Title:
The Time of Her Life
Author: Whoa Nellie ([email protected])
Series: Voyager
Rating:
NC-17
Codes:
J/C
Synopsis: Admiral Janeway is preparing to face her
toughest adversary--herself. Originally
posted August 23, 2006.
Author's
Notes: This story follows the events of
A Stitch in Time, but it’s not necessary to have read that first. These events assume all canon through the
movie Nemesis and thus doesn’t fit with any other Whoa Nellie universe.
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
THE
TIME OF HER LIFE
Janeway stretched luxuriantly, well-rested
from a deep, dreamless sleep. It was
almost a full minute before the events of the previous day--and night--jolted
her completely awake. Her first thought
went to the empty space in the bed beside her.
The light was off in the bathroom and she couldn’t hear anyone moving
around in the quarters. Surely last
night hadn’t been a dream--the soreness in her thighs was all too real--but
waking up alone imbued those memories with a surreal quality. She decided that there were more important issues
to deal with than when Chakotay had left, so she headed for the bathroom and a
quick sonic shower.
Twenty minutes later, in full uniform and
her hair pulled up in its usual bun she walked out into the main room to see
Chakotay working at her desk.
"Commander--I mean Captain . . . Chakotay, I thought you'd . . .
"
"Left?" he finished her sentence
with a look of mild censure on his face.
He pushed his work aside and got up, walking toward the replicator. "There's fresh coffee, I was waiting
for you to wake up so we could have breakfast and talk."
'About last night' was the unsaid part of
what she knew he meant. She headed for
the coffee pot idly wondering what he would think if she just drank straight
from the pot. Pouring herself a cup,
she wandered over to the viewport to sip the hot brew and buy herself some
time. She drained the cup and re-filled
it from the pot she'd carried over with her.
Finally, she returned to the desk and sat down, pushing the food around
on the plate. "I don't know what
to say."
"The great Kathryn Janeway at a loss
for words?" Chakotay echoed in mock incredulity. He gave her a reassuring smile and nod. "Don't say anything.
I told you last night that I didn't need promises or commitments. I don't need to define every aspect of my
life; some things just are what they are."
"What if I need a definition?"
she asked softly.
He handed her a PADD, his hand freezing
mid-air at her question. "Define
it however you want, if you want to share that with me, fine; otherwise I'm
willing to just let it be for now.
Here's the most recent intelligence on the Borg situation. There's been no contact with Earth since we
left the system yesterday; they haven't even been able to contact Utopia
Planitia. Captain Riker is making contact
with the Klingons to see if they can get a cloaked ship into the system to see
what the situation is there, but that'll take time. We've set course for the Bassen Rift, I've laid out a route that
should keep us out of direct confrontation with any Borg cubes for as long as
possible. Borg sensors won't work any
better than ours with all of that electromagnetic distortion there so we should
be able to use it for cover for a good portion of the journey. I've got my senior staff and Seven working
on a way to get us some sensor readings there but even if they can't come up
with anything I still think it's our best bet."
Janeway nodded. "Agreed, speaking of Seven . . . I thought . . . I didn't .
. . I noticed Axum on the Bridge when we beamed aboard."
"I thought you'd heard," he
said. "With the Doctor leading the
team de-Borging all of the former drones that were showing up, I assumed that
either Seven or he had mentioned Axum's appearance."
She shook her head no. "I knew there were disconnected drones
showing up shortly after our return and that the Doctor was overseeing the
removal of their components and helping them reintegrate into our society. He's been so busy that I haven't spoken to
him much over the past couple of months."
"Axum managed to get off the ship he
was on and was picked up by a deep space vessel," Chakotay explained. "When the Doctor was notified about an
incoming Borg drone asking for Annika Hansen, he contacted Seven. She wanted to be there with Axum to help him
with the adjustment back to individuality."
"And pick up their relationship where
they left off," Janeway finished.
He shrugged. "They had a long-term relationship in Unimatrix Zero, he was
her first love and they have a lot in common.
We ended things before I left for Vulcan. I contacted them and had them report directly to Voyager as soon
as Admiral Ross issued my orders; I thought Seven and the Doctor could be
helpful here. Axum isn't finished with
his surgeries yet, but he was part of the Collective up until our final run-in
with the last queen so he might know something useful. The Doctor can finish restoring Axum on the
way."
She sat back in her chair and cocked her
head. "Is that going to be a
problem? I mean seeing Seven and Axum
together."
Chakotay sat back in his chair, his jaw
tightening perceptibly. "Do you
really think I would have allowed last night to happen if I still had feelings
for Seven? Do you think I have so
little respect for you, Kathryn? No,
I'm not pining for Seven; our lives moved on in different directions, nothing
more and nothing less than that."
"I'm sorry, Chakotay," she
said. "I'm still . . . just forget
it."
"I hope you don't think I'm just
going to forget about last night," he shared a tender smile with her as he
picked up their breakfast dishes and recycled them. "I've called a senior staff meeting for 0800 hours; I'm
assuming that you'd like to be included."
"Absolutely."
..........................................
Entering the briefing room, the first
thing Janeway noticed was how few of the faces she recognized. A few of the crewmen on the bridge were from
her former crew and she'd seen a couple of people in the corridors whom she
remembered from their days in the Delta Quadrant; however, the majority of the
crew were new faces. Of course that
would only make sense, she chided herself as she took a seat beside her usual
location. The crew would have been
filled out with personnel available on Earth shortly after the orders were
issued. Some personnel would already
have been aboard preparing Voyager for her re-launch, but that was just a
skeleton crew according to the last update she'd seen.
"All right," Chakotay settled
himself at the head of the conference table and looked around at faces, some of
which he'd only seen in personnel bios.
