Chakotay considered this in silence, then replied. “They ask for help. We answer. We reorganize an entire planet to assuage whatever guilt or programming glitch is driving them and then they bring their cloaking matrix back online and we resume our mission having expended thousands of man hours and vast resources saving a planet that somebody else ruined for their convenience. There’s no technology left down there to help us understand how those who created the wave forms did what they did. There’s nothing more for us to learn here.”
“And?” O’Donnell replied.
“Why are we doing this again?”
“Sir, it’s the right thing to do.”
“You believe the wave forms are still working to restore the planet to health. Why not teach them how to do that on their own?”
“Give a man a fish or teach him to fish?” O’Donnell asked.
Chakotay turned to look at the Ark planet. “We know how to heal this planet. If we could teach the wave forms what they need to know in order to do this work, what’s to say they might not use that knowledge to do some good of their own in the future. We know they can travel beyond this parsec. And who knows how many worlds out there might be in need of such assistance?”
“If we could communicate with them, that might be a possibility,” O’Donnell replied, “but we can’t. We’re assuming a fair amount here based on their actions, but we don’t know how detailed their understanding is of what’s causing the planet’s death. If their primary purpose was transporting life-forms and hiding them from the rest of the galaxy, it might take longer than our lifetimes to introduce them to the finer points of terraforming, let alone genetics.”
“Maybe that should be our focus,” Chakotay replied. “Offering assistance to the wave forms that asked for our help is not beyond the bounds of our mission. Solving their problem for them, just because we can, is over the line.”
“Which line is that, exactly?” O’Donnell asked, rising from his chair and taking a step back. “Who the hell drew it?”
Chakotay’s face hardened. “You’re out of line, Commander.”
“We were sent to expand our understanding of the galaxy. I’m sick of cleaning up the messes our superior officers make when they can’t get along with the folks who share our galaxy. One bloody war after another. Billions of lives lost. It sickens the soul. Death is coming for this planet and every living thing on it.”
“Death is coming for all of us, this planet included, whether we prolong its existence or not,” Chakotay said.
“What if we save a species that flourishes and one day joins us out here? What if the wave forms can learn something by our example, if only that everybody traveling through space isn’t out here to rape, pillage, and plunder for their own selfish reasons?” O’Donnell argued.
“The Prime Directive exists to remind us that we are not gods. We don’t get to reorganize every world, every civilization, every existence out here in our own image,” Chakotay reminded him.
“This isn’t about a quest for perfection. We’re not the Borg,” O’Donnell insisted. “It isn’t even about interfering in the progress of a planet moving through its natural life span. Somebody else did this. Somebody else already altered the fate of this world irrevocably. How does doing a better job than they did, actually allowing these life-forms to continue to evolve, fly in the face of the ideals of the Federation?”
“Right now, millions of Federation citizens are living in difficult and desperate circumstances,” Chakotay said, clearly trying to remain reasonable. “The life-forms on this planet aren’t sentient and may well never be.”
“Does that make them less worthy of our efforts?” O’Donnell asked. “If Starfleet Command thought we were needed back home, that’s where we’d be. They sent us out here. And as long as we’re here, I think we should solve the problems that are put before us. If this is the last thing I get to do as part of Project Full Circle, I can live with that, Captain,” O’Donnell said vehemently.
“When Voyager was stranded out here, we made a lot of choices that might not have been by the book, but our survival was at stake. The bar has been set higher this time around. We can’t allow our emotional responses, our justifiable anger at what has transpired here, to blind us to our greater purpose. There’s a lot of exploration we could do in the weeks it will take to help this planet. And when our superior officers ask me why I didn’t use that time better, I can’t tell them that I needed a win, that the horrors I’ve witnessed as a Starfleet officer created a moral imperative in me to balance the scales a little. I don’t have the luxury of that kind of selfishness.”
“Then I’m sorry for you,” O’Donnell replied somberly. “I’m sorry you can’t see that this is the only work worth doing out here.”
Chakotay paused, allowing O’Donnell’s accusation to sink in. Finally he said, “If we can find a way to communicate with the wave forms, to provide them with the information and tools they need, I’ll allow it. If not, we move on.”
At that, Chakotay rose and left the conference room.
VOYAGER
B’Elanna had read and reread the padd in her hand a dozen times. Certain that Tom would not return to their quarters until he’d been cleared by Demeter’s CMO and had briefed Chakotay, she’d bided her time, studying the events in minute detail. Each subsequent analysis confirmed her initial suspicions. The sick pit in her stomach, for once, had nothing to do with the son growing inside her.
When Tom finally entered, his strangely pale face glowed like an eerie moon in the dim lights of their quarters.
She was on her feet in an instant and in his arms. It was hard to tell who was trembling more, and their embrace did little to steady either of them.
Tom was the first to pull away, moving toward their bedroom. He paused at the threshold. “Miral?” he asked.
“She went down tonight without much of a fight,” B’Elanna replied, her voice pitched low to keep it from betraying her.
