Spare Parts

by Kath Tate

Star Trek Voyager and characters are the property of Paramount. This story does not intend to infringe on any copyright.

Kath's notes: When I wrote this I had no idea how to explain the technobabble involved and tried to leave it as vague as possible without confusing the story. I consulted several editors, Trek fans all of them, and no one was able to give me any help. I apologise if plasma does not behave in the manner I've described below! Also, I have since seen an episode that allowed us a glimpse of Commander Chakotay's office and it's not nearly as dull as the one in this story. Nothing pretends to be canon, it is merely here for your enjoyment.

*****

Captain Janeway was examining damage reports when Commander Chakotay interrupted her. It was a welcome interruption, as the damage to Voyager was extensive and the reports were many.

"Captain, life support has been fully restored on all decks and the impulse engines are back online," Chakotay told her. He regarded her carefully, her fatigue was evident even without his scrutiny.

"And the warp drive?" she asked.

"You don't ask for much," he said with a smile, hoping to lighten her mood. Instead she tensed up further.

"Commander!" she spoke sharply, rising from her chair, "We have no sensors and no warp drive, no shields or long range communications...."

"And five minutes ago we didn't have life support on all decks or any impulse engines," he reminded her gently. She slumped back down, deflated and tired.

"Yes," she admitted, "you're right, of course," she added dryly. Her eyes fell sadly on the damage reports again.

The Cerijans had attacked swiftly and without provocation and their assault had nearly destroyed Voyager. They claimed, and rightly so, that Voyager was trespassing on their territory and nothing Janeway said could convince them that the Federation ship was just passing through. With a true best defense is offense attitude they opened fired and the result was a badly crippled Voyager. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the Cerijans' warships broke off their attack and turned back.

Janeway was anxious about their weakened state. She was not confident that the Cerijans would stay away. Neither she nor Chakotay could figure out what had stopped the Cerijans from completely destroying Voyager. They did not appear to have crossed any kind of boundary; by the Cerijans' own angry declaration Voyager was still in their defined region of space. The captain wanted warp and she wanted it yesterday. They needed to get the Hell out of Dodge. Fast.

"Of course I'm right." The commander's soft voice brought Janeway back to her ready room. "Captain, you need to get some sleep." When she opened her mouth to protest he held up a hand to stop her. "No arguments. I will contact you if the Cerijans appear again."

"Thank you for your concern, Commander," Janeway said, her mouth twitching into a smile. After a long look, he left her alone again. She abandoned the reports for her quarters, falling asleep before she even fully lay upon the bed.

*****

"Torres to Bridge." The lieutenant's voice broke the silence on the bridge. Chakotay hit his comm badge to answer her.

"Chakotay here. Go ahead B'Elanna."

There was a moment's hesitation. Obviously, Torres had been expecting Captain Janeway to answer her hail and was thrown by Chakotay's response. Chakotay felt a brief moment of resentment that Torres, one of *his* crew, would have shifted loyalty so completely that the absence of Janeway could affect her so much. But the moment passed before he could even acknowledge the feeling.

"Commander, I think...." B'Elanna hesitated again, "Could you come down here to look at this?"

"On my way," Chakotay told her, heading for the turbolift. He left the bridge in Ensign Rogin's hands.

Entering Engineering was like entering another world compared to the quiet of the bridge. In the hive of activity it was easy to forget it was the middle of the night. Torres must have most of her staff doing double duty, the commander thought. It took him a moment to locate the lieutenant, and even then he only found her by hearing her voice. She was halfway up a ladder on the far wall, barking orders to an overworked, overtired crew. Chakotay made his way over to her.

"Torres!" he called up the ladder, "What did you need me for?" The commander was like a fish out of water in Engineering, or at least, that's what Torres would have him believe.

Torres slid down the sides of the ladder, landing with a heavy thump next to Chakotay. She darted some quick looks around at her crew and then pulled on Chakotay's arm.

"Over here."

She led him across to the jeffries tube and scrambled up. Chakotay followed. B'Elanna set a mean pace, even when she was working with no sleep, and the commander found himself growing weary of the intrigue.

"Torres!" he called, pausing for a moment, "Wouldn't it just be easier to *tell* me the problem?"

The oath she threw back at him was not one he immediately recognized, but he strongly suspected it was Klingon for "wimp."

He caught up to her at a cross-section. She was seated off the ladder next to an open computer panel. Her scowl gave Chakotay a bad feeling.

"What is it? Is it the gel packs?" He hoisted himself up to sit next to her.

She shook her head. "No, thank goodness." Chakotay waited patiently. She was obviously very worried about something.

"Voyager is in pretty good shape, considering she hasn't had a stop at a starbase in over two years," Torres started.

"You've performed miracles," agreed Chakotay, but Torres waved that aside. She wasn't looking for praise.

"Chakotay, the ship is starting to break down. Not the gel packs, not yet," she added, "but just the regular bits and pieces. The wiring, the circuits," she gestured to the open panel. "This last attack was brutal on our systems Chakotay."

Chakotay examined the evidence she displayed. He couldn't identify one component that didn't need replacing.

"What are you saying?" he asked, although he figured he knew, "What do you need?"

Torres poked around the panel with her spanner. A burnt piece of wire fell out and tumbled down the jeffries tube. Torres did not appear overly concerned at its loss. She was more worried about a much larger problem.

"We need a space dock and a complete overhaul!" Then noticed his disapproving look she toned down her voice and tried to mask her frustration. "We need some new parts. We need to replace a lot of the components that are keeping our main systems functional."

They sat in silence. Chakotay rubbed his forehead, turning over options in his mind. He understood why she had him come down here to see this. The importance of the need would not have been easily communicated over the comm link.

"Replication?" he asked, although he felt he knew what her response would be. She did not disappoint him.

"Only if we had enough power to charge the replicators from now until the time we enter the Alpha Quadrant!" It came out as a snort. "Because that's as many replicator rations as it will take to produce the kind of overall I'm taking about!"

"Well," said the commander, lifting himself up to climb back down the ladder, "concentrate your efforts on getting the systems operational and we'll do everything we can to collect some spare parts as soon as we can."

"Commander!" Torres' tone was sharp, "This isn't something that can be put off until *convenient*!"

"I understand that, Lieutenant," Chakotay emphasized her rank then he softened his tone, "but we can't conjure up parts from thin air either. We just have to do the best we can. All of us." He laid a hand on her knee as a gesture of support and then disappeared from view. B'Elanna sighed and dropped her head into her hands.

*****

Chakotay sat in his office trying to formulate a coherent report for the captain. Fatigue and depression were settling in on him and he was finding it harder and harder to concentrate on presenting his material without sounding like the voice of doom. He could only hope that a little sleep had given her a fresh new perspective that could overcome the gloom he was about to unleash on her. Someone was at the door, interrupting his musings.

"Come in!" called Chakotay, wondering what new catastrophe was awaiting him. It was the captain.

"Commander," she said briskly.

He tried to stand, but it took him an effort. She waved him back into his seat. He didn't feel particularly comfortable. Usually he gave his reports to her in her ready room; he was standing and she was sitting. He preferred that he realized suddenly, a bit surprised.

"Do you know," she was saying, as if reading his mind, "I don't think I've ever been in here. How is that possible?" She asked the question more to herself than him. She looked around the little room curiously, then turned a frank stare on him. "I certainly hope you don't spend a lot of time in here either, Commander."

He chuckled.

"You don't approve of my interior decorating?" he surmised.

"What decorating?" she asked, gesturing about the bare room.

"I assure you, it's all regulation," he told her seriously. She looked so incredulous that he had to smile. "Actually, I don't spend a lot of time in here. But I was ... in need of a quiet place."

"Report, Commander!" she ordered, drawing herself up as if to brace for the impact of a physical blow.

"The good news is that the Cerijans show no sign of pursuit."

"And the bad news?" She found it somewhat touching that he seemed so reluctant to give her the bad side of things. And things were pretty bad indeed. Touching, if a little inefficient.

"No shields. No warp. Minimal sensors. Limited communications." He paused to let that sink in. "And...." Chakotay sighed. He rubbed his eyes.

"And what, Commander?" asked the captain sharply. Chakotay took a deep breath.

"And Lieutenant Torres brought to my attention that many of the ship's systems are failing because components are .... getting old. She wants replacement parts. She *needs* replacement parts."

Janeway nodded slowly and turned away from Chakotay to face the blank wall. This really *was* a depressing little room. 'How can he work in here?' she wondered.

"Does she have any suggestions," Janeway turned back to the commander, "on exactly where we can find these components?"

Chakotay looked up at her with weary eyes, his expression one to cause Janeway to turn away again. She placed her hands on her hips. She was finding it difficult to have this meeting here, in his space, and suddenly she wished she'd waited until he'd come to her ready room. She would have found it extremely amusing had she known he felt the same way.

"I don't have any answers," he told her simply, "B'Elanna doesn't have any answers either."

"We'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for some scrap metal," Janeway offered, moving to the door.

"Captain," Chakotay stood up. Janeway hesitated in the doorway. "We need to make it a priority. We can't just hope to bump into a starbase along the way."

"Understood Commander," Janeway acknowledged curtly. "Now take some of your own advice and get some sleep."

*****

Things always seemed better when you've had a good night's sleep, Commander Chakotay decided. Not that he had been able to sleep all that well, but sheer exhaustion had ensured he was out for a few hours. Now, back on the bridge, he sensed more optimism than he'd felt yesterday. Still no warp or shields, but the sensors were better, if unreliable, and the long range communications systems back online. 'If only there was someone to talk with,' thought Chakotay.

Torres was up at the engineering station conferring over the comm link with Lieutenant Carey about some systems that were still not accessible from the bridge. Kim was trying some limited sensors sweeps while Paris was grumbling about having to "limp" through space, and blind at that. Tuvok was conducting a drill with some security team members from his tactical station. And Chakotay, well, he was dealing with the duty roster of shifting personnel, most of whom had worked more than 24 hours in an effort to bring back the systems. It was almost a normal day, Chakotay decided.

"Captain on the bridge!"

Janeway waved everyone at ease with an easy gesture. She did not stand on formality. She came down the steps to stand next to the commander at their posts.

"Status?" It was more a question than an order.

"No change, Captain," he told her. She appeared restless, unwilling to sit and watch space fly by on the viewscreen. He hesitated.

"As you were Commander," she told him, noting his discomfort. He turned to sit back at his console to sort out the personnel shifts again. It was a mess. "Unless," she leaned over to him, "you'd rather be working in your office? I'm sure it's much quieter in there. I can handle things up here if you'd prefer to withdraw?"

For a second, he almost believed she was serious. Then her face softened to a smile and he realized she'd been kidding him.

"Er, thank you Captain but no," he said, quite seriously, more for the benefit of Paris's ears, "I think I'd rather remain on the bridge."

Yes, Commander Chakotay decided that things were back to normal again, for the first time since they seen the Cerijans.

"Captain," called Kim, "I'm picking up a ship...." He sounded uncertain; his sensors readings were not being clear.

"On screen!" ordered Janeway. Chakotay stood next to her. He felt a chill. They would not survive another attack.

Ahead of Voyager on the viewscreen was a large, long, bulky ship that appeared to be in orbit around a small moon.

"Can you identify it, Mr. Kim?" Janeway asked, not taking her eyes from the viewscreen.

"No Captain," Harry answered, still not sounding confident, "It *may* be Cerijan but it is not a warship. It's a transport ship."

"Hail them," Janeway said, after a moment's thought.

"Captain?" queried Chakotay.

"We have to pass them Mr. Chakotay. I'd like them to be absolutely clear that we mean them no harm."

"No response," Kim told them. "And...."

"And *what* Ensign?" Chakotay asked abruptly. Harry's uncertainty was getting on his nerves.

"I'm not picking up any life signs. Just some energy readings."

Paris leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, a frown on his frustrated face. He turned his head to address the captain.

"I could be wrong, but that orbit looks pretty unstable from this view."

"Captain," Tuvok stated from his post, "Mr. Paris's observation is correct. The ship is not under power. Without the gravity from the moon it would be adrift in space."

Torres had stopped her work with Carey and now stepped forward from the engineering post, as if to get a better look at the ship.

"I'm detecting what looks to be a trail of plasma," reported Kim. "A leak," he commented.

Chakotay only had to take one look at Torres and he felt he could read her mind.

"Captain," he said in a low voice, "if there *are* survivors we should do what we can to help them. Not only is it the humane thing to do, but it might win us some grace in the eyes of the Cerijans, should our paths cross again."

"There are no life signs, Mr. Kim?" the captain asked.

"No Captain," confirmed Harry, "but our sensors may not be reading them."

"Understood," she said thoughtfully, facing Chakotay. "Survivors Commander Chakotay?"

"Captain?" Torres finally spoke, "that ship might have parts we could use. With or without survivors," she added for Chakotay's benefit. He smothered a grin.

"That is a possibility," Janeway agreed. They regarded the ship while she thought for a second. "Commander, prepare an away team, an exploratory reconnaissance to see if there are any," she smiled at him, "survivors, or," she gave Torres a nod, "spare parts we might use."

"Yes Captain," he replied, nodding to Kim and to Torres and the three of them made their way to the turbolift.

"Commander," Tuvok's voice stopped him. Chakotay sent the officers on ahead and stayed to hear the Security chief. "You require a security presence on your team."

"To board a ship without life signs?" asked Chakotay, sardonically. But the slight humour was wasted on the Vulcan. If possible he looked at the commander with a disapproving eye.

"Commander, *Starfleet* regulations are quite clear on the matter of beaming into unknown and possibly hostile situations...."

Chakotay held up a hand.

"Don't," he said, interrupting Tuvok, "don't quote regulations to me. Just send one of your team to transporter room two."

"I shall dispatch Ensign Kalmos to join you there immediately," Tuvok informed him, and walked back to his station. He did not see the expression that Chakotay struggled not to show, which was a combination of anger and frustration.

Chakotay entered the turbolift wondering if Tuvok was exacting a little revenge for the commander's jab. But then, he supposed, that was simply projecting a human response on the unemotional Vulcan. It was more likely that Ensign Kalmos was due for an away mission. Still, it seemed some bit of bad luck that her name would come up on a mission with both Chakotay and B'Elanna Torres.

Nothing's ever easy, Chakotay sighed. Just another normal day.

*****

Harry and B'Elanna were already in the transporter room, with Lieutenant Carey. Carey had been working in Engineering when Torres yanked him to do the beam out. He suspected her motivation was to be able to continue giving him instructions right up to the moment she left the ship.

"Did you *see* the size of that thing?" Torres was jubilant. "She must be *filled* with excess paraphernalia just waiting for us to put it to good use! She's a ripe fruit just waiting to be plucked!"

Kim and Carey were exchanging a look of amusement at Torres' excitement when Commander Chakotay entered. He noted Torres' gear and her gleeful expression.

"Don't forget, Lieutenant," he told her with as serious a look as he could muster, "we are on a mission of mercy. We will ask the Cerijans if they would be so kind as to spare us some of their equipment."

Torres hooted with laughter and clapped Chakotay on the shoulder.

"Old man, not even the captain bought your 'mission of mercy' crap. Carey you should have seen him! Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, would it Chakotay." She hopped up onto the transporter pad. "Carey you get to work on the forward shields. I'll bring you back some equipment to make your job *so* much easier!"

"Yeah, yeah, just don't get too caught up in the moment Lieutenant, or I'll have the job finished before you get back!" Carey shot back at her with a grin.

Then Torres noticed that Chakotay hadn't moved.

"C'mon! What are we waiting for?"

Chakotay raised his hand to rub his cheek. Why had Tuvok put him in this position? He couldn't believe that it was just a coincidence. The Vulcan had it in for him. No, no, there you go again Chakotay, he scolded himself, putting your own feelings onto Tuvok.

"We're waiting for Ensign Kalmos," he informed Torres, and watched her face fall.

"Chakotay," she growled, low. But the look on his face told her not to bother continuing. And she didn't really have much of a chance anyway, because at that moment Jenna Kalmos entered the room and strode onto the transporter pad without even a glance at Commander Chakotay.

"Are we all ready then?" asked Chakotay, glancing at each member of his team. Jenna did not meet his eyes, but nodded stiffly. Harry also gave a little nod.

"Let's *go*!" implored Torres.

Chakotay stepped onto the pad and signalled to Carey to proceed.

"Happy hunting Lieutenant!" called Carey as they dematerialized.

*****

As he watched the away team disappear before his eyes Carey chuckled to himself. It wasn't always that he had felt so fondly towards B'Elanna Torres, the woman had broken his nose after all! But he had grown to regard her with a grudging respect and it was always good to see her in such an excited mood. So confident after days of frustration!

He logged the transport and switched to the monitors so that the computer would automatically track their presence. Suddenly, the sensors flickered with an anomalous energy reading. Frowning Carey tried to scan the bridge of the other ship again. The four signals were there and then....they were not.

Trying not to panic at the implication of their disappearance Carey scanned again. No anomalous energy, no fix on the away team, no life signs. Carey frowned even further and put a hand to his temple, rubbing as though he could force his brain to think of something else he could try. Was this a malfunction on Voyager or had the away team been attacked by something? What would B'Elanna do? he wondered.

****

Janeway gazed at the large ship with a bit of wonder. They had interpreted her name to be "Kolavs" from the external markings. Although Janeway thought it would be amusing to discover that "Kolavs" was simply Cerijan for starboard.