"This is our first official senior staff meeting, I'm your
commanding officer, Captain Chakotay, and this is Admiral Janeway. As most of you are already aware, the Borg
have taken Romulus and are using cloaked vessels to make a move on the
Federation by kidnapping the highest-ranking individuals within the government
before any defense can be mounted. What
you may not be aware of is the identity of the new Borg Queen. A future Admiral Janeway traveled back in
time to help Voyager use a Borg transwarp hub to get back to the Alpha Quadrant
16 years sooner than her Voyager had arrived back in the Alpha Quadrant. We thought that she was killed along with
the Borg Queen in that mission; however, it seems that the drones took her out
of there before the explosion and made her their new queen. That's why our Admiral Janeway is along--to
attempt to reason with the Borg Queen and, failing that, help us with strategy
to outmaneuver her. Our only objective
right now is to take out the Borg Queen, one way or another. You all know that Earth has been taken and
there's been no communication from that sector since then. I sympathize with those of you who have
family there as I do, but we have to stay focused on our mission. The Federation response to the Borg is being
coordinated through Deep Space Nine by the Titan and the Bozeman. They'll do everything they can from their
end but we have to accomplish our objective to give them a fighting
chance. We'll be getting our feet under
us on the fly so if anyone has concerns or questions, my ready room is always
open; I'll be relying heavily on all of you to get this ship geared up for the
fight ahead. Mr. LaForge, I understand
this is your first posting as a First Officer, you were the Chief Engineer on
the Enterprise under Captain Picard?"
"Yes, sir," Geordi nodded. "Captain Riker of the Titan was First
Officer under Captain Picard as well, he's a good man. I do have some field command experience and
I have more experience than I'd like with the Borg."
"Excellent," Chakotay said. "What's our status?"
Geordi passed him a PADD. "Full crew compliment although almost
half of the crew, myself included, are in new positions for them or straight
out of the Academy. All systems
operating within accepted ranges. We're
maintaining a conditional Yellow Alert, allowing for shift changes and breaks but
keeping the ship and personnel battle-ready.
We should reach the Bassen Rift in less than two days unless we run into
a cube or two before then."
"Let's hope not,"Chakotay
replied. "Seven?"
Seven brought up a display on the
viewscreen. "Astrometrics has only
detected a few uncloaked cubes within sensor range. We should assume that there are cloaked cubes in the
vicinity."
"They won't attack us unless we
interfere with their plans," Janeway said. "At least not until we become part of their plan."
"So do we have any options for
sensors inside the Rift?" Chakotay asked.
Geordi spoke up first. "Yes, sir. In fact, the idea some of us have been working on would also
allow us to detect cloaked ships outside of the Rift--within a limited range
anyway. We once used a couple dozen
starships to deploy a tachyon detection grid across the neutral zone border to
detect cloaked vessels trying to enter Federation space. Obviously we don't have a couple dozen
starships to use on this mission, but I remember reading about your efforts
with a slip stream drive while you were in the Delta Quadrant. You used a shuttle as a sort of advance
scout. We're thinking that we could
deploy a couple of shuttles on remote control and engage a tachyon grid between
us and them that would give us limited sensor information inside the Rift. That grid would also warn us of cloaked
vessels in or out of the Rift. We'd
only be able to travel at Warp 2 even outside of the Rift and the shuttles
would be just a lightyear ahead of us--I'd guess six or seven trillion
kilometers or so would be optimum distance."
"Axum and I are currently working on
a way to increase that distance to 8.45 trillion kilometers," Seven
interjected.
Chakotay looked around the table. "Engineering?"
"Reginald Barclay, sir; my
f-f-f-first posting as a Chief Engineer," he forced the words out as
calmly as he could.
"Good to see you again, Mr.
Barclay," Chakotay greeted him.
"It'll be nice to work with you on the same side of the galaxy for
a change. What's your opinion of the
plan that Mr. LaForge laid out?"
Barclay consulted a PADD sitting in front
of him. "It'll work, sir. We'll need to make some modifications to the deflector and
reconfigure the sensor arrays on the shuttles, but it'll work."
Chakotay nodded his approval. "How long before we could deploy the
advance shuttles, Mr. Barclay?"
"A day at least," he said.
"All right, see to it," Chakotay
said, "Good work, everyone; dismissed."
............................................................
Four hours later, Chakotay entered Sickbay
to find Kathryn sitting in the Doctor's office talking with the EMH. He tapped on the doorframe to announce his
presence before stepping inside.
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything, but I was just going to grab
some lunch and I thought you might like to join me. The computer said you were down here."
"Nothing at all, Captain," the
EMH assured him quickly. "The
Admiral and I were just catching up."
Janeway stood, smoothing her uniform
jacket almost self-consciously.
"Lunch sounds fine, Chakotay; your quarters or mine?"
"Yours," he replied firmly. "I'm hoping my new chief of security
won't want to interrupt a meeting with 'Admiral Janeway' for anything short of
a red alert."
"Problem?" she asked.
Chakotay sighed. "His last posting was as garrison commander of the security
contingent at Starfleet Headquarters.
LaForge and I have a wager on whether or not he can actually recite the
entire Starfleet Uniform Code verbatim--I say he can."
"He can't be that bad," Janeway
said.
"His security reports have
footnotes," Chakotay informed her.
"Tuvok never put footnotes in his reports."
Janeway laughed as they walked out of
Sickbay. "That I have to see."
They walked along the corridors of
Voyager, casually discussing ship's operations as they had so many times in the
Delta Quadrant. The feelings of deja
vu' on this mission were so strong at times that he had to remind himself of
the stardate and his own rank.
"When LaForge said that half the crew were in new positions or
straight out of the Academy, he omitted one detail--all of the department heads
fall into the 'in new positions' category.
They're all qualified for the positions, this is just their first time
in those positions. My chief of
security, for example, has led a security garrison for the past three years,
but he's never served aboard a starship before."
