Author's Notes: Although I had this story well underway before Repression, Janeway's portrayal in that episode drove me to distraction. I really hated how passive and wishy-washy Janeway seemed. She essentially threw up her hands and allowed less than a dozen Maquis take over her ship--and did *nothing* about it. Janeway is not a passive woman. She's a take charge, kick ass kinda gal. She has to be. She's a woman in the position of authority in a basically military organization. And I strongly suspect that even in the 24th century that means she's had to deal with more than her share of machismo and  other male posturing crap.

Making It Personal

There is a list of things that all Starship captain dread: the terrifying "Shields are down and all weapons system inoperative" from the tactical officer shouting above the shriek of the red alert klaxons during a firefight with a half dozen hostile ships; the breathless "Thirty second to warp core breech" from the frantic chief engineer; the sympathetic "I'm sorry, Captain, but he's dead" from the ship's doctor as he stands over yet another member of your crew.  Yes, these are the things that make starship captains sweat and toss in their beds at night long after junior officers have found repose in Morpheus's arms. So in the larger scheme of things, that comm call that comes in the middle of the night from the local equivalent of the head constable that begins "Captain, we are holding a number of your crew for brawling..." really doesn't rate. It's an irritation, one that captains have endured for generations, but it was one that Kathryn Janeway could have really, really done without.

It had been a long day,-- eleven straight hours of diplomatic treaty negotiation with the Akiritarii Alliance who lusted after Voyager's technology but were deeply suspicious of its female captain-- followed by an even longer night--a diplomatic reception which consisted of equal parts of stultifying cocktail conversation about Akiritarii politics, history and art while the First Minister and his minions mentally peeled back her uniform to stare at her breasts and a formal dinner which offered food so bizarrely alien that even Neelix's Talaxian offerings from early on in their journey seemed like down-on-the-farm home cooking and far too many mandatory toasts. Janeway had the mother of all tension headaches and greasily queasy stomach to boot. But she had coped with it all. She'd smiled through gritted teeth and made polite conversation with fools. She'd steadfastly negotiated with a cadre of ambitious men who were convinced that simply because she was female she was not only ignorant, but gullible as well. And in the end she'd triumphed.  Voyager had gained free passage across Akirit space and access to supplies and raw materials in return for some fairly innocuous technology.  Thus, it was with some measure of personal satisfaction that Janeway was able to beam back up to the ship and stumble unassisted to her own quarters before falling mostly undressed into her own bed.

She had just fallen asleep when the persistent, irritating chirp of  her commbadge went off on the night table beside her bed. She groaned and considered pulling a pillow over he head and letting Tuvok or Chakotay field this call. Then she remembered. She had relieved Tuvok when she'd returned to the ship. He had been on duty even longer than she had and even Vulcans needed to sleep now and then.  And Chakotay was planetside, charged with mother henning whoever was on shore leave right now to keep them all out of trouble. No, this call was all hers. It was why Starfleet paid their captains 'the big bucks' as the saying went, though Fleet technically didn't pay their officers and she wasn't entirely certain what a 'buck' was. She made a mental note to ask Paris. He was the resident expert on archaic slang.

The commbadge chirped again. Janeway reached for it, wondering if Starfleet had hired a team of perceptual psychologists to determine the exact tone and frequency of the sound that would provoke the fastest response time without also impelling any listener to hurl the device against a wall. She sat up and her stomach heaved. She silently thanked the seven saints of the spaceways that she didn't spew her stomach contents across the foot  of her bed. Squeezing the commpin much harder than necessary for activation, she growled, "Janeway."

"Captain, I have a communication from Chief Enforcer Malwin at Port City. He wants to speak to the ranking officer. He says it is matter of some urgency."

Crap. She couldn't foist him off on the OD. She'd have to talk to this guy herself.

"Lieutenant..." Janeway blanked on the relief Op's officer's name though she could visualize her face. "Patch me through to Chief Enforcer Malwin. Audio only. I'm not exactly dressed for company."

She thought she heard a faint and thoroughly unprofessional snicker through the comm link before the stern and uninflected voice of the Chief Enforcer came on.

