Star Trek: Voyager--the rewrite (updated 25 October)

[CaptainChewbacca]

Awesome, she's a meteorologist?! How many other LtC's are on Voyager?

Starfleet seems to like to make LtCs or senior-in-grade lieutenants department heads on its larger ships. Since Voyager is a medium sized ship, I figured the ratio would be skewed in favor of lieutenants. Janeway and Patel were the only LtCs. It gets complicated, though, by the fact that Starfleet captains can arrange the line of succession (first officer, second officer, third officer, etc) as they please. So Janeway was actually sixth officer, behind Cavitt (commander), Patel (lt. commander), the unnamed tactical officer/security chief (lieutenant), the unnamed ops officer (lieutenant), and Stadi (lieutenant).

And yeah, she's a gas giant meteorologist. I think it's a lot more fun if she has more or less no qualifications for the captain's position and has to learn on the job.

I like it also, because it means Chakotay (with his actual leadership experience) will be an important person to have on her side. I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread, but not only is he good with people but he's a tactical genius.

[Vehrec]

Why wasn't Paris on the bridge if the only reason Stadi stayed there was so he wouldn't be twitchy with a different helmsmen? And unless I miss my guess, the Caretaker has grabbed Voyager.
Here's hoping you can come up with a reason for blowing the array that doesn't fall victim to 'why didn't they just use a timer?'

[Gullible Jones]

May I be the dozenth person to say that this rewrite is awesome, and much better than the TV series?

[Singular Quartet]

I personally don't feel that "It's better than the original" is much of a compliment, let alone enough of a compliment for how good this fic is.

[Crazedwraith]

Why wasn't Paris on the bridge if the only reason Stadi stayed there was so he wouldn't be twitchy with a different helmsmen? And unless I miss my guess, the Caretaker has grabbed Voyager.
Here's hoping you can come up with a reason for blowing the array that doesn't fall victim to 'why didn't they just use a timer?'

I never actually thought that was an 'obvious solution' that everyone says it is. The specifics of Caretaker have thankfully faded in my memory but the Caretaker dies and then Tuvok says the array can get them home but unless there was a big red button labelled 'Return to origin' on the damn thing, one assumes it could take them time to figure out how to use it, time that with the Kazon closing in, the simply did not have.

But Red's Janeway also seems to be having the whole 'out of depth in command' thing going on which can be the cause of very bad decions. Still if the conclusion of the re-write is Chakotay yelling at Janeway for not using timers... I will be disappointed. He could take over the ship in bloody mutiny though. Which would be fun.

[1123581321]

Why wasn't Paris on the bridge if the only reason Stadi stayed there was so he wouldn't be twitchy with a different helmsmen? And unless I miss my guess, the Caretaker has grabbed Voyager.
Here's hoping you can come up with a reason for blowing the array that doesn't fall victim to 'why didn't they just use a timer?'

The easiest way would be to say that the array's self destruct was not damaged and that Voyager could do nothing to stop it. Then say the array blew itself up well before Voyager's crew could figure out how to send themselves home. But you would then miss a chance to see how much of a shit head Janeway can be.

[Vianca]

Borg like self-repair.
It was broken, but it's working now.

[RedImperator]

I made sure to have the Caretaker problem figured out before I started writing. Without giving anything away, I definitely wanted to leave the decision in Janeway's hands, but I tried to come up with a genuine dilemma that couldn't be solved with a time bomb or some other foolishness.

[RedImperator]

USS Voyager
The Badlands

They had given Harry Kim had the overnight shift at ops. Because of this, he was off-duty when Voyager entered the Badlands, and did not have to report to his general quarters station when they sounded yellow alert. The price for this was that he was supposed to be asleep, but between the excitement of a first mission, his own body clock insisting it was only early in the evening, and his continuing seething resentment at Quark, he couldn't sleep. At 1900 hours, only an hour before he was supposed to wake up anyway, he gave up. He slipped out of the quarters he shared with three other junior officers and, his clarinet in hand, went to the deserted forward observation lounge, to play Benny Goodman and watch the red and yellow plasma clouds outside shift to blue and violet as they repeatedly jumped to warp.

About thirty minutes after he arrived, he noticed that the warp hops no longer seemed random. Instead, they were closing in on some huge, gnarled blister of violent storms. It was beautiful, and thrilling, and more than a litty scary, because it just kept getting bigger and bigger, each hop bringing out finer details. He had no sense of scale, but the blister had to be many light-years across.

Then came another hop and it was gone, repleased by a hellscape of extremely violent storms and plasma flares that looked close enough to touch. He gasped and realized they were inside it. Then they hopped again, and again, and again, in quick warp bursts, like they were trying to find a path through it. He forced himself to keep playing his clarinet, knowing that the people on the bridge knew what they were doing.

His faith was rewarded when Voyager hopped into a clear bubble of space and stayed there. He checked the time; 1948, enough to try a new arrangement of Glenn Miller he had found.

Outside, the color of the sky changed from orange-red to yellow.

Captain Bujold's voice came over the intercom: "Commander Janeway, report to the bridge."

The yellow brightened to white.

Harry heard the warp engines building up power again.

The Red Alert siren managed a single whoop.

The white light outside became bliding, like the surface of the Sun. Harry looked away, shielded his face, felt his arms burn. There was a terrible roar, and then Voyager was smashed by some great force, as if it were a plastic toy being whacked by a cricket bat. Harry was hurled out of his seat into the side of the bar, where falling bottles from the shelf behind rained down on him. And then one of the big windows shattered, thirty centimeters of transparent aluminum giving way with a scream like a damned soul, and Harry was being sucked out to space, saved at the last second by a force field snapping to life. The ship shook more, and he dove for cover under a table until it stopped.

When it did stop, it stopped like a guillotine blade hitting a chopping block. There was a final thud, and then silence. Gradually he became aware of the red alert siren, the howls of alarm and pain outside, noises from the ship, and a low moan he was making himself as he cradled his burned forearms. When he was finally sure the shaking was done, he crawled out from under the table.

Red alert. He had to get to his duty station. He also had to get to sickbay, but that could wait. There would be a first-aid kit on the bridge.

He stood up and looked around. It was only then that he realized two things.

First, his clarinet was gone. He'd dropped it when he was thrown, and it had been light enough to get sucked out the window easily.

Second, the Badlands were gone. Outside the windows hung a planet, an orb of banded yellow clouds. Beyond it were stars. Between it and Voyager was an object, shaped like knives glued together blades-out, firing pulses of energy to the world below.

"Oh, shit," said Harry.

[Themightytom]

Awesome chapter but i get the feeling you didn't like harry's Clarinet..

[CaptainChewbacca]

Nice. No way they'd do that on TV. BTW, 'WHY IS THE RUM GONE?'

Edit: Incidentally, I also think its cool that Harry and other junior officers have to share quarters. Seems more military.

[Gullible Jones]

Nice. I especially like the mention of Doppler shifting...

[RedImperator]

So I finally got around to tinkering with this again. I'm reposting the whole first act in this post (for new people and those who'd like to refresh their memory without scrolling through the whole thread), and then in the next post, I'll put up the first part of the second act.
--
Stardate 48307.5

Red alert.