"Starfleet had to draw from people
already on Earth and available for this mission," she pointed out. "It's not like we could have waited for
former Voyager crewmembers to return from wherever they were to man the ship
under the circumstances."
Chakotay motioned for her to precede him
out of the turbolift when it stopped on her deck. "I know, the bridge just doesn't seem the same without Tom
piloting and Harry at Ops. After one
meeting with my new chief of security, I really miss Tuvok."
Janeway keyed the door access. "I'll tell him that in my next
communique. Have you heard anything
about Tom or Harry?"
"I haven't talked to B'Elanna since
before I left for Vulcan, but I got a message from Harry just this morning;
he's onboard the Titan," he said.
Standing in front of the replicator, he looked back at her. "Any requests?"
"You mean you really want to eat
lunch?" she asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Here I thought it was just an excuse to . . . "
"Admiral Janeway," he admonished
her. "For a captain who was
resolute in not mixing ship's business with her own personal pleasure for seven
years, I'm shocked at you."
Janeway shrugged. "R.H.I.P, rank hath its
privileges. If I'm going to end up
queen of the Borg in the future--"
"Damnit, Kathryn," Chakotay
slammed his hand against the replicator control panel. "You are not the same woman; she spent
sixteen years longer in the Delta Quadrant and carried a lifetime of memories
that you will never have because of her interference."
She almost turned away from him, a habit
she'd developed any time he started to get too close in the Delta
Quadrant. This time she forced herself
to meet his gaze. "She also
carried a lifetime of regrets, Chakotay.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I'd do in her place and
sometimes it's hard to separate myself from her; other times I think about all
of the regrets I already have in my life and I don't want any more."
His brown eyes softened at what he knew
was a hard confession for her to voice.
"I'm sorry, I just don't like hearing you compare yourself to her
like that. She came back to spare you
her past; she doesn't have to be your future."
Crossing the short distance to stand
directly in front of him, she rested her hands against the broad expanse of his
chest. She started to speak but changed
her mind, instead moving her hands up to cup his face and pull it down to
hers. Her lips found his, pressing
fervently against them until her tongue slipped between them to thrust into the
warm, moist cavern of his mouth.
Urgency began building, coursing through her entire body; this was
something her older self never had, this made her a different woman. Without breaking the kiss, she ripped off
her own uniform jacket and then his.
She could feel him stiffen in surprise but he didn't try to stop her
when she reached for the fastening of his uniform pants, swiftly stripping them
down to his knees along with his underwear.
The bed seemed too far away at that moment, so she pushed Chakotay down
into the chair closest to them. Her own
clothes ended up strewn across the floor and she smiled approvingly when she
saw him pull his shirt off to bare his chest while she was removing her own
uniform. He looked so perfect, sitting
there with that knowing grin, those dimples just peeking out at her; she wanted
to say something, comfort him in some way but the words just weren't
there.
This was so unlike the usually-proper
Kathryn Janeway that for an instant Chakotay wondered if he should be
concerned. He might have worried more
if she'd been pushing him away; however, at that moment she was carefully
straddling him, pressing her body against his and nuzzling his shoulder with
her lips. In response to her tacit
command he allowed his head to roll back, baring his throat to her. His hips were twitching with the warm,
inviting heat of her body so close to the throbbing hardness of his own
body. He could feel her hands gliding
across his skin, seemingly everywhere at once.
It felt like she was trying to get under his skin, somehow merge them
into one. Gripping the arms of the
chair, he groaned at the hot, wet sensation of her mouth and tongue toying with
his Adam's apple. Streaks of pleasure
radiated from his throat to his hips; streaks became lightning bolts when her fingers
found his nipples and began tugging on them.
He was struggling to breathe, his knuckles white on the arm of the chair
as she erotically tormented him. When
he couldn't take any more, his hands gripped her hips and shifted her, impaling
her on his painfully-hard arousal. As
good as her body felt clenched around him, he couldn't breathe for a moment.
She was so lost in the pleasure of his
body that she didn't feel his hands on her hips. When he drove into her, she was startled and inadvertently sucked
hard on his Adam's apple. His choking
gasps drew her attention and she pulled back, searching his face. "I'm sorry, Chakotay, are you all
right?"
When he caught his breath, he shifted her
hips to a more comfortable position against him and chuckled. "That's one choking technique I don't
remember from the Academy." He
forestalled her response by dropping a quick kiss on her already kiss-swollen
lips. "I'm fine and you're just
lucky that my uniform tunic will cover it until I can get the Doctor to fix
it."
"Good," she murmured, brushing
an apologetic kiss over his now-bruised throat. "Now, where were we?"
She tightened herself around him.
"Oh yes, there you were."
With her breasts crushed against the hard wall of his chest, she slid up
and down against his torso sinuously, a full body massage of the most
pleasurable kind. The sensations were
almost euphoric, his arms enfolding her, his chest a warm, solid anchor and his
body buried deep inside her. They were
as physically close as it was possible for two people to be. Up on her knees, their bodies pulled almost
completely apart only to come back together as she lowered herself back onto
him. The separations became unbearable
so she increased the movements of her hips, slamming her body down against his
as quickly as she pulled away. The
welcome pressure of his body filling her over and over again soon overwhelmed
every other thought and feeling. At one
point she became aware of Chakotay's labored breathing and she could feel him
tensing up, trying to hold back. Her
hand maneuvered between their bodies to fondle him, push him over the edge but
he caught her hand and forced it behind her back.
The pleasure was incredible and his
control was fading fast in the face of his body's demands. He felt her hand slip between them and he
knew immediately what she was doing. He
caught her hand and drew both of her hands behind her back, holding them there
with one of his larger hands. His other
hand replaced hers between their bodies and began stroking the glistening
center of her desire. It was still hard
for her to allow herself to lose control with him; he understood that but he
also knew that she needed to find her release.
