Atonement (2 page)

STARSHIP VOYAGER

C
aptain Chakotay had asked Captain Regina Farkas, of the
Vesta
, and Commander Glenn, of the
Galen
, to join him as he brought his acting first officer, Lieutenant Harry Kim, and Commander B'Elanna Torres into the small circle he intended to utilize in managing the current crisis. Lieutenant Kenth Lasren, his Betazoid ops officer, Counselor Hugh Cambridge, and Admiral Janeway's personal aide, Decan, were also present. Both were already well aware of how complicated their mission had become in the last few hours.

Torres and Kim appeared stunned and sickened by their captain's revelations. The shock had already passed for everyone else and been replaced by mingled trepidation and determination.

Commander Torres was the first to speak. “I just want to make sure I've got this straight.”

“Please,” Chakotay said.

“The
Kinara
are about to put Admiral Janeway on trial for crimes she supposedly committed during
Voyager
's maiden trek in the Delta Quadrant. Once that trial ends—”

“Presumably with the admiral's execution,” Counselor Cambridge interjected.

“Almost certainly,” Captain Farkas corrected him.

“
Once that trial ends,”
Torres repeated, refusing to acknowledge or accept their pessimism, “the
Kinara
intend to open negotiations with the Confederacy for passage through their local network of subspace corridors for the purpose of acquiring some unknown resources that lie beyond Confederacy space but can only be readily accessed by utilizing their corridors.”

“Which we cannot allow to happen,” Captain Farkas noted.

“Because
we now know
that whatever the
Kinara
's objectives
might once have been, in the last few months they have come under the influence of at least four of the original eight Neyser essences,” Torres continued.

“Individuals believed to be so dangerous that their own people intentionally disembodied them and kept them incarcerated for thousands of years,” Cambridge reminded her.

“And who have used their first taste of freedom to convince or coerce some of the most powerful Delta Quadrant species already predisposed to mistrust the Federation, including the Turei, the Vaadwaur, the Devore, and the Voth, to ally themselves against us,” Kim added.

“Is our potential alliance with the Confederacy off the table?” Torres asked.

“Admiral Janeway indicated prior to her departure that she did not believe the Federation and the Confederacy could ever form an alliance,” Farkas replied.

“And that was without hearing my report on
Voyager
's joint mission with the
Twelfth Lamont
, the results of which, in my opinion, would make any such alliance unconscionable,” Chakotay noted.

“It doesn't matter anymore,” Torres argued.

“Excuse me?” Chakotay said.

“
Vesta
isn't in bad shape, but
Voyager
lost her main deflector in the last battle and is, conservatively,
days
away from being completely repaired.
Galen
is no match for the
Kinara
's firepower. That gives us
one
starship against the
Kinara
's ten, including that Voth monstrosity that almost destroyed us. We're going to need help rescuing Admiral Janeway and the Confederacy is our only option right now.”

“After what Inspector Kashyk—
or whoever he really is—
said, I'm not sure how inclined the Confederacy will be to offer assistance,” Farkas suggested.

“There is no question that the first consul, Lant Dreeg, arranged for the admiral's capture in order to force us to offer the Market Consortium the technology they requested—technology with which we cannot responsibly part at the moment—in
return for aiding us in recovering our admiral,” Cambridge asserted.

“Be that as it may,” Chakotay said, “General Mattings has indicated that he intends to assist us, and nothing I've heard has convinced me that Presider Cin entirely approved of her first consul's actions.”

“We need to find out where the Confederacy stands right now,” Farkas said.

“Among other things,” Chakotay agreed.

“Meanwhile, the Doctor has suffered some catastrophic damage?” Torres asked.

“Barclay has transferred his program back to the
Galen
and is working on it as we speak,” Chakotay reported. “The Doctor made some alarming discoveries about the catomic plague before I had to deactivate him. He asked that we try to get that data back to Seven as soon as possible.”

“If not sooner,” Cambridge insisted.

“
Demeter
has yet to report in?” Farkas asked.

“
Demeter
should have returned to Confederacy space more than twelve hours ago. If she's not back soon, someone is going to have to go after her,” Chakotay replied.

Farkas nodded. After a few moments of tense silence she said, “This is a mess, but our first priority is rescuing the admiral.”

“She has no desire to be rescued, and indeed left explicit orders that we should do nothing to risk the current cease-fire,” Decan said, speaking for the first time since the briefing had begun.

“That's absurd,” Torres said. “They're going to kill her. We can't just sit here and let them do it.”

“We must not allow our fear for her safety to force us to act precipitously,” Decan insisted. “There is no question that Admiral Janeway intends for us to keep the lines of communication open between ourselves and Presider Cin. She sacrificed herself,
in part
, to ensure that the
Kinara
did not succeed in allying themselves with the Confederacy and turning them against us. But she also intends to discover ‘Meegan's' true intentions toward this region of space.”

“That's
going to be a little hard to do while she's fighting for her life,” Cambridge said.

“Not necessarily,” Decan said.

“I realize that Admiral Janeway is accustomed to multitasking, Lieutenant, but that's a tall order,” Cambridge observed.

“In addition to requesting a personal security detachment, the admiral's only other nonnegotiable demand prior to her surrender was that the
Kinara
transmit her trial in real time to the fleet and the Confederacy,” Decan said placidly. “I suggest that our first duty is ensuring that all parties assembled here enjoy unrestricted access to the upcoming trial.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Lieutenant Lasren asked. “The trial is set to take place aboard the
Manticle
. They are the ones who will control any transmissions. They can shut it down whenever they like.”

“No, they can't,” Torres corrected him.

“Once they open the transmission,” Kim continued for her, “we can capture the frequency and send our own control virus through their carrier wave. Our open channel will replace theirs and stay open as long as we want.”