The first thing she heard was the red alert kalxon, wailing over and over, like a spike being jammed in each ear. She rolled over, groaned, opened her eyes, stared at the flickering overhead lights. She had a deep pain in her head, behind her eyes, dark red; the stuttering lights made it bloom brilliant white.

Red alert.

Her thoughts were quicksilver; flowing freely, conjoining and fissioning, squirting away when she tried to pin one down. She couldn't remember how she had wound up on the deck.

Without warning, she was overcome by a wave of nausea. She barely had enough time to turn her head to vomit. It tasted of coffee.

Confusion, pain, sensitivity to light and sound, amnesia, vomiting. Concussion.

Red alert.

She tried to get up, only to feel an explosion of agony in her left shoulder. She collapsed back to the deck. Dislocated shoulder and concussion.

How long had she been here? Why wasn't anyone helping her? Where were the people running to their stations?

She opened her eyes again. The lights had settled down to a steady, even glow. It hurt her eyes, but it didn't worsen her headache.

She wormed over to one side of the passageway, so that with her good arm, she could grab a joint in the paneling. After two failed tries (both times landing on her injured shoulder, eliciting wails and tears of pain and frustration), she managed to pull herself up to her feet.

Red alert.

Red lights were flashing on and off up and down the passageway. The siren was still going; nobody on the bridge had turned it off yet. It set her teeth on edge, disrupted her already loose thoughts. Panels had fallen off along the walls. She smelled ozone and the telltale chemical stink of burning plastic; small fires from broken EPS conduits, killed by the fire suppression systems and automatic cutoff valves.

She caught her reflection off a dead LCARS panel (cracked horizontally across its entire length): her left arm appeared to be on backwards. She needed to go to sickbay.

Red alert. They still hadn't shut the siren off.

There was a turbolift thirty meters down the corridor. She remembered that was where she was going when...when what? USS Voyager had suffered some kind of serious problem, an accident or an attack, and she had been injured. That much she could infer on her own. She had no more information than that. The intercom was silent. That by itself was ominous, because in the few previous Red Alerts she'd experienced in her heretofore uneventful career, the bridge had issued an uninterrupted stream of instructions and status updates over the intercom.

The bridge. The memory crystallized in her head. That's where she had been going. She had been called to the bridge. Voyager was in the Badlands, looking for Maquis, and they had called her to the bridge because the captain wanted advice from her science officer in that weird, dangerous patch of space.

She remembered her commbadge. I must have hit my head hard, she thought. It chirped when she tapped it; at least that was still working. "Janeway to bridge," she said.

No reply. She tried again and got the same response. Sour adrenaline began pooling in her stomach. The silent intercoms, the howling klaxon (grating away at her nerves), and now this.

"Janeway to bridge," she said. When she got no reply a third time, she set her jaw and decided any more attempts would be just postponing the inevitable. "Computer: status of the bridge."

The computer's emotionless reply belied the horror it struck in Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway. "Structural integrity failure on Deck One," it said. "Explosive decompression in all compartments."

"Survivors?"

"None."

She took a deep breath before asking the next question. "Status of Captain Bujold."

"Captain Bujold is dead."

Damn it. "Status of First Officer Cavit."

"Commander Cavit is dead."

"Status of Chief Engineer Patel." He shouldn't have been on the bridge.

"Lieutenant Commander Patel is dead."

"What? How."

"Lieutenant Commander Gates was killed by a plasma conduit failure in main engineering."

Janeway needed to brace herself against the wall to remain standing. Depsite her own injuries and the damage up and down the corridor, she had been, until that point, allowed to indulge in the hope that whatever had happened to Voyager had been a minor accident, or at worst, that its worst effects were localized. Now that luxury was gone.

She realized she had no idea who was in command of the ship, who she had to report to (or where, but that was the next problem, to be dealt with later). "Computer," she said. "Who is the senior surviving line officer on Voyager?"

"Lieutenant commander Kathryn Janeway," said the computer.

Janeway was glad nobody else was in the corridor. This time she did fall; not, all in all, a very captainly thing to do.

The ship shuddered hard. There was a sound, a deep, almost subsonic booming, that carried through the deckplate, and she knew it was the warp core going offline. Then main power failed, and all the lights went out.

###

Ten Days Earlier
Federation-Cardassian frontier

It hadn't been Chakotay's week.

"The Cardassian vessel is closing," said Tuvok. The Maquis raider shook under another phaser volley. Something important behind the captain's chair failed with a shower of sparks; they rained on the back of his neck, each one stinging like a mote of fire.

"B'Elana!" shouted Chakotay over the open microphone to Val Jean's engine room..

"I know, God damn it!" Down below, the engineer yanked a panel off the wall and tore into the mess of jerry-rigged machinery that kept Val Jean alive, cursing in Klingon and English.

Val Jean banked hard, faster than the inertial dampers could compensate. A'shadieeyah Mohommad, Chakotay's crackerjack pilot, was doing her best, trying to dodge the Galor-class cruiser's weapons fire. Mohommad had gotten them out of more than her share of impossible jams, but this time the Cardies were hanging tight.

"Weapons?" said Chakotay. It was more of a prayer than an order.

"Yes, some weapons would be nice," said Seska. His Bajoran executive officer had been a good luck charm for so long, he'd started to think they were invincible as long as she was around. So much for that.

"I'm really not in the mood for jokes," said Chakotay.

"Weapons inoperative," said Tuvok.

"B'Elana, is there anything--"

"How about I stick a broom up my ass and sweep the floor while I'm at it?" said Torres.

"B'Eleana, I need my fucking phasers!"

"How much do you need a warp core breach?"

"The Cardassians are going to give me one anyway if you don't get those phasers online."

"They won't need to bother in a minute!"

"They don't need to wait that long!"

Seska leapt out of her seat and dove into an open access hatch and started working on the weapons herself. Mohommad turned the ship again, but not in time to avoid a phaser hit amidships. Every alarm on the bridge wailed to life at once.

"Shields collapsed," said Tuvok.

"One more hit and we're done!" said B'Elana.

"Can you give me warp speed?"

"Are you crazy?" said B'Elana.

"Can you!?"

"I can give you one second. Maybe."

"Do it. Mohommad, how far are we from the Badlands?"

"Ten light years from the outer boundary."

"The Cardassians will be anticipating such a move," said Tuvok.

"I can't get us ten light years on a one-second burst," said B'Elana.

"There's another ship out there between us and the Badlands," said Seska. "We have to lure it here before we go to warp."

"Good idea," said Chakotay. "Tuvok, signal our surrender. Mohommad, straight ahead, one-quarter impulse. Keep us out of tractor range."

"What?!" said Mohommad and B'Elana together.

"You heard me! Just do it; I have a plan. You don't think we're actually surrendering to the Cardassians, do you?"

"I hope they think we're actually surrendering," said B'Elana.

"They are acknowledging," said Tuvok. "They have ordered us to heave to and prepare to be boarded."

"Maintain course and speed. Mohommad, B'Elana, prepare for warp. Set course for the Badlands; maximum possible speed on my order. Seska, how are the phasers coming?"

"You've got one shot, maybe two."

"Tuvok, target the Cardie. Manual aiming only. Hit them as close to their bridge as possible."

