Title:
Sands of Time
Author: Whoa Nellie ([email protected])
Series: Voyager
Rating:
NC-17
Codes:
J/C
Synopsis: Captain Chakotay and his crew prepare to
face the Borg queen knowing that the fate of the Federation rests with their
success or failure.
Author's
Notes: This story follows the events of
A Stitch in Time and The Time of Her Life, but it’s not necessary to have read
them first. These events assume all
canon through the movie Nemesis and thus doesn’t fit with any other Whoa Nellie
universe. Posted to ASC on November
13, 2006.
Acknowledgements: Paramount owns all the marbles, we just have
a lot more fun playing with them.
Feedback
is always appreciated, posted or
e-mail.
Whoa
Nellie's Romance Star Trek Fan Fiction Stories
http://whoanellie.fortunecity.com
SANDS
OF TIME
Captain Chakotay rubbed the back of his
neck wearily. It had been two days of
long shifts but the damage from their encounter with the Borg cube was almost
repaired. The Klingon vessel monitoring
the tachyon grid had not detected any cloaked vessels within a light year of
their position inside the Bassen Rift; unfortunately, things had not been as
quiet for the rest of the Alpha Quadrant during that time. A probe on the edge of the Rift had picked
up communications indicating that the Borg had taken three more homeworlds of
Federation races and were moving on Klingon space. With the older Admiral Janeway from the future as their queen,
the Borg were using very different tactics; just as effective but not the overwhelming, dominating invasion that they'd
tried at Wolf 359 years before. The
methodical pace of the Borg incursion gave them some time; however it also made
any unified defense virtually impossible.
The Starfleet resistance being coordinated by the Titan and Bozeman
through Deep Space Nine was barely even slowing the Borg down. If Voyager couldn't find a way to take out
Borg Queen Janeway, it would only be a matter of time before the Borg
completely controlled both the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.
Images from their last encounter with the
Borg flashed through his mind for the thousandth time and he resolutely shoved
them aside. Seeing Kathryn's shuttle
destroyed was a waking nightmare and, while he was relieved to discover that
she hadn't really been aboard, the hours between when he thought she'd been
killed and learning otherwise still haunted him. That night, when he still wasn't sure whether he was dreaming or
if she was really there, he couldn't do anything but be grateful that he hadn't
lost her so soon after getting her.
With the morning, however, frustration began building. Repairs had kept him busy so even though
she'd called him a few times, he'd found reasons to avoid her. Two days later, that frustration had
hardened into anger and he still didn't know what to say to her. He was interrupted by the sound of his ready
room door sliding open. "It's
customary to ask permission to enter."
"I didn't think you'd let me in if I
asked first," Janeway said.
"In fact, I'm starting to get the impression that you're avoiding
me." She got herself a cup of
coffee from the replicator and sat down across from him.
"I'm a little busy here," he
replied, forcing himself to remain calm.
Janeway took a sip of her coffee and eyed
him thoughtfully. "Nice try but
I've been in that exact same position behind that very same desk,
remember? After all we've been through
together over the years, don't you think you can just tell me what's on your
mind?"
"Have you gotten the subdermal
transponder like I ordered you to?" he asked, his voice more terse than he
intended.
"I didn't think--"
"It was necessary," he finished
for her. "One order, Kathryn, I
gave you one order and you just ignored it.
Did it ever occur to you, did you even give it one second's thought
before disregarding it?"
Janeway set her cup down on the desk and
sat up straighter in her chair.
"Chakotay?"
"Captain Chakotay," he corrected
her. "Damn it, Kathryn, I am in
charge here; this is my ship, not yours anymore."
"If we're playing rank," her jaw
was tightly clenched giving her voice a hard, gritty edge, "then it's
Admiral Janeway to you."
He stood up and began pacing as he talked,
his voice getting progressively louder.
"Fine, Admiral Janeway, you completely ignored a direct order from
me--the man Admiral Ross put in charge of this mission, and don't tell me you
haven't had a chance. You had two hours
after we first detected the Borg cube outside of the Rift; it's been two days
since then and I haven't seen any reference to the procedure being done
yet."
She remained seated, picking her coffee
cup back up to keep her hands occupied.
"It hardly seemed necessary once my other self believed that I was
dead. Obviously I'm not going to be
able to negotiate with her now."
"If I didn't think it was necessary,
I would have said so."
"You haven't said anything at all to
me in two days," she pointed out.
Chakotay bit back in response and took a
deep breath to calm himself. She was as
frustrating to deal with now as she ever was.
"I have a ship to look after, the same ship that you endangered
with your little stunt. We had a lot of
damage to repair and we wouldn't have suffered as much damage if I'd known you
weren't on that shuttle. I would have
stayed long enough to put up a good show without risking this ship or crew on a
rescue. You didn't consider that, did
you, Admiral? You never think beyond
yourself--your responsibilities, your duties, your obligations. This is my mission, my ship, my
responsibility and my crew; you answer to me here. You had no business running off to pull off a solo stunt like
that, not to mention dragging the Doctor into it and swearing him to
secrecy--he's not your Chief Medical Officer anymore. For all of your devotion to your crew out in the Delta Quadrant,
it wasn't really about anyone else, was it?
It was about you--you being a good Captain, you living up to whatever
standards you set for yourself. Do you
ever consider anything from someone else's point of view except your own? Do
you even care how other people feel or is everything about you? You would have gone off half-cocked on your
own to fight the new queen if I hadn't been there because that's what you
do. You decide that nobody else can
help you and everyone is better off if you just sacrifice yourself for the good
of humanity. Damn it, Kathryn, when did
you develop this martyr complex? Was it
finding out that Mark's life had gone on without you? Or have you always been this self-centered?"
"That'll be enough, Captain,"
Janeway snapped. She slammed down her
coffee cup and stood.
"You can't confine me to quarters for
speaking my mind this time," he countered. "But if I think you're a danger to this ship, this crew or
this mission, I can make sure that you don't see the outside of your quarters
until this is over."
