Destruction

Title: Destruction
Author: Ky (venom69)
Fandom: Star Trek Voyager
Rating: Teens & Up
Summary: "Total destruction." She whispered.
Character/Pairing: Janeway/Chakotay
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Violence.
Prompt Number for

fic101: 45 - Ash
Author’s Notes: Song belongs to Meat Loaf. Thanks to

amandal557 and

speckleberry for the names. I would like to point out that there is a very good reason why most of my fics are either sex or fluff with a hint of sex… this would be that reason.
Disclaimer: Usual guff. Not mine, promise to put them back where I found them.
Date: 25/03/07

***

Nothing ever grows in this rotting old hole
And everything is stunted and lost
And nothing really rocks
And nothing really rolls
And nothing's ever worth the cost

***

There was a thick layer of ash that coated the ground, and her boots left an indentation with each step. The ridges on the soles were clearly visible in the grey matter that covered the once beautiful landscape.

Kathryn walked tentatively, her steps careful. She was mindful of what was once here and what she was treading on.

It bothered her that some of the ashes on the ground were, at one time, probably people that had been scorched by the weapons fire that had reigned down on this planet.

No trees stood tall and proud anymore, but there were larger clumps of ash sporadically scattered around that suggested they had once been. Likewise, no buildings remained either; even larger mounds of ash stood in their place.

"Total destruction." She whispered.

It was, among many things, frightening to think that somewhere out there was a weapon capable of doing this kind of damage on such a wide-scale and, what was worse, that there was someone in control of the trigger that was willing to do it.

The air around her was thick and smoggy and Kathryn didn't need the tricorder to tell her that this attack had been recent.

While there were no fires or burning embers left to speak of, she could still feel their resounding heat, even through her uniform.

They had received a distress call via subspace and had responded as soon as possible. They had been four days out at maximum warp and an unprovoked attack by a passing Ship had kept them detained by an additional day.

By the time they'd arrived, this was all that was left.

Tuvok was scouting beside her, his tricorder moving from side to side, looking for something - anything - that would tell them what had happened to these people.

The hail that they'd received had shown a distressed elderly humanoid begging for help against the Merrellian Empire.

Kathryn didn't know who the Merrellians were, but she wanted to find out before they met them in person, which was fairly likely to happen in the next few weeks, she suspected.

Even Neelix had only a faint idea of what to expect from rumors that he'd heard about the species. He was able to tell her that they laid claim to a fairly large, though unspecified, area of space and they were particularly unfriendly towards people that crossed their borders unannounced.

Kathryn would be happy to announce Voyager if she knew how to contact them.

"Have you found anything useful?" She asked, glancing at the readings on her own tricorder.

She suspected that Tuvok's would say much the same - the chemical components of the ash beneath them and not a whole lot more.

"No signs of any relevant information, Captain."

It was looking more and more likely that they'd have to contact some of the nearby planets and hope that they knew something that would help them.

"I think it's safe to say there's nothing here." She finally admitted.

Orbital scans had told them much the same thing, but she'd wanted to come down and see for herself anyway.

Tuvok nodded once in agreement. "Perhaps it might be wise to return to Voyager and explore our other options."

Kathryn didn't need to tell him that their 'other options' extended to continuing along their way and hoping that they didn't cross any borders.

***

The whine of the transporter faded, leaving only a small tingling sensation in their bodies as the away team stood in Transporter Room One and exchanged puzzled glances.

Tuvok was the first to speak, directing his words to the Transporter operator that stood with a frown on her face, her glance traveling between the other occupants of the room and the display in front of her. "Did something go wrong, Ensign?"

Fingers flying across the various commands in front of her, Ensign LeRoy called for a quick diagnostic and looked over the logs from the transport. "No sir. It says here that six people were picked up for transport."

Tuvok raised and eyebrow and did another quick head count. "There are only five people here."

"I know, sir." LeRoy didn't look up as she continued to scan the readouts in front of her. "But six people definitely started the transport process. The system isn't even recognizing that someone didn't finish. There's nothing in the pattern buffers."

Paris was next to speak, asking the question that the three junior officers from the away team were all thinking, his frown matching Tuvok's. "Then where is the Captain?"

***

Kathryn didn’t know how they took her.

She had been scanning the ash around her before she’d turned to Tuvok and decided that they should return to the ship.

The shimmering haze of blue had fallen over her eyes in preparation for transport and then she’d been encompassed in blackness.

