Disclaimers, ratings and warnings are in Part 1.
THE BADLANDERS
PART EIGHTEEN
Kathryn stood on the bridge of the Liberty. There had been no time to make an indepth study of the ship's specs, but Nick Locarno and Harry Kim had been one ahead of her. Lieutenant-Commander Rollei, finally pronounced fit working in engineering, becoming acquainted with the workings of the Liberty while Lon Suder, the Maquis - a Betazoid - sat at the Security panel and Nick Locarno manned the conn. Megan had decided to remain in sick bay, helping the doctor with the rest of the Voyager survivors who had been brought to sick bay by Nick and Harry.
"We've locked the rest of the Liberty crew in their cabins, Captain," Nick told her, beaming. She learned that they had overrode the codes of all the crew cabins on the ship with none of the crew able to exit their cabins. Then they had set about freeing Voyager's remaining three crew and a few other prisoners still on the Liberty. Ones who needed medical treatment were transported to sickbay and others placed in cabins where they now had access to replicators.
She felt very proud. Nick was a personal reclamation project and he had not disappointed her. It was the doctor who had confirmed to her Nick's connection, though it was always one she had suspected. Nick, though no doubt knowing of this bond between them, never used it against her or as a way to escape prison. Kathryn had gone to New Zealand because she believed he was the best pilot to take Voyager into the Badlands. She sighed. His mother, brilliant Starfleet doctor, had been just another of Owen Paris's victims.
Tom had warmed her heart when he called her his sister and she wondered if he knew that Nick was also a sibling. Tom was still wracked by guilt over his deeds, his treatment of her, over Jenny's death, but he had had no compunction it seemed, when he felled B'Elanna Torres. The three - one of whom had been Torres's prisoner, had been treated by the doctor and then locked in their cabins.
It was Dickson, the tight-clad prisoner who had begged them to take him with them, wherever they were going.
"I am Lieutenant Eldred Dickson, Captain Janeway, of the starship Audensberg. Please, I would like to see my family again..."
She had nodded, then asked him if he would like to crew.
"If I can get into something more comfortable," he said.
"My cabin," replied Tom, "you can go there. Replicate something."
Eldred looked pleased, and wanted to grab Tom's hand, but Megan had already touched Tom's arm. She nodded to Dickson that he could leave, and he had given her a grateful look. Tom turned to face Megan. There was an uneasy silence for a few moments, with Tom looking ashamed.
"Look, I know this is not going to help much, but - but if it means anything, I - "
Tom's face turned red; he looked flustered, looked away from Megan, then turned to her again.
"Tom," she said, "my sister is dead. I mourn her passing now, because I wasn't allowed to mourn her two days ago..."
Megan let her words trail. Kathryn knew, as she thought Tom knew too, that she was referring to her treatment and gang rape, while they told her that they killed her sister. No one was going to come out of all this unscathed. Already Rollei felt guilty that he had been in sickbay critically injured and survived the rapes and torture.
"I am sorry, Megan."
"No more than I am, Tom," Megan said quietly. "I lost a soul mate in my sister."
Unable to hide her distress, Megan turned away from Tom, who appeared for a moment steely hard, until the distraught look was back in his face. Kathryn touched his arm.
"We have to get Chakotay out of here, Tom. I think you know why. This isn't my vessel, but you've lost some key crew, others are locked in their cabins, and if we're to take the Liberty out of here to rendezvous with the Vulcan vessel, I'm going to need some help. It's your choice if you want to remain. The Maquis will be given the choice to leave the Liberty and transport to other Maquis vessels."
"Captain, I - I don't know what to say," he responded, the gloom lifting fleetingly from his blue eyes.
"You can start by calling me Kathryn. I am your sister, you know."
"But as long as I'm under your command here, you are Captain Janeway."
"Tom..."
"No debate, Captain."
"Fine. I'm going to need someone down in engineering. I understand Torres was quite a brilliant engineer and so is Seska, but I don't want Seska anywhere near a console that she can hack into."
Her words struck a chord with him. They had just removed Torres's body from sickbay and would eject her into the first sun once they were out of the Badlands.
"If you're wondering, Captain, I don't think the Boss will miss her. Maybe her skills she brought to the table, but no, he won't miss her."
She didn't want to tell Tom that Chakotay thought nothing of striking Torres with his belt and ordering her to leave. Torres had been present whenever Chakotay... Kathryn shuddered. The road ahead for them all was very long and very hard. To his eternal credit Chakotay had her alone in his cabin and after that first time, he had been good to her and good with her. It was that, in fact, that had triggered the awareness that something was gone, taken forcibly from him.
"No. I don't think he'll miss her. Nick and Harry ejected some of his key men as well. We're crew, Tom. On a rogue ship called the Liberty."
Tom had nodded, and finally made his way to engineering, to join Tuvok, her security officer.
Minutes later she had been hailed by him.
"There's no one here, Captain. I think you should get Suder down here. He's currently on the bridge. He's the next best after Torres, Dalby, Seska and Ayala. He - "
"What, Tom?"
"Never participated in any of...what happened here on the ship. Talk to him, will you?"
"I'll do that. I hope he'll accept my command."
"And Captain?"
"Yes?"
"Tell Megan she's doing a great job plotting a star chart."
"Will do. Janeway out."
