BOOK ONE: BEGINNINGS
CHAPTER FOUR
The planet Moldor IV of the Brebok Star System had been a mining colony. With its resources deplted there was minimal activity now. However, on a southern continent some rich deposits of deuterium still remained in uninhabitable areas, too remote for any useful activity to take place.
An away team of the USS Ormskirk had beamed down. Commander Chakotay, accompanied by three officers, had first scouted the area before finding the entrance to a disused shaft.
"The deposits are three thousand metres down," he told Lieutenant Tongwat, a Bolian.
"Isn't that too deep, Sir?" Tongwat asked.
"Without the kind of technology we're using today, it would have been the deepest of shafts," replied Chakotay as they traversed towards the first platform, about a hundred metres down. The rough steel girders were so narrow that they had to climb down in single file. Chakotay went first, followed by Tongwat and the other two.
Then Chakotay paused, his legs braced around a metal bar, scanning the area below, then hit his combadge quickly.
"Chakotay to Ormskirk. How far down will you be able to keep a transporter lock on us?"
"About two and a half thousand metres, sir. We've been able to scan a platform of sorts at that depth, Commander. After that there is too much interference. You'll have to climb to get further down...."
"Noted. Chakotay out."
Chakotay fixed his harness in place, looking at Tongwat as he counted the karabiners, testing the breaking strength of the rope. He had selected this team, but he needed to make certain. Every Academy graduate had gone through through extreme survival training in his or her second year.
"You into abseiling, Tongwat?"
"Been taught that in my second year, Commander. Special training by Commander Eiselen..."
"Eiselen?" Lieutenant Grey asked. "The man who can climb Kilimanjaro without supports?"
"You know the man," replied Tongwat. "What about you?"
"I'm okay, so is Lieutenant Koreg. That right, Koreg?" Lieutenant Grey asked his colleague. Koreg nodded, not saying anything.
"Okay, let's get moving to the platform," Chakotay ordered the men. They were getting distracted and would lose concentration if not careful.
They were quiet until they reached the platform, wide enough that all four of them could stand on it. Chakotay hit his combadge again. They collected the equipment that the transporter chief had already beamed down. Each officer had taken a load of the equipment in their backpacks. Chakotay was finished first and waited for the others. When Tongwat nodded, Chakotay hit his combadge again.
"Chakotay to Ormskirk. We're ready."
Seconds later four of them were beamed down to a shallow cavern, the platform of sorts the Transporter Chief had told him about. It was more a niche that was carved out of the rock. Chakotay secured the belay ropes with a piton he hit into the hard rock face. It was a five hundred metre descent, a steep climb with enough footholds, but the rock walls were damp and slippery.
"Be careful. We should hit rock bottom in about two hours..."
"Pity we couldn't beam right down, Commander," Tongwat said, his voice sounding a little peevish.
"Yes, it is a pity, isn't it? Where's your sense of adventure, man?" the normally brooding Koreg asked just above him.
They climbed swiftly, some areas of the face smooth enough that they could abseil in spurts of about twenty metres. Their gear was reinforced, the karabiners' breaking strain at 22kN, the thin belay rope surprisingly resilient.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Koreg asked as Grey slipped above him. He missed a foothold, plunged ten metres, flying past Koreg as he came down, then, almost bungee style, bounced against the rock face. He dislodged a few loose stones that clanked hollowly down in the darkness.
"What the - ?" Chakotay asked as the rope strained.
"Sir! Break off!"
"No! Koreg, you steady him! We're about a hundred metres from that ledge below us. Crawl if you have to!" he commanded, at the same time managing to untie his rope from the karabiner.
"What are you doing, Commander?"
"I'm pulling all of you down. If I untie myself, you can make it to the ledge..."
"No, sir! You're in danger!"
"Get down! That's an order!"
They managed to move down, clambering past Chakotay. In the light from his wrist, Chakotay could see Grey looked shaken. That was when it happened. Koreg who was still above him, slipped as he missed a jutting foothold, scraping narrowly against Chakotay. The sudden movement was just enough to jolt Chakotay from his grip. Before he knew what was happening, he lost his foothold.
"Hey, what - "
Chakotay plunged down the rock face. He only had time to think it was a good thing he was cut loose from the group, when he knocked his head, stunning him so that his body plunged like a rag doll, bumping, bumping as he went. He didn't scream. The screams came from Koreg, Grey and Tongwat. He landed with a thud on the ledge, bounced away from it and careened down until he thudded onto another ledge, but that wasn’t the end of it. During his plunge, Chakotay had loosened more rocks that followed his descent. As he lay on the ledge, exposed, a large boulder crashed on to his legs.