She didn't know how much time had passed between then and now, but when she opened her eyes to be greeted by rock - and dirt in her peripheral vision - she was relatively certain that she'd either been unconscious or under the effects of some kind of drug.

Pulling her body into a sitting position, Kathryn lent against the rock and examined her surrounding, trying to clear her foggy mind.

She appeared to be in an empty part of some larger cave.

The floor beneath was dirt and the rock walls were slightly damp from small amounts of water that trickled in from somewhere.

No natural light filtered in, the only illumination coming from some man-made lights that hung from the walls and she assumed that she was underground.

How far underground, though?

There was a small exit from her little 'room' and there was only a few feet between her and it.

Crawling over - she didn't quite trust the use of her legs just yet - Kathryn looked out.

She could see two corridors leading from the mouth of her cave and they both had lights hung at random intervals, but they extended too far for her to get any idea of what lay at the other ends.

A force field shimmered across the exit, keeping her confined and, when she touched it, she blacked out for a few seconds under the force of the jolt.

She didn't think she'd try that again.

***

The first thing that Tuvok heard when he re-entered the transporter room was a particularly violent strain of Klingon curses coming from the Chief Engineer as she lay across the transport pad.

She had removed one of the floor panels and had an arm and almost all of her head inside the hole.

"Shall I take that to indicate that you've had no success?"

B'Elanna stuck her head up and glared, but it softened when she considered that Tuvok was the Captain's oldest friend and was probably taking this as badly as everyone else.

She wasn't game enough to even consider how Chakotay was taking it.

"Not yet," She sighed. "Everything is working perfectly. I can't find a single reason why the Captain started the transport process and didn't finish."

"Then it would seem that we should pursue another option."

Loathe as she was to mention the name... "Maybe you should check with the Doctor and make sure that we don't have a repeat of Tuvix. I know that we should have already spotted it if we did, but maybe she's hiding somewhere, in someone."

The look on her face made it clear that she thought the suggestion was ridiculous, but Tuvok inclined his head in agreement. "A wise course of action."

***

When she had been awake for some time, two guards had walked toward the entrance, looked at her dispassionately and then turned, standing with their backs to her.

"Hello?" She called from her position on the floor.

Using the grooves in the wall for leverage, she pulled herself up, her movements shaky.

However she had ended up here - be it unconsciousness from a blow to the head or drugs - it had left her a little disorientated and the jolt from the force field earlier hadn't helped her centre of gravity any.

The guards ignored her, not bothering to turn around at the sound of her voice and silently fingered their weapons, exchanging the odd glance between them.

"Where am I?" She demanded, but it too was met with silence.

Sighing, Kathryn moved to the back of the cave and rested against the rock wall, watching the two corridors from her position and waiting for... well, something.

***

The Doctor listened patiently as Tuvok explained B'Elanna's theory.

"I scanned the away team when you returned," The Doctor replied. "But I can certainly scan them again."

Tuvok nodded. "A logical course of action, given the circumstances."

"Shall we start with you, Mr. Tuvok?"

He nodded and moved to the nearest biobed, preparing for a re-examination, his thoughts focused on the possibilities of what had happened to the Captain.

***

It couldn't have been more than a few hours later when a man - she thought he may be Merrellian judging by his facial features and the vague description that Neelix had been able to offer - came to see her, standing on the other side of the force field with his hands clasped behind his back.

When she saw him coming down the long corridor to the right of her cave, Kathryn rose and moved to the centre of the room.

He watched her as she stood, mirroring his position with her hands folded behind her back. He matched her glare and she imagined him waiting for her to crumble or plead for her life, perhaps both.

Kathryn watched him watching her.

"Your name?"

She was surprised by the question.

An hour ago, maybe more, it had seemed reasonable to assumed that she was captured so that they could hold Voyager to ransom and obtain supplies, weapons - which would never happen - or some form of payments for her release.

Now, she watched the man before her as he waited for an answer and she studied his face and wondered exactly how stupid he was.

Or how clever.

Depending on how he was playing her.

"Kathryn Janeway."

"Near or far?"

His second question confirmed his identity

From what little they did know about them, the Merrellian home world was split into two sectors; near and far.

Much like the location of the planet itself, the exact borderlines were unknown to everyone, but she thought it safe to assume that she ranked in the latter category.

"Far." She answered tightly. "Not of the Merrellian world."

Kathryn wasn't sure if being foreign would work for or against her, but at this point she was sure that lying would get her no where.

"You have a ship?"

"Yes." Kathryn moved closer to the force field, holding his gaze evenly. "They will be looking for me."

