Star Trek: Voyager®: Full Circle

by Kirsten Beyer

  Paris had broken into a cold sweat the instant a cube had showed up on long-range sensors and altered course to intercept them. The tense silence on the bridge suggested that everyone around him shared his fear, but as expected, they were doing an admirable job of focusing on the task at hand. Only Chakotay, seated next to him, appeared both confident and somewhat relaxed.

  “Two minutes to intercept,” Kim called from tactical.

  “Distance from the Rattlesnake Flats?” Chakotay asked.

  “Point zero one light-years,” Lasren reported.

  “Helm, maintain course and speed,” Chakotay ordered.

  “Aye, sir,” Tare replied.

  “What if they don’t follow us?” Paris asked.

  “One problem at a time, Commander,” Chakotay said.

  Seconds later, Harry reported, “One minute to intercept.”

  “Hold us steady, Tare,” Chakotay said.

  The face of Tom’s father rose unbidden to his mind. His countenance was calm and collected, seemingly at peace. Tom found himself thinking of all the things he suddenly knew he needed to tell him.

  “They’re charging weapons,” Lasren’s voice cut through the image, bringing Paris back to the present moment.

  “Attack pattern gamma nine,” Chakotay called.

  A bright green beam blossomed from the cube, and seconds later, the bridge shuddered under the impact.

  “Return fire!” Chakotay ordered.

  A few volleys were exchanged in which neither ship suffered serious damage.

  “I think we have their attention,” Chakotay said. “Helm, bring us about. Heading one four one mark eight.”

  Tom actually envied the grace with which Tare swiftly executed the maneuver. He and Chakotay had briefly discussed the option of Tom taking her place for the mission, but both had agreed she was up to the challenge, and she was calmly proving them right.

  “New heading entered,” Tare reported.

  “Take us to warp nine-point-five,” Chakotay said.

  “Warp nine-point-five confirmed,” Tare replied.

  “They are pursuing,” Harry added.

  “At our present course we will enter the Rattlesnake Flats in less than three minutes,” Paris said.

  “Steady as she goes,” Chakotay said. “Transporter room one, what’s your status?”

  “The Voyager collective is ready for transport on your order, sir,” the officer replied.

  “Stand by.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Minutes later, bright pink and orange flares began to sprout in the distance. There was nothing flat about the Rattlesnake Flats, a designation given by a stellar cartographer for a stretch of plasma storms and gravimetric eddies not unlike the Badlands, and just as hazardous. Tom could only guess that the shape and swiftness of attack of the whirling strings of plasma had inspired the designation. Warning buoys alerted travelers to avoid the area, but Voyager was now headed straight for it.

  Several thousand kilometers before reaching the edge of the Flats, Tare dropped out of warp and went to impulse. Voyager entered the Flats, and soon it was hard to tell whether the forces pushing the limits of the ship’s inertial dampers and artificial gravity were coming from the plasma flares or the Borg.

  Tare managed to clear the most destructive flares before guiding the ship into a region near the center of the storms that Patel had mapped earlier. This area contained fewer eruptions, but those that did develop here were of greater intensity. Vorik and Patel had adjusted the ship’s sensors to search for trace particle densities, which spiked just before an eruption, in this zone.

  “What do you see, Tom?” Chakotay asked.

  Studying his armrest display, Paris called to Tare, “Adjust course to heading one three six mark eight. Harry, prepare to drop the pulse mine.”

  Both officers acknowledged their orders, and though the aft section was struck hard by a volley from the cube, Tare firmly guided the ship into the path of the eruption.

  “Release the mine,” Tom shouted. “Helm, adjust course to heading one one seven mark two and get us clear.”

  “Reroute all available power to shields and brace for impact,” Chakotay added.

  The Borg cube detected the mine the instant it was dropped and moved to avoid it. As it did so, the mine exploded simultaneously in the path of a major plasma flare.