"Captain?"

"This is Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager. You wished to speak to me about an urgent matter?"

"Indeed, Captain." Why did her title sound like a sneer when the Chief Enforcer said it?  "I have detained seven members of your crew for assault, destruction of private property, public drunkenness and disturbing the public order. I am informed by a representative from the Alliance Trade Ministry that under the terms of our newly signed agreement with you that these individuals may not be prosecuted under Akirit law, but must be remanded into your justice for punishment. Am I correct?"

"That is correct, Chief Enforcer."

"In that case, I advise you to come claim your men as soon as possible. There have been some....unfortunate injuries--nothing serious, but your crewmen are refusing all medical attention."

Janeway's mind flew into panicked overdrive. What kind of injuries? How bad?  "I'll be there in 10 minutes." Her thumb poised over the commpin. How likely was it that the injured would need a medic? The Akiritarii didn't have holotechnology and she didn't want the Doctor's sophisticated program to be their first exposure to the idea of it. "Janeway to Sickbay..." When the Doctor answered, she continued, "Prep the Sickbay for possible wounded. The Chief Enforcer has just informed that there's been a shore leave brawl. Find Tom Paris and equip him with a medkit. Have him meet me in transporter room 2 in five minutes."

"I'm sorry, Captain, but Lt. Paris is on leave rotation. He's not aboard."  The Doctor sounded genuinely apologetic.

Damn! Could this day get any worse? "Never mind then. Just prep Sickbay. Janeway out."

Two steps took her to the closet. She tugged on duty pants and shirt, then sat to pull on her boots. "Computer: one coffee, black, hot.....and two aspirin," she added in afterthought. She tossed the pills to the back of her tongue and followed them with a gulp of coffee. Shit! The coffee was hot! Her scalded tongue and the roof of her mouth now throbbed in time with her headache.

She grabbed her uniform jacket from the chair beside her bed and barely hesitated before tucking her handphaser into her waistband instead of her duty holster and sealing her jacket over it. Better safe....and she didn't trust the Akiritarii.

Her bootsteps thudded dully against the corridor carpeting as she headed for the transporter room.  There was one more thing to do. She slapped at her commbadge. "Bridge."

"Bridge here. Lt. Zubrzycki "

"Lieutenant, who is the senior Bridge office aboard?"

"Umm...one minute, Captain,  while I check." The lengthening pause while the young officer called up the data did little to reassure Janeway. "Lt. Torres," he answered at last, "And she's asleep."

Damn! She'd had hoped that a more experienced line officer were available. Where *was* everybody?

"Page Torres to the Bridge immediately for briefing. Tell her that I am transporting down to the planet to resolve a potentially diplomatically sensitive situation--one that may involve hostages. If I am not back in 20 minutes...tell her...tell her to use her best judgment, but that General Order 10 stands. Got that?"

"Uh...yes, Captain... General Order 10."

Janeway shook her head.  The officer sounded less certain than she liked. She wished once more that Tuvok or Chakotay could be holding down the fort while she scoped out the situation planetside.

Janeway materialized in the middle of the Enforcer District #3's central dispatch room. The room fell unnaturally quiet and all eyes turned toward her. The Akiritarii's transporter technology was a good 50 years year behind the Federation's and required bulky apparatus on both the sending and receiving end. Probably no one in the room had ever seen a person being transported, much less experienced it himself--which was exactly why she had choosen to appear here this way.  It never hurt to awe the natives a little.

She began to walk toward the what appeared to be chief sergeant's desk and the normal buzz and hum of conversations resumed around her. She allowed herself to look around a little. The crowd in the room was mostly male. Of the few women present, none wore uniforms and the rest could be categorized as victims, spouses, or what could be most charitably called commodities.

Janeway cut to the front of the line at desk. " I'm Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager, " she announced. "I'm here to see Chief Malwin."

From somewhere behind her and to the right a male voice stage whispered, "Not his usual ty...ooof." Janeway didn't move, but inwardly she smiled since that last sound could have only resulted from the ungentle contact of an elbow with the speaker's rib cage.