"Will they?"

"The Captain won't leave one of his crew behind."

Though at this point I don't even know what planet I'm on.

She watched his expression, waiting for him to call her on her reference to someone else being Captain but he ignored it and she wondered exactly what they wanted from her if not to trade her to Voyager.

He inclined his head, unperturbed. "They will not find you."

Kathryn wasn't exactly sure why they would not find her, but she imagined that it couldn't bode well for her near future.

***

Ensign Bor slid onto the biobed, lying back as she watched the Doctor moving beside her. "Have they found out what happened to the Captain?" She asked.

"Not yet. But hopefully this examination will help." The Doctor tried to smile encouragingly at her, but Bor didn't really believe it.

"I heard that Lieutenant Torres thinks the Captain may be inside one of us. That she got... merged with us or something when we beamed back from the away mission." She scrunched up her nose at the thought; everyone remembered Tuvix and Bor was sure that she didn't want to experience that.

"It's just an avenue to explore, Ensign."

"That Captain isn't in me." Bor touched her stomach, frowning. If she was, where would she be? "Surely I would know if she was, right?"

The Doctor sighed and began the exam.

***

Kathryn wasn't sure exactly how long it was after her 'interrogation', but eventually the force field shimmered out of existence and her guards stood at the entrance to the cave, motioning her forward.

Following their lead - one in front and one behind her with his weapon pointed at her back - she met their pace and they marched her down the left corridor.

She wasn't sure exactly how long they'd been walking for, perhaps twenty minutes or more, but eventually they turned a corner and emerged into a large, open area.

Kathryn stared in amazement and horror at the scene before her.

The guard held a crude tool - a blunt pick, she thought - in his hand and she immediately knew the reason that she'd been taken.

Slave labor.

The room was full of women, men, children, that all worked on their own small section of the large outer walls.

They appear to be extracting some sort of mineral - a valuable one, she assumed - from the hard rock that surround them.

A few of the scrawnier children were wheeling carts around, collecting the extracted minerals and pushing them out of the exit opposite her.

Kathryn couldn't tell if all of the people working were Merrellian, but it doesn't seem to matter what the race/age/sex of a person was here; if you could work, you worked.

Pulling the comm. badge from her breast, the guard demonstrated what she was supposed to do, chipping away carefully at the wall until a clump of blue mineral was exposed and easily extracted.

When he held the clump in his hand, he showed it to her and gestured to the wall. Passing her the pick, he stepped back and pointed until she moved to take his place.

She wanted to use the pick against his head - or his groin, just for the hell of it - but aside from the fact that her other guard was watching her and could probably take her out before she got even halfway through a swing, she could see the multitude of Soldiers that monitored the other workers.

They didn't seem all that interested in her, but she assumed that they would shoot her with little thought if she tried anything.

Sighing, she turned to the wall.

Kathryn mimicked the guard's actions while he watched, waiting until she pulled a clump of mineral from the wall. Dropping it onto a small pile by her feet, she watched him expectantly.

When he nodded his approval and stepped back, she could feel his eyes on her until she turned back to the wall and her movement of the tool was consistent and, obviously, at a pace that he approved of.

Her two escorts turned and went back down the corridor they had come from and Kathryn watched.

A hard poke against her back made her turn and eye the yelling soldier behind her, large weapon in hand.

She had no idea what he was saying, but she could get the general meaning from the tone of his voice and the way he waved his weapon at her.

Turning, Kathryn sighed again and began to work at the wall.

***

They sat around the briefing room table - though her chair was left empty by an unspoken agreement - and Chakotay leant back and listened to the senior staff pitching ideas back and forth about the possibilities and questions surrounding Kathryn's disappearance.

"Enough," He finally said, cutting B'Elanna off mid-sentence. He ignored her scowl. "What do we actually know about the situation?"

"The transporter buffers are completely empty; she's not stuck half-way." B'Elanna replied.

Paris nodded with her. "Scans of the planet showed nothing, so she didn't just not make the beam-out."

"The away team all checked out," The Doctor threw in. "This isn't a repeat of Tuvix and no one had any abnormal ailments."

Tuvok was the next to speak. "It would be logical to assume that the Captain was taken before she was able to be beamed to Voyager."

"How?" B'Elanna asked. "If she was there when you called for the beam-out and her pattern started to enter the buffers, then what could possibly have taken her?"

"I am unaware of an answer at this time."

"So, basically, we know nothing?" Chakotay asked.

No one answered so he took that as a 'yes.'

