Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and all things Starfleet belong to Paramount. No infringement intended.

Summary: Another take on the future following Endgame.

Safe Harbor

by Mizvoy

Chapter 13: Hiding In Plain Sight (Part 3)

Kathryn Janeway was exhausted, as she always was at the end of an eight-day work week on the Okingala home planet, Renden. The days were twenty-eight hours long, which left her in a constant state of transport lag, off balance with her own human biorhythms. In addition, the twelve- hour work shifts crawling around cramped spaces as a maintenance technician taxed her physical reserves to the limits. Her equally exhausted roommate, a Bajoran engineer named Fran Delia, had retired to the apartment’s single bedroom an hour earlier, leaving Kathryn to take a hot bath, unfold the futon, and get ready to collapse into bed.

She crawled under the covers with a sigh and turned on the newsvid to hear recent events and work on her fluency in Rendu, the Empire’s equivalent to Federation Standard. She and Dee had become quite glib over the last six months, but Kathryn was determined to add words and idioms to her vocabulary on a daily basis. Most nights, the announcer’s soft voice lulled her to sleep, but not this night.

“Greetings. This is the Renden Late Night News Report read by Eddsom Re’Juron. Tonight’s opening story is an exciting development in the search for the criminals responsible for the unexplained attack in the Rencasi sector.

“As you may recall, six months ago an unidentified ship emerged from subspace some 200 lantacs from Rencasi Base 47and exploded in a fiery antimatter breech before Okingala defense forces could respond. Investigators have worked tirelessly to determine who was responsible for this invasion, but have been unable to find enough information from the debris field to make a positive identification.

“Late this afternoon, a breakthrough was made. You are now seeing video of the remains of a small ship being used in a Rencasi camp as a storage facility.”

Kathryn sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake. The shuttle on the screen was the one they had used in their desperate attempt to save Dauntless from the Cardassian attack. She could clearly see the Dauntless’s markings, NX-10010, emblazoned on its side.

“The Rencasi, who were using the shell of the small ship as a storage shed, were unable to provide much detail as to its owners. They claimed to have found the stripped shuttle adrift in a nearby asteroid belt, but said that no one was aboard at the time.

“We turn to a live report from the site-Rax Brandis, I understand you have an expert to provide us some additional information regarding this ship.”

“Yes, Edd, I have with me retired Retta H’Ordan, once a ship’s commander in the security force. Retta, you’ve seen the remains of the ship. What’s your opinion?”

“The ship has obviously been in an antimatter explosion, Rax, probably the one that destroyed the mother ship, and was blown some light years away. It’s been stripped of any usable technology, but the damage it suffered no doubt rendered it a hopeless hulk”‘

“And its crew?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Before this ship was discovered, we thought there were no survivors and the larger ship’s explosion left precious little to study. However, if there were survivors, they may be hiding somewhere in the region, hoping for reinforcement or rescue.”

Kathryn listened to the rest of the interview with her eyes closed and her heart pounding. The Okingala were among the most xenophobic races she’d ever encountered. In fact, they had gobbled up surrounding territories, including the Rencasi and Borodai regions, to act as buffers between themselves and the aliens who resided in the rest of the Delta Quadrant. Their control of alien workers, like herself and Dee, was meticulous and detailed, including their forced residence in Renden’s alien quarter, where Kathryn and Dee’s apartment was located, a strict limitation on their employment, and a curfew that made it illegal for an alien to take so much as a walk after midnight.

Luckily, their rescuers had never connected the two of them to the “attack” in the Rencasi sector. Kathryn’s impression was that any survivors would be guilty of a capital crime, punishable by death, and so she and Dee were careful to distance themselves from the explosion, feigning ignorance of the event, and then sharing in the morbid curiosity that the rest of the populace exhibited.

She felt as if she were in a fog, her mind reeling at the news as she tried to grasp the significance of the event unfolding before her. On one level, she was shocked to see the condition of the small ship from the outside. Even from the grainy video, it was obviously a wreck barely capable of sustaining life. That the shuttle had kept them alive for a number of days following the explosion was a credit to the engineers at Utopia Planetia and Starfleet’s dedication to redundant life support systems.