The desk sergeant, an bulky, older man with iron gray hair and a matching walrus mustache so long that it entirely covered his lips when he spoke, nodded once sharply as if he'd been expecting her and gestured toward a younger man. "Of course. Zelek will show you the way."

Janeway was ushered to a unmarked door. Zelek pressed a buzzer and retreated when the door opened.

If the desk sergeant had reminded her of a walrus, the man in the office reminded her of brick. He unfolded from behind his desk, towering a quarter of meter or more above her. He was a solid slab of muscle with the thickset neck of a professional wrestler and a pair of shoulders that could easily play Forward Blocker in Parisis Squares without the benefit of pads. He was glowering down at her with his arms crossed across his chest. Intimidation, that's what he was projecting. Go ahead, Janeway thought, do your worst,  Chief Enforcer. I've stared down a Hirogen Hunter and won--you don't even come close. She looked up to meet his eyes and  smiled her fiercest grin.

"Chief Enforcer Malwin? Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager."

Then she stuck out her right hand palm up with fingers together and thumb at right angles--the Akirit equivalent of a handshake--and dared him to take it.  The police captain's ham-sized fist closed over her hand, dwarfing it. Slowly his grip tightened--at first only enough to discomfort her, then continuing until involuntary tears of pain sprung up in her eyes. She knew he could easily crush her hand, but she refused to drop her gaze from his and offer up surrender.  She felt the small bones of her fingers creak then two of her knuckles popped. Without warning, the pressure stopped. The Chief Enforcer released her hand and resumed his seat behind his desk, busying himself in an unnecessary show of sorting through a pile of papers.

Janeway looked covertly around the nearly barren office, but there was nowhere to her to sit so she remained standing in front of the chief's desk like some miscreant schoolgirl called before the principal. Her hand hurt like hell. She flexed it experimentally as it hung discreetly beside her thigh, trying to determine if the damage were serious enough  to warrant a complaint. It wasn't. Bruised, but nothing broken.

"My men?" Janeway prompted when the Chief seemed to ignore her presence.

The Chief pulled out a stiff sheet of plastic flimsy from the clutter on his desk and  glanced it over before holding out to her.

"Before I can release your personnel, arrangements must be made for restitution."

 As she read the sheet, Janeway's mouth narrowed into a thin angry line. "This is extortion," she announced flatly. "I agreed to pay for the damages that my crewmembers caused. I did not agreed to finance the wish fulfillment fantasies of a half dozen shopkeepers whose avarice would put a Ferengi to shame." She tossed the list of figures onto the Chief Malwin's desk when he refused to take it from her hand.  She folded her arms across her chest, set her jaw and shot a look at the Akiritarii Enforcer Chief that should have set his hair afire. "I will pay your damage claim because it seems to be the only way I can shake my crew loose from your prison. Be warned, however, I will instruct my Security Chief and Procurement Officer to closely audit these claims and if there are any unjustified expenses or any costs that go beyond reasonable and customary, you may expect a harassment claim to be lodged against you with your government's diplomatic offices."

A smile spread with glacial slowness across the Chief Enforcer's implacable face, as if the muscles required for such an effort had atrophied from lack of use and only now were remembering how to move.  "You're not at all what I expected from a female commander," Chief Malwin grudgingly allowed. "You're not weak or ineffectual, nor hysterical and bellicose. I think I shall have to revise my estimate of you and accept that at least half the stories I've heard about you must be true."

 Janeway opened her mouth to object, but closed it again, unable to decide if she had been obscurely complimented--or insulted.

The chief scribbled two lines in a unreadable alien script and handed a  half sheet of flimsy to her. "I am releasing Voyager's personnel into your custody. Zelek will show you the way to the Holding Cells. It's been an enlightening meeting."  And with that, he dismissed her and returned to sorting through his paperwork.

Zelek appeared from nowhere, summoned, no doubt, by a button on the chief's desk, and led her through a series of gray, unmarked corridors to a checkpoint where he indicated Janeway should hand over the orders the Chief had written for her.