.....................................................................
Chakotay bounced Miral gently on his
knee. Tom and B'Elanna had brought the
baby over to visit and they were sitting in his ready room. "I can't believe how big she's
gotten."
"Unfortunately she's also gotten
mobile," Tom remarked with a rueful expression but a touch of pride in his
voice. "She gets into everything
and she's incredibly fast for having such short legs."
"Tom," Chakotay hesitantly
touched on the subject they'd all been avoiding since they'd entered his ready
room. "I'm sorry about your family
on Earth. I don't know if your father
was still at Starfleet Headquarters when the Borg showed up or not, he might
have been home with your mother."
Tom half-heartedly nodded then shrugged
and finally busied himself with picking up Miral's toys from where she'd tossed
them on the floor. "Nobody's
family will be safe if the Borg can't be stopped. Once we take out the
queen, then anybody who has been assimilated can be turned back. That's what we need to concentrate on
now."
"What's the plan?" B'Elanna
asked. "My family on Quo'nos would
have kept Miral while we came to find you, but given the Borg situation, it
didn't seem any safer to leave her there than bring her with us. We do want to help."
Chakotay gently tapped Miral's little nose
and smiled down at her when she grabbed his finger. "Our plan blew up along with that shuttle in our last
encounter with the Borg. We're still
working on a new strategy so if you have any thoughts, I'd like to hear
it."
"Where's Janeway?" Tom
wondered. "It was a huge relief to
find out that she wasn't really dead.
That was quite a show she put on."
Chakotay busied himself with handing Miral
back to her mother and carefully kept his voice neutral. If there was anyone he could talk to about
the fight he'd had with Kathryn, it would be the two of them, but it didn't
seem right. Both Kathryn and him were
private people who didn't casually discuss personal matters with others and
this, more than anything, was a very private matter. "She's probably in her quarters; you should stop by and see
her if you haven't yet."
Tom wandered around the room. "It's just kind of strange to be in
here without her sitting behind the desk, you know?"
"Given the situation, especially the
identity of the new Borg queen, the admirals felt that it would be better for
someone other than Admiral Janeway to have command of the mission,"
Chakotay explained.
B'Elanna sighed. "Janeway, queen of the Borg; who would have imagined
that?"
.............................................................................
Chakotay wandered the corridors, watching
his crew go about their duties. He
nodded to them as he passed by, stopping occasionally to peer over their
shoulders at the display readouts. They
knew more about the Borg than ever, but the Borg now understood them better
than ever as well. They would likely
get only one chance to take the queen out and that would be the last, best
chance that the rest of the Federation had to avoid being assimilated. Every idea he'd had just didn't seem like a
good enough plan and he was hoping that a walk around the ship would spark
something, a memory of some incident in the Delta Quadrant where they'd gotten
out of trouble in a way that might work here.
He'd also been thinking back to his Maquis days and the strategies
they'd used against more powerful opponents back then. Borg Queen Janeway wouldn't know most of the
Maquis strategies so those were the more likely possibilities, but her Delta
Quadrant days had been so much longer ago that those memories might be faint
enough for something to work. A voice
calling his name from behind drew him out of his contemplation.
"Captain Chakotay," Geordi
jogged down the corridor to catch up to him.
"The last of the repairs are done.
We're all ready to go, are we still heading for Romulus?"
"Eventually," Chakotay replied. He gestured for Geordi to walk with
him. "Why didn't you just call me
on the comm?"
Falling into step with his much taller
captain, LaForge grinned. "You
were patrolling the battlements.
Captain Picard used to do the same thing on the Enterprise in tense
situations."
"Really?" Chakotay smiled back
at his First Officer and shook his head.
"I was just trying to come up with an ingenuous plan to defeat the
Borg, I don't suppose you have anything like that on you?"
"Sorry, sir," he said. "Reg and I were thinking of something
but we haven't been able to figure out how to use it effectively."
Chakotay stopped in front of the
turbolift. Entering, he waited for
Geordi to join him before giving the destination. "Main Engineering," he told the computer. He looked at LaForge. "Why don't we take a look at what
you've been working on so far."
Down in Engineering, they found Barclay
going over the repair logs. Geordi got
his attention. "Hey, Reg, the
Captain wants to hear the idea we've been playing with."
"Captain, sir," Barclay snapped
to attention.
"Relax, Mr. Barclay," Chakotay
admonished him. "What have the two
of you been cooking up?"
Reg led them over to a computer terminal
and brought up a file. "Nanites,
sir, specifically sentient nanites.
They developed as a result of a lab accident onboard the Enterprise D
years ago and we left them on Kavis Alpha IV to live. Commander LaForge and I were trying to find a way to use them
against the Borg--assuming they would agree to help. We'd have to ask them, of course."
"Nanites were considered as a
possible weapon at Wolf 359," Geordi explained. "It was decided that regular nanites would work too slowly
to be useful at that time, but they didn't consider asking the sentient nanites
for help as far as I know."
Reg picked up their train of thought. "So far we haven't been able to find a
way to use the nanites without it being a suicide mission for them and that
just didn't seem right with them being self-aware and everything."
Geordi offered a slim hope. "It's been years since we've been in
contact with them, maybe they could think of a way to outmaneuver Borg
nanoprobes or shut down the cubes without allowing the ship to self-destruct
with them still onboard. Of course we'd
need to find a way to get them onto a cube in the first place."
"Still, it's a place to start and it
couldn't hurt to ask," Chakotay acknowledged. "Good thinking--"
His commbadge chirped, interrupting his instructions. "Captain Chakotay here."
Janeway's voice came over the link. "Captain, I have an idea I'd like to
discuss with you. Would you come to my
quarters, please?"
"I'm on my way," he replied,
cutting off the signal. Addressing the
two men, he noted. "Keep working
on possible applications and give the coordinates for Kavis Alpha IV to the
helm. Let the Klingons know where we're
going, but send someone to deliver the message in person. I don't want to risk the Borg monitoring our
transmissions. It's not likely here in
the Rift, but let's not take any chances."