  Voyager was far enough from the blast to avoid destruction, but was still battered about by the explosion and failed to avoid a smaller plasma burst directly in front of them. Overloaded relays sent sparks flying throughout the bridge and threw Kim, Lasren, and Oden to the deck.

  “Report!” Chakotay called as those who had fallen picked themselves up.

  “Hull breach on decks ten and eleven. Emergency force fields are holding,” Harry replied. “Shields are down to twenty-eight percent. Power to deck two sections five through nine is offline.”

  “Evacuate those sections,” Paris ordered.

  “What about the cube?” Chakotay demanded.

  “Their shields are down,” Lasren confirmed.

  “Chakotay to transporter room one. Send our collective home.”

  After a few seconds the transport officer’s voice came over the comm, “Transport complete.”

  “Tare, get us out of here,” Chakotay ordered.

  Tare brought the ship around and maneuvered deftly past the cube and headed for open space.

  “The cube is still pursuing,” Harry said, as a confirming bone-rattling charge shook the bridge. “Our shields are at fifteen percent.”

  “Reroute power from all nonessential systems,” Tom ordered, certain that Lasren was already in the process of doing so.

  Another blast struck Voyager, harder than any of its predecessors. “Damage to decks three and four,” Harry reported. Moments later, “Direct hit to our port nacelle. We’re venting plasma.”

  “What’s happening on the cube?” Chakotay asked.

  “Their shields have almost regenerated,” Lasren said.

  “Chakotay to Doctor Kaz. Where are our drones?”

  “Three, Four, and Five of Five have almost reached the central plexus. They are encountering resistance. One is no longer active, and Two injected the modified nanoprobes into the main regeneration sequencer.”

  “We are clear of the Flats,” Tare announced.

  “Evasive maneuvers,” Chakotay said. “Continuous fire, phasers and torpedoes.”

  Voyager began its final steps in the deadly dance with the cube. After only a few minutes, her shields were at less than ten percent and her phasers were offline.

  The cube was having difficulty maneuvering, testament to the damage Voyager had already inflicted, but was not yet down for the count.

  “Doctor Kaz, report!” Chakotay ordered.

  “Five was the only one to reach the central plexus, but scanners cannot confirm whether or not the nanoprobes were injected.”

  “Should it have worked by now?” Chakotay asked.

  “Give it a few more seconds.”

  All on the bridge held their breath, waiting for the explosive spectacle they had worked so hard to create. Ten seconds later, the cube was still intact and in pursuit.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Kaz reported. “It looks like the Voyager collective failed.”

  Paris turned to Chakotay, whose face was set in a determined scowl. He didn’t have to guess what the captain’s next order would be.

  “Helm, bring us about. Set collision course,” he said.

  To her credit, Tare didn’t hesitate to carry out the order.

  “All hands, this is the captain. We’ve done what we can, and now we are going to do what we must. It has been my honor to serve with each and every one of you.”

  Tom returned his gaze to the viewscreen, where the Borg cube was growing larger by the second. He didn’t really wonder at Chakotay’s order. Other ships had made suicide runs in the last few weeks in similar confrontations, and Voyager would not shrink in her
duty. He did wonder if Chakotay would have been as quick to give that order a year ago, but it didn’t matter. Voyager’s first captain had given her life to stop the Borg, and surely the crew she had led could do no less.

  As the view of the cube began to dominate the screen, all he could think of were B’Elanna and Miral. He knew they would understand, but that wasn’t going to make it any easier to accept. Turning back, he glanced at Harry, whose eyes were lowered to his interface.

  “Captain!” Harry called out suddenly. “I think it—”

  But he didn’t need to say more. Bright orange plumes were billowing up from multiple locations within the cube.

  “Veer off!” Chakotay shouted. “Veer—”

  Voyager groaned in protest as Tare reversed thrusters, and before Tom was thrown from his seat he had a brief but spectacular view of the death of the Borg cube.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jarem Kaz entered the charred remnants of Voyager’s conference room to find Tom Paris standing before the room’s expansive windows, staring out at the barren star field.

