FIRE DANCE

Yuan Yuan Tan

as "The Firebird"

Leucospermum cordifolium

An Equinox story

vanhunks

SUMMARY: Summary: Kathryn finds it increasingly difficult to come to terms with what Chakotay called "crossing the line". Her state of mind is causing the crew, most notably Chakotay, great concern. Set after and incorporating events of "Equinox."

DISCLAIMER: Paramount is Chief

RATING: PG-13

FIRE DANCE

Two things inspired the title of this story:

1. A certain flower, endemic only to Southern Africa and which grows mostly wild, belongs to the genus Leucospermum, [Leucospermum cordifolium]of the Proteaceae family. The Leucospermums are commonly called "pincushions" and one of the most beautiful pincushions [L. cordifolium] has been named: "Fire Dance".

2. There are still tribes (particularly in Africa, and specifically in the Kalahari, who practice a ritual fire dance. A warrior, seeking to resolve personal (inner) conflict, dances around a fire until he is spent. The rest of the small tribe sit in a circle around the fire, and give their support to the lone dancer.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

1.My sincere thanks to Turtlewoman and The Sculptor [Theresa Saborski] who did a really excellent job on especially the Prologue of this story. I would like in particular to express my profound gratitude for the work The Sculptor has done. She has been amazingly patient, and her "show me, don’t tell me" instruction when she edited the Prologue has gone a long way to make that section as smooth as possible.

2.Ah, Ghostwriter (The Violinist) who suggested particular pieces of music I could listen to in order to write the Prologue and ‘listen’ to the music as accompaniment to the dance. I first became intrigued when I heard Bach’s Concerto for Double Violins played in the film, ‘Children of a lesser god’.

3.The "Owl" Critic (Matt Rowe) who kept this project alive with his constant encouragement to finish it.

Other credits will be given at the end of this story.

FIRE DANCE

PART ONE: PROLOGUE

"The need prevails in every single man
to rest his restless soul, so that he can -
where all may see his conflict - find the chance,
through fire's flames be cleansed in fevered dance."

- vanhunks

Slow, low burning fires surrounding the rock were spaced so that a person could pass through and stand on the platform.

Occasionally flames would shoot higher when fanned by the late-night breeze. The flames licked at the darkness, creating small orbs of warmth which pierced the chill of the air. It was the only light given off, except for the moon trying valiantly to break through the billowy cloud banks. On the perimeter of the sandy enclosure a number of figures, clad in shimmering skin-toned body suits, sat around the fire with heads bent. With arms outstretched from their glistening bodies, their fingers interlocked... flames licking and touching those of the next fire next to it.

The stillness in the air was broken by the occasional crackling as sparks shot from the flame. Somewhere in the distance the howling of the savannah dog could be heard, sounding as a faint echo. The glow from the fire threw the figures in half silhouette and half relief, and exuded an aura of warmth, intimacy.

They waited.

Soft music rose up. The wailing of two violins eased slowly into the quiet of the night, retaining its diminuendo, filling the air, drifting, traveling... Heads went up and faces turned towards the fire. Each face glowed in the light, each face filled with ecstasy as they stared with parted lips at the fire. Arms and necks glistened. Then, as if given a silent signal, their heads bent again.

The music flowed, the plaintive notes hanging in the air, hovering over the dancers. A gentle melody spoke in the cold breeze a language of movement and harmony. Twin melodies in which one eased imperceptibly to hover over the other, then, suddenly, the lower tones of the other would dominate... yet never overtake.

Harmony.

Still the figures sat with heads bent. An observer might have imagined that the gesture denoted merely a pause, waiting for a cue before they would lift their heads again and look towards the fire. It was the only direction they could cast their eyes, were they to look up. Another, more astute observer might have said that sitting there like that was reminiscent of reverence. Do not look up, there is here a sovereign holiness.

There was a stir among the group as a lone figure materialised, an apparition from the darkness. Her eyes conveyed strength, but were tinged with sadness. They remained fixed as she moved through a parted link in the human chain. With soft, graceful steps, toes pointed, she moved toward the centre until she stood on the stone surrounded by the fire.

The skirt she wore flared in numerous panels of irregular length, each ending in a long triangular point. Deep orange combined with yellows and reds with tiny whispers of green. The dress was a flame, swaying serenely about her ankles, creating a sense of movement, even as the dancer stood still. A soft, gentle murmur rose from the dancers as they beheld the vision before them.

Her arms hanged loosely at her sides. Her fingers were relaxed, though they trembled slightly in anticipation of the first movement. Her head was bent, mimicking the earlier posture of those surrounding her. She brought her hands to rest in front, with her fingers just barely touching. Her feet were in the first position of the classical ballet dancer.

She did not smile. In the deep glow of the fire, and with the light of the silver moon bathing her face, she looked pale.

The violins rose, the twin tones of the plaintive melody building gradually into a crescendo. When both violins struck one harmonic chord, the dancer moved.

Her head jerked up, her arms rising above her head. The dancers in the circle lifted their faces and for the first time they could see her face.

The golden glimmer of the fire reflected on her skin and in her eyes while her hair burned bronze. A tiara, hardly discernable, graced her crown. It created little sparks with each movement of her head. Arms swept upwards in a graceful, swan-like movement, like elegant wings that unfurled and fingers positioned middle finger towards thumb. The gesture was regal, a queen rising above her subjects, almost disdainful as her head swung imperiously to stare down at the seated figures. She stepped off the flat rock and moved out of the inner circle of the fire. She began a slow walk, toes pointed with every step, pausing momentarily as she passed dancer after dancer.

Body swayed and upper torso swooped down then rose, only to move into a pirouette, slow and languorously. Around the fire she danced, single slow pirouettes forming with suddenness into an arabesque. Her dress flared around her legs as she crouched, then stretched herself with abandon. Her movements caused the colours in her dress to burn as orange, reds and yellows mingled to create a flame, becoming part of the fire that burned in the centre. She was another flame that sprang from its source into the darkness. A flame that moved and licked and dimmed, then flared again, with bare feet, noiseless on the soft, sandy surface outside the fire. She moved them with grace, rose high on her toes then curled into a gentle curtsy before her body stretched lissomely upwards again where her hands seemed to touch the moon.

The dancers remained still in breathless wonder as her face transfixed them.

She danced closer and closer to the edge of the fire so that she lost form, becoming one with the flames that rose and fell as her movements created a slight breeze, giving life to each fire as she passed.

The queen paused, her eyes fixed on one group of dancers.

Her arms reached out, beckoning. In movements that matched her fluid grace, one rose and stepped forward until he faced her. For a few tense minutes they danced around the fire in a painful pas de deux. His arms encircled her waist and he lifted her high, only to put her down gently, gently... Her head thrown back, she reveled as he lifted, swung, supported and soothed. With a sudden discordant sound from the violins, the tone changed gradually as their movements became more frenzied. He implored silently with his hands, then he touched her own hands, a heart-rending gesture of entreaty. The smile on her face changed with his gestures. His arms stretched towards her and the look in his eyes begged her understanding. He flung his arms angrily and both hands grasped her waist. Her body suddenly stiffened at the message relayed with his eyes and in a swift movement he cast her away from him. With a wild gleam in her eyes as she danced around him, and the two of them around the fire. They circled the fire, eyes locked...stalking...prowling...not touching, the force of will emanating from her eyes keeping him at bay.

He spread his arms.

Let me come...

The lone dancer closed in on her: one step, another as his arms jerked stiffly to his sides, then suddenly reached for her. The movement caused the flames to rise higher.

A gasp from the supplicants accompanied the sudden springing of the flames. He caught her hands, their fingers lacing as he pulled her against him. For a second her head rested on his chest as he held her hands to her sides.

His eyes closed. Prayer.

Come to me...stay...

Her head lifted, her eyes fixed on his. The smile changed, froze into denial...

No! No!

The fires rose higher.

Away! Away!

Her hand pointed to the empty space. He paused, took a step forward, but her face remained resolute as she gestured that he leave her. One violin wailed a long, plaintive sound as the lone dancer stood, until finally he moved away from her, his head held high and proudly. When he reached the silent, watching dancers, he looked at her again.

Arms gestured, pointing in determined finality to the deep darkness where the light from the fires couldn’t reach. Her movements were strong, angered, the fire in her dress flamed like her face and hair. The lone dancer stood and waited.

Away! Away!

He kept his stance. His eyes, at first compassionate, slowly filled with burning anger, yet he waited for her. The queen thrust her hand at him, her forefinger touching his chest. He took a slow step back, at which she, in simultaneous synchronised dance, measured with him by stepping forward. Taking yet another graceful step forward she impelled his reciprocal action.

Only when he was cast in darkness, did the queen pirouette once, twice, flaming hair swinging, her face remaining a mask of anger as she returned to the fire.

Two, three dancers rose and the tiny corps slithered forward, feet out, arms pulled far back and necks arched. Arms pulling forward once more completed the cycle as a single, fluid movement, which was repeated as the queen, on the opposite side of the fire, jumped and pirouetted. She rose high on her toes, swirled round and round until she reached them. With a sudden jerking of her head back and forth, neck arching as gracefully as a swan, she pushed and beckoned yet kept them at a respectful distance.

She thrust them from her and they retreated, their faces filled with reverence and fear. Slowly, in a concert of movement, they rejoined the human circle and, in a gesture marking great deference, took their places on the ground with bent heads.

From beyond the circle came five figures. Dark, ominous, deadly, they approached with stealth. As they came level with the figures in the circle, all the dancers rose and joined their queen, hands high above their heads. She stood on the flat rock in the centre of the fire, while her dancers formed a guard around her.

The five invaders edged forward, piercing the protection of the circle the dancers formed around their queen. Her supplicants stepped away, short, staccato steps to where they had been sitting, while the five invaders claimed their position next to her. The dancers hovered, their arms outstretched towards their queen, their faces filled with supplication.

We will help...

Two of the waiting dancers advanced, then fell to the ground, and lay still. Enraged, the queen swooped on the ominous five, and they scattered. One hapless member fell prey to the queen’s anger, and in swift strokes she struck him down. Dazed, he rose, his arms reaching for her in a rendered plea.

The queen looked at him, and for a few silent seconds they joined in madding pas de deux, until suddenly, she dismissed him with disdain.

She pirouetted twice, then launched into an arabesque, a swift, angered movement of legs and arms that shot out towards him. His face contorted with fear as he shrank back, taking short, hurried steps to join the rest of the dancers.

The wailing violins accompanied her as she danced around the fire once again. Her eyes were fixed, glazed as she contorted her body, twisted and turned. Her breathing became laboured as she became more frenzied, her movements around the fire, painful and bitter, searching frantically for release. Her face, once so disdainful, so regal, became a tapestry of emotions that flitted and stayed - pained and pleasured and punished.

Still she kept on and on, her neck and arms glistening as the the film of perspiration from the exertion of her frenzied dance, reflected the heat of the fire.

The dancers waited, keeping a respectful distance, understanding the language of her dance. Feet glided, shuffled, lifted. Arms folded and unfolded like a swan’s wings, singed at its tips as she ambled dangerously close to the flames. Yet, it seemed that she welcomed it, wanting the pain to release her turmoil.

She was exhausted, still she refused to stop, unable to stop as the dancers’ hands reached out, imploring her; in endless supplication their outstretched arms pleaded for her to cease. She was driven, the fire drawing her inexorably closer and closer. Arms lifting above their heads, the dancers faced their queen. In the dimming light of the moon, the flames rose high as she stepped into the heart of the fire. It enfolded her lovingly, searingly into its burning bosom as she stood on the flat rock, arms stretched, with palms turned upwards.

The dancers all rose, bowed towards the centre. Their eyes called her, their hands beckoned her. She stood still, surrounded by the flames, her head thrown back in nameless pain that only the fire could heal. It took her turmoil, her inner fight, and burned... burned...

We know, our queen...

We understand...

Slowly, she rotated on the rock, looking at each dancer, her scalding tears joining the glistening beads of perspiration on her neck, before the heat dried them.

Her hands reached for them, then sagged back, to hang limply at her sides.

You are worthy...

We need you, our strong and gentle queen...

She held her hands towards her supplicants again, furling and unfurling her fingers like the wings of a swan. The dancers imitated her movement, their torsos swaying gently.

We are with you...

Yes...

Their soft humming fused with the violins in its final strains as the music returned to the diminuendo, softly, softly as the fires burned lower and lower.

I...am...done...

She stepped out of the circle of the fire. The dancers rose as one and waited with respect and reverence.

They saw in her face, in her eyes, in her trembling fingers, the release from the fire. They witnessed her peace. She moved forward from the centre, towards the edge of the compound.

One group parted to allow her through.

She paused at the edge of the enclosure and looked beyond the reach of the fire’s light. She held out her hand and beckoned to the lone dancer who stood steadfastly all the time in the dark.

He came forward.

He touched her face with great tenderness.

Slowly, slowly her hand came up, fingers trembling as it reached for him. His eyes closed as her hand closed over his.

I am here...

*****

END PART ONE: PROLOGUE

FIRE DANCE

PART TWO

"In the event of imminent destruction a captain is authorised to preserve the lives of his crew by any justifiable means."

- Captain Rudy Ransom.

RANSOM

On the Equinox, the last fateful minutes.

Rudy Ransom knew it was the end. The aliens were all over the ship. In a final desperate attempt, he ordered Marla beam some of the crew off the Equinox.

They may not be happy with Kathryn Janeway’s command, but at least they had a chance of getting home. He knew, even as he prepared to pilot his beleaguered ship out of Voyager’s way, that Max and some of his faithful followers were already dead.

At the last he opened a channel to Voyager again, his final message to Kathryn Janeway.

"You’ve got a fine crew, Captain. Promise me you’ll get them home..."

He had known there would be no rescue for him, he had known that getting the Equinox away from Voyager would be his last deed he would do for the Federation. A life for a life. There was no thought of commendations, red carpets or celebratory champagne. There was only this one fervent wish: that the other ship return safely home.

For years he dreamed of home, for years home had been his obsession. He killed with indiscriminate ease to attain that end. How easy it became once the first deed led to the second and the next, until the thought that they were doing wrong, slipped gradually from their conscience. Killing became just another step closer and closer to home. No rules applied for them anymore.

For a long time he had forgotten who he was. Until he met Kathryn Janeway.

"When we turn our backs on our principles we stop being human. You have forgotten what it is to be human, Captain Ransom," her words echoed.

Now he waited for his end, and the end would come for him before the aliens would burn him from the inside and turn him to stone.

He closed communication, losing visual of Voyager, of Kathryn Janeway’s face. He thought absently that she looked concerned, unhappy.

She is in hell, as I have been. I do not envy her her private damnation.

It didn’t matter now. His hand reached slowly for the synaptic stimulator, and with a calmness amidst the storm around him, he attached it behind his ear.

*****

For the first time, Rudy Ransom stood on the distant shores of Pendarin. He had never before been able to stand inside this simulation. Before he just had a view of the pristine shores. Always it was the same, always the very same shore, with the waves lashing against the rocks. He was filled with wonder as he stood on the rocks which jutted high above the raging waters. He watched the smaller waves crashing somewhat lazily, the sprays rising and rising until his face was wet. He raised his face and let the sun dry him again, until the next waves came crashing again. The sound of the heaving seas became a symphony! Sounds that he longed to hear so often, so often!

He returned to this place a hundred times, a thousand times in his dreams. Always, always, he felt the desire to remain, and let his restless soul seek refuge.

Here he could forget... Here he could find peace.

I had no choice. Would you have done the same? I took this path, the path of the unforgiving. Would you have done the same? I did not want to walk this path, Kathryn Janeway. Would you have done the same?

"I remembered in time that I was human, Kathryn Janeway. Did you?"

He looked around him again, the stretch of beach ending in a promontory, beyond which the endless vistas continued...

It is far more beautiful than I remember...

There was a great rushing sound in his ears, the sound of the heaving ocean, breathing...breathing...

Oh, Pendarin!

He smelled the air and tasted the salt in the fine spray the waves caused as they crashed inland upon the shore. Little eddies played and danced before they retreated reluctantly to join their bigger brothers. Their fingers curled and licked, unfurled and rolled as they tried to get the unwilling grains of sand to join them on their journey back to the great sea.

Rudy had read somewhere that every seventh wave was the largest of a convoy that reached the rocks and beach. Now, after so long, he could see it, smell it, even touch it. He could see the seventh wave rushing towards him, crashing thunderously, with foam and spray fanning white over the rocks before they retreated and prepared to launch their next attack.

He smiled at the way the great waters played.

I am here at last. My home, Pendarin.

He closed his eyes and joined his hands to revere these moments.

How I have longed for you, Pendarin! Home of my childhood, home of my youth, home of my innocence. Never so much peace, never so much solitude, never so much invoking the desire to return to you time after time...

Rudy was filled with a great peace as he looked at the sea. All his old, old trials, his strife and turmoil was left behind. None of that life was standing there, with him. There were no clouds, there were no crew that depended on him, no decisions to be made, no life forms to kill.

There was only the mighty ocean's sounds, the ever churning waters that breathed into ebb and flow, ebb and flow. In never-ending rhythm it throbbed the passage of time, unchanging, powerful, undaunting. It washed over him, every sound, every splash against his face, every little eddy that licked at his feet and withdrew, only to come again and take away little by little some of his pain.

I am at peace. I leave behind old woes...

The view was a blue eternity, of azure waters meeting the skies in horizons he had only seen when he was a young man, and lately, in his meandering dreams.

Oh, timeless, tireless oceans! How bright and blue the skies above you! How they stretch into forever, only to join you and fuse with you in brilliant blue harmony. Never have I seen you so! Alive... alive... calling your ancient calls to all who sailed on you, to all who sailed above you.

From afar came the sound of the gulls, swooping and climbing and diving in majestic flight as they came nearer.

Rudy Ransom opened his eyes and squinted in the glare of the sun. His gaze traveled over the rocks and little rock pools; he looked at the beach, hardly a beach! But the sand lay pristine, with the heat of the sun in shimmering layers above it.