Geordi nodded. "Yes, sir."
Minutes later, Chakotay rang the door
chime to Janeway's quarters, nerves fluttering slightly in anticipation of
whatever she wanted to talk to him about.
He chastised himself, he was the Captain of this ship not the First
Officer, but at the moment he just felt like a man who'd had a fight with his
significant other. When the door slid
open, he stepped inside almost cautiously.
"Admiral, you wanted to see me?"
"Yes, thank you for coming so
quickly," she greeted him.
"Relax, Chakotay, I'm not going to bite. I was angry with you earlier, but I've had time to think about
what you said."
"Admiral--" he began, only to be
cut off.
"You were right," she
interrupted. "Not about everything
but enough to give me an idea."
Chakotay acknowledged her gesture to sit
and joined her on the sofa. She was
calmer than he'd expected her to be and he wasn't sure if that was good or
bad. Either way, she was here as an
advisor so he'd hear her out.
"I am a do-it-yourself type,"
Janeway admitted. "That was my
biggest weakness in command training.
You know that part of the command officer test where you have to be able
to order someone to their death? I knew
what I had to do but I still tried to go myself the first time I took that
test. Learning to delegate was the
hardest thing for me to do."
"I'd never have guessed," he
remarked dryly.
She shot him a look of amused
exasperation. "She--my Borg queen
self--has the same weaknesses as I do and that just may be her Achilles heel. She expected me to try to take her on
face-to-face because that's both of our instinct. That was my mistake, a mistake I wouldn't have made if I'd
listened to you." She shifted closer to him, her hand moving up to
caress his face tenderly. "You've
been trying to get through to me that I don't have to be alone, I don't have to
do this by myself. I'm sorry it took me
so long to realize it; I'm sorry for what I put you through. Given that my other self stole the necessary
components and violated the Temporal Prime Directive to come back here herself
instead of just sending a message the way the future Harry did with that
slipstream incident, then it's a good bet that she's a lot like me in that
regard. I think that is the key to
defeating her."
"What are you suggesting?"
"Starting my own collective," Janeway
replied.
.......................................................................
Chakotay was talking quietly with
Janeway and Seven at the briefing table
when the door opened to admit the rest of his senior staff and Captain Worf,
Tom and B'Elanna from the Klingon vessel.
"All right, everybody have a seat and let's get started. Admiral Janeway will explain the plan we're
working on."
Janeway nodded to Chakotay and then sat
forward to address the assembled group, her demeanor all business. "We know from past experience that if
we can disrupt the connection between the queen and the Collective, the Borg
become helpless and many of them even self-destruct. If we can separate Borg Queen Janeway even for a few minutes,
that should be enough time to allow Voyager to beam her physically off the cube
and our Doctor can suppress her neural transmitter to prevent her from
re-establishing contact."
Geordi leaned forward, his arms resting on
the table. "How did you accomplish
that the last time?"
"Allowing someone infected with an
anti-Borg virus to be assimilated," B'Elanna explained.
"That's what got us into this mess to
begin with," Janeway remarked.
"My future self was the 'someone' assimilated."
Tom piped in his two cents. "Let's not go there again."
Janeway gave a small grin. "Agreed, this time we're going to go
after her on a neural level. I've
already spoken to Seven and Axum about this and they believe that it stands a
good chance. We'll use neural transceivers
to interlink our minds and then use our combined mental strength to disrupt the
queen's connection with the Borg. We
won't have much time once we initiate contact, but at the very least we should
be able to get the shields on her cube down long enough to beam her away and
deal with her here. In essence we'll be
creating our own Collective to try to overwhelm and separate her from her
Collective."
"If you need volunteers to join your
Collective," Geordi said, "I'm sure there are a lot of crew members
who would be willing to help."
Seven shook her head firmly. "The Collective can be disorienting to
those who have never experienced it. I
believe that the best probability of success requires that only those who have
been joined with the Collective before should participate. Axum and myself were members of the Borg for
many years and Admiral Janeway has also experienced assimilation however
briefly."
B'Elanna closed her eyes and reached for
Tom's hand under the table. "I
guess that means me, then."
"B'Elanna," Tom began.
B'Elanna sighed. "If we don't succeed here, our daughter will grow up in a
maturation chamber aboard a Borg cube.
I'm in."
Janeway nodded, pleased. "That'll make four."
"Five," Chakotay said. At her look of dissent he uttered only one
word. "Scorpion."
Janeway tightened her jaw. "Fine, five of us then."
"Hugh!" Geordi exclaimed. "How many minds will you need to give
you a good chance of success?"
Seven looked toward Janeway. "The more minds in the link, the
stronger the signal will be. Do you
know of other former drones?"
"A whole colony of them," Geordi
said. "Of course we didn't have
the ability to remove their implants back then but they're still there as far
as I know. If we offered to remove
their Borg hardware, I'm sure at least some of them would be willing to help. Hugh was a Borg drone who was separated from
the Collective for a time and learned individuality from us. Later he left the Collective with a bunch of
others who picked up individuality from him when he rejoined the link. As strange as it might sound, he's sort of
been a friend."
Seven made some quick calculations. "If we could get twelve of the
strongest minds among them, that would put us at the limit of the neural
interface capability."
"I build up castles; I tear down
mountains; I make some men blind; I help others to see," Chakotay
murmured, thinking over the plan that was quickly taking shape.
Janeway looked at him questioningly. "What was that?"
He gave a casual shrug. "An old riddle about sand. One grain of sand isn't much to talk about
but the more grains you put together, the more it can accomplish. Mr. Barclay, these nanites on Kavis Alpha
IV--do you think they could be useful here?"
"Yes, sir," Barclay
replied. "In fact we wouldn't even
have to get them onto a cube with this plan.
We could use them in our Collective; their sentience would add more
neural strength, in effect amplifying the signal. It would seem like a Collective of millions but it shouldn't put
any added strain on the neural interface."