Numb with worry, she turned off the newsvid and slumped into the pillows, overwhelmed by the memory of the hopelessness she’d felt for those last days in the shuttle.

She remembered opening her eyes to a dark, frigid environment. At first, she’d thought she’d been blinded in her right eye and reached up in panic to find a thick, clumsy bandage held in place by strips of material torn from her uniform and wrapped around her head.

“Thank the prophets!” Lieutenant Fran’s face appeared in her line of sight, bruised and dirty, but with a welcoming smile. “You’re finally awake.”

She’d tried to speak, but produced only a croak, followed by a paroxysm of coughing.

“Oh, Admiral, let me get you some water.” As Dee raised her from the shuttle floor and held the flask to her lips, Kathryn looked around the shattered interior. Not a single console was operational, the air was cloudy with acrid smoke, and the stars visible through the viewport were tumbling slowly. The red emergency lights bathed them in a horrific hue, but revealed very little else about the shuttle’s condition.

“You want a report, don’t you?”

Kathryn nodded, still struggling to find her voice.

Dee told her what she knew. They’d been blown clear of the explosion thanks to their shields, but had hurtled through space for two hours before she’d been able to slow their velocity and stabilize their flight as much as she could. “It was a miracle we didn’t hit an asteroid big enough to destroy us.” She’d spent the first frantic hours sealing a half dozen hull breaches and doing what she could to prevent a complete loss of power.

The only working system was life support, and that was operating from battery power. They had no propulsion, neither warp power nor impulse, no communications, limited oxygen stores, and few medical supplies. “The medkit was crushed when that console over there collapsed on it,” Dee explained, reaching out to touch the wrapping on Kathryn’s head. “I know the bandage is awful, but at least the hypospray of pain reliever was undamaged.”

Kathryn was relieved that the young Bajoran engineer was a seasoned, experienced Starfleet lieutenant fully trained to deal with disasters like this. Also, she’d worked with the Slipstream team for years and no longer expected admirals to be infallible icons of knowledge. Even so, her face was full of trust and expectation when she looked at Kathryn, as if she believed that the admiral who had brought Voyager home would have some miraculous solution to their predicament.

Kathryn asked herself why she hadn’t just dropped shields and let the shuttle be destroyed in Dauntless’ explosion, because without help, and soon, they were sure to perish. She swallowed painfully and squeaked out, “Jeff Munro?”

Dee glanced at the dark region in the back of the shuttle where Dauntless’ best pilot lay unconscious on the bench. “I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Even after six months time, the memories of those last days depressed her. Shaking her head, Kathryn pushed those recollections away and tried to think instead about the crisis facing them now, in the very heart of the Okingala Empire. The investigators had found the shuttle; how much longer would it be for them to find its surviving crew? Sleep was impossible, so she gathered up the blanket from her bed and let herself onto the balcony to watch the stars.

At this hour, the alien sector of the capital city was under a tight curfew. The streets sixteen floors below were deserted, except for the occasional emergency vehicle, and even the street lights were shut down, allowing the stars to become visible, glittering like diamonds in the moonless, velvet black sky. Kathryn settled onto the lounge chair with a sigh, finding the constellation “Spider Web” and imagining, thirty thousand light years behind it, the yellow star Sol, and home.

Only at these times, secure in her solitude and with Dee fast asleep, did Kathryn let her mind wander to Chakotay. Did he think she was dead? She tried to imagine what, exactly, Starfleet might know of Dauntless’ fate. The ship had missed the planned exit point, but how far off course they’d gone and in what direction was something Starfleet could not determine from 30,000 light years away. Starfleet might think the ship had been destroyed inside the slipstream itself. They might believe that the drive had malfunctioned and left them high and dry somewhere in between home and the Delta Quadrant. All they’d really know is that Dauntless failed to contact them as expected. She’d been lost in space again, only this time with no ship and only one person as an ally.

She snuggled into the blanket. She looked up at the stars, trying to remember Chakotay’s face, the delicate design of his tattoo, the soft caress of his voice. She imagined the advice he’d give her, encouraging her to find a way to contact him, to let him know she was alive. If he knew, he’d find a way rescue her. She knew it in her bones.