In unending, rolling repetition the waves rushed in towards the shore. The sea swelled and sagged, breathing, breathing, with the waves thundering in noisy abandon.

Oh, how beautiful my land is!

For this I waited, for this I hungered with an endless hunger

His lips moved in wordless prayer:

"Oh, boundless ocean, your ever timeless tides
that guide the passing of our days!
Greet your beloved son, who homage pays,
to rest forever where the heart abides."

*****

The bridge of Voyager.

Kathryn Janeway watched in mute shock and fascination as the Equinox careened first to her starboard side - a final salute to Voyager before the black sky was lit up by a fireball. There was no sound as the Equinox, in a shower of sparks, silently bid farewell to her people, and entered a new realm of nothingness.

Night and day - the same.

There was a hushed silence on Voyager’s bridge as each crewmember observed with great humility this moment in which Rudy Ransom died.

Janeway felt a lump in her throat.

"Promise me you’ll take them home..."

"I promise..." were her last words to him.

She knew as she looked at Ransom's face, that in the weeks and months to come, that image would never leave her. She knew that of all literature and texts she had ever read or perused even with mild interest - books that spoke of great heroic deeds, that spoke of tragic endings - that Captain Ransom died a great man. How great a man could only be attested by her own evaluation in these moments that they had tried with desperation to beam him off the Equinox. She had known instinctively, when he recanted, that he had returned to the man he had once been. A man once again imbued with the essence of all that guided every Starfleet officer on every journey, every mission: the sanctity of life before all else. He died a man with remorse, with pride, with honour. He had, like her, the same high and lofty ideals, the same drive to get his crew home. And in the attainment of these grand ideals, he lost sight of the very ethic and mores that were supposed to be his moral guidelines.

Yet, when he recanted, in his attempt to restore and make good, he knew he would give his life.

But he resisted her command, and with extraordinary valour turned his ship away from them. He paid the ultimate price: his life. In so doing, he saved them and the precious few remaining members of his loyal crew.

His life for theirs. He wanted some part of him to reach home. Rudy Ransom did not leave his ship. He was the last to die. Captain Ransom went down with his ship.

I will never forget what he did...

Kathryn cast her eyes to her left, to speak to Chakotay.

The chair was empty.

*****

END PART TWO

PART THREE

"The thought (of mutiny) had occurred to me, but that would have been crossing the line."

- Commander Chakotay.

CHAKOTAY

Chakotay was standing at his viewport, watching the streaking stars light up the black night in a brilliant kaleidoscope of colours. He knew by the texture of the elongated streaks, the proximity of one colour to another, and how, just where one line touched the next parallel to create a smooth new shade, that they were traveling at high warp.

I shall never get tired this, never get tired of looking at nebulas that remind me of this animal or that bird, or tales that I could weave. I could paint the sky...

Strange how the streak of colour across the black canvas reminded him of a painting, a still life, yet the ship was moving. It was the impression of a wagon’s wheels which appeared to remain still while the wagon sped forth on its journey.

He stood quite still, his hands behind his back, with the fingers linked. He stared, and only occasionally, a muscle in his jaw would twitch. He had been here, cloistered in his quarters for the last two days. He knew that there were two of Tuvok’s security officers outside his door. It wasn’t that he felt any need to escape that would have given Baxter and Crewman Dirk a reason to draw their phasers on him. The fact that he was confined to quarters at all because the Captain was once again driven by an obsession, was what caused him extreme concern. More than being confined here, was the resentment he felt that Kathryn refused to listen to reason. She was beyond that, blinded by an extraordinary desire to make Ransom pay.

"Commander, you are hereby relieved of duty until further notice."

A nerve twitched again.

"What’s happened to you, Kathryn?"

"I was about to ask you the same question."

That was the last time she spoke to him.

Another nerve twitched.

She almost killed Noah.

He had never seen her so dangerously close to the edge of damnation, where hell’s fire surely burned you for all eternity.

Ransom’s aims were no less noble than Kathryn’s.

He had given up Starfleet principles, while Kathryn reminded him that Starfleet remained the only law, the only guiding force that could keep all its Admirals and Captains religiously applying those tenets to their lives.

He had to admit, the line between the self, that which made up the person, the personality, however loved or lonely, and the rigours of rank, was hazy. The one had an undetachable bearing on the other. Kathryn is Kathryn for the most part because of the style of leadership she applied. The kinds of dramatic and often controversial decisions required of her were made because they had to overcome almost insurmountable odds in the Delta Quadrant. Many issues of moral and ethical proportions she had to take a stand on. Most of them were issues of life and death, made here in this quadrant where there were no Federation laws to guide her. Here, Kathryn Janeway represented the United Federation of Planets. Here, carrying out her duty, impressing those rigid laws on all around her, turned her into a woman whom he could see, was dangerously close to the edge. She was on her own, but she didn’t have to be.

She didn’t have to be.

How much of the captain was Kathryn then, and how much of the woman?

No doubt, every Starfleet Captain, newly promoted to that rank, accepted the responsibility with a lot of preconceptions still in place, a lot of naïveté, a lot of dreams and desires to effect sweeping changes.

Kathryn changed, and to many she appeared reserved, unbending, implacable. Yet with that change there remained her unfailing dedication and loyalty to Starfleet principles. They were so strong in her that her anger at Ransom for leaving those principles behind so soon after they were thrust into the Delta Quadrant, sounded as an outrage.

To her, Ransom and his crew were killers. There was as far as Kathryn was concerned, no shade of grey. They adhered to Starfleet or they were murderers. No extenuation. She was on the warpath for the Federation.

She was blisteringly angry that Ransom and his crew could murder aliens to get home quicker. She took a moral stand against him, acted on behalf of the Federation, so to speak, when she sought to exact punishment.

I tried, Kathryn, to make you see that you were walking the same path as Ransom. I don’t know how much this present conflict between us will chip off our special relationship of Captain and First Officer. I know this: it will not be the same. I saw you as I have never seen you. There was in your eyes a certain hatred, a certain obsession, an unquenchable thirst for revenge. I don’t think I can bear that look when I see you again.

Ransom’s primary aim: get the Equinox and her crew home.

Kathryn’s primary aim: get Voyager and her crew home.

Their methods were different.

Ransom killed life forms in order to do so.

Kathryn?

Kathryn would use violence and through it, justify her actions and establish her control. Did that make her any better than Ransom?

Kathryn had become Ransom. She would deliver Ransom and the Equinox to the aliens. She would kill Noah Lessing to her own ends.

Was Kathryn any different now?

Would he ever see a different light in her eyes? Her desire for revenge, to pull Ransom in line by whatever means, even what she abhorred most - violence - shut out all common sense and decency.

What manner of first officer am I, that I couldn’t convince Kathryn that she was walking the path of the damned? Why am I always struggling to make Kathryn see reason where she has lost all sense of it? Is this the role I am always to play? Offering an alternate path, the right path, just to have Kathryn refuse to walk on it?

Just to have Kathryn say: "A good suggestion, Commander, but I still think I’ll follow my own method?">

Chakotay sighed. He had stood like that before Kathryn on countless occasions, arguing with her, giving advice, cautioning, admonishing, letting her know that she was about to cross the line. Every time, every time it happened, a little bit of their friendship, their partnership of Captain and XO was worn down further. Little by little, the attempts afterwards to repair the damage to their association lessened. There was something he always felt, a tiny part of their friendship, that remained behind, that was left on the ashes of what they prided themselves in: their camaraderie, the famed harmony with which they worked.

One day, he knew, there will be nothing left.

When they fought over Species 8472, Kathryn had remained implacable, and unable to get her way, always threatening to demote this officer, confine to quarters that officer. They’ve had major confrontations, and he always had that feeling that it became more and more difficult to make good, to accept apologies, to see real remorse. In short, to regain what they had before.

Earlier, hours ago really, he saw the fireball. The Equinox lit up the black night. He knew that Voyager had not fired at it to effect such total annihilation. The aliens must have destroyed the Equinox. He knew there were only two of the Equinox crew on Voyager - Lessing and Morrow, ambushed by him and Tom on that M-Class planet, and beamed to Voyager. Did the others all die to make Kathryn's revenge complete?

How could he know of any new developments?

He tried.

"You are denied access to the ship’s computers."

"Yes, I know," he sighed, "only use the replicator, and access sickbay for emergency."

He closed his eyes, and pictured their confrontation in the ready room when she relieved him of duty. Her eyes had been so fearless then, so challenging, with that great anger that simmered just beneath the surface. Would that look be in her eyes when he saw her again?

Oh, Captain, my Captain! What have you become?

*****

The doors to his quarters opened. Naturally, she could use her command code override. She stood just inside the doors, and did not move from there when the doors slid close behind her.

Chakotay had envisaged any number of scenarios at how the meeting would be between him and Kathryn. He thought of all sorts of ways in which to assure her that he stood by the stand he took, and that he was right to remind her of the folly with which she pursued her goal. He thought that there was nothing in the world that would deter him from always reminding her when she was about to cross the line, and that he would do so again and again.

Sometimes, he thought, Kathryn Janeway needed to be saved from herself.

He could deal with her anger.

He could deal with her guilt, understand it even.

He could deal with her ever ready manner in which she always challenged his decisions.

He could deal with quirky smiles that tried to deter him from knowing just how much coffee she drank in an afternoon.

He could deal with her open regard, her sassiness sometimes when they sparred whenever they had to discuss work.

He could deal with the total dedication with which she could sit deep into the early hours of the morning studying charts. She could be so completely focused that she’d forget he was still sitting on her couch, listening to her quiet murmuring when he indicated he was leaving for his own cabin.

Yes.

He could deal with all that.

He could not deal with what he saw on Kathryn Janeway’s face. Her eyes were bleak, hollow, and there rested in them the entire universe’s remorse. He closed his eyes at the sight of her, where she remained standing just inside the doors of his cabin.

Oh, great spirits of my fathers... Anything, anything. Not that. Not what I’m seeing now

"Commander."

There was no smile. She appeared ashen, yet she stood on attention, as if she were trying to exercise an extraordinary control not to break. Chakotay remembered snatches of conversation between them over the years:

"Is it really a legend?"

"No, but that made it easier to tell."

"The warrior promised he’d be by her side forever."

"Chakotay, can you take command of this ship?"

"Yes, I can."

"Are you with me, Chakotay?"

"Always."

And so Chakotay, Kathryn’s angry warrior, who vowed to stay by her side forever, made a new vow.

********

END PART THREE

PART FOUR

"I am going to hunt him down no matter how long it takes - no matter what the cost."

- Captain Kathryn Janeway

KATHRYN

She gave a curt nod to the two security officers who quarded Chakotay's quarters.

"Dismissed."

Their austere expressions reflected her own as they prepared to leave. She supposed her own expression could have caused that sudden if imperceptible squaring of their shoulders. With hands always at the ready near their phasers, they looked what their designation determined: security. She thought as they looked at her, that their expressions read something like:

"We may not agree with what you did, Captain, but we're here because we were following and carrying out orders."

She watched them stride away down the corridor to the nearest turbolift.

Orders.

Chakotay.

Chakotay had openly challenged her and disobeyed orders. Her lips pressed firmly together as she steeled herself for the next few minutes. She had no idea how Chakotay would react to her presence.

But she needed him.

How ironic that sounded now. She relieved him of duty because she didn't need him. No, she corrected herself, she didn't need his reminders that she was a neurotic megalomaniac. She didn't need reminders that her actions and decisions were borne out of her irrational thirst for retribution. She took a deep breath as her hand reached for the panel and with her command override, entered the codes.

*****

She stood just inside the doors of his quarters, did not look back when she heard the soft swoosh as the doors slid close behind her.

"Commander."

Kathryn did not move from where she stood, standing erect with her arms stiffly at her sides. It seemed every muscle in her body tensed. Their last encounter had been severely formal, a severity that had an unmistakable tone of acrimony. She had been deeply angered that he didn't support her, deeply resentful of his intervention, his flagrant disregarding of her position on this ship. She had been naive then, banking on all the previous times he had had to side with her. She blackmailed him emotionally then, twisting his very words of "the warrior who swore he'd be by her side forever" to her advantage, simply because she wanted her own way. What did she hope when she relieved him of duty? That he'd say that he's sorry, he won't cross her again? That he'd remember his promises to her, and let her make decisions regardless of how irrational they were?

How could he forgive her behaviour now? She looked at him, wondering what he would say.

I'm standing on attention in front of my first officer...

Chakotay had been standing at his viewport, looking at the streaks of light, and had turned to face her when she entered.

She took a deep breath again, then braced herself.

"Commander, I am reinstating you as first officer of this vessel, effective immediately."

Chakotay didn't move. Like her, he stood rooted to the spot. His eyes looked...sad.

What else did he want her to say? How many sorry's would it take to wipe away that look from his eyes? How long would it take for her to find their old footing again? One where they were friends? How can she say everything that was in her heart at this moment? There were so many things that crowded in her mind, each one straining for such dominance that every brain cell seemed to be under siege.

Over and over, the one thought ran like a little thread in her mind, always there, always present:

I crossed the line..

"Say something, Chakotay, please," she said stiffly.

She watched him as he walked up to her, and stood about a metre away. Close up, his eyes were even darker, more saddened. He stood, endearingly so, with his hands on his hips. At least that was a familiar gesture, as if he indicated through it that something remained between them that was still good. He didn't smile, though. He spoke, his voice even.

"Ransom?"

She closed her eyes. This was Chakotay. This was the man who, in spite of everything, still cared about the fate of the Equinox's captain. Chakotay had seen a long time ago what she had only realised a few hours ago. A blinding, terrible accusation that he had been right and she had been wrong.

She gave a little sigh. There was a burn behind her closed eyelids. With fierce desperation she managed to control the urge to burst into tears.

"Dead..."

She opened her eyes to look at him. He moved a little closer, still hands on his hips.

"Seven and the Doctor?"

"Safe."

"The rest of the crew?" His question was soft, and although she expected to see some accusation in his eyes, there was none. Just her good old Chakotay who had a heart.

"We - " She paused for a few painful seconds.

"What...?

"We were...able to transport three of them to Voyager..."

She saw Chakotay close his eyes briefly, then he looked at her again.

"Three?"

Accusation.

"Ransom, he - he remained behind."

It was too much for her. Too much. She couldn't stand to see the look in his eyes. It had turned to something...something... Pity, compassion. She didn't want that. There was stricken look in her face. She turned round swiftly, to leave. The doors slid open.

"Kathryn."

She froze.

"Look at me."

She turned slowly. There was a whisper of a smile on his face. Her heart thumped wildly. What now?

"We have work to do, Kathryn. You and I."

She nodded, unable to say anything. He reached forward and put his hand on her shoulder.

"I made a promise, remember?"

She didn't want to touch him, but she needed to. There was the instinctive urge to rest her head against his shoulder, feel his hand on her like now, and just wishing all the pain would go away. Instead, her hand went out and rested against his chest, like she did a hundred times in the past.

"Kathryn..."

She couldn't speak. She felt a lump in her throat and swallowed. His hand left her shoulder and covered hers. It felt warm and comforting.

Reassuring.

She nodded, closing her eyes as she did so.

"Yes..." her answer was soft, the sound thready, wobbly, as if she wanted to cry.

"Then let's get to it. Our crew needs us."

She stood back, out of his embrace, still feeling hollow, still feeling that wall of guilt bearing down on her. But he was here, with her. She gave a sigh.

Yes, with him at her side, she could go forward.

"They need to see - "

"A united front," he completed the sentence as they left his quarters to proceed to her ready room.

*******

Chakotay didn't think his task would be easy. To stir Kathryn Janeway out of her current state of deep reflection where he knew her thoughts were anything but balming and restful, was easier said than done.

Not even mentioning Neelix's potluck that the Talaxian had arranged for them that evening could rouse her from her obvious pained introspection. Her responses were lethargic. Like an automaton she moved about the bridge, hardly noticing the destruction. He thought if he looked in her eyes again, the expression wouldn't be much different from what it had been when she stood in his quarters. There was a shattered, bleak look about her.

Even her "I'll bring the croutons" sounded like an automatic response, as if she expected that was what he wanted to hear. But he heard her tone, edged as it were, with a bitter and ironic twist. What were croutons anyway? Mere appendages that could be left out, and not many would miss it really. Was that an indication of how she felt too?

An appendage?

He wished he could tell her to smile. He wished he could see her smile. They walked towards each other until Chakotay stood next to her. She ventured a look at him, then turned her gaze away from him, staring almost unseeingly at the bulkhead.

"Chakotay..."

Why couldn’t she look him in the eyes? She could feel him prime himself, waiting for her to speak.

"You know..."

He had every reason to challenge her. He had been right. She was on the verge of supping with the devil. He had known it all along, had tried to stem that rushing tide of her thirst for retribution. Chakotay had been within his right to relieve her of command, or...

"You may have had good reason to stage a little mutiny of your own."

She felt sick, she felt like dying. He should hate her, dammit! He should hate her. But he was Chakotay, warrior man extraordinaire, peaceful to the bone, at her side like he promised. She could have dealt with that better than seeing...

She looked at him. He didn’t smile, but in his eyes there was no censure, not now. Why couldn't he just hate her? She deserved that. Not his kindly eyes on her that made her feel even more like she could crawl under some rock in shame and never come out.

"The thought had occurred to me but that would have been crossing the line."

A pregnant pause.

There.

He said it.

He might well have said Kathryn Janeway crossed the line. That was the way of Chakotay. No outright accusation this time, no direct indictment that that was exactly what she had done, no exclamation of "I was right and you were wrong" from him.

It was a statement hidden with subtleties.

It stung more than if he had accused her outright.

Kathryn had been staring down at the floor, and her eyes were drawn to the object lying there among the debris. It was Voyager’s dedication plaque. With trembling hands she picked it up, rubbed away the dust from it, and looked at the name. Her voice was low and hoarse as she spoke.