"You don't often see a barge that size," she commented to the bridge.

"It's not exactly suited to smuggling, is it Captain," agreed Paris with a cocky grin. "Imagine trying to outrun the authorities in a tub like that..." His voice died away.

"Mr. Paris?" inquired the captain.

"Captain, we've changed course. We're being pulled towards the other ship!" Paris's fingers flew over his controls, "Helm is not responding!"

"Captain, I'm picking up an energy buildup. It's coming from the moon," called out Ensign Rogin.

"From the moon? What kind of energy?!" demanded Janeway.

"Whatever it is, it is pulling us in," Tuvok informed her. "And it is growing stronger."

"Captain, we have to try to reverse course," Paris told her, "otherwise we won't be able to break free of that pull. We still don't have the warp drive."

"Transporter room two, beam back the away team!" commanded Janeway.

Down in transporter room two, Carey felt his heart leap to his throat.

"I've lost their signals Captain," he admitted, feeling like a coward for being glad she was on the bridge and not standing right in front of him.

"Report Mr. Carey!" came the order swift and fast.

"There was a brief energy reading and then their signals were gone and now I'm showing no life signs," Carey told her, speaking quickly with nerves. "I've been trying Captain, but I can't get a fix on them. They're....they're....they're just gone."

On the bridge Janeway took in Carey's information with remarkable calm. Inside she was shaking, on the outside she stood firm. Could it be that they had lost the away team? It seemed so impossible. It seemed so .... sudden. She tapped her badge.

"Janeway to Commander Chakotay." She paused. "Captain Janeway to away team! Commander Chakotay please respond!" Her only response was the silence of the bridge.

"Mr. Paris, back away. But stay as close as you can to the Kolavs without being in range of that energy pull."

"Yes, Ma'am," Paris responded. He would have liked to tell her that it was no easy feat to break out of the hold that the moon had on them with only their impulse engines online. But then again, she knew that.

"Senior officers to the briefing room!" Janeway ordered. "Gentlemen, I want some answers."

*****

The first thing Harry noticed when his eyes adjusted to being rematerialized, and he always closed his eyes while being transported, was a bright flash, and yet it didn't appear to be a light. He looked around at his companions. Torres appeared off-balance; Jenna was poised like a cat ready to jump, her weapon raised immediately. Chakotay had his eyes closed and Harry wondered if the commander also kept them shut while transporting or if it was a reaction to the strange flash.

"What was *that*?" asked B'Elanna pulling out her tricorder. Harry looked down at his readings.

"It was some kind of intense energy beam," he concluded vaguely.

"Were we being scanned?" asked Chakotay. Harry shook his head, he just didn't know from the weird readings he was getting.

"Chakotay," Torres said, frowning, "I'm getting all kinds of odd readings here. There seems to be a lot of unusual energy on this ship. This wasn't showing up from Voyager."

"Voyager's systems aren't running top notch at the moment," Chakotay commented, and instantly regretted it. Torres was most likely to take that as a personal attack since Engineering was her responsibility. Judging by her scowl she had misinterpreted him.

Jenna was surveying the rest of the bridge, as if expecting an ambush from some dark corner. And there were plenty of dark corners. Without main power, the only light sources were their wrist lights and a pale glow from the moon. The bridge was torn apart, with equipment and parts of the computer consoles strewn about. One beam from the ceiling had fallen at an angle, reducing the area by half. Jenna had to crouch down to climb under it in order to examine the far side of the room. Having completed a circular tour she returned to the centre where the others were standing.

"The bridge is deserted," she curtly informed Chakotay, who nodded acknowledgement.

"There's not much salvageable here," commented Torres, after a cursory glance at the mess of wires and metal surrounding them.

"That's a pretty quick assessment, don't you think?" asked Jenna coldly. Torres snapped up to attention at her tone but didn't respond. Kim continued to scan with his tricorder.

"Let's see if Voyager picked up that energy wave," Chakotay suggested, tapping his communicator. "Chakotay to Voyager. We picked up a pretty strong reading of an energy wave when we first arrived. Did your sensors get it?"

The four of them listened only to the sound of Harry's tricorder for a moment. Harry snapped it shut. There was silence.

"Chakotay to Voyager, come in please." Chakotay took a deep breath. "Well, it looks like we're on our own for awhile."

"There's no power here," Torres said, "I doubt our portable generator is big enough to activate their communications. We need to get to engineering if we want to try to restore any of this ship's systems."

"I thought we were here to pick up scrap metal," Jenna said, sarcastically.

"Hey!" snapped Torres, annoyed by Jenna's attitude, but Chakotay laid a hand on her arm.

"Ensign," he said calmly to Jenna, "unless we have some way of communicating with Voyager we are going to have a hard time taking any spare parts back with us. If getting the Kolavs systems up and running, if only partially, can help us get through to Voyager then that should be one of our priorities, don't you agree?"

For a moment Harry thought Jenna might actually argue with the commander, her posture was so defiant. But she remained silent.

"It could be that the strange energy beam that hit us is blocking Voyager's sensors," Harry suggested. Chakotay nodded, whether it was agreement or merely acknowledgement Harry couldn't tell.

"Here's a door," Torres said, bending down and peering through a small opening. The main door had been blocked by another ceiling beam. "We could split up. Chakotay, you and Harry follow this corridor and Jenna and I will go down one deck..."

"I'd rather go with Harry," Jenna interrupted.

"What a surprise," muttered Torres.

"No," Chakotay said. When both women opened their mouths to protest he held up a hand, "No, we're not splitting up. We don't have proper communications. We stay together."

"Sir," Jenna bit the word off, "that is not an efficient use of our time."

"Too bad," Chakotay said icily.

Inside B'Elanna cheered, but aside from an almost imperceptible twitch of her mouth she did not let her feelings show.

"Let's go," Chakotay ordered, leading the way off the bridge and down the corridor. Harry instantly followed and after a brief hesitation Jenna as well. Torres took up the rear, yanking the portable generator roughly through the narrow gap when it caught on the edges.

*****

"What happened?!" asked Janeway, before everyone had even had a chance to sit around the conference table. She, herself, stood with her hands on the back of her chair, a frown darkening her face.

Not sure who was supposed to provide the answer to that question, Carey spoke up.

"Everything seemed to be working normally. They transported across. They rematerialized. Then they disappeared."

"I want a full report, Lieutenant!" snapped Janeway, "I want more of an explanation than 'they disappeared.'"

"Yes, Ma'am," Carey managed, looking miserable.

"Tuvok!" Janeway turned to her Security chief. "What about this energy pull? What is it? Some kind of tractor beam?"

"While it appears to work in a similar manner, it is not consistent with any known tractoring technology, Captain," was Tuvok's calm reply.

"Captain," offered Tom Paris, "with our engines in their current state I wouldn't recommend getting too close. I don't know if we could break free again."

"And our away team?"

This time no one wanted to respond, not even Tuvok.

"Mr. Carey, finish that report and then get down to Engineering to see what you can do about our engines! Mr. Tuvok, I want an analysis of the threat from the moon. Mr. Paris, keep us just out of range. Ensign Rogin, continuous scans of the Kolavs for our team. Keep trying to contact them. I want those reports in two hours."

The group was standing before she'd finished barking out the commands. It had to be one of the shortest senior staff meetings Tom had ever experienced on Voyager.

Out in the corridor he nearly collided with poor Carey who suddenly looked like he'd much rather have chosen a career in stellar cartography than engineering.

"Is it always like that?" he asked Tom, jerking his head back towards the conference room.

"When lives are on the line," Tom told him. "If I were you, I'd work on getting that away team back...."

"There is no more away team," Carey interrupted, with a sick laugh, "They are *gone*." And with that he jogged in the direction of Engineering leaving Tom staring after him in sad disbelief.

*****

Torres hung back behind the others a little. The going was slow as the only lighting came from the beams on their wrists and the hallway was pitch black. Harry and Chakotay led the way, poking their heads into deserted rooms now and then. Jenna stayed attack ready, phaser poised above her wrist light, arms steady, eyes cold. Torres was sure that she didn't want to be in front of the angry ensign. Jenna might just decide that Torres was some kind of alien threat in the shadows and let loose her cannon.

The corridors had been built in an odd fashion, not along a straight and narrow path. In some places the space was very narrow, forcing them to a single file. But in most, the hallway was quite wide. It was all the twists and turns and sharp corners that had Torres so disoriented. Why had the ship been designed in such a maze? she wondered.

The air was musty and there was a peculiar smell. A very bad smell, Torres decided after breathing the air for awhile. There had to be a reason they weren't showing any life signs, and she suspected that it was this that was causing the very bad smell. Harry had confirmed that the air was breathable; something Voyager's failing sensors had told them before they'd beamed aboard. Good to know the sensors weren't completely wrong, Torres thought bitterly.

According to their estimates of the ship's layout, they needed to get down at least one deck to find Engineering. So far, they'd been unable to find a method of leaving the bridge deck. Stopping to examine what she thought was going to be an access panel Torres unexpectedly found a way down. There was a ladder, deep in a recess in the shadows of the wall.

"Hey! Take a look at this!" she called to get the attention of the others, who had already rounded the next corner.

Jenna was the first to return to Torres. She shone her light down the ladder but it was impossible to see what was on the dark deck below.

"Well spotted," Chakotay told Torres as Jenna snapped back from the ladder.

"After you," she gestured with mock politeness to Torres. B'Elanna only glared at her, secured her tricorder on her belt and swung down the ladder.

The lower deck appeared at first to be identical to the one they'd just been on. Jenna followed Torres, and swung her light in the opposite direction down the dark corridor. Torres fumbled with her tricorder to get it unhooked while stepping forward into the murky blackness. Almost immediately her foot ran into something that was not the wall. Lifting her wrist to shine its light she screamed.

At the sound Chakotay jumped down the last half of the ladder. He saw Jenna with her weapon raised and Torres, with her hands to her face, casting her light upon the ceiling. Harry scrambled down the ladder behind him.

"Hold your fire," Chakotay calmly told Jenna, and when she didn't stand down he added, "At ease, Kalmos, there's no need to shoot anyone."

He stepped forward to Torres, his light on a Cerijan corpse, his other hand on her shoulder.

"You OK?" he asked, concerned.

Torres took a deep breath, and nodded.

"It just startled me, that's all."

Harry bent over the corpse, the signals from his tricorder lighting up his face. Chakotay crouched beside him. Torres remained standing where she was, trying to collect her wits.

"It's been here a long time Commander," Harry informed Chakotay. The commander grimly pondered the corpse, the strange energy, the ship adrift...

"I wonder how long this ship has been here?" he asked, more to himself than Harry.

Jenna finally stepped closer to the group, lowering her phaser and regarding the dead Cerijan with cold disinterest.

"Coward," she murmured, low but clear enough for Torres to hear.

In a swift motion Torres swung at the ensign, knocking her phaser to the floor with a clatter and then pinning her up against the wall. Torres had her arm locked across Jenna's throat, her own phaser now drawn and digging into the stomach of her enemy.

"Is it a good day to die?" she asked Jenna, between clenched teeth.

Harry had never seen Chakotay move so quickly. Before Jenna's back had hit the wall the commander was on his feet, putting his broad shoulder between Torres and Jenna.

"Lieutenant!" he barked. Although he hadn't heard Torres' remark to Jenna he was still concerned by the anger that had so easily flared between the two women. When they got back to Voyager he was going to have to have a serious talk with Tuvok about Ensign Kalmos; he would handle Torres alone. In the mean time, they all had to work together.

Torres backed away slowly, feeling a little foolish but also getting a certain amount of satisfaction at the expression she had seen on Jenna's face. The ensign masked her emotions well, but for a moment there had been fear.

"Lieutenant, Ensign," Chakotay's voice could have cut through a bulkhead, "what the hell do you think you're doing?!" When neither responded he lowered his voice but was still harsh. "We are on the same team here. Let's not forget that!"

"Of course, *Commander*," said Jenna, with just a trace of mockery. She bent to pick up her phaser, not seeing the look that passed between Chakotay and Torres. The Chief of Engineering saw a plea for peace in her commander's eyes.

"Harry," Chakotay turned away from Torres, "are you still showing no life signs?"

"Only our own, Commander," Harry responded after a brief check.

"I guess that changes our mandate from scouting for *survivors*, doesn't it Chakotay?" Torres asked, still feeling angry at herself for having lost her temper with Jenna.

Chakotay reached out a hand to help Harry up. Casting light around the dark corridor revealed little but the promise of more bodies.

"Our purpose here is reconnaissance for spare parts, Lieutenant," Chakotay responded coolly, thinking that the last thing he needed was to have Torres come apart on him, "so let's find Engineering."

*****

The first thing Harry noticed about Engineering on the Kolavs was that it was hot. The temperature was several degrees above what it had been in the corridors. The atmosphere seemed more dense. While he tried to convince himself it was the humidity, Harry scanned the air.

"Commander," he called, "the air in here is contaminated with plasma probably from that leak we detected from Voyager."

"Understood," Chakotay acknowledged although he didn't make any move to leave. "B'Elanna!"

Torres had moved swiftly into the room and was buzzing around the terminals testing out the consoles, checking for power, or for an access port for the portable generator she'd been lugging around. She only grunted in response to Chakotay's call.

"B'Elanna, is there any way we can stop that leak?"

Torres didn't miss a beat, her fingers flying over the consoles and then her fist crashing down with frustration.

"Negative," she told Chakotay, "It's much too big, and it's been at it for some time. This whole place is really unstable. It wouldn't take much to crack open the generator conduits and set the whole room on fire. Hell, with all the leakage floating around in the air the whole ship might just blow."

She spoke so calmly that Chakotay stared at her with amazement. Instinctively he glanced around the room taking note of where the other two members of the team were. Jenna was on the far side, near a wall; Harry was examining the conduits, the very conduits that Torres so casually spoke of causing the engine to explode.

"How much would it take? Should we..."

Torres paused for a moment to look at Chakotay with some amusement. He looked so concerned.

"Don't worry, Commander, it would take sustained phaser fire, or some other intense heat to get it going. We're safe for the moment. As long as you can keep Ensign Looking for a Fight in line so she doesn't decide to shoot me."

Chakotay put a light hand on Torres' wrist.

"You know I count on to you deal with that..." he began. Torres pulled her hand away, resenting his burden.

"Why does she have to be so difficult? What has she got against me?"

"B'Elanna, she's filled with anger. You're not her target, you're just a convenient excuse to let it out. The person she wants to rattle is me. Let's not let her, OK?"

Harry joined them, folding his tricorder shut. If he'd heard their low conversation he showed no sign. He looked miserable.

"B'Elanna, I checked out some of the circuitry in the panel next to the main generator. Everything is coated with some kind of material. None of it is salvageable."

"None? As in nothing?" Torres was incredulous.

"What is this material?" asked Chakotay.

"I'm not sure," Kim responded, "It seems almost like......rust. But it's more......slimy."

"Slimy?!" exclaimed Torres and Chakotay at the same time. Torres moved over to where Harry had made his discovery. While she examined the circuits and then moved to examine other parts of the main computer Chakotay tried to get a grasp on what Harry had said.

"Do you mean that none of it is useful? Can't we remove this material?"

"Maybe," Kim sounded doubtful, like he was only considering the possibility because Chakotay was his superior officer. "But it has broken down the pathways. No information can travel along the circuits. I could be wrong, but I think that these components are in even worse shape than the ones we already have."

Torres was moving quickly around the Engineering room now, cursing loudly in frustration. She stopped abruptly as she stepped into the beam of light coming from Jenna's wrist. The ensign was watching her with that same cold resentful expression. Torres laughed shortly and without amusement.

"No survivors Chakotay!" she sang out bitterly, "No DAMN PARTS EITHER!"

The three of them looked at Chakotay expectantly. They are waiting for me to make some kind of decision, he realized, but what kind of decision is there to make? No contact with Voyager, no Cerijans to save, no parts to take back.....only mysteries.

"Let's get out of here before we breathe too many toxic fumes," he said abruptly. They herded towards the door, slowly, suddenly without purpose.

*****

Out in the corridor with the doors to Engineering firmly closed behind them Chakotay hesitated. He hated the thought of returning to Voyager with nothing to show for their efforts, not even an explanation of what the heck had happened on this ship. He wasn't all too sure on how he was going to get the team back to Voyager either.

"This is a transport ship," Chakotay said. "It is possible that there might be something in the cargo bays that could be useful."

"If we can't access the computer how will we find out what the manifest is?" asked Jenna.

There was a pause.

"Oh my," Torres said, stifling a laugh. She was still trying to get over her loss of the components.

"Can you think of another approach?" asked Chakotay. "Can *you* access the computer to get at the manifest?" He'd meant it to be teasing but in the darkness his frustration at their situation made his tone clipped.

"Lead on, Commander!" snapped Torres, frustrated as well.

Harry and Jenna watched the exchange in silence. Finally Harry stepped in between the pair.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"The only way to discover what's in the cargo bays without a manifest is to..."

"....go to the cargo bays," finished Harry, suddenly understanding.

The three of them turned to head deeper into the ship, leaving a stunned Jenna standing outside Engineering.

"You can't be serious!" she cried, when they continued walking.

"I'm open to all suggestions, Kalmos," Chakotay called back, wearily.

"Commander, this ship is .... enormous! It'll take us days to search the cargo bays!"