"Understood."

Seska returned to her seat, smeared with grease and grime, sheened with sweat, and bleeding from a cut on her forehead. With a motion so subtle nobody else on the bridge could have possibly seen it, she placed a hand on his. "This had better work," he said.

"It will."

"The Cardassian ship is repeating its order to heave to," said Tuvok. "They are threatening to fire if we do not stop."

"Maintain course and speed." Come on, you ugly yellow bitch. Where are you?

"The Cardies are closing in on us," said Mohommad.

"Full impulse on my mark."

"Tractor range in five seconds," said Tuvok.

Where are you?

"Three seconds. Two. One."

"Full impulse now!"

Val Jean leaped forward like a spurred thoroughbred. A Cardassian phaser blast missed them by meters.

"Standby for warp on my mark!" said Chakotay.

"Galor-class cruiser dropping out of warp at 227 mark 85, range sixty thousand kilometers!" said Tuvok, the slightest hint of a waver in his emotional control creeping into his voice.

"Fire phasers! Helm, engage!"

Val Jean fired two quick blasts at the first Galor, striking its shields just forward of its bridge. Then she leaped into warp and disappeared.

B'Elana had done better than she'd promised. They stayed at warp for five seconds, and momentarily hit warp six before the warp drive gave out.

"Viewscreen," said Chakotay.

The brilliant yellow and red gas clouds of the Badlands filled the entire forward view.

"Brilliant, B'Elana," said Chakotay.

"We don't have much time," said Seska. "We need to get the warp drive back in working order before the Cardassians figure out where we went."

No sooner had she said that than an alarm went off at Tuvok's station. "Cardassian Galor-class cruiser warping in sixty astronomical units from our position."

"How long until they spot us?"

"Three minutes on the outside to perform a sky scan," said Seska. "B'Elana, move."

"You don't need to tell me twice." She started banging and cursing on machinery. Seska and Tuvok joined her.

Two minutes later, the Galor went to warp. It was on top of them before Chakotay could even shout the alarm.

"We have warp!" said B'Elana.

"Helm engage!"

They had to drop out of warp at the edge of the Badlands, not even Mohommad daring to run through the dangerous patch of disturbed space faster than light until he got his bearings. The Maquis had mapped the whole area (at no small cost in blood) and a skilled navigator like Mohommad could warp through safely, but not quickly.

And the Cardassians were starting to map the place, too.

"Let's move," said Chakotay. "I don't want to hang around here all day."

"I'm working as fast as I can, boss," said Mohommad.

And then the Cardies were on top of them again.

"Go!" shouted Chakotay, watching the two cruisers approach on the viewscreen like orcas bearing down on a wounded seal. Val Jean leapt to warp again, with the Cardassians baying at their heels. One followed at a distance while the other closed in--so when Mohommad dropped Val Jean out of warp to turn, one would overshoot, but the other wouldn't.

"They're going to wait until we're in open space and then they're going to attack," said Chakotay.

"This isn't right," said Seska. "They weren't supposed to follow us in here."

"Maybe you should tell them that," said Chakotay.

The ship dropped out of warp, turned with thrusters, then leapt into warp again. Mohommad had free reign with the ship, taking them through the twisting warren of safe passages through the Badlands without asking Chakotay or anyone else for instructions.

"They are still pursuing," said Tuvok.

"I'm taking us into the Rat's Nest," said Mohommad. "If the Cardies have charted that, I'll eat my scarf."

They turned again, and then Mohommad opened up the warp drive to full power. Something went bang and caught fire; B'Elana cursed and screamed and hammered on machinery with a wrench (B'Elana referred to such outbursts as an ancient Klingon mechanics' ritual).

Ahead of them was a vortex of raging plasma storms. The Rat's Nest was a network of passages interlaced through one of the most violent regions of the Badlands; the storms had been particularly bad that whole year. From a distance of a few light years, the tendrils of hot gas seemed motionless; Chakotay knew that was only because they were so enormous and so far away. The tips were flailing at half the speed of light and could boil away entire planets. Mohommad and the Cardassians could avoid those, but the smaller bursts that popped up at random outside the safe areas could smash a passing starship with ease. Sometimes they popped up inside the safe areas, too. Especially in the Rat's Nest.

Val Jean began rattling. "What the hell is that?" said Chakotay.

"Subspace is very disturbed around here, boss," said Mohommad. Val Jean started vibrating more violently, occasionally getting buffeted hard.

"We're going to have to drop out of warp if this keeps up," said Torres. "The engines don't like this at all."

"I see a spot," said Mohommad. "Dropping out of warp."

They fell below superluminal speed in the middle of a calm patch a few million kilometers across, surrounded by vast clouds of hot gas.

"The Cardassians overshot us. They are in the middle of a cloud."

"On screen!"

The two Galors were being buffeted by plasma and repeatedly slashed by energy discharges. One took a shot right across the bow that penetrated the shields and tore away part of the hull.

"Let's move," said Chakotay. Val Jean warped away, leaving the Cardassians behind. A few minutes later, when Mohommad had to turn again, Tuvok checked their long range scan.

"Are they following us?" said Chakotay.

"Negative. They are leaving the Badlands."

"They had enough for one day," said Seska.

Chakotay leaned back in his chair and smiled for the first time all day. The adrenaline of combat was draining away, leaving him in a euphoric haze that was practically post-orgasmic.

Speaking of...

"Mohommad, you have the conn. Take us through the Rat's Nest and out the other side of the Badlands. Make sure there aren't any Cardassians on the other side waiting for us."

"That's Federation territory, sir."

"Cardies, Starfleet, what's the difference? Keep us out of trouble."

"Will do, boss."

Chakotay went back to his cabin. Seska followed, a discreet amount of time late. Afterwards, they were both dozing when some tremendous force like a collision shook the whole ship, tossing them both out of Chakotay's bunk onto the cabin deck.

#

New Senegal Penal Colony

Tom Paris was digging a hole when two guards came to him and told him he had a visitor. In his early days on New Senegal, he would have had a remark for them; "I told your mother I'm not interested in any more conjugal visits" perhaps. There was a series of mile-long, zigzagging ditches through the desert north of camp, each one dug by him and a few other insubordinate prisoners, reminders of the price of a smart mouth here. Mostly these days, he didn't say anything to the guards besides "yes sir" and "no sir".

They escorted Paris across a kilometer of scrub desert to a plain white concrete bunker on the outskirts of a cluster of other concrete buildings, the administration center for the camp. Inside, the bunker was dim, so he couldn't see right away who was waiting for him inside. Slowly, as his eyes adjusted, a short, trim woman in a Starfleet uniform materialized out of the gloom. It was red, in the newest cut, with four rank pips: a starship captain. Behind her were two other Starfleet types. Spooks, he guessed. Starfleet Intelligence.

"Good morning, Mr. Paris," she said. Her accent was French. "My name is Captain Nicole Bujold, of the Federation starship Voyager."

"Hi," he said.

"Please," she said, "sit down." She waved her hand at a hard metal chair on one side of a steel desk. He did so. She sat across from him. The two spooks, he noticed, did not.

"What's this all about, captain?" said Paris.

"Ten days ago, a Maquis raider named Val Jean disappeared in the Badlands."