Hours later, she heard a familiar voice: “What are you doing out here at this hour?” Kathryn Janeway burrowed deeper under the thin blanket and stifled a moan, escaping into her dream.

She raised her eyes to the sight of her husband standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, his hair tousled from the bed, his eyes squinting in the light. “Kathryn, it isn’t even 0500,” he complained. “Come back to bed.”

She took advantage of the chance to admire his body, noticing the muscles that moved beneath the smooth golden skin, the gracefulness of his powerful physique as he leaned against the door post. She felt her pulse quicken at the sight of him. “That bird outside the window woke me up. What is that thing? A rooster?”

He smiled. They’d arrived on Dorvan V late the night before as part of their honeymoon and had collapsed into bed without bothering to unpack so much as a toothbrush. He was looking forward to showing her his home, but not this early in the day. “It’s a dawn lark.”

“Well,” she replied, gesturing at the dark sky visible through the window, “somebody needs to tell the little beast that dawn is when the sun comes up.”

Smiling, he crossed the room and perched on the arm of her chair. “What’re you reading?”

She felt the warmth of his body and closed her eyes briefly, resisting the urge to run her hand down his thigh. “A letter from B’Elanna?”

“‘A letter from B’Elanna’?” He snorted. “I bet it’s a Starfleet report.”

She lowered the padd and looked up at him, feigning innocence. His eyes were full of laughter. “And if it is?”

He picked up the PADD and read the subject line. “‘Probable Causes of Microfractures in Benamite Crystal Housing.'” He sighed, giving her a stern look. “Kathryn. Your first day on my home world as my wife, and you’re up at the crack of dawn reading about benamite crystals?”

“After that damned bird started his clatter, I was restless. I was afraid that if I stayed in bed tossing and turning, I’d wake you up.”

He leaned down and nuzzled her hair, his breath warm on her ear. “What if I did wake up? What are you afraid of?”

She shivered with pleasure, her body responding automatically to his nearness. “Your morning breath?”

He laughed and slid into the chair beside her, taking the padd and dropping it to the floor behind him as he turned her to face him. “I’m afraid I won’t allow you to become a Starfleet admiral until after the sun comes up.”

She buried her face in his neck and slid her arms around his waist, breathing in the familiar scent of his warm skin. “Then, you need to teach your little dawn rooster to start screeching later in the day.”

“Dawn lark. My people call his early ‘song’ the love alarm.”

She melted into him as he drew her into a deep kiss. “Do tell,” she breathed.

“They claim that if a couple makes love when he crows each morning, their marriage will be long and happy.”

“Every morning?” She laughed, trying to remember a time in her life when she’d been this happy. “We’ll be here two weeks. Shall we test the theory, darling?”

The voice persisted, interrupting her dream. “Kathryn! Kathryn Janeway! Did you hear me? What are you doing out here at this hour?”

“Chakotay?” She sat up in her chair, confused and freezing cold. “What? Where am I?”

Fran Delia helped her out of the lounge chair. The admiral only pulled stunts like this when she was seriously depressed. “You’ve fallen asleep on the balcony again. Is something wrong? You’re liable to get sick sleeping out here in these temperatures.”

Disoriented by her dream and worried about Dee’s reaction to the news of the shuttle’s discovery, Kathryn stumbled into the apartment and collapsed onto the sofa, shivering cold. “Could you fix me some tea?”

“Of course.” Dee hurried to their galley kitchen while Kathryn burrowed under the covers of her bed, grateful for their warmth.

Dee had never panicked, and for that Kathryn was immensely grateful. But more than that, she’d turned out to be a good friend. At first, on the shuttle, they’d maintained their Starfleet ranks, but once they were on Boroda, once they realized that they had only each other to rely upon, rank disappeared, replaced by a growing trust and understanding.

In their first hours on Boroda, when they were both unconscious, they were treated by a gifted and creative doctor named Bana Orodin who single handedly saved their lives. He spent hours repairing Kathryn’s burned and lacerated face, carefully rebuilding the Bajoran folds of skin he thought had been on her nose, assuming that her face should look like her partner’s. Although they had both been horrified by the change initially, Dee had convinced her to keep the “disguise.”