He held her hands as gently as he could without allowing her to pull
free, the pressure of her captured hands at the small of her back forcing her
hips toward him, into the pressure of his fingers as he flicked and rubbed the
juncture of her thighs. "Ladies
first," he gasped hoarsely.
Whimpers threatened to escape from her
throat at the pleasure rolling through her body in wave after wave. The commanding tone in his voice and her own
vulnerable, exposed position paradoxically made her feel safe and very
turned-on. He was taking care of her,
just as he always had and she found herself rubbing longingly against his long,
nimble fingers. Pressure was building
in her hips, a sharp yet sweet sensation growing with every stroke of his hand
against her. Her eyes drifted shut,
closing out everything except her own pleasure until a myriad of colors
exploded against the backs of her eyelids, a strong orgasm rocking her entire
body. Vaguely she was aware of the fact
that he'd released her hands and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he held
onto her hips and drove her body onto his feverishly until his body spasmed
with his own release. She laid there
against his sweat-dampened bronze chest, comfortable and pleasantly sated.
"So, any idea as to how we're going
to approach the queen when we get to Romulus?" he asked moments later when
his breathing had returned to almost normal.
His hands slowly wandered across her back, eliciting a shiver from her.
Their bodies were still intertwined making
the discussion easier in some ways and more difficult in others. "I don't think she's going to let us
get to Romulus," Janeway answered.
"We'll be stopped by a Borg cube just after we enter Romulan space
and she'll communicate through that cube."
"If she knows we're coming, why not
send a message or a cube to intercept us now?" he wondered aloud.
She nuzzled closer, unwilling to let him
see her face. He'd know there was
something she wasn't telling him.
"She wants to make sure we're headed for her, that we're not
heading somewhere else first. We might
have a secret weapon or attempt to contact Species 8472 for help--she doesn't
think so, but she'll be cautious and wait to see what we do before committing
herself to anything."
"Do you think she'll negotiate?"
"It depends on her goal. I might be able to reach what's left of her
humanity; but I think it's more likely that knowledge--specifically desire for
knowledge will be her weakness."
Chakotay's fingers idly drew lazy circles
on her back. "How so?"
"She knows that the Borg can't
understand what they can't assimilate," she explained. "The Federation can offer her
information that the Borg wouldn't be able to collect on ancient cultures or
other types of phenomenon. She might be
willing to accept a peace treaty of sorts if I appeal to her inner scientist."
Considering what she'd said, he offered an
observation. "What about
contacting 8472? We haven't heard from
them so there's a good chance that the ones we met were able to call off the
invasion. They were doing a pretty good
job against the Borg before we stumbled in, they might be able--and hopefully
willing--to help us now."
"We shared the information on the
weapon used to fight 8472 with the Borg," Janeway said, the actions of his
fingers making it more and more difficult to concentrate. "It's likely that the Borg still retain
that knowledge and my other self wouldn't hesitate to use it if she even
thought we'd bring them into the fight.
We can keep that plan in reserve and send a message into fluidic space
if the situation gets desperate."
"As opposed to what the situation is
now?"
She pulled back to share a rueful grin
with him. "I'd like to get a
better read on her goal. I'll try to
reach any remnant of humanity that might still be there, but I'm not going to
waste a lot of time on that. I think
our best bet for a peaceful solution is convincing her that it's in her best
interest to withdraw from the Alpha Quadrant and be a good neighbor. Either way, there's only so much I can
anticipate until I've actually spoken to her."
.........................................................
The next morning, Geordi made some last
minute adjustments from the science station console on the bridge before
hitting the comm system. "Captain,
we're ready to launch the shuttles.
We'll need to drop out of warp."
In a moment, Chakotay emerged from his
ready room and took his seat. "All
stop," he ordered. "Launch
shuttles and initiate tachyon grid. Let's
make sure we can maintain a stable field before we get to the Rift; I want as
few surprises as possible."
Geordi hit his combadge, "All right,
Reg, clear the shuttle bay; we're good to go up here."
"Understood," Barclay
replied. "I'll be monitoring from
Engineering, Barclay out."
Geordi keyed several commands into his
workstation. "Auto-pilots engaged,
launch sequence initiated for shuttle one.
Shuttle one launched, launch sequence initiated for shuttle two."
Chakotay motioned toward the ops
station. "Onscreen." The main viewer flickered immediately and he
watched first one shuttle then the other emerge from Voyager and move toward
their positions. There was no visible
change when the tachyon grid was activated so he accessed the sensor
information from the panel on the arm of the command chair.
"Everything looks good from
here," Geordi said.
"Go to full impulse," Chakotay
told the helmsman.
"Shuttles maintaining position, grid
is stable," Geordi reported.
"Let's try Warp One."
Chakotay nodded at the helmsman and
activated the communication system.
"Seven?"
"I am compensating for the
interference from our warp field," she replied. "It is working, we will be able to detect any cloaked
vessels less than one light year from Voyager."
The communication system beeped and he
keyed the console. "Go
ahead."
"Barclay here, sir. The field is stable for now but when we
enter the Rift we'll probably have to do some recalibrations to account for the
electromagnetic interference. I'd
suggest dropping out of warp and entering the Rift at impulse."
"Understood, Bridge out,"
Chakotay acknowledged. "At least
we're not going into this completely blind."
.........................................................
The EMH helped Janeway sit up on the
biobed. "All done, that should be
it."
Tugging at her uniform jacket, she swung
her legs off the bed. As she did, she
noticed Axum resting on a nearby biobed.
"Is he all right?"
"Fine," the Doctor assured
her. "He's been putting off
further surgeries so he'd be available to help Seven with calculations on this
mission, but with the tachyon field deployed I took the opportunity to take
care of a few things. He'll be out for
a while longer yet."