"All the more reason to get started," was the commander's reply. Then, as Jenna still hadn't moved, he stopped and turned back. "Let's stick together please, Ensign."

*****

Janeway stared at the report without reading the words. It wasn't as though she hadn't read it several times already. Lieutenant Carey had not been so bold as to say it outright, but it was obvious from the way he worded his findings that he believed the reason for the loss of life signs, indeed for the absolute *lack* of life signs, was that the away team had been killed as soon as they beamed aboard the other ship.

Janeway was not quite ready to accept that as a possibility but her own analysis of Carey's data was not coming up with any alternatives.

When trying to remember how they had come to this point, she couldn't even remember Chakotay's words to her. Something about making an attempt to help any survivors on the ship adrift. Something about giving them favours with the Cerijans. And what had been Torres' argument? The Chief Engineer had been itching to get over there to find some spare parts. Spare parts that would relieve the pressure of getting Voyager up and running smoothly once again. Pressure placed on her by Janeway.

If it came right down to it, Janeway couldn't even remember giving the order that set the mission in motion. How had she phrased it? "Assemble an away team Commander!" or perhaps just "Do it!"? Had she given any thought at all to their possible deaths when he signalled to Kim and Torres to leave their stations on the bridge and follow him? She did know one thing. As he walked towards the turbolift with his companions she had not spared him a glance. She had been peering over the shoulder of Tom Paris while the lieutenant pointed out the failing orbit of the other ship.

Janeway had been responsible for the deaths of crew in the past. She had given orders that resulted in people under her command dying. But she could not recall a time when she had done such an act so casually. All deaths of her officers hurt her yet she could not recall a time when their loss had burned so deeply.

The door on Janeway's ready room beeped at her and she tossed Carey's report back down to her desk.

"Come in!" she commanded the door. Tuvok strode into the room.

"Captain. You have finished reading Lieutenant Carey's analysis?" Although Tuvok phrased it as a question he knew full well the answer.

"And what do you think, Mr. Tuvok?" asked Janeway.

"According to the data collected by Mr. Carey, it would seem that the away team has been ... lost." Tuvok hesitated with his phrasing.

"According to this," Janeway gestured to the report she'd been trying so hard to read, "the away team is *dead*." She did not hesitate with her choice of words. She got up from her desk and walked around to the front to stand nose to nose with Tuvok. "But what if this information is not accurate."

"Captain, the probability of Mr. Carey's report not showing the correct data is ...."

"It's not Lieutenant Carey's errors that I'm worried about, Tuvok," Janeway interrupted him. "It's the possibility that the sensors are not showing us what's *really* happening over there."

"That I cannot calculate," Tuvok responded after a moment.

"No, neither can I," Janeway added softly.

*****

"Here's another useless one," Torres slammed the lid back on the crate with a defeated sigh. There was a crash behind her as Chakotay and Kim dropped their crate. Kim gave B'Elanna a sheepish guilty smile in her beam of light.

"Whatever that is, it is now broken," Chakotay announced, pulling apart the container.

"Don't worry B'Elanna, it looks like it's .... ammunition," Harry said.

'Why does everyone make this out to be *my* quest?' wondered B'Elanna, angrily. Almost as quickly as the anger flared it was diffused. She had made it personal. They were just trying to give her what she wanted.

Jenna appeared around the corner of the shelves.

"Just weapons," she said.

Chakotay sat back on a crate he and Kim had already examined. It was hard not to be discouraged. He resisted the urge to hit his communications badge.

"It would appear that these Cerijans were gun runners," he said, rubbing his face with fatigue. It was daunting to imagine this huge ship filled with weaponry. Jenna lifted up one of the high powered rifles from the first crate. Sadly, Chakotay realized she knew her way around the weapon with ease.

"Let's try the next one," Torres suggested. "Maybe they were carrying separate cargo for multiple customers."

*****

The second meeting of the senior staff on Voyager was longer, but no less controlled by emotion. Tuvok listened to the voices of the officers with dispassion. They were all thinking with their hearts. It was not logical.

Janeway was trying not to be distracted by the thought that she might be looking at her new senior officers: Tuvok filling the role of the First Officer, Ensign Rogin instead of Harry Kim, and Carey, in B'Elanna Torres' seat. All of them good officers, just not the ones she wanted to see at the moment.

"What if I take a shuttle...." Tom Paris was saying, only to be interrupted by Tuvok.

"A shuttle would not be able to maneuver in the pull from the moon."

Tom's expression said that he'd like to see some little energy field *try* to outmaneuver him, but his mouth closed and he offered no argument.

"Could we send another group to the Kolavs?" suggested Rogin, timidly.

"Without knowing more about what happened to Commander Chakotay's team that would be unwise," Tuvok told her. "We may very well be sending another group to their deaths."

"How are we going to know what happened to them?" asked Paris, his voice rising a little with frustration. "If the sensors were working better...."

"I'm doing the best I can!" snapped a frazzled Carey.

"Gentlemen!" Janeway raised a hand. They were silent, looking to her for some suggestions. She did not offer any.

"Captain," began Tuvok, "I strongly recommend we do not send another team to the Kolavs."

"We can't just leave them there!" cried Paris, alarmed and angry at Tuvok's damned Vulcan indifference.

"Mr. Paris, if Lieutenant Carey's information is accurate, there is no 'them' to leave."

Paris half rose from his seat as though to argue the point physically with the Security chief. But one look from the captain made him sit down again.

"I am not ready to just .... give up on them, Mr. Tuvok." Janeway's voice was like ice. "Not without knowing what happened to them."

'So emotional, so illogical' thought Tuvok.

"Mr. Tuvok," said Janeway, "what if we sent an away team to the moon's surface? If we could discover the source of that energy, perhaps we could disable it. Maybe our chances of discovering what happened on the Kolavs would increase if we could get closer. If we *could* send a shuttle...."

"Captain," Carey's voice was small, "to get within transporter range of the moon.... Well, I just don't think we have the power right now without getting trapped ourselves."

"Well then," Janeway said, leaning forward on the table slightly, "that is now your priority Lieutenant."

The captain stood up to glance briefly out of the view portal before circling her chair to gaze at the computer console displaying all the data Tuvok had collected on the moon.

"Mr. Tuvok," she spoke clearly and she thought very carefully about what she was saying; if she had to later she wanted to be sure she'd remember this time. "Assemble an away team to survey the moon. Let's see if we can disrupt that energy long enough for us to make a more thorough examination of the Kolavs. Make it as small a team as you think is required."

"Yes, Captain," Tuvok acknowledged.

*****

Chakotay and his team had unsuccessfully ransacked several of the cargo bays and were making their way back along the length of the ship in the general direction of the bridge. Torres wasn't even sure she could find the bridge anyway she felt so turned around. Their current deck was one above the main cargo area, but she was pretty sure it was at least one below the bridge deck. There weren't as many storage areas on this one.

The team shuffled slowly with fatigue. Chakotay felt sick with worry. How was he going to get them off this ship? Somewhere along the way of their search in the cargo bays, he'd given up on finding any parts for Voyager and started looking for something, anything that would help them reestablish communications. Having failed at raiding the Kolavs' cargo Chakotay was guiding the group back towards the bridge.

Morale was quite low at the moment as they'd just made the discovery of a shuttle bay, only to find the shuttle's systems rendered completely dysfunctional by the same rust-like substance that had attacked the circuits in Engineering.

"A ship this size and only one shuttle!" Torres had grumbled, kicking the panel so hard it fell off its hinges.

Chakotay shone his light around the gloom of the next room along the corridor.

"It's a Mess Hall," he commented, trying to think of how this could be an advantage.

"Is there any food?" asked Harry, moving past Chakotay to explore the large chamber. There was a series of small storage compartments along one side of the room. They appeared to have entered through the back door to the galley.

"I think it's unlikely you'll find something still edible, Harry," Torres called after him. He continued rummaging in the cupboards he'd found. Torres sat down on one of the benches, too tired to even be curious. Jenna had lost her defiant posture to weariness as she sat on the floor with her back against the wall and shut her eyes.

Chakotay found the water.

Harry scanned it only briefly to ensure that it was not contaminated. He rooted around the galley some more until finding some containers to hold the liquid. They returned to Torres and Jenna. The team sat together, drinking in silence.

Chakotay regarded them thoughtfully. Jenna, with her knees drawn up in a defensive manner, had leaned her head back on the wall, eyes closed. Torres had stretched full out on her bench, her chin resting on her hands, eyes drooping. Kim's hands were fumbling with his gear, his body slouched down in his seated position.

"We need a break," said Chakotay, "Let's rest here for a bit before continuing."

That was the last thing Torres remembered before falling asleep.

When she awoke Torres was at first completely disoriented. Why was it so dark? Her mouth was half open to call the computer to raise the lights when she remembered where she was. Pushing herself up from the bench she looked around for her companions. Someone, Chakotay perhaps, had hung his wrist light on the wall, so that it cast a slight glow around them.

Jenna was asleep, curled in a fetal position near the wall. Harry was flat on his back, snoring lightly. Chakotay sat opposite Torres, as if he was sharing a meal with her. She swung her legs underneath the table and faced him.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked.

"Keeping watch," he answered softly.

Torres rubbed her stiff neck; then her eyes. She still felt exhausted.

"Keeping watch on a dead ship?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Something killed this ship B'Elanna, we still don't know what that something was," was his quiet response. She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air temperature.

"How long have we been over here?"

"Almost 33 hours," he replied, without needing to check his chronometer. "I've been attempting to contact Voyager at regular intervals. Nothing."

"Chakotay...." she wanted to ask but she didn't want to know his answer. He wouldn't lie to her, so maybe it was better not asking him what he thought their chances of survival were if they couldn't regain communications. "What were you thinking?" she asked instead.

"I was just sitting here thinking that I'd give just about anything to hear the captain's voice over my comm badge," he told her with a sad smile.

"I know what you mean," she said softly, "I can think of a few voices I'd like to hear myself."

"This ship -- it's beginning to really bother me," he confessed with the hint of a chuckle.

"*Beginning* to?" questioned Torres, "It's been pissing me off from the moment we got here!"

Chakotay smiled with some amusement now. His calm face was reassuring to Torres. She'd been in some pretty tight spots with this man in the past and they'd made it. They just might make it from this one too.

"We have a ship with no power to its major systems, adrift in space, caught in the orbit of a moon, and a dead crew. Why?"

Torres shrugged, then winced as the muscles in her neck tightened. She rubbed them again.

"Some freak accident in Engineering puts their power offline and...."

"And then there's this odd material that has broken down the circuits," interrupted Chakotay. "Where did that come from? What *is* it?"

"Well," Torres started to find an explanation but finding she had none, shut her mouth abruptly.

"And the strange energy readings from all over the ship. Where are they coming from?"

She just looked at him, not even attempting to reason it out.

"But what bothers me the most is *what happened to the crew*?"

"Chakotay, a ship with no power is a sitting duck for all kinds of deadly situations," Torres told him.

"So *where* are they?" he asked, his expression thoughtful, "We've run into several bodies but no where near the amount that would be, that *should* be on a ship this size."

"Maybe they didn't need a big crew," she suggested. "Maybe we're equating big ship with big crew."

"B'Elanna," he tilted his head slightly, "look at the size of this room. This is their Mess Hall. And don't forget the laundry room we found on the lower deck. It was huge. And what about all the quarters on the bridge deck? Numerous.....but all *empty*. Where did all those people go?"

Torres began to feel very uneasy. Obviously, Chakotay had been thinking about these mysteries for some time. So while even Jenna had relaxed into a comfortable ease around the ship, Chakotay remained alert, on edge, nervous, awake, watching over them as they slept. Watching and pondering questions to which he had no answers. He brought his hands up to his face, rubbing his forehead lightly.

"I don't know, Chakotay," she whispered.

"B'Elanna," he asked, "do you think we could use our generator to access the computers on the bridge?"

"Chakotay, we tried that already and the circuits are fried," she said impatiently.

"No, we didn't try," he came back just as impatiently, "we just assumed it wouldn't work."

"That's because it *won't* work! That ... that substance has destroyed everything!" Her voice was growing louder so he placed a gentle hand on her arm. No need to wake the other two before it was necessary.

"But what about the bridge? I don't remember seeing any of the substance on the consoles there, just a jumble of equipment with no power."

Torres tried to remember the bridge. Their arrival seemed so long ago.

"Neither do I," she agreed, "but then, we weren't looking for it either."

"Do you think you could get some access from the terminals there? With our generator? Maybe boost our communicators?" He was almost pleading with her.

"Oh Chakotay, I don't know. I mean....." She wanted to tell him she could fix the situation, but she wasn't feeling particularly confident.

"B'Elanna," Chakotay said, low, earnestly, "there is no way that Voyager would leave us over here without contact for this long under normal circumstances. We *need* to reestablish communications."

He let her ponder that sobering thought for a moment, wishing he could keep all his fears and doubts to himself, rather than imposing them on the others.

"Would the equipment in Engineering be more useful?" he asked, when she didn't say anything.

Torres shook her head emphatically.

"No, absolutely not."

"I'd like to get us back to the bridge regardless," he said, standing up and stretching. She could hear joints cracking under protest. "That's the first place Voyager will look for us."

"How do you know that?" she asked, coming slowly to her feet.

"Because that's where we were the last time they saw us," was his reply.

*****

The sleepy ensigns yawned and rubbed their eyes while trying to become alert. Torres and Chakotay rattled around the galley gathering up some water containers to take with them.

"What was that?" asked Torres, pausing for a moment. Chakotay secured the lid on a canteen.

"What?" he asked. There was silence for a moment.

"Nothing," mumbled Torres, "I just thought I heard something."

The water collected, they returned to their companions to collect the other gear. Torres dreaded carrying the generator; it chafed against her shoulder and it chafed against her brain while she tried to come up with ideas for making it useful. So when Harry picked up the generator and slung it over his shoulder, B'Elanna did not complain. Chakotay retrieved his wrist light from the wall.

"Everyone set?" he confirmed. "Then let's try the door on the far side. It looks like the main entrance to the room. I think that way we can cut out some of the twists and turns of the corridor."

The group moved sluggishly across the Mess Hall. Even without all of the mysterious questions that Chakotay had raised the ship *was* spooky, Torres decided. It was so dark, with their lights flashing around; four beams of brightness penetrating a sea of blackness. All they could see were tables and benches. Empty and covered with that weird substance.

The only sound was Chakotay's tricorder, as he led the way. That and the scuffing of their boots on the floor which sounded disproportionately loud in the large room.

Chakotay was nearly across the room when they heard another noise. It was coming from the ceiling, perhaps in the air circulation filters. Whatever it was, it was in motion; it was big and it was loud. Their four beams of light scanned the roof of the Mess Hall revealing nothing. Harry moved to get his tricorder but Torres was quicker.

"Chakotay," she called, "there's a buildup of that energy we encountered when we first came on board."

The commander was still examining the ceiling with his light and tricorder, trying to estimate where the noise was and figure out what had caused it. Torres felt her skin prickle. This was not right. This was bad.

"Maybe in the corridor..." Chakotay was saying, turning back to face the door.

He'd only taken a few more steps in that direction when a long tentacle snapped down from the ceiling like a whip, grabbing Chakotay by the midsection and yanking him up. His head hit the roof hard; he saw stars. The tentacle had snaked around him several times, squeezing his chest as though trying to force all the air from his lungs. He brought his hands up to claw uselessly at it, his fingers grasping but not relieving the pressure.

His light, which had been casting its beam frantically about the room, hit another arm of the creature; this one had a row of teeth. Chakotay knew only fear and pain while he tried to fend off this new attack. He succeeded in pushing it away only to have it return, attaching itself to his neck with a searing pain. If he'd had the breath to gasp he would have cried out.

Faintly, as though from far away, he thought he could hear the others. Then a bright flash tore through the darkness in front of him. But the phaser fire brought no relief from his attack.

Suddenly he felt another burning pain rip through him and he fell from the ceiling, hitting the floor with a resounding thump as his body crumpled.

*****

Janeway sat at the conference table. She looked thoughtfully at the empty seat to her left. She could go to the bridge, but there wasn't anything for her to do except get in the way and gaze thoughtfully at the empty seat to her left there as well. She'd already been down to Engineering but had quickly realized that her presence there was detrimental to Carey's work. This inactivity was grating on her nerves. She was a woman who liked action. She liked to be in control. She did not like to feel as helpless and unsure as she did right now.

She felt an urge to talk to someone about her feelings but found her options limited. Tuvok, her oldest friend on Voyager, was not a good choice for pouring out one's feelings, even supposing he wasn't otherwise occupied with getting an away team prepped. Kes? Talking to her would feel too much like consulting a ship's counselor and Janeway didn't need that. She needed a friend. She needed a shoulder, if only figuratively. She needed someone to tell her she'd made the right decision, to not blame herself, to not second guess herself. She needed Chakotay.

Irrationally she felt that if he were only here in the room with her then everything could be handled. Everything would be alright. He wouldn't even have to say a word; he just had to *be* here.

They hadn't had a lot of time recently for their long chats. It had been mostly ship's business. She remembered seeking him out for a talk last week. It had been the first time in a long time and it had been a disaster....

Kathryn paced in her quarters. The day's work accomplished, reports read, decisions made, nothing to do but wait for another day to begin so she could do it all over again. She was restless. She considered hailing Chakotay and then paused for a moment in her pacing.