“We’ll be much less conspicuous around here if we’re of the same species,” she’d argued. “And once we’re home, the doctors can restore your human features.” So far, Kathryn had not regretted their decision.

Dee brought tea for both of them, and Kathryn quietly filled her in on the discovery of the ship. They spent the hours until dawn discussing the implications of its discovery, desperately wishing they could remember more details of their rescue.

“The Borodai said that where the Rencasi pirates found our shuttle was light years away from where Dauntless exploded,” Dee said. “Apparently, they made no connection between the two ships.”

“No, because they were more interested in stripping it than they were in turning it into the authorities. The Okingala no doubt studied the shuttle’s hull composition and discovered that it has many of the same metals and composites as Dauntless, and in similar concentrations.” She finished her tea, which had warmed her up. She finally felt her toes again.

“But the reports said the Rencasi who had the shuttle lived on a planet. The ones who found the shuttle were pirates.”

Kathryn shrugged. “The group using the shuttle as a shed is not the same one that found us originally. But I don’t think it’ll take long for the Okingala to find out that there were three people on the shuttle and start looking for us. The Rencasi often turn over survivors like us to the Borodai. The security forces may already be searching there for us.”

The two women sat in silence, trying to imagine what would happen next. None of the options made them feel secure.

“Kathryn, do you think the Borodai would turn us in?”

“Their religion requires them to protect the weak and victimized. To admit that they’d falsified our papers would not only be immoral, it would put them, and us, in deep trouble with the Okingala government.”

“I hope you’re right, Kathryn, because we’re smack dab in the middle of the Empire. It won’t be easy to fold our tents and sneak away in the night.”

A buffer region for the Okingala home territories, the Borodai routinely in-processed alien workers who arrived on transports from outside the Empire, and they asked very little about their backgrounds. In their weeks on Boroda, their hosts had asked nothing about where they had come from or why they arrived so seriously injured.

Kathryn suspected the Borodai of telepathy, although they denied it, claiming that they could tell from their actions that the two women were “stratam,” which, in their language, meant “of good faith.” Although their hosts did not expect repayment for their medical treatment, they did as much as they could to reimburse them. Kathryn and Dee did all they could, within the confines of the Prime Directive, to upgrade and repair their technology, and the Borodai had done all they could to make them feel at home, providing them with a comfortable apartment and money to spend.

Even so, Kathryn remembered her previous exile in the Delta Quadrant with irony. Then, she’d felt alone, even while she’d been surrounded by one hundred fifty crewmembers and a state-of-the-art Starfleet vessel. Now, with only Dee beside her, she knew loneliness and vulnerability really meant.

Those first weeks, she’d focused on getting well. She’d been grateful to be alive, to have miraculously survived the Cardassian attack and the failure of the shuttle. But her eyes always strayed to the sky, to the stars, toward home. As pleasant as life was in Boroda, she wanted to go home and struggled against the despair that weighed her down.

“If Starfleet knew we were alive,” Dee said one day, “they’d come for us.”

Kathryn knew she was right, but hesitated to voice her doubts about their rescue. She asked, “So, how do we let them know we’re alive?”

Dee grew thoughtful, and then said something ridiculous to lighten the mood. “Maybe we can talk the Borodai into building a subspace transceiver that can send messages 30,000 light years?”

“Like the MIDAS array.” Kathryn sat up straighter, her eyes wide. “Why not?”

“Because, the Borodai don’t have a need for that kind of technology, of course. I was just kidding.”

“I don’t mean they should build one. Why not use Starfleet’s MIDAS array?” She stood up and started pacing. “The Federation has maintained occasional contact with Neelix as a sort of ‘Delta Quadrant Good Will Ambassador.’ You could say he’s Reg Barclay’s personal project. If we can get to the Talaxian colony, we can let Starfleet know we’re alive the next time Reg contacts Neelix.”

Dee shook her head. “You’re dreaming. Do you realize how far the Talaxian colony is from here? It would take years to get there.”

