NOTE: All things Star Trek belong to Voyager. I’m just taking a few of the characters for a little outing.

Summary: In “Belle Colony,” Chakotay disappeared when Voyager returned to Federation space, preferring to be productive elsewhere than face prosecution for his involvement in a fatal Maquis raid on Belle Colony, but Janeway believes he’s innocent and isn’t giving up. Not yet, anyway. Her investigation leads her to Draxxon. J and C (This story takes place three months after the events in “Sestwan Camp”)

Draxxon Trading Outpost (a Belle Colony story)

by mizvoy

“The pub you’re looking for is that way.” The transport pilot nodded toward a solitary cluster of dimly-lit buildings in the distance as he recounted his credits with dirty, three-fingered hands. He pocketed the money and started toward his ship, tossing a last comment over his shoulder. “But don’t blame me if Tom ain’t there.”

“Well, thanks for the ride and the directions-,” Kathryn Janeway replied, adding quietly, “for what they’re worth.” She glanced in the direction he’d indicated. The only visible sign of habituation was the small collection of lights glimmering through the storm. Where else would the pub be?

She fastened her parka and headed for the exit of the shabby landing station, relieved that the transport vessel had held together long enough to deliver her to the surface. Feeling a little disoriented because of the ship’s malfunctioning gravity plating, she muttered, “That thug should be arrested for flying cargo in that wreck, much less carrying passengers in it.”

The unpleasant trip to the remote planet had reminded her how lucky she was to travel through space in well-built, quadruple redundant Starfleet ships. She knew it was necessary to arrive on Draxxon without fanfare, but she promised herself that from now on she’d check out the transportation more carefully, and she hoped that the rest of the team hadn’t experienced a ride as objectionable as hers had been.

Janeway stopped at the building’s entrance and took a deep breath of air before donning her breathing gear and goggles. She’d been warned about worlds like Draxxon from her first weeks at Starfleet Academy. Marginally habitable and on the farthest fringes of known space, they were the haven of criminals, pirates, refugees, maniacs, and every other sort of misfit, places that were to be considered off limits and extremely dangerous. In her thirty-year Starfleet career, she had managed to avoid visiting even one of them in the Alpha Quadrant.

Even so, she was used to them. In her seven years on Voyager, she’d learned to use cesspools like Draxxon to her advantage and had even come to appreciate their lawlessness. For that experience, she was now extremely grateful. She took her first few steps outside, hoping the breathing mask was filtering the enough sand out of the air to keep it from filling her lungs. She didn’t want to think about the pollution pervasive in such unregulated settlements, trusting in the doctor’s expertise to rectify any physical damage once she returned to her ship.

She glanced upward into the swirling clouds, imagining the Delta Flyer hiding behind the planet’s moon. Tom Paris was probably slouched at the helm playing video games on the view screen as he awaited their signal for a beam out. Once they had the information they wanted, their pretense as simple space travelers could be dropped in favor of the expediency of a Starfleet transporter. She hoped it happened sooner rather than later.

Draxxon’s classification as a “marginally habitable” environment was easy enough to understand. If this was the most livable region on the planet, Janeway shuddered to think what the worst region was like. She was already freezing cold, in spite of her multi-layered clothing and heavy parka. The drifts of snow were gray with dirt, while sleet that was liberally mixed with grit blew past her in a steady, horizontal maelstrom that would take the skin off of her eyelids if she lowered her goggles.

There was no sun and no vegetation in sight, just a flat plain punctuated by long low bluffs, all done in depressing shades of tan and gray. And the daylight was constantly filtered through a thick layer of cloud, creating an eternal midnight no matter what the time of day. The dim lighting between the landing station and the rest of the settlement did little to dispel the gloom.

She picked her way through the unpaved street, trying to avoid the ruts and craters filled with brackish, oily water and random pockets of refuse. The word “street,” she decided, was an inaccurate term for what was little more than a path or an alley. In fact, the only thing that distinguished the street from the fields and the jumble of shacks that made up the town was the trash that was piled along its ditches and the haphazard column of dark, deserted buildings lined up a few yards behind that.