"Give him my best when he wakes
up," she requested.
Just then Chakotay entered Sickbay and
looked around, immediately spotting them.
"I always seem to find you down here. Lunch?"
Janeway hopped down from the biobed and
adjusted her uniform. "The Doctor
was just taking care of a muscle I seem to have pulled somehow."
"Does that mean you're not up to
having lunch with me?" Chakotay asked, his cheeks burning but determined
to act nonchalant in front of the EMH.
"I'm all fixed," she gave a
quick glance toward the Doctor before flashing a grin at Chakotay. "How far from the Rift are we?"
"We'll be arriving sometime tomorrow
morning," he replied.
The EMH held up a PADD and gestured. "Admiral, you are as good as new, but I
have other patients and work to tend to, so go on and enjoy your lunch."
...........................................................
Janeway didn't even bother to ring the
doorchime to the ready room, just barging in and slamming the PADD in her hand
on the desk. "What is this?"
He knew it was a tactical error when he
did it. Leaving the PADD with orders
for her to find after he'd left in the early morning hours was not the right
way to handle it; but he'd thought of it after she'd fallen asleep--watching
her sleep in fact--and hadn't wanted to wake her. "Orders for you to report to Sickbay for a subdermal
transponder."
"Chakotay--"
"Captain Chakotay," he corrected
her quickly. This was one discussion he
couldn't afford to have on a personal level.
Keeping it on a professional basis might make it easier. "This is still my ship and my mission,
Admiral. Assuming you can get her to
agree to a meeting, we're not traveling all this way to talk via subspace. That's one little point you keep neglecting
to bring up--how you plan to conduct this negotiation. You've talked about strategies and
discussion points but never the actual details of the meeting itself. I don't like it, but at some point you'll
probably have to leave Voyager for these talks and if you do I want a way of
locking onto you quickly and beaming you back."
Janeway softened her tone. "You couldn't beam me through Borg
shields even with a transponder signal to lock onto."
"I'll cross that bridge if and when I
get there," he said.
"Kathryn, please. This is
hard for me, even thinking about you leaving Voyager to go meet with that woman
gives me nightmares but there's too much at stake to rule anything out right
now. I'm just trying to--"
Whatever else he was going to say was
interrupted by the comm system.
"Bridge to Captain Chakotay."
"Go ahead."
"Sir, we're approaching the Rift and
Astrometrics is reporting a transwarp signature on long-range sensors."
Chakotay was up and on his way toward the
door. "Acknowledged."
LaForge vacated the command chair at the
captain's appearance, taking up his own station. "The shuttles are just five light-years from the Rift, we
should drop out of warp here and enter on impulse. The Borg vessel is uncloaked and just came into sensor range. It's on an intercept course with us, its
course will intersect ours at a point inside the Rift unless it changes course
before then."
Chakotay studied the viewscreen and the
sensor readout from the computer panel in the arm of his chair. "Tactical, prepare a Class 1
probe. We'll leave it behind to monitor
the Borg vessel while we enter the Rift.
Keep it on a tether, when we get to the maximum range of control, we'll
pull it in and download the sensor data to see what the cube is up to."
"Probe is ready to launch," the security chief
announced.
Geordi looked back to the Ops
officer. "Monitor that tractor
beam closely; with all of the electromagnetic interference we don't want to
lose our grip on it."
"Aye, sir."
Chakotay nodded toward LaForge, noticing
belatedly that Janeway had left the Bridge.
"Launch the probe and move us into the Rift, full impulse."
...........................................................
She was waiting for the beep of the
computer console. As soon as they'd
detected the transwarp signature, she had returned to her quarters to wait for
the communication that she knew was imminent.
The Bassen Rift was the perfect place from both of their perspectives,
the distortions that affected sensors would provide enough confusion and chaos
to cover most of their activities.
Voyager wouldn't be allowed to enter Romulan space, they'd have their
first encounter right here in the Rift.
Janeway opened the channel, her stomach recoiling in disgust at the
sight of Borg Queen Janeway on the monitor.
"Long time no see," she commented.
"I see we haven't lost our sense of
humor yet," the Borg Queen's voice was distorted but still sounded eerily
like her own. "I've been expecting
you."
"We need to talk," Janeway
said. "This is all wrong; this
isn't what you came back for. We can
fix this if you'll help."
"This is better," Borg Queen
Janeway replied. "The unity, the
harmony, everyone working as one; the Federation will be stronger than ever and
more united than it's ever been. This
is a better way."
"You don't expect me to believe
that," Janeway retorted. "You
know me better than that."
For an instant, the Borg Queen looked more
like the elderly Admiral Janeway from the future. "I do know us better than that. I knew you'd come and I knew you'd try to fight. The tachyon field was ingenuous; B'Elanna
outdid herself with that idea--or was that Harry's idea? Imagine what we could accomplish with so
many minds linked as one. It's
inevitable, you can't prevent it."
Janeway sat back, studying the image on
the viewscreen. "So why are you
calling? It's not our style to gloat
like this; just get it over with unless . . . "
"What?"
"You don't really want this, you're
trapped inside all of that technology screaming to get out and you want us to
beat you as we've beaten the Borg so many times before," Janeway
suggested.
Borg Queen Janeway gave a grotesque
laugh. "No."
"We can offer you knowledge,"
Janeway said quickly. "Knowledge
that can't be assimilated, we can explore and learn and upload it to your
database."
"A partnership?" the Borg Queen
asked incredulously. "You really
think you're equal to the Borg?"
"I think I'm equal to you,"
Janeway retorted. "I am you, a
younger and stronger version of you.
I'm not some broken-down, old woman with a lifetime of regrets on her
conscience. If we can't come to an
agreement, I will have no choice but to destroy you."