Paris's eyes widened. A second later, he realized that had been a mistake. Never show Starfleet you know anything about anything. He sighed internally. Mistakes had marked his entire tenure as a freedom fighter, which is why he was digging holes on New Senegal.

"I take it you know the name."

"I've heard it," said Paris.

"You picked it, from what I understand." Bujold smiled at him. There wasn't any mirth in it. "Let's cut to the chase here, shall we? Val Jean disappeared in the Badlands. There was a Starfleet Intelligence agent on board. I have been tasked with recovering him and arresting the crew of the ship."

"If they disappeared in the Badlands, they were probably destroyed."

"Perhaps," said Bujold. "That is what the Cardassians are claiming. But there are enough holes in their story to make us believe they aren't telling the whole truth."

"What do you want from me?" said Paris.

"You have navigated the Badlands," said Bujold. "You, frankly, mapped much of it. There are even features named after you--"

"Paris's gap, Paris's ridge, Paris's flare, the Paris highway, and Paris's asshole," said Paris. "Somebody else named the last one."

"Yes," said Bujold. "You know the Badlands. I need to navigate them to complete my mission. I want you to be my guide."

"Forget it," said Paris.

"You would be rescuing the Maquis, Mr. Paris."

"Arrest and rescue aren't the same thing. At any rate, they don't need rescuing. Either they were destroyed, or they slipped past the Cardassians and the Cardies are too embarassed to admit it."

"We have not heard from our operative since Val Jean disappeared."

"Maybe they caught him," said Paris.

"Maybe," said Bujold. "In which case, I am rescuing him, and you would be assisting."

"I'm not selling out the Maquis," said Paris. "If I lead you through the Badlands, you'll be recording every kilometer of the flight. You'll learn more about it from me in a day than you could have learned on your own in a year--and so will the Cardassians, as soon as you turn over your charts to them."

"It is curious you speak of 'selling out', since I do not recall yet offering you a price. It is doubly curious, because if I remember correctly, you were 'sold out' yourself by none other than Chakotay."

Paris ground his knuckled into the hard steel tabletop. A part of him admired Bujold for doing her homework. The incident between him and Chakotay hadn't gone exactly like that, but it was close enough to count as betrayal, and Bujold knew and was poking at the wound.

"Other than ruining Chakotay's day, what are you offering me for helping you?"

"A reduced overall sentence and an immediate parole at the conclusion of the mission."

"Parole to where? Earth?"

"Close. Betazed."

Paris grimaced. "Won't even have to bother with a parole officer, will you?"

"You will be paired with a transition counselor to ease your passage back into civilian life."

"And a Betazoid handler to keep an eye on what I'm thinking."

"I promise you, nobody will make you dig any holes for what you think. As long as you don't break any laws, nobody will bother you. And once your sentence is up, you will be a free man."

Paris didn't respond.

Bujold leaned in. "We're interested in two things, Mr. Paris: rescuing our agent and capturing Chakotay. The rest of the crew, your old friends, they'll get token sentences. And if they are in trouble, you'll be saving their lives." She paused. "Or, you can rot here until the proper authorities declare you rehabilitated. The average time for that for hardened terrorists is, I believe, forty-six years. That's a lot of holes."

"What if you don't find them?"

"The only thing I am asking of you is to make a good-faith effort to help us. If Val Jean cannot be found despite your best efforts, then so be it." The two Starfleet Intelligence officers gave Bujold alarmed looks, but she ignored them. "Mr. Paris," said Bujold, "Be honest with yourself. Did you join the Maquis out of a genuine, if misguided, sense of justice and empathy for the oppressed, or because you wanted to piss off your father and meet girls? Well, you succeded in one--your father is still very angry--and as for the other, you'll have far better luck on Betazed than you will here. Chakotay stole Val Jean from you and dumped you in Starfleet's lap. Why are you still protecting him?"

"You're the most cynical Starfleet officer I've ever met," said Paris.

"I'm not the cynic, Mr. Paris. You are. Which is why you'll accept our offer."

#

Deep Space Nine

Ensign Harry Kim stood by one of the Promenade's huge windows, watching Voyager's final approach. His heart raced when he first read the name and registry number--his ship, his first assignment. His hand drifted up and brushed the single rank pip on his collar, and then down to his communicator badge.

He watched the ship until it passed out of view, docking high overhead. Then he wandered back onto the Promenade. He still had three hours before he had to board Voyager--a ludicrously fast turnaround for a starship making the trip from final evaluations at Utopia Planitia to Deep Space Nine, but still a long time for him to stare out the window in dreamy excitement, watching starships pass through the Bajoran Wormhole (maybe we'll be sent on a mission to the Gamma Quadrant, he thought, thrilling at the notion of traveling all the way to the other side of the galaxy).

The Promenade was crowded with people moving in all directions, but there were a few discrete streams, and one of them was flowing into Quark's Bar. The place was crowded with Starfleet, many of them waiting, like Harry, to board Voyager. He felt like he should be mingling in the crowd and making friends, but his shyness presented an insurmountable wall. He found a seat at the bar instead.

The Ferengi bartender (Quark, presumably) had no problems with shyness and seemed to sense Harry was looking for someone to talk to. Or maybe just that Harry wanted a drink.

"Good afternoon, friend," said the Ferengi. He struck a classic bartender's pose, leaning on the bar with one elbow while polishing a glass, which was a neat trick because he was barely taller than the bar (Harry peeked over and saw the floor on the other side was raised). "What can I get for you today?"

Harry glanced at the blizzard of different liquids in bottles behind Quark. His brain promptly locked up. "I'll have...a rootbeer," he finally said.

"A rootbeer? A rootbeer?! My good sir, where are you from?"

"Uh, Earth?"

"Earth! And have you ever left Earth before?"

"Well, we took a family vacation to Mars once."

Quark gave Harry a look of pitying astonishment, like Harry had just admitted he was a virgin or had never eaten chocolate. "Do you mean to tell me that this is your very first time outside your home solar system, and you've come to this magnificent bar--" he gestured at the air around them "--with beverages to delight your senses and expand your horizons from across the galaxy, and what you want is a root beer?"

"Well, I--"

"Never mind. Starfleet has obviously already beaten the adventure out of you. Rom, one root beer!"

"Now wait. What else do you have?"

"That you'd like? Oh, tap water, tap water with ice, tap water with bubbles, that kind of thing."

"I'm serious. What else do you have?"

"Are you sure you don't want a root beer? It's safe and bor--I mean, predictable."

"I'm serious. I'm sure I don't want the root beer."

"Well, okay then. Rom, hold the root beer!" The Ferengi at the other end of the bar made a hand gesture that might have meant "OK!". If Harry had been paying closer attention, he would have noticed that Rom hadn't been doing anything that could have been construed as pouring a root beer in the first place.

Quark leaned in close to Harry. Harry could count the points of his teeth. "So what do you have in mind?"

"Um...you pick. What's good?"

"Well, everything I have is good. But I thought we were having an adventure. You don't want something good, you want something great. And I have just the thing for you."

"What's that?"

"Romulan Ale."

Harry's eyes widened. "That's illegal!"

"It's illegal in the Federation, my boy. This station is Bajoran territory!"