The desolation was typical of such posts. As previous buildings had become inhabitable or damaged, the shortsighted breed living here had simply moved farther from the landing station and built something new, creating a constantly growing ghost town like those she’d read about in the old West. She glanced at the empty buildings and imagined the type of criminal element that might live there. Were they watching her as she toiled toward the pub, trying to decide if it would be profitable to mug her? She quickened her pace.

Janeway was relieved that the breathing device didn’t just filter out the sand, it also minimized the pervasive stench of rotting garbage. The sight of the undulating, insect-ridden piles of rubbish was enough to turn her stomach. She looked forward to getting this meeting behind her and spending a good hour or two soaking the grit and the disgusting odor out of her skin in a tub of hot soapy water.

Only the prospect of finding important information about the Belle Colony mystery made it possible to tolerate Draxxon’s awful living conditions.

Janeway soon arrived at the outpost’s currently occupied buildings and paused to take in the lay of the land. The larger commercial buildings, which had been constructed from discarded cargo crates and salvaged chunks of derelict ships, were backed into a bluff a few yards from the street as if they were huddled together in a vain effort to keep their heat from escaping into the atmosphere. Each dwelling had a rear wall of rock and a single entry with only one narrow filthy window and nothing else on the exterior to distinguish one building from another.

Even so, the pub was easy enough to find. A raucous Klingon drinking song spilled from its open door and was punctuated by a swelling counterpoint of voices. Patrons walked into and out of its narrow entrance in a steady stream, many of them in a wretched state of inebriation and a few passed out along the edge of the street. Janeway picked her way over the trash-filled ditch and approached the door, putting one hand on the knife beneath her parka and the other on the phaser strapped to her thigh, just in case.

At first, she was relieved to be out of the relentless snowstorm and into the relative warmth of the building. She reached up and pushed her goggles onto her forehead and the hood of the parka back from her face as she surveyed the contents of the pub. The noise of the place hit her like a physical presence, making her ears ring and vibrating through the floor and up her legs like a badly aligned impulse engine. The smoke-filled air swirled in tiny whirlwinds as the gale found every possible crack in the walls and ceiling, bringing with it fine particles of sand that coated every flat surface in the room.

A long bar stretched along the right wall, faced by a “dance floor” and a scattering of tables that were currently occupied by an assortment of aliens dressed in tattered clothing and staring at her as if she were their next meal ticket. She loosened the mask from her nose and mouth, pushing it down around her neck, only to experience a wave of nausea from the stench that assaulted her. Most of the smoke in the room was escaping from the two coal-burning stoves that glowed in the back of the bar, but the rest came from the drug pipes and cigarettes favored by the clientele. And if the acrid smoke wasn’t enough, the room reeked with the odor of unwashed bodies, a filthy floor, and the smell of fried food. Even leola root smelled better.

In the open area between the bars and tables, three couples swayed gently, ignoring the rhythm of the music while participating in what could only be called foreplay. A few members of the crowd watched the couples groping each other, their faces lit with obvious lust. Four booths lined the front wall of the building to her left, but whether they were occupied and by whom, or what, was impossible to tell from her position just inside the door.

She made her way to an available spot near the middle of the bar, slid between two hulking patrons, and signaled the bartender.

He sidled down the bar and stared at her. “Woman human? You lost?”

“Horlas,” she replied as she leaned on the bar’s pitted black surface, slowly pulling off her mittens and pushing the hood farther back from her face. “Straight up.”

“Pay first, then horlas,” the bartender growled, measuring her with his red-rimmed eyes. His breath worsened her already queasy stomach as he leaned toward her and studied her face. She wondered if he ever bothered to wash his grimy hands and then tried not to think about the fact that those hands would be pouring the horlas she would be drinking.

“Do you take Barelin credits?” At the man’s nod, Janeway reached into her pocket for a pearl-shaped droplet. “This ought to do me for the night.”