“Maybe.” Kathryn stopped pacing, her hands on her hips. It might take years, but it would work, and it would be something concrete to work toward. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Not at the moment.”

“We can get work permits from the Borodai and find jobs on transport vessels heading in the right direction. I hear there are high paying jobs on Renden for technicians. We can live frugally, save our money, and buy passage on ships heading toward the Talaxian colony. It may take time, but it’s a goal worth working toward.”

Dee nodded, beginning to see the possibility of success. “Why not? It beats sitting around here doing nothing.”

Hope fuels many desperate plans, and so, they’d begun their journey across the empire, confident that their papers were irrefutable and that their identities were safe. “Since they don’t know who or what they’re looking for,” Kathryn had concluded, “we can hide in plain sight.”

And the plan had worked perfectly, until now. Soon, the security forces would find someone who’d seen them, someone who could describe them well enough to put them in danger of being apprehended. But how soon?

“Do we stay put or run?” Dee wondered.

“I picked up my check last night. If you get yours today, we’ll have enough saved to purchase tickets to the Crossroads space station.”

“Still in Okingala space.”

“But halfway to the border, and in the opposite direction. I think we’d better be ready to go day after tomorrow.”

The decision made, Dee dressed for work and left Kathryn to pack their few belongings and take care of the details involved in vacating the apartment, closing bank accounts, and doing all the chores needed to be done when moving. For the first time in months, Kathryn was conscious of herself, worried about looking and sounding alien, afraid that someone would grab her and accuse her of a crime. When she finished, she quickly returned to the apartment to await her roommate.

She hadn’t told Dee, but she felt certain that their chances of making it to the Talaxian colony had been drastically reduced. She considered, again, whether they should simply turn themselves in. From what she’d seen of the Okingala justice system, their story of accidental trespass into Okingala space and the unexpected Cardassian attack would be met with disbelief. She had only Dee to support her account, a person who had everything to gain by convincing them.

And, how could they explain their months of hiding? To the xenophobic Okingala, it would seem as if they had been using the time for spying. No, they’d endure a quick, well-publicized trial and spend the rest of their lives in prison; unless, of course, they were executed.

With a sigh, she picked up a scanner and studied the ugly looking clump of technology she’d pieced together-an emergency beacon designed to transmit on a Starfleet channel. “You can’t worry about what it looks like,” she remembered telling B’Elanna more than once on Voyager. “Just make sure it works.” She attached a power cell and activated the device, using a cast off tricorder she’d taken from work to check whether the subspace transmission was functioning properly. At first, the signal was completely wrong, but Kathryn fiddled with it, bringing it into the proper wavelength and then steadily increasing its power and range. Thrilled with her success, she let the device function for a good thirty minutes before shutting it off. Success at something, no matter how small, felt good.

Dee burst into the apartment at the end of the day, just as Kathryn had packed up the makeshift equipment she’d assembled-two simple communication devices, the rudimentary tricorder, and the emergency beacon. She held up the last item, showing it to Dee. “I got the beacon working today.”

“I thought you had it working a couple of days ago.”

“For about ten minutes before it malfunctioned. This time it lasted a half hour before I turned it off.”

“Great. Now any Starfleet vessel within a million kilometers will hear it and come to our rescue.”

Kathryn grinned at the woman’s sarcasm. “Stranger things have happened.”

Dee sat down across the table from her, and, for the first time, Kathryn realized that she was extremely upset. “Dee, what’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“You haven’t been watching the newsvids?”

“No. The pictures of the shuttle were everywhere this morning when I was doing my chores. They depressed me so much that I decided to stop watching them. Why? What’s new?”

Dee gripped her hand. “They found Jeff’s body.”

“Oh, no.” Her heart was in her throat.

“And the Rencasi told them there were two others on the shuttle with him. Two more of his species.”

Kathryn stood up, starting to pace. “So they’re looking for two humans, not two Bajorans.”

“Yes. But, Kathryn, they have his DNA. What if they start DNA testing on recent immigrants, like us?”

“They’d start with those still in the Rencasi or Borodai sectors. The sooner we head off in the other direction, the better.” She saw the panic on Dee’s face and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We’ll leave tomorrow as we planned.”