Drumming her fingers lightly on her desk she decided another approach. "Computer!" The familiar beep as the computer acknowledged her. "Locate Commander Chakotay!"

Then the soothing reassurance of that know-it-all synthetic female voice:

"Commander Chakotay is in the hydroponics bay."

The garden? He was in the garden? What was he doing there? Satisfying her curiousity might satisfy her restlessness as well. Janeway left her quarters heading for a turbo lift.

Entering the garden Janeway could immediately hear voices even if she couldn't spot her First Officer.

"Why does it have to be so hot in here?" Chakotay was asking, laughing.

"Commander, it *is* a green house. The heat helps things grow faster," Kes told him. Then she laughed too, realizing that he'd been teasing her. "If you hadn't just been exercising you wouldn't be so hot," she added.

Janeway hung back, now that she'd found him she was reluctant to make her presence known. What right did she have to intrude on his personal time? He must have come straight from some exercise, judging from his clothing.

"You are probably right," he agreed. "What did you need me ....?" The question was cut off by a cry of surprise as Kes turned the hose on him laughing with delight.

"That feel a bit cooler, Commander?" she asked with a broad smile. Chakotay let out a loud laugh, and shook himself sending drops of water flying.

Janeway didn't often get to see members of her crew acting so free of care, so relaxed. Even in off duty activities, whenever she participated there remained a certain stiffness to their behaviour and certain deference to protocol. She hadn't see Chakotay so relaxed since....

"What do you think of the tomatoes?" Kes asked him. Chakotay reached out to touch the plants gently. He didn't say anything seeming lost in thought. "Commander?"

Suddenly Janeway realized what she was doing. Had she really been reduced to spying on her crew? She turned to go, but in her haste her hip hit the table and the corner plant fell to the floor, breaking and spilling dirt on her feet. She immediately crouched down her hands flying uselessly above the broken pot as though she could will it whole again. Kes and Chakotay turned immediately at the sound.

"Captain? I didn't hear you come in," Kes said, in her soft way. She sensed Janeway's unease and falsely attributed it to the broken plant. She crouched down beside the captain. "Don't worry, the stem hasn't broken. It just needs a new pot." Kes glanced up at Chakotay who had also come over and stood now, behind the captain. Kes laid a hand on Janeway's arm to reassure her. "I'll just get another one, you'll see."

"Are you OK?" asked Chakotay, when Janeway didn't rise after Kes's departure.

Dusting the dirt from her hands Janeway rose slowly and turned to face her First Officer. She felt very embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping, but he still had the relaxed easy manner she just been witnessing with Kes. He was running his hands through his wet hair, as if trying to wipe the water away. He gave her a smile.

"I'm sorry Commander," Janeway said abruptly and strode swiftly out of the garden. Surprised, Chakotay went to follow her and stepped down hard on the plant still lying on the floor.

"Commander!" Kes scolded as she returned with a new pot.

Chakotay looked down at his clumsy feet with a guilty face.

"I'm sorry Kes," he said sincerely, "but I have to go."

Even jogging down the corridor he almost didn't catch her. She must have been doing her "command march" to get to the turbo lift in such a short time.

"Captain!" he called, thinking she might hold the lift for him. As it was he squeezed in just in time to have the doors closed. She looked annoyed, as though it was the lift's fault that he had made it.

"Bridge!" she commanded, out of habit. She didn't really want to go to the bridge, but it seemed like the safest destination.

"What's the matter?" Chakotay asked, with a little laugh, hoping to break down the wall of defense he saw around her. The look she gave him could have frozen the drops of water still dripping from his hair into tiny icicles. "Halt lift!" he called to the computer. Now her annoyed look turned on him. He returned it with a frank, appraising stare.

"What is the matter?" he asked again.

"Playing hoverball with Torres again?" she asked, surprising him. He felt off balance a little.

"Yes," he answered, "And then Kes asked me for my opinion..."

"Did Torres beat you?" interrupted Janeway. There was a pause.

"Yes, she did as a matter of fact," Chakotay admitted with a resigned smile.

"Good," Janeway said softly with some satisfaction. Then, "Computer! Resume!"

"Did you need me for something Captain?" Chakotay asked. When she didn't reply he halted the lift again.

"Commander, do you mind?" she snapped at him.

"Why did you come to the garden?" he asked. "Were you looking for Kes? Or for me?"

Yes, what was she doing? Janeway asked herself. She tracked the man down with the computer and sought him out only to .... flee the scene.

"Commander, what you do with your off-duty time is your business," she told him.

"It's not like you could lose me," he teased. "The computer always knows where I am." His inference being that she, also, would always know.

"Computer! Resume! Er, officer's quarters this time," she added, deciding that she really didn't want to go to the bridge, especially not with Chakotay, still dripping, beside her. She avoided his questioning gaze.

"Kat....Captain," Chakotay reached out to lightly touch her chin, bringing her face up to look at him. She slowly pulled away.

"Enjoy the rest of your evening Commander," she told him, more curtly than she intended, as she exited the lift.

"You too Captain," he said, following her, but more slowly. She strode quickly away from him. "You know where I am if you need me," he called out after her. Her fists clenched.

Now, in the empty room, Janeway wished she had turned to him and told him the truth, that she wanted to talk. That she *had* sought him out, for some companionship, for some fun, for some relaxing moments. And that she had frozen because of her embarrassment over the eavesdropping, the witness of the playful banter between he and Kes, the breaking of the pot....

"Computer!" she called to the empty room in a cracked voice. "Locate Commander Chakotay!"

And then the cold unfeeling impersonal answer:

"Commander Chakotay is not aboard Voyager."

*****

When the creature attacked Chakotay, his team was slow to react. Lulled into a false security by the emptiness of the ship thus far, and still dozy from their brief sleep, they had been caught with their guard down. While Chakotay's arms flailed about in a useless effort to release the creature's grip on him, his light flashed across the stricken faces of the others. They scrambled around hampered by the benches and tables and the darkness. Torres dropped her tricorder to grab at her phaser; Harry already had his raised but was blinded by Chakotay's light. Reflexes took over causing Torres to slap uselessly at her comm badge.

"Voyager! Emergency beam out!"

There was no response, no comforting tingle of the transporter's energy surrounding them.

"Can you get a shot?" cried Jenna to Kim.

"No!" called back Harry, "I can't see! I can't see!"

Torres tried to keep her arm steady in order to maximize the light shining on Chakotay. She saw the other tentacle before the others did. As the commander's arm struck out defensively Torres felt her face splattered with some kind of oily liquid.

"Bah!" she spluttered, shaking her head.

Then Jenna fired upwards, into the air vent from which the tentacles dangled. Harry's phaser added its power to the fight. The creature, whatever it was, glowed briefly but showed no sign of releasing its captive. If anything it appeared stronger than ever, more determined to break the commander's body.

Harry shouted at Jenna to cease fire as their phaser power was not affecting the creature as expected. Torres saw Jenna's arm lower to aim at the tentacle holding Chakotay to the ceiling.

"No!" she screamed at the ensign, "You'll hit Chakotay!"

Jenna did not even hesitate, merely fired again, slicing the tentacle diagonally where it held the commander's chest. He was released, falling heavily to the floor. The three of them crouched, weapons raised to the ceiling while they heard the rumble of the creature's retreat.

Torres scrambled over benches and tables to reach Chakotay, who hadn't moved since falling. Turning him over she found that he still had the appendage wrapped tightly around him.

"Chakotay?" she called to him, trying to untangle the snake-like alien from his body. She finally ripped it fully away, tossing it as far as she could from them. Harry arrived then, breathing heavily, to lend his hand and his light.

The commander's shoulder was bleeding badly from Jenna's phaser wound. His head was also bleeding from where it had struck the ceiling. Most disturbing of all, however, were the blistering red marks on his neck, where the second tentacle had struck.

Seeing the damage to his neck Torres wiped some of the substance from her cheeks. It did not feel like it was burning her skin. Her fingers fumbled with her tricorder, holding it over the commander's wounds.

"Harry! We need to get something to bandage this shoulder."

"Back in the cupboards." Harry was moving across the room before the words had formed on his lips.

Torres continued reading the tricorder with shaky hands, all the while urging Chakotay to be alright in a low but insistent voice.

"Is he dead?" Jenna's blunt question cut into B'Elanna's chant. The ensign came to stand by Chakotay's head, her light harshly illuminating the commander's bruised face.

"He's badly hurt," Torres told her shortly, "No thanks to you."

"Hey! If it weren't for me he *would* be dead right now!"

B'Elanna ignored her. She didn't fully trust herself to deal with Jenna at the moment but she didn't want to waste the energy fighting the ensign either.

Harry returned with some cloths; the two of them worked quickly to stem the flow of blood and wrap the wound. Harry picked up the tricorder from where B'Elanna had laid it on Chakotay's stomach.

"It's bad," Torres said, her voice low. Harry couldn't disagree. He snapped the tricorder shut.

"B'Elanna," he tried to find something positive, "it's not a medical tricorder..."

"...it doesn't have to be!" finished Torres. But before they could argue that point, Chakotay's eyes opened and he gave a little gasp. Immediately Kim and Torres leaned over him.

"Chakotay?" Torres asked. The commander blinked in the brightness of Jenna's light. He brought up his left hand to tentatively feel his neck.

"Is it gone?" he asked hoarsely.

"It's gone," Torres reassured him.

He closed his eyes again, mentally taking stock of how he felt. And he didn't feel very well at all.

As waves of dizziness swept over him he was suddenly strangely reminded of a time when he was just a child and his father had taken him on one of his infernal natural trips, this one into the Rocky Mountains. Chakotay had forgotten more of what his father had tried to teach him than he remembered, but this trip came back to his mind easily. They had been watching bears. Just a small boy, Chakotay had been afraid of the awesome power of the animals, but his father told him that as long as they respected them the bears would not attack. Do not come between a mother bear and her cub, Chakotay, his father had said with one of his wise nods. Chakotay had thought then that the best distance to keep would have been back at home, where there were no bears and where it wasn't as cold. But he had not said this to Kolopak.

Shocked back to the present by the sharp pain in his shoulder Chakotay felt very strongly that they had to leave this place. They hadn't shown any respect for this new and powerful animal. They had not respected its space, nor its strength. And if they were anywhere near its young, then the attack had just begun.

If he could focus on keeping the pain at bay, he could get them to the bridge. They had to get to the bridge. It represented some measure of safety for them now. This was the only goal he could set at the moment.

"Let's go," he said, trying to push himself up with his good arm. He would have fallen back, but for Kim's strong arms which moved in suddenly to support him.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Torres told him, worried.

"If you have another idea," Chakotay pushed up again and this time, with Kim's help, he made it to his feet. "I'd certainly like to hear it." He leaned heavily on the ensign, feeling dizzy and sick. "We have to leave here. We have to get out of this room."

"What is the point?" asked Jenna, in her pessimistic way.

"We are going to the bridge," Chakotay ordered, through clenched teeth. His body swayed slightly causing Harry to reach around him with a strong arm for support.

"I'll help you," Harry told him, "Lean on me."

Torres collected their gear, including two full water canteens, some more cloths, and their generator. She held out her tricorder, about to scan the darkness ahead.

"No!" Chakotay cried, startling her. "No tricorder."

"But Chakotay..." she began to protest.

"We've been in the room for hours with nothing happening," he interrupted. "Then we start scanning and that thing appears. Shut it off!" he ordered.

Torres quickly complied, then led the way out of the Mess Hall. Harry and Chakotay hobbled behind her. Jenna brought up the rear, phaser ever at hand for a shot at the mysterious creature.

In the corridor on the far side of the Mess Hall Chakotay's question on what happened to the Kolavs' crew was finally answered. Bodies filled the hallway, some stacked three or four high. It made navigation difficult; as Torres tried to clear a path for the others she felt her stomach begin to lurch. Some of the bodies were worse than others, but they were all long dead, their uniforms nothing more than rags clinging to what was left of flesh and bones.

Around one corner they came to one of the side ladders. Here Torres paused to give Chakotay a break. He wasn't doing very well she could see. Even in the chill of the atmosphere sweat was dripping from his chin and despite trying to keep his shoulder immobilized, it had begun to bleed again.

The ladder was narrow; they would have to go one at a time.

"I'll go first," she said, "then Chakotay and then Harry. Harry, be careful. He could hurt you if he lands on your head."

'Understood," Harry agreed, trying to smile. It was hard to make light of their situation.

"B'Elanna," breathed Chakotay, his eyes drooping. "The bodies....."

"Yes, I know!" she said, wanting to forget she'd ever seen them, wishing she had not been forced to wade through them.

"That creature was using them," he mumbled, "to make a nest."

"Unless you want to become another brick in its blockade I suggest we continue," Jenna said catching up with them. "Because I'm pretty sure that creature is not so far away."

"You OK?" Torres asked Chakotay.

"Go!" Chakotay told her, "I'll follow."

Torres swung up the ladder to the Bridge deck. After checking briefly that no threat awaited them she called down for Chakotay to follow.

Getting the Chakotay up that ladder was the hardest thing Kim could imagine doing. The commander was moving slowly, hooking his good elbow on every rung to pull himself upwards. But he had paused about three quarters of the way up and he hadn't been able to continue. It wasn't helping to have Jenna's impatience hovering around the bottom of the ladder either. Harry was beginning to think it was an impossible feat and he would have to pull Chakotay down and carry the big man further down the corridor away from the Mess Hall, when Torres reached down and yanked the commander by the armpits, half hauling him over the top of the ladder. Kim stood on the ladder, amazed at her strength.

Chakotay cried out in pain, but did not chastise his friend. He lay on the Bridge deck floor for a moment reevaluating his goals. Maybe just staying here would be the best thing. He didn't really need to get to the Bridge, did he? As long as the others made it there.

Suddenly Chakotay felt his muscles stiffen and contract. Vaguely in the distance he could hear B'Elanna talking to him but he was only aware of pain rippling through his body from his toes right up to the top of his head.

Harry's face popped up the top of the ladder.

"What happened? Is he alright?" he asked B'Elanna, noticing that she'd pulled out her tricorder again, heedless of Chakotay's warning.

"I don't know!" she cried, upset, "He seems to have gone into some kind of seizure!"

By the time Jenna had joined them on the Bridge deck Chakotay's muscular contractions had passed. He stared up at the worried faces of his team. His left arm, sore and tired, lifted to again touch the blisters on his neck.

"That wasn't very fun," he mumbled.

"What happened?" asked Harry, more to Torres than to the commander, but it was Chakotay who answered.

"That thing....poisoned....me...."

"I'm not picking up anything in your system," Torres told him, meaning to reassure him, wishing she had some medical equipment. She remembered suddenly the oily liquid the creature had sprayed on her. It hadn't burned her, but it had caused blistering on Chakotay's neck. What if it had been injected into his bloodstream? What effect would that have on his system? What had killed all those Cerijans in the corridor? Had the creature broken their necks, or poisoned them?

"Come on," she said to Harry, abruptly snapping the tricorder shut, "let's get him to the bridge."

*****

Tom entered the captain's ready room without any plan for what he was going to do. The captain sat on her couch, with some work spread out on the table, but from Tom's view it didn't appear that she was working.

"Captain, Lieutenant Carey and his team estimate the engines will take at least another 6 hours to bring online at the strength required to fight the moon's pull," he told her.

"Did you come here to give me a status report, Lieutenant?" Janeway asked, dully. If she'd been angry, if she'd been crying, if she'd been showing any kind of emotion at all Tom could have dealt with it better. But this blankness he found very disconcerting. It wasn't the Janeway he was used to seeing.

He knew, of course, that she would be on top of Carey's repairs. Telling her about the Engineering crew was only an excuse to see how she was.

"I know it's not right," Tom's voice cracked slightly so he cleared his throat before continuing, "but I sometimes think that if only B'Elanna were here then the engines would already be back online."

She looked surprised, giving him a sad smile.

"And if only Harry were here we *would* be able to scan the Kolavs better," he added, thinking of his friends' efforts above and beyond the call of duty in the past.

"And if only Chakotay were here?" questioned Janeway softly.

Tom avoided her eyes, looked out the view portal instead.

"If only the Cerijans had not attacked us in the first place...."

"This is a dangerous game to play, Lieutenant!" Janeway's voice was sharp.

"You know, it would be easier if they'd died in the battle with the Cerijans," Tom said. Janeway's face went white, her mouth a disapproving line, but Tom was still looking at the stars. "If in the middle of the fight an explosion on the bridge had killed them."

"Paris!" Janeway snapped, but he turned to her, interrupting.

"That way we'd *know*. We'd know how and we'd know why. And we'd have a body we could see and we could touch. And we'd know. So then we could say goodbye and start to grieve." His voice was sad, almost pleading with her for permission to continue hoping that they wouldn't have to grieve just yet.

"There is that," she conceded finally, thinking about her four officers, suddenly envisioning them in coffin tubes ready to be launched into eternal space. She closed her eyes trying to block out the sight in her imagination.

Looking down on the table Tom saw a PADD with a photo of Ensign Kalmos. It was her personnel file, he realized. Janeway noticed his attention on the PADD and reached for it.

"I don't feel that I ... knew Ensign Kalmos all that well," she confessed. "There's not much here to help me with that," she added, putting the PADD back on the table.