The Akiritarii used metal doors to enclose their jail cells instead of force fields, but there was a transparent viewing panel inset into the door just at eye level. While she waited for confirmation of her crew's release, Janeway craned forward to look inside the holding cell, counting body parts like an anxious mother hen counting missing chicks.  She could see three heads, a pair of shoulders and a hand that didn't looked like it belonged to the shoulders, and  by just turning a little she was able to catch a glimpse of a  gold-and-black-clad back and another set of shoulders--this set red. That made seven. They were all accounted for. A cubit of neutronium that had been hanging around her neck since the call came in lifted.

As the cell door rolled back, she was able to access the faces: Tom Paris, that was no surprise, nor the fact that Harry Kim sat opposite him--always playing Buster to Tom's Captain Proton--and Joe Carey. The shoulders and the hand resolved themselves into two crewmen from engineering, Webster and Gustave, neither of whom she knew well. The other set of shoulders looked familiar somehow, but she skipped over that puzzle as the back turned--Tuvok! What was Tuvok doing here? Then Tom reached over and tapped the set of red shoulders and gestured toward the door. They turned. Chakotay. Now she knew why the ship felt so deserted: her entire Bridge staff--more or less-- was locked up in the drunk tank.

"Gentlemen," she growled as they all rose raggedly to their feet, "You've been remanded into my custody--which mean your asses are mine. And you all have some serious explaining to do."

Her misbehaving boys--she couldn't think of them in any other way right now--straggled out of the cell and fell in silently behind her as she led them beyond the shielded portion of the jail.  She supposed she should be grateful they all could walk--it meant none of them were seriously injured--but right now she was too damned angry.

She slapped her commbadge and requested transport.

"Captain," began Paris as they arranged themselves into beam-out formation.

Janeway lifted a warning finger and pinned him with a glare just in case he didn't get her message. "Later, Mr. Paris. You'll have your chance..."

*^*^*^*

Janeway bounded down off the platform the moment the transporter beam released her. She turned, hands on hips and death in her eyes, and quelled any notion her 'boys' might have about leaving. She stepped quietly over to the transport operator and told her to wait in the corridor until she was told otherwise.

Janeway crossed her arms, stared at the toes of her boots and drew two deep breaths through her nose. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. What they'd done was stupid. Almost criminally so. The ink was barely dry on the trade and passage treaty when the brawl began. The repercussions could very well have undone her painstaking hours of negotiations and she wasn't sure she had the patience to start the process all over again.

She lifted her head and looked straight in Tom Paris's eyes--or his left eye anyway. His right was pretty much lost inside a purple swollen mess. She saw him straighten and swallow with resolve and realized she wouldn't get anything useful out of him. He was too used to being in this position. She let her eyes slide over Kim and Carey and come to rest on  young Reynaldo Gustave who paled noticeably under her scrutiny and clutched his right wrist even tighter to his chest.

"Are you injured, Crewman?" Janeway asked with apparently solicitude.

"Umm... think it's broken....Captain," he added as afterthought.

"Care to tell me how it got broken?"

The engineers mate's eyes widened and he glanced left and right as if she might possibly be addressing someone else. On either side of him, Carey and Webster stood unmoving, approximating 'at attention' with eyes front and center. No one was going to help him out.

"During the fight, " he ventured.

"And how did you come to be involved in a fight?" Janeway questioned silkily.

 Gustave swallowed hard and the words came tumbling out. "Joe and Dunc and I were sitting at a table, having a comfortable beer, minding our business when this body came flying out of nowhere and went sliding across our table. Whoever it was seemed to take offense with our uniforms and came up swinging, if you take my meaning.  I had nothing to do with it--other than defending myself. And that's the truth, Captain."

Janeway gave him the fisheye up and down.

"You have no idea who or what started the altercation?"

"None, Sir..... Honest." Janeway could hear the wheedle in his voice, the plea for her to believe him--and god help her, she did.

Janeway moved on to Gustave's drinking companion. Webster was an older man, her peer in years if not in rank, and it was clear that he had been in the situation before by the way he held himself still and solemn, waiting for his turn at being questioned. "Well?" Janeway demanded. "What can you add to his account?"