***

When the 'shift' ended - and she had absolutely no idea how long she stood in the same position, making the repetitive moves of her tool automatically as she scanned her surroundings - Kathryn waited for the reappearance of her guards.

But when they didn't come and one of the soldiers poked her in the back again, she followed the throng of other workers as they left the main area through the other exit.

Following an elderly woman - who looked too old to be standing, let alone working - Kathryn grabbed her elbow when she stumbled and helped to steady her.

When the woman eyed her coldly, she thought that she may have made some kind of worker faux pas until the old woman nodded once in gratitude and continued walking.

Eventually, after walking several hundred feet, they came to a crossroad and the group was stopped and split into genders.

The men were led down one corridor and the women and children were pushed through the other one in the opposite direction. They were brought to another large room, perhaps half the size of the mining area.

Kathryn assumed it to be some kind of communal sleeping cave that all of the women shared, with a smaller cave off to the side that had several holes in the ground along one wall.

Apparently that was their amenities in Chateau Rock Caves.

She stood back and watched as the women all tried to find a place as far from the entrance as possible. Some of them went in to use the 'bathroom' and some just fell where they stood, slipping into an exhausted sleep regardless of their positions.

Moving to an unoccupied corner, Kathryn rolled up her uniform jacket under her head as she closed her eyes and followed the other women into exhausted slumber.

***

Sighing, Chakotay dropped down onto his mattress.

After a three hour briefing, which had followed several hours of diagnostics, they still had no idea what had happened to Kathryn.

All that they really knew for sure was that the Away Team had seen her when she had called for the beam-out and then she simply hadn't appeared on the transporter pad.

Her molecular pattern was recorded on the transporter logs, but she'd only been there for a few nanoseconds before the pattern had disappeared completely, without a trace.

Tomorrow, they had planned to go over the logs once again.

B'Elanna and her team were going to tear the transporter apart and Chakotay was going to take a team to the surface of the planet - via shuttle, this time - and see if that held any clues.

Where are you, Kathryn?

Sleep wasn't going to come easy to him tonight - if it did at all - but he laid back with his head on the soft pillow and stared at the ceiling anyway.

***

She couldn't have been asleep for more than half an hour when she was pulled from dreamless oblivion by someone groping her.

It took her all of three seconds to realize what was going on.

The simple room was completely open and no force field held the women in or anyone else out.

Some of the more adventurous male slaves had, apparently, decided to sneak in and see how far they could get.

Despite her sleep-ridden brain, Kathryn fought back, breaking the hand of a man who thought that her breast was fair game.

Apparently the loud 'crack!' and the following cry of pain that come from her would-be rapist was enough to deter the other men in the room.

The awake women - sleep seemed to be a precious commodity that some were reluctant to give up, even for this - watched wide-eyed as the men scurried back towards their own sleeping area.

The guards laughed as they watched.

***

Chakotay woke not long before the alarm went off and he re-set it automatically.

A whole three hours sleep. Joy.

Showering and donning a fresh uniform - and mentally leaving himself a note to recycle the one he had slept in - he headed for the Bridge.

It was still hours before alpha shift started, but he wasn't surprised when Paris, B'Elanna, Kim and Tuvok all arrived not long after he did.

"Guess there's no point wasting time," He said, smiling proudly. "Let's get to work, people."

***

It took three full weeks before she understood that people couldn't escape, which was why no one tried.

During the second week of 'work', the guards shot a woman that tried to run through the exit that Kathryn had originally been led through and they whipped a small child that watched her in hope - his mother, perhaps? - wondering if he could get away too.

No one helped either of them.

Apparently, 'fend for yourself' was taken to the extreme.

The workers whispered about the commotion - and the body that was left on the dirt floor where she had fallen - but Kathryn didn't have her comm. badge so she didn't understand what anyone said about it in the myriad of languages that floated through the mine.

No one said anything to her anyway - she assumed that news of her hand-breaking ability had spread - and the guards were perfectly capable of expressing their wishes through jabs to the back, so it didn't really matter much.

In the beginning of the fourth week, one of her neighboring workers - the elderly woman that she had helped - tapped her on the shoulder and gestured to her hands, showing her the blood soaked rags that she wore.

Kathryn tried to understand and it took them a good few minutes of gesturing until she got the message; protect your hands.

For once she was thankful for the fact that several inches of her clothes tucked in to her uniform pants.

