“This is not a negotiation. This is a description of what will occur.” The screen went dark.
“You have no choice, Overminister,” Megon said. “Give the order, or I will convene the Legislature.”
“No!” Dobrye Gavanri, Chakotay’s science minister friend, rose from the council table. “This is wrong, can’t you see that? We are Vostigye! We have fought for over sixteen generations to build a civilization we can be proud of. And it’s not a civilization based on mere survival. Even at the beginning, when survival was all we had, we nonetheless held on to our ethics, our principles. Our Scripture kept us on the path of justice.”
“These Voyagers do not revere our Scripture!”
“This is not about them, Subspeaker. This is about us and whether we live lives that the Ancestors would look upon with pride or shame.”
“This is about whether we live lives at all! Charity is a noble ideal, Minister, but it can be taken too far! We cannot put our nation at risk for a smattering of immigrants!”
“You run home to your estate and cower in your impact shelter if you like,” Gavanri said. “I will not see my friends turned over without a fight. I will take on the Voth myself if I must.”
“Then you will die for nothing.”
“Then I will die for everything that makes us Vostigye.”
“Sir?” The technical aide addressed Rosh. “We have transmissions coming in from…numerous vessels and state facilities. Apparently the Voth’s ultimatum was widely broadcast, and…our personnel are responding.”
He put up a signal. A tortoiseshell-furred Vostigye captain appeared on the screen—and Harry Kim was visible on the bridge behind him. “This is Captain Azorav Nagorim of the starship Ryemaren, addressing the Voth—and the Vostigye. I hereby make it known that if ordered to surrender any member of my crew to a foreign power, even by my own government, I will refuse that unethical order. Whether they originated in our Union or elsewhere does not matter—every member of Ryemaren’s crew has proven his, her, or its worth and loyalty on many occasions, and deserves equal loyalty in return.
“I admit there have been a few missteps along the way, a few misunderstandings and disagreements. But no more than we have always had among our own people. Such dissent is part of any free society, and it is a reason to try harder to understand one another, not to turn against one another.
“We are all Vostigye, whatever our origin. And we will stand together as one. That is my command, and I know every member of my crew is with me.” It seemed to Janeway that the russet-furred female in the first officer’s seat fidgeted at that, but only slightly.
The other messages were similar. Captains of other ships refused to surrender the Voyager personnel under their commands. The administrator of Moskelar Station refused to give up Kes or anyone else, hinting that the research facility had innovative and potent ways to defend itself. The dockyard personnel who had spent months rebuilding Voyager pledged to raise their tools in its defense. Even the Sisterhood of Solace issued a statement on Megan Delaney’s behalf, stating that those who sought peace within their walls would never be expelled against their wishes.
As message after message came in, Janeway found her eyes filling with tears—and cursed herself for her folly. Chakotay smiled at her softly, not gloating, merely gratified that she was finally seeing what he’d been trying to show her all along.
Rosh was smiling too, and there was definitely a touch of gloating in it. “Go ahead, Vitye,” he said. “Assemble the Legislature. I know where the people stand. And I serve their will. We will protect the Voyagers among us, just as we would protect any Vostigye. For that is what they are.”
A chastened Megon had no reply, merely drifting off to the side to contact her supporters on her personal comm. Janeway sidled up to Rosh. “Overminister…I owe you an apology. I’ve been a poor guest—what you’re doing for us now is more than I deserve.”
“It’s what anyone deserves.”
“But you shouldn’t suffer on our behalf. Voyager is just about spaceworthy. Let us board her and make a break for it.”
Rosh looked at her askance. “And do you really think they’d spare us punishment after that humiliation? Besides, the Union wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“I can’t let you fight our battles for us.”
“Kathryn,” Chakotay said, “don’t you see? We don’t have to stand alone anymore. We’re part of something bigger.” He turned to Rosh. “Maybe bigger even than the Union. We’ve been working hard to build an alliance—maybe it’s time to put it to the test.”