“If three rounds a night for you.” The sneer he gave her was more like a grimace, and she noticed that his teeth were a colorful rotten purple. He took the credit with a snarl, held it up to the light, and started to walk away.

“Just a minute,” she said, leaning toward him this time, lowering her voice to a level barely discernable over the noise. “How about only one round and some information? I’ve been told I could find Tom here.”

“Tom? Man human? You not Tom type.” His eyes, a strange shade of green, were cold and unsettling as he took her measure again, running his eyes up and down her body like a pimp appraising a prospective hooker and finding her woefully inadequate. “Short okay, but little zoombas.”

Little zoombas? Janeway repressed the urge to box his ears and gave him an imperious frown instead. “Just let him know Kate’s here. He’s expecting me.”

He shrugged and smiled skeptically before he shuffled toward the back of the room. She spent a few minutes studying the room through the grubby mirror behind the bar, but he quickly returned with a glass filled with milky horlas and set it down in front of her. “Last booth,” he replied, nodding at the far wall and studying her more closely, curious about the woman now that she’d been granted an audience with the enigmatic human. “Always Tom face away from door.”

She nodded and sipped the powerful drink, hoping that the doctor’s medication would prevent intoxication as completely as he had promised. She turned casually, leaning back against the bar so she could survey the crowd a second time.

There were eight tables against the far wall, three of which were filled with a variety of aliens playing rastana, a form of cut-throat poker she’d once attempted at the Academy and promised herself she’d never play again. Three other tables were filled with “businessmen” probably attempting to sneak contraband into Federation space or trying to fence stolen goods out of it. The other two tables were occupied by several working girls wearing just enough clothing to prevent an arrest on an indecency charge on earth. Janeway shuddered to think what the sandblast outside would do to their exposed skin. Prospective johns, well plied with drug and drink, negotiated raucously for a few hours in the women’s dubious graces.

Between the bar and the tables, the three couples continued to dance, turning slowly as they explored each other’s bodies. The woman dressed in red raised her head slightly and caught Janeway’s eye. Her Klingon forehead ridges were momentarily visible in the light before she buried her face in her partner’s neck. Janeway nodded with satisfaction. B’Elanna and Harry were in place.

Five minutes later, halfway through her horlas, a dark-skinned man entered the pub and stumbled to a spot at the bar nearest the door, demanding immediate service and promising a bloody result if he were not served at once. When he pushed his hood back, a close fitting cap concealed his Vulcan ears as he turned his emotionless, red-rimmed eyes to hers. Tuvok was in place.

It was time. She downed her drink in a gulp and dropped the empty glass on the bar before she started past the three booths toward the dark one in the corner. She made her way across the bar slowly and unsteadily, discovering that walking in the disgusting primordial goo on the floor was like attempting ballet in magnetic boots.

The first booth held a hooker already entertaining her john while her next trick watched them intently. The second was occupied by four drug addicts busy smoking from a shared water pipe, their eyes unfocused and glazed over. The third booth contained two silent men, one sitting with his back to the wall, intently watching the crowd and the other sprawled face down on the table, probably listening to the noises approaching the booth in the corner. Tom’s men, she realized, security men watching his back.

She knew better than to glance at any of the booths’ occupants or pause to hear a word they said. In a place like this, it would take little more than that to warrant a swift shiv in the ribs.

When she reached the high wall that separated the third and fourth booths, she paused and waited for the sole occupant to acknowledge her presence and give her permission to sit down.

The man sat with his back toward her, his head cloaked by the dark shadows of his cowl, his arms crossed on the table with his hands hidden in the sleeves of his robe. The entire bar was visible to him through a darkened convex mirror positioned above him in the corner. He glanced at her over his shoulder and motioned toward the other bench.

Even after she was seated across from him, his face remained hidden. He pulled a gadget from his sleeve, positioned it in the middle of the table, and activated it. She realized it was a portable jamming device designed to thwart unwanted surveillance, increasing their chances for a private, unmonitored conversation. Once its red light pulsed slowly, he raised his head and looked at her. “Long time, no see.”