Borg Queen Janeway started to answer and
then paused. "Let's discuss this
further," she suggested. "A
face-to-face negotiation, just like when we negotiated with the Borg in their
war against Species 8472--you come aboard one of my cubes and we'll talk."
"Why not talk now, like this?"
Janeway asked.
"I'm not interested in Voyager just
yet," she answered. "I know
that Seven is onboard so it's easy to presume that Chakotay is as well. I went to a great deal of trouble to give
them more time together and a small part of me regrets that I can't give them
the lifetime together I intended to, but I don't need them right now. If you leave Voyager and continue on in one
of my cubes, the crew of Voyager will be safe for the time being; you have my word. We can have our talk and they can enjoy
individuality for a little while longer."
"And how do I know you won't just
assimilate me the moment I arrive on that cube?"
Borg Queen Janeway smiled. "Always so suspicious. Two Janeways aren't necessarily better than
one; I don't need you in my Collective to accomplish my plan. I assure you that you will not be
assimilated just yet. You want to talk
face-to-face with me, offer me a peace treaty or some deal to convince me to
leave the Federation alone. Here's your
chance to negotiate, your opportunity to save the lives of the crew of Voyager
and billions of others across the known galaxy thus achieving another
successful victory over the Borg. You
believe you can reach me so what do you have to lose other than the lives of
all of those men and women on Voyager right now? You can give Chakotay and Seven precious days--maybe even
weeks--of happiness together while we talk."
A shiver went down her spine at the pure
evil tone of her Borg self. There was
no passion, no compassion but she was playing on Janeway's feeling of
responsibility for the lives of her crew with the skill of a maestro. Chakotay's words rang in her ears. 'If you have nothing to lose, then you have
nothing to fight for either. What you
call a complication, some people might call motivation.' Chakotay did turn out to be her secret
weapon after all. Her Borg self didn't
know about Axum's return or that Chakotay and she had become intimate. "Agreed, but I'll need to make some
arrangements. Chakotay won't like this,
no matter what it might mean for him personally. I'll have to make sure that Voyager can't stop me. Have your cube stay ready and watch for the
captain's yacht. Once I'm outside of
the tachyon grid, they won't be able to get a transporter lock on me."
"I'll be waiting for you."
...........................................................
A warning tone sounded from the science
station monitoring the tachyon grid.
"Borg vessel directly ahead," LaForge announced.
"All stop," Chakotay
ordered. "Deploy ablative
armor. Are they attempting
communication?"
The security chief responded
immediately. "No, sir. They're just sitting there, like they've
been waiting for us. Ablative armor
engaged."
"We're detecting an unauthorized
shuttle launch," the ensign at ops reported. "It's the Aeroshuttle, one life sign detected--Admiral
Janeway."
"Hail her," Chakotay ordered,
already knowing that it was a lost cause to try to get her to turn around. He should have seen this coming, not that
there was much he could have done to stop it.
Geordi was monitoring from the science
station. "Once she clears the
tachyon grid, communication will be difficult."
The security officer spoke up. "The Borg cube has moved out of the
tachyon grid."
"Admiral Janeway's replying,"
the ensign said, transferring the incoming communication to the viewscreen.
Janeway looked into the viewer with an
expression of stoic determination.
"I know what you're going to say, Captain, but this is my mission,
my responsibility."
"Admiral, this is not part of the
mission," Chakotay objected.
"We're supposed to attempt a negotiation with the Queen, not some
random cube. We have no way to get you
out of there if something goes wrong.
This isn't the place or the time--"
"I appreciate your concern, Captain
Chakotay, and I know the risks but she is me.
It's safer for everyone this way; just keep Voyager here in the Rift
until I get back. I've already spoken
to her via subspace and she's promised to leave Voyager alone for the time
being as long as you don't try to interfere.
Knowing what I would do if I were you, I took the liberty of taking the
tractor beams offline before I launched.
I'm sorry, Chakotay, but it has to be this way."
"Kathryn--" he started to plead,
breaking off to swear under his breath as the transmission cut off and the
shuttle left the tachyon grid, immediately lost among the electromagnetic
distortions. A quick system check
confirmed the status of the tractor beam and a knot formed in the pit of his
stomach at the thought that those were the last words she'd ever say to
him. "Keep hailing her, try to get
her back."
Geordi nodded to Seven and the two of them
began repositioning the shuttles to reacquire the Aeroshuttle on sensors. "We can override the Admiral's control
of the shuttle from here and drop the shields to beam her off once we shift the
grid to get her back inside," he told Chakotay.
"Do it," Chakotay ordered. She'd yell but at least she'd be there to
yell.
Seven entered some commands on the console
she was working at. "We almost
have her shuttle back in the grid."
Chakotay hit the comm button. "Transporter Room 1, get a transporter
lock on Admiral Janeway's transponder and prepare to beam her back as soon as
her shields come down. Mr. LaForge,
status?"
"She changed the command codes, it'll
take me a minute," he replied.
That was a minute more than they had--the
Borg cube fired on the shuttle, completely destroying it before the bridge crew
could react. The stunned silence felt
like an eternity but lasted only a second.
"Kathryn," Chakotay gasped.
"Bridge to Transporter Room 1, did you get her?"
"No, sir."
"Target the Borg vessel,"
Chakotay ordered. "They must have
beamed her out of the shuttle, target phasers and photon torpedoes on their
shield generators. Ops, scan for human
lifesigns."
Seven turned toward him. "Sensors did not detect a trans--"
Geordi cut her off. "Seven, remodulate that tachyon field,
the explosion caused fluctuations in the grid.
If that cube cloaks we'll be fighting blind."
Voyager rocked from weapons fire. "Shields down to 83%," Ops
reported.
"Tactical?" Chakotay barked.