Harry pondered, remembering his third grade production of the epic drama, Romulan Ale Is Uncool, where he had played "Incurably Insane Romulan Ale Addict #3", as well as a lifetime of anti-Romulan Ale propaganda.

On the other hand, Romulan Ale was cool, and Harry, a lifelong dork, sensed an opportunity to achieve his long-thwarted dream of not being a dork. "Okay," he said. "I'll have some."

Quark smiled in a way that made Harry want to flinch a little. He retreived a decanter of blue liquid from under the bar, and with great ceremony, poured some into a small glass, which he pushed across the bar to Harry. Harry took one sip; it was smooth and cool, and very sweet, unlike how he had imagined.

"That will be one strip of latinum," said Harry.

Harry fished in his pockets for his FedBank chit, which let him carry Federation credits with him in areas where money was necessary. Quark held a chit reader over the bartop. Harry gave Quark one credit, plus fifty centicredits as a tip. He smiled at Quark.

"Where are the other hundred ninety-three and a half credits?" said Quark.

"The other what?"

"The other hundred ninety-three and a half credits you owe me."

"But you said it was only one."

"One strip of gold-press latinum. You're paying in Federation credits, and the current exchange rate is 194 to 1."

"But the official exchange rate is 1 to 1!"

"The official exchange rate is 1 to 1. Only an idiot actually accepts one credit for one strip of latinum. Try it; go down to the currency exchange and buy one strip for one credit. They'll laugh you right out the door."

"But you have to take credits at the official exchange rate. That's the law."

"I have to take credits at the official exchange rate in the Federation. That's why, so far as I know, nobody has ever successfully bought anything in the Federation. You owe me one hundred ninety-seven credits."

"197? I just paid you one and a half."

Quark put his hands on his hips. "The credit just fell to 198 and a half to the strip."

Harry sighed and paid. He didn't try to tip the Ferengi this time. He even bought a second Romulan Ale, and a third, and a fourth, the last costing him 352 credits, Harry reasoning that once back on the ship, he wouldn't have much to spend his money on anyway (Harry listened as Quark told a long tale of woe about the instability of the credit on the Ferenginar currency exchange, Harry the whole time thinking that he thought it was the customer who was supposed to tell the bartender a sad story). He had been at the bar for an hour when a civilian took the stool next to him (a stool Harry didn't remember being there, but he'd been drinking for an hour).

"Romulan Ale," said the civilian, a man in his early thirties. Quark poured him a glass, and, unlike with Harry, demanded payment up front.

"One strip of latinum," said Quark.

The man thought for a moment, then entered a number. Quark entered a different one; they haggled for a few minutes until they had settled on a price. Then he moved down the bar, leaving Harry and the stranger alone.

The man took a sip of his drink. "Damn," he said. "This is a lousy vintage." He squinted down after Quark.

"Mine's okay," said Harry.

The man eyed Harry. "Mind if I take a sip?"

"Sure," said Harry.

The man took Harry's glass and had a small sip. He started laughing.

"What?" said Harry.

"This isn't Romulan Ale," said the stranger. "This is Wild Berry Tasty-Ade and synthehol. And I thought I got snookered."

Harry stared at him. "I paid 352 credits for that!"

The stranger laughed again. "The exchange rate isn't that bad. I paid 83 for mine. Always stop by the currency exchange first to check the rates."

"Oh," said Harry. He stared into his glass, having intense flashbacks to high school.

The stranger seemed to take pity on him. "What's your name?" he said.

"Ensign Harry Kim," said Harry.

"You with Voyager?" said the stranger.

"Yeah."

"Me too." He held out his hand. "Tom Paris."

Harry took it. "Nice to meet you. What are you, a civilian expert?"

"Something like that."

A call came over the station intercom: "All Voyager crew, report to Pylon Three."

"That's us," said Paris, finishing off his drink. When he saw Harry abandoning his, he finished that, too.

"Should I try to get my money back?" said Harry.

"From a Ferengi? You might as tell a Klingon you're going to steal his bat'leth. Come on."

They walked out of the bar, joining the crowd flowing towards Pylon 3.

"Say," said Harry, "was it my imagination, or did your stool wink at me when you got up?"

Paris shrugged. "You never know in this place."

#

USS Voyager
Federation-Cardassian Frontier

Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway was still getting settled in her office when the door chimed. "Come," she said.

The doors hissed open and Captain Bujold walked in. Janeway sprang to her feet.

"As you were," said Bujold. "I just came down to see how you were settling in."

"Just fine, ma'am," said Janeway.

"What do you think of the facilities here?"

"They're very nice," she said. "Not as much space as we had on Atlantis, but all of the equipment is top of the line."

"Nobody has the lab space of a Nebula," said Bujold. "Our mission profile is geared more towards observation than analysis."

"That makes sense," said Janeway. "If we're not going to be in deep space for years at a time, we might as well leave the analysis to facilities on the ground." Like hell we should, she thought, but she was not about to question the design of the captain's starship on her first day on board.

"Yes, indeed," said Bujold. She looked around. "Still, you would like more lab facilities, no?"

"Yes, ma'am, I would. Science is what Starfleet is all about."

Bujold heaved a theatrical sigh and gave Janeway a wry smile. "I agree. But since Wolf..." She shrugged. She was right. Since Wolf 359, science had gotten the short end of the funding stick. Janeway understood the rationale, but she didn't have to like it.

"Have you gone over your inventory yet?" said Bujold.

"Eh? Yes, I have. I was going to mention--"

"You are short several items."

"Yes, I am." It's a lot more than "several".

"We were in a rush to depart Deep Space Nine. Since this is a short-duration mission, I felt we could leave non-critical supplies in storage there and return for them later. I apologize for not telling you earlier, but as you can imagine, today has been hectic."

"I understand," said Janeway. She pretended to be distracted by a blinking figure on her PADD, to hide her irritation.

"I have an assignment for you," said Bujold. "We will be in the Badlands in a few hours. I would like you to send someone to work with Mr. Paris and Lieutenant Stadi to plot a course and plan our search."

Janeway went through her mental list of offficers and crewmen in her department. The trouble was, she'd been on board Voyager less than a day, and couldn't even remember all her people's names, let alone their qualifications. Bujold waited, tapping her foot. Janeway, pressed, decided on the one person she knew she could trust.

"I can do it," said Janeway.

Bujold gave her a curious look. "You, Commander?"

"Yes ma'am."

"What is your specialty again?"

There was a long pause. "Meteorology, ma'am."

"Meteorology."

"Yes. Specifically, meteorology of class J and T planets."

"Gas giants," said Bujold.

"Yes," said Janeway. Her ears were starting to turn hot.

Bujold stared at the overhead for a moment, as if she had just spotted an interesting bug or somesuch thing. She said "Hmm" several times. Finally, she said to Janeway, "Well, if you feel it is best, by all means, please join Lieutenant Stadi and Mr. Paris in stellar cartography. Just please send somebody."

"Yes ma'am." After Bujold left, she pulled up her department's personnel records and flipped through them, looking for someone to send to meet with Stadi.