“Nearly thirty years,” she replied. “I’m surprised you remember me at all.”

“It isn’t often that a Riker lets a beautiful young woman walk away from a date without a fight. Even a blind date.” They had once been set up with each other while at the Academy, but Janeway had been too distracted by her studies to stay the whole evening, even though she had found him extremely appealing.

“You flatter me.” She couldn’t help but study his face, taking in the graying goatee, the white scar that ran across his left cheek, and the sightless left eye. She realized that no one would confuse this version of Will Riker with the one who had recently married Deanna Troi.

“Medical care in Cardassian prisons is notoriously poor.” He reached a hand up and traced the scar self-consciously. “I assume my ‘brother’ looks much better than I do.”

“He hasn’t survived prison abuse the way you have.”

Tom Riker sat quietly, studying his hands. “Did you go to the wedding?”

“Will and Deanna’s? I wasn’t invited.”

“Neither was I.” She could hear the bitterness in his voice as he gave her a wry grin. “But then I gave up on her when I joined the Maquis.”

Janeway was touched by his loss and wished she could think of something to say that would comfort him. Deanna Troi had suggested that she contact Tom Riker. His years on Cardassia would make it easy for him to find out if Seska had been ordered to destroy Belle Colony, but Janeway sensed that to mention anything to him about Deanna Troi would be a grievous error. “I’m sorry things worked out so poorly for you.”

“Yeah, well.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a PADD. “I did the best I could to find the information you wanted, but there isn’t much to look through. The Obsidian Order’s records from before the Dominion War are in shambles. And there are no survivors that I know of to ask about it.”

She held out her hand. “It may help more than you realize.”

“They never mention Seska by name, of course,” he said as she perused the information. “By process of elimination, I was able to determine that she was one of those two possible operatives.”

“Based on what process of elimination?”

“A correlation between activities reported by their spies and the activities we know Chakotay’s cell was responsible for.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know what Chakotay’s cell did all those years ago?”

“I was in the Maquis, remember? I have access to that sort of information.”

She nodded, accepting the truth of his words. “And Belle Colony?”

“Well, that was an even bigger problem. There was no report made by any operative regarding a mission to destroy Belle Colony.”

“Damn.”

“Don’t despair. It looked to me that both of these operatives had pretty free rein to do whatever damage they could when the opportunity presented itself. And besides, Chakotay’s cell went to the Badlands immediately after the colony was destroyed. That quick departure may have prevented Seska from making the report if, in fact, she caused the explosion.”

Janeway shook her head. “She caused it. There’s no other explanation.”

“Perhaps it was a flaw in the dome’s construction.”

“Impossible. I checked the dome’s material myself.” She remembered vividly the day she and Harry Kim had beamed down to the planet’s surface in order to collect samples of the dome’s debris. The swirling, caustic atmosphere had brought visibility to zero, and the mountain of shattered dome fragments had been as treacherous to walk upon as slick piles of broken glass. Janeway was still haunted by a toy box she’d come across with a baby doll on top, its head missing, its skin half eaten away by the acid rain. “The atmosphere caused a predictable amount of erosion in the dome material, but nothing severe enough to create an explosive failure.”

“Well, if it’s any comfort to you, the Order did make note of the explosion after it appeared on the Federation news.”

She looked up with interest. “What did they say?”

He took the PADD and scrolled to the page. “They don’t refer to it as Belle Colony, of course. Here it is, ‘Station SF47 PC exploded, all hands lost. Emissions halted.'”

“Emissions? What emissions?” She took the PADD from him and read the cryptic message again. “I never heard about any ‘emissions’ from the Colony, did you?” She grew thoughtful. “SF might be Starfleet, but what’s this PC supposed to mean?”

Riker shrugged. “No idea.”

“Tom, Belle Colony was a Federation colony, not a Starfleet research station.”

“So you say. Apparently, the Cardassians didn’t make a distinction.”

“Everything I’ve ever read about the colony indicated that its mission was to mine rare trace elements from the atmosphere.”

“And I’m sure they were doing that.”