"Direct hits," the security
chief reported. "No discernible
damage."
Chakotay studied the viewscreen. "Helm, evasive maneuvers, sequence
Gamma 3. Tactical, continuous phaser
fire and make sure the resonance frequencies are fluctuating. We can't let them break off until we've
located Admiral Janeway and got her back."
Conduits were overloading and exploding in
a shower of sparks. Consoles were
flashing and smoking from overloaded circuits.
The ship was taking a massive beating, but Chakotay stayed focused on
that Borg cube. They hadn't shown any
sign of trying to leave, the cube had held position since firing on the
shuttle.
"A cloaked vessel just entered the tachyon field," Seven
reported. "Bearing--"
"Hold fire," Chakotay ordered as
a Klingon bird of prey de-cloaked near the Borg cube and began firing toward the cube. It didn't look like weapons fire and it seemed to stick to the
Borg shields.
Geordi frowned at the sensor display. "They're firing a stream of warp
plasma."
The reason for the unusual tactic was
quickly evident when the Klingon ship ignited the warp plasma with a
torpedo. The bright flare hid both
vessels from view for a split second and when the glare faded, the Klingon ship
was firing disruptors at the cube, direct hits with every shot sending debris
hurtling away from the cube.
"Borg shields are down," Ops
reported. "The ignited plasma must
have caused an overload in their shield generator."
"It won't last long," LaForge
commented.
Chakotay gestured toward Tactical. "Hit them with everything we've
got. Seven, have you got Admiral
Janeway?"
"There is no sign of Admiral Janeway
or the Borg Queen onboard that cube," Seven stated. "She was not transported off the
shuttle prior to the explosion."
"Borg vessel is breaking off
contact," the security chief reported.
"They're gone."
"The Klingon ship is hailing,"
Ops said.
Chakotay shook himself back to the task at
hand, there would be time for grief later.
"Onscreen."
The viewscreen image of the Rift was
replaced with some familiar faces for many of the Bridge crew. Tom Paris was holding his infant daughter
Miral and standing beside a slightly disheveled-looking B'Elanna and Worf. "Chakotay," Tom greeted him. "You looked like you were having a
little trouble."
"Tom, B'Elanna," Chakotay
replied. "What are you doing out
here?"
B'Elanna took Miral from Tom before she
answered. "We were on Quo'nos
visiting my mother's family when we heard about the Borg. The Klingon High Council is sending cloaked
ships to gather information and when Harry reached Tom to let him know about
Voyager's mission, we got this ship and came to lend you a hand. Where's Janeway, Harry said she was with
you?"
His voice betrayed no emotion at all. "She was on the shuttle that the cube
destroyed just before you got here.
She's dead."
"Captain," LaForge spoke
up. "We've got repair crews
working on the worst of the damage, but we'll need at least a few days;
recommend we hold position here until repairs are completed."
"Agreed," Chakotay nodded. "B'Elanna, we'd like to thank the
captain and crew of your ship for their assistance."
"It was our pleasure," Worf
stepped forward. "Geordi, it is
good to see you."
"Good to see you, too, Worf," he
replied. He stepped closer to Chakotay
and spoke softly. "Captain, with
your permission, we could give the Klingons the specs for tachyon field and
with their ship, we could extend the grid in here. They could monitor it from there, freeing up manpower to help
with repairs here."
"Good idea, Mr. LaForge,"
Chakotay said. "Take care of
it. I'll be in my ready room."
He couldn't say how long he sat in the
darkened ready room just staring out at the myriad of swirling energy streams
inside the Rift. What were they going
to do now? What was he going to do
now? Everything happened so fast that
it was still hard to believe she was gone and with her their best chance of a
non-violent solution was gone. It was
looking more and more like an all-out war with the Borg was inevitable. His computer beeped insistently with an
incoming message until he finally activated the channel. "What?"
The EMH appeared on the computer
monitor. "Captain, I've spoken to
Commander LaForge and he informs me that the ship is secure for the time
being."
"What about wounded?" Chakotay
asked.
"Under control, a couple of serious
injuries but no fatalities," he answered.
"I think you should report to the captain's quarters--"
"No!" he responded angrily.
The EMH straightened up and adopted his
most imposing look. "I didn't want
to do this, but Captain Chakotay, as Chief Medical Officer of the starship
Voyager, I am temporarily relieving you of duty and ordering you to report to
the captain's quarters until 0700 tomorrow unless we're attacked before
then."
"I could just deactivate your
program," Chakotay pointed out.
"I have wounded here," the
Doctor argued. "I may have more of
a medical staff than I did in the Delta Quadrant, but I do have a lot of
wounded and a couple of seriously injured that require my expertise. You need to go to the captain's quarters
now. I will check with the computer in
ten minutes and if you are anywhere else on this ship, I'll just have you
transported there. Sickbay out."
............................................................
Reluctantly, Chakotay entered the
captain's quarters numb from the events of the day. This was the last place on the ship he wanted to be right now. He could still feel her presence, smell the
light scent of her perfume; it was hard to believe that she was gone. He'd only had her-- really had her in his
life for a few days, but it felt like a lifetime had been lost in that
explosion. He blinked and shook his
head trying to clear the vision standing in the doorway to the bedroom.
"I'm not a ghost," Janeway
remarked, "at least not yet."
"Kathryn?"
Janeway crossed the room and tentatively
cupped his face in her hands. "I'm
sorry, Chakotay."