Tom nodded. “I’m ready to join her. I need to . . .” he began.
“Tom?” she asked.
“What?”
“Are you . . . I mean . . . I . . .”
“What is it?” he asked, stepping toward her again.
“I’m sorry,” she replied.
Tom paused, searching his memory. “For what?” he finally asked.
B’Elanna’s eyes widened. He must know by now. Even if he didn’t, he should hear it from her.
“It’s my fault,” she finally said.
Tom sighed, shaking his head slowly. “Honey,” he began, “it’s been a really hard day. Whatever you think you did, I forgive you. Let’s go to bed.”
“Whatever I think I did?” she asked with more heat than she’d intended.
Tom’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“How did you mean it?”
Raising his head he said, “First thing in the morning, we’ll fight as long and as hard as you want. But right now, I just can’t.”
“I don’t want to fight,” she insisted.
“Good,” he said, moving again toward the bedroom.
B’Elanna wanted to follow. Instead, all she could do was face a rush of images, each more troubling than the last: hanging on to the ’fresher for dear life, destroying their replicator, her manic flurries of pointless activity. No wonder he didn’t want to be around her right now. She was a mess and they both knew it.
B’Elanna moved to the sofa and sat, resting her face in her hands. She didn’t know what Tom had decided until she felt him settle himself beside her and place a gentle arm over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” she mumbled into her hands.
“I’m sure you were worried when you heard about this afternoon,” he continued.
“Heard about it?” she demanded, her head shooting up. “I was on the bridge, trying to teach transporter operations to a . . .” She paused, biting
back a curse. “I could have saved you, even without the pattern enhancers, but we were too far away, and that idiot on Demeter . . .”
Tom’s face softened into a smile. “You take it for granted, B’Elanna, how good you are. You think it should be that simple for everyone. But it’s never going to be.”
“Don’t smile at me like that,” she replied. “I almost got you killed today.”
“No, you didn’t,” he insisted.
“Weren’t you at the briefing?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“So you know it was our attempt to extract that dilithium that caused . . .”
“Yes,” he said. “It was Lasren and Gwyn on the Flyer, right?”
“You think Kenth Lasren talked Chakotay into attempting to mine an asteroid for dilithium?” she asked, incredulous.
Tom searched her face, clearly at a loss. “I don’t know,” he finally replied.
“I was the one who told Chakotay about the dilithium. I asked to take the shuttle out to collect the sample. It was my idea,” B’Elanna said, her voice thick.
Finally, the light dawned. Tom sat back, taking it in.
“Okay,” he finally said softly.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged.
“Okay?” she asked again.
“What do you want me to say?” he said. “Please don’t do it again? You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”
“This isn’t a game, Tom,” B’Elanna insisted. “This isn’t just you and me anymore.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“It’s easy to forget,” she said. “I did. For almost two years while I was building that shuttle and running as far and as fast as I could, I forced myself to think about the fact that we might not make it. We might never see each other again. I had to be strong . . . for Miral.”
“You gave up on us?” he asked softly.
“No,” she said. “Never. But I didn’t want the worst to take me by surprise. I wanted to be ready for it.”
“I never did that,” Tom said.
“I know.” She smiled faintly. “I grew up without my father. I never wanted that for Miral, but I told myself we could handle it. We were warriors, we would be fine; all the things my mother used to tell me.
“Three months ago, all those fears went away. You found us. You saved us from a life I had no idea how much I hated. To see you with your daughter . . . how much you love her, how much she loves you . . . Now, the thought of losing you hurts me in places I didn’t know existed. I can’t see anything past it. Miral can’t grow up without you. The baby . . . never knowing you at all? I’d have to go on living for them. But I would never be the mother they need. I don’t know anymore where I end and you begin. I can’t lose you. We can’t lose you.”
“Shhh,” Tom whispered, taking her in his arms as B’Elanna felt herself slipping toward a darkness she’d never dared name. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured softly.
No, it isn’t, something more certain in B’Elanna insisted.
“A lot of people do this, B’Elanna,” Tom said. “A lot of career officers raise families in worse situations than this one. We can do it, too.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “I just know we will.”
“We were wrong to bring them into this,” B’Elanna said softly. “It’s not fair to them.”
“I don’t agree,” Tom said. “This is what we were born to do. We’re our best selves out here. That’s who they need to know. We’re not leaving them back home where they’ll never understand why we bothered to bring them into the universe if we didn’t want to be with them while they were growing up. We’re together and that’s never going to change. We fought long and hard to get here. And there isn’t a safer place they could be than with us.”
“The entire multiverse almost ended right in front of us a few weeks ago,” B’Elanna said. “How can you . . .”
“It didn’t, because we were here to put a stop to it. I wouldn’t want to be aligned with the forces of darkness and destruction, B’Elanna, because their track record against us stinks.”
As B’Elanna sat back, a faint motion flurried across her belly. She immediately reached for her abdomen. Seconds later, the sensation came again.
“What?” Tom asked.