“But . . . .” She studied his face. “You think there might have been a covert tactical mission there, as well? One with ‘emissions’?”

“I never said that, Kate.”

Her eyes were troubled. “It’s unprecedented for Starfleet to allow families anywhere near a research installation testing something volatile or controversial enough to merit an enemy attack.” Exasperated, she studied the PADD again. “If the Cardassians believed that there was a covert mission underway, and especially if they felt the technology was a threat to their security, they might want it eliminated at any cost.”

“Stranger things have happened. Can you say there wasn’t something hidden there?”

She sighed, wondering how such a topic could even be suggested to her Starfleet contacts without setting off a series of alarms. “At least you’ve proven to me that Belle Colony was important enough to the Obsidian Order to make note of its destruction. That’s something.” She looked up, determined to push on. “All I have to do is find out whether there was a covert mission or not.”

“Good luck on that.” There was a period of silence as she read through the report a second time. Finally, Tom spoke again, his voice more friendly than before. “I don’t really need to ask you why you’re doing this, do I?”

“Probably not.” She could feel her face get warm under his steady gaze. “It was my job to get Voyager’s crew safely home, and I won’t finish that job until the whole crew is home.”

“You got Chakotay home the same as the rest of the crew.” He looked over his right shoulder and then leaned toward her. “He decided to disappear rather than face prosecution—his choice, not yours.”

“He’s innocent, Tom,” she answered, just as adamant. “And there was never an adequate investigation into the explosion, a fact that is beginning to look pretty suspicious to me. Starfleet let everyone assume it was caused by the Maquis ship seen leaving the area. I’m just trying to find out why they’d do that.”

“Is that all you’re doing?”

“That’s all.”

He laughed, an unconvinced gleam in his eye. “You two worked together a long time. Perhaps the command relationship was more intimate than you’ve ever admitted?”

She shook her head. “That isn’t it.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time the captain became involved with a first officer. He’s a handsome, charming rascal, just the type to keep a renegade admiral like you in check.”

“You don’t even know him,” she started to say, only to stop short. Tom Riker was one of the few Maquis to survive the Dominion War, plus he had the added distinction of being a former Starfleet officer, credentials identical to Chakotay’s. Was it possible that Riker had been one of the people who had helped her former first officer disappear? She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve seen him.”

Tom simply bowed his head and studied the device on the table, turning it and idly examining its settings. “Did you bring the payment we agreed upon?”

Knowing better than to push him for more information, Janeway reached into her pocket, glancing around the smoky bar with renewed interest. Was it possible that Chakotay was here, watching them? She slid him a handful of Barelin credits. “Have you or your people considered petitioning to reenter the Federation?”

He laughed. “Why would we do that?”

“For one thing, to get away from places like this.” When she saw his scorn, she said, “You prefer lurking around here to the Federation?”

“I prefer to retain my freedom. And besides, no one really lives here, Katie. I’m only here to meet you.” She could tell he was uncomfortable and that he wanted to bring the conversation to a quick end. “It’s been a pleasure to see you again. Let me know if I can help you find any more information.”

She blurted, “If you see Chakotay, tell him to reconsider his decision.”

Giving her a rueful smile, he said, “Katie, will you never give up hope?” He picked up the device, deactivated it, and put it in his pocket. “Good luck in the rest of your investigation. You’re going to need it.”

“Thanks, Tom. Take care of yourself.” She watched him as he arranged his cloak around his face and neck, stood up, and walked quickly toward the door, followed by one of the men who had been sitting in the third booth. Once he was gone, she reactivated the PADD and poured over the scanty facts time and again, forgetting that the plan had been for her to follow Tom out at once.

Harry and B’Elanna had proceeded to the exit and were loitering in the street outside the pub entrance. Tuvok leaned on the bar beside the door, waiting for Janeway to leave ahead of him. All three of her accomplices were anxious to get away from this awful planet and back on the Delta Flyer, but they couldn’t contact the Flyer until the admiral left the pub.