“Won’t everyone here be suspicious when we leave so suddenly?”

“I don’t think so. They have no way to connect us to the shuttle, and they all know we’ve planned to leave for Bajor as soon as we have enough credits saved up. And we do have enough.”

Dee nodded, but she was still worried. “This might not be the best time to travel. They might start screening travelers, you know.”

“I know, but we can’t wait. Why don’t you go clean up and I’ll fix something for us to eat.”

Kathryn mechanically warmed up leftovers as she let herself be tormented again by the “what ifs,” as Chakotay called them.

What if she’d discovered the cloaked Cardassian ship earlier in the six week test? What if she’d had enough time to figure out how to launch the shuttle and retain helm control so she could thwart the Cardassian attack? What if she’d brought Tom and B’Elanna, her best pilot and engineer, on the test? Would they have made a difference in successfully launching the shuttle and defeating the Cardassians? What if she’d listened to her heart and delayed their departure until her husband was back from his book tour? Would the Cardassian ship have been discovered before they left the Alpha Quadrant? What if they’d stayed put on Boroda, or headed out of Okingala space instead of through it?

Would any of it have made a difference?

At this point, she kept telling herself, it no longer mattered. Survival. All she could do was survive and wait and hope that someone from Starfleet would rescue them. With a pang, she remembered how Chakotay had worried about her becoming stranded in the Delta Quadrant. She could still hear the concern in his voice when he’d asked her, “Who’ll rescue you this time, Kathryn?” It had seemed so absurd, so unlikely, that something like that would happen to her twice in one lifetime that she’d brushed him off.

But, now, she wondered, who?

As hard as it was for her to admit, she’d underestimated the Cardassian threat. Perfecting the slipstream drive would upset the delicate balance of power that had existed since the end of the Dominion War. Starfleet argued that the drive was not an offensive development, but she knew quite well that any technological advance carried with it the potential of being used as a weapon. Both the Cardassians and the Romulans were working on a similar form of propulsion, she knew, and so she discounted the threat.

Her eyes narrowed when she remembered the first time Chakotay had expressed his reservations about the Cardassian fears regarding Dauntless’ test flight. She’d worked late, as usual during those last weeks, and had arrived home at nearly midnight, expecting to find the apartment dark and her husband fast asleep. Instead, he sat in the living room reading, soft music playing.

“Waiting up for me?” she asked, stripping off her jacket and sitting down beside him to unzip her boots.

“Sort of. I was thinking about this letter from Mike Ayala.” Ayala served as Dorvan V’s chief of planetary security and kept Chakotay apprised on the planet’s safety. “He picked up some interesting readings along the Cardassian border not long ago.”

“Really?” She took the PADD from his hand and gave it a cursory review. “I doubt that it’s anything to worry about.”

“Easy to say from this far away. However, Mike thinks the Cardassians have acquired a cloaking device from the Romulans.” At her skeptical look, he retrieved the PADD and tapped in a couple of commands. “Doesn’t this look like a cloak shadow to you?”

She frowned as she studied the sensor readings. “It could be a cloak shadow or a dozen other things. Had he calibrated the sensors first?”

Chakotay was not pleased by her reaction. “He’s not new at this, Kathryn. The shadow is real.”

She held up her hand in acquiescence. “I didn’t mean to question his reliability. Did he report this to Starfleet?”

“Of course. They sent a scout ship to investigate, but by the time it arrived, the shadow was gone. They told him that the diplomats would address it with the Cardassian ambassador.”

She laughed, absently pulling one of her aching feet into her lap to rub it. “I know how you feel about diplomats.”

Chakotay grabbed her knees, pulling her feet into his lap and beginning to massage them. She leaned back with a contented moan. “That feels so good.”

“Why don’t you just admit that you’re short and wear comfortable shoes?”

“I’m not short,” she said, glaring, her mouth twitching up in a smile.

“Of course not. You wear three inch heels for fun.” She chuckled, yet felt herself relaxing and stifled a yawn. “I know you’re sleepy, Kathryn, but I’m worried about this.”