“Somebody’s up.” B’Elanna smiled.
Tom placed his hand over B’Elanna’s. “It’s too early for you to feel it,” she said softly.
“Not for long.” He smiled back.
Looking up at his face she saw absolute wonder. The terror was real, but so was this. Tom leaned down, resting his head gently in her lap. Wordlessly, she began to caress his hair.
“I should probably tell you . . .” she began, but stopped when she heard him begin to snore. As the stress and fear of the last several hours released her, B’Elanna laid her head back, allowing exhaustion to have its way with her.
What little sky was visible through the canopy of branches above was streaked with stars. The air was warm but not oppressive. The only ambient sound was the occasional trilling of a nocturnal bird, calling out for its mate.
Seven’s companion lay beside her. Their skin was pleasantly moist where it touched. The peace of this moment was absolute. Nothing that had come before, nothing that would happen after could erase its perfection. Much as she wished to remain still, to stretch this moment out over eternity, deeper needs still churned within her. Knowing, patient hands sought her out, and she turned without hesitation to allow them to caress her. For a few moments she let them play over her as the need turned to hunger. Opening her eyes, she reached for his face, drawing his lips toward hers.
But his face . . .
Seven awoke, startled. The sweat pooling on her flesh and soaking the sheets met with the room’s cool temperature and she shuddered violently. Reaching for a blanket, she expected to meet resistance. Hugh was less than generous in his sleep with the bedclothes, but she was already accustomed to it and could easily find the warmth she required from the heat of his body.
When her grasping fingers easily pulled the blanket over her, she sat up. The stars outside provided little luminescence, but even in the dimness, she could make out the still figure of the counselor seated in a chair that had been pulled to the end of the bed. He wore a loose-fitting favorite robe, and from his ease she estimated he had been sitting there for some time.
“How was it?” he asked softly.
“To what are you referring?” she demanded. They had begun their relationship as counselor and patient, and over the course of that work, she had shared with him many of her most personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences. When they had allowed that relationship to change, her capacity for emotional expression through physical intimacy had been loosed, and she had marveled at how vulnerable she was to him. She could not now imagine any part of herself she had hidden from him, but he stared at her now as if reproving her for some great betrayal.
“I realize we haven’t been bedmates for long, but in the early days you slept, when we found time for sleep, like the dead,” Hugh replied. “That changed a few nights ago.”
Seven felt heat rising to her cheeks and was grateful for the darkness around her. The dream from which she had just forcibly extricated herself was not the first of its kind. She’d lost count of them, as their frequency had increased, but his time line was accurate. She did not know why she had been reluctant to speak of the dreams. But some unspoken fear had cautioned silence, and unaccustomed to the experience as well as the fear, she had obeyed.
“Naturally, I flattered myself that you had, perhaps, wandered into my dreams,” Hugh went on. “But that’s not the case, is it?”
“You are the only man I have ever been with in this way,” Seven said.
“But not the only man you have wished to be with?” he asked.
What he said was true, but it was not the cause of her current agitation. It was so much
more complicated; she wondered if it would be possible to make him understand and was momentarily irritated that she should have to.
“Have I not demonstrated enough fidelity to you, enough commitment to this relationship to satisfy your insecurities?” she replied.
“Who’s Axum?” he finally asked, deflecting her barb.
Chilled, Seven pulled the blankets over her shoulders as she brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The pain he was inflicting upon her now wounded something in the center of her body, and she needed to protect it.
“Have you been attempting to access my personal logs?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. “You spoke his name last night in your sleep. The soft moans and writhing woke me, and the pleasure he seemed to be providing you made me wonder why you would have ever let him slip through your fingers.” His voice was soft, but his tone reeked of accusation.
Why this revelation horrified her, she could not say. It seemed inappropriate to be embarrassed for actions of her unconscious mind, but her mortification at having unknowingly shared this, even with Hugh, was absolute. She had never before felt so naked in front of him.
“You have shared intimate relations with how many women before me?” Seven asked.
“Good effort,” he replied briskly, “but hardly the point. You went into this with your eyes wide open. I never hid my past from you, but it seems clear you have not extended me the same courtesy.”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” she said, unnerved by the honesty he had dragged from her. “It wasn’t real. I don’t even remember it.”
Concern seemed to draw him to her. Hugh moved to the side of the bed and sat facing her. “What does that mean?” he asked more gently.
“I was Borg for eighteen years,” Seven replied. “During that time, while I was regenerating, I entered a shared thought-space, a shared reality, with several other Borg drones that contained a mutation that had somehow created this alternate reality. It was called Unimatrix Zero.
“Axum was a man I knew there. Apparently for many years, he and I shared an intimate relationship. But when my regeneration cycle ended, I had no memory of that place or anything I did there. I would never have known once I was severed from the Collective had Axum not found me and asked me to help him and the drones who shared Unimatrix Zero. They had come under attack by the Borg Queen.”
Star Trek: Voyager - 042 - Protectors Page 22