Geordi pointed at Reg. "They may also be able to buffer the
individuals in our Collective, protect them from the noise of the Borg
Collective a little."
Chakotay nodded and gestured toward
Captain Worf. "Voyager will
continue on to Kavis Alpha IV to request help from the nanites there. It might be better if you approached the
colony of ex-drones since your ship has a cloak. The less the Borg know about our activities, the better. B'Elanna, Tom and Miral will be assigned
quarters here to help prepare from our end."
"Agreed," Worf
acknowledged. "Hugh knows me, I
will be able to make contact with him and explain the situation."
...................................................................
That evening, Chakotay was in Admiral
Janeway's quarters for dinner. They
still needed to talk about what had happened and traveling to speak to the
sentient nanite population would give them that time. He carried the wine glasses over to the table as she set their
dinner plates down. Neither of them had
said more than a couple of words in the fifteen minutes since he'd
arrived. He felt like he should
apologize for some of what he'd said to her before, he hadn't meant to say
everything that he had. "Kathryn,
about earlier--in my ready room, I was angry and upset. I said some things that were uncalled for
and I'm sorry. You're right about the
transponder being unnecessary now, I just needed a reason to be mad at you
instead of feeling like you betrayed me personally with that whole shuttle
incident."
She reached out to him, resting her hand
on his broad shoulder. "Let's just
put it all behind us and concentrate on the future."
"All right."
Sitting down, she poked at her food. "While we're talking about the future,
I'm not sure it's a good idea for both of us to be in the link."
Chakotay sat back and regarded her in
quiet frustration. "I thought we
settled that at the briefing."
"No, I just didn't argue with you in
front of your crew at the briefing," she countered. "Voyager will have to hold its own in a
direct battle with a Borg cube long enough for our Collective to take on the
Queen. You should be on the
bridge."
"Commander LaForge has been in battle
against the Borg before, he's also been in command of a starship during crisis
situations before," he pointed out.
"I'll discuss some strategies with him before I turn command over,
but he's an engineer at heart and if I know one thing about engineers it's that
they can be very creative in a pinch.
He'll do fine; I can do more for this mission as part of the link."
Janeway laid her fork down and stared at
the untouched food on her plate.
"You're right, of course.
I'm just . . . "
"Kathryn," he coaxed her to look
up at him. "Leaning on me doesn't
make you weak; the whole point of your idea to form this little Collective is
to draw strength from each other."
"The whole is more than the sum of
its parts," she said.
He squeezed her hand tenderly. "Exactly, I realize that you're
probably more uneasy about letting me, not to mention so many other people,
inside your head, but isn't that what makes this a good plan? The fact that the Borg Queen wouldn't expect
you to think of it is where we'll get the element of surprise."
"But she thinks I'm dead,"
Janeway pointed out. "And this is
exactly how we disconnected Seven from the Collective so my other self might be
expecting the two of you to try this.
Maybe you should take the lead in our Collective, let her think that it's
just you and Seven combining forces. As
far as she's concerned, you and Seven are still romantically involved. You should try to keep her thinking that as
long as possible; it'll be a shock to her to find out about our
involvement. As soon as you've established
a strong connection, I'll bring in the reinforcements and try to overwhelm
her."
Chakotay picked up on her train of
thought. "If those sentient
nanites can provide a buffer for us
without her detecting them, we might be able to bait her into a trap and
catch her off-guard. That's a good
thought."
"We make a good team," she
acknowledged, the intensity of her expression conveying a double entendre to
the simple statement.
He could tell just from looking at her
that she was forcing herself far outside of her personal comfort zone to even
suggest this plan. Using their romantic
relationship as a weapon against the Borg Queen would mean that everyone in
their link would know all of the intimate details of their involvement; something
that went against every instinct she had.
Once again he was reminded that there was nothing she wouldn't sacrifice
for her crew and in that moment he wanted to offer her some measure of solace. Reaching for her hand, he stood up and drew
her to her feet. Dinner was forgotten
as the need to belong, the need to feel an intimate connection, became
paramount.
It was getting easier to simply relax into
the warm, comforting haven of Chakotay's arms. She tilted her head back in anticipation of his lips and
welcomed their crushing force. There
was no heart-pounding urgency, just a meandering tendril of desire weaving
through her. Her hands rested against
the broad expanse of his chest as he towered over her, her own personal pillar
of strength. She felt him release her
hair from its bun and bury his fingers in the tresses to hold her close. His body's burgeoning response pressed into
her and she pushed herself against him, frustrated by the layers of clothing
separating them. A sense of warmth slowly
spread across her body and everywhere it touched, it left a pulsing need in its
wake. Breaking the kiss, she met the
intensity of his deep, brown eyes with a single, commanding look. Everything that needed to be said between
them was conveyed in that glance; she led the way to the bed, pulling off her
own uniform and hearing him discard his clothing as he followed.
He stood behind her, his hands caressing
the bared skin of her back and hips while she pulled the blankets on the bed
down. He was delighted to feel her
arching her body into the gentle pressure of his hands, completely comfortable
in their unclothed condition. Her
resistance to feeling vulnerable with him at the beginning of their relationship
was slowly but surely fading. Catching
her hips in his hands, he briefly rubbed his own nude body against her,
eliciting a whimper from Kathryn before crawling into bed beside her. The blankets were shoved unceremoniously to
the foot of the bed so that he could admire the petite body next to him. His gaze traveled the length of her body,
from her toes all the way up to her hair fanned out across the pillows. She met his eyes, a look of desire that
implored him to come to her, but he resisted the invitation; instead he lowered
his head to brush a tender kiss across her lips, murmuring soft words of
assurance. His own body begged him to
join them, but he shoved his own physical needs aside to indulge himself in
other ways. Propped on one elbow, his
hand lightly trailed down her pale skin, even paler in comparison to the dark
sheets and his own tanned skin. Her
body leapt under his touch, her gasps growing in urgency with every
second. When his fingers had caressed
and fondled each breast then continuing further down to comb through the short,
curly hair at the junction of her thighs, his head dipped to follow the path
his fingers had journeyed. His mouth
closed over the straining peak of one breast just as his fingers delved into
the heated warmth of her body. He could
feel her hips buck at the erotic contact and she grasped his head with her
hands to hold his mouth against her, urging him with her body and words for
more.