The others couldn't see him anymore. Chakotay gave a soft moan before losing consciousness.
***
Sergei Karkoff looked at the patient on the biobed. A very worried Bolian stood next to him, teetering on his heels.
"Will he be alright, Doctor?" Tongwat asked.
"The fool man! He could have been killed. You saved his life, Lieutenant."
"No, Doctor. Commander Chakotay saved our lives. He knew when Grey slipped the first time, that he would bring all of us down, because Grey was just above him. He untied himself from us, otherwise we would have gone, too."
"You two finished?" Chakotay asked, his eyes still closed. When he opened his eyes, he smiled at Sergei, shook Tongwat's hand. "Thanks, Tongwat. It must have been difficult getting back to the platform - "
"It was touch and go, Commander. Transporter chief could only do a beam-out from the platform." Lieutenant Tongwat turned to look at the doctor. "It took us three hours to get the commander back up to it, Doc."
Chakotay lifted himself up, groaning as he tried to sit. He touched his head gingerly, feeling a little groggy still.
Sergei and Tongwat watched him. Then Tongwat looked at the doctor.
"Do you think it's wise for the Commander to get up now, Doctor?" he asked. His look and tone of voice clearly suggested he thought the Commander shouldn't.
"Chakotay, you have to stay here for at least the rest of the day - "
"Nonsense, I feel fine." He moved his feet over the bed, then pitched forward, sailing off the bed and landing on the floor.
"See what I mean, Doctor?" Tongwat asked as he lifted Chakotay back on the bed.
"Chakotay, you've had a serious concussion, you've been here three days - "
"Three days!"
"Three days. You've had serious multiple fractures of your left leg, and I mean multiple. There were enough bone fragments that would make a good soup, and they haven't knitted as they should. At the moment tiny pins like staples are keeping the bones together. You'll experience discomfort for a few days, but I can't keep you tied to the bed. You do in fact need to get up and move around."
Chakotay stared at his friend in disbelief. His leg ached, and Tongwat…Tongwat was smiling!
"Why are you smiling, Tongwat?"
"Doctor, it's going to be difficult to keep the Commander chained to the bed. Am I correct that I’m thinking what you are thinking?"
"What's going on that I don't know?" Chakotay asked Sergei as the Doctor walked to another part of the sickbay and returned seconds later with two crutches. State of the art 24th century blue metal crutches with elbow braces. Chakotay frowned. He had never seen them before in his lifetime.
"Am I to use those’?
"Yes, Commander," Tongwat said cheerily. His eyes twinkled and Chakotay had to smile. The man deserved ten medals for saving his life; he was also patently holding Chakotay up as a role model and hero. He wanted to be none of that. All he wanted... He sighed softly.
"Chakotay," Sergei said with a smile as they helped him off the bed, "they are only aids. You have to keep the weight off your leg. I've had to place you in a decompression chamber just to try and collect your bone fragments so they could fuse properly. Now the rest is up to you..."
"Sure. I'll hobble around on centuries old helping sticks and have the crew look at me as if - as if..."
"You need to get around?" Tongwat added with a hopeful look in his eyes.
"Lieutenant, you're dismissed."
Tongwat gaped at Chakotay. "I am here to help -
"Get out, before I pulverise you with...this!" Chakotay blustered as he swung one crutch as if to hit Tongwat with it. Lieutenant Tongwat exited sickbay in half the time it normally took for him to exit sickbay.
"Well, now there's another use for these crutches," Chakotay said morosely as he gripped it, them settled his elbows in the braces and tested a small floor area by walking forward. He grimaced as he put the left leg down heavily, and a shaft of pain shot through him.
"Remember, not too much weight on your leg. And, you have to come in here every morning before duty for therapy from Medical Assistant Krell - "
"Sure thing, Sergei. Thank you, man," Chakotay replied. He looked a little shame-faced giving them unnecessary grief.
"No problem, Chakotay. You just be careful. I need my friends..." There was a warm look in Sergei's eyes as he squeezed Chakotay's arm. "I'll see you tomorrow morning then. Right now I've got to - "
There was a beep, immediately followed by: "Bridge to sickbay."
Sergei hit his combadge. "Doctor here. What can I do for you, Captain?"
"Is Commander Chakotay awake?" Captain Petranoff asked. Sergei and Chakotay looked at each other; Chakotay frowned.
"Yes, he is. Commander Chakotay is on his way to his quarters, as a matter of fact - "
Chakotay smiled, although the frown remained, lessening only marginally.
"Commander Chakotay, we've received a direct communication from the USS Crimond. It's for you. Shall I direct it to your quarters?"