Sanctioner Haluk was amused when his subordinates reported a sudden increase in ship activity in the region. Not only Vostigye ships were convening in their capital system, but others as well: Ridion, Nezu, Porcion, Nyrian, even Tarkan. No doubt they hope for strength in numbers, he thought. Occasionally over the millennia, the Voth’s periodic assertions of dominance had invited similar joint resistance from the powers that had preceded this current crop of flitfly civilizations—which was why those powers were not around any longer.
But Haluk saw no reason to hasten the destruction of these toy ships. He allowed them time to assemble around the Kosnelye habitat, even slowing the city ship’s approach just enough to accommodate their sluggish drives. Best to let them assemble their maximum strength so that the demonstration would be most effective.
Soon enough, the city ship entered normal space to find itself facing dozens of starships of many different types. Voyager was not among them; most likely it was attempting to escape. But it would wait. Now it was time to make an example of these local endotherms who had dared to side with the intruders.
“Activate the neutralizer field,” Haluk ordered. It was almost too easy—the simple press of a button would render this entire fleet powerless. But Haluk checked his thinking. He was not a carnivore like so many of these endotherms, taking pleasure in destruction for its own sake. No, he was a civilized herbivore, acting in the interests of his people’s security. If there was pleasure to be taken, it should be in the knowledge that the just and proper order of the universe—an order that placed the Voth above all others—was preserved and reinforced once again.
Still, Haluk told himself, it would only support that goal if these endotherms were put in their place forcefully, and so painfully that they would never forget the lesson. Since that served Voth interests, surely he was entitled to derive satisfaction from it.
“Sanctioner!” his chief subordinate called out, his scales flushed with anxiety. “The field is…not working!”
“Whaat?”
“Their vessels are generating some kind of shielding that blocks the effect.”
Haluk didn’t bother to protest that none of these powers was known to have any such technology. He could guess where the innovation had come from. “Voyager,” he growled. Leave it to outsiders to disrupt the natural order of things.
“The anti-damping shields are holding,” Lieutenant Ayala reported from the rebuilt tactical station on Voyager’s bridge. “Reports coming in…power loss is ranging from eight to seventeen percent and holding, except the Nezu, who are down twenty-nine percent.”
Thank you, Tuvok, Janeway thought. In the wake of Voyager’s first encounter with the Voth, the tireless security chief had spent months devising countermeasures to their energy-damping technology in case of future clashes. It comforted Janeway to know that she could still rely on Tuvok even after his death.
“Work with the Nezu,” she told Ayala. “See if you can help them boost their shielding. Bridge to engineering. How soon, Lyndsay?”
“If we were doing it right, two weeks,” came Ballard’s ever-cheerful voice. “As it is, we’re kind of making it up as we go, so I can’t give you more than ‘sometime soon.’”
“Just get us out there.”
“The Voth are firing on the Nezu ships now,” Chakotay reported, his voice heavy. The circumstances made her guilty at the joy she felt to have him back at h
er side again.
“Damage?”
He stared at her. “Totally vaporized. On the first shot.”
“The Tarkan are moving in,” Ayala said. “They’re taking damage, but intact. They’re returning fire.”
The young Vostigye female at ops finally got the screen hooked in to an external feed. Janeway watched as the powerful Tarkan ships unleashed their full fury on the saurians’ vessel. But it wasn’t called a city ship for nothing; it was like firing a blowgun at a brachiosaur.
Still, there was damage being done. “Remind them that Neelix is aboard that ship somewhere. Have them scan for Talaxian biosigns.”
But it was a moot point. Suddenly something rippled out of the Voth ship, a distortion in space, and a moment later the Tarkan vessels found themselves thousands of kilometers away, suddenly strafing the Kosnelye spaceport. Janeway felt a distant shudder, transmitted through the umbilicals that held Voyager.
Chakotay spoke for her ears only. “How do you win against an enemy with weapons you’ve never even imagined before?”