What had started slow and easy quickly
became a sharp, aching need. When she
would have pulled the covers up, he had pushed them down to leave them both
naked and exposed, the lights in the room still at full illumination. Instead of feeling uncomfortable, however,
she felt excited. His admiring gaze
over her nude, utterly exposed body had kindled a spark that his touch heated
up and it was now a conflagration of desire raging through her. Everything else was forgotten except for the
wet heat of his mouth suckling her breast and his fingers intimately stroking
the dripping, pulsing center of her body.
Occasionally his thumb would brush against the sensitive nub at the
entrance which sent electric charges racing through her. Cool air wafted through the room and she
urged his mouth to her other breast to warm it as he had its twin. She could feel her body's response growing
and she arched into the pressure of his hand wanting more of that delicious
sensation. It became harder and harder
to catch her breath as the pressure in her hips tightened to an almost painful
intensity and then mercifully exploded in a burst of pleasure that radiated
through every muscle in her body.
While she basked in the afterglow of
her orgasm, relaxed but still breathing hard, he shifted to settle himself
between her thighs and his mouth sought hers for a long, deep kiss. Her arms immediately went around his neck,
hugging him close, as her legs wrapped around his hips to hold his body
intimately against hers. Her body
writhed sensuously beneath him; she was making no effort at all to inhibit her
response which only served to fuel his body's desires. With his hands holding her hips steady, he
joined them with a single, powerful thrust and began stroking in and out of her
with hard, deep strokes. He broke the
kiss to pull back for more leverage and felt her small, sharp teeth latch on to
one of his nipples with erotic gusto.
Fire shot through his body from his chest to his groin and he groaned
his pleasure, his hips slamming into her harder and faster. She had her legs tight around his waist and
forced him even deeper into him with every thrust. The pleasure completely consumed him, his ears roaring from the
blood pounding through him. Her body
spasmed beneath him, a second orgasm gripping her and spurring him even
further. His movements became almost
frantic, his hips jerking spasmodically against her until his own release ripped through him and he collapsed
against her.
"You really are very good at
this," Janeway remarked wryly once her breathing and heart rate had
returned to normal. She gripped the
edge of the blanket with her toes and pulled it far enough up to reach with her
hands, covering both of their exhausted bodies.
Chakotay rolled to his side and drew her
against his chest before helping her adjust the blankets around them. "You're not so bad yourself. Although, there is one thing I've been
meaning to discuss with you."
"Oh?"
"My Captain's yacht," he said
with mock seriousness. "When it
was your yacht, you never touched the Aeroshuttle and yet the first chance you
had once it was my Aeroshuttle, you blew it up."
She grinned against the warm,
sweat-dampened skin of his chest.
"Consider it payback for all of the shuttles you crashed in the
Delta Quadrant."
............................................................................
Chakotay looked up from the display screen
on his desk at the sound of the door chime.
"Come."
LaForge entered the ready room waving a
PADD which he handed the captain as soon as he reached the desk. "The preparations for the nanites are
complete and we're ready to beam them up.
The holding unit they transmitted specifications for is finished and Reg
and Seven have designed a communications system for it so that we can
communicate with them. They can help
with the design for their interface with the neural link on the way to
rendezvous with Worf and Hugh's people."
"Good," Chakotay reviewed the
information on the PADD and then entered his authorization before handing it
back. "Have them proceed, but I'd
like to talk to you if you have some time."
"Yes, sir," LaForge
replied. He hit his communicator. "LaForge to Barclay, proceed with
transport and inform the Bridge when the nanites are safely onboard."
Chakotay gestured toward the
replicator. "Do you want
anything?"
"No, sir; I'm fine." At his captain's nod, LaForge followed him
over to the sofa under the window.
"Is there a problem, Captain?"
"No," Chakotay assured him. "At least nothing apart from the
problem we started this mission with. I
just wanted to talk about the upcoming battle.
I know I'm putting you in a difficult position, but I also know that you
can handle it; I wouldn't even consider it otherwise. Your service record shows you to be resourceful and able to rise
to the most difficult of challenges--at least that's how Captain Picard and
Captain Riker describe you. You'll have
to keep Voyager in one piece and in range of the Borg cube long enough for us
to separate the Queen from the Collective and beam her off. Captain Worf and his crew will be helping
where they can, but she'll target Voyager."
Geordi nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, sir, I've been giving it a lot of
thought. I've gone over the
modifications made to Voyager and I found a reference to an incident where a
female Q introduced changes to the ship that strengthened the shields enough to
allow Voyager to safely enter a quantum singularity. Having Engineering duplicate those changes would buy us more time
in the fight."
"You have done your homework,"
Chakotay said, impressed. "I'd
almost forgotten about that. B'Elanna
handled those modifications at the time; she might be able to give you some
engineering insight beyond what was in the ship's log."
"I'll see if she can work with Reg on
that," Geordi suggested.
Chakotay sat back and glanced out the
window. "You know about modulating
phaser frequencies and shield harmonics in battles with the Borg but there's
also the question of handling their tractor beam. From this point on, I think you should start working up a battle
plan on your own so that nobody in the link, myself included, knows about any
tricks or evasive maneuvers you come up with.
Once the link makes contact with the Queen and distracts her from the
battle, the Klingons should be able to bring the Borg shields down the same way
they did in the Rift."
Geordi interrupted him with a
thought. "That's assuming they
don't adapt. I've been working on other
ways to get through their shields and I have a few ideas for breaking free of a
tractor beam."
"Good," Chakotay replied. "Have the transporter room standing by
to beam the Queen to Cargo Bay 2 the instant those shields fall so that the
Doctor can disable her connection to the Collective; at that point, the cube
should be virtually defenseless. Also,
if I were you I'd think seriously about asking Tom Paris to take the helm
during the battle. He's the best pilot
I've ever seen and he's gotten Voyager through quite a few scrapes."