"All the years, all these battles. This thing’s never fallen off."

Chakotay took the plaque from her, held it for a second with such reverence.

"Let’s put it back where it belongs."

When did she hear those words? Three days ago? Yesterday? A lifetime ago? She heard the same words issue from her mouth, she was holding a similar plaque in her hands. A man looked at her too. Rudy Ransom. From a long way off the words seemed to drift towards her. She remembered feeling a sense of restoration, of healing then. But now, they entered her mind and her soul and damned her anew.

"Let’s put it where it belongs."

Her words.

An eternity ago.

She stood still, mute for interminable seconds as the import of the words struck her. The noise of restoration on the bridge were sounds that came from far, like a distant buzz in her head.

*****

Chakotay turned to look at Kathryn again after he replaced the plaque.

There was a bleak, lonely look on her face.

Yes.

Kathryn Janeway was in hell.

*****

END PART FOUR

PART FIVE

"Everybody sees what you appear to be but few feel what you are."

- Machiavelli. The Prince, Chapter XVII

CHAKOTAY

Chakotay's hand covered Kathryn's briefly in an attempt to keep her in her chair. Although it wasn't quiet in the mess hall, the murmuring and occasional laughter was subdued, uneasy. It was as if Kathryn's presence placed a damper on the upbeat mood that was supposed to accompany Neelx's potluck. He didn't think that the potluck would clear the air like magic, but Chakotay appreciated Neelix's attempts to boost the morale of the crew.

The crew, normally open and relaxed even with their Captain present, were aware of the undercurrents of their latest conflict. Crew passing their table spoke in sudden lowered tones, then nodded respectfully at Kathryn and Chakotay. They had been sitting here all of fifteen minutes and already he could see how Kathryn Janeway struggled to keep a Captain's face. She was affected, even though he knew that the crew - their own crew - respected her decisions. They respected her.

Chakotay grimaced. He didn't want to look too much into Kathryn's face. It was frozen into a tight smile that he knew did nothing for the turbulent currents that her emotions had propelled her into. They were dangerously close to betraying her. Where she was more often than not in supreme control of her emotions, never letting anyone see any sign of weakness, she would lose it if she didn't escape soon...

She made her departure most times, being very graceful when she left a function after only a few minutes, or someone's birthday celebration, a dance, pool on the holodeck. The crew had become accustomed to that, and most of the time assumed that the Captain, and sometimes her first officer, didn't have the inclination to fraternise with the lower ranks. Kathryn was always driven, and her appearances at crew gatherings were frought with the underlying worry that work still had to be done. He would join her in her quarters or her ready room where they would be busy till deep into the night going over crew reports, navigational problems, anything that could help them commanding an efficiently run ship.

He had seen her wavering so many times, just wanting to stay and let off steam, but then she remembered she was 'Captain'.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," she offered as courteously as possible when she knew she was leaving, only to escape to her ready room or to her quarters. She wasn't really like that. He knew how badly she wanted to be free of the restraints of duty just for a few hours. He knew how badly she wanted to beat Tom at pool again, or join the others in a volleyball match. But duty before pleasure, was what she always cited, while he would see the hunger in her eyes.

The crew thought all Captains did that. It was accepted standards according to their way of thinking, or simply, to the way they've observed Kathryn over the years.

It wasn't true. Chakotay saw how she had to force herself on so many occasions to put up the smile when all she felt was her own isolation. She was so much aware of her responsibility that the very thought of just breaking loose and being herself for one glorious moment, never entered her mind.

"Kathryn, join me for velocity on the holodeck?" he asked her sometimes when he could see the drawn look on her face, the severity of her duty pulling the ends of her mouth into a perpetual droop.

"I can't, Chakotay. Not now."

It was always her answer. Sometimes she joined him. Then he would smile the entire evening, even go to bed dreaming of seeing her happy again, just because Kathryn enjoyed herself for once.

Now he was aware as she must be so painfully aware, of how the crew were staring at them. How could they not? They've just come through hell's fire, all of them still with the events of the last few days crystal clear in their memories. All were aware of how Kathryn...

Oh, great spirits... He groaned inwardly. Word spread like wildfire through the ship how crazed she had been, how determined in her quest to exact retribution. Not all blessed her decision to hunt Ransom down. All had heard, and some had witnessed her fury, her familiar stance of: "I will not allow anyone to kill for their expedience."

All knew how she almost killed Noah...

"Kathryn."

"Hmmm?"

"Eat. Your salad's getting cold."

"Nonsense, salads don't - "

She looked at him then, her sad eyes getting a momentary flash of forgotten merriment in them. It was gone before he could pin the picture into his memory.

"I thought that would get your reaction," he said, smiling back at her.

"You don't even like croutons," she said quietly. She picked listlessly at her salad, the fork scratching the plate in a sound that made him grind his teeth. He banked his burgeoning ire enough that he could smile at her.

"I said nothing of the kind, Kathryn," he replied, "but seeing as you insist, I shall eat mine."

He proceeded to pop a crouton in his mouth. His heart sank as he saw her sit back, hands on her lap, staring at her food. She was on the point of breaking. The crew's eyes were on them. He knew they were just waiting for their commanding officers to disappear before they sighed their relief. For once, he thought Kathryn's presence provided a prohibiting influence.

It was not only that that created the air of unease in the mess hall. The usual ambience that rested in the room when they could look back on a job well done, or just shaved a year or two off the journey, was missing.

It wasn't only Kathryn, whose tight smile masked her perturbed spirits, that was responsible for what he noticed around him.

The crew were still in shock. It was on their faces, in their demeanours, the quick and furtive glances to the bulkheads, ceilings, the floors, as if the aliens would materialise and kill them with screaming rage. Yes, that was it. He had himself lain in sickbay after such an attack, had seen Paris cover the body of Ensign Leigh Holt. He could well understand that they were still filled with that fear, and their actions seemed to anticipate any sudden movement in the mess hall. A sound - Neelix's stew plopping and simmering - caused one or two to draw their phasers. Tuvok had instructed all to be armed for the next few days, in the event of the aliens returning again. Nothing had happened so far, yet the crew were guarded.

"They are still afraid," Kathryn expressed his thoughts aloud.

"It's understandable," he answered, looking around him and noticing the five from the Equinox sitting in a far corner in the half dark. They huddled there, their hands clasped nervously on the table surface.

"Of me..."

"Kathryn, you know that - "

"It's true," she said quickly.

Chakotay swore under his breath. Putting his fork down so quickly that it clinked against his plate, it caused one or two officers from a nearby table to look up sharply.

Great, another item on the gossip mill...

"That's not true, Kathryn," he said, trying to keep his voice down, and keeping the growing anger tempered.

"Look at them," she whispered. "They are afraid...of me. It's in their eyes..."

He felt like exploding. She was torturing herself.

"No, you look at them, Kathryn. You look," he retorted urgently. "The shock of everything that's happened in the last few days is still sitting in them. It will take a while before they can look at another bulkhead without the fear that an alien will suddenly appear through it and burn them to a cinder - "

"And...them?"

He knew she didn't want to call Noah, Marla, James and the other two by their names. They were always 'them', as if naming them would acknowledge their permanent presence on Voyager. Not that she didn't want them here. They were a part of her crew now, a part of her family. But, seeing them as invidivuals in these moments when her anger had abated, now enforced in the most terrifying way her own guilt, her momentary madness, her brief descent into hell.

He sighed.

"You have to face them some time, Kathryn," Chakotay said soberly.

"I - I..."

"Perhaps not today," he offered kindly.

He saw the imperceptible sigh of relief. A stay of execution.

"Perhaps...not," she said softly, then rose from her chair. Her eyes were clouded again as she shot a glance around the room. Bodies stiffened, eyes turned in their direction, then back again. A glass hovered in the air before it reached the lips. Actions that were momentarily suspended, continued again.

"Kathryn, where - "

"I'm s-sorry. Please...forgive me. I can't stay... Make my apologies..."

"Dammit, Kathryn."

"Please."

Chakotay looked around him, saw everyone staring at them, their eyes following the Captain's figure as she proceeded towards the doors of the mess hall. Her back was straight, her shoulders stiff as she disappeared through the doors without once looking back or acknowledging the hesitant greetings of the crew she passed.

He swore again under his breath, then looked at the still staring Tom Paris, B'Elanna, Neelix, Seven.

"Go on, enjoy the evening," he said brusquely.

When they stood rooted to their spots, he almost barked.

"You heard me."

*******

She shivered uncontrollably where she sat on her sofa in the ready room, her arms hugging her as if to drive out the cold.

They were watching her...watching her. Did they expect her to get up and kill someone? Was that how they saw her? For a few days she had been mad...mad! For a few days her anger was a couldron that simmered, then maddeningly boiled over. She rocked back and forth, her chest burning as the air squeezed through her lungs and expelled in deep painful wheezes from her. One furious drawing in of air caused her stomach to lurch. She tried to force the feeling down, to keep calm, but Ransom's image flitted, replaced by the fear in Noah Lessing's eyes, aliens that swooped then retreated, Ransom again, pleading for clemency.

No...

No...

Oh, dear Lord, I'm going to scream...scream...scream...

She watched in fascination how, almost in slow motion, her hands loosened their grips where they dug painfully into her upper arms, coming to the front where they quivered as her fingers curled and flexed, curled and flexed. She could feel the force of a scream rising in her, building up from deep in her stomach, up...up... reaching her throat. It nestled precariously over her vocal chords before she felt her ear drums stinging. There were blinding flashes of colour as she blinked.

Her cheek burned, the tears that had formed an eternity ago in her eyes splashed down as the scream stuck in her throat. For a moment she was dizzy, the room spun and when it stopped turning, she was able to focus a little.

Through her tears she saw the blur of a figure.

"C-Chakotay?"

"I'm sorry, Kathryn. You were screaming..."

He bent down, and when his face was level with hers, he took her hands in his. Her fingers clamped around his so tightly that her knuckles showed white. There was a deep concern in his eyes as they settled on her. At first he thought she didn't recognise him, her lips moving in wordless distress before she stammered:

"Chakotay, what - what have I done?"

"Your job, Kathryn... You've done only your job," he said softly. She was not appeased as she kept repeating her own distraught words, over and over.

"It was wrong of me, Chakotay... Wrong of me...wrong of me..."

"You stopped in time. In time, do you hear me? You stopped in time," he soothed. He kept his voice soft and calm, hoping that repeating the comforting words would find a way into her heart and give her the solace she craved. But she was too high in the throes of her own terrible guilt about what she had done. Her eyes darted, and her breathing was laboured as she kept rocking. She needed the doctor... He wanted to hit his commbadge, but stopped in mid-air as he saw her eyes widen and her face become even more stricken. She didn't want the doctor to know. Going there, he realised immediately, would be admitting she had a problem...

He heard the hysteria rise in her voice, the pitch higher, thinner than her melodious register. Her lips trembled, and before another scream had time to blow into fullness, he pulled her to him. Her cry muffled as her face connected against him. Shifting quickly so that he sat down on the couch next to her, her held her as she buried her face in his chest.

"Better now?" he asked after a long time in which he held her shaking body until the trembling stopped.

She nodded, then moved so that she could sit a little away from him. She stared at the floor, wringing her hands together. She looked a little embarrassed, the nervous fluttering of her eyelashes indicating how unsettled she still was. She was, however, much calmer.

She didn't hear him enter the ready room a while ago, so deeply distressed she had been, and the way he rushed to her when the first cries started... He had seen her hands, the way they balled into fists as she lost the fight to scream. He pursed his lips. She had been near hysteria, and his slap across her cheek was enough to stun her back to reality.

He smiled grimly. In the next few days she would not want to be reminded of what just happened. He could see she was embarrassed about losing control. She had lost a lot of that in the last few days. To have tonight's episode added to her already full plate of remorse and guilt, was too much.

He waited.

He always waited.

She would talk.

She stole a quick glance at him, then looked down at her hands again. She spoke softly.

" Ira furor brevis est"

"Huh?"

"Anger is brief madness..." she said soberly.

"Thus spaketh Kathryn Janeway?"

"Thus spaketh Horace."

There was a long pause before he said softly.

"It's over now, Kathryn."

She nodded.

"You know..."

"What?"

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice firmer. She gave a sob, then sighed again. When she looked at him, he was gratified to see that she had regained much of her composure. She reached to touch his hand, and he wanted to smile.

Who was comforting whom now?

"We'll get through this, Kathryn - "

"We?"

"What did you think? Your first officer is doubling up as the punching bag, the soaked pillow, the sounding board, the - "

"- voice of reason, objector, reminder that I'm out of line, best first officer I've ever had, punching bag, pillow..." she continued.

"I mean it, Kathryn."

She gave him a wan smile, and patted his hand again.

"I know, Chakotay. What would I do without you?"

"Be lost?" he quipped.

"Yes..."

"Kathryn, my shoulders are broad. You can lean on me, as much as you want to."

He half expected her to say that she had done enough leaning in the last five years. He expected her to object about the role he offered to be.

She curved her lips into her old, endearing smile, the one that was so full of humour.

"Be careful what you wish for, Commander."

"You know my wishes, Captain," he answered, feeling how a weight lifted from him. She was at least amenable that he stay with her, provide the anchor in the raging storm. He knew that they've made a start, but in the next few weeks it would not be easy. He wanted to be there when she fell. Knowing Kathryn, these events of the past days would stay with her. She would brood, but she would know too, that he won't give up on her, and that her loyal crew will refuse to let her dwell on her own guilt for too long. He squeezed her hand again.

"Now, come," he said firmly, then almost laughed as he saw the confusion in her eyes.

"What?"

He leaned towards her, and touched the cheek he slapped not so long ago. He peered at it, fingered the tiny veins that burst just below the skin.

"You have a dermal regenerator in your quarters?" he asked a little guiltily.

"Why?"

"Kathryn," he said, mortified that her cheek showed a bruise, "you have a bruise on your cheek."

"Oh. Chakotay!"

"I'm sorry, Captain. It was in the - "

"- line of duty?"

"Well, if you put it that way, I guess the Doctor can - "

"Commander, to my quarters. That's an order."

The crew on gamma shift on the bridge gave a cursory glance at the Commander and Captain who stepped out of the ready room, then proceeded to the turbolift. Tuvok kept a poker face as he noticed the bruise on the Captain's cheek, and the way the Commander held the Captain's arm.

He concluded correctly that the Commander had used his old, but tested brand that was designed to bring the recipient back from a state of panic and hysteria. The captain looked composed, not minding how protective the Commander's fingers curled around her upper arm.

He gave Vulcan sigh.

The quiet settled quickly on the bridge again the moment the turbolift doors closed.

*****

END PART FIVE

PART SIX

"Every man deserves the right to make good on his sorry life..."

- Ensign Tom Paris

TOM

"She’s doing it again," Tom said.

"Doing what?" Harry asked where he sat with Tom and B’Elanna in the observation lounge.

"Come on, Harry. You can see," Tom replied barely able to keep the exasperation from his voice.

"Okay, I see she’s not smiling. She hasn’t been doing that since before our encounter with the Equinox. Is that it?"

"Partly, Harry," B’Elanna responded. He leaned forward over the table and glared at him. "The captain is taking the entire ship’s responsibilities on her shoulders. She’s carrying that burden alone." She gave a scowl as she sat back in her chair again.

"B’Elanna, you don’t have to beat yourself up over not seeing Max’s hidden agenda - "

"I should have, dammit!" she said heatedly. "Now the captain wants to shoulder that blame too."

"B’Elanna," Tom said in a placatory tone, "you have already expressed your own accountability to the Captain. She’s understood that."

"Yeah, and that's supposed to make me feel better, right?"

"Look," Harry chimed in as he saw how heated the conversation became, "all I know is that she shouldn’t have to go through this alone."

"You’re right, Harry. Maybe it’s time we make an all out effort to rouse her from her state of...whatever."

"Say it, Tom," B’Elanna challenged.

Although not surprised, she had been outraged at Max’s reaction to her pleas. Boy, was she glad she dropped him like some bad garbage ten years ago. Still, it rankled that he could outsmart her this time. It didn’t sit well on her that her ex-boyfriend got the better of them. She was not one to gloat on the fate of the dying, but Max’s death left her cold.

"She is unhappy. I think when Ransom died - or rather, the way he turned around and was ready to embrace the principles which govern Starfleet officers, affected her more than we think."

"Tom!" Harry exclaimed, "the man killed innocent life forms to get home quicker."

"I know, but try to understand. Every man deserves the right to make good on his sorry life..."

Harry and B’Elanna looked at him, and they knew he was referring not only to Ransom. Harry gave a nod.

"Fine, Ransom recanted. But then the Captain shouldn’t feel bad about the way he died - "

"How can you say that?" Tom said quickly. "Of course it affected her. You just have to look at her, Harry. Her old sparkle is gone, we’ve been looking for any sign from her in the last few weeks that she’s over what happened."

"She feels guilty, Tom," B’Elanna said, her voice now somewhat calmer. "She condemned a man for violating Starfleet principles, then turned around and was on the point of doing the same. That, I think, is what bugs her most."

"You know, I think you’re right B’Elanna," Harry said.

"Of course! Remember the time we were traveling through the void? She was fraught with guilt too, and what did she do?"

"Locked herself in her quarters for two months and didn’t come out."

"And why was that?" Harry asked again.

"She felt it was her fault," Tom said.

"Exactly!" B’Elanna cried out, then looked around to see if others didn’t hear her. "Now all we have to do is rouse her from this depression before she decides to keep to her quarters again."

"How do you propose to that, B’Elanna?" Tom asked. His hand covered hers, and the warmth of it filled her. Tom had been supportive when she herself had gone through a similar state after Max’s betrayal. She sighed.

"We should consult Neelix."

"Neelix?" Harry asked, a little nonplussed before his eyes gleamed with understanding. "Of course. One of his famous "Briefing with Neelix" programmes, or - "

"Talent night!" B’Elanna exclaimed. "Of course! We could ask her to perform again."