Chakotay emitted a soft gasp and Sergei looked at him with surprise. A surprise that changed to approval.
"The Crimond, Captain?" Chakotay asked.
"The vessel is on its way to Earth from Deep Space Nine. Commander, I'll relay it to your quarters. You have fifteen minutes... Bridge out."
Chakotay staggered back against the biobed and Sergei had to steady him. When he collected himself, Sergei said in a soft voice:
"Kathryn Janeway is on the Crimond."
Chakotay nodded, grateful that Sergei didn't press him for more information as he moved with difficulty on the crutches to the sickbay door. When he reached the door, Sergei spoke behind him:
"I could do a site to site transport to your quarters, Chak," he suggested.
"I - no...no thank you. It's alright... I'll walk. I need to think..."
"Sure." Sergei watched as Chakotay left the sickbay, shaking his head in wonder. Chakotay's face had lit up like a beacon. There was no one on the Crimond that Chakotay knew, only its first officer, one beautiful Commander Kathryn Janeway; someone who could make Chakotay hyperventilate and choke on his breath and make his already tanned face flushed.
"This had better be good," Sergei he muttered to himself as he walked to his office and busied himself with medical reports.
***
Chakotay was glad he hadn’t insisted on being transported to his quarters. He needed time to think, to assimilate the news that a message awaited him. Not only that, it was a direct communication. It meant that the moment he switched on his vidcom, he'd see her face.
It couldn't be anyone else. He knew no one else on the Crimond, and if it were the Captain himself who wished to speak with him - which he thought was unlikely, he never received such communications - it would have been an open hail he could have taken right there in the sick bay. Kathryn Janeway was the only person he knew to be on that vessel, as its First Officer. His heartbeat quickened madly at the thought of her.
Her image grew on his brain, enlarged so that he could see her clear blue-grey eyes, the mouth that curved at the corner when she smiled, the eyebrow that lifted. He remembered her look after he kissed her, the flushed cheeks, the fear mingled with pleasure. She had not rejected his advances. He had walked away thinking that he would never see her again. And so he created a new little memory of her, for her, beginning when she’d opened her door for him, to the kiss and the way she’d moaned when he’d pulled her closer in his embrace. It was a little tableau, a tapestry of movement and emotion, of touch and taste and smell he turned over in his mind constantly, constantly... He had never forgotten her, he could never forget her. She remained indelibly in his mind as clearly as he had seen her that night, when she’d turned her face to him in the concert hall, the often furtive glances she she’d given him and that he had given her, just wanting to look at her, take in every nuance of her movements, of her voice, inhale the smell of her and die at the touch of her soft hair, the way her lips became even softer when he brushed his against hers. .
Chakotay stopped for a minute, exhausted after walking almost fifty metres to the nearest turbolift. He sagged against the bulkhead, releasing one hand from the crutch and wiping his brow with the back of it in a tired gesture.
Two crewman who passed him frowned when they saw the crutches. They greeted him quickly and walked on. Chakotay sighed. He'd have to get used to their stares, they didn't bother him.
They'd have to search elsewhere for deuterium and replenish the Ormskirk's reserves. He had known from the start the mission was a risky one. Only Tongwat was fully capable of dealing with the extreme risk they exposed themselves to. No, the mission was aborted, and he walked like a cripple.
He entered the turbolift.
"Deck four."
Leaning back, he waited for the doors to open on his deck. This time he tried to move faster with the crutches, an attempt that left him gasping as he struggled to get used to keeping the weight off his left leg. By the time he reached his quarters, he was drenched, the blue hospital issue gown showing dark patches where the perspiration soaked into it.
He wondered again what Kathryn wanted. Was she ill, perhaps? Was she wanting to thank him again for their evening together? It had been more than two months ago. They still had a journey of almost four months before they could get their much needed break of a month again. Maybe it was just to have a conversation with him. But why? Wasn't it over? He felt again the pain as his heart constricted, cramped so that he groaned as he finally reached his office and sagged gratefully in his chair.
She had to be patient to wait almost fifteen minutes for him. He was a fool to have let her wait, he thought belatedly. What if there were no message? What if she decided...what if? The old breathlessness he's had in the last two months just thinking about her, overpowered him again. His chest wheezed and for a few seconds he tried to breathe slowly in and out until there was a measure of calm in him.
His fingers trembled as he switched on his vidcom.
****
She had been sitting on the couch in the lounge. If she had lived in the twentieth century, she would have wanted the telephone to ring, like a love-sick teenager with bated breath for the first ring before diving to get the receiver.