  What remained of the oblong table sat at an odd angle to the floor. Fragments of a few chairs peeked out from beneath it. An armrest was now a permanent part of the bulkhead near the door, and every surface remained coated in detritus and dust, the result of an explosion that had ripped through the deck a week earlier during their bloody encounter with the Borg.

  Kaz had been up to his elbows in wounded since then, and though all of his patients were now stable, he remained agitated. The minute he had them patched up, it seemed, there were more to fill sickbay’s biobeds and the temporary recovery ward they had created in cargo bay three. He hadn’t slept for more than an hour in the past six days, but he honestly believed that his inability to relax was less a result of what had recently transpired than of his well-grounded fears that something worse was just around the next corner.

  “Am I early or late, Commander?” Kaz asked as kindly as possible.

  Paris turned toward him slowly, his face bearing the flat aspect common to victims of shock. “I’m sorry?”

  “I thought the captain had called all senior officers to the conference room,” Kaz said.

  There was a long pause during which Kaz had to wonder whether or not Paris had heard him or was simply struggling to remember the definitions of the words he had just spoken.

  “Commander…” Kaz began.

  “He did,” Paris finally answered.

  Kaz crossed to face the first officer and was hard-pressed not to unholster his medical tricorder. He had known Paris for almost three years now, but he had never seen the man look so lost.

  “What’s wrong, Tom?” he asked gently. Though whatever was troubling Paris might be more appropriate to Counselor Cambridge’s specialty, Kaz couldn’t bear to see the officer who had become the most stable and reasonable command presence Voyager had these days beginning to unravel without lending whatever help he could.

  “My father’s dead,” Paris said softly.

  Kaz winced, shaking his head in mute acknowledgment of Paris’s terrible loss.

  “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  “When the invasion started, he was assigned to Starbase 234. The Borg destroyed it.”

  The eyes Tom lifted to Kaz’s were damn near vacant. Kaz realized in an instant that the most damaged thing in the room wasn’t the furniture. He had been hoping that their recent success against the cube would have reinvigorated everyone. Now it seemed likely that the universe had decided to make the last moments of life he and his friends might have left as excruciatingly painful as possible before granting them the release of oblivion.

  Gradak—the former host of the Kaz symbiont—was a Maquis. He had witnessed repeatedly the ravages of war. It had taken Jarem a long time to come to terms with that past. But he had never expected to witness anything approaching the devastation that had almost driven Gradak insane. Now he wondered if integrating those experiences into himself could actually help him navigate through their current crisis. There was really only one way to find out.

  Kaz raised his right hand and slapped Paris hard across the face. When Tom recovered, he looked at Kaz with more anger than confusion.

  That’s a little better.

  “Grieve later, Commander,” Kaz said. “I imagine when all this is done, if we are still around to count and mourn the dead, the list is going to get substantially longer. But if you don’t pull yourself together now, Voyager and her crew will most certainly be on it.”

  Paris took a few quick, revitalizing breaths.

  “You’re right,” he replied more firmly.

  “How is the captain?” Kaz asked.

  “He’s riding everybody pretty hard,” Paris answered, “but nowhere near as hard as he’s pushing himself. I can’t say for sure, but I haven’t seen him eat a thing in the last two days.”

  Kaz nodded. He hadn’t expected their victory to slake Chakotay’s appetite for revenge for long. But that victory had come at a price the ship couldn’t long continue to pay.

  “So what is this meeting about?” Kaz asked.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Paris replied.

  A breathless Harry Kim was the next to push his way through the room’s permanently half-open doors, followed quickly by Counselor Cambridge, Lieutenants Tare and Vorik, and Ensign Lasren. Once he was inside, Cambridge looked desperately for a place to sit and, finding none, perched himself on the edge of the faltering table while he struggled to catch his breath.

  “What kept you?” Paris asked.