"Is that an order, sir?" Geordi
asked. Putting a civilian at the helm
of a Federation starship at any time was unusual, during a battle was unheard
of.
"No, Commander, just a
suggestion. You will be in complete
command of this vessel during the battle and I want you to select your Bridge
crew so that you're confident in your ability to work together. Use one of the holodecks for some battle
simulations with your team if you'd like and use any ship's resources you need
to prepare for this, you don't need my authorization. I don't even want to know how you're planning to handle the
battle so that I can't take that knowledge into the link with me. One more thing, after I turn command over to
you, I want you to change all of the command codes. If anything goes wrong, I don't want the Borg to be able to use
me to control Voyager."
"Understood, sir," Geordi
acknowledged. "And I will give
some thought to the Bridge crew. I'll
review Mr. Paris's service record during his time on Voyager as well as the
service records for all of the experienced pilots we have onboard."
Chakotay sat forward and met LaForge's
eyes. "I don't expect you to win
this battle, Geordi, just keep us in the fight long enough for our Collective
to take out the Queen. That's all we
need."
"You'll get it, sir."
............................................................................
Captain's Log: Supplemental--We have rendezvoused back inside the Bassen Rift
with the Klingon vessel carrying two dozen former Borg drones. Only twelve can be used in the link, the
others came to provide assistance as well as enhanced defense in the event that
the ship is boarded during the battle.
Mr. LaForge has assigned the extra drones to specific regions of the
ship, including two in Engineering so as to provide quick repair of any key
systems that sustains damage. The
neural interlink is ready as well as the interface with the holding container
for the million nanites that we picked up at Kavis Alpha IV. All that's left at this point is locating
the Queen and getting to her ship.
While the Cubes have ignored Voyager for
the most part, we can't continue to rely on that when we penetrate Romulan
space. At some point, the Borg Queen
will decide to assimilate Voyager and it's absolutely essential that this ship
reach the Cube or Unimatrix where the Queen is currently located without taking
too much damage; there'll be more than enough opposition to deal with when we
find the Queen. To that end and thanks
to all of the extra brain power onboard, a means has been devised to increase
the power of the Klingon ship enough to allow them to extend their cloak around
Voyager. Probes at the edge of the Rift
are currently scanning for the specific neural frequency that would identify
Borg Queen Janeway. One small mercy to
the older Admiral Janeway being the Borg Queen was that it allowed the Doctor
to isolate the neural frequency of her brain based on our Admiral Janeway's
brain wave patterns. As soon as that
frequency is located, Voyager and the Klingons will set course. The delays have been frustrating for
everyone as news of Borg dominance
increases across Federation space. Time
has been our enemy from the beginning in spite of the fact that the Borg
incursion has been slow and methodical; the sands of time have been slipping
through our fingers too quickly to catch.
The resistance has been able to slow them down on a few fronts, but they
are fighting a losing battle.
At this time, I am turning full command of
Voyager over to my first officer, Commander Geordi LaForge, until we have
succeeded in extracting the Borg Queen from the Collective.
................................................................
Chakotay and Janeway both roused instantly
in response to the chirp of the communications system. Out of habit, Janeway reached across to grab
the active communicator only to encounter Chakotay's hand already there. She sat back and combed her fingers through
her tousled hair as she waited for him to answer it.
"Captain Chakotay here."
"It's Commander LaForge, sir; sorry
to wake you but we've located the Queen's neural frequency. We've also detected probes deployed
throughout Romulan space emitting a tachyon field. It seems that the Borg are using our strategy against us."
Janeway sighed softly. "Damn."
LaForge continued before Chakotay could
say anything. "I've already
discussed the situation with my team and if we can take the probes out of
alignment, we should be able to create a passageway for the ships to travel
through without immediately raising any suspicion. Mr. Paris believes he can use the Delta Flyer to nudge the probes
far enough out of position to disable the tachyon grid from within the
cloak. He's on his way to the shuttle
bay along with one of Hugh's men. As
soon as they're ready to launch, we'll set a course out of the Rift. Assuming all goes as planned, we'll reach
the target in about eleven hours but you should gather your people and be ready
to initiate your end of the plan. If
the Borg catch on to what we're doing, we'll have to fight our way through to
get within transporter range of the queen.
I'm putting the ship at red alert."
"Understood," Chakotay
acknowledged with admiration for his First Officer's initiative. Geordi was in command so the decisions were
his and there was no question in his voice about whether or not his captain
approved. He was just telling Chakotay
and Admiral Janeway what the current situation was, not to mention that
almost-order for them to report to the cargo bay where the neural interface had
been set up.
Janeway was already out of bed and
reaching for her uniform. "Stormed
at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of Death, into
the mouth of Hell rode the six hundred."
He slid out of bed on her side and pulled
her to him, dropping her uniform on the bed so he could hold her in his
arms. "The Charge of the Light
Brigade?"
"It's been running through my
mind," she said. "Into the
valley of death rode the six hundred."
His arms pressed her petite form closer to
his body. "We can do this; it'll
work."
She drew strength and comfort from him,
pulling his head down to hers for a long, tender kiss. "Together we can do anything."
....................................................................
Janeway and Chakotay left their quarters
walking side-by-side, purposeful strides that conveyed confidence and
professionalism to everyone they passed in the corridors. They didn't speak in the turbolift, everything
that needed to be said between them had already been said. Entering the cargo bay, they nodded
perfunctorily to the others who had already gathered and headed for the EMH who
was making final adjustments to the individual neurocortical transmitters that
would link their minds through the neural interface.
"We're as ready as we'll ever
be," the Doctor announced.
B'Elanna entered the cargo bay just then
and headed for the three clustered around the console.
"Where's Miral?" Chakotay asked.
"Sickbay," she replied. "With Tom being on the Bridge during
the battle and me in the link,
the
Doc here put up a playpen in his office so the nurses could keep an eye on her
but she'd still be out of the way in case there are injured."