"Oh yes? And what will B’Elanna be doing on talent night?" Tom asked slyly.

"Play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue? Oh, come on, Tom! You know I don’t perform, Chakotay doesn’t per - " B’Elanna suddenly paused, looked at Tom and Harry whose eyes held a shine of anticipation.

"Bingo," Tom said softly as the significance of B’Elanna’s suggestion sank in.

"Yes, bingo."

"If anyone can get her to comply, it would be Chakotay."

"Her Angry Warrior."

"She busted him, Tom."

"She reinstated him, B’Elanna. That’s got to tell you something."

"Like she needs him when it suits her?" she asked edgily.

"That’s hardly fair, and you know it - "

"Look," Harry said as he rose from the table, "I have to go. I’m on duty on the bridge. See you later." Harry walked quickly from them, and they watched how he nodded curtly to two of the Equinox crew who were sitting half hidden in the dark in one corner of the lounge.

Tom looked at B’Elanna again, and sighed. She was only now coming to terms with what Max did, and that Max had little honorable intentions. He was a shade worse than Ransom, who at least realised that there were still laws - noble ones - he could return to. But Max had shown litttle regard for Voyager’s crew, the fate of this ship, and had used his friendship with B’Elanna to do all he needed to get from engineering.

"And right under my nose, Tom," she said to him just after the Equinox went up in a ball of fire. He had no need to be jealous of Max Burke at the time, although he certainly bristled that B’Elanna could so easily fall into the endearment Max had for her. What did he have? Not even so much as an open declaration of love, much less call her anything but B’Elanna. But B’Elanna seemed to be at ease with Max, before he turned into the jerk he always was.

After what Max had done, B’Elanna felt very keenly her own complicity in not recognising sooner that he had simply used her. That angered her to no end.

Naturally, she expended some of that anger on the holodeck, and some of it on him, when they were in her quarters or his. He was glad that his patience paid off in the end.

He convinced her that what happened was not her fault. Max had been on a mission, and he used his knowledge of her against her. She had not expected Max to be that way at all. His betrayal came as a shock to her.

Max was prepared to let them all die. B’Elanna took that hard to swallow.

Tom surmised that the Captain had an even harder time getting through this. She had broken faith with Chakotay. Until the end, when Ransom turned round, she had seen him as the ultimate murderer whom she had to stop. By then the commander had been restricted to quarters...

We all had points to make, even Ransom...

"Tom, Tom..."

"Huh?"

"You were dreaming there," B’Elanna said as she looked at him, a teasing twist to her lips.

"Me?" he asked, looking silly at being found out.

"What were you thinking?"

"I - " he opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked at her in candid appraisal. "We...need to let her know that we trust her, B’Elanna, that we believe in her judgment - "

"Even...them...?"

Tom followed B’Elanna’s gaze, then he looked at her again.

"Even them. Look, I know it’s been several weeks now, and we have shown as much as we needed to show, but B’Elanna, we shouldn’t stop. Captain Janeway shouldn’t dwell on what happened to the Equinox - "

"She wanted Ransom on Voyager."

"I know. I looked at her, and she said: "He’s still a Starfleet Captain. He may have forgotten that for a while, but I believe him."

"Tom..."

"Hmmm?"

"Do you think the Captain feels the same way?"

"Like she’s forgotten all that Starfleet stands for? I...think so, B’Elanna. She was very, very quiet on the bridge after the Equinox exploded."

"She was on the same path of...destruction, Tom. She - she was going to kill Noah Lessing, you know that. She - Tom, I think she feels she’s not much better than Ransom had been."

"B’Elanna, understand this, which I think the Captain should understand too: Captain Janeway almost crossed the line. She was about to, but I know that - " Tom stopped suddenly.

‘What?" B’Elanna asked, clearly curious as to why he suddenly paused.

"Have you ever danced with the devil?" he asked, and B’Elanna looked completely stumped at what sounded to her like an off-side question.

"I’ll tell you this, Helmboy, I have heard stories about what Gre’thor looks like, and no, sir, I wouldn’t want to be in hell -

B’Elanna’s eyes lit up. "Of course!"

"Yes," Tom said softly, glad B’Elanna understood him.

"Not many get the chance to break free, B’Elanna," came his sober statement. "Captain Janeway did."

"Now she’s walking around unable to find peace, is that it?"

"Perhaps..."

"You could join forces with Neelix, Tom."

"And?"

"I’d like to see the Captain smile again."

*****

END PART SIX

PART SEVEN

"When we turn our backs on our principles, we stop being human"

- Captain Kathryn Janeway

CHAKOTAY

"Are you coming?"

Chakotay stood just inside the doors of Kathryn's quarters, and remained resolute as he watched her waver, then move towards him, stop and walk back.

"I guess not," he said succinctly, then turned to leave. He knew that would get her.

"Wait."

He paused, turned to look at her again.

"Let's go, Commander," she said, smiling smugly as she hooked her arm through his and proceeded to the turbolift.

"Kathryn," he started once they were inside and ordered deck six, "the time will come when I'll stop comin' a'beggin'" He looked down at her, her hair shining bronze, glad that she agreed to spend some time with him on the holodeck.

"Chakotay, if you do that, then I know you're coming down with something - "

"What, you like me to beg?"

She hit his arm playfully, then turned to look down at the floor.

"You know I don't really mean to. Be patient, Chakotay..."

"Hey, it's a joke, Kathryn," he assured quickly as the lift stopped on deck six and they alighted.

"Thank you. That makes me feel a whole lot better - "

"I should think so, considering the whipping you're going to get in the next hour."

"Not on your life, Commander," she replied, a sudden lightness in her step as they approached holodeck two.

"Best of five rounds?"

Her mouth curved endearingly into her familiar humorous curve. She folded her arms, looked speculatively at him as her eyes narrowed first, then an elegant eyebrow lifted.

"I don't come cheap at restaurant dinners, Commander. You'll be spending your week's rations on me - "

"No way."

"Way.

He waved his arm in an exaggerated gesture of gentlemanly charm as he indicated for her to enter. His smile deepened, and he felt almost light-headed that she was taking time off to join him here.

"Velocity, thy name is woman."

******

Chakotay looked at Kathryn sitting opposite him. They were in her quarters, enjoying an expensive replicated dinner. His rations.

Kathryn had enjoyed herself in the holodeck, pitting her size and speed against his heavier frame. He was either losing his touch, or he was so taken in by her obvious intention of making their time enjoyable, that he lost concentration. He preferred to think the latter. He could spend hours just watching her unwind. Then she became all woman, all allure, the faint lines of strain that seemed to be perpetually engraved on her face, gone, like mist. There was always a lightness about her then, as if she didn't think about the burdens she carried. She was serene and, he wanted to think, happy. But mostly he wanted to think that she was at peace. Today she conquered him at Velocity. It was the first time. He shrugged mentally. So what? If only to see her smile and lose that cloud in her eyes. She was naturally competitive, and that added to the edge with which she outplayed him today.

No way could he put a damper on her recovering spirits by saying he let her win. Even if he meant it as a joke.

It was gratifying to see the attempts she made to pull herself from the doldrums of despair she had been in the past few weeks. There were times, and they were becoming less frequent, that she sank into the pits of hell. Most of those occasions he was on hand, or, mercifully, she would hail him on her commbadge that he come to her quarters, or the ready room. He would sit with her, talk in calm tones deep into the night. He stayed with her until he could see the calm settling in her again.

Sometimes she could work through it and, with ruthless determination, force herself to put her guilt behind her, not allow it to surface where she knew it hurt like the very hell.

He saw the few occasions they walked down the corridors and Noah Lessing would approach from the other end. Noah would nod severely, then lower his gaze again as he passed her. Chakotay was certain that Kathryn didn't miss that sudden flash of fear in Noah's eyes. Only a week ago, he almost laughed at Noah's deference when the crewman stepped round a corner, the action so sudden that he didn't see Kathryn until she knocked into him. Kathryn saw blue and Lessing saw...red.

"Crewman Lessing."

"Captain!" The poor man stood immediately on attention, expecting to be hanged. He looked like that, Chakotay thought. Maybe it was that perpetual frown. He couldn't recall seeing Noah smile, much less laugh.

Kathryn had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. Chakotay didn't think Kathryn enjoyed her subjugation of the crewman, but she did grace him with a half smile, and that damnable lifting of one elegant eyebrow. Noah had no idea that it was her old humorous lift, as if she were teasing him.

"We have 35000 light-years to get home."

"Yes, sir! Captain!"

"Mr Lessing."

"Captain?"

"It's 'Captain', or 'Ma'am' in a pinch," Kathryn said while Chakotay watched Noah's growing discomfort.

"Aye, Captain."

"On your way."

"Yes, Captain!"

Chakotay thought that Noah vanished, despite Kathryn's playful statement that they had a long way to go still, with a fleetness that belied his immense height. But it was Kathryn's expression when Noah had left, that made him wince.

Her face looked haunted again. She stood motionless for a few seconds, and he waited till she collected herself, before she said:

"The reminders will be here always, Chakotay."

"Not when you can bring yourself to confront him, Kathryn. Talk to him. He's in hell too. Pain takes anyone prisoner. It doesn't ask for rank or position or affiliation..."

"He was very loyal to Ransom, you know. All of them were. Here they have to bow to a new authority, one that - "

"Don't flog yourself, Kathryn. Come, let's get away from here and eat something. Something special Neelix conjured up."

*****

"Chakotay," she had said later when they were sitting down at their table in the mess hall, "thank you."

"For what?"

"I need your counsel, and that's the truth. I'm just sorry that - "

"Kathryn, do me one thing, please. Just one thing."

"What's that?" she asked, giving him a little smile because he looked so concerned.

"Help me run the ship?"

He had been gratified to see her give a sigh of relief.

******

No one is immune to pain, he thought as he looked now at Kathryn enjoying her meal. There were few shadows still lurking there; they flitted sometimes across her elegant features, causing a momentary somber look in her face. She would look up at him, then let the relief in the knowledge that he was here, flow through her.

He never spoke, just nodded, or squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"You're going to have that chocolate mousse, Chakotay?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Thought so. What were you thinking?" she asked as she scooped a spoonful of mousse and brought the delectable dessert to her mouth.

"Nothing."

"Who's hedging now?"

"I have no rations for this week, do you realise that?"

"That's not what I want to know, and you know that."

"Kathryn!" he said in aggrieved tones, "why are you so curious?"

"Because I beat you today, won your rations for the week, I'm enjoying my meal, and you are quiet."

"I'm supposed to feel bad because I lost?"

"I'll let you win next time," she replied.

He snorted with disgust.

"I'll win on my own steam, thank you - "

"Fine. Then tell me why you're so preoccupied..."

"I'm just glad to see the old Kathryn, I suppose," he replied carefully, not really wanting to ruin the ambience by drawing the conversation to the unpleasant events of the past weeks. She could do without those reminders.

But this was Kathryn.

"Don't patronise me, Chakotay," she said softly as she put her spoon down and looked at him. "I'm not a child."

"Sorry."

"Thank you. There is something though, I want to give you later."

He gave her a surprised look.

"But first," she said enigmatically, "I want to enjoy my coffee."

Chakotay groaned. It was, strangely, a happy groan because she was on her mettle again. Later they were sitting on her couch, in companionable silence, broken only occasionally by her soft sigh, or his shifting to a more comfortable position. It was only when he indicated that he was leaving, pleading early shift at 0600 the following morning, that she rose to her feet.

Why hadn't he seen it? Kathryn was, like him, like Tom, like Tuvok! a past master at keeping a thought hidden an entire evening without once giving herself away. She had something on her mind all evening, although he could in all honesty say that it wasn't something that bogged her down unnecessarily. He would have seen that, he knew. She just wanted to impart something to him, and he sensed that it had to do with the Equinox.

"Kathryn."

"Hmmm?"

"Why are you suddenly so jumpy?"

"Why, Commander, what can you mean?" she asked.

"Something of a nervousness, as if you're afraid of my reaction. I don't know. I'm guessing, I suppose," he said as he too, rose from his seat.

She vanished to her bedroom, and when she returned, she had a book in her hand.

"Did I tell you you look lovely tonight?" he asked suddenly.

"Chakotay, think of something more original to say - "

"Fine. Captain Janeway, there are times I am totally bowled over when you are out of uniform and dressed in anything else, makes you look indescribably beautiful - "

"Too gushy."

"Kathryn, you look well. I mean it."

"Thank you. Here, I wanted to give you this to read."

She handed the book to him. A rather ornate, leather-bound book that looked...well-thumbed. He turned it to read the title.

"‘The Prince’. Machiavelli."

He looked at Kathryn and frowned heavily.

"Why?"

"Please..." her tone was pleading, and he could almost swear he heard a soft sigh, "read it..."

He raised the book with his hands as if were weighing it, then said:

"Okay, I'll read it, Kathryn."

"See you tomorrow, Commander."

"Good-night, Kathryn."

******

END PART SEVEN

PART EIGHT

"Ira furor brevis est." (Anger is brief madness)

- Horace

KATHRYN

Kathryn Janeway was unprepared for the force with which Chakotay barged into her quarters two evenings later. The second her doors opened to allow her caller entry, a flurry moved past her. She blinked once, twice, then jumped as a heavy object collided with a forceful thud against the opposite bulkhead.

There was a thunderous expression on his face and she wondered absently whether he had stewed in his quarters first to work up such an angry facial expression before he stormed in here. Even his tattoo seemed to glower.

His hands hanged at his sides, the fingers trembling with what she thought was rage.

"Chakotay," she exclaimed, her voice tinged with concern, "what is the matter?"

He pointed to the floor where the book landed, walked in that direction and picked up the book. It lay open in his hands.

"What's the matter, Kathryn? What's the matter? This! This is the matter," he fumed. She backed in alarm as he thrust the offending book at her.

"Chakotay... I - take it you read it..." she said carefully.

"Yes, I read it, Captain Janeway. I read it."

She tried to stall him, said:

"I take it that you didn't find it to your taste..."

"You can take it any way you want to, Captain. But this, this is not you. Get that? It's not you!"

"Chakotay, I wanted you to understand why - "

"Here, open at exactly the page that I thought you meant me to catch the meaning and spirit of and, Captain, your misguided motivation - "

"Listen," Kathryn said, "it's clear it was a bad decision to ask you to read it..."

"Kathryn! Look here: 'The character of a people varies and it is easy to persuade them to do a thing. And so, if necessary - if necessary! - to arrange things, so that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force'."

"It's what happened, didn't it?"

"Dammit, Kathryn! Since when have you sought endorsement from a sixteenth century philosophical instructional book to motivate what happened a few weeks ago? You're bound by Federation Laws!"

Kathryn pounced on that with swiftness.

"Are they much different, Chakotay?"

"It calls for all kinds of interpretation, and you, Kathryn, are putting your own construction on this, because you want to believe that what you did was so heinous, so indefensible that there can be no clemency for you!"

"Any justifiable means, Chakotay. Any justifiable means - "

"Excuse me, but wasn’t that what Ransom also said, and you condemned him for adopting - and twisting - what is a Federation Statute?"

"Yes!" Kathryn’s cheeks were flushed. "And was I any different from Ransom?"

"You gave me the book to read so that I could say: 'Hey, Kathryn was right! This books says it's fine!'"

"It certainly tells me that there are things leaders do - that they have to do, in order to retain control."

"Kathryn, listen to yourself! Is that a Starfleet captain speaking?"

But Kathryn's face was flushed, her eyes sparkled with impassioned conviction. She stood in front of him, and slapped the open book with her palm:

"Encapsulate Machiavelli in once sentence, Chakotay!"

"Kathryn, I..."

"Do it, please," she begged.

"Use of violence is justified as a means to an end."

"There! You see? Did you read Chapter Seventeen? ‘When a prince is obliged to take the life of anyone, let him do so when there is proper justification and manifest reason for it - "

"Kathryn, right now, you are as irrational as when I tried to tell you to pull back from your personal vendetta against Ransom."

She jerked her head so that her hair swung in her face. She pointed a finger to the book.

"Those words glared at me, Chakotay, and I saw myself. Believe me, it is not an image I want to have nightmares over. It’s haunting me, don’t you see? It screamed at me that I did all those things! Not only that, I didn't care then whether I put all of us at risk - "

Chakotay took the book and threw it down on her sofa, placed his hand on her shoulders and said:

"Listen to me, Kathryn Janew - "

‘A p-prince must not mind incurring the charge of c-cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and f-faithful - " she stammered.

Chakotay shook her so hard that her teeth chattered. Her eyes burned with shame. He pushed her down so that she could sit on her sofa. Her hands were at her sides, gripping into the upholstery of the couch. Her knuckles showed white and, looking at her, Chakotay realised he had work on his hands. It seemed in the seconds he tried to reason with her, that she was implacable in her belief that her actions were horrific, that she had become as calculated as Ransom. She found living with it difficult, and it turned her into a cheerless woman who thought that nothing could save her.

"Kathryn..." She looked down at the floor, her lips trembling. He thought in these moments that she subdued the urge to cry with such force that her eyes were bloodshot.

"T-the prince must avoid those things which will make him hated or despised..."

"Your subjects respect you..."

"I almost killed Noah Lessing," she said bleakly.

"You didn’t, Kathryn," Chakotay sighed.

"There is nothing, Chakotay, nothing that can relieve this - this searing pain I have here," and she brought one shivering hand up and placed it against her bosom.

"Kathryn - "

"Nothing..."

"Kathryn!"

She jumped at the tone of his voice. Only then did she look at him.

"Help me..."

"Kathryn, listen to me, will you?"

She remained passive as she sat there. He went down on his knees in front of her and took her hands in his, clasping them tightly.

"Will you listen?" he asked again. She nodded.