Tom was a little surprised but not much. Knowing Chakotay and his style of dealing with people, it wasn't so extraordinary that no entries had made it into Jenna's personnel file. Probably Chakotay had hoped to curb the young woman's anger, to diffuse it, to wear it down even. Then there would be no need to have any black smudges on her career. Tom could see it from Chakotay's point of view, after all 70 years was a long time to have to work with someone. But Tom had also seen Jenna up close and personal and she was one nasty young woman. He wouldn't have been so forgiving in Chakotay's place.

Tom could remember the first time he realized Jenna was an angry one. He'd tried asking her out, of course, but that had gotten him nowhere. Not being one to be burnt again if he could help it, he'd left her alone. But something about her made him wonder if all her vinegar was just a mask for loneliness. And so he'd encouraged her to join in at one of the holodeck parties. What a mistake that had been....

Tom had been basking in the glow of Harry's praise of his programming, it *was* a good program really, when Jenna arrived. While just a moment before Tom soaked in the warm sunshine filtering through the trees, he now felt as though it might rain at any moment. Jenna was like that.

He could have dealt with her sourness, maybe even made her smile (Tom loved a challenge after all) if they hadn't gotten started on the Maquis. Tom was getting sick and tired of being the bad guy for both sides of argument so he felt defensive. It took him a moment to realize she wasn't criticizing him, or blaming him, or insulting *him*. No her problem was higher up. It was Chakotay.

It wasn't as though Tom had never bad mouthed a superior behind his back before. But the circumstances on Voyager made such tirades dangerous. The ship was small, the crew was tight and there was no place else to go. Chakotay was aware of just about everything that went on, of this Tom was certain. His own betting pools were only allowed to continue because of the benefits to morale. To have Jenna stand beside him, letting loose serious venom against the commander was just plain bad news. Any second now she was going to threaten to kill the former Maquis renegade. But Tom didn't know how to stop her.

"Good evening, Ensign, Paris," Chakotay said, from behind them. Tom nearly jumped out of his skin. Geez the commander was like a cat! For such a big man, Chakotay could move quietly and unobtrusively.

"Chakotay," Tom acknowledged, feeling his face flush. What the hell did he feel so guilty about? He'd just been listening.

Jenna said nothing. Nothing with her mouth that is. Her expression was quite openly hostile. She showed none of the shame Paris felt, not even at being caught.

"It's a nice program, Paris," Chakotay commented, and for a second Tom thought that maybe the commander hadn't heard any of Jenna's rant. "It's a shame to spoil the atmosphere with a political debate - don't you think Ensign?" Chakotay's voice was pleasant enough, but the look he gave Jenna was not so friendly. She did not appear to be daunted by it.

"I don't know how you work in the Maquis, but as far as I know Starfleet doesn't regulate personal opinions," she said coldly, turning on her heel and marching away. Tom winced.

Chakotay watched her retreat silently then gave Tom a long look. Tom suddenly found something at the bottom of his glass to be extremely interesting.

He might have forgotten about that except the very next day Jenna was scheduled to fill in for someone in Engineering. Tom wondered a little at the wisdom of putting someone so blatantly anti-Maquis under the rule of B'Elanna Torres, but then he realized that the duty roster would have been posted before Chakotay witnessed Jenna's torrent of abuse. Still it was not a happy situation. And it came as no surprise to Tom to see both B'Elanna and Jenna hauled into the commander's office just after lunch. He would have loved to witness that scene. As it was he got an abbreviated version from B'Elanna later while they ate dinner with Harry in the Mess Hall.

"Did Chakotay unleash his anger on the poor ensign?" asked Tom, baiting Torres. She gave him a cold look that said, 'Don't push it!'

"It's not Chakotay's style to take someone down in front of another officer," she said. Then she gave a small smile of satisfaction which she tried to hide. "But he did make it clear to her that her attitude was detrimental to her career advancement."

Tom's eyes sparkled with mischief and gossip.

"Oh really?"

Torres threw down her fork, suddenly not hungry anymore.

"He also tore a strip off *me* after Kalmos left the room."

Harry made a sympathetic noise. Being disciplined by senior officers reminded him a little of his parent's wrath when he'd done something bad as a child. But Tom was not so understanding. Tom had been in trouble a lot more than Harry.

"B'Elanna," he said disapprovingly, heedless of the dark look she shot him, "You threatened to throw her into the warp core! We just can't have our senior officers behaving in such an out of control fashion!" Tom was trying to mimic Chakotay but failing so badly that Torres burst out laughing.

"Something like that." She sighed. "Kalmos is so hard to take. I don't know how he does it."

"Infinite patience," suggested Harry.

"Infinite patience? " B'Elanna gave a little laugh, "Well, he does have more patience than anyone else I know."

"I think he's taken her on as a special project," Tom hypothesized. "I think he's made it his goal to turn her around."

"I think it bugs the hell out of him that she hates him so much," Torres stated. "And he's a bigger fool than any of us if he thinks he'll ever change that."

Somehow, little incidents like that hadn't been put into Jenna's personnel file. Tom wondered now, as he hesitated to tell the captain what he knew of Jenna Kalmos, if Chakotay had kept some kind of separate log for trouble cases like this. Something that he didn't want Starfleet to see, when they made it back to the Alpha Quadrant. Because he knew that Jenna had been in trouble with the commander on more than that occasion.

"I didn't know her very well either," Tom said, feeling that it was only part of a lie.

*****

Jenna paced in the small area like a caged animal. She was starting to get on B'Elanna's nerves as it became increasingly difficult to concentrate on the crude computer systems with all of Jenna's irritation building up behind the Chief Engineer. A quick glance at Harry made B'Elanna think the man was either oblivious to Jenna's annoying tirade or he had an enormous capacity for keeping his mind on his work.

Chakotay's eyes followed Jenna's path back and forth; if he'd had the strength to move he would have stopped her and tried to focus her energy on something more useful than wearing down a path on the deck. Unfortunately, he was not in a good position to be of much influence on her. He only hoped if it came to it she would remember the chain of command.

"We should *do* something!" Jenna said exasperated.

"Some of us *are* doing something," B'Elanna snapped, then she clenched her jaw, annoyed to have been so easily provoked again. Harry made some nondescript soothing noise while passing her a cable which she snatched from him with a low snarl.

"We should be tracking that ... that *thing* down and eliminating it before it comes to attack again!" Jenna stopped her pacing in front of Chakotay with a defiant posture. Her right hand lightly held her phaser, her left hand clamped down on her hip.

"Ensign," Chakotay's voice was soft but clear, "we did not come here to hunt and kill an unknown creature."

Jenna's expression was one of disbelief and disgust, B'Elanna decided. She was not surprised at Chakotay's attitude, unlike Jenna who pursued the matter.

"You say that even now, after it attacked and tried to kill you?"

B'Elanna would have loved to remind Jenna that Chakotay's shoulder had a hole in it at the hand of Ensign Shoot-em-up but just then she and Harry completed a successful connection of their portable power supply to the computer console. Finally they were getting somewhere.

"We know nothing about it. For all we know we wandered into the middle of its nest and it felt the need to defend its territory." Something in his voice distracted B'Elanna from her task.

"Maybe we know nothing about that creature, but it certainly didn't build this ship and set it adrift in orbit simply to *nest*," Jenna sneered. She would have continued but Chakotay cut her off.

"To kill for the sake of death alone is a hollow revenge. That is not our purpose here." His voice sounded clipped and strained. B'Elanna suspected he was in a lot more pain than he was showing.

"You, Maquis leader, don't know anything about revenge?" Jenna spat out. "You never kill? I find that hard to believe, Commander." She made the title sound like something ugly, something undeserved.

Chakotay closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on breathing which was becoming more and more painful. How did he get drawn into a political debate? Why did it always come down to this?

"What the hell do *you* know about the Maquis?" challenged B'Elanna, weary of listening to Jenna's attack.

She knew a lot more than B'Elanna realized, as Chakotay was well aware. He knew that Jenna, the only sister with five brothers, had been raised in an atmosphere of hate and distrust. For Jenna, whose mother had been killed when her daughter was only a small child, the word "terrorist" meant only one thing. She could have used a good role model in the midst of all that violence, instead she'd learned to fight and to kill in order to survive. But Chakotay wisely kept his opinions to himself and drew another painful breath to answer her.

"I've killed as a Maquis. And I've killed as a Starfleet officer. I've protected my home, my family, my friends....my fellow officers. And I would do so again. But ... I don't ... hunt." And I don't enjoy it either, he added silently to himself. He drew another shallow breath.

B'Elanna saw Chakotay wince, bringing her mind back to her task at hand. They had to restore communications and fast. Beside her, Harry flinched as sparks flew out of the wires he was connecting.

The console came to life filling the small space with an eerie artificial glow of light.

"We've got something!" she called out, excited. Some of her frustration left her. It was always satisfying to have something finally work.

Chakotay had pushed himself up to his feet and now leaned heavily on the console for support. So far, all that the computer was doing was providing some more light.

"Which system?" he asked, hopeful, "Communications?"

"I'm not sure," B'Elanna said, slowly, trying to coax more information out of the console. The Cerijans computers were not what she would call intuitive, but she'd cracked the codes of more difficult operating systems before.

The screen flickered a bit and then the form of a Cerijan head filled the space. The screen continued to flicker, but the sound was clear.

"....attempts to eradicate the pest have been unsuccessful. I have sent out a communications message warning the fleet to avoid the danger of the moon."

"It's a log," B'Elanna said, her frustration returning, "It's a damn log!"

"Hush," murmured Chakotay, thanking the universal translator for its interpretation.

"....barely made it back with their lives. I doubt another shuttle could survive the trip, even if we had one, as the power draining energy is growing stronger." The screen flickered. "I would that they had not returned as it has meant the death of us all..."

*****

When Janeway entered the transporter room she found Tuvok and LeBlanc in the middle of a check of their equipment. Tuvok's low, calm voice was confirming their coordinates with Ashmore, who stood stiffly behind the transport console. Just before he stepped up to the platform, Janeway called him over to her.

"Tuvok," she began, not really sure why she'd felt the need to come down here and see him off personally. If he was surprised to see her, he did not show it. "We don't know what you're going to find down there." She paused, trying to collect her thoughts. "We'll return in one hour to beam you out. Stay safe, old friend."

"Captain, I assure you I will do everything in my power to 'stay safe'" Tuvok said, noting the worry in her eyes. "And," he added after a moment's thought, "I have no doubt that Commander Chakotay did everything possible to keep his team safe as well. However, sometimes circumstances can be beyond our control."

Janeway's mouth twitched like she didn't quite trust it to open and speak. When she did speak it was in a low voice, for his ears alone.

"I don't want to lose you too. Please be careful."

Tuvok simply nodded. Then, turning abruptly, he stepped up onto the platform and signalled Ashmore to begin the transporter sequence.

*****

Chakotay's eyes fluttered opened but his vision took a few seconds to clear. Coming into focus he could see B'Elanna bending over him, frowning.

"Harry, are there any more of those cloths? His shoulder's bleeding again."

Chakotay could hear, rather than see, Kim shuffling around looking for more first aid materials. Then the pain, which had been lingering in the background came into focus as well. He gasped.

"Chakotay?" B'Elanna's attention went from his shoulder up to his face. He concentrated very hard on her face, the comforting ridges on her forehead.

"S..s..st..status!" he managed between clenched teeth.

"Harry and I managed to get some short range sensors working for a few moments. Communications might be operational but it's hard to tell." B'Elanna took the material from Harry, who was now also bending over the Commander. Chakotay was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic, on top of everything else. His stomach lurched a little so he went back to focusing on Torres' forehead hoping the feeling would pass.

"Why is it hard to tell?" he whispered, every word an effort. As B'Elanna was working on rebandaging Chakotay's shoulder, Harry took up the tale.

"We weren't able to find Voyager on the short range sensors, so it's hard to tell if the communications are not working or if she's just .... out of range," he told the commander.

Chakotay's mind was foggy and his body hurt badly, but he was still clear headed enough to hear what Harry was not saying.

"Do you think Voyager has left us over here, Ensign?"

"Chakotay, it's possible that with all the anomalous energy in this ship that Voyager's sensors are not reading us properly. We've had no communications with them from the time we left. It is possible that they ...." B'Elanna could not bring herself to say it directly.

"That they think we're dead," Harry finished for her glumly.

The three of them pondered this soberly for a moment until Chakotay became aware of the silence. Something was definitely missing from the scene.

"Where's Jenna?" he asked abruptly. Harry looked away; B'Elanna grimaced.

"She went .... hunting," Torres told Chakotay. He closed his eyes, wishing for a moment that he could just give into the pain, let it wash over and through him, let it take him away from the responsibility of a scared ensign, a frustrated engineer, and an AWOL security officer bent on violence. Let it take him away from the possibility of abandonment by his captain, his friend.

"Commander?" Harry was seeking his attention again. Chakotay forced his eyes open. "We were able to pick up something that looked like a transporter beacon. It was growing faint, so I'd estimate that the transport probably occurred a few minutes before we caught it."

"Here?" Chakotay asked, knowing that was just a wish. Harry shook his head.

"No such luck. It was either coming from or going down to the moon."

B'Elanna mused aloud,

"They wouldn't be able to stay close to the moon without having the energy grab them, like what happened with this ship. But they could do a quick flyby, dump someone on the surface and then pull out of range."

"Or pick someone up," Harry reminded her, glumly.

"I can't believe, I *refuse* to believe that they would just leave us behind!" Torres said, raising her voice a little.

Chakotay's mind was racing with the information about the moon given to them from the last Cerijan to make a log entry. It appeared that Voyager was falling into the trap as neatly as the Kolavs had. 'Oh Kathryn,' he thought, 'tell me you didn't send an away team down there, please tell me you didn't.'

"If they went down to that moon," interjected Chakotay, "then they will be poisoned by those creatures. Just like me. Or killed."

It seemed to B'Elanna like a million things were going through her mind and yet nothing coherent was coming out at the end. She was so tired of thinking; so tired of existing on adrenaline. For what felt like a long time but was probably only a few seconds the three of them sat in silence listening to the wheezing of Chakotay's laboured breathing. Surprisingly the only thought B'Elanna could pick out of the jumble of her brain was 'I hope Paris wasn't on the away team.'

"Lieutenant," Chakotay's voice stirred Torres back to her own situation, " if we had the venom from one of the creatures we could produce an antidote when we get back to Voyager."

If Chakotay had asked her to lasso the moon Torres could not have been more surprised. Harry looked startled.

"Have you lost your *mind*?" Torres asked. She muttered a few other choice Klingon curses which Chakotay wisely choose to ignore. When he didn't respond she became even more agitated. "Haven't you been listening to us Chakotay? There is no Voyager out there. She's not there. She's not there for us to communicate our coordinates, she's not there for us to beam aboard, she's not there for us to bring any venom from that creature onto! She's just not *there*!" Torres was shouting now. Chakotay reached out to her with his good arm, but she pulled away from him and any comfort he sought to give her.

"Commander," Harry brought attention over to himself, "what is the standard operating procedure for an away team without communications?"

Chakotay marvelled at the ridiculousness of the situation. Here was Harry, not three years out of the academy, asking him for regulations that Chakotay hadn't thought about for years. Regulations he had discarded for a terrorist's life when he left Starfleet. And yet, Harry question was in earnest. Either the boy really didn't know, or he was deferring to his senior officer. He remembered snapping at Tuvok not to quote regulations to him; what would Tuvok's response be now?

"Of course, it varies on the situation," Chakotay told him, "but generally the team is given one hour to investigate and then prepare to be beamed back. Unless communications can be established to the contrary."

Harry nodded, this was no more than he'd expected. The fact that nearly 48 hours had gone by without communication or beam out for them was the main source of Chakotay's worry, and Harry's fear.

"So, if we assume that the beacon was residual from someone beaming *down* to the moon, we can assume that even if Voyager isn't around now she'll be back in one hour to pick up the away team. Right, B'Elanna?"

Grudgingly Torres nodded. She opened her mouth to say that that was a lot of assumptions but stopped herself. They all knew that already.

"So, if we can be sure of communications working at that time, then we can make contact with Voyager, let them know where we are and that we're alright." At Harry's words B'Elanna cast a sad glance at Chakotay, who was most assuredly *not* alright. Chakotay's eyes spoke more to her than a stackload of databases.

"Jenna..." he whispered to her.

"OK. OK." Torres got up and brushed off her uniform. She pondered a moment. Both men watched her, one anxiously, one calmly. Torres looked around at their makeshift equipment and then out the view screen where the moon, looking so innocent, loomed. "OK, Harry, you stay here with Chakotay and try to ensure that when Voyager returns the communications *will* be working. You can try boosting the power using the existing configuration if you link it to the...."

"I know what to do," Harry told her, quietly, "I know."

"OK," B'Elanna picked up her phaser, and Chakotay's as well and looked around for her tricorder. She slung a water canteen around her neck. "*I'll* go find Jenna. If we can, we'll see what we can do about collecting some venom from one of those things." She bent over Chakotay.

"I suppose you want us to leave it alive?" she added dryly.

"Preferably," he said so softly she could barely hear him. But the faint smile on his face reassured her somewhat and so she stood back up, her fingers brushing his hair in a gentle comforting gesture.

"You look after him," she told Kim sternly but in a low voice she hoped Chakotay couldn't hear. "If I get back here and he's not alive I'm going to be very upset with you Starfleet!"

"I'll do my best," Harry promised, with more confidence than he truly felt. "What about Jenna? How are you going to convince her to take prisoners rather than shoot on sight?"