Janeway nodded and turned to the assembled group. "All right, everyone to their
alcoves. Security, stay sharp; the
transporter room will be beaming the Queen here as soon as their shields come
down so the Doctor can disable her transceiver."
Seven and Axum were calibrating the neural
transceivers already in the former drones to the proper frequency to establish
their connection with the interface.
Hugh grinned at Axum as his transceiver
received an adjustment. "I can't
wait to get these things out of my body when this is over."
"I know exactly how you feel,"
Axum replied, sharing a moment of camaraderie.
Seven was waiting for Axum at their
alcoves. She reached out to attach his
transceiver and paused long enough to brush a kiss across his lips. "Do not allow yourself to be
harmed," she whispered to him.
Axum pulled her in to a deeper kiss, reminiscent
of their past relationship in Unimatrix Zero.
"I ask the same of you."
Chakotay and Janeway were the last two to
take their positions. They each
attached their own transceiver, taking a moment to share a tender gaze with one
another.
"We still have a few hours before
we're in range," the EMH announced.
"That will give us time to stabilize the link and for all of you to
become accustomed to your connection with each other. Once we make contact with the queen, Admiral Janeway, I'll keep
your neural pattern in the buffer as planned.
I'll give Captain Chakotay and the others two minutes and then I'll
integrate you into the link."
"Let's do it," Janeway said.
The influx of other thoughts into
Chakotay's consciousness was disorienting, but he managed to keep his own
thoughts focused on their objective.
The other neural patterns aligned themselves with his as planned; he
could pick out B'Elanna's voice in his head as well as Seven's. Axum, Hugh and the other former drones
provided a low backdrop for the more familiar minds in their link. There was a sudden surge in the link and he
realized that the nanites had entered the interface. The feeling of all the minds circulating around his thoughts was
immensely powerful and for the first time in the mission, he felt completely
inadequate for the task.
'You're not in this alone,' Janeway's
voice rang in his head.
'Together,' his thoughts echoed back.
..................................................
"What's your status, Doctor?"
LaForge called down to the cargo bay for a quick update.
"The interlink is stable, our little
collective is doing fine and ready for the next step," the EMH replied.
LaForge double-checked the sensor
readings. "So far, so good up
here. We'll be in communications range
momentarily but it'll be a bit more for transporter range."
"That's fine," the EMH
said. "They'll need the extra time
to make contact and fully engage the Queen.
Preparing to transmit interlink signal now."
....................................................
Chakotay felt Kathryn's mind leave the
collective and he realized that they were preparing to initiate the connection
with the Borg queen and concentrated on Seven's thoughts. When they made contact, the queen had to
believe that Seven and he were doing this on their own so their thoughts had to
be foremost in their small link. The
nanites masked the thoughts of the others to help with the deception. The clear, strident thoughts of the queen
startled him.
'I've been waiting for the two of you,' the
Borg queen almost cooed. 'You should
have taken Voyager and gone away somewhere, lived out the rest of your lives
together. Now you're forcing me to
assimilate you sooner than I'd intended.'
Seven was the first to respond. 'Your behavior is inconsistent with the
values of the Kathryn Janeway I know.
She would never assimilate anyone.'
'She spent sixteen more years in the Delta
Quadrant than you did,' the Borg queen countered. 'Kathryn Janeway was powerless, I am powerful. I can protect and guide in a way she never
could.'
'Can you love?' Chakotay thought
quietly. 'Can you feel anything for
those you guide except power and control?'
He thought he could feel a rocking, buffeting sensation but he couldn't
tell if it was coming from Voyager or the Borg cube. Their neural connection was sending messages from both ships back
and forth and he was glad he'd ordered Geordi to shut them out of Voyager's
systems before they'd initiated the link.
Borg Queen Janeway laughed, a harsh sound even
in the abstract realm of the mind.
'Your ship is under fire. I
commend you for the foresight to isolate yourselves from Voyager's computer
core, but once we disable the ship, it will not take long to shut down
everything--including you.'
'You didn't answer my question,' Chakotay
pointed out. 'Can you love?'
'I watched love destroy you after Seven
died,' the queen replied. 'Love means
nothing, it is irrelevant.'
'Love is relevant,' Seven argued.
Waves of negative emotions, impossible to
describe with words, blasted across their connection from the queen. Chakotay tried not to think about how long
they'd been in contact with the queen and instead focused on Axum, bringing him
to the forefront of the link.
Seven's mind found Axum and the two shared
images of their lives in Unimatrix Zero as well as memories of their recent
reunion. Behind the memories, she sent
a thought to the queen, 'even as Borg we found love with one another. We lived a lifetime together during our regeneration
cycles that you cannot take away and if you assimilate us, those memories will
be shared with the entire Borg collective.'
'Oh, but what about your poor Chakotay?'
the Borg queen asked, her thoughts a little shakier, but not enough to overwhelm
her control of the Borg.
'My Chakotay,' Janeway's thoughts barreled
through, her mind going straight to Chakotay and revealing the intimacy they shared. With Janeway in the link, the nanites allowed the other minds to
come through, boosting their neural energy and allowing the full force of their
neural interface to flow through in concert with the revelation about Janeway
and Chakotay's relationship.
The queen was taken completely off-guard
by Janeway's appearance in the link and she couldn't conceal her reaction to
the images as the life she could have had--should have had--swirled through her
mind. Visions of her body entwined with
Chakotay's, being held and comforted by his strong arms, just laying in bed
beside him talking quietly about their respective days; she felt herself experiencing all of those
things. For an instant it was almost as
if she were re-living those scenes from her own memories.
That split second was all they needed to
swarm over her consciousness and disrupt her connection to the rest of the Borg
collective. Hugh and the other former
drones focused on dampening signals from the queen to the cube that Voyager was
currently engaged with while B'Elanna, Axum and Seven tried to isolate and shut
down the queen's cortical node. Janeway
and Chakotay kept the queen's attention, forcing her to see and feel every bit
of the physical and emotional intimacy they'd shared with each other.