#

USS Voyager[/i]
The Badlands[/i]

Lieutenant Stadi didn't like the way Tom Paris was leaning over her shoulder, watching the helm station's readouts. For one thing, he was making noises: small "hmms" and "uh-huhs" like an Academy instructor, making it clear he was critiquing her performance, as if a failed revolutionary had any business judging a Starfleet officer. For another,he was looking at her breasts. She was sure of this because she was Betazed, and though she tried not to read minds unless she had a good reason, Damn. Nice cans. I'd hit that. was hard to ignore, especially when he thought it two or three times in the first hour.

"Set course 285 mark 13, warp 3, four minutes," said Paris.

"That's a little slow," said Commander Cavit, Voyager's first officer.

"If you want to blow your nacelles off running at high warp through a subspace pothole field, be my guest," said Paris.

"This is ridiculous," said Cavit. "The Cardassians told us where Val Jean disappeared. Why don't we just go straight there and start looking?"

"Because the Cardassians couldn't find their own asses in the Badlands," said Paris. "All we know is that Val Jean went into the Rat's Nest. We're looking where she would have gone if she came out."

"That's not a rational search pattern, Mr. Paris," said Bujold.

"Look," said Paris, "One of two things happened. They went into the Rat's Nest and they never came out, meaning the ship was wrecked, meaning it's not going anywhere; or they did leave, and they're hiding somewhere else in the Badlands. If that's the case, you want to catch them now, because the Maquis watch both sides of the border and someone saw us go in. If Chakotay is still in here, and he's alive, it's a race to find him before he finds out we're looking."

Bujold and Cavitt seemed to accept that explanation, though Stadi glanced back over her shoulder once and saw Cavitt sitting in his chair cracking his knuckles, a sure sign he was unhappy. Stadi felt the same.

That unhappiness deepened as the search dragged on for another hour, and then another, and then another after that. Paris tried several times to make small talk with her. She brushed off each attempt with clipped, one-word answers. She tried to ignore her disgust when he started having sexual fantasies about her. When that failed, she started deliberately making small mistakes for him to correct, under the assumption that if he was micromanaging her, he wouldn't have time to wonder if she took "it" there.

She was profoundly relieved when the pipes sounded the end of her watch, and just as dismayed when she heard Paris's thoughts just before he spoke them: "Lieutenant Stadi should stay on post," he said as her replacement approached the helm. "We're working together well."

"Is this so, lieutenant?" said Bujold. Bujold, who was human, knew how to frame the thoughts in her head so Stadi could clearly hear them (Stadi often wondered who had taught Bujold that trick). I know he is a pig, thought Bujold (in French; Stadi had taken a crash course). It is up to you if you wish to stay.

Stadi looked up into the face of the leering Tom Paris. The less time she spent with the repugnant toad, the better. On the other hand, she sensed he wasn't lying, at least not all the way: he was comfortable working with her, and uneasy at the thought of training another helmsman on the fly in this dangerous environment.

She sighed. "I can work another watch, captain."

That was the decision that killed her.

#

USS Voyager
Time and place unknown

Paris was awakened by a horrid screeching wail, like metal being twisted to the breaking point, an instant before he was flung to the deck of the brig. He stood up, only to get thrown to the deck again by a violent shock. The red alert sirens wailed to life.

"What the hell was that?" said Paris. He crawled to his bunk, held onto it as he rose to his knees, braced for another shock. He looked around, noticing the lights were flickering. The cell's forcefield held steady, powered off a 72-hour backup battery if main power became unreliable.

The Andorian able crewman who had been guarding the brig had fallen to the deck, but was pulling himself up at her station. She had a huge cut on her face, and blue blood was dripping off her her chin onto the control station.

"Hey!" said Paris. "What's happening?"

"Quiet," she said. Her fingers flew over the control panel.

"Let me out," said Paris. "I know first aid; I can help you."

"I said keeep quiet," she said. She tapped her commbadge. "Brig to security."

"Security," replied whoever was on the other end of the channel. It sounded like pandemonium in the background.

"This is Tsien. I'm requesting instructions."

"Stay at your post."

"Acknowledged."

"That's it?" said Paris. "You didn't even ask them what happened."

"They're busy," she said.

The lights steadied themselves. Paris was starting to wish he was back on New Senegal, digging some nice, safe holes.

"You're bleeding pretty bad," he said.

"I'll be fine."

"You should let me help you."

"You are not to leave your cell."

Andorian pride, thought Paris. Even a Klingon would put a bandage on that. "Look, I'm a pilot, not some kind of kung-fu master. And you have a phaser. There's a dermal regenerator in the first aid kit over there. Let me out, I'll fix you up, and then I'll go back in my cell. If I try anything, you can stun me and dump me back in here."

She hesitated before responding.

"We're on a starship," he said. "Where am I going to go?" To the shuttle bay, after I seal your eyelids shut, steal your phaser, and shoot everyone between here and there. A low-warp shuttlecraft would be just the thing in the Badlands; they'd never find him, not with Voyager apparently crippled.

Able crewman Tsien touched a button on the control panel; Paris heard the brig's security doors lock. "Okay," she said. "I'll let you out."

She was reaching for the panel when there was a deafening bass roar--the warp core! thought Paris--and all the lights went out. Behind able crewman Tsien, a wall panel blew out in a fountain of iradescent gas. For an instant she was silhouetted against a cloud of blue death, and then she was overwhelmed, her scream cut off as if by a knife, and the brig force field glowed blinding purple-white against the energy of the plasma.

Eventually--it was only a few seconds, though it seemed like decades for Paris--some cutoff valve upstream shut off the plasma flow and emergency vents opened in the brig, flushing the atmosphere, clearing the air so that Paris could see the devestation the blowout had wrought. Nothing was left of able crewman Tsien except a pile of glowing bones.

#

USS Voyager
The Badlands

They had given Harry Kim had the overnight shift at ops. Because of this, he was off-duty when Voyager entered the Badlands, and did not have to report to his general quarters station when they sounded yellow alert. The price for this was that he was supposed to be asleep, but between the excitement of a first mission, his own body clock insisting it was only early in the evening, and his continuing seething resentment at Quark, he couldn't sleep. At 1900 hours, only an hour before he was supposed to wake up anyway, he gave up. He slipped out of the quarters he shared with three other junior officers and, his clarinet in hand, went to the deserted forward observation lounge, to play Benny Goodman and watch the red and yellow plasma clouds outside shift to blue and violet as they repeatedly jumped to warp.

About thirty minutes after he arrived, he noticed that the warp hops no longer seemed random. Instead, they were closing in on some huge, gnarled blister of violent storms. It was beautiful, and thrilling, and more than a litty scary, because it just kept getting bigger and bigger, each hop bringing out finer details. He had no sense of scale, but the blister had to be many light-years across.

Then came another hop and it was gone, repleased by a hellscape of extremely violent storms and plasma flares that looked close enough to touch. He gasped and realized they were inside it. Then they hopped again, and again, and again, in quick warp bursts, like they were trying to find a path through it. He forced himself to keep playing his clarinet, knowing that the people on the bridge knew what they were doing.

His faith was rewarded when Voyager hopped into a clear bubble of space and stayed there. He checked the time; 1948, enough to try a new arrangement of Glenn Miller he had found.

Outside, the color of the sky changed from orange-red to yellow.