"Nothing, Captain," Webster answered cautiously. "It happened just like Rey said it did."

"And your head" What happened to that?"

The man's hand touched the oozing gash that marred his forehead. "Chair, I think, Captain. Didn't duck fast enough."

Janeway considered them both. "Report to Sickbay for treatment, then confine yourselves to quarters. I'll speak with each of you later.

She returned to Carey who now stood at the end of the shortening line. "Joe?" she asked, allowing a bit more familiarity to come into her voice. "What the hell happened down there?"

The engineer shrugged. "Can't say for sure, Captain. One minute, it was quiet, the next fists and furniture were flying."

"And you've no idea what started it?"

 Carey shrugged again. "None at all, Captain. Sorry."

Janeway  sucked in long-suffering breath and pinched the bridge of nose. This was getting her nowhere.

"Have the Doctor see to those bruises and confine yourself to quarters 'til further notice." Carey nodded once and left with as much haste as he could muster.

Her list of suspects had dwindled down to four. And all four were members of her senior staff, the very ones who should have been most aware of the importance of this treaty. That thought didn't make her happy. It made her feel...what? Angry? Frustrated? She uncurled her fists with a deliberate effort and wished her stomach would do the same. She stopped her pacing in front of Paris and studied the darkening bruises on his face.

"But, mom, you should have seen the other guy, " Tom quipped, trying to smile but wincing when the motion pinched his swollen eye.

Goddam you, Paris.  Can't you be serious about anything?

The humor lay there, dying on the floor. Under other circumstances, she might have found it funny, but not right now. Her headache was back. Every pulsebeat felt like a steel pipe clubbing her at the base of her skull. The lights stabbed hot daggers into her brain, leaving her exhausted, nauseous.

"I'm glad you find this funny, Tom. But so help me if find out you started what happened down there, I will personally see you busted so low you will be saluting civilians in the hallway."

She watched Paris's cocky  good humor mutate into something dark and defensive, drawing  close around him like a shield.  Damn! She shouldn't have done that. She had the feeling of crushing something delicate and fragile without ever meaning to. Too late now.

"Have I ever told you that you and my father share a wonderful way with words. Captain." He spit out her title like broken glass. " I didn't start the fight. Captain. Not that you're going to accept my word for it, but I didn't. I may have thrown a few bon mots on the flames, but I didn't throw the first punch."

"Do you know who did? Tell me," she demanded.

"Yes, Ma'am. And no. Ma'am." Tom straighten his back defiantly. And you can't make me tell.

Janeway felt her fists clenching again. "I assume you have medkit in your quarters?" A nod. "And you know how to use it." Another nod. "Good. You're confined to quarters until further notice. All replicator and holodeck privileges are indefinitely suspended. Dismissed," she ordered through clenched teeth.

"He really didn;t start the fight, Captain," Harry Kim defended as the transporter room's door skreed closed behind Paris's limping form.

Janeway wheeled toward Kim. "Did I ask you?"

"No, Ma'am, but I thought....."

"Did I ask you?" she repeated tightly.

"No, Ma'am." Kim's voice had gone sullen now, and resentful. She could almost hear the idealism draining out of him.

"You can tell me what happened in the bar or you can consider yourself relieved of duty Ensign."

Kim's mouth twisted in decision, splitting open his lip again and sending a thin trickle of blood down his chin.  "I guess that means I'm confined to quarters too." Before Janeway could order otherwise, Kim had left the room.

Janeway turned toward Tuvok ,thinking to herself at last she'd finally hear the truth, but she was disappointed. Tuvok gave a wordy account of insults being lobbed back and forth like a game of verbal volleyball between the natives and Voyager's personnel. It told her nothing she couldn't already have guessed. She'd been a spacer for years, grew up in a spacer's household. She knew how those kinds of things went.

She made a slicing gesture, one that said cut the crap. "How did this happen, Tuvok? How?"