Ripping part of the bottom of her tank top off - her turtleneck and jacket were now her bedding and the guards had removed her boots and socks when she kicked one of the more 'hands-on' soldiers - she wrapped the torn strips around her palms, hissing as they rubbed against the blisters and open-wounds that had formed.

The older woman nodded her approval.

Half a heartbeat later, one of the guards was beside her, glaring at her with cold eyes.

Kathryn didn't know what his yelled words meant, but she got the feeling that taking breaks wasn't acceptable.

When he lifted his whip and lashed her back twice, she bit her tongue and didn't let herself cry out.

***

Standing on the surface of the ash-covered planet, Chakotay stared at the small boot marks that showed him the path that Kathryn had taken late the day before.

He followed the trail from where she had beamed down to where the prints stopped, walking beside the path and leaving his own larger footprints next to hers.

Several other boots had crossed paths at different points and they all met at the beam-out site.

His tricorder was set to scan for any trace of human life signs as well as collection of whatever data it could - thought it was mostly the same data that the away team had already captured - and Chakotay kept his head down as he worked.

After well over an hour of walking and scanning, Paris appeared beside them. "Anything, Chief?"

"Nothing." Chakotay shook his head and resisted the urge to growl his frustration at the younger man beside him. "Has anyone else found anything?"

Tom shook his head. "Nothing."

"OK." Nodding, Chakotay looked across at the other members of the away team, all scanning and frowning. "We'll do one more sweep before we head back to Voyager. Harry should have the readings from the entire planet by the time we get back."

***

On the first day of the seventh week, a guard walked in and passed each woman a bar of something.

Since all of the other women were wolfing them down, Kathryn assumed that it was some kind of ration and took a bite.

It tasted like what she imagined bug infested slime would taste like, but it was the first thing she'd eaten since she'd arrived and, although she hadn't once felt hungry in the time that she'd been there, Kathryn knew that her body craved some kind of nutrition to subsidize for the amount of work that was required.

Swallowing each mouthful without hurling was difficult and when she was halfway through the bar, she noticed that some of the other women had already finished and were eyeing her curiously.

While none of her roommates had cared for her clothing, the thought of taking her food - if she could call it that - was clearly running through their minds and Kathryn choked back her gag reflex and swallowed the last half in four large mouthfuls.

When the 'meal' was finished, she waited in silence but no one came to escort them back to the mines and Kathryn was grateful.

Due to the absence of a shower - sonic or otherwise - in her humble hotel, there was dried blood across the whip marks on her back and her tank top had stuck to the open wound, congealed blood and other unappealing bodily fluids seeping from it.

She knew that an infection was incredibly likely and it was probably already setting in.

Unless she could clean the wound out, Kathryn knew that things could get a whole lot worse for her very quickly. There didn't appear to be any bathing facilities nearby and all of her bunkmates were all stained with dirt and dried blood as well, so she didn't like her chances of being able to request a bath.

Halfway through their rest day, the elderly woman came to Kathryn's little corner of the cave, kneeling carefully next to her.

She pointed to her back and hissed, demonstrating pain.

Kathryn nodded and smiled gratefully when the woman held out a damp rag.

She's wasn't really sure that she wanted to know where the liquid had come from - or if it would help or make things worse, for that matter - so she didn't ask, and just tried to clean the parts of her wound that she could reach, biting back the cries of pain that tried to escape her parched lips.

***

They were halfway back to Voyager when Chakotay realized that Paris wasn't with them.

He'd been in the back of the Delta Flyer, already scanning through the data that they'd collected and, when he'd failed to answer their calls, Chakotay had gone back and found the seat at the science station empty.

Frowning, he'd asked the other occupants of the small shuttle if they knew where Paris was - fretting over someone having to answer a call of nature wasn't going to set a good example for the crew - and when they answered in the negative, Chakotay asked the computer.

"Lieutenant Paris is not on board." The cool, feminine voice replied.

Chakotay swore under his breath and met the worried faces of the away team, completely unaware of what to say to them.

***

After their one rest day - which she had spent lying on her side and trying to catch up on sleep, even though she wasn't tired - Kathryn and the other women had been marched straight back to the mines the next day, returned to the painful monotony of what her life had become in just shy of two months.

During the first few weeks, she had been adamant that Voyager was looking for her and it was just a matter of surviving until they found her here - where ever 'here' happened to be.

It had been in the third week, after her run-in with the wrong end of a whip, that hope had started to fade from her.

While she didn't doubt that Chakotay and her crew would do anything they could to find her, the 'interrogator' that she had initially met had said that Voyager wouldn't be able to locate her and Kathryn had started to think that he hadn't just been gloating in confidence.