"I didn’t just read the book as you asked," he said quietly, much of his own anger abated. "I studied other related texts in the database as well." He kept his eyes on her, ready for any sign that she could panic or even hyperventilate. But she was strong and she would keep a strict rein on her emotions. So he continued:

"You are not like that, Kathryn. The author suggested those reforms and instructions in the context of Renaissance Florence, Sicily, Naples and other city-states. The kind of political upheavels the populace of the time experienced seemed to suggest that a leader had to employ violence if necessary, to gain successful leadership. Or to remain in power," Chakotay added.

"Do you understand?" he asked again.

He was gratified to see her nod.

"But listen, Kathryn. Machiavelli may have had grand ideals, but he didn’t devote much attention to the values that define the ends of a political action, did he?"

"What you are saying," she started softly, "is that he didn’t take into consideration that the actual act of violence, murder, aggression could go against the grain of the leader’s personal beliefs - "

"You were raised to respect life, Kathryn, as we all were, and not only through Biblical dictates. Even if killing someone - according to the author - may be in the particular circumstance justified, you don’t have to believe that it is right. It is our intrinsic values that guard us against crossing the line."

"You were right, Chakotay. All the time."

He sighed.

"In private life, Kathryn, such acts are ethically indefensible."

"Then why did it happen to me? Why can’t I find - "

"Remember what you said to me the other day?" he interrupted her, knowing that she wanted to talk about the peace she couldn't find.

"What?"

"Ira furor brevis est."

"Anger is brief madness," she translated. She saw him smile, and her own mouth moved into a watery imitation.

"You were very, very angry, Kathryn. Even I got the brunt of it," he said, his eyes suddenly twinkling.

"Don’t remind me..." she replied, little amused by his words, still too crowded with the shame of her behaviour.

"I will, Kathryn, if only to keep you in line."

"I want to believe you, you know."

"You’d better. You were angry, and your anger blinded you temporarily. Briefly! Understand?"

She nodded.

"Does that mean it makes you like Ransom? Does that mean you believe that violence can be condoned?"

She shook her head.

"I guess not," he affirmed.

"I was angry..." she said slowly, softly, as if some new knowledge was dawning on her. Her eyes turned to him, and Chakotay could have sworn he saw the lightness beginning to form there. But she was still a long way from healing...

"And in your anger, Kathryn, you resorted to measures you would never normally contemplate. You are too disciplined, too aware of your personal detestation at such acts of violence. Very briefly you were obsessed at seeing justice done, at righting a wrong."

"I was, wasn’t I?" she whispered hoarsely.

"Perhaps..."

"I put my people at risk."

"You have to accept that it happened, and come to terms with it, Kathryn."

"For a while, I lost what I accused Ransom of: my humanity."

"As I said, you turned back in time."

"No, Chakotay, you brought me back from the brink of madness, you stopped me from crossing the line."

"And Ransom?"

"He...embraced his old values again. I sensed that in him when he wanted to come aboard Voyager."

"You know, Kathryn, Ransom had high and lofty ideals and goals. He just chose the wrong path to attain them, even though all his intentions were noble - "

"The tragic hero..."

"What...?"

"When he realised the error of his ways, he knew - he knew, Chakotay, that only the highest sacrifice would give him peace again. He gave his life, so that a few of his crew, and all of us could be saved."

She pulled him up so that he could sit next to her on the couch. He shifted in order to face her. Her hand rested in his.

"You know..." she started, blinking suddenly to hold back the tears that were forming in her eyes.

"What...?" he asked softly, then had to strain to hear her.

"All these years...you were there, as my friend and first officer. Once I blasted Tuvok for an insubordinate act, and I told him then that I needed him to have my moral compass checked...

"So what are you saying...?"

"You’ve become that person, Chakotay. All the time when we engaged the Equinox - " She gave a soft sob when she mentioned the other ship. "All the time you were there, checking me, being my moral compass."

"Kathryn..."

"If I didn’t have you - "

"Kathryn...don’t punish yourself further. Please..."

"Somehow - somehow I wished that - that Ransom had someone like you, you know. He - he didn’t," she stammered, then found herself unable to continue.

Chakotay held her hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. He could feel how she started to heave slightly, as if a storm was beginning to toss her on the inside.

"Maybe the first officer he originally had - what was his name - ?"

"Commander Francis Njorland."

"Died in the first week the Equinox was thrust in the Delta Quadrant. Yes, maybe he was such a person. If he were, then I’m certain that Ransom would have followed a different path."

Kathryn looked at him, gave a huge sob and hurled herself against him. It was a storm of tears that rocked her. He held her quivering frame and soothed her until the storm abated. It was a long time later, when her body was still rocked by an occasional shudder, that she sat up. Her eyes were puffy from the wild bout of crying, but he could see there was a calmness in them.

"You are the best first officer I ever had," she said, her voice even, with none of the stammer of earlier.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"My best friend."

"That’s better."

"You know me so well."

"Kathryn...?"

"Hmmm...?"

"Are you feeling better?"

She gave him a long look, took his hand in hers and squeezed it.

"Much better. Much better," she repeated.

"I’m glad. You can recycle the book and buy me a dinner - "

"Tomorrow night?"

"Yes. Right now, you look very tired." He rose, ready to leave her quarters.

"Chakotay..."

"Yes?"

"Stay, just a few more minutes, please."

"I can see you’re tired. Go to bed, Captain. That’s an order."

"It is?"

"You want me to tuck you in?"

"That’s not such a bad idea."

She didn't say it, but he could see that she didn't want to be alone.

"I’ll wait here. Just holler when you’re ready."

She gave him a playful jab in the ribs, got up and vanished into her bedroom area. He remained on the couch, taking the book and putting it carefully on Kathryn’s desk. By morning she would have recycled the copy.

Oh, Kathryn, you really need saving from yourself, sometimes.

By the time he had read through the first four chapters, his alarm at what Kathryn tried to tell him had grown ten-fold. Then he became angry. She was a scientific person to the bone, highly intelligent, highly intellectual, yet she allowed herself to believe archaic dictates because what she did, seemed to fit the bill. Was there an aperture in such a person's heart that allowed unhallowed thoughts to dominate her briefly?

He sighed. Tonight he believed was an important breakthrough for her. When all is said and done, the Equinox did cross their path, she did pursue Ransom, she did threaten to kill Noah Lessing. These things happened, and she was only beginning to accept that her actions were spurred by blind anger rather than by any misguided beliefs that violence or violent acts were justifiable means to an end. She was very deeply affected, the thought that she almost crossed the line, filling her with intense abhorrence.

Chakotay believed that these events, because they happened and one could not wish it away like magic and feel better afterwards, served only to fill her with a greater sense of purpose. It may have changed her, enriched her life with the knowledge that all men are fallible, that when the circumstance arises, their humanity is put to the test. Kathryn believed that she had failed, that for a while at least, she lost sight of her principals, lost her humanity. She had to understand that it happened to the Ransoms, and that it could happen to the Janeways.

How she sought to live with it, how she sought to come to terms with it, determined to a large extent on her own inner strength. Kathryn was strong, she was strong-willed, she knew the rules inside-out, she knew that the road to forgiveness was a hard one, but it forged her anew.

Chakotay knew that in the next few days she would confront Noah Lessing. To find peace, she had to make peace. Noah, he could sense, was all ready to put what happened behind him. And for him to hear a good word, a kind word from his Captain would go a long way toward his personal recovery. He, too, needed to find peace, needed to emerge from his hell, as Kathryn was slowly doing. She found herself in a crucible that would burn her and forge her; she had learned that she could rely on her first officer, that her crew understood that even Captains are not immune to a moment of madness.

Kathryn would find renewal, and so must Noah.

Chakotay started up when he heard Kathryn calling him. He had never been in her bedroom, and felt like intruder in her sanctuary. She was lying in bed, and already he could see the sleepiness in her eyes. He sat down next to her, brushed a few hairs from her face, and took her hand in his.

"Well, what story shall I read you?"

"Moby Dick."

"Really?"

"No. Just...stay and talk, will you?"

He kept up the small talk until her eyelids drooped, and all the time he held her hand in his.

"Chakotay..." she murmured sleepily.

"Hmmm...?"

"Thank you."

By the time he said: "You’re welcome," she was fast asleep.

*******

END PART EIGHT

PART NINE

"We each make our own hell, Mr Lessing. I hope you enjoy yours."

- Captain Kathryn Janeway

NOAH

Noah Lessing stood in the hydroponics bay, where he had been coming every day for an hour of the precious few hours he had off duty.

He had been drawn to this part of the ship since he was introduced to it by Sam Wildman and her daughter. It fascinated him that there could be a garden, so to speak, on a starship. A real garden with plants, flowers and vegetables that the crew members of the ship used. Neelix was especially proud of his crops that grew so abundantly under his ever watchful eyes.

"And these?" he had asked Sam the first time when he was brought here. He had pointed to a crop of tomatoes that looked unlike any that he had seen before, yet was succulent and tasty.

"The Captain cultivated them herself."

"She did?" he asked, surprised at Sam’s words.

"Oh yes. She and the first officer had been trapped for months on a planet some years ago, and Neelix had given her the seeds to plant there. When they were rescued again, she brought her seedlings back. Only this time, they had blossomed into these beautiful tomatoes you see here."

"The tastiest item on the plate," he said.

"So it is, if you can stand Neelix’s food.

"I can stand eating anything, Ensign Wildman," he said that day. "We haven’t had working replicators for months by the time we came aboard Voyager."

"I...understand, Noah."

"Thank you. You are very friendly, you know, not giving us the kind of grief we..." Noah paused, not wanting to sound like he was complaining.

"They will learn to trust you," Samantha said. "My daughter does already."

"I know! The only child on the ship. I have so many things to learn and - and to..."

"Come to terms with?" Samantha offered kindly.

"Yes..." came his whisper, in a voice that was deep and resonant.

There was quiet for a long time, until Samantha said: "It’s hard, Noah, but you’ll get through this. The captain - "

"The captain will forgive me the day the moon turns to blood," he said morosely.

"G.K. Chesterton."

"Huh?"

"The donkey. When fishes flew and - " she started.

"Yes..."

"It’s a difficult time for the Captain, too, Noah."

"Yeah, right."

He was a jittering bag of bones whenever he walked past the Captain in the corridors. Only the other day he rounded one corner so fast he didn’t see the Captain until she knocked into him. Commander Chakotay was quick enough to prevent her from falling. Noah cursed under his breath. The Captain wasn’t unfriendly, or gave him that steel-eyed look that made him quiver. He had bumbled his way through the apology, feeling that they were laughing at his discomfort. Yeah, he decided, Captain Janeway was not to be trifled with.

He didn’t mean to be rude to Samantha, and when he saw her hurt look, he apologised quickly.

Now he looked at the tomatoes and thought of the captain. Not Captain Ransom, the man he’d been loyal to for so long, but Captain Kathryn Janeway.

What kind of woman was she that she could tend to these tender plants with so much obvious devotion, and at the same time look at him with such a murderous glint in her eye?

What kind of person could speak to Naomi Wildman in a voice filled with so much kindness, and at the same time speak to him in tones that seethed with rage. A soft, dangerous tone that dared him to defy her?

That day in the cargo bay, he had known fear like never before. He knew what the aliens could do, had seen so many of his old crew become dessicated before his very eyes. He had seen untold misery on his old ship, had been one of the absolute fortunate few who survived the "Week of Hell" as they all later referred to that first week, when their crew had been reduced to half its complement. He had seen fear in their eyes, and had seen them freeze up even before the aliens consumed them with white fire from the inside.

Ransom had taught them to survive, to fight so that they could live. They were a hardened group who finally reached Voyager. By that time he had seen too many things to make him afraid.

When Captain Janeway looked at him with her eyes as cold as steel, he knew fear.

He knew fear because his life, what sorry part of it was left to build up again, lay not at the hands of the unknown, or of strange aliens, even known aliens. His life lay in the hands of a person, woman, officer, Starfleet born and bred, who looked at him with a look that made his heart pound erratically.

Oh yes, he tried to be brave. It made it worse. He could not believe that she could carry out her threat. His response was arrogant, made in the knowledge that she would never resort to killing. So he taunted her.

He closed his eyes as he remembered insolent way in which he spoke.

Wrong move, Noah. Maybe you should have pleaded for your life.

He had looked to Chakotay. Maybe 'The Warrior', as the five of them called Commander Chakotay, would side with him, and not allow the angry Captain to carry on. But that man just looked at him and said the Captain’s on her own.

He almost died that day. Died with his hands tied behind his back like some criminal, helpless, unable to defend himself.

He thought in that moment that only a coward could kill someone whose hands were literally tied.

"Their mistake..." was what Ransom told them when he reported to them on his audience with Captain Janeway the day she found out they were using dead aliens to make fuel.

I was loyal to my Captain. You must understand that...

Noah snorted.

He remembered dissecting alien after alien, preparing it for creating power; he remembered biting back his nausea every time one of them looked at him before they died. He remembered the lessons of his mother and his granddaddy who taught him and his brother about how precious life is. What he did, went against his very nature, an instinctive recoiling at the horror of their deeds. But he followed his Captain's vision, for a long time, even shared it.

Now he had dreams.

Aliens begging him to return their brothers...

Yeah, Captain Janeway. Just like you predicted, I am in my own hell.

How could I live with the fact that we killed innocent life forms to enhance our warp drive?

I am not a murderer.

I am nothing, here on this ship...

Correction, Noah, you are something. Crewman, formerly Ensign Noah Lessing. The crew have embraced you, some with and others without reservations. You’re working harder than everyone. No, correction. You’ve never worked with a crew who worked so hard as this Voyager crew. Your heart just pumped faster at the prospect that you could match anyone here strength for strength.

Is it enough? Noah thought as he fingered one of the small, red tomatoes reverently. Is it enough? They’ve been on this ship almost six weeks, yet he felt he had been here longer, and with that, the feeling that it will never be enough for Captain Janeway.

What more was he to do? Go into her ready room and beg her for forgiveness?

He sighed.

It will never be enough.

He was alerted suddenly to footsteps at the entrance to the airponics bay. It came closer, paused for a few seconds, then moved again. Slow, measured steps that came closer and closer. He could only make out a the black pants and boots, as the large trays were all waist high, the highest section of each just level with his eyes. He couldn't see the person unless he peeped round a corner, or something.

He did so. Noah Lessing froze.

Drat!

It was the Captain.

******

He stood up straight, on attention as she approached. His arms were stiffly at his sides, and God! If he raised his arm shoulder height and waved it around, it would go right over her head. She was so small, petit, really.

Dynamite.

He had never met anyone like Kathryn Janeway. Not unless he counted his sweet sainted mother who could kill him and his brother with just such a look as the Captain gave him that day.

Stand proud, Noah. Don’t let her see you are intimidated by her.

She had to look up at him, and for the first time he didn’t thank God for letting him grow to six feet six inches. She stared up at him as if he were vermin, or one of those rats Naomi Wildman claimed roamed around in Jefferies tube 32.

He wanted to die. She just looked at him, and didn’t speak for an eternity. He cast his eyes down to look at her. Peeped was really the word, because his eyes almost closed the way he had to squeeze them so that he could see her. She stood quite close to him.

He stood his ground.

Good.

She would never see the way he trembled. She sure did enjoy making him squirm.

"Mr Lessing."

"Captain!"

Damn. He almost added the "Sir!" after "Captain". He might well have shouted the designation.

What did she want with him?

"At ease, Noah, before you sprain something."

Huh?

She waited again.

"Noah."

Now why did her voice sound so soft? So...nice? Noah experienced something strange. He liked this voice of the Captain.

Don’t be fooled. She wants something. She’s buttering you up.

Come on, Noah, you know that’s not true.

Almost, almost he launched into a string of: "Yes, Captain, sir! What can I do for you, sir!"

Instead, he asked, almost timidly:

"Is there anything you wanted, Captain?"

He was gratified by her slight smile. Good, Noah. Feel the warmth creeping into your heart. Just because the Captain smiled.

"As a matter of fact, Noah, there is indeed," she said.

Noah Lessing felt the first of the huge boulders that had rested on his shoulders the last six weeks, roll off him. The release of it so overwhelming that he was ridiculously close to tears.

"Anything I can do for you, Captain. Anything."

"I expect you to perform your duties to the best of your ability, Mr Lessing." Her voice was again stern.

"Yes, sir!"

There. It slipped out.

"Mr Lessing, I am Captain Janeway."

"Yes, Captain."

"Thank you. Now, Noah, about that something I wish to discuss with you..."

"Captain?"

"Sit down, Noah, before you topple over, and I crick my neck into a position the doctor won’t correct."

"Yes, s-, er...Captain."

Noah looked behind him and carefully sat down on the long bench.

She stared so long at him that he started squirming again. At last she spoke:

"Tell me, Noah, about your life on the Equinox..."

*******

By the time he finished, Noah Lessing was exhausted. He sat hunched, his arms on his knees, with his hands clasped together. Where his fingers were laced, the nails clawed convulsively into the flesh of the back of his hands.

He had not known how five years of guilt, of doing what went against the grain of his very upbringing could find such a release at last, and in the presence of the woman whom he thought would never give him the time of day.

He poured his heart out.

Kathryn Janeway listened, and every word Noah spoke, every sentence he uttered, every sentiment he voiced, became an indictment against her.

Had Noah thought to raise his head and look at the Captain while he spoke, he would have seen that his testimony had a shattering effect on her.

She sat there, listening to him, watching his expressions, looking at his hands, the way his body bent forward with his hands together as though he were in prayer.

"We all believed in Captain Ransom. We had to. He was our commander, and without his discipline, his vision, even his methods... if we did not share that with him every inch of the way, we would not have made it here, and..."

"And?" she coaxed softly, sensing his answer, but wanting to hear it.

"And he would never have saved us..."

"He did that, Noah, I understand that now."

"Do you, Captain?" Noah asked, astounded at her words.

"I do, Noah. His only wish - his only wish was that I bring you all home safely..."

"That was him, Captain. In spite of - in spite of what happened, he wanted to go home."

