen from the room.

"Got it," the voice said, and Chakotay let himself lose consciousness.