The delay was innocent. Janeway had no ulterior motive for reviewing the report other than simple curiosity about the “emissions” the Cardassians had picked up from Belle Colony. Her presence in the pub at that fateful moment, she learned later, was purely coincidental.

The violence began when an ugly and extremely inebriated Nausican started shouting profanities and then stood up, tossing his chair into the patrons playing rastana at the next table. The innocent victims immediately took their revenge on the Nausican and the others at his table by hitting them with chairs, bottles, and any other projectiles they could lay their hands on. In less than ten seconds, the entire pub exploded into a brutal free-for-all complete with random phaser fire.

Janeway didn’t panic. She’d been in bar brawls before and knew that the pub owners probably had bouncers who would be able to restore order in a matter of moments. She decided it would be safer to remain huddled in the corner of the booth and wait out the fight rather than make a dash through the roiling mass of combatants for the door.

She realized that she’d made a tactical error when she heard the distinctive whine of a phaser on overload. The crowd, also hearing the unmistakable warning noise, stopped fighting at once and made a unified rush for the door, pushing Tuvok out ahead of them. Janeway, however, had no such opportunity for escape.

The blinding flash and deafening roar of the exploding phaser threw her against the wall of the pub with such force that she briefly lost consciousness. She gradually became aware of a person leaning over her, carefully adjusting her breathing mask over her mouth and nose.

Janeway blinked, but the acrid smoke made it impossible to see the person’s face, which was in any event already covered by his own protective gear. He shook his head and admonished her, his voice muffled, “Hold still. You need this or the poisonous gases will kill you.”

She relaxed, allowing him to position the mask and then pull the goggles over her eyes. “Who . . . who are you?” she demanded, still groggy.

He ignored the question as he lifted her into his arms and turned to peer into the pandemonium that had been the pub. Most of the roof had been blown away and what remained was burning furiously, dropping globs of flaming matter into the squirming crowd of injured patrons trapped on the floor. He hesitated and then turned back toward the booth.

Centered over the table was a narrow window with panes that had been carefully smoked and sealed. The man shifted her weight slightly so he could speak into her ear.

“Kathryn, do you have a phaser?” he shouted.

She stared at him, confused. Had he called her Kathryn? “What? A phaser?” She pushed her arm through the sleeve of her parka and felt for the lump on her right thigh. She was relieved to find the phaser still there and quickly pulled it out of its holster to show him.

“Blow out the window,” he ordered, nodding at the wall.

She fumbled with the setting, aimed the phaser, and fired, missing all but the frame of the window and showering both of them with debris from the wall.

The man laughed. “Close enough.” He stepped onto the table, balanced himself carefully, and then kicked the window out of the frame, stepping back as the external air was sucked into the room by the oxygen-hungry fire.

When Janeway hid her face in his neck, her still-befuddled mind told her that this was someone she knew, that the faint scent of sandalwood she could smell through her mask was a familiar and welcome aroma. Had Tom Riker somehow returned to save her from the disintegrating pub?

She pulled away and tried to see the man’s face, but the light was simply too dim. He seemed determined to escape from the pub as quickly as possible. As he stepped back onto the table, she glanced over his shoulder only to see the barrels of horlas behind the bar ignite in cascade of liquid fire. And then she was standing beside him, perched on the narrow window sill and looking into the blizzard outside. She could feel the fury of the icy gale pulling at the fur lining of her parka’s hood.

“It’s quite a drop,” he warned her, looking down into the ditch that surrounded the building. “Hold on tight.” With that, they were airborne, landing a few seconds later with a bone-jarring thud that plunged her into oblivion.

She had no idea how long the two of them lay in the ditch before she finally became aware of her surroundings. She was on her back, and her rescuer was face down beside her, both of them lying in the depression between the pub and the street, their fall cushioned by many layers of trash that had collected there over countless years. Above her, the wall of the pub seemed to rise endlessly into the sky, only now flames were licking out of the window and sparks from the growing fire within were shooting into the sky and settling around them like demented fireworks.