Kathryn stood next to the biobed. Chakotay looked rested, although still in a comatose state. All the anger seemed to have evaporated from his face. He looked younger, less pale than when he been transported to sickbay. The oozing pus had halted, but would start seeping again once he was awakened to start the procedure.
Brought for the moment to the present again, Janeway stared out the viewscreen and silently thanked Megan Delaney for the work she had done in such dire circumstances. She had heard from the young cartographer that Jenny had always worked with her, and together they had formed a formidable combination of charting space. Now, Kathryn was glad that Megan, now part of the crew and any future vessel assigned to her. She was glad that the girl had been so precise and intuitive. In an area of space familiar mostly to the Maquis who dwelled there, Megan had found those narrow passages were there was less plasma turbulence, and apart from the occasional shudder of the vessel, gave Nick a much better chance of matching his speed and coordinates against the information Megan had furnished.
It was data Kathryn was going to keep classified, in case of any unforeseen emergency dash back into the Badlands. The route was remarkably free of other roaming Maquis ships and shuttles. The Limpet, Liberty's small five-seater shuttle, would also join the Neruk, the Vulcan vessel waiting for them. It was still not possible to open a hail to that vessel because of static interference, and she hoped fervently that they would have a successful rendezvous.
An hour ago, they had been met by two Maquis vessels and had transported the Maquis who had wanted to leave the Liberty. She gave a mental shrug. They would probably continue their repulsive and depraved practices, but now, with the head of their state gone, she hoped seriously that it would lessen dramatically. That was the impression she got, based on the changing attitude of Tom Paris and seven of the Maquis who had elected to remain on the Liberty.
Tom had wanted to have nothing to do with his old life anymore and considered her as his senior officer, so the most senior after Tom on the Liberty was Suder, who was taking the Liberty back the same route they were travelling. He'd keep the ship free of prisoners and other Maquis and would wait for them to return.
She had had her conversation with him as Tom had suggested.
Suder had the blackest, most disarming eyes that were even more disarming because they contrasted so much with his pale skin and eye sockets.
When she had asked him to Chakotay's small office, leaving Nick at the helm, and Tuvok at his station, he had immediately stood on attention.
"Captain Janeway. My name is Lon Suder," he said in quiet, reserved tones.
She liked him immediately.
"At ease, Mr Suder," she commanded, her words bringing a smile to his face.
"Forgive me, Captain. I have never been called Mr Suder..."
"Well, get used to it. You have indicated a desire to remain on the Liberty and under my command."
"Thank you, Captain."
A small silence ensued. She gave a little cough.
"I...understand from Tom Paris that you and the others who have decided to remain never participated in - in the..." She could feel the blush spreading, her face warm. Suder, like everyone, knew of her own treatment. Under threat of death they had remained quiet. He was a Betazoid who could read her emotions and he must have known what she felt. Yet he remained calm, almost impassive.
"It is against my beliefs, Captain. But even if I didn't have those beliefs to guide my behaviour, such atrocities and participation in them were reprehensible to me. Sometimes we have managed to speak to victims who expressed hatred, others who have accepted their fate, and many who had hope that their new master would treat them with greater compassion. I have not had trouble myself screening out unwanted emotions from especially the perpetrators, although Captain Chakotay is a different matter."
"Captain Chakotay's memories will be reintegrated. I am sure reparation would be high on his list."
"I know, Captain Janeway. When you came on board, I sensed immediately a change in Captain Chakotay's emotions, even before he met you. He became more preoccupied, and once when he invited me to dine with him in the mess hall, he had been at pains to explain that he would give you no mercy. But - "
"But?"
"His emotions were all the opposite of what he was saying. I'm a Betazoid. Captain Chakotay must have invited me to his table by some unspoken desire. Even then he had been unable to define the ambivalence in him and it confused him, though no one else suspected."
Kathryn thought how Tuvok said pretty much a similar thing, and Tuvok was a touch telepath.
"I can tell you, Mr Suder, that what you're saying is true. His meeting me has caused a major emotional shift in his equilibrium."
"Then I am glad, Captain Janeway, to be serving under you and Captain Chakotay - "
"But Chakotay has committed foul deeds. He is accountable."
"I know. But this too I sensed that day in the mess hall, that somewhere - somewhere..."
Suder's eyes looked like they changed colour from black to a blue-black - they gleamed warmly and not, as she feared for a fleeting second, dangerous.
"Somewhere?" she prodded gently.
"He had a past in which he must have had someone - a loving woman whom he loved. Everyone knew him as man who couldn't love anyone. He was cold, distant, enigmatic, loveless, never encouraging anyone to come too close or to be tender at all. Since your arrival, that changed, even before he set eyes on you. That was what I sensed. The capacity for loving lay closer to the surface than he had been willing to acknowledge."
There was a long pause in which she thought he'd finished. She was just about to dismiss him.
"I think there's more, isn't it, Mr Suder?"
"Perhaps, Captain, you should go to his cabin and look through his personal effects. I think there is something that might be of importance to you."
Back in the present, Kathryn thought of her conversation with Suder and smiled to herself. Fingers crept upwards to her neck and her eyes closed, burning with unshed tears.
She had gone to Chakotay's cabin, searched through his things and found it.
***********
END PART EIGHTEEN