Nowadays a little beep on her vidcom would alert her when there was an incoming message on subspace. In actual fact, it was her own communiqué that was still open and waiting for a response. It was almost fifteen minutes; the computer had alerted her in a tinny and impartial voice that the respondent would activate in fifteen minutes. She had removed herself from her office and chosen this spot, away from her vidcom where she didn't have to bite her nails in anticipation to see his face and hear his voice. Here on the couch it was safer, the little distance not so threatening as it would had she still been seated at her computer. Now she could think, clear her head and decide whether she wanted to change her mind after all. In which case she'd have to think of something safe and non-threatening to say to him, something as banal as "I just wanted to thank you for your gift, Chakotay", after which she could close communication and forget the whole thing with a man who wouldn't leave her dreams.
Or else, she could decide to let him know that her very being was incomplete, that he, Chakotay could, if she allowed it, become part of the sum of her parts. Half of it. Everything. Then again, she didn't want to unnerve him or embarrass him by blurting to him that she'd like to get to know him better.
What if he weren't interested? What if he hadn’t had the same dreams as she, night after night for two months? What if he had forgotten that searing kiss that had imprinted itself so fully, so completely and permanently into her heart? She closed her eyes. Even now, two months later, she could feel his heat, smell the musk that had drugged her senses and made her want more, prolong his touch on her lips. She could still feel how his tongue probed her mouth and found destinations, halting, probing, exploring...
She looked at her hands. They trembled as they rested on her knees. What would she say to him?
"Kathryn, you're thirty four years old and you don't know what to say?" she muttered to herself.
Her body jerked up from the seat as the sound of the vidcom's beeping echoed through her cabin. Smoothing back her hair, and then running her hands over her hips in an unconscious gesture of feminity she walked to her office. Measured steps, normal pace. He mustn't see that she was panting. She rubbed her cheeks, knowing that the warmth that spread through her face would let him see that she was a nervous, too flushed. Sitting down she took in a deep breath, once, twice, became calm as her hands touched the panels.
The Federation insignia disappeared. There was a face. Kathryn frowned.
"Chakotay?"
Chakotay wheezed, before he could speak. He was drenched in sweat and for a moment she wanted to think he had been in the holodeck with a workout programme of some kind. But he looked...sick. He was wearing a hospital issue blue gown. A coldness gripped her heart, made her fingers tremble again.
"Sorry I took so long, Kathryn."
"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice husky with concern.
Chakotay grimaced. Then he turned away from the screen momentarily and showed her a crutch. Kathryn frowned.
"Took a tumble and broke my leg," he offered reluctantly. At least, that's how he sounded, like someone who...
"You sound as if it's a nuisance, to have a broken leg. Your CMO...?"
"Oh, he fixed what he can - "
"Then it must have been serious, Chakotay!" Kathryn exclaimed, then clamped her mouth with her hand. How did she sound now? Like a an over-protective girlfriend? She looked at him for long, long moments, taking in his pinched features. He must still be in pain, she thought, as he wiped the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief.
"No, it's nothing much. Kathryn, why - why have you called me?" he asked. His eyes held an odd mixture of apprehension and expectancy. She felt a terrible burning inside her and clutched at her breast. Did he want her to call him? Did he miss her like she did him? She touched her flaming cheeks, not knowing for a moment what to say. She was suddenly embarrassed. She couldn't bear any looks of sympathy that she needed his company. He wasn't smiling, the look on his face…She gave a small cry.
"I - I think maybe it was a mistake. I shouldn't have called you. You have other...things..." she finished lamely, then suddenly she closed communication. There was a buzzing sound in her ears, the only sound she seemed to be able to hear in her quarters.
"Oh, dear God, what am I doing?" she whispered softly. "He looked so sick; it was the wrong time to approach him. What must he think of me?"
She rose from her chair, feeling sick to her stomach. Kathryn rushed to the bathroom where she leaned over the basin, taking in deep painful breaths in order to prevent the nausea from overcoming her. She had been so wound up since she decided to call Chakotay on subspace that she had not been aware of how on edge she really was. Seeing him for the first time in two months did something cataclysmic to her. It was his face she dreamed of, that followed her to the holodeck, the observation lounge, the bridge, her quarters, her bed...
Taking a sip of water, she felt a little better. Then she jumped as her vidcom beeped again.
"I'm acting like a love-sick teenager," she told herself as she walked to her office again, switched on her console and saw Chakotay's face. There was no smile, but there was no gloating look either, just…concern?
"I fell down a mine shaft on Moldor IV. I plunged 200 metres before landing on a ledge in the belly of the mountain."