She rolled over slightly to check on her rescuer’s condition when the world once again exploded. Janeway would never know whether the blast came from a secret cache of weapons or the phasers of the injured people trapped inside, but the blast was so strong that the walls of the pub instantly disintegrated into millions of shards of deadly projectiles that mowed down everyone standing at street level.

Instinctively, she threw her body over her rescuer’s prone body to protect him from danger as the debris rained down upon them. She was so panicked and cold that she barely noticed the pain in her left shoulder as a splinter pierced completely through her body, collapsing a lung and pushing her commbadge through the heavy material of her parka. Her body trembled and she felt an odd ache in her throat as she tried to understand what had happened. The world seemed to shift slightly out of focus as she tried desperately to catch her breath.

The man beneath her moved with a groan, lifting her as he rolled over. He took in the shattered walls of the pub as he sat up, and then noticed her limp body in the ditch beside him. The surrounding area was bedlam as the injured cried for help, smaller explosions lit up the sky, and survivors ran back and forth like demented children.

“Oh, Kathryn,” he cried as he looked down at her, the bloodied point of the wood shard sticking through her parka. “Oh my god.”

“Are you all right?” she managed to murmur before the world went dark.

Sometime later, much later, she thought that she must be dreaming about Chakotay. She dreamt they were on an away mission in a cold, damp place. She could hear him arguing with another person about what they should do next, but everything seemed unreal, as if she were floating above the room or listening through a terrible subspace connection.

“The situation on Draxxon is rapidly destabilizing,” the other man argued. “It’s every man for himself out there. If we don’t go now, I can’t guarantee that we’ll get away at all.”

“I’m not leaving until she’s back on her ship,” Chakotay replied, his voice controlled, but firm. “And you aren’t leaving without me.”

“You don’t even know if she’ll make it, Tyee,” the man replied. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

There were sounds of a scuffle and a muted grunt from the other man. “If you worked on the commbadge instead of whining about your sorry skin, we could be on our way by now,” Chakotay growled, his voice cold with fury. “We aren’t leaving until we contact her ship. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, Tyee,” the man replied, resigned to his fate. “Give me ten minutes.”

Janeway frowned. Tyee? Who was Tyee? And her ship? Wasn’t it their ship? Wasn’t it Voyager? She shivered as a warm hand caressed her face.

“You’re freezing,” Chakotay said, his voice completely changed, soft, gentle, soothing. She heard him take out his phaser and heat the rocks piled near her. “Keep fighting, Kathryn. We’ll get you to real medical help soon.”

She shivered again, uncontrollably, and Chakotay responded by crawling onto the pad and wrapping his arms around her. She snuggled into his warmth, crying out as a hot knife seemed to tear through her shoulder. “So cold,” she muttered.

She felt him pull back slightly and run his hands over her aching chest and back. “The field bandage is holding. The bleeding has stopped and the lung is working again. Just hold on a few minutes longer, Kathryn. Hold on to me.”

She felt him pull her toward his body, and she molded herself to his warmth, taking in the familiar smell of him, relaxing in the safety of his protection. For the first time in months, she felt at peace, in spite of the pain, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep here, content to rest in his arms and tell the rest of the galaxy to go away and leave them alone.

He sang to her softly, a lullaby in his native language that she’d heard him sing to Naomi on Voyager, its words indistinct, but familiar, comforting, restful. She wrapped her consciousness around his voice. Everything was going to be fine, she thought. Chakotay will make sure of it; she could trust him to follow through.

With a small sigh, aware only of his voice and warmth, she drifted into a peaceful, blissful sleep.

Much later, Janeway’s eyes opened. Time had passed, but she was only aware of that because she was now on the Delta Flyer, lying on the tiny biobed with Voyager’s EMH leaning over her.

“Admiral?” he said, his gentle eyes shining with relief. “Do you know where you are?”

She looked past him and squinted into the lights in the ceiling, trying to focus on the indistinct figure behind him. “Chakotay?”

“It’s Harry,” the person said, stepping to the other side of the biobed. He looked up at the EMH. “She must be dreaming she’s on Voyager.”

