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"What the fuck did we ever do to them?" B'Elanna panted.
Chakotay's hand reached out to tap her between the shoulder blades, efficiently reminding her to shut up and save her breath for running and at the same directing her toward a patch of sickly gray-yellow bushes ahead and to her left. A arrow whizzing uncomfortably close to her hip reinforced his message.
They reached the scrubby bushes and dove into them, using them for cover against their pursuers. Chakotay slapped his commbadge, but the only response was a hiss of static.
"Rule out an emergency transport coming to the rescue," he reported with a trace of his quirky good humor still showing through despite their predicament. "That solar flare is still playing havoc with the communications. Comm systems are off-line. Probably transporters as well. Looks like getting back to the shuttle is our only option."
Torres shot Chakotay an evil glare before he rolled over and peered out from their hiding spot. "Looks like our friends are still out there. And as to what we *did* to them…" Chakotay smiled faintly as he returned to Torres' earlier question, "…I imagine they weren't too happy about having competition show up in their hunting territory. And we may have broken some cultural taboo as well. But it doesn't matter what *we* did, B'Elanna. This is their planet and we're the interlopers. Now, got your breath? Good. Let's…"
Torres hissed, "Shit. One of your goddam thorn bushes just got me." She held up her arm. There were four bright red beads of blood welling up on her forearm.
"Looks more like an animal bite," Chakotay noted. "Better have the Doc take a look at it when we get back. Ready?"
They burst out of the bushes, running pell-mell for the rock formations about a half mile distant where the shuttle they ridden down from Voyager was hidden. Torres led for the first hundred meters then inexplicably she slowed. Chakotay pounded up to her, grabbed her arm, and gathered his breath to ask her what was wrong, but at that moment she sagged and stumbled, collapsing to the ground. Her face was unnaturally flushed and she was sweating far more heavily than she should have been from the exertion alone. Chakotay spared a brief glance back at the natives who had resumed their pursuit the moment they had emerged from the bushes, then he swung B'Elanna up into his arms and resumed running.
Even burdened as he was, he nearly made it. The rock formation lay only about 200 meters ahead when an arrow sliced into his thigh. The impact sent him stumbling, although he managed not to fall. He kept running, trying hard not to favor the wounded leg. A figure emerged from among the towering gray rocks and ran toward him--Tom Paris, who had piloted the shuttle. Chakotay looked at the unconscious and now barely breathing Torres and made a decision. He shoved the limp woman into Tom's arms. "Take her," he ordered, "I'm going to create a diversion. Take off without me--she needs medical attention and she needs it fast."
Paris frowned unhappily at Chakotay's words, and for a moment it looked like he was going to argue. "Dammit, Tom, this is not the time to be insubordinate," Chakotay growled. And that, together with the cyanotic dusk of Torres' face, convinced the Paris to head for the safety of the shuttle.
Chakotay turned and charged the half- dozen or so pursuers with a roar and a wild swinging of arms--something they weren't expecting. They scattered, confused by his tactic. They didn't stay confused long, but it was enough for Paris to make it back to the shuttle and lift off. Chakotay felt a wave of relief when he heard the noise of its departure. The natives had heard it too and, confused, they halted their chase for a moment.
Chakotay had noticed earlier that the natives hadn't followed them into the thorn bushes so he angled toward them, hoping that he could find refuge there. Of course, whatever had bitten Torres lived there, but it was worth the risk. He only needed to remain there until the shuttle returned or the transporters came back on-line. Twenty minutes tops if the transporter remained inoperative and the shuttle was forced to return for him.
He hobbled into the scrub, perhaps a bit more cautiously than before, and hunkered down to wait. As he had hoped, his native pursuers balked at entering the area and milled around uncertainly, shouting either warnings or imprecations at him, he wasn't sure which. With any luck at all, thought Chakotay, they would get bored and leave even before the shuttle made a return appearance.Chakotay lay as quiet as he could. No sense accidentally stirring up whatever it was that bit Torres. His wounded leg ached intolerably. He knew better than to try and remove the arrow. There was too great of a risk for bleeding if he did, but that knowledge did little to assuage the pain. He decided he could risk straightening is knee a bit to see if it would ease the ache. He gingerly slid his foot out , slowly, carefully. And his luck ran out. There was an angry hissing sound and something sank its fangs into his calf just above his boot top. The bite itself wasn't bad at first, just another minor discomfort to go with the wound already throbbing in his leg, but soon the bite began to burn. An incendiary heat shot from nerve to nerve up his leg, overwhelming any pain he already felt, as if he had somehow stepped into the plasma smelter that B'Elanna used to refine metals for the ship. The fire continued spreading until his entire body agonized with it. If this is what Torres felt…. Chakotay now understood why she collapsed. The pain was unbearable. Sweat poured off him as his body labored to throw off the toxin. It couldn't possibly get any worse. Then the muscle spasms began and he passed out.