Outside the interlink, the EMH monitored
the readings with concern. From the
wild rocking and sparks flying from exploding conduits, Voyager was taking a
pounding; based on the neural output levels, the individuals in the link were
taking a pounding on a more cerebral level.
He activated the comm system.
"Doctor to the Bridge."
"What is it, Doctor?" Geordi
answered, his voice tense but measured.
"I'm concerned about the link, at the
current rate they'll start keeling over with aneurysms in the next two minutes,
three at most. I need to--"
"No, Doctor," Geordi
ordered. "If they lose their
battle in there, we don't have a chance out here. Get a med team down there if you need to, but don't interfere in
the link; that's an order. Keep me
posted, Bridge out."
The EMH watched as trickles of blood began
seeping from B'Elanna's nose as well as several of the former drones. "Doctor to Sickbay, send a med team to
Cargo Bay 2, bring several cortical stimulators and hyposprays of cortolin."
Inside the link, the pressure was almost
overwhelming. The nanites were keeping
the voices of the Borg Collective down to a dull roar, but the pressure felt
crippling as they all tried to stay focused on their tasks. Janeway and Chakotay were relentless in
their attack on the queen, forcing her to see how her actions had changed the
people from her reality and given them all new lives to live. They found dreams buried deep within Borg
Queen Janeway's mind, dreams of Mark, Mollie and her puppies, babies being
cradled in her own arms and children playing.
There were also distant memories of Jaffen and Kashyk; some thoughts
were of Chakotay but mostly they were dreams of sharing a life with someone. As soon as those images began to surface,
Janeway started focusing on the life of solitude that both of them had
experienced, using that as a wedge to find other memories and feelings of
loneliness that Borg Queen Janeway carried and force them into the open.
A sense of panic began spreading out through
their connection and Chakotay frantically tried to find the source. Some of the minds from their small link were
silent, B'Elanna's mind was barely a whisper clinging desperately to images of
Tom and Miral, but she was still there as was Seven and Axum. The panic became a scream that felt
ear-splitting and he tried to shelter Kathryn's mind with his to protect
her. They were so close, they couldn't
afford to falter now. Suddenly the
panic was gone and so was the queen's presence in his mind.
'She has been temporarily disabled,' Seven announced. 'If Voyager's transporters are still online,
they should be able to transport her to the cargo bay now.'
Chakotay was the first to rip away the
neural transceiver and look around, a little disoriented but ever the
commanding presence. Seven, Axum and
Hugh stepped out of their alcoves, each moving to help with others who had not
fared so well during the interface. Janeway
and B'Elanna were slow to come around; the toll that the link had taken was
obvious in both of their expressions as was their resolve and
determination. The whine of a
transporter beam cut through the cargo bay and left behind the still body of
the Borg Queen. It was hard to look at
her; he was reminded of how his Janeway looked after their experience with
Unimatrix Zero and the long road to physical and mental recovery that she, as
well as B'Elanna and Tuvok, had faced.
He gestured for the Doctor to disable her neural transmitter to prevent
any communication with the Borg Collective.
Janeway moved to stand over the queen's
body, looking down on herself and unable to force her gaze away. Vaguely, she was aware of the security team
that had moved in with their weapons ready just before Borg Queen Janeway had
been transported in.
"The battle has stopped,"
Chakotay noted, feeling the stillness of the ship. He activated his communicator.
"Chakotay to LaForge, what's our status?"
"Good to hear your voice,
Captain," LaForge answered.
"We still getting damage reports in as well as injury reports but
so far it doesn't look like we took any fatalities. We lost communication with the Klingon ship several minutes ago,
but sensors say they're intact with functioning life support. I'll get you a complete assessment as soon
as possible."
"Take your time, Commander,"
Chakotay said. "The Borg shouldn't
be any threat now. Good job and my
compliments to your Bridge crew."
As if on cue, Tom's voice came over the
comm. "B'Elanna?"
"Right here, flyboy," she
responded with a touch of her usual spark.
"Man, this was an incredible
battle," Tom raved, relief evident in his tone. "I mean it was really one for the record books; you should
have seen it."
Without warning, Janeway grabbed the
phaser rifle from the security officer next to her and began firing point-blank
into the Borg queen's body. Barely a
second later, weapons fire rocked Voyager, throwing most of the others in the
cargo bay to the floor. It subsided
almost as quickly as it began, but she
didn't stop shooting until she felt Chakotay's hand cover her fingers
and pull them away from the firing pad.
"She's dead, Kathryn," his voice
was soft and calming as he gently took the rifle out of her hands and handed it
back to the security officer.
"Most sincerely dead," the EMH
echoed. Nonetheless, he knelt back down
by the body and scanned for any distant neural energy in the cortical node to
be sure.
Over the still-open comm link they could
hear chaos on the bridge with reports of a hull breach and LaForge's calm order
to seal it and evacuate the area.
Janeway wanted to say something, make her usual acerbic comment, her
voice just wouldn't cooperate. She
didn't know how she'd known that the Borg Queen had re-established her
connection to the Borg, but she had; somehow she'd felt or heard the Borg Queen
revive in the instant before the Borg cube had been able to act on her
command. She leaned against the solid warmth
of Chakotay's chest, trying not to shiver with revulsion and disgust as she
eyed herself, now a smoking, charred corpse.
If she tried to speak now, her fear was that she'd just start crying and
that was something she would not do in front of anyone. Oddly grateful that the ship wasn't her
responsibility, she listened as Chakotay took command of his ship back and just
enjoyed the feel of his arm around her.
"Chakotay to LaForge, the queen is
dead. Send a message to the rest of the
Fleet and then set a course for Earth.
Let's go home."
**FINIS**
(Really
and truly, this ends the Time trilogy of 'A Stitch in Time', 'The Time of Her
Life' and 'Sands of Time'. The wicked
queen is dead and everyone can live happily ever after.)