B'Elanna checked the charge on her phasers and switched one of them on. She glanced at him briefly and then looked down at Chakotay, whose eyes had glazed over unseeing.

"If it comes to a choice between Jenna and Chakotay..... I think she'll find that I can be very persuasive when I need to be."

Harry didn't really like the look on her face as she said that. It was a cold, uncompromising expression he'd never seen on her before. She looked so...Klingon in the half-light. But he didn't have time to argue with her either.

"We've got about 50 minutes," he told her as she headed for the crawl space of a doorway.

"When you make contact have them beam Chakotay directly to sickbay. And I want you to get your butt over there as well. Jenna and I will make our way back here so you'll know the coordinates to get us out." She crouched down to squeeze through the small opening.

"B'Elanna..." Harry didn't like the sound of those arrangements. For one thing, it was quite likely that communications were not going to be working clearly or for any length of time. For another.....

"That's an order Ensign!"

*****

Without the activity of B'Elanna's efforts with the sensors Kim found the silence in the cramped space to be uncomfortable. All he could hear was the sound of his own heart beating loudly. That and the belaboured breathing coming from his wounded commander. He tinkered with the makeshift computer console that B'Elanna had set up but there was really nothing he could do without a ship to test it on. Prayer was the only other option and Harry was not very religious. He continued his tinkering.

"So Commander, I bet you've been in lots of tight spots before....anything compare to this?"

Chakotay regarded Harry thoughtfully through blurry eyes wondering if the ensign was just trying to kill time, or whether he was really interested in any tall tales Chakotay may have up his sleeve. Or maybe he just needed reassurance that they could make it out of this particular tight spot.

"None that come immediately to mind," Chakotay admitted, "although B'Elanna would probably tell you that my ship was a bigger pile of scrap metal than even this old barge."

Harry chuckled, slightly,

"She already mentioned that. It must have been while you were....um, resting .... earlier."

"I remember one time, setting up explosives on an ammunitions base near Bryma, when I misjudged the response time of the Cardassian guards. That was a pretty sticky situation." 'And hot too,' Chakotay added silently, 'Damned hot. Not like the chill on this ship.'

For a moment he was back on the military base just after he'd set the charge turning, turning, turning and suddenly he felt the blow across his back. Discovery. If he hadn't been half-turned around the Cardassian would have surely broken his spine by the force his strike.

Harry stopped his useless tinkering and came to sit closer to the commander. He couldn't imagine purposely sneaking onto a Cardassian military base with explosives. The Cardassians may be shaky allies to the Federation, but Harry had never felt very comfortable around them.

"What happened?" he asked, when Chakotay didn't continue with his reminiscing. Chakotay was jolted into the present with a shock that sent a shiver down his spine. 'It is really very cold on this ship,' he thought.

Too late, Chakotay realized he'd chosen the wrong story to trip down memory lane. If he'd been feeling more clear headed he might have made something up. Then again, maybe not. Harry didn't deserve a sugar coated version of the truth. But he didn't have to give *all* the details.

"The guards caught us and took us to the prison camp on Cardassia II."

"Oh." Whatever Harry had been expecting that had not been it.

He remembered learning of Voyager's mission. It had seemed straightforward enough at the time. Back in the safe and comfortable known Alpha Quadrant it was a simple retrieve and return to home base kind of task. Harry hadn't known much about Chakotay, only that he was the leader of the cell that Tuvok had infiltrated and that his ship was missing in the Badlands. But to have had Tuvok planted there, to have such a warrant out for his arrest ... Harry figured Chakotay must have been a fairly successful Maquis. Something more than just a pest to the Cardassians. And Harry could remember being very surprised when he finally met the Maquis captain; his first impression being 'He's not at all what I expected.'

"But you got out of the prison camp," Harry said after a moment's reflection. "After all, you're here now." It was meant to sound more comforting than it came out.

"Out of the frying pan, Harry?" Chakotay gave a weak smile.

"Sir?"

"Sorry, it's an old expression. Ask Paris when we get back to the ship. I'm sure he's heard of it. I'm sure he's lived it." Chakotay coughed painfully on the last words, causing Harry to hover over him alarmed. It was irritating Chakotay to no end.

"At....ease.....Ensign," he wheezed.

Bright spots were forming in Chakotay's line of vision. He closed his eyes in hopes that they would disappear but it was not to be. A sharp pain was developing in his chest. Sharp enough to take his mind briefly off the dull throbbing pain that seemed to be everywhere else in his body. His muscles were so sore he doubted he had any control over his limbs.

"Kim?" Chakotay whispered with his eyes still closed.

"Yes Commander?" Harry was still close.

"They still teach CPR as part of the standard first aid course at the Academy?"

"Yes sir," Harry replied quickly, "and I had a refresher first aid course with the Doc just a few months ago."

Chakotay reached out to grasp Harry's sleeve lightly. The commander's eyes were still closed.

"That's very reassuring Ensign. Thank you."

Harry wasn't feeling reassured by the direction the conversation was going. In the pale light of the moon Chakotay looked very grey and before he'd closed them Harry could tell the commander's dark eyes weren't focusing on much. His breathing was becoming shallower, raspier; harder on the ears. Kim raised his tricorder over Chakotay's chest for a moment, but it didn't tell him anything they hadn't already known.

"Just a little while longer Commander," Harry said softly. Chakotay did not reply.

*****

As Torres navigated the maze of corridors slowly she occasionally tapped her communicator pin in an attempt to connect with Jenna. B'Elanna was not confident that the communicators were working within the space of the ship, they certainly hadn't been cooperating up to this point. She was even less confident that Jenna would respond even if they were.

The going was slow, as the black corridors were filled with debris and bodies. She was still not used to the sight of the decaying Cerijans, but at least her stomach wasn't leaping into her throat every time one came into view.

Torres used her tricorder sparingly, remembering Chakotay's theory on how the creature could detect them. According to her readings she was getting closer to Jenna and presumably that meant closer to the creature. What they were going to do when the three of them met, Torres still hadn't decided. But she was certain of one thing. If Jenna got in her way the ensign was going to get a taste of what she'd given Chakotay.

Rounding the corner near the Mess Hall where Chakotay had been attacked Torres nearly had her face sliced open by a line of phaser fire. She instinctively dropped to the ground and raised her own weapon.

"Jenna!" Torres bellowed. "Are you trying to kill *me*? Stop firing!"

Jenna stepped out of the shadows with her phaser pointed at Torres' head.

*****

Chakotay was seeing things. Things that weren't there in the room with him. Some part of him was aware of Harry Kim, the young man's nervous energy floating in the space they shared. And he knew of the darkness of the bridge, half illuminated by the deadly moon. And he knew pain. But beyond this he was suddenly aware of the presence of others, surrounding him. They were speaking to him, but he couldn't understand or maybe he couldn't hear. It was so hard to tell. Confused he tried to find a recognizable body, a comforting face in the mass around him.

Then he felt as though he'd left the bridge of the Kolavs altogether to come to some other place, some place very comfortable.

"Chakotay," a voice was saying, "sometimes that which is most obvious is overlooked."

"Who are you? Where are you?" he tried to say.

"Don't let what is right in front of you be that which kills you," the voice chided.

"Is this death?" And suddenly, Chakotay had a most overwhelming desire to fight off the pain and the draining energy that he had been feeling since the attack. He was dying, this he knew; he did not fear death. But he wasn't going to give up life without fighting a little bit more.

*"Don't let what is right in front of you be that which kills you."*

"Harry?" Chakotay hadn't spoken for so long that Harry had been monitoring him carefully with the tricorder, as if awaiting the unstated order to begin CPR.

"I'm here Commander," Harry said softly, laying a light hand on Chakotay's arm, "It won't be long now, only another 30 minutes or so."

"Harry, the creature's energy waves. It's blocking the sensors."

Obviously the commander was delirious, Harry decided. He was repeating their hypothesis of two days ago.

"Yes, that is the most likely explanation," he agreed.

"Harry, it's blocking.....the sensors.....the sensors.....and.....the energy is affecting....communications .... sensors.....Harry...."

Slowly the meaning of Chakotay's choked words sunk into Harry's realization. If the creature's energy was covering up Voyager's sensors of the away team, it was not unrealistic to assume it could blanket the communications bandwidth as well. How could they have missed this?! They didn't have a lot of margin for error with their current setup and when Harry had last seen Voyager's computer systems they had been at low capacity as well.

Harry looked wildly around at the computer equipment he and B'Elanna had rigged together. It wasn't going to work, he realized, trying not to panic. Voyager would return to pick up the team from the moon's surface and no one would know that the team on the Kolavs was still alive and need help. And then Voyager would resume course for the Alpha Quadrant leaving them here to die....

Harry desperately tried to think of what readings Voyager had of the Kolavs: no life signs, energy from the transport ship's engine, a trail of plasma leaking.

"Commander," Harry spoke to Chakotay, not even knowing if his superior officer was still conscious. "I'm going down to the main engine room to see if I can change the plasma leak. I can't stop it, but maybe just changing the rate of leakage will signal to Voyager that we're still here."

Harry couldn't be sure if Chakotay lightly squeezed his fingers, or if it was merely a reflexive action. He pocketed his phaser, thinking that he was in better shape to use it than Chakotay, picked up the tricorder and crawled through the doorway.

"Hang in there Commander," he called back to the silent room.

*****

Torres stared up at Jenna's phaser for a long moment, not quite believing the situation.

"Is it a good day to die?" asked the ensign. Jenna's voice was cold, detached, and her eyes, just out of the beam of Torres' light were filled with hate.

'Oh my, she's not kidding' thought Torres, 'This is how I'm going to die.' Images of death filtered through her mind; if she had speculated on how she would finally die it would not have been like this. She would have much preferred being killed in a firefight with the Cardassians.....she would have much preferred not dying at all.

"Jenna," Torres tried to keep her voice calm, low, "Jenna we have to help the others. Chakotay is very sick, he..."

"Chakotay is dying!" Jenna spat harshly, "And so he should. *Finally*, justice will catch up to that Maquis."

"Jenna," Torres tried again, "we found a transporter beacon. Janeway has sent people to the moon. If what the Cerijan's log said is true, they will most likely be attacked by the same kind of alien that hurt Chakotay. And if they are attacked then they will be dying too."

"I can't do anything to change that," Jenna said, but her grip on the phaser loosened somewhat.

"The poison isn't showing up on our tricorders...."

"They're not medical tricorders," interrupted Jenna.

"....if we got some venom from the creature," continued Torres, "we could help the Doctor treat the away team."

Jenna gave a little laugh.

"You amaze me, Maquis," she said, bitingly, "In case you haven't noticed, we are not on Voyager anymore. There's no Doctor here."

"Voyager will be back to pick up that away team. Harry and I have rigged a communications device from our generator and comm badges. She *will* see us here. We need to get that venom. We need to help them." Torres thought she just might be getting through to the other woman. "Jenna, however you feel about me, however you feel about Chakotay and the Maquis -- those are Starfleet officers on that moon. Probably....probably Tuvok.... and....and...." Torres desperately tried to remember some of the names on the Security team. "...maybe Ensign Leith, or ... maybe LeBlanc... or..." What was that redhead with the goofy laugh's name? "Schroeder....."

"You've made your point," Jenna stopped her. She brought her phaser down and slowly B'Elanna got to her feet. They faced each other, dislike flowing between them. There was a shaky truce for now, but Torres was under no illusions where things stood. She would not turn her back on this woman.

"Any suggestions?" Jenna asked.

"No," admitted Torres, "but I figure we should go back to where it attacked Chakotay and start from there. He seemed to think that it was some kind of nest." B'Elanna thought back to the attack. "When it first went after Chakotay's neck it sprayed me too."

"If we can get it to spray, without having it grab one of us, we're in luck," Jenna thought aloud, sounding pessimistic at their chances.

"Maybe ...."

*****

Harry practically flew down the decks to the Engineering. No Cerijan bodies or bits of scrap metal were going to slow him down. He had to backtrack only once, when he overshot a ladder in the dark. By the time he reached the Engineering doors he was breathing heavily from the exertion of the trip.

Prying open the doors was no fun either, without Chakotay's help this time. The air in the room was still heavy with the contamination of the plasma however Harry didn't even spare it a thought. He marched directly over to the main generator conduits; the ones B'Elanna spoke of blowing the ship apart.

Here Harry hesitated. He didn't really want to blow the whole ship, just send up a few smoke signals. But he didn't have a lot of time to plan. He yanked the nearest panel open, gasping as a stream of plasma shot out burning his bare skin.

Harry stood back from the generator and took a deep breath. Then he raised his phaser and fired directly into the open panel.

*****

B'Elanna and Jenna were cautiously making their way across the Mess Hall. Torres kept throwing the beam of her light onto the ceiling but she couldn't see anything up there besides the metal frame of the room.

Suddenly the pair were throw to the floor as the ship rocked from an explosion.

"What the hell was that?" bellowed Jenna, coming to her feet. "Are we under attack?"

"It's more likely the engine has become more unstable and set off the plasma," Torres told her.

They stood there in the blackness, unsure how to proceed. Jenna bent down to retrieve her phaser from the floor.

This time they didn't have the warning of the creature's approach when a tentacle snapped out from the far door and grabbed Jenna's legs. Before Torres could even register that it was happening again, Jenna had been pulled across the floor, her arms reaching out, grasping, but not able to catch hold of anything. Tables slid, benches were knocked over as Jenna's body was dragged towards the corridor.

Torres followed with phaser drawn, still uncertain of what she was going to do. Reaching the doorframe, Jenna finally had something solid to grasp.

"Maquis!" she spat out, "Now is the time for your plan whatever it may be!"

"Watch out!" cried B'Elanna, "Watch out!" The other tentacle was snaking through the open door. She lifted her phaser, setting her other hand on her raised arm to steady the light. If only she could get a clear shot of the venomous arm before it attached itself to Jenna's neck.

One arm still firmly clamped to the door, Jenna tried to fend off her attacker with the other. She grabbed it, clenching as tight as she could, not thinking about the sharp pain of the teeth that sank into her hand. Jenna was a strong woman, but this creature was far beyond her strength. She could feel it moving up her body from her legs, contracting as it went, trying to squeeze the life right out of her. With the last of her energy she pushed the poisonous leg away.

For the second time Torres was splattered with the oily liquid that shot out of the creature. She gasped as it threw her off balance for a second.

"Go!" hissed Jenna, "You've got your venom, now GO!"

"No!" shouted Torres, lifting her phaser again. But Jenna's strength had just ended; as her muscles gave out she was snapped through the door and into the blackness beyond. Torres ran forward, hearing Jenna screaming. Reaching the door and shining her light through it Torres heard Jenna no more. The creature, with Ensign Kalmos, had disappeared through the air vent in the ceiling of the corridor. Torres heard the heavy rumble of the retreat and then nothing but stillness and the sound of her own breathing.

Shocked at the suddenness of the attack and at how it had ended, she stood in stunned amazement for a moment. Then a low rumble rocked through the ship once more and she was thrown to her knees. Another explosion.

Remembering, Torres wiped off the liquid from her face with her hand and scraped it off on the top of the open water canteen. She tried to get as much as she could off of her, not knowing how much was necessary for the Doctor to analyze.

Then, coming to her feet again, she ran towards the bridge.

*****

Harry and B'Elanna nearly collided with one another just outside the tiny entrance to the bridge.

"Harry!" gasped Torres, "What's going on? I thought I left you .... "

"I set the plasma on fire to signal Voyager," Harry told her. She shone her light on his face, recoiling in shock at the sight of his burns.

"Harry! Oh my god .... "

"I had to!" he cried, "Our communications signal was blocked and they were going to leave us behind."

Following Harry, Torres bent over to crawl through the tiny opening to the bridge. He'd gone immediately over to the console on which they spent so much time.

"We're overtime," he told her.

"Where's Chakotay?" she asked, scanning the room with her light.

"They're not there." His voice was filled with angry disbelief. "They're not there!" 'How could this be happening? What have I done?' thought Harry, 'I've set the ship on fire and Voyager *isn't* going to save us.'

"Chakotay!" called out Torres, finding the commander's body slumped over from the position she'd last seen him. She scrambled over the battered equipment to kneel beside him. "Chakotay?" she pleaded softly, touching his face. She reached to his neck for a pulse. There was none.

Torres couldn't quite believe it. She'd seen people die before, in a variety of ways, and while a Maquis she'd lost close friends, usually without warning. Just moments ago she'd watched Jenna Kalmos be viciously killed in front of her. But Chakotay always seemed so indestructible to Torres. When he was her captain she'd been ready to follow him anywhere. She had trusted him with her own life many times in the past; he had never let her down. Until now. How could he have died? How could he have left her on this godforsaken dark hellhole of a ship?!

Dejected by his failure, Harry was making his way over to them. Suddenly he jumped, startled, when B'Elanna threw back her head and let out a long, mournful howl. Harry covered his ears with his hands.

The ship rocked from another explosion in Engineering. That was the hardest one so far. Pushing himself up off his knees Harry reached out to B'Elanna, feeling his way blindly in the gloom. He'd nearly made it to them when he felt the rumble of another blast. It wouldn't be long now.

Straddling the commander's body, Harry placed his hands, one on top of the other, on Chakotay's chest and began to pump, hard. He counted out loud.