Too many thoughts and emotions were
roiling through him to say anything and he was half-afraid that he was
dreaming. Her hands felt so real as
they caressed the broad expanse of his chest, sliding around to hold him close
to her. The warmth of her breath wafted
across the skin of his throat when she started nuzzling him just below his
jaw. There were things that needed his
attention and a mission to finish but all he wanted was a few more minutes with
her. He closed his eyes as she started
to unfasten his uniform pants, his hips rocking into the sweet pressure of her
fingers brushing against his quickly-growing arousal. Her inviting lips parted as if to say more and he quickly covered
her mouth with his, silencing her with a deep, demanding kiss; reality could
wait a while longer. Sweeping her into
his arms, he strode into the bedroom and tenderly laid her on the bed. He sat beside her and covered her lips with
his finger in a wordless order for silence before reaching for her
uniform. It seemed to take him forever
to remove all of the barriers between them until, finally, he was stretched out
full-length against her with their bodies pressed close together. Her lips brushed across his shoulder with
feather-light kisses, a ghostly-sweet sensation. His body ached for her and he focused his every thought on the
woman in his arms, trying not to think about the events of the past hour. He shuddered violently when her tongue found
and flicked at a stiff, throbbing nipple, his hands coming up to entwine in her
hair and hold her mouth close to his chest.
His hips rocked against hers creating a tantalizing spark of pleasure
where their hips connected. Part of him
wanted to take her fast and hard, but the part of him that was scared she was
nothing but a dream wanted to take this as slow as possible, make this last an
eternity. Ultimately she made the
decision for him, rolling onto her back and pulling him on top of her with her
legs wrapped around his waist, forcing their bodies together. Of their own volition, his hips slammed into
hers, burying the painfully-hard length of his body deep into her. In that instant, he knew perfect peace
completely enveloped by her, her arms around his neck, her legs around his
waist and the slick, hot depths of her body clutching him intimately; he didn't
want her to ever let go. His hips
slowly began thrusting against her, need forcing the pace faster and harder
until he was slamming deep into her and grunting softly with the effort. Her body arched up to meet him stroke for
stroke and the soft sounds of her passion spurred him on. He put everything out of his mind except for
the vision in his arms and began driving into her fiercely, lost in the burning
pleasure of being milked by her body each time he pulled out only to force his
way back deep inside her. Sweat beaded
on his skin and began trickling down creating a cool, prickly sensation over
his entire body. She gasped his name,
her body shivering violently with a powerful orgasm but he didn't stop. Only when his lungs felt like they were
going to burst and he'd lost count of the number of times she'd cried out with
pleasure did he finally allow his own release.
He drove himself deep and held his body tight against her, riding out
the waves of pleasure that followed the powerful climax. Collapsing down onto her, he could feel the
rapid beating of her heart in concert with his own. He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes, afraid that she'd be
gone.
Janeway held him, welcoming the reassuring
weight of his body. Her hands stroked
his back in idle circles and savored the euphoric aftermath of their
passion. She knew they had to talk,
there was still a lot to do. "I'm
sorry I couldn't tell you before," she whispered to him; "but she had
to believe that I was in that shuttle and she knows you as well as I do--almost
anyway. She'd know if you were
acting."
"You're really here?" he rasped
hoarsely. "This isn't a
dream?"
"Well, I'm sure this is more than one
woman's fantasy involving you," she said with a wink and a grin; "but
I'm here and this is very real. I
suspected that she'd want to get rid of me.
I know her almost as well as she knows herself; she'd see me as the only
real threat to her stability. When she
extended the invitation for me to transport over to her cube to talk, I knew it
was a trap. I had talked with the
Doctor a couple of days ago, I wanted a back-up plan in place in the event that
she sent drones to target me. He
created a clone of me from my DNA--it wasn't alive, just a physical shell with
my genetic markers. Using artificial
lungs and heart along with a neural processor, sensors could be tricked into
thinking that it was a living, breathing me.
He altered my DNA enough to change how I showed up on sensors so that
the pseudo-clone of me would be the only 'Kathryn Janeway' in sensor
range."
He still wasn't entirely sure what to
believe. "The Doctor knew about
it? That's why he relieved me of duty
and insisted on my coming here."
"I swore him to secrecy," she
said, "at least until we were away from the cubes. I took the captain's yacht because I'd
already set everything up in there. My
clone was onboard and just needed a signal from the Doctor to be
activated. I programmed the auto-pilot
and rigged the warp core to the sensors.
When the sensors detected a tractor beam, the anti-matter containment
would be disabled--unnecessary as it turned out."
He sighed, his hands stroking and
caressing her sweat-dampened skin as if to reassure himself that she was really
there.
She nuzzled his warm, copper skin in tacit
sympathy. "I wish there'd been
another way, I just couldn't risk her destroying Voyager to get to me. She had to believe it, which meant that all
of you had to believe that I had just blown up."
"You were right," Chakotay
whispered.
Running her feet along the coarse hair of
his thighs, she kissed his collarbone.
"I'm glad you see things my way."
"No," he rose up on his elbows
to look down into her face. "Not
about this, although it was a good plan as much as I hate to admit it; I mean
you were right not allowing anything to happen between us back in the Delta
Quadrant. Out there today, I would have
risked this entire ship to protect you and I froze for a second on the bridge
when your shuttle exploded. I didn't
really understand before but I do now and I was wrong to even push you on the
issue; you were right."
"I see."
He rocked his hips against her to force
her attention back to him. "No,
you don't. I'm not willing to give you
up now that I've got you. You were
right that it complicates things and you were right to keep me at arm's length,
but your future self is rewriting more than enough history at the moment. We can deal with this here and now. This relationship doesn't compromise your
authority on this ship and you won't let it compromise our mission so there's
no reason that we can't take comfort in what we have here for as long as we have
it."
All of the strain, uncertainty and emotion
of the day's events drained out of her with his words. She allowed him to roll their bodies so that
they were laying side-by-side and she helped him pull the blankets over them. His body was a warm, solid anchor to hold
onto as she began drifting off to sleep.
"You do realize," Chakotay
murmured to her, "that now you're our secret weapon."
**FINIS**