“Sheer cussedness,” she replied. Privately, though, she was feeling a lot less confident. On the screen, the Ridion ships were firing their plasma torpedoes at the city ship. Space rippled again, and the torpedoes struck the ships that had fired them, blowing them to atoms.
How much longer do I let them fight for us? she wondered. At what point does being part of this community mean sacrificing ourselves for it?
But then a proximity alarm sounded at tactical. “New incursion!” Ayala called. “Three bioships.”
A chill ran down Janeway’s spine. “That’s the last thing we need.”
“Maybe not,” Chakotay said, checking the telemetry. “They’re aimed right at the city ship, not at us. That thing has a pretty strong transwarp signature—not unlike a Borg cube. Maybe that’s what drew them here.”
It didn’t take the bioships long to make their intentions clear. Intense bolts of energy crackled from their prows, tearing into the city ship’s hide and leaving deep gouges. The spatial-distortion field burst out toward them, but they shook it off, barely moved, and continued their assault.
Rosh came onto the viewscreen. “Their timing couldn’t be better,” the overminister said. “All we have to do is sit back and let them solve our problem for us.”
“Neelix is still aboard that ship,” she reminded him.
“We’ll scan for his biosigns and try to beam him off. That’s the best we can do.”
“Is it?” She glanced at the screen on the arm of her chair, which still showed the city ship shaking under the assault from the bioships, fighting back as best it could but clearly outgunned. She reminded herself that what looked like small gouges in its sides were the result of explosions sufficient to destroy a Galaxy-class starship. “Mister Ayala. What is the population of the Voth vessel?”
“Approximately…eight hundred thousand. And falling.”
Janeway paused to absorb the number. “Eight hundred thousand,” she repeated to Rosh. “I’m not willing to just stand by and let them all be killed if I can help it. That’s not the Federation way—and if there’s one thing you’ve shown me today, it’s that it isn’t the Vostigye way either.”
“Captain, I admire your principles, but are you sure it’s wise in this case?”
“Look at the power of those bioships, Overminister. Species 8472 is here, in your home system, endangering us and the Voth equally. Is it wise not to do everything we can to band together against that common threat?”
Rosh nodded. “I’ll order the fleet to defend the city ship.”
“They won’t be alone,” Janeway promised. He signed off, and she switched to engineering. “Lyndsay! It’s now or never!”
“I can give you impulse—barely. But warp is out of the question.”
“Not an issue. Just get us in the fight.”
“We…aren’t fully armed. I can give you phasers, but there are no torpedoes on board.”
“We’ll make do. You just hold us together.” She turned to the pretty, young blond woman at the conn. “Ensign Jenkins, disengage docking clamps and take her out.”
“Aye, Captain.” A shudder—and Voyager was moving under her own power for the first time in months. She accelerated tentatively, in fits and starts, but soon was clear of the dock and back in open space. Tricia Jenkins swung her around a bit erratically, but quickly got the hang of the rebuilt systems and had her on course toward the city ship.
Over a dozen other ships soon fell into formation around Voyager, protecting her. The ship shot forward faster, as if given confidence by the gesture, though it was really Ballard’s team improving the engine performance. As soon as they were in range, Ayala cut loose with full phasers against the nearest bioship, firing in concert with the other ships of their battle group. Elsewhere, the rest of the fleet harried the other two bioships or ran interference between them and the city ship.
The Voth ship had been defending itself as well, but their weapons had little effect on the bioships, and now their efforts were diminishing. “The Voth are evacuating,” Rosh informed them. “Thousands of them are materializing on our habitats.”
The Voth transporters must have extraordinary range to reach that far. But evacuating a city of nearly a million would take time nonetheless—time this vessel didn’t have, by the looks of it. The fleet was taking heavy losses, and only one bioship—the one Voyager and its companions had ganged up on—had taken significant damage. The way 8472 biotech scattered sensors, there was no way to target precision fire; Ayala and his counterparts on the other ships were having to rely on brute force and luck.