"What are you *doing*?" whispered B'Elanna, her small voice a direct contrast to her roar, "Harry, he's dead. The ship is about to blow..."

"He....asked.....me.....to....." Harry said between clenched teeth. "I....told....him....I....would...."

Torres saw the determination in her friend's face, knowing that every desperate move they'd made on this ship had been for survival. For their own, for others.... Well, she wasn't going to just wait for the Kolavs to blow them into tiny pieces either.

She reached down to Chakotay's head and gently pulled his neck straight, tilting his chin to the ceiling. She opened his mouth and, holding his nose, blew air into his still lungs.

*****

Janeway was on the bridge as Paris edged closer to the moon to pick up their away team. She wasn't very vocal, letting the communications flow between the bridge and engineering without her input. But she was restlessly pacing and it was beginning to make Tom nervous. It wouldn't be so bad, he thought, if he was at Harry's station because then at least he could see her. Tom could only hear his captain's footsteps and it was grating on him. Her walk spoke to him as clearly as if she'd used her voice, telling him how upset she was.

He felt a sick twinge when he thought of Harry. It wasn't Harry's station anymore but that didn't stop him from expecting to see his friend every time he cast a glance back there. The loss of his friends hit him like a physical blow to the stomach. He imagined how hard it must be for Janeway to see Chakotay's empty place. Janeway stopped, briefly in front of her First Officer's usual place, drumming her fingers on the console between their chairs. She heard Ops confirm that they had a fix on the away team from the surface.

"Ensign Rogin," Janeway said in a low voice, "please scan the Kolavs again."

"No life signs," responded Rogin after a pause, her voice betraying none of the frustration she felt. Did Janeway think she *wasn't* scanning the Kolavs? For the past two days Rogin had done little else *but* scan the Kolavs, each time coming up with the same nothing as the time before. Scanning, scanning, rescanning and scanning some more until she scanned the barge in her sleep, the lack of life signs haunting her dreams.

"Captain," the doctor's voice interrupted the quiet on the bridge, "I have the away team. Lieutenant Tuvok and Ensign LeBlanc appear to have been attacked. Both are unconscious."

"Attacked? The Cerijans?" Janeway questioned, rubbing her temples to ease her headache.

"I cannot speculate on that Captain," responded the Doctor, crisply.

"Keep me informed Doctor!" Janeway commanded and then slumped down in the chair. She did not appear to notice she wasn't sitting in her own place.

"Captain?" Tom asked, turning finally to see her. Had he really thought that would be better? Janeway looked positively lost. It was frightening him. "If we don't move away we'll be caught...."

"Put us out of range, Mr. Paris," Janeway told him wearily, "But remain within visual range of the Kolavs."

Tom didn't acknowledge as he turned back to carry out her order. It would be easier, he thought, if they could just get underway again. Put as much space as possible between Voyager and the Kolavs. Get out of the Cerijans' region of Delta Quadrant altogether. Then they could acknowledge their loss and begin to grieve. But then again, as the ship and moon drifted away in the view screen, then again maybe not. He half turned in his seat, awaiting new orders.

"Captain!" Ensign Rogin called, "I'm picking up....."

"Report!" barked Janeway coming to her feet when Ensign Rogin didn't finish her sentence.

"It looks like there's been some kind of explosion on the Kolavs!"

Janeway scrambled around the back of the command posts to examine Ensign Rogin's findings.

"Look! There!" the ensign exclaimed, "There's another explosion."

All eyes were on Janeway as she turned over the implications.

"I guess their engine just became too unstable," offered Ensign Rogin.

"No I don't think so. I don't think so!" said Janeway; she shook her head thoughtfully. "Look at that!" She pointed to Rogin's screen. "That's not plasma I'm seeing there. Can you magnify this?"

The bridge was quiet as Ensign Rogin manipulated her data. She gasped with shock with what she found.

"It's the energy signature from a phaser!"

"A *phaser*?" questioned Janeway, pondering. Then she whispered, "It's a signal. It's a signal that they are still alive."

She came back around to the command chairs with more energy than Paris had seen her exhibit in days.

"Tom! Take us back to the Kolavs."

"But...."

"But nothing Lieutenant! Our people are still alive and on that ship and we are *not* going to abandon them there!"

"Captain," Ensign Rogin ventured as Tom turned to face his console, "If we can't pick up their signals then how will we beam them aboard?"

"Engineering!" called Janeway, ignoring Rogin's question, "I want full power to the forward sensors. Shut down everything else if you have to, everything but sickbay."

"Yes, Captain," was Carey's reply, "but..."

"No buts about it Lieutenant! Transporter room two!"

"Yes Captain?"

"Prepare to get a fix on our four missing officers. Beam them directly to sickbay as with the team from the moon." Janeway was pacing again but something was different in her steps this time. She had purpose now. She had a direction.

"Yes Captain!"

"Doctor?" called Janeway, pausing for a moment just behind Tom. "I want acknowledgement the second you have them. Is everyone clear?"

No one was clear, of that Tom was certain. But would anyone dare to say it to her? Absolutely not.

"Tom," she rested a hand on his shoulder, "I want you to get as close as you can to that ship. As close as you can to the bridge of that ship."

"Yes Ma'am," he responded, his fingers already in motion. The ship moved sluggishly as a result of the pull from the moon.

"If at all possible, put the Kolavs between us and the moon. Let the other ship absorb most of that energy."

"Captain," Tom ventured the question that was on everyone's mind, "that's a big ship, how do you know they'll be on the bridge?"

Janeway moved back to sit on the edge of her chair. She had a determined look on her face, one that Tom had learned never to cross. Her eyes were bright.

"Mr. Paris, do you know what you should do if you're lost in the woods?" she asked him.

"Uh, no," he admitted.

"You should stop moving so someone can find you," Janeway answered. "And do you know who taught me that?"

"Your father?" Tom guessed.

"No," Janeway smiled, "Chakotay taught me that. We sent them to the bridge of that ship and that is where they will wait for us to pick them up. I know it."

"That's as close as I can get," Tom informed her. The Kolavs loomed large in the viewscreen.

"Full level one bioscan, give us everything, I mean *everything*, you have Mr. Carey!"

Time seemed to hover in the air and Tom could almost see it lengthening and lingering as they waited for some confirmation, something, anything.

"I'm not reading them, Captain." The panicked voice of Ashmore in transporter room two. Then a flurry of instructions, all of it over Tom Paris's head, went from Carey in Engineering to the poor ensign.

"I've got something...."

Janeway rose out of her chair the question forming but remaining unasked.

"I've got them! I've got them! Transporting to sickbay now Captain!"

Janeway caught her breath letting it out with a big sigh; she hadn't even realized she had been holding it.

"Captain," Tom's worries weren't over just yet, "we're being pulled closer to the Kolavs. I don't have any helm control. I don't have any power!"

"Doctor! Report!" called Janeway.

"Yes, I have them," came the calm voice of the Doctor, "all three of them."

"Engineering!" barked Janeway, wishing she could boost the strength of the sensors by sheer force of will.

"Captain, we're only going to get three." It was the Doctor who responded. The implication hit her instantly and she shifted her attention back to Voyager's helm.

"Engineering, full power to the impulse engines!" And suddenly Tom had control again and he edged away from the barge, but his euphoria was not to last. They had overloaded the last of the engine's thrusting power.

Suddenly, an explosion ripped through the lower decks of the Kolavs in a chain reaction. With a spectacular flash the ship burst into tiny fragments of metal and light. The shockwave hit Voyager sending her somersaulting, tumbling out of control but pushing them away from the moon. Voyager began to drift.

"Status!" cried Janeway, picking herself up off the floor. The bridge officers all swiftly returned to their stations after being thrown about the room.

"No damage reported," came from Ensign Rogin, who sounded more surprised than relieved.

"We're adrift, Captain," Tom informed her, "but we are out of range from the energy of the moon."

"Fair enough," was the captain's response as she strode towards the turbolift. "Mr. Paris, you have the bridge, I'll be in sickbay."

Janeway had never felt the distance from the bridge to the sickbay could be so long; she had never before noticed the time it took to get from the one place to the other. By the time she entered the room she was nearly running down the corridor to speed up the process. She could have asked the doctor but she didn't want to learn of a death over a communications link. She needed to see for herself. She needed to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.

Sickbay was filled with activity. Tuvok and LeBlanc lay on beds being attended to by Ensign Wildman who had been called in to assist Kes and the Doctor. Harry Kim sat on the edge of another bed looking dazed and squinting, like he'd been in darkness and the lighting was now harsh. To Janeway's untrained eye he looked like he'd been badly burned, but his expression was unreadable. B'Elanna stood beside him, shivering. A blanket, once on her shoulders, lay, forgotten or unnoticed, at her feet. Both she and Harry had their attention on the fourth bed where Chakotay was, with Kes and the Doctor attending. Some part of Janeway felt a rush of emotion. It was relief, she realized, suddenly ashamed.

Janeway moved into the room, catching the attention of Kim and Torres.

"Captain," Harry acknowledged in a dead voice. B'Elanna said nothing but went back to watching the Doctor. Her fists were clenching and unclenching; she was obviously extremely upset. Janeway reached out but before her hand made contact Torres pulled away.

"Ensign Kalmos?" the captain asked. She was looking at Harry but it was Torres who answered her.

"She's dead. And Chakotay...."

Janeway turned finally to face the scene. She moved away from her other officers and closer to her commander. Chakotay lay so still and so grey. His left shoulder and part of his chest was open with a gaping wound and around his neck were swollen, red blisters. His skin was purple with bruises. His face had an expression of emptiness, with his lips slightly parted, his eyes closed. The Doctor was removing his cortical stimulator from Chakotay's forehead.

"Is he..." her voice shook a little, so she gathered herself together and started again, "Is he dead?"

"He *was* dead," the doctor stated flatly, "but we have revived him. However, he, Tuvok and Ensign LeBlanc are suffering from some kind of poisoning ..... the venom from an animal. Lieutenant Torres brought back a sample so I should be able to make an antidote relatively easily. Very resourceful of you Lieutenant," he called out to her.

She snapped.

"Resourceful? RESOURCEFUL?!" Torres shouted, surprising the smile off the Doctor's face "Jenna Kalmos *died* in the process of getting that sample, Doctor!"

Kes, who had moved over to work on Harry's burns, took a step closer to Torres.

"Don't touch me!" the lieutenant growled, "Just stay away from me! Stay away!" And with a final look at Chakotay, Torres fled the room. Harry sighed and closed his eyes.

"Ensign Kim?" Janeway asked gently.

"It's a long story, Captain."

"And one that I'm sure can wait until my patients are feeling better," interrupted the Doctor, sounding peeved at Torres's outburst.

"Prognosis, Doctor?" asked Janeway reaching out to lay a hand on Chakotay's good shoulder. His skin was cold under her touch; it was hard to believe his heart was still beating.

"After I examine this sample and develop an antidote I see no reason why Tuvok and LeBlanc should not make a full recovery. Mr. Kim will no doubt suffer some discomfort, but should otherwise be fit after a short rest. As for Lieutenant Torres, she most likely needs some time off duty to cope with post traumatic shock..." the Doctor's voice trailed off.

"And Commander Chakotay?" asked Janeway, her eyes on Chakotay's face. Where was the smile she so often took for granted?

"The commander's recovery may take more time," the Doctor admitted with a sigh.

Janeway allowed herself a small touch of his face with the back of her hand before turning to face the doctor.

"Keep me informed, Doctor. I'll be on the bridge." And with that she marched out of the room.

Once in the corridor Janeway paused trying to come to grips with the torrent of emotions that seemed have hit her. She looked down at her own hands to discover them shaking. And yet, she felt more in control than she had for days. She headed back to the bridge.

If Paris was surprised to see Janeway back so soon didn't show it. She entered the room with as much purpose in her step as she had left it and came to stand next to him as he rose from her chair.

"Captain?"

"Ensign Kalmos is dead," she informed him quietly, "but the rest of the away team, both of the away teams, should make a full recovery, according to the Doctor."

They regarded each other for a moment. Each of them thinking of what they thought they had lost, now newly found again. Paris breathed an audible sigh of relief. He had not known Ensign Kalmos well and while that was no reason to wish her dead, he did know Harry and B'Elanna and had many reasons to wish them alive.

"Status, Mr. Paris?" Janeway inquired.

"We have no power to the engines. Lieutenant Carey estimates that it will be at least 12 hours before we can engage impulse engines again. Much longer for the warp engines."

Janeway nodded, mulling over all the dangers of floating around in space without any power. It seemed they were in an even worse spot than before, should the Cerijans reappear.

"Any suggestions, Mr. Paris?" she asked, only half seriously.

"We could get out and push," he tried for humour and was pleased to see her smile.

"I take it you are volunteering?"

Tom laughed uneasily. He had no doubt that if she thought it would do any good they would all be on the outside of the ship, pushing it across the Delta Quadrant. The image struck him as extraordinarily funny for some reason.

"As we don't seem to be in need of a pilot at the moment, perhaps you'd care to volunteer for another duty, Lieutenant?"

"You know me Captain," he replied easily, "I'm a jack of all trades. But I don't think I'd be much use in engineering right now."

Janeway smiled and laid a light hand on his arm. She spoke quietly, for his ears alone.

"B'Elanna left sickbay in a very emotional state. The Doctor says there's nothing physically wrong with her, except maybe slight dehydration. But I'm worried about her. I think she may be in need of a friend just now. I don't know what happened over there, but I have a feeling it was ...... horrible."

"Understood, Captain," Tom said, seriously, wondering when he had ever seen the captain not demand to know what was going on. Things in sickbay must be pretty bad for her not have insisted on an immediate report. "I'll go make sure she's alright."

"Thank you Mr. Paris." Janeway turned away from him to sit in her chair.

*****

Tom stood outside B'Elanna's quarters with a glass of water in one hand, the other raised to signal the door. He'd stopped at sickbay briefly to ask for Kes's opinion, and to inquire after Harry and Chakotay. After thinking them dead for the past two days it was strange to switch back to having them alive. Tom had never known so strange and wonderful a feeling. He hit the door chime.

No response.

He knew she was in there, because he'd confirmed her location with the ship's computer. He tried again.

This time he was rewarded with a loud thump as something hit the door on the other side. He suspected it had been thrown with considerable force and he felt himself lucky to have had the door absorb the blow. Not to be so easily deterred he tried the chime once more.

The door opened immediately to a B'Elanna as angry and upset as he'd ever seen her. She was in mid growl when she realized who was standing in her doorway. She took a shaky step backwards.

"Tom," she said, "I didn't know it was you. Go away!"

"I don't think so," he said calmly, stepping through the door and allowing it to shut behind him. It was dark in her quarters, like she had forgotten to raise the lighting. He only hoped she wouldn't throw anything at him, now that she knew who it was.

She looked terrible. He could see this in the semi-darkness, even though he'd just seen Harry, who looked worse, and Chakotay, who had recently come back from the dead. Her hair was disheveled and her uniform ripped and covered in dirt. It was hard to see the gold colour that was usually so bright. She was alternating between angry outbursts and looking terrified. Tom felt a burst of anger himself, directed towards Janeway and the Doctor for allowing her to leave sickbay without being helped. Then Tom calmed himself. 'That's why she sent you here, Tommy boy.'

"Here," he held out the glass of water, "the Doc thinks you are probably dehydrated. But he said you wouldn't..."

B'Elanna flung her arms across at Tom knocking the glass clear to the other side of the room where it smashed.

"...let him examine you thoroughly," finished Tom, his arms dropping to his sides.

"No...more...water!" B'Elanna said, emphasizing each word with a fist near his nose. Tom backed away a step. She could easily break some of his bones, it wasn't like she hadn't broken bones in the past.

"OK, no water," he agreed, trying to sound soothing but thinking his voice came out like a squeak. "How 'bout something else? Some juice maybe? Juice is good," as he spoke Tom made his way cautiously to her replicator, "because it has sugar, and vitamins and stuff like that." He took his eyes off her for a second to direct his attention to ordering some orange juice from the computer.

Turning back around with a new glass in hand Tom couldn't see her.

"B'Elanna?" he called softly, "Where'd you go?"

Making his way slowly across her room Tom found her seated on the floor next to her couch, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees which were drawn up to her chest. Tom sat down facing her and reached his free hand to touch one of her hands. He wasn't sure if she would accept his comfort or if she would explode, so he tried to be prepared for both. She didn't say anything but reached out for the glass. While she drank he stroked her hand gently.

She put down the empty glass and faced him. He hadn't seen her this upset since the Vidiian had separated her DNA.

"Oh Tom," she whispered, "it was so ... so ...." Words failed her.

"Everything's going to be OK now," he tried to soothe her.

"You were going to leave us, weren't you!" The accusation was somehow made personal, although he knew that she must realize any decision on that regard would have come from the captain alone. But wasn't it a short time ago when he had been thinking it *would* be better to leave? "You thought we were dead, didn't you. Didn't you!"

"All the evidence we had showed that you had been killed just after boarding the ship," Tom said gently. He looked at the floor, feeling ashamed suddenly.

"Harry!" she called out suddenly looking into some space beyond Tom's face, "Harry set the ship on *fire*! He started a chain of explosions. And then....then...."

A tear trickled down her cheek. Tom lifted his free hand to gently wipe it away.

"Jenna was screaming. It had her and she was screaming." B'Elanna shut her eyes as though to erase the image, that last look she had of Jenna in the clutches of that monster. She shuddered.