"Yes..." The captain's voice was low, hoarse. There was something about it that made him think she was sad, that made him think that Samantha could have been right.

"He turned his life around."

"Captain... I was never like that. I - I am sorry. For everything."

"Noah," she said, putting her hand over his, perhaps as a comforting gesture more than it was to stop his trembling fingers. "We all lose sight of our principles, of everything we believe, all rules and laws that govern the way we act and make decisions. When that happens, we lose a little of our humanity. Not only did Captain Ransom lose sight of that, but some of us here, too."

"Captain...?"

"It is a burden we have to carry for a long time," Kathryn Janeway continued. "We do things that are inexcusable and imagine it is impossible to correct it. Captain Ransom did, and - and..."

"He paid with his life," affirmed Noah.

"Yes..."

"Captain, for - for what it's worth, and it may not be worth much, but I want to say - I want to say..."

"What, Mr Lessing?" she asked as she rose slowly.

"I am glad to be a member of this crew."

She stood facing him, while he remained seated. When he made to rise too, she waved her hand. He sat down again.

"For what it's worth, Mr Lessing, and it means a lot to me, now: I am glad to have you as a member of this crew."

He did rise to his feet then and stood on attention again, as he did an hour before.

He kept his gaze fixed on some rose he spotted in one of the large tanks three rows in front of him. He dared not look at her. The "Old Man's Frown" that the others always teased him with, deepened as he tried to swallow the lump that formed in his throat. His eyes, most of the time a golden brown, darkened with emotion. He could forego all of the next year's worth of rations, just so he could treasure these words. Play it over in his mind whenever he felt marginalised, whenever he felt the old guilt tripping him up, whenever he felt he couldn't go on. To hear these words, soak them up and believe in them... Why, he'd be like the rest of the crew. Willing to lay his life down for her.

"Captain, I - thank you, Captain!"

"Welcome aboard, Noah Lessing."

"Captain!"

*****

END PART NINE

PART TEN

"Mr Neelix, when I feel anything, you will be the first to know,"

- Lieutenant-Commander Tuvok

NEELIX

Neelix was in a tizz this morning. He had been accosted by Tom and B’Elanna, who stringed Harry along for good measure.

"I swear, Neelix," said Harry, "I’ll play Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto again. Many times," he qualified his statement as the three of them stood around the counter that served as the kitchen area.

Well, er...yes, Harry. I admit it is better than listening to a certain officer's poetry."

Neelix was sweating, the heat from the simmering Leola Root Saturday Special causing the Talaxian to puff, blow, and dance around on one leg. He was stirring the stew, with his comical chef’s hat tilted way sideways as he turned his head the way the spoon moved clockwise.

"We’ll eat your Leola Root for a week if you can pull it off, Neelix."

"Speak for yourself, Helmboy. I’ve had enough Leola to make gagh look appetising," B’Elanna piped up.

"I - I don’t think the Captain is in any mood to listen," Neelix complained, but Tom had his smirk in place. He could see the mess hall sergeant’s yellow eyes twinkling. Neelix was just putting up a token resistance.

"I think you think it’s a good idea, Neelix. Look on the bright side. If the Captain says it’s fine, we don’t have to listen to... him!" Tom jerked his head around, knocked against B’Elanna who was standing practically under his arm. He pointed in the direction of the furthest corner of the mess hall. Voyager's Chief of Security was ensconced in his usual seat, where he could enjoy his solitary meals undisturbed.

"Oh...him..."

"We could always ask him," Harry piped up and was awarded with a dirty look from all three.

"Harry," B'Elanna threatened, "you can choose the airlock you want me to eject you from..."

"Now, B'Elanna, don't be too hard on Harry. Why, where would I get another Operations officer to tease on the bridge?"

"M-maybe it's not such - "

"Harry!" Tom and B'Elanna chorused their exasperation.

"Still..."

There was a low noise in the mess hall. The typical rousing sound of the lunch hour, when most crew enjoyed their meals here.

"Harry, Harry, Harry," Neelix said, and Tom and B’Elanna burst out laughing.

"What...?" Neelix asked as he frowned.

"You sounded like Tom, when he wants Harry to get into trouble with him," B’Elanna answered.

"Oh? Well...oh, well. You see, Harry, Tuvok has lately memorised the additional forty cantos of the Vulcan Love Song Cantos - "

"Which, as you know," Tom added, "already has thirty six!"

"I knew that!" Harry complained, as he made to leave the kitchen area to take his seat at the able he, Tom, B’Elanna and Seven used.

"Wait! Harry!" Neelix called, and when Harry joined them again, Neelix smiled at him. "Perhaps I can use Commander Tuvok after all!"

"Now, Neelix," Tom said threateningly, pulling B’Elanna closer to him. He could feel the vibration as she growled. "You wouldn’t want to get injured in some mysterious road accident, would you?"

"No! I swear!" Neelix responded in alarm. At the same time Neelix swung his hand. It was the hand that held the ladle he used to stir the Leola Root. He swung his arm, and the Leola stew splat in soft plops against Tom's jacket.

"Neelix!"

"Tom! I’m sorry!" Neelix cried out, but laughed when he saw B’Elanna and Harry howling.

"You’d better be," Tom laughed as he grabbed a cloth.

"I have an idea," Neelix said to the three of them.

"It had better be good, Neelix. If we can’t get the Captain to perform on talent night, I don’t think we’ll see her get out of her present state of - "

"Melancholy and despair," said Neelix, and the others raised their eyebrows.

"Guilt and remorse," Harry added.

"Just plain stubbornness," Tom said as he wiped the offending stew from his jacket front. He had to clean up in his quarters, but wanted to hear Neelix’s idea of "Getting the Captain to Agree".

"Well?" B’Elanna scowled.

"Well - well, you - you know..." Neelix bumbled, then looked in Tuvok’s direction. The Vulcan was sitting alone, studying his ubiquitous PADD that seemed to accompany him to meals.

"Well, what!"

"I’ll ask Commander Tuvok to recite the Vulcan Love Song Cantos - "

He jumped back as B’Elanna walked around the counter.

"Wait! Hear me out," he pleaded, raising his hands, the hand holding the ladle shooting Leola stew against the ceiling.

"Let’s hear," said Harry, nodding vigorously.

"Yeah, let’s hear how Tuvok reciting boring poetry can get the Captain to comply."

"I’ll talk to the Commander. Don’t worry so, Tom!" Neelix assured.

"Neelix, I’m off to my quarters to get cleaned up. By the time I return, I want to see certain developments. Understand?"

"Understood."

Tom walked away from them, raising eyebrows from Harry, B'Elanna and Neelix when he sauntered across to Tuvok first, spoke something at which Tuvok nodded, then left the mess hall.

Harry and B’Elanna strolled off the their table. Where they were sitting they had a good view of Tuvok, and the table where the Captain and Commander Chakotay were sitting.

Their commanding officers were obviously deep in conversation, their food seeming to be half forgotten. B’Elanna watched as Chakotay gesticulated with his hands, the Captain actually smiling at something he said. The Captain appeared to be fine. She had a more animated look on her face. <As if she were alive again...>

She looked across at the kitchen, and saw that Neelix had left it. When she turned her gaze in Tuvok's direction, she saw Neelix standing next to the Security Chief. Tuvok nodded and bent down to study his PADD again. Neelix looked to be grinning when he returned to the kitchen.

Harry started on his food. B'Elanna grimaced. How could he eat so?

"I think the Captain is looking better today, don’t you think, Harry?"

"Huh?"

"Kahless!"

"What were you saying?"

"Look at them, Harry. The Captain actually looks more relaxed, and not so...fierce.

"Yes, now that you mention it..."

"Oh, rats!"

"What?"

"Look! Tuvok is walking towards the Captain’s table."

"Great. Now we’ll not get the Captain doing the Dying Swan in her beautiful blue dress - "

"Oh, no..." B’Elanna groaned as she saw Tuvok stand next to the Captain.

"It’s the end!" Harry wailed. He looked at B’Elanna, looked at her plate and asked: "Are you going to eat your stew?"

B’Elanna’s curled her lips in disgust, then ignored Harry again.

"I guess that means ‘no’."

He pulled B’Elanna’s plate towards him and dug in.

********

"It would not have been any effort on my part to recite Vulcan poetry at your concert, Mr Neelix."

"Yes, but you see, Commander, I don’t want you to feel that we don’t like your poetry - "

"Mr Neelix, when I feel anything, you will be the first to know," Tuvok said with an imperious air.

"Fine, Mr Vulcan. But I hope you are not offended if I ask you to tell the Captain you will be performing. You see, what we really want is - "

"- for the Captain to express her horror at the unappetising prospect of hearing me sing and recite."

"Well, er...yes, to put it that way," Neelix said, wringing his pudgy hands together. His heart was pumping quite fast, and he knew that his only lung was working overtime. Tuvok had to act quickly.

"Mr Neelix, I daresay that it is somewhat gratifying to know that a dislike of poetry can effect the desired result, that of - "

"- getting the Captain to come out more often, and to know that we love her, Mr Vulcan."

Tuvok nodded. It was what humans would term, subterfuge. Underhand methods, a reverse psychology that would spur the Captain into action. He was aware, as many on board must have been, that the Captain was experiencing a trying period. He had been witness himself to her irrational behaviour during the Equinox events. At one point she was ready to relegate him to his quarters too. "I’ve already confined my first officer to quarters," she had told him in her anger. The anger had abated, and now that she was rational, the severity of her actions had come to haunt her. They have, as he told Commander Chakotay a year ago when they were traveling through the void, become her constant companions. She was crucifying herself again and he was not averse to Neelix’s suggestion that he prod the Captain into action.

The crew thought that the Captain, through participating in the Talent Night, would show through that her willingness to mix again with the crew. It would show that she was set on a course to find herself again. It was a state of affairs that he could concur with.

Therefore, it was in the best interest of the Captain and her crew that he take it upon himself to address her, and inform her that he was to recite Vulcan poetry.

The Commander himself did not like his poetry much, so it would be an interesting turn of events to see how the Captain would take to his announcement.

********

"Don’t look now, Chakotay, but Tuvok’s on his way here," Kathryn whispered as she was finishing her coffee.

"Does he have the Tuvok look, or the Vulcan look?" Chakotay asked, amused at Kathryn’s reluctance to receive her Chief of Security.

"The...Tuvok look. I think..."

"Then it’s something he wants."

"How do you know?"

"I thought you knew, Kathryn. You’ve known him longer than I - "

"Ah, Commander Tuvok," Kathryn said as she cut Chakotay’s words short when Tuvok stood next to her. He declined when she offered him a seat.

Chakotay looked with amusement at Kathryn and Tuvok. The Vulcan appeared serious, but Chakotay could have sworn he spotted a shadow of a smile. Then again, he could have imagined it. Vulcans - Tuvok - was not given to smiling. Something’s afoot. He knew it. Looking at the way Paris made a hasty exit after Neelix dumped some food on him again, and the way B’Elanna and Harry huddled as usual in the corner after they had spoken with Neelix, something was up.

Anything that had Neelix in the equation was bound to lead to either general disorder, or a complete surprise, or better still, one of the Talaxian’s numerous ways in which he entertained the crew.

Now, Tuvok.

"Captain, it has come to my attention that Mr Neelix is arranging a Talent Night -"

"I’m not performing, Tuvok," Kathryn interrupted.

"No, Captain. But I am."

Chakotay burst out laughing as he saw Kathryn’s horrified expression which she tried, with little success, to change. It was too late. Tuvok had seen it.

"Try getting out of this one, Captain," he choked out, his eyes creasing as he enjoyed Kathryn’s embarrassment.

"I - er...it’s not how I meant it, Mr Tuvok," she said, then shot Chakotay a dirty look.

"You’re on your own, Captain," he said, still shaking.

"Captain, much as I know how you do not have much tolerance for long-winded Vulcan Poetics, I have been asked..." Tuvok paused dramatically, then continued: "I have been begged to inculcate in particular the new members of our crew the unsurpassed virtues of Vulcan culture and the value of participation."

"Tuvok, with all due respect, have compassion on their senses," Kathryn said, and shot Chakotay a look that read: "and on my poor nerves..."

"Well then, Captain, I shall have to inform Neelix that as much as I would have liked to perform my seventy six Vulcan Love Song Cantos, you have stated your objection to my - "

"I said nothing of the kind, Tuvok. You - "

"Then what shall I tell Neelix?"

She hesitated, then started slowly. Her elbow was on the table and her finger under her chin in a gesture that denoted her mulling over some possibilities. It was obvious to Chakotay that Kathryn was going to try to negotiate something.

"Tell him...tell him..."

Kathryn frowned heavily. How to get out of this? she thought as Chakotay enjoyed the entire scene at her expense. He watched Tuvok, then turned his eyes to Kathryn again. When Tuvok spoke, Chakotay could hear the proverbial nail being hammered somewhere in a coffin.

"I will stand down, Captain, only if you participate on Talent Night."

"Not on your life - "

"Thank you, Captain. I have the pleasure of informing you that I shall be reciting all seventy six cantos of the Vulcan Love Song Cantos."

"Tuvok!"

"Each canto contains twelve verses..."

Chakotay leaned over the table and touched Kathryn’s hand.

"Do it, Captain."

"Et tu, Chakotay?"

"Definitely."

Perhaps there had been a misunderstanding in the way the phrase was interpreted, but Chakotay knew the instant Kathryn got that look in her eyes, that he was trapped.

She addressed Tuvok, but kept her eyes on Chakotay all the time. She waited, got a light in her eyes as he started squirming. He was stewing. He looked to his left, saw in a haze that B’Elanna and Harry’s eyes were on them, and, horror of horrors, Paris approached the bench too.

"I’ll perform, Tuvok, on one condition."

"What is that, Captain?" he asked, keeping a perfect stoic countenance.

"Commander Chakotay is part of my act."

"No!" Chakotay shouted, jumping from his seat, flinging his hands up. He sat down quickly again, unaware that Tuvok had already started walking back to his table. If he cared to look, he would have seen something unusual. Something Tuvok did that was completely out of character and therefore more worth the mirth that the action generated.

Tom Paris slapped Tuvok’s palms, then he turned his own palms up and Tuvok, with perfect seriousness and timing, slapped Tom’s palms. The two of them winked conspiratorially in Neelix’s direction before they ambled towards Tuvok’s table.

Chakotay looked horrified. The eyes of the entire party in the mess hall were on him. He stared helplessly around for a few seconds, then he plunged down on his chair again.

"You can’t do that, Kathryn!" he cried his outrage.

"I just did, Commander. For once the crew shall have the...pleasure - and she emphasized the last word - of seeing Chakotay perform."

"I will not. I don’t want to. I c-can’t!" His hands were spread in supplication, as if he were begging her to have mercy.

"If I can do it, you can," she said calmly. He almost swore. Did she have to be so damned calm today? He had a holy horror of performing in front an audience. He had never liked doing it, was hopeless when he was at school and the Academy.

"I stammer, Captain..."

"You won’t have to speak."

"I won’t?"

"No. You will dance."

"That’s even worse!"

"You’ll get over it, Commander.

"Now why do I get the feeling I’m eating my own words?"

"Well, how many times haven’t you been my anchor, telling me to be strong, to deal with it, to live with it, you are there for me..."

Chakotay gave a loud groan. Kathryn smiled. He looked at her and his eyes grew wide. An understanding dawned on him, as it must have on her.

"We’ve been had..."

"Finally, Chakotay, you’ve seen the light," Kathryn said as she leaned over and covered his hand with her own. She patted it twice, and sat back in her chair. She raised one eyebrow, got that twist to her mouth again when she smiled and said:

"We’ll give them a performance they’ll never forget."

"Captain, in that case, I’ll do anything!"

*******

END PART TEN

PART ELEVEN

"You're the first friendly faces we've seen in months."

- Marla Gilmore

MARLA

They were coming. She could hear them. A thousand metallic balls that rubbed together and made a thin screeching sound. There was an ominous ring to it as the sound changed to a high-pitched sonorous heaviness. It bore down from somewhere above her. The sound became a figure with long, claw-like tentacles that reached for her. It hissed and thrust, then jolted back before it advanced with suddenness again...

Don't look up...

No...

Marla sat, her knees drawn up with her arms hugging them tightly to her. Short, painful rasps escaped her. She shivered uncontrollably, her vain attempts to stop her teeth from chattering ending in a prolonged wheeze as the air was sucked from her lungs. Her eyes remained dry, although the first sob started building up in her, rising from deep in her chest, and expelling as a soft gust.

No...

Killer!

No...

The sound closed in. Another sob and she buried her head by covering it with her hands and pressing it down so that it locked into the cleft made by her drawn up knees and her bosom.

Go away...

The screeching became an overwhelming buzz that turned her ears into unwilling receptacles that carried the wail to her mind where it settled, then unsettled her fragile control. This was no moving organ sound that filled cathedrals with its majestic reverence and sublime harmony. The sound turned into a low buzzing; the notes contorting and turning, whirring in crazed, discordant cacophony.

She could feel again, like so many times before, the sensation of going under as the alien sounds terrified her first, then receded slowly. But they didn't depart. That thought registered in her terror-stricken mind. They never go.

She was losing consciousness. One by one, the metallic balls moved away slowly as she felt herself falling...falling... Somewhere, she knew her erratic breathing began to betray her again.

Stay calm....

Keep awake...

Take one breath at a time, slowly, evenly.

Come on, you can do it.

The screeching suddenly rose to a high pitch. It stung her ears again.

No, please...!

Go away!

Slow breathing...take it easy...

You can do it.

Breathing...breathing... Painful short gasps turned into a slow, deep sucking in of air, gradually dissipating the pain in her chest as it eased into a normal rhythm. The death sound of the aliens moved away slowly into the distance, until they vanished completely beyond the bulkhead.

She waited.

No sound.

She waited.