“No,” she insisted, struggling to sit up. “It was Chakotay. I heard his voice.”

The doctor gently held her down. “The shoulder is still healing, Admiral, and you’ll be weak for awhile yet from the loss of blood.”

“The explosion?” she blinked her eyes, remembering. “The pub?”

“You were separated from the rest of us,” Harry explained, “but someone carried you to an empty building and then contacted us about your location.”

“Not ‘someone’-Chakotay,” she insisted. “He helped me out of the building and then carried me to a cave.” She shook her head. “Or maybe a building. A cold damp place. He treated my wound while the other man repaired my commbadge.”

“Your commbadge was lost at the scene,” Harry assured her. “When Tom saw the second big explosion in the pub through the ship’s sensors, he beamed the away team up, but he only got your commbadge. We assume it came off during the confusion.”

“No, they were fixing it,” she disagreed, becoming agitated as she tried to remember what she’d heard. “The other man called him by a different name,” she struggled to remember what it had been, “but the name doesn’t matter. It was Chakotay.”

“Yes, of course, it was,” the EMH replied, giving Harry a stern look and a wink. He picked up a hypospray. “Let me give you something to help you relax.”

“No! We have to scan for him.” She grabbed Harry’s hand and her voice left no room for discussion. “He was there, Harry. He helped me, and I have to talk to him.”

Harry looked up at the doctor, unsure of what he should believe. “The wound was given a proper Starfleet field dressing.”

“Basic first aid. She was injured and had lost a lot of blood, Mr. Kim,” the doctor replied as he made some adjustments to the dose. “She doesn’t remember clearly.”

Furious, Janeway caught the EMH’s wrist and pulled him toward her. “Don’t patronize me, doctor, or I’ll have your damned program decompiled. Chakotay was there. It was real, not a dream.” She looked at Harry, making sure he understood that her next words were a direct order. “Scan Draxxon for Chakotay’s life signs.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Harry said as he hurried to the command level. “On my way.”

The room was silent as Janeway and the doctor stared at each other. At long last, she relaxed, lying back on the bed with a tired groan. She let go of his arm and dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “I don’t need a sedative,” she assured him, taking a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was thick with emotion. “It’s just . . . I know it was Chakotay, doctor. I wasn’t dreaming, and it wasn’t a delusion.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the doctor replied. “I didn’t mean to doubt you. Or him.”

She turned her head away, ashamed of the tears that burned her eyes. “I owe all of you a debt of gratitude for helping me investigate what really happened on Belle Colony all those years ago,” she said. “I forget that you put up with this obsession of mine voluntarily.”

“We’re here because we love Chakotay, too,” the doctor replied. “Now get some sleep.”

Janeway didn’t really appreciate the implications of the doctor’s remark until several days had passed. She had recovered from her injuries, and their scans of Draxxon had failed to turn up a single human life sign. The Flyer was on its way back to Deep Space Three where the five members of Voyager’s senior staff would return to their usual duties in Starfleet. In the meantime, Janeway pondered the events of the Draxxon mission, focusing today on the doctor’s final perplexing comment.

“He said, ‘We love Chakotay, too,'” Janeway said, repeating the doctor’s words into her personal log. “His assumption was that I’m pursuing the Belle Colony mystery because I ‘love’ Chakotay, but I wonder how he meant that. Did he mean that I love him as a friend? Or as a lover?”

She paused, remembering how it had felt to rest in Chakotay’s arms, how her feelings of peace and contentment had been so overpowering that she’d wanted to stay right there for the rest of her life. She recalled the soothing rumble of his voice as he sang to her, the treasured aroma of his cologne, and the warm welcome of his body.

“Even though I haven’t spoken to him and haven’t seen his face in nearly a year and a half, Chakotay is a presence in my life as real as any other person I’ve ever known. Or loved.”

She spied among her belongings the etched stone Chakotay had given her when he’d come to tell her goodbye. She picked it up, running her fingers over the words as tears welled in her eyes. “I will always remember you, Chakotay. I don’t know how to forget you.”