"I did not personally witness the initiation of the physical confrontation and  I am reluctant to lodge an accusation based upon a surmise, no matter how logical that surmise might be."

"So you're not going to tell me either?"

"No."

"Et tu, Tuvok?" she accused bitterly.

"Captain?" The Vulcan lifted a questioning eyebrow, but Janeway knew for a fact that Tuvok knew the reference. They'd discussed Shakespeare together many times and he was partial to the histories.

She shook her head tiredly. "Never mind. You know the drill.  See the Doctor and confine yourself to quarters. We'll settle this between us later."

They were alone in the room, just Chakotay and herself. Her friend. Her First Officer. Surely now she would get the truth.

Chakotay stood looking at her, his arms crossed casually across his chest. He had that look on his face, the one that said ' you aren't going to like what I have to say.'

"You're making this personal, Kathryn."

"It is personal." Her voice came out sharper than she would have liked.  "I'm the one who had  to spend hours and hours simpering for a bunch of leering, drooling, condescending...." she searched her vocabulary for an appropriate noun, came up empty and substituted "morons" instead.

"You could have asked Tuvok or myself to handle the negotiations or second you at the meeting."

"No I couldn't, " she insisted. "Don't you understand?"  She found herself enunciationing with precise exaggeration, as if Chakotay had a hearing impediment, or maybe was just too slow to figure out what she was saying.  "Negotiation are the *Captain's* job. It's expected. If anyone else besides the Captain had sat down for treaty talks, the Akiritarii would have been insulted. And I wouldn't have blame them if they were. And if I had shown up  you in tow, or  any man for that matter, then my credibility  would have been reduced to zero.  Those..." she found herself on the verge of swearing again, but managed to restrain her tongue  "...men would have seen him as the 'power behind the throne' and I would have been a joke."

Chakotay turned his palm over in wordless acknowledgement.

Janeway felt the relief at this small vindication and allowed herself to lean back against the transporter console, close her eyes and rub futilely at the her throbbing temples.

She felt Chakotay move beside her.

"Headache?" "Bad?" he asked at her mumbled reply.

She cracked one eye and looked slantwise at him. "Bad enough. But you're sidestepping the issue here.  Tell me what happened down there."

She closed her eyes and waited, felt him shifted from side to side, deciding what to tell her. The truth she hoped.

"It happened pretty much like Tuvok said. A few tongues loosened by alcohol. A couple of loud mouthed locals. Words got exchanged. Insults passed. Tempers flared. The usual."

She sighed tiredly. "I'd thought we were better than that. That we could absorb a few insults and shrug them off--to keep the peace."

"You know, Kathryn," Chakotay said, choosing his words carefully, "sometimes there are things that shouldn't be said and ignoring an insult can be worse than acting on it."

Sudden understanding flared underneath her breastbone, somewhere between her stomach and her heart--and she knew. She just knew. Call it clairvoyance, call it women's intution, call the unconscious realization of a plethora of clues, but she knew with perfect certainty that Chakotay had started the fight.

She opened her eyes and turned toward him. "You?"

He had the grace to look embarrassed.

Janeway frowned in puzzlement. Chakotay was the one she would have least suspected. She knew he had a temper. She'd even seen it first hand herself a time or two, but for him to strike out a random drunk--that seemed out of character.

"Why?"

"Jaeru--the local--what he said went beyond nasty, beyond vile. He made it *personal*."

She was puzzled by the angry undertone to his words. "I don't understand, Chakotay. What could he have possibly said?"

He blew out his breath with deliberation. "You misunderstand, Kathryn. He didn't insult me. He insulted you."

Oh. She didn't know what to say.

He sighed, now sounding as tired as she had earlier. "I know you're going to have to make an example. Especially after everything tonight."

Yes, especially after tonight. She'd been a horse's ass and she was certain she'd be spending the next few weeks mending all the fences she had been busy kicking down tonight.

Chakotay pushed off from the console. "I'll confine myself to quarters until you decide on an appropiate punishment."

Her hand flicked out and caught his wrist before he had a chance to take a step. "Thank you, Chakotay. For making it personal."
 

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