Silence at last. It hung in the air, until Marla could hear the faint but blessedly familiar sounds of the ship. The soft humming sound the ship's engines made as it moved at warp speed, someone hammering something - perhaps a broken deck plate - into place, voices...

Marla looked around her, the confined space in which she had been sitting, becoming familiar. Lights at the end of the tunnel. Tunnel? She was in Jefferies tube 27. Only then she burst into tears.

She sat, her head buried again between her arms. Her shoulders shook violently with the force of her crying, deep sobs that wracked her frame.

Stop it, stop it, Marla. Don't let them see you lose control. They don't trust you. Don't let them see you like this. You're only here because...because...

"Crewman Gilmore?"

A voice, youthful, like a child's.

Naomi Wildman.

Marla stilled, an instant in which her overwrought mind assimilated the calmness of the child's voice. "I'm your man"-Naomi, who introduced herself when Marla had first set foot on Voyager. Marla lifted her head, swiped somewhat inelegantly with her sleeve at her wet cheeks.

"N-naomi..."

"You know, Crewman Gilmore," Naomi said as she seated herself next to Marla, supporting her back against the bulkhead, "we should stop meeting like this."

Marla gave a tremulous laugh.

"I - I know. The last time was in Jefferies tube 15, and the time before that in - "

"Jefferies tube 32. Where the rats are."

"There are rats?"

"Oh yes. To think there are rats on a starship."

"I think I heard someone say they were mice..."

"Oh, no! Rats!"

Marla laughed, relieved that she had company. "You know what they say about rats on a ship? Sailing ships, I mean."

"No. Is there a legend about them?"

"Not that I know of, but when a ship sinks, the rats swim to shore."

Naomi's eyes twinkled. She hooked her arm through Marla's. They sat for a few minutes quietly, before Naomi stirred again.

"Your Captain Ransom went down with his ship..."

"Yes - yes, he did, Naomi. He saved my life, you know."

"I know. He made you beam the three of you and Seven and the Doctor to Voyager."

"He changed, Naomi. I'd like to think that he had a change of heart."

"He must have, if he wanted you to join us on this ship."

Marla sighed, then she gave Naomi a squeeze.

"You are the first friend I made here, Miss Captain's Assistant."

"Thank you, Marla. We are a family here, if you know what I mean."

Naomi looked up into Marla's eyes, and Marla smiled.

"I know." Marla sighed, a sound that was not lost on Naomi.

"Something has distressed you again, Marla. I was looking for you in the mess hall. You were going to explain to me about playing the violin."

"I'm sorry, child. I - I..." Marla paused, felt a constriction in her throat. After six weeks on the ship, she was still a bundle of nerves most of the time in the presence of certain crewmembers.

Especially the engineering crew. She felt at home, yet displaced. She knew her work inside out, could operate on crisis relief, think on her feet all the time. But she had to earn their trust.

The Chief Engineer was constantly looking over her shoulder, though she had been told that B'Elanna Torres looked over anyone's shoulder if they thought to tamper with her precious engines. No, B'Elanna Torres was not unfriendly, just...there. It gave her the shivers, and caused her to doubt herself.

How could they not be viewed with distrust? Voyager lost two crew during their battles with the Equinox and the aliens. She could feel her neck hair rising whenever she passed some of the Voyager crew in the corridors. After six weeks...

She sighed.

"The - the Captain wishes to see me at 2100 in her ready room," Marla offered.

"And?" Naomi smiled. Whenever she herself reported to the ready room, Captain Janeway was always friendly with her.

"I - I am afraid, if you must know."

Naomi moved herself so that she sat on the opposite side, facing Marla. In childish fashion, Naomi placed her hands on Marla's knees, and rested her chin on her hands. Marla leaned forward and touched the girl's hair. A singled braid was formed from her top hair, and hanged down, reaching into Naomi's lower back. Then Marla's hand cupped Naomi's cheek.

"Yes..." she sighed again. "I'm afraid..."

"You don't know why the Captain wishes to speak with you?" Naomi asked, bringing out her left hand to cover Marla's.

"No."

"You shouldn't be, you know."

"I know! But it's just - it's just that I remember the look on her face when she addressed the five of us in the board room. She looked so...so angry."

Marla closed her eyes as she thought of how the Captain spoke that day. Even now, she could feel her heart racing. She was now Crewman Gilmore, plain and simple. Crewman with very few privileges on Voyager. She felt anew the burn behind her eyelids. Several times she hyperventilated when she felt the turbolift doors closing, the walls coming towards her, and that sound... The second time it happened, Naomi found her.

Now, the Captain wanted to see her. Summoned, was more like it.

Summoned. What had she done wrong? She had wracked her brain the entire time since she had received that communication.

"It may be just a courtesy visit, Marla," Noah assured her earlier.

"Yes, perhaps to furnish more information about the Equinox."

"That scares the hell out of me, James," she replied when he piped up.

"Come on, chin up, Marla. You've got to show your courage," Noah said again. She had looked at Noah then, the sides of his mouth carved with deep grooves, and the knitted brow even more pronounced. His dark eyes looked perpetually sad. She wondered why he sounded so different, though, as if he knew the Captain really just wanted to have a chat with her.

"I'll try, but I- I still don't know how I will be received. You know how she looked at us, how tough she is."

"She - she won't kill you," Noah said.

"You sound very certain. Are you beginning to like Captain Janeway, Noah?"

Noah just smiled and repeated:

"She won't kill you."

She knew what the Captain did to him. Everybody knew. Naomi's voice broke through her thoughts.

"Marla."

"Hmmm?"

"Smile, please? You are very beautiful, especially when you smile."

Marla's face relaxed as she smiled.

"See? That's better. Now, when you see the Captain, just remember this..."

"What?"

"You know, rats."

"Rats?"

"Yes, rats. They leave the ship at the first sign of trouble."

Marla laughed this time.

"I get the message."

"I bet you do. Now, are we going to go to the mess hall?"

"You want violin lessons?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Oh no!" Marla said. Then her face turned sombered dramatically.

"What?" Naomi asked as they started crawling through the Jefferies tube towards the entrance that would take them to deck 6.

"I don't have enough replicator rations."

"You don't?"

Marla sighed. On the Equinox they didn't have functioning replicators the last months. Now she, Noah, and the other three were on far stricter rationing than the rest of the crew. All she could replicate so far, was the bow, and that cost her all of four weeks of credits.

Now she had nothing, and had to work the next five months if she wanted her own instrument... Playing on the holodeck... She had only half an hour once a week. What was that? Nothing if she wanted to train again...

"No, I used up all mine for my favourite meal this week," she lied. No need to let the child know the politics and precariousness of the situation they were in.

"Oh."

"But I tell you what. When you have your time on the holodeck, you may invite me, and we can programme the instruments, then I can teach you."

"Thank you Marla," Naomi said excitedly as the reached the end of the tube.

"And Marla?"

"What?"

"I like you very much."

"I like you too, pumpkin."

********

"Are you sure you’re okay?" Noah asked as Marla entered the turbolift on deck 9.

"Don’t worry, Noah, it’s something I must simply get used to," Marla said. Noah could see the apprehension in her eyes as she faced him.

"You could always go via the Jefferies tubes."

Marla’s smile didn’t light up her face. The brightness Noah knew could reach Marla’s eyes, was absent. He knew that she tried desperately to overcome her claustrophobia. Marla had been terrorised on two occasions by the aliens when they appeared through the walls of the turbolifts. She had barely been able to defend herself then, but the experience left a chasm in her self-confidence.

"You know, I wondered about that. How is it that I don’t feel this when I’m in the Jefferies tubes?"

"You weren’t attacked there. It was one of the few places you were actually safe, Marla. Now, are you going, or not?"

"Deck One," Marla said firmly, then sagged back against the wall as the doors closed, and Noah’s face disappeared from view. Her smile froze, and her heart started to hammer painfully against the ribcage.

She wondered idly how it would have looked if she popped through the port of the Jefferies tube that led into the Captain’s ready room.

The Captain.

Breathe in deeply, Marla, she told herself. You can get through this. The aliens are gone. Now there is only the Captain...the Captain... You are on Voyager. There are no broken deck plates, no bulkheads that need repairs. The replicators work, you can go into the holodecks.

This is not the Equinox.

She looked around her in the lift, searching for the first sign of the noise, the breach in the wall that would let the alien through.

Nothing...

Breathe. Be calm...

She won’t kill you, Marla. She is human...human...

When the doors opened on deck one, Marla stared at the wide bridge area. There was that pilot Tom Paris at the helm. She stepped out, froze as Tuvok and Harry Kim looked up from their stations. Both nodded their greeting. She smiled tentatively, nodded to them, and when she moved to her right, she saw Chakotay look up at her and smile.

Small comfort, his friendly face.

Her stomach churned, her heart raced, and her palms were clammy. She walked, took the two steps down, and stood in front of the ready room door. Her lips moved, and she clenched and unclenched her fists.

"You may press the chime," she heard Tuvok say evenly.

She took a deep breath and pressed.

From the depths of the room she could hear the captain saying "come".

********

The captain did not look up from where she sat at her desk, studying a PADD. In the few moments Marla stood inside the door, she could look at Captain Janeway. For the first time since that fateful day in the boardroom, she was directly in the Captain’s presence again.

She looked...tired, Marla thought.

She coughed, then said: "You wanted to see me, Captain."

Kathryn Janeway looked up at last. Marla held her breath as she saw the Captain’s eyes. There was only the whisper of a smile on the Captain’s face.

She can’t kill you, Marla, remember that. She looks tired. Maybe she too, has many sleepless nights...

"Ah, Crewman Gilmore. You’re dead on time," Kathryn Janeway said.

Marla must have imagined it as she noticed the appreciative tone of the Captain’s voice.

Still, her state of nervous tension blotted out any relief she might have felt as she blurted the words:

"Have I done something wrong, Captain?"

*******

END PART ELEVEN

FIRE DANCE

PART TWELVE

"Now that you’ve seen the Captain, she’s not as ogrish as you thought," Chakotay told Marla where she was sitting at a table in the mess hall.

He smiled when he saw her sitting away from her usual group. They were finally emerging from their shells, and the rest of the crew took great pains to welcome them into the Voyager fold. Marla looked a lot more relaxed and not as pained as she had been before. Lieutenant Walter Baxter had been sitting with her and he greeted Chakotay quickly before he excused himself to go to his post.

Chakotay had been in consultation with B’Elanna, who had given him a glowing testimonial of the Crewman’s work.

"No..." Marla replied, smiling.

Her eyes creased, and she looked happier than in the previous weeks, Chakotay thought privately. There was a relief on her face that made her look suddenly younger. He doubted whether she would overcome her claustrophobia, but even in these circumstances, Marla had to work at it. Well, there were always the Baxters and Naomis who were on hand to help her.

"It probably went better than you expected..."

"Yes, Commander," Marla said with a little breathless air. "It did..." She was quiet for a while, her hands around the mug of coffee she was drinking.

"Do you like coffee, Marla?" Chakotay asked.

"I love it!"

"Then you take after the Captain," he said knowingly.

"She offered me a cup when I was in the ready room last night." There was a pause, and Chakotay waited for her to speak again. "Captain Janeway...she - she is very kind," was Marla’s soft response.

"Once you get to know her, Marla," Chakotay said kindly.

"I am happy to be a part of this crew, Commander. Honoured really."

"This is a fine crew, Marla. The best I’ve worked with, although they were forged from two crews with so many differences at the beginning - "

"I was very surprised to hear that, Commander," Marla offered, more confident now since her visit to the Captain’s ready room.

"Then you will know that you will - "

"Fit right in?"

"Taken out of my mouth. But yes, give the crew a chance. They will embrace you. It may take a little time, but just work the best you can, Crewman. There’s nothing here that gains more respect than your willingness to pull your weight and more."

Marla thought how she had already been influenced by the way the Voyager crew worked. She gave it her absolute best. Only yesterday B'Elanna commended her on her quick-thinking during a minor emergency in Engineering. She had glowed under the warm praise of the half-Klingon woman who had such a presence in her domain.

It was a wonderful feeling. On the Equinox they were constantly battling against hostile aliens, constantly on the run, it seemed. What precious little time they had for rest and relaxation was spent mulling over new ways to get home faster or to protect themselves.

Home. It was their beacon in the total dark in which they found themselves. No one smiled much, and Captain Ransom - such an introspective man - was always guiding them, encouraging them not to lose faith. She missed him sometimes. She had, when they still had access to their database, downloaded the beautiful Pendarin into the synaptic stimulator for him. Pendarin was his home. It's where he always went. Always. She knew he took refuge there, a place he could experience peace.

It was not much different here, she thought. Going home. The crew worked with understated urgency. They were in a hurry, yet never appeared so. And, she admitted with reluctance, Voyager had a command team that was rock-solid.

Commander Chakotay should have been first officer of the Equinox.

"Hello..."

She started from her musing when she heard the Commander's voice. She smiled sheepishly. He was such an easy man to talk with...

"May I ask you something, Commander?"

"What is it, Marla?"

"Are you going to perform at Talent Night?"

"Not you too!"

"I think there are ripples of excitement going through the ship. I understand you have never performed before - "

"And I think Voyager’s gossip mill is too hard at work."

"I’m looking forward to the concert, Commander," Marla said as Chakotay rose from his seat.

"Crewman, don’t put your hopes up too much, will you?" he muttered.

"Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a ship to run..."

*******

The best kept secret on the ship was about to come out two days later as Marla, Noah, James, Angelo and Brian - the Equinox Five as the crew referred to them in the beginning, made their way to the Captain’s ready room.

They had been sitting at their old table in the mess hall and as if by mutual consent they rose and proceeded to the exit. They were watched by all who happened to have their lunch at that hour.

"I see the Party of Five is on a mission," Chell said to Mariah Henley.

Megan snickered delicately, then smiled at Chell. "They probably want to make a joint representation of stating their needs."

"They wouldn’t! They’re too scared of the Captain to say anything. They’ll simply present their query then run for cover," Jenny added.

"They’re in for a surprise. I think the captain will just arch one eyebrow, and throw them for a loop," Chell responded. "Now me," he added, "I would just stand tall before the Captain and come straight out with my request!"

"Stand tall? Chell, you have yet to see your toes, not to mention - "

"Jenny, Jenny, stop right there!" Megan cautioned laughingly.

"Where? That part of the anatomy that - "

"That’s it! Look at them," Chell tried to divert the focus from himself.

"Oh, the Five are going!"

"I wish you wouldn’t refer to them as 'The Five'. It’s so not complimentary," Samantha said. "They’re a part of this crew now, part of our family. They are having as much difficulty fitting in as it was for two crews to join in the beginning - "

"Yes, and for persons like Seven, who rubbed most of us up the wrong way in the beginning. But she made the effort, and has gained the respect of her comrades," Mariah said again.

"Yes, I know they are working really hard trying to shrug off the image that they’ve been monsters." Samantha’s voice was soft, yet calm. The others nodded soberly.

"I’d still like to see their faces once the Captain tells them!" Chell said, wringing his hands together as if he made a bet with someone.

They looked to the door of the mess hall and watched Marla vanish from view.

******

Kathryn Janeway looked at her chronometer and determined that the chime to her ready room would ring in about five minutes. She awaited the arrival of a certain delegation. She hadn't specifically set aside any time for interviews, but she knew that the knock would come. She smiled a little wickedly. She wanted to see their faces when they received the news. This was one of the nicest things of being a Captain of a starship, she decided. The look on the face of an ensign or crewman or officer when they received a special commendation made being stranded out here a little easier. Even just a kind word. Like she found the other day when she spoke with Noah in the hydroponics bay. It was for her a priceless moment. She basked for a long time afterwards in the warm feeling just seeing the look on Noah’s face, and his declaration that he was glad to be a member of the crew. In retrospect she realised that Chakotay was right. He’s always right, she mused. She needed to face Noah on that score, and needed to be forgiven. As much as she sought that, Noah desired it as well.

Taking up a PADD, she smiled again. Yes, she would love to see their expressions. Chakotay had been here, and they had gone over the data, making certain that it was correct.

Chakotay had just gone to take his place on the bridge. He had finally begun to show enthusiasm for Talent Night. What she wanted do to required a second and perhaps - depending on how creative Tom could be with the programming - a third person to create the authenticity she needed.

The moment Tuvok towered above her two days ago in the mess hall, she sensed that something was afoot. Until the instant she agreed to perform, she realised that she and Chakotay had both been set up.

"We learned that from the master," Tom Paris said yesterday when she spoke with him. "Why, you got rid of a few unpleasant personages that way in the last year alone," he added.

She had to smile.

"You trained us well, Captain," he said as he made to leave, giving her an old-worlde bow.

"Thank you, Tom. It was magnanimous of you."

"Our pleasure, Captain," he said with his now familiar smirk that these days denoted more his great humour than hiding old angsts.

Kathryn sighed.

The idea had taken root while Tuvok was speaking to her.

"I need to do this, Chakotay," she said last night when they had dinner in his quarters.

"I understand. More than you know."

"Then you also understand why I need you with me on this project."

"Kathryn, what I know...what I see, is the old Kathryn returning. I also know that you never do things in half-measures. You are putting everything into it, and so will I."

"Thank you, Commander. It’s important that we show them a - "

"United front."

"Yes."

*******

Kathryn gave a sigh. This time it was one of relief. Much of the depression was slowly draining from her. She knew, as Chakotay so correctly asserted, that those memories would always be there. But she was recovering, and was rebuilding the fortitude to come to terms with what happened. It was that thought, the idea that she could look back on what happened with a clarity of mind and the memory of it serving as a mental check against acting irrationally that provided the freedom she was feeling now. She remembered something Tom's father once told her:

"We turn our mistakes into learning experiences, never to be repeated once we've been through that fire..."

It was a great man who told her that.

She had come through fire, a purifying force that left her stripped, only to clothe her again in freedom, wisdom, respect...

Much of her recovery was due to her first officer.