"I - I'm sorry I cut you off - "
"We were transported 2500m down to a platform," he said without paying much attention to her apology. It was as if he needed to explain more fully, and not with the same self-derision of before. "There was too much static interference to beam right down to 3000 metres."
"That far down?"
"Yes." Chakotay managed a smile now. "We had to climb the rest of the way down." He looked less pinched she noticed, and she felt her own fear subside, that he might have been more seriously injured, perhaps even have died. "I cut the abseil rope, but there was a slight hitch, and I lost my footing."
"That slight hitch meaning?"
"One of the men lost concentration, Kathryn…" he said calmly. She knew that it meant he had placed himself in danger, or that it had caused him to lose his own footing. She had done that herself in the caverns on Mars…
"Are you okay now? Apart from the crutches, I mean?" Kathryn managed to smile for the first time, settling into a relieved posture as she leaned forward to touch the screen.
"I was thinking of you, Kathryn..." he replied, his words full of import. Hope sprang up wildly in her.
"Not when you were climbing and risking your life?" she asked, aghast.
"Well, maybe not in those moments, but…" She saw how he wiped his brow again, how he breathed with a little wheezing sound. She waited until he calmed again.
"I wanted to thank you for....this," she replied, then she took the little eagle and held it up for him to see.
He grimaced.
"I call her Grey Eagle," she told him conversationally.
"It's a he, and you - you think of her as a she?"
"Does it matter?" she asked teasingly, suddenly feeling much lighter and not as intimidated by her own resolution to talk to him.
"No, it doesn't, I suppose."
"Did you carve it?"
"Kathryn, I'm fairly good at carving, but no, I didn't do that one. Grey Eagle did."
"Who?" she asked, then turned the little carving round in her hand, looking at him with a frown.
"Oh, he's the man who made it. A Native American who lives in Mexico..."
"It's very, very beautiful," she said, her eyes feeling moist as she looked at Chakotay. "Thank you...I'll treasure this always."
"And me, Kathryn?" he asked softly.
She knew she blushed again, but this time looked at him directly in the eyes.
"I was wondering, Chakotay, if - " She remained silent for about a minute, suddenly nervous again.
"If...what?"
"I would like to offer you my hand in friendship, Chakotay," she said at length.
Oh, why did she suddenly sound so pedantic? Chakotay burst out laughing and was immediately contrite when Kathryn closed her eyes. It wasn't going as well as she thought.
"I'm sorry. I seem to be wasting your time..."
"No, no, it's not that, Kathryn. I've been hallucinating, I'm dead certain. I have wanted to contact you. You don't know how many times..."
"You, too?" she asked.
"I don't think friends is all I want to be with you, Kathryn..." The moment the words were out, she could hear Chakotay give a deep sigh, as if the admission had finally given him peace. She pressed the little eagle against her lips, her eyes still closed. The stillness in her quarters was broken by her breathing. She wanted to die. He...wanted her... When she opened her eyes again, there was a tentative smile that hovered on his lips. It gave her courage, knowledge that she had done the right thing after all. He seemed to be waiting. He wanted to be more than friends… When she spoke again, there was no hesitation. She felt herself lifted, gloriously light like she was floating off somewhere.
"Could I call you again, Chakotay? I'll be home then - "
"I would love that, Kathryn Janeway. I would really love that."
She couldn't stop herself from smiling. What had been so intimate, too private a thought to share with anyone, she could tell Chakotay now, without feeling embarrassed. Now, with the air somewhat cleared, the conversation flowed easier.
"I haven't been able to stop thinking of that night."
"Why do you think I fell down the shaft?"
"It was my fault?"
"I was thinking of you!"
"I didn't break your leg, Chakotay..."
"No, you didn't," he said laughingly.
"How long will you be on the supports?"
"As long as Sergei decides to keep me on them. He's a real pain-in-the-rear doctor."
"But he knows what's best for you - "
"Kathryn, the man laughed putting me on crutches. Anyway…" Chakotay paused, the moment suddenly sombre. "Anyway, I - I have been injured really badly." She could see it wasn't an admission he was happy to make. That he was telling her, made her heart soar. He was clearly not one to reveal his woes to the outside worl. Why, she felt privileged to be part of it.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"I just have to be patient, that's all, Kathryn." He gave a
sudden bitter laugh. "I hate these…" he added, lifting up one crutch that she
could see.
"Chakotay..."
"Yes, Kathryn?"
"Will you take me one day to see Grey Eagle?"
A smile spread across his features; his eyes were shining as the sombre mood changed again.
"I will, Kathryn. I most certainly will. He's been wanting to meet you..."
****
END CHAPTER FOUR