Captain Bujold's voice came over the intercom: "Commander Janeway, report to the bridge."

The yellow brightened to white.

Harry heard the warp engines building up power again.

The Red Alert siren managed a single whoop.

The white light outside became bliding, like the surface of the Sun. Harry looked away, shielded his face, felt his arms burn. There was a terrible roar, and then Voyager was smashed by some great force, as if it were a plastic toy being whacked by a cricket bat. Harry was hurled out of his seat into the side of the bar, where falling bottles from the shelf behind rained down on him. And then one of the big windows shattered, thirty centimeters of transparent aluminum giving way with a scream like a damned soul, and Harry was being sucked out to space, saved at the last second by a force field snapping to life. The ship shook more, and he dove for cover under a table until it stopped.

When it did stop, it stopped like a guillotine blade hitting a chopping block. There was a final thud, and then silence. Gradually he became aware of the red alert siren, the howls of alarm and pain outside, noises from the ship, and a low moan he was making himself as he cradled his burned forearms. When he was finally sure the shaking was done, he crawled out from under the table.

Red alert. He had to get to his duty station. He also had to get to sickbay, but that could wait. There would be a first-aid kit on the bridge.

He stood up and looked around. It was only then that he realized two things.

First, his clarinet was gone. He'd dropped it when he was thrown, and it had been light enough to get sucked out the window easily.

Second, the Badlands were gone. Outside the windows hung a planet, an orb of banded yellow clouds. Beyond it were stars. Between it and Voyager was an object, shaped like knives glued together blades-out, firing pulses of energy to the world below.

"Oh, shit," said Harry.

#

[RedImperator]

Val Jean
Ocampa system Kuiper belt

"Here comes another one," said Seska.

Chakotay snapped around to face the viewscreen. A brilliant white bloom of light was boiling in orbit of Ocampa, resolving into the shape of a starship.

"I am getting a reading," said Tuvok. "It is a Federation starship."

That got everyone's attention.

"A rescue mission?" said Mohommad.

"Capture is more like it," said Chakotay.

"They are badly damaged," said Tuvok. "They did not weather the trip well."

"The Kazons have spotted them," said Seska.

"How badly damaged are they?" said Chakotay. "Can they fight?"

"Their warp drive is unstable and going into shutdown. No discernable shield readings. Their main phaser batteries appear to have suffered emitter damage."

"So they're helpless."

"Not necessarily. They may still have photon torpedoes."

"Interesting," said Chakotay.

"Should we hail them?" said Seska.

"Not yet," said Chakotay. "Let's just watch for now."

#

USS Voyager
Location unknown

Harry Kim staggered into sickbay and immediately tripped over a body lying by the door. "Ah shit," he said. The dead man had a blue uniform, two and a half pips, and had been in sickbay: Kim was pretty sure he'd just tripped over Voyager's former chief medical officer. He looked around and saw the likely cause of death: a plasma conduit blown out so spectactularly there were burn marks on the opposite wall. He looked around again and saw a younger officer, most likely the nurse, laying prone with half her face burned off.

"Ah shit," he said again. "Computer! Activate emergency medical hologram!" I hope this works, he thought. Then he vomited.

A bald, middle-aged simulacrum in a blue Starfleet uniform shimmered to life in the middle of sickbay. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," it said, as if it couldn't see two bloody bodies lying on the floor.

"There's been some kind of accident; there are casulaties all over the ship," said Kim. "Including them."

The EMH wasted no time, grabbing a medical tricorder from a cabinet and scanning both bodies. "They're dead," it said. "Are you injured?"

Kim showed him his blistered hands. "Second-degree burns," the EMH said immediately. It picked up a dermal regenerator. "Hold still." It gave Kim a few waves of the device, enough to shrink the blisters. As he worked, the doors hissed open and more people staggered in, a security rating with bad burns and, leaning on him, a petty officer with a grotesque compound fracture.

"Move," said the EMH to Harry.

"But I'm not done!" said Kim.

"This is a triage situation," said the EMH. Kim noticed for the first time how its voice never changed from a clipped, professional monotone, giving it the bedside manner of a tree stump. Well, it wasn't designed to have a bedside manner. It was designed to assist the medical staff in a situation like this. Except some idiot had routed a plasma trunk behind sickbay's wall, and now the CMO and his nurse were dead.

"Attention all crew, attention all crew," said the intercom. "This is acting captain Janeway. Anyone who is not hurt must report to his or her red alert station immediately. All section chiefs, please report your status to the auxillary bridge immediately."

#

Voyager engine room

"...All section cheifs, please report your status to the auxillary bridge immediately."

Lieutenant Joseph Carey glanced up from the control board and muttered, "Aw, hell." How is the fucking science officer the acting captain? He had known Janeway for about six hours and she hadn't impressed him; career science dweeb tag-alongs never did.

"Computer," said Carey, "Who is the legal commanding officer of USS Voyager?"

"The commanding officer of USS Voyager is lieutenant commander Kathryn Janeway."

Shit, though Carey. There had to be some kind of mistake, but he didn't have time to fix it now. "Rodriguez! What's the story?"

"Sir, the starboard plasma injector fused shut; we came a cunt-hair's breadth from blowing the whole Goddamn core. The safeties saved our asses, but now everything's shut down tighter than a Vulcan's twat. I can get you auxillary power off the impulse reactors, and that's if you're lucky."

"How are the antimatter pods holding?"

"They're solid, sir. About the only thing on this fucking boat that isn't broke right now."

"Bridge to engineering," said the intercom.

"Oh now what the hell," muttered Carey. "Engineering; Lieutenant Carey reporting."

"What's your status down there?" It wasn't Janeway's voice, but someone else who managed to sound halfway professional.

"Bridge, we have a total warp core shutdown. We're bringing up the impulse reactors for power generation right now."

Pause. "Lieutenant Carey, this is Commander Janeway. When can we expect warp power to be back online?"

"Commander, the starboard plasma injector has fused shut. That's what caused the plasma backflash throughout the ship. At this point, I have no idea what state the rest of the warp core is in. We might not be able to bring it back up at all; at the very least, it's going to take days to properly inspect it all."

Another pause. Carey made a show of twiddling his thumbs; Rodriguez caught the gesture and sniggered. "Engineering, we need warp power back as soon as possible," said Janeway.

"I understand, commander," said Carey. "But the backflash hit the reaction chamber. I could have spalling, I could have microfractures, I could have a cracked dilithium crystal for all I know right now. It's going to take some time."

"What about the port nacelle? Can we use that?"

I cannot believe this is happening to me, thought Carey. "Ma'am, the reaction chamber feeds both nacelles. Even if the port nacelle worked perfectly, there's no way to power it."

There was yet another long silence. "Ma'am, maybe we should just call for a tow," said Carey. "It's pretty long odds we can fix this girl outside of a drydock."

"That's not a practical solution at the moment," said Janeway.

What the fuck does that mean?

"Mr. Carey, come to the auxillary bridge. I think you should brief me in person."

With crayons, no doubt, thought Carey. He was about to argue when a thought occurred to him: She's out of her depth and she knows it. I might be the highest ranked officer left alive after her. The thought of taking command of Voyager in this state didn't exactly make his heart leap, but at the same time, he realized he trusted himself more than some dweeb who'd taken the bridge officer's exam on a lark--and maybe Janeway did, too.