“What?” she murmured, already drifting off to sleep. “The sensor shadow?”

“I think the Cardassians are more upset than you realize about the slipstream drive. I’m worried that they’ll use this cloak to sabotage Dauntless.”

She opened an eye slightly. “Taking up prognostication? Or did your spirit guide tell you this?”

“I’m not kidding, Kathryn,” he replied evenly, struggling to keep control of his temper.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she said, pulling her feet out of his lap and crossing her legs so she faced him on the sofa. She regretted her words and wished she could snatch them back. Scientist that she was, she also acknowledged that there were things she didn’t and couldn’t know, and she respected her husband’s incredible intuition. “I didn’t mean to belittle your beliefs. Forgive me?”

“You’re a snot when you’re tired,” he smiled, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “But, really, why else would the Cardassians be sneaking into Federation territory? Their complaints about the drive have been strident, yet have brought about no results whatever.”

“I can think of a dozen reasons the Cardassians might be spying on us,” she disagreed, suddenly awake. “You’re just worried because the ship is my job. Remember that Dauntless is under tight security all of the time. Cloaked ship or not, they couldn’t get close enough to sabotage it.” She regarded him thoughtfully. “If I went to Travers and said that a sensor shadow near Dorvan V represented a threat to Dauntless at Utopia Planetia, he’d think I was hallucinating.”

“Travers doesn’t have to know a thing. Is it asking too much to simply run a periodic scan for a cloak shadow?”

“No, it isn’t. Tomorrow, I’ll order periodic scans.” He’d won, yet he still looked uncomfortable. “What else? I’m tired and need to go to bed.”

“B’Elanna says you’re going on the long range test flight to the Delta Quadrant.”

“Yes.” She had put off telling him, fearing his reaction, and now he’d heard it from someone else. “I forgot to mention that.”

“Don’t go.”

“I have to go.”

“I have a bad feeling about this, Kathryn.”

She knew how to deflect this problem, scooting toward him on the sofa. “You’re worried about me. How sweet.”

“I’m not just worried about you.” His eyes darkened with irritation as she moved toward him. He knew she was trying to change the subject. “The ship’s in danger.”

She snuggled against him, running her hand beneath the sweatshirt he wore, feeling his warm, smooth skin. “We’ll be careful.” She raised her head, suddenly wide awake and aroused. “I have everything to live for.”

He gave her a wicked smile that told her he knew exactly what she was doing. “Kathryn, we’re not finished talking about this . . .”

“Shhh.” She kissed him as his hands cradled her face and she pressed herself against him. “I’m not the admiral now, remember? Not until dawn.” And then he’d kissed her until she could think of nothing but him, lost in the feel of his skin against hers, of his lips and hands touching her, of the wonder of his body working his magic upon hers.

Kathryn was so caught up in the memory of that night that she was surprised to open her eyes and find herself in the tiny kitchen thousands of light years away. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she brushed them away with the back of her hand, unwilling to let Dee see her crying. It wasn’t the first time she’d discounted Chakotay’s intuition, and it wasn’t the first time she’d lived to regret it. She should’ve listened to him, should’ve taken his advice.

“Kathryn! Come here!” Panic filled Dee’s voice as she shouted from the living room. The newsvid was on again, Kathryn realized. Perhaps there’d been some developments.

“What is it?” she asked as she rushed into the room, wiping her hands on a towel. Dee pointed wordlessly at the screen where the announcer was speaking.

“Repeating this important breaking news. Late this afternoon, officials arrested two aliens attempting to enter the capital city who matched the description of those being sought for the Rencasi terrorist attack. DNA scans indicate that they are the same species as the man found buried in the Rencasi sector. Here again is the video of the men being transported to Renden holding facility. They’re expected to be arraigned tomorrow.”

The screen switched to a blurry picture of the street outside the Renden alien processing center where two handcuffed individuals were being roughly hustled into a waiting paddy wagon by half a dozen policemen. When the camera zoomed in to show their bruised and bleeding faces, Kathryn’s heart stood still and Dee cried out in surprise.

“Tom Paris,” Kathryn whispered, her eyes wide with fear. “And Chakotay.”

To Be Continued