When he woke, he was lying in a ramada woven of dried grasses and twigs, one of the native habitations, with no clear memory of how he had gotten there. His leg had been bandaged and the arrowhead removed--a fact Chakotay nearly overlooked at first in the haze of pain from the poisonous bite. He wondered if this meant that the natives thought he might survive or whether they just wanted to recover the arrowhead. The pain intensified if that was possible. Every firing of a synapse felt like a match lit under his skin. One synapse at a time it might have been bearable--but all of them firing at once. it was overwhelming. The spasms began again, muscles pulling against muscle as each locked into a tonic contraction, contorting his limbs in grotesque and painful configurations. The convulsions came and went at irregular intervals, relaxing only long enough only for him to suck in a shallow breath before twisting him into another unnaturally rigid position. Relax and lock, relax and lock. The cycle repeated over and over until Chakotay no longer wondered if he were dying, he knew he was-- and prayed death would hurry up.
The indigines had pretty much ignored him while the convulsions raged, but now a loud, though unintelligible argument rose outside of the shelter. Chakotay wondered grimly if they were already arguing over who got his jacket and who got his boots. Another series of spasms wracked his body and any interest he might have had in the conversation disappeared as the sounds of the popping and grinding of his own teeth filled his skull. Pressure built behind his eyes and at the base of his skull until it felt like his head would explode. Light and sound became painful intrusions. A voice nearby spoke--more noise to torment him.
"Chakotay," the voice demanded. Carefully he cracked his eyes open. A dark figure backlit by light filled his vision. He couldn't make out the features. So this is what death looks like, he thought idly, and tried hard to recall the nearly forgotten stories of his youth, and the instructions his father had sought to pass on to him. He readied himself as the figure leaned closer and two cool hands stroked his cheeks. He knew he was dying now because the dark visage resolved itself into the features of Kathryn Janeway and she leaned down until her soft lips covered his own cracked and dry mouth. Her tongue stroked his lower lip and he opened his mouth beneath hers. The kiss went on and on, unimaginably long, as she explored his mouth, as her tongue traced his and sought out all the sensitive spots. She lifted her face from his only long enough to draw a breath before returning to kiss him into breathlessness again. If this was death, Chakotay decided, then dying might not be so bad after all. It was his last thought before the darkness claimed him.
* * * * *
Chakotay became aware gradually, consciousness returning in fragments. His head throbbed, but the pain receded with every breath. There was a thin pad between his back and the unyielding surface below it. The light that shone through his closed lids had a more diffused quality than the light of the alien sun had had in the shelter. He became aware of sounds--the rumble of distant engines and the muted ping and click of sensors. Then voices.
"How is he, Doctor?" asked Captain Janeway, her voice low and filled with concern.
"Recovering, though it was a close thing. The Commander had a much different physiological response to the toxin than Torres did. The venom attacked Lt. Torres' respiratory system directly and depressed its function; however, in the Commander's case, it seems to have hyperstimulated his pain receptors and striated muscle synapses. Had the antivenin not been administered in a timely fashion, he would have suffocated."
Chakotay decided it was time to announce his wakefulness. He groaned and tried to roll to a sitting position. The Doctor was immediately beside him, supporting his shoulders and frowning.
"Please don't try to undo your surgeries, Commander, I just put your shoulder back together. And both your Achilles tendons. And your left knee."Chakotay nodded understanding. "What?" he tried, but his voice came out as an unintelligible croak. He gratefully accepted a glass of water from Janeway's hand and swallowed a mouthful before trying again. "What happened to B'Elanna?"