She had always been so arrogant in assuming that one could deal with sorrow, with guilt, with remorse and the inability to rise from the ashes, on one's own. She learned the hard way that there came a time in one's life when you had to admit:

"Help me, I can't do it on my own..."

I am glad I sent out that personal distress beacon, Chakotay...

Chakotay was truly a man of excellence.

"Paris is after all, your personal reclamation project," his words rang that day in her ready room, when he complained about Tom’s insubordinate behaviour.

I was yours in the last seven weeks, Chakotay. Your own reclamation project. You reclaimed me for this ship, for the ship...

********

Tom Paris stole a quick glance behind him as the turbolift doors swished open. He smiled, looked across at the engineering station where B’Elanna was sitting and winked at her. She looked at the newcomers on the bridge.

"They’re here..." she whispered.

"Yeah. I’d like to be a fly on the wall in there," Tom whispered back, then quickly turned his attention to his work again.

Chakotay had also turned around, acknowledged their greetings before he looked at the console again between the two command chairs.

They moved carefully past Tuvok, and Noah, who formed the vanguard of the little delegation, took the two steps down as one step and pressed the chime. Marla and the other three cast their eyes around the bridge before the stared at the ready room door again.

On the Captain’s signal, they entered.

********

Kathryn Janeway rose from her seat and acknowledged the five crewmen who stood on front of her desk. They stood stiffly on attention. They looked a little tense she thought.

"At ease, crewmen," she said. They relaxed only fractionally. "Now, what can I do for you?" She turned to stand at her sofa, and first stared out the viewport before she turned to face them again.

They were quiet.

"Which one of you will break the ice?" the Captain asked. They looked at each other, then Noah nodded.

He cleared his throat, looked a little embarrassed, then got the "in for a penny" look in his eyes. He coughed again.

"Captain, we have come here to thank you."

"Thank me? What for, Noah?"

"It was not something which we expected, Captain."

"We want to let you know how much we appreciate it that you’ve given each of us additional replicator rations and holodeck time, Captain," Marla said softly.

Angelo Tassoni who had been quiet all the time, said: "We do not deserve it, Captain. It was very kind of you to award us extra replicator credits." He was actually smiling, Kathryn thought.

"We promise, Captain, to do our best for this ship," Noah said.

"That goes without saying, Captain Janeway," declared Brian.

Kathryn left the viewport, and came to stand in front of them.

"I gave you all those extra rations?"

"So that we could be on par with the rest, Captain," Marla iterated.

"On par, you say?"

"Yes, Captain." Noah almost barked the ‘captain’ part again. He looked down at the Captain who looked so diminutive against him. This time she smiled at him. His own face broke into a grin.

Noah thought he’d die in that moment.

Marla could see a hundred violins.

James envisaged replicating a bunch of roses to offer Susan Nicoletti.

Angelo thanked his sainted grandfather that he could now have a copy of "War and Peace".

Brian? Brian saw little rows of choc-nut sundaes floating past him.

"All because of you, Captain," Noah beamed.

Kathryn Janeway walked round her desk and flicked on her computer.

She looked at them as they stood at ease, hands behind their backs.

"And you want to thank me?"

"Aye, Captain."

"Yes, Ma’am."

"Yes, sir! Captain!"

That moment Kathryn delivered the blow.

"I didn’t do it."

There was a stunned pause. Expressions ranged from gaping mouths to popping eyes.

"What?"

"Really?"

"Captain!"

"How?"

Kathryn Janeway entered the codes into her vid-com.

"Ready, Neelix?" she asked.

"Yes, Captain!" Neelix’s smile flashed on the screen.

Kathryn turned the vid-com so that all five could have a view of the screen. She rose from her chair and walked round again to join the others.

"Gentlemen, Marla..." Neelix started to address the as yet to recover five crewmen, "I have the pleasure of informing you that every member on board the ship has donated a few of his or her credits, to be pooled and divided equally amongst the five of you. It is our way of showing that we wish to welcome you formally as members of this intrepid crew, of this intrepid ship."

Neelix paused to take a deep breath. He nudged the crewman standing just behind him and continued:

"Even Chell gave some of his rations." Chell waved his pudgy hands at them, and nodded vigorously.

"I - it is an honour," Marla said, her face still with that incredulous look on it.

"Thank you... It means a lot to us," Noah said, "to feel home here."

When communication closed again, Kathryn Janeway returned to her seat.

"It was their idea," she told them. "They wanted to do it, and Commander Chakotay and I worked late last night to set it up and activate it at 1200 today.

"I - I don’t know what to say, Captain," Marla started, "except ‘thank you...’"

"Well, after seven weeks on board Voyager, I’d say that you earned it. I expect you continue with the same high standards you’ve all adopted, and continue to show commitment and a sound working relationship with the crew in your respective departments."

"Aye, Captain," they chorused.

"And Marla, you can have your violin now," Kathryn Janeway said with a smile.

"Thank you, Captain," she breathed.

"Dismissed."

********

It was five very happy crewmen who left the ready room. They walked to the turbolift in a very dignified manner, but the bridge crew missed nothing. Harry smiled broadly, Seven turned to face them and said:

"You have been formally assimilated into the collective of Voyager."

Chakotay sighed with satisfaction. Things were finally looking better. Kathryn was going to dance, and he was going to dance with her. She was focused again, and last night she had been on her mettle as his dinner companion. It was a Kathryn he liked, assertive as always, yet soft and compassionate and fair. This was the side of Kathryn the former members of the Equinox had not seen. This side of her made them, like the rest of the crew, want to lay their lives down for her.

They had experienced her style of command, and however loyal they had been to their former captain, they took to her leadership naturally. They had no doubt thought that Kathryn’s absolutism at the time of the Equinox crisis and the period immediately following, made her unliked, unloved, unpopular. They could see how her own crew went about their tasks, how concerned they were for their captain. It was even possible that they could see through the crew's reactions that Kathryn may not have been herself. Yes, anger is brief madness...

Most of all, Kathryn’s crew helped in the last week as much in her restoration as he wanted to take credit for. She was touched by their concern. If ever there was a time, since they last openly disobeyed her order by refusing to leave her behind in the void, that they declared their faith and respect and love for her, it was now. They ganged up on her, it seemed. They refused to allow her to dwell on her actions. She loved her crew all the more for it. It was this quality of the crew of Voyager that had the most positive resonance in the hearts of Marla, James, Noah, Brian and Angelo.

Ex unitate vires.

Unity is strength.

He heard the turbolift doors slide close and knew that the five crewman were gone.

Tom turned to look at Chakotay and his broad grin was so infectious that the rest of the officers on the bridge smiled too.

"Commander," he said, "thank you."

"For what?"

"For making the suggestion in the first place."

********

END PART TWELVE

INVITATION TO THE DANCE

Tom Paris breathed a sigh of relief as he sat back in his chair in the holodeck research lab. The first subroutines had been programmed for the Captain's dance alone. Three jobs were still waiting, and would have to remain on his waiting list until all the segments for this dance were completed. The holographic dancers were all completed, as were the fires that had to respond to the Captain's proximity and body temperature.

Then there was Marla's partner who had to be programmed in. He made sure that the hologram could be called up whenever Marla needed to rehearse.

He smiled to himself. The first thing she replicated with her additional rations was a violin. She would still have to eat Neelix's food for a while, but not for the long period that had been projected as before. Then it would have been months before she could replenish her "meagre savings" as they called it. She had been deeply grateful to the rest of the crew for the opportunity she was afforded of replicating her musical instrument.

"I lost my own instrument in our 'Week of Hell', when we lost half our crew, Tom," she said shyly when she approached him with her request. "The captain has asked me to play, as she needed string instruments as her accompaniment."

"We are building quite a little orchestra on the ship," he had told her a few days ago. She had been surprised to hear that Harry played the clarinet, and that he was a member of the Juilliard Youth Orchestra. She had been too, but probably before Harry's time.

Now he was waiting for her to arrive at the holodeck where she was to meet her fellow violinist.

There was an undercurrent of excitement that ran through the ship as the crew anticipated Talent Night. Most of the regular performers with the exception naturally of Tuvok, would be participating. But it was the Captain's participation everyone was looking forward to. She had been through a rough time in the last two months. Her treatment of Noah, her pursuit of Ransom to the point of putting Voyager and her crew at risk, had filled her with guilt. It was, he could understand, something that made her recoil with disgust and shame just thinking she acted like she did. He knew very well how guilt could trip one up in unexpected moments. She had been severely depressed since the day the Equinox was destroyed. All of them had seen that night at the potluck, how distressed she had been, fleeing from the mess hall with an irate Commander ordering them to enjoy themselves.

He had to give the Commander full marks for refusing to accept the Captain's morbidity, her brooding, flogging herself because she could not expiate what she had done. Chakotay was indeed an exceptional first officer.

Tom sighed. It was something he would have liked to aspire to.

He continued in silence for the next few minutes, and when he was done he sat back feeling greatly satisfied.

The crew will get one hell of a surprise when they saw this act.

"It's a one off, Tom," the Captain said. "It's a special performance with a very special message."

"I'll do my best, Captain," he assured her.

He rose and left the lab, only to meet Marla in the corridor as she approached the holodeck.

"Ready?" he asked her. She was carrying her violin, held with such pride that he felt a lump in his throat.

"Yes..." she said softly, unable to mask her excitement. Her eyes were shining.

"Well, Marla, he's waiting in there. Actually, he's been asking about who the second violinist will be for the Concerto for Double Violins..."

"You're joking, Tom."

"Marla, go in and find out. You'll be pleasantly surprised."

Tom gave her a salute and walked down the corridor, whistling the first bars of the Largo. Marla smiled and waited till he vanished from view, then she entered the holodeck.

*******

It was semi-dark, and Marla could discern only the silhouette of a figure on the far side of the sandy compound. There was a circle of fire in the centre. She stood still for a few moments, taking in the scene.

The figure moved so that he stood in the circle of light. Only now she could see his face. He had his violin tucked under his arm, and the bow in his hand. He smiled at her and she frowned.

"Hello," he said and stepped forward, holding out his hand.

Marla gave a soft gasp. She had dreamed of playing one day like this man. They were always just dreams...dreams... so many things happened in between. But here he was, smiling at her. She gave up wondering at Tom Paris's genius at creating holograms. This...this...

"Mr Pinchas Zukerman?"

"Yes. I am Pinchas."

"Hello," she said shyly, "my name is Marla Gilmore."

"Ah, Miss Gilmore! I'm glad to make your acquaintance," he said as he shook her hand.

"I am most honoured, Mr Zukerman!"

"Please, do call me Pinchas. All my friends do."

"Thank you," she replied, then started to tune her instrument, an action he immediately followed. Notes filled the quiet air.

"What are we playing?" he asked her as he took a few strokes of his bow over the strings.

Marla gaped at him. He was so accomplished!

"Bach - "

"Ah, his concerto for double violins."

"Yes, and we'll have the Juilliard Youth Orchestra playing."

"A wise choice. Did you study there?"

"I did," she replied.

"Good. Shall we?" he asked, then started the first bars of the concerto.

Marla thought absently that she would never want to serve on another ship. She was ecstatic as she joined in the harmony of the concerto, smiling at Pinchas as he led the way.

********

The atmosphere a fortnight later, exactly ten weeks to the day the Equinox was destroyed, the crew of Voyager prepared for what they declared was the most important Talent Night Neelix had ever organised.

In all departments those crew who were on duty could watch the entire concert, played from the holodeck, on their vid-screens. Many crew members sat in the mess hall where screens were set up at strategic places that groups of five or six could watch together. Other crew who were not on duty, and who preferred to remain in their quarters, could watch from the privacy of their cabins. The crew on the bridge reaped the greatest benefit. The concert was going to be relayed directly onto the main viewscreen. Thanks to Tom, they had the best view. Naturally, the few senior crewmembers who were on the holodeck had the best of the interactive viewing. Some of them were in fact going to be part of the main item on the programme: The Captain's Dance.

It was only a very few who knew what the nature of dance was. Tom, because he was the programmer; Commander Chakotay, because he was a part of the act. Two or three crewmembers were also part of the performance. Marla was in the holodeck with her Pinchas Zukerman, to play the accompaniment to the Captain's dance.

Although most did not know the nature of the Captain's dance, they knew at least that it was not the "Dying Swan" dance she did a few years ago and which she reprised from time to time.

They were naturally curious. But Tom, Marla, Commander Chakotay and the Captain remained mum. B'Elanna tried her best to extort information from her boyfriend, but Tom was steadfast in not giving away anything that might ruin the surprise or the import of the dance.

And so the crew waited. In the mess hall was the greatest buzz of excitement. Little groups huddled together. One pleasant thing to see was that Noah Lessing sat with Susan Nicoletti, Walter Baxter and Naomi Wildman. Brian and Angelo were with Chell and Mariah Henley.

It was the most positive evidence that they were beginning to fit in and make friends. Especially Noah had found that centre again, and in the last week alone he demonstrated his willingness to go ten extra miles. It was something that did not go unnoticed. He was smiling a lot more now, looked far more relaxed, and Neelix, looking at the fine young man, said:

"It seems like you've been on Voyager for years, Mr Lessing."

It was a statement that made Noah's heart swell with pride.

Yes, there was an air of peace on the ship. A period, a lull before the next emergency would arise. Nobody thought of that now.

They were ready to see their beloved Captain dance for life and renewal.

********

"Chakotay..."

"Hey, are you getting nervous?"

"No."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing." Her answer was soft, reflective. She was standing in front of her mirror, and he stood at the entrance to her bedroom. He was dressed in a skin-toned body suit, but he wore a long cape over it.

Kathryn's dress was something else. It had a paneled skirt, and the panels were in shades of red, orange and yellow. Each panel ended in a long point. He thought that it reminded him of flames around her calves.

"It will go smoothly, Kathryn," he assured her.

She looked at him them. On her crown was a tiny tiara that shone in the light.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"Like someone on fire."

"Chakotay," she said as she grabbed her cape from the bed and walked to him, "let's go."

I must have done this a hundred times in the past five years, Chakotay thought as he held his arm for Kathryn. She linked her own gratefully through his, and they proceeded for her door.

The few crewmembers who were on their way to their duty stations that evening, watched in fascination as Captain and First Officer walked down the corridors on their way to the holodecks.

They greeted their commanding officers, then stared at them as they passed. The crewmembers who were fortunate to witness this, quickly spread the message to their friends, telling them that it would not be long now. The Captain and Commander were on their way.

They relayed this with pride. Never had they seen such a grand manifestation of a brilliant working team of Captain and First Officer. He stayed by her side through her traumatic weeks when they thought the Captain would never emerge from her state of gloom.

And here she was, smiling, joking, teasing like she used to do before. She even graced many of them with her famous arched brow - one she lifted whenever she was in humour, or expressed her disbelief in a crewmember's wild imaginings.

Yes, it was they who had butterflies in their stomachs! They rode the waves of excitement that appeared to run through the ship.

After tonight, Captain Kathryn Janeway would seal forever her allegiance with her family, one she thought she forsook in her days of pain, in her pursuit of something over which she later felt such a deep remorse. She would, by performing tonight, tell them in a visual way through her dance, all that she had been, all that she had changed. It was for most people a difficult thing to do: to admit to shortcomings and errors, to apologise for mistakes made and to beg for clemency. Captain Janeway was as they well knew, a fearless woman. She would face her demons head-on. She would, as most people are not wont to do, be saying all those things through the medium of dance.

********

Kathryn and Chakotay entered the holodeck. It was already dark, with the only light coming from the moon, and the fire in the centre of the enclosure. The dancers were sitting around the fire. One place was not filled yet.

Chakotay looked at Kathryn. He squeezed her hand.

"Chakotay..."

"You can do it," he encouraged softly as he saw her waver slightly.

"Thank you..."

This time he gave her a gentle hug. He stood back again, and raised her hand to his lips.

"Go well, Kathryn Janeway," he said softly, before he walked to the spot that had been left open for him.

Kathryn walked to the far side of the enclosure where she melted into the darkness.The dancers held hands and lowered their heads, as if in prayer or supplication or reverence. Marla Gilmore and Pinchas Zukerman smiled as their chins rested on their instruments.

Soft music rose up. The wailing of the two violins eased slowly into the quiet of the night, retaining its diminuendo, filling the air, drifting, traveling... Heads went up and faces turned towards the fire. Each face glowed in the light, each face filled with ecstasy as they stared with parted lips at the fire. Arms and necks glistened. Then, as if given a silent signal, their heads bent again.

The music flowed, the plaintive notes hanging in the air, hovering over the dancers. A gentle melody spoke in the cold breeze a language of movement and harmony. Twin melodies in which one eased imperceptibly to hover over the other, then, suddenly, the lower tones of the other would dominate... yet never overtake.

There was a stir among the group as a lone figure materialised, an apparition from the darkness. Her eyes conveyed strength, but were tinged with sadness. They remained fixed as she moved through a parted link in the human chain. With soft, graceful steps, toes pointed, she moved toward the centre until she stood on the stone surrounded by the fire.

Kathryn Janeway was ready to begin her fire dance.

"The need prevails in every single man
to rest his restless soul, so that he can -
where all may see his conflict - find the chance,
through fire's flames be cleansed in fevered dance."

******

THE END

I welcome any comments or discussion on this story. It wasn’t easy to write, and the Prologue kept me busy for a long time.

Sources:

1. On Ballet and Dancing
2. "The Prince" Machiavelli
3. World Book Encyclopaedia

All quotations in Part 8 from "The Prince" by Machiavelli.

The Quatrains: "The need prevails" and "Oh, boundless ocean" were written by the author. The second quatrain is a very loose translation from an Afrikaans sonnet "O magtige oseaan" by poet Theo Wassenaar. 

Musical accompaniment for this story:

Mozart: Piano Concerto no. 20 ; Piano Concerto no. 21
Beethoven: Romanze - Violin Romance no. 2 in F.

Bach: Concerto for two violins and Orchestra in D Minor [Recording: Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman]

EMAIL

[J/C FANFIC]