“Or until they shut down their entire communications array and perform a hard reset,” Torres noted.

Chakotay stared at Decan's implacable face. Although
Voyager
's captain had known Kathryn longer and much better than her aide, Decan had been by her side constantly throughout her negotiations with the Confederacy. His observation struck Chakotay as significant, and he was frustrated that he could not yet make the connection it seemed Decan already had. “Why did Admiral Janeway insist on this?” Chakotay finally asked.

“It is my belief that the admiral intends to resolve this situation long before her trial can conclude,” Decan said.

For the first time since Kathryn's capture, a faint spark of hope lit Chakotay's eyes as the significance of Kathryn's nonnegotiable demand suddenly became clear to him. That spark faded just as quickly as the many possible flaws in her plan
began to take horrific shape in his mind's eye. Setting them aside, he smiled grimly, saying, “That's how she intends to beat them.”

MANTICLE

Admiral Kathryn Janeway should have spent the last several hours reviewing her memories of
Voyager
's first encounters with the Turei, the Vaadwaur, the Devore, and the Voth.

Instead, she could not stop thinking about a kiss.

When Decan had told her of his telepathic sense that Devore Inspector Kashyk was literally of “two minds,” internally divided between ancient rage and a desire to see Kathryn safe, the final piece of the puzzle she had tried to solve for weeks—ever since she had learned of the alliance between the Devore, the Vaadwaur, and the Turei, and the actions of the Voth against her fleet's communications relays—had finally locked into place.

Lieutenant Barclay had been obsessed for months with locating their rogue hologram, “Meegan.” Janeway had added this concern to her lengthy to-do list upon assuming command of the Full Circle Fleet, and it had rested in the back of her mind until it was forced out of the shadows by Decan's revelation. The only plausible explanation for the recent alliance between these four familiar, hostile, and xenophobic species was some powerful outside influence, and an ancient species with access to all of
Voyager
's databases that could possess high-level individuals at will was an incredibly likely candidate.

Janeway had asked Lieutenant Lasren to accompany her to the
Manticle
, and his subtle nod before he departed had confirmed what the kiss with which she had greeted Inspector Kashyk had already told her.

She had kissed him once before. It had been a spontaneous gesture, born of the closeness that had developed between them over several days and nights when they had seemed to share a common goal and purpose. But it had also been a test. Hers might
not have been the most experienced lips in the galaxy, but they had assured her of Kashyk's genuine response. The heat and desire in that kiss had been unmistakable.

His heart, of course, had never been hers.

The truth of the second kiss had been more painful than the first. The moment their lips had touched in the
Manticle
's shuttlebay, Janeway had felt Kashyk's desire once again, but this time there had been urgency,
desperation
to it. The sensation had vanished too soon as his lips had hardened and rough hands had pushed her away.

Decan had been right. Kashyk was still there, but he was no longer controlling his mind or body.

Her thoughts unwillingly returned to what little she remembered of her time as a Borg Queen. Some small shred of Kathryn Janeway had existed, secured in a cell within a mind that was no longer hers. From that cell she had witnessed atrocities. She had
felt
the Queen's ecstasy. She had fought desperately to regain control, but it had been impossible.

Despite the fact that Kashyk had been her enemy, she wondered if
that
was now his reality. If it was, he did not deserve it. No sentient being did.

That the entity that now possessed Kashyk clearly wanted her dead was neither surprising nor relevant. Janeway could not hate Kashyk. She couldn't even fear him. All she could do was pity him.

The door to her “quarters” slid open and a Devore security officer flanked by two armed guards entered holding a set of heavy silver manacles. Lieutenants Psilakis and Cheng, her personal security team, rose and moved to stand between her and the Devore officer.

“You will remain here,” he advised them.

“No. That was not our understanding,” Psilakis said firmly.

“It's all right, Lieutenant,” Janeway said, placing a hand on his arm and gently pressing him back. She then lifted her eyes to meet the Devore officer and extended her hands to him, her palms upward.

Her life might be over within a matter of hours. But until it was, a number of battles remained that must be won.

FIFTH SHUDKA

“There
was no good answer, Presider,” Captain Chakotay insisted. “We settled for the
least
bad one, which was often the case during our first journey through this quadrant.”

Most of Chakotay's interactions with the peoples of the Confederacy had been with Leodts like General Mattings: dark-skinned humanoids with black eyes, flattened noses, and mouths composed of a ring of sharp protruding teeth. Presider Isorla Cin was Djinari. The golden, diamond-shaped scales that covered her scalp did not seem to allow for a variety of facial expressions that might betray subtle reactions to his words. The long, thin tendrils that extended from the base of her neck were more fluid. They tensed and relaxed conspicuously, but Chakotay had yet to assign meaning to their movements.

Cin had sat placidly behind an ornate, gilt desk in her receiving room aboard the
Shudka
and listened patiently while Chakotay had provided some much-needed context to the charges “Devore Inspector Kashyk” had made against Admiral Janeway and the Federation before the battle that had cost the Confederacy thirty-five of their ships and the Full Circle Fleet their admiral. The captain had not yet advised Cin that he believed Kashyk, and several of the other
Kinara
leaders, to be possessed by Neyser essences. The truth of
Voyager
's first contact with the Voth, the Turei, the Vaadwaur, and the Devore Imperium should have been more than enough to convince Cin whose side she should take.

The presider had seemed relieved by Chakotay's recounting of
Voyager
's encounters with the Delta Quadrant powers. She clearly
wanted
to believe that Admiral Janeway had been on the right side of these conflicts. She had cooled visibly, however, when Chakotay began to recount their introduction to the Devore, rising from her desk and pacing the room fitfully.