“All ships, fall back!” Rosh suddenly reported. “I’ve been informed by the Voth that they plan to self-destruct their vessel.”
“Voyager to Rosh. Is there any sign of Mister Neelix among the evacuees?”
“We haven’t found him yet.”
“Then we’re not going anywhere. Tricia, take us in closer. Ops, sensors to maximum.” I won’t lose any more of us to these monsters.
Jenkins dived on the city ship like a kamikaze pilot, ducking and weaving around enemy fire, and Janeway was reminded that the young helmswoman had trained under Tom Paris. Explosions from inside the city ship scorched Voyager’s hull. But the bioships mostly ignored them, targeting the Voth leviathan and assuming Voyager would get caught in the general destruction. Admittedly, that was a fair assumption.
“I’ve scanned the whole vessel,” the Vostigye at ops reported. “No Talaxian biosigns.” Janeway’s heart sank. “Wait!” she said a moment later. “Escape pods have been launched. I’m reading…yes! Mister Neelix is aboard one of them.”
“Janeway to all ships. Get those escape pods in tow or inside your shields and clear the area, best possible speed!”
The fleet hastened to comply, and Janeway just hoped their retreat didn’t tip off the bioships. Hell, she hoped the Voth would be considerate enough to wait until their defenders were out of range. Because Voyager was pretty much the slowest ship out here right now.
The blast came, and space itself was rocked as massive transwarp engines destroyed themselves in a cataclysm of higher physics. Janeway saw the walls and floor ripple around her, felt her own innards squashed and stretched painfully, just before the more conventional impact hit and flung her to the deck. The groaning in the ship’s superstructure gave her a nauseating sense of déjà vu—or maybe that was just the spacetime continuum playing cat’s cradle with her digestive tract.
Finally she pulled herself together. “Ayala…report.”
“The Voth ship…totally destroyed. The bioships…no sign of them. I think we won.”
Then the other ships in the allied fleet began calling in, offering their assistance to Voyager. Janeway exchanged a look with Chakotay and smiled. “You’re right, Mister Ayala. We won.”
In the final analysis, the allies had lost over a dozen ships and over four hundred lives. The Voth had lost tens of thousands. Bu
t something new had been forged. There were no recriminations among the allies, no bickering over who had lost more or deserved more compensation. It would be overstating it to say the allies felt a sense of shared triumph, but there was a sense of new possibilities, a recognition of the strength that came from unity.
Even the Voth showed grudging gratitude, in their way. Their sense of face would not let them admit it openly. But when another city ship came to collect the survivors, the Voth went on their way without making any further demand for Voyager’s crew. When Overminister Rosh sent them a final message proposing an alliance against Species 8472 (for it was becoming increasingly clear that they were winning the war), Sanctioner Haluk responded, “If you should need our help defeating them again, you are free to attempt a petition.” But at least his response implied that they might respond positively to such an overture.
Voyager was returned to her familiar berth, but this time, Rosh informed Janeway that the ship’s reconstruction would have full government funding. It seemed he’d discovered that he had more political capital than he’d realized, and he was taking advantage of it to push through some new policies. He suggested that a formalization of the alliance would not be long in coming.
“I was so blind,” Janeway told Chakotay as they stood on the balcony of his Kosnelye residence, looking out at the spherical landscape beyond. She’d never appreciated until now just how beautiful it was. “For three and a half years, I’ve been hell-bent on getting my crew back to the Federation. Maybe we haven’t been getting any closer to it for a while…but maybe, in a way, we’ve been bringing the mountain to Mohammed. Or rather, you have. You, Neelix, Kes, Harry, the Doctor…thanks to your efforts, we may have the beginnings of a new Federation right here in the Delta Quadrant.”
“You played your role too,” he assured her. “It was you who decided, right from the start, that we would be a Federation crew. You who kept us dedicated to Federation values, even when expediency seemed to demand otherwise. If we’ve helped to promote those values here in the Delta Quadrant, it’s because we’ve been following your example.”
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