Janeway smiled and patted his knee. "Tom got B'Elanna to sickbay in time and the Doctor was able to synthesize an antidote. She's recovering and will be fine…"
"…if a bit testy," added the Doctor snippily. At Janeway's reproving look, he lowered his eyes a bit, but refused to retract the statement. He reached for a tricorder and took a reading of Chakotay. "And you too will recover fully, thanks to my brilliant medical innovation," the Doctor preened. "The d'vorchak venom contained an immuno-responsive protein unlike anything noted in any of the Federation databases. It changed structure each time a destructive agent attached to its surface. Fortunately for you and Lt. Torres, I was able to find a method of locking the protein into a fixed form so that a neutralizing agent was able to deactivate it." The doctor looked unbearable smug. "And my method of drug delivery was almost as brilliant as the antidote itself."
An unreadable look passed between the hologram and the Captain, and Chakotay had the strong feeling that there was something else going on here. He looked from Janeway to the Doctor and back. Janeway looked faintly embarrassed and the doctor looked like the proverbial cat in the cream. "I don't remember receiving any hypospray, " Chakotay ventured cautiously, "though I was pretty much delirious by the time the Captain arrived."
"That's because you never did," burst out the Doctor, unable to contain his explanation any longer. "You were surrounded by planetary natives so we couldn't transport you back to the ship. Your disappearance would have raised tricky Prime Directive questions, or so the Captain felt." The hologram paused to arch a 'this argument isn't over yet' eyebrow at Janeway. "So the Captain volunteered to go to the surface and administer the antivenin. She believed that the indigenous society would find a single female less threatening than say a squad of armed guards. I gave her a hypospray, but we felt that even that might be too intrusive so I came up with another innovation." The doctor paused expectantly here as if waiting for a cue to continue.
"Which was?" prompted Chakotay obligingly.
The Doctor beamed with overwhelming pride. "I turned the Captain into a walking pharmacopoeia. I inundated all her bodily fluids with nano-devices filled with antivenin. Her blood, her tears, her saliva…"
From the corner of his eye, Chakotay saw two red spots rising on Kathryn's cheeks, and lightning flashing warning in her eyes. But either the Doctor didn't notice or he was unfazed by the Captain's obvious discomfit.
"…even her vaginal secretions are all antivenin media--though I did caution her that the latter is probably the most inefficient method of delivery."
Somehow Chakotay managed to keep a straight face as the Doctor prattled on with lavish self-congratulations, but he could not look Kathryn in the eye. There had been no native witnesses in the shelter, no impressionable primitives to shield from exposure to off world tech. No, if Kathryn Janeway had chosen not to use the hypospray, it was for reasons other than those dictated by protocol and the Prime Directive. The Doctor finally paused in his paean to his achievements and Janeway purposefully cleared her throat.
"Hmmm," the Doctor frowned, "oh…OH!" He exclaimed as he finally recognized the subtext of Janeway's message. He hastily panned his tricorder over Chakotay's form and then addressed him, "You are discharged from Sickbay, however, I expected you to report back no later then 16:30 hours to begin physical therapy for your injuries. And now, I believe that the Captain wishes 'to have words' with you. I will be in my office if you need me." The hologram launched a significant look at the Captain which Chakotay interpreted as warning that she should not hector his patients while still in Sickbay.
Janeway waited until the Doctor had entered his office and busied himself at his computer terminal then she squared herself around until she was standing at the end of Chakotay's knees. Chakotay considered her posture: her arms weren't crossed, nor were her fists planted on her hip. Maybe she wasn't too angry with him after all.
"Chakotay," she began, and she unconsciously rested her fingertips lightly on his knee, "I understand why you acted as you did on the planet. It was a brave act, some might even say noble, "she reproached him gently. "But it was also foolhardy. It very nearly cost Voyager her first officer and…" She leaned in closer to emphasis her point and as she did her hand slid further up his thigh. "… me my best friend."
He had kept his eyes downcast in an effort to control the grin that threatened his composure, but when she angled her chin down to catch his eye, the grin erupted. A look of incredulity slowly spread across her face. With an effort Chakotay schooled her features into a appropriately serious demeanor. "Aye, Captain. In the future I promise to be more careful." But the grin winked in his eye as he continued" …And speaking of prudence, Captain, wouldn't it be prudent for you would stop by my cabin sometime near the end of beta shift tonight--to check and see if I suffered a relapse. Besides, I kiss much better when I'm conscious."
She snatched her hand from his leg as if the contact burned her fingers and Chakotay was sure he had gone to far this time, but all she did was shake her head in amusement and emit a snort of barely contained laughter. She turned and began walking toward the door, her hips swaying in such a way that it guaranteed his full and complete attention. She stopped halfway and called back over her shoulder, " Nine o'clock. I'll bring the d'vorchak."
The End