  Kaz was relieved to see that Paris was maintaining his poise and once again doing what he could to keep the mood light. This proclivity of their first officer had done more than anything else of late to keep the crew’s morale as high as possible.

  “We were in engineering,” Harry said between breaths. “Turbolifts are down.”

  “Say no more.” Paris nodded.

  Everyone turned as the captain stepped in behind Harry, slapping him on the back good-naturedly. It would have been a comforting sight, the sort of friendly gesture Chakotay would have made in years past, had Kaz not clearly seen its manic origins.

  “The good news is, Starfleet has finally managed to construct a cohesive strategy for confronting the Borg,” Chakotay said as he moved to the center of the group. “Based on intelligence collected by the Starships Enterprise and Aventine, Command believes they have found the Borg’s gateway to the Alpha quadrant. All available ships have been ordered to regroup at the Azure Nebula, where we will end this invasion once and for all. Voyager has been given the honor of leading this fleet.”

  These last words were spoken with such confidence, Kaz suspected that Chakotay was surprised when everyone in the room didn’t break into applause when he finished his announcement.

  Instead, wary, troubled eyes focused en masse on the captain.

  “Why isn’t the Enterprise leading the fleet, sir?” Kim asked dubiously.

  “The nebula contains multiple subspace apertures, one or more of which, it is believed, leads to the Delta quadrant and has been compromised by the Borg. The Enterprise and the Aventine will be investigating those apertures, and if possible closing them down. Voyager will remain in the Alpha quadrant to hold the line should they fail.”

  When this was met with somber trepidation, Chakotay asked, “What’s our current status, Lieutenant Vorik?”

  “Warp drive has been restored, though I do not believe it would be wise to push the engines beyond warp 6 for now. The antimatter injectors are running at borderline efficiency. Repairs to decks eight and nine are proceeding, but it is likely sections ten through fifteen will not be restored to normal operational capacity for at least another twenty hours.”

  “All personnel have been relocated from those sections and reassigned quarters,” Paris added.

  “Structural integrity and power distribution remain our primary focus and should be operating at maximum within the next three hours,
assuming we are not attacked again between now and then,” Vorik concluded.

  “Just get us there at best possible speed.” Chakotay nodded. “What about weapons, Harry?” Chakotay asked.

  “The enhanced phasers have been restored, but we’re down to five quantum torpedoes.”

  “Priority one when we rendezvous with the fleet will be to resupply those stocks, Lieutenant,” Chakotay advised.

  With a nod, Harry continued, “The shields should be functioning again within the hour, but we’re still getting some intermittent energy spikes whenever we attempt to initiate the enhancement protocols.”

  “I have a team working on that now,” Vorik advised Harry.

  “Keep up the good work,” Chakotay said heartily. “Doctor Kaz?”

  “Eighteen crew members remain in critical condition. Four have been returned to duty, and six more should be in the next twenty-four hours. I’d like to suggest we allocate cargo bay two as an additional overflow facility for wounded, as bay three is almost at maximum capacity.”

  “Do it.” Chakotay nodded before adding, “I don’t have to tell you that the fate of the Federation may well now lie in our hands. We know how to beat the Borg. We’ve done it time and time again. We’re not going to let the billions of people who are counting on us down. This is one of those times when all of us have to look deep inside for the strength and the will to beat the odds. But that is one thing at which this crew has always excelled. Make me proud.”

  Everyone but Cambridge appeared visibly heartened by Chakotay’s words.

  With a crisp nod, Chakotay dismissed his officers, and Kaz watched with a heavy heart as Paris followed his captain to the bridge.

  “We few, we happy few,” Cambridge said softly to Kaz.

  “I beg your pardon, Counselor?”

  “Several hundred years ago, King Henry V of England led a small but determined band of soldiers against a French army that greatly outnumbered his, and through the sheer force of his will conquered that army and won the field at Agincourt.”

  “Then you think we will succeed?” Kaz asked.

  “Oh, no.” Cambridge shook his head. “I think we’re buggered eight ways to Sunday.”