"Shhh," soothed Tom, desperately trying to remember what the Doc had told him about post traumatic shock. His mind was a blank.

"I just grabbed the container and ran and there were all these bodies everywhere Tom!" B'Elanna's eyes flew open and she leaned in closer to him until their foreheads were nearly touching. "Tom, the corridor was filled with bodies of the Cerijans and I didn't think I would make it back and then Harry, oh Harry, oh Harry, he was burned." Tom continued to rub her cheek softly with his thumb. "And Chakotay," the words were barely a whisper now, "Chakotay was dead. After all that we'd done he was *dead*! He was dead and you were leaving us behind. And all for the sake of some spare parts!"

Now Tom moved closer to her, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into his chest. He rocked back and forth a little; told her it would be OK, reminded her that Chakotay lived. It seemed to Tom that he would have given anything to take her pain away but all he could do was offer comfort and hope that she would take it from him.

After awhile she pulled away from him slowly, rubbing her eyes. She took a deep breath.

"I've got to get a hold of myself," she said.

"Why?" asked Tom, trying and failing to make eye contact. "Why not just let go of yourself? You've just been through a terrible experience."

She pushed herself up off the floor and away from him. But her steps were shaky and she would have fallen if his arm hadn't shot out to steady her.

"You need to get some sleep," Tom said firmly, guiding her over to the bed. As she sat down she looked up at him, still scared, still vulnerable.

"Tom," she asked, "would you please..... stay with me? I don't want to be alone." It must have cost her dearly to admit that, but Tom was not going to make her pay anymore.

"Of course. I'm here."

She lay back and slept almost immediately. Tom held her hand until her breathing was deep and even, then he moved away from the bed and sat on the couch. It had been a rough couple of days for everyone, he decided. Pretty soon, he was asleep too.

*****

As Janeway entered sickbay again she allowed herself only the briefest of glances to the left corner where Commander Chakotay lay, still unconscious. She walked over to Tuvok, who was sitting up. The Doctor hypothesized that Tuvok's speed of recovery was aided by his Vulcan physiology.

"Tuvok, how are you feeling?" the captain laid a hand on his arm.

"Captain, I feel I have sufficiently recovered to be able to deliver a verbal report of what occurred on the surface."

Janeway smothered a smile and tried to look all business. She was intensely curious to know what had happened to her people, but she had tried to curb it until they rested.

"Very well, Mr. Tuvok," she said.

"Ensign LeBlanc and I discovered that the energy we had been detecting from Voyager is a naturally occurring phenomena."

"Natural? How?" Janeway couldn't help but show her surprise.

"It is produced by creatures living on the moon who feed off of other forms of energy, such as the energy that powered the Kolavs. The creatures set a trap to capture ships passing by, much the way a spider spins a web to catch a fly. Once caught in the moon's orbit, these creatures can feed off a ship's energy for many years."

"That's what Commander Chakotay thought too," spoke Harry, from behind Janeway. She turned to include him in their conversation.

"Go ahead Harry," Janeway encouraged.

"When we accessed the Kolavs' logs, we found that the ship had been caught by the creatures on the planet. When the Cerijans tried to investigate, they brought back a creature with them which began killing them. It was.....using the dead bodies as a barricade of some kind....like a nest almost...."

"That is consistent with our findings, Captain," Tuvok nodded. "The alien's absorption of energy produced an unusual substance that appeared to be breaking down the physical components of the energy source."

"Captain," Harry added, "The ships' log said that they sent out a warning beacon. Chakotay thinks that that is why the Cerijans broke off their attack. They knew we were headed for a dangerous area and they didn't want to follow."

Janeway absorbed all this information calmly, sorting out in her own mind how this affected them now.

"Tuvok," she asked, "now that the Kolavs has been destroyed, will those creatures be able to live?"

"We saw evidence of other energy signatures on the moon's surface, Captain. I don't think that the Kolavs was its only source of food. But, without the big ship in orbit, they will undoubtedly be looking for a new target."

"Captain," ventured Harry again, "When Commander Chakotay was attacked Ensign Kalmos and I shot the creature with our phasers. It was able to absorb the energy from the weapons."

Janeway looked across the room at Chakotay, sadly thinking of the phaser wound she'd seen in his chest.

"Is that how....?"

"No," Kim looked down, "When a direct hit didn't work Ensign Kalmos shot at the tentacle that held the commander and cut it from the body of the creature. She also wounded Chakotay in the process."

Janeway's brows darkened briefly with anger and then she let it go. Who was she to judge the dead ensign? She hadn't been there to see the attack. Jenna may very well have saved Chakotay's life by wounding him. In which case, he now owed her twice over.

"Tuvok, how were you and Ensign LeBlanc able to make your escape?" Janeway asked.

"Ensign LeBlanc was grabbed by the creature and stung with its venom. I was fortunate enough to get a clear shot of the appendage holding her, which discouraged the creature from continuing its attack. Unfortunately, I was then similarly attacked by a second creature. Your return and subsequent beam out occurred at a most fortuitous time."

*****

B'Elanna stood turning slowing in the darkened room. All around her she could see lights flickering in the distance but she couldn't determine their source.

"Chakotay?" she called, "Harry?" Her voiced echoed all around her but there was no response from the lights. She spun faster, trying to see everywhere at once, trying to keep track of all the lights.

Jenna's mocking laughter surrounded her.

"Justice for the Maquis!" the dead ensign taunted.

"Harry?! Chakotay?!" B'Elanna began to panic. "TOM!" she screamed, just as the snake-like arm of the creature wrapped around her.

Torres shot up in bed with her heart pounding. Disoriented for a moment she tried to reassure herself that she was back on Voyager, even without the comforting hum of the warp drive.

"Just a dream," she muttered, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Just a dream."

She flopped back in bed but had no desire to return to sleep, not with the dangers that lurked there. She crawled out of her bed, noticing that she was still wearing her uniform. Suddenly, she remembered being put to bed by Paris.

"Tom?" she whispered looking around. Feeling foolish for her fears she raised the lights. No Paris.

'That figures,' she thought uncharitably, 'I ask him to stay and he....' Her angry thoughts stopped abruptly when she noticed the blanket curled up at the end of her couch. So he *had* stayed! Just how long had she been asleep, B'Elanna wondered, looking for her chronometer. She checked it with astonishment. No wonder Paris had left. He was probably back on duty now. She'd been sleeping for 16 hours!

Torres suddenly felt restless. First things first, she had to get cleaned up before reporting for duty.

*****

Captain Janeway looked with comfort around the conference table. Her senior staff assembled again, almost whole. There was still an absence to her left, but he would return eventually. For this debriefing Lieutenant Carey and Ensign Rogin had joined them.

Kim had already given Janeway a fairly detailed oral report of what had occurred on the Kolavs and she had also read Torres' short explanation. This meeting was more to give answers to the other officers and to try to make some sense out of the events.

"The information on the Cerijan log was quite detailed," Harry was saying, "They went into orbit to make some repairs after being attacked. They were .... transporting weapons."

Tuvok raised a eyebrow.

"Intriguing," he murmured. "To have a ship filled with weaponry and still not be able to defend themselves."

"They noticed the energy pull in the orbit and sent someone to the surface of the moon to investigate. That person brought back one of the creatures to .... study it."

Torres gave a little snort, but did not add anything to Harry's tale.

"Captain, if I may," interjected the Doctor. At her nod he continued, "After studying the effects of the poison on our team, and the venom sample .... acquired by Lieutenant Torres," Torres looked away. "I believe I have something to add about these creatures. They were able to *absorb* energy, that is how they fed off the Kolavs. It is also how they fed off the Cerijans."

"Explain," requested Janeway gently.

"The Cerijan physiology is quite different from human in that their bodies contain high amounts of electrical energy waves. High enough to be considered ... snacks for those creatures. I doubt Commander Chakotay's brain wave patterns were enough to be of any interest to them." Seeing the captain's eyes narrow the Doctor rushed on, "This is not a criticism of the commander, but humans do not have nearly the same amount of energy flowing in their bodies as do the Cerijans. Nor do Vulcans," he added.

"It's true," Torres said dully, "we spent hours in that Mess Hall without being attacked. It was only after we brought out our tricorders and started scanning that...."

"Commander Chakotay believed that the aliens were able to spot us because of the energy from our tricorders," Harry explained.

Tom was watching his friend, wondering what horrors had been experienced on that dark ship. Horrors that would never be told in a briefing session.

"Once the Kolavs was in orbit, the aliens became exponentially stronger with all that energy. With a damaged engine the Cerijans were no longer able to pull away. With the creature on board, they were killed off." Harry told the group.

"It's like a parasite killing its host," Kes said.

"OK, I'm still not clear on something," Paris spoke up. "I can understand that the energy signature of this alien could block our sensors and our communicators, but what about the data that Carey presented showing the away team dead?" Tom turned a cold eye on Lieutenant Carey, who flushed and could not hold his gaze.

"The Kolavs was filled with odd energy readings. We were hit by a strange wave as soon as we boarded," Torres told Tom, feeling the need to defend Carey. "This is what showed up on Carey's sensors just prior to the life signs being blocked, which made it appear that they had been lost."

"Lieutenant Carey's conclusions, given the evidence at hand, were logical," added Tuvok.

"How many of them were there on the ship?" asked Ensign Rogin.

"The one which attacked Kalmos was considerably smaller than the one which attacked Chakotay," Torres said. "So there had to be at least two."

"I wonder how it procreates itself," the Doctor mused.

Torres stood abruptly. She'd had enough debriefing. Enough speculation.

"Permission to leave," she asked the captain.

"Permission granted Lieutenant," Janeway said, sadly watching her leave the room. She was not the only one. Paris's eyes followed B'Elanna out the door, wishing he could follow. But there was nothing he could do.

*****

Janeway was in the middle of balancing the duty roster when the Doctor contacted her. She was out of her ready room and down the hall before he'd even finished his sentence. The truth was she was glad for the interruption. Balancing the duty roster was something Commander Chakotay did in his role as First Officer. It was not a task Janeway particularly enjoyed, nor was she very good at it. She could have gotten someone else to manage it for her, Tuvok perhaps. Although he was restricted to light duty he had been released from sickbay. But Janeway wanted to do it. She wanted to remind herself of Chakotay and all that he did for her, including the small tasks like balancing the duty roster. He had a way of knowing the people that minimized conflict and kept everyone on an even keel. Well, wasn't that one of the reasons she put him in the position?

It hadn't taken her very long to fully appreciate the commander's talent. She hoped he would return to health soon - and not just for the duty roster.

She entered sickbay with a fast gait that stopped abruptly in front of the Doctor and Kes. There were no other patients left on the beds today. All others had been released to their quarters.

"Ah Captain," said the Doctor, "I knew you'd come quickly."

"Is he awake?" she asked bluntly.

"He's been drifting in and out," Kes told her.

"His shoulder will no doubt be sore for awhile," the Doctor commented. Janeway stared at the hologram intently.

"What about the effects of the alien?" she asked, "The others seem to have recovered quickly from that."

"A fascinating study," the Doctor said enthusiastically, "The aliens were obviously trying to extract any electrical energy in their victims by injecting a highly concentrated...."

Janeway had to confess she tuned out the Doctor sometimes. While he launched into a detailed explanation of the creature and its venom she cast her eyes on the commander. He looked much better than the last time she'd been down here. His shoulder looked well healed from the surgery; his neck no longer showed evidence of the alien's attack.

"....interrupting the brain wave activity causing severe muscular contractions very similar to....."

Janeway saw Chakotay's eyelids flutter slightly and she moved away from the Doctor's lecture and over to the bed.

"....the heart is, as you know, a muscle, so the continued strain of the seizures would have been serious enough to..."

"Chakotay?" Janeway asked, putting a hand in his. Behind her, Kes was pulling the Doctor away. The Ocampan was clever enough to do so by asking the Doctor a question, which allowed him to continue to pontificate about all that he'd learned.

Chakotay wondered if he was still hearing voices in his head. Had he finally died? What were those noises around him? But out of his fog he could suddenly hear very clearly the sound of the Holographic Medical Doctor. And then the voice of the captain.

So. They'd made it. Somehow they'd made it back to Voyager. He wanted to ask about the other members of the team but his brain had forgotten how to operate his mouth.

From a distance it seemed he could feel her fingers on his hand. Reassurance. Strength. Calm. If only he could remember how to move his own fingers he could return the gesture.

Janeway felt his fingers twitch in her hand and saw his eyes finally open. They focused on her, for a second his expression so clear, so honest. Relief. Gratitude. Trust.

The door to sickbay swished open to allow Torres to walk through. She walked without purpose, her body language betraying a sense of uncertainty. Seeing the captain leaning over Chakotay, Torres hesitated. She did not want to intrude. But Janeway spotted her and was gesturing her to come closer.

"Here's someone who's been waiting to see your eyes open," she told Chakotay softly. His eyes shifted focus slightly so he blinked. There was B'Elanna looking down on him with concern. The last time he'd seen her she'd had a very similar look, but it had been in a much darker place.

"Commander," Torres said stiffly.

"You....did....it," Chakotay rasped. Torres and Janeway exchanged glances.

"I had a lot of help," B'Elanna said.

"Did Kalmos slay her dragon?" Chakotay's voice was hoarse but getting stronger. There was a pause. He looked at Torres, then over at Janeway. Oh no. Oh no. Chakotay closed his eyes feeling a pain that had nothing to do with his injuries.

"No," Torres whispered, "no, she didn't."

"Harry?"

"Harry's fine," Janeway said quickly, to reassure him. "I'm sure he'll be by shortly to visit you."

Behind them, the Doctor cleared his throat.

"I believe that's our cue to leave," Janeway said to Torres with some amusement.

"Be well Chakotay," B'Elanna whispered in his ear. She left without saying another word.

Janeway patted his arm, more to convince herself of his well-being than to comfort him in any way. Then she, too, left sickbay.

*****

Chakotay lay on his bed in sickbay feeling bored and sick and bored with being sick. Every once in awhile he'd lean up on his elbows in an effort to move from horizontal to vertical and then decide that horizontal was preferable after all. He had had a few visitors, filtered in by Kes past the disapproving face of the Doctor, but with the exception of the captain, none had stayed very long. He could sense the unease people felt around him. He reminded them too much of their own deaths.

He hadn't seen Kim since being on the Kolavs, nor Torres since he'd first regained consciousness, but Kes reassured him that they were both physically well, just needing some time and space. Jenna's death cut into Chakotay; he felt responsible. No matter how many times his rational mind told him that she had abandoned the team for the purpose of killing that creature, another part of his mind reminded him that he had sent Torres out to find her. Torres had returned with the venom and without Jenna.

No one was talking much, Kes had noticed this. Harry and B'Elanna were very noticeably quiet, the commander more so. Of course, Chakotay was also very sick and he was quiet by nature, but Kes noticed a difference in him. They had withdrawn. So when Harry walked into sickbay, hesitating by the door as though he couldn't decide whether he really wanted to be here, Kes pulled him further in gently.

"I'm sure Commander Chakotay will be pleased to see you Harry," she told him. "He's asked about you several times."

Harry felt a twinge of guilt. He should have come sooner, but it seemed every time he'd tried he couldn't quite do it. The one other time he'd made an attempt Chakotay had still been unconscious.

Chakotay sensed suddenly that someone was there even if he hadn't heard Harry's approach. He forced his eyes open.

"Harry," he said, "I was just thinking about you." About you, and Torres, and Kalmos; about my team, that which was four and is now only three.

"I'm sorry I didn't come earlier Commander," Harry said. He stood a respectful distance away from the bed making it hard for Chakotay to properly see him. Chakotay gestured for the young man to come closer. When he did the commander noted the worry lines on Kim's forehead, the sadness in his eyes. Would these ever disappear?

Chakotay wondered what to say to him. Should he be flip and try to crack a joke? 'Hey Harry set any explosives lately?' Or should he make some comment about Kim's bravery, his quick thinking under extreme duress? No, the former would sound too much like Paris, the latter like the captain. And it was the captain's place to praise Kim for his work, not the First Officer who was flat on his back in the infirmary.

"Harry, how are you doing? Are you OK?"

"Commander, I..." Harry hesitated and then looked away, "I wanted to thank you, but I didn't know how."

"Thank me for what? You're the one who...."

"Commander," Kim interrupted, returning his eyes to look at Chakotay, "the whole time we were over there you always seemed so sure of us getting back! You always spoke of "when" not "if." You have no idea how......how comforting that was to have your confidence, your reassurance! I wanted so much to believe you even when I felt it was nearly hopeless."

Chakotay was silent. He was surprised by Kim's gratitude. He didn't want to spoil the moment by confessing to the ensign that he had been seriously worried from the moment they'd lost communications and that after his attack he'd greatly doubted they would return to Voyager. Obviously, his doubt and worry had been cleverly masked by some kind of confidence from which Kim had fed.

"Do you know what really helped?" Kim was asking him.

"No," admitted Chakotay, thinking about how scared he'd felt.

"When you told me to ask Paris about the old saying when we got back to the ship. You said it as though we were just sitting out a minor communications glitch."

Chakotay couldn't remember telling Kim to ask Paris about anything. Selective amnesia? What a pity that he couldn't recall being inspiring to his team!

"Did, er, did you ask Paris?" Chakotay ventured and was pleased to see Kim smile.

"Yes and you were right. He said he'd lived that saying."

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