"I'll be right up, commander."

"What was that about?" said Rodriguez.

"They need me on the backup bridge. You're in charge down here."

"Yes sir."

"Oh, and Rodriguez?"

"Yes?"

"I'm the chief engineer of this ship now. When I ask you for a report, save the colorful language and just give me numbers."

Rodriguez looked something halfway between puzzled and shaken. "Aye sir."

#

Janeway had never been in so much pain in her entire life. The initial shock of her injuries was fading, along with her brain's natural pain suppressors. Her shoulder felt like someone had taken a laser welder to it, from the inside out and her headache was getting worse.

"Navigation, do you have a fix on our location yet?" she said.

"No ma'am, not yet. The best I can tell you is that we're somewhere in the Delta Quadrant, ten thousand light years from the galactic rim. I've found Sagittarius A, but there aren't a lot of other landmarks out here."

"Keep looking," said Janeway, knowing it was a tall order. They had to be more or less on the exact opposite side of the Milky Way from the Federation, exactly the area most thoroughly obscured by the giant molecular clouds and the galactic core. They couldn't have gotten much further from Earth if they'd tried.

Janeway took another dose of painkiller from the first aid kit and injected it directly into her shoulder, where it did almost nothing. She gritted her teeth. She would hang on until the pain became more distracting than a more potent painkiller would be. Then, she promised herself, she'd go to sickbay. Why hasn't Sickbay reported in yet? she thought.

In front of her, on the viewscreen, was an image of the yellow planet they'd found themselves orbiting, and an alien space station. The star and the planet weren't on any charts in the database, and the space station refused to respond to their hails. They hadn't bothered hailing the planet; there wasn't any point. The surface temperature was over 400 degrees.

Big fat zeroes, she thought bitterly. She was positive the space station was somehow responsible for their being there, but whoever was on board wasn't owning up to anything.

The doors hissed open and Lieutenant Carey walked into the cramped auxillary bridge. He spotted her sitting in the central chair, said "Lieuttenant Carey reporting, ma'am," and then seemed to take a half-step back as soon as he got a good look at her. I must be some sight, she thought.

"Report, lieutenant," said Janeway.

Carey looked confused. "Wouldn't you prefer to do this in the briefing room?"

"I can't hold my breath for that long," said Janeway. When Carey didn't seem to get it, she said, "The main bridge had a briefing room. The auxillary bridge doesn't. So just talk to me here."

"All right," said Carey. "The starboard plasma injector fused shut when we tried to go to warp. When that happens, the plasma in the conduit is supposed to be shunted through an escape valve out into space. It didn't. The plasma stayed traped in the line until it found an outlet into the EPS system, and then all hell broke loose. Right now, I don't know what kind of damage it did to the reaction chamber, the dilithium matrix, the portside injector, the portside nacelle, the antimatter injectors...nothing, really. Let alone the condition of the starboard nacelle. Plus, there's serious damage all over the ship, thanks to the EPS overload. Electrical power is unreliable, replicators are out, transporters are out, shields are out, SIF is out, phasers are out. The SIF is really critical; even if I had warp power, the ship will fly to pieces at warp speed without the SIF. Like I said already, I don't think the ship can be repaired here. We need a tow back to a starbase. We've probably got more sick and injured than sickbay can handle; those people can't wait until we get propulsion back online."

"Mr. Carey," said Janeway.

"Ma'am?"

"Right now, we are approximately 70,000 light years from the nearest starbase. Whatever force wrecked the ship also pulled us out here. So for the time being, you're on your own."

Carey stared, unbelieving, looking back and forth between Janeway and the viewscreen.

"We should hail that station," he finally said.

"I already did, Mr. Carey."

"We should hail them again."

Janeway snapped. "What do you think we've been doing up here, Mr. Carey?"

Fucking around, said Carey's face. "Sorry, ma'am. I got--"

"I understand, Mr. Carey. Look, for now, you're the chief engineer. We need main power back on line as soon as you can get it."

"Yes ma'am. What are my secondary priorities?"

Janeway reflected on that. "That's your call," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Captain, we're being hailed! Audio only."

"Put it on speaker."

A deep, scratchy, arrogant male voice came over the loudspeakers. "Unidentified ship, this is Jal Jabin of the Kazon-Ogla. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. If you surrender without a fight, everybody lives. If you don't, I'll space every last one of you."

"Mr. Gombe, show me the source of that transmission."

A massive brown ship, shaped vaguely like the head of a squid, appeared on the viewscreen, approaching them at relatively low speed. It had snuck on them undetected at warp--another bad sign for Voyager's readiness, but not one that Janeway could afford to worry about at the moment.

"Sheilds," said Janeway. "Red alert."

"Shields are out," said Carey. "So are phasers."

"Get down to engineering right now," said Janeway. "Get me whatever shields you can get."

"Yes ma'am." He took off running, off the auxillary bridge.

I'd better stall them, she thought.

"This is act...this is captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship--"

Janeway was interrupted by a flash from the Kazon vessel and a sudden explosion on Voyager

#

[Burak Gazan]

Yay, its back

[Solauren]

Nice.

Can the Val Jean now sweep in and show Chaktoy to be a tactical genius? Please, please, please?

This fic is already better then the best of Voyager.

[jpdt19]

Got to agree.

Excellent story so far.

Keep up the good work!

[NetKnight]

Chiming into the chorus, excellent work.

I... er... look forward to seeing how you handle Neelix.

[DrMckay]

Great to see a return to form. Will Neelix be more tolerable, ie: competent, Intelligent, Possibly Garak-esque? perhaps a company cook/quartermaster in the military?

[The Romulan Republic]

Interesting, but I find the swearing to be perhaps a little over the top. I can understand that the characters are a in a stressful situation, but these are supposed to be proffesionals. That said, I liked it when Carey basically told his foul-mouthed subordinate to shut up.

Also, unless I'm much mistaken it seems like you're giving Carey a bigger role. Appropriate, since he was in line to be Chief Engineer in the original show until Janeway put Torres in. With regards to the other characters, Its nice to see that you've thus far avoided the temptation to make Janeway into a psychopath or villain, and are instead portraying her as well-intentioned but out of her depth. Kim, on the other hand, seems to be a bit of a jackass (complaining when the doctor prioritizes other patients).

[Crazedwraith]

As much as I like your re-write, I hope its not building up to: "lol, Janeway should have used timed charges!" with the excuse that as meterologist she didn't know any better.

edit: re-reading my old comments, I see I've said this before. My apologies for being boring and repetive.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Hmm... I fear Neelix may have to become a badass to redeem his character.

[Richardson]

Well, if someone can make JarJar likeable, then Neelix can become a badass.

Personally, I'd like to see him punch out a borg drone.

[Teleros]

Well as I recall he was supposed to be more like Quark than the irritating coffee dictator he ended up being. Given the author, I'm hopeful .

[Zed Snardbody]

Well you have to remember Kim is fresh out of the academy, raised on Earth. This is probably the first time he's seen the lights go out, let alone have to wait for medical treatment. He's not being an ass, he just can't relate to the situation at all.