Now, as week eight - or was it nine? - dawned, she was almost certain that she was going to die here.

The two gashes on her back ached constantly and the guards seemed to take joy in poking her if she did something wrong.

The first few times, it had been easy to breathe through the pain, but yesterday, when they had done it with a little more force, Kathryn had cried out and fallen to her knees, much to their amusement.

She had no doubts that an infection was present now and even less doubt that it would spread throughout her body until her bloodstream was overrun.

Kathryn hoped that she'd simply fall asleep and not wake up.

***

Sitting around the briefing room table again - two chairs remaining empty this time - Chakotay tried to ignore the stab of guilt that he felt that accompanied the look on B'Elanna's face.

"What do we know?" He asked again.

Once more, B'Elanna was the first to respond. "We can rule out the transporter as being responsible."

The Doctor nodded. "I examined today's away team and, as expected, they're all in perfect health."

Tuvok was the last to speak. "Logic dictates that it is, in fact, an outside force that has taken Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Paris."

Chakotay nodded. "So we know...?"

"Nothing that could be considered helpful, apparently."

***

It was during the ninth - or tenth - week that Kathryn first noticed the black pants and sandy blonde hair.

People of all races came and went on a daily basis - the helpful older woman had left the previous week - and she had stopped noting the arrivals and departures.

She used all of her energy to keep standing, but this arrival had caught her eye.

Sensing that they had gained the focus of someone, baby blue eyes found hers across the mine.

As relieved as she was to see someone familiar, Kathryn shook her head when Tom went to move towards her.

Nodding to the wall, she turned away from him and continued working at a large clump of mineral lodged into the rock.

Hope had stirred within her again when she'd made eye contact and Kathryn had to force herself to work at the diligent pace the guards expected, able to ignore the wounds that plagued her for the first time since she'd received them.

Even the sight of the blood-soaked rags that were wrapped around her palms didn't make her wince, for once.

The end of the work shift finally came around and she forced her way through the women to meet with him in the centre of the large group.

Hugging him quickly, Kathryn managed a weak grin, before indicating that they should walk with the crowd. "Nice to see a friendly face."

Ignoring the greeting, Tom frowned. "Are you OK?"

"Fine." She tried to keep her smile, but the elation at seeing him hadn't lasted all day and her wound was throbbing like mad.

"You look terrible."

"Gee thanks."

"No, really." His eyes were frightened. "What have they done to you?"

Kathryn shrugged as they continued to keep in pace with the others. "They made me work."

"Work? Like what I did today?"

She nodded and avoided the gaze of the 'hands-on' guard that seemed to find it interesting that she was finally talking to someone.

"Captain, working like today for ten hours shouldn't make you look like... well," He coughed, waving his hand in the general direction of her filthy body and the fluids that seeped from her back and hands. "that."

"Ten hours?" She repeated, raising her eyebrows in disbelief. "Tom, it's been almost two months since I first got her."

And I've felt every damn day.

He shook his head. "You disappeared almost eleven hours ago."

Before Kathryn could reply, the group was separated again and, when she collapsed onto her 'bed', she lay awake for a long time, wondering exactly what he had meant by eleven hours.

***

Over an hour after the other occupants of the briefing had left the room, Chakotay still sat in his chair, staring at the empty place beside him.

Their meeting had only served to establish two things.

One - that there were now two people missing from the Ship and they had no idea if more people would be added to that list or not.

Two - that they didn't know how Tom and Kathryn had been taken and they really didn't have any other avenue's to explore.

Chakotay sighed.

What do we do now?

***

When she woke the next morning, Kathryn managed to catch Tom as they reunited with the men and headed back towards the mine.

He looked terrible - sleeping on the dirt floor did that to you, she had quickly found - but she didn't have time to think about that right now.

"Time dilation." She told him, forgoing any sort of greeting.

"What?"

"You say I've been missing eleven hours and it's been almost eleven weeks for me. We must be caught in some kind of time dilation."

"Is that possible?" He asked, frowning again.

Kathryn shrugged.

She had spent half the night thinking about it - and the chance to use her mind again had been welcomed - and she didn't have a better explanation. "Time is relative."

***

Chakotay knelt beside B'Elanna. "I thought you said that we could rule out the transporters?"

She nodded. "We can."

"So you're pulling the transporter pad apart for the third time because...?"

B'Elanna stopped working and looked at him. "Because you would be doing the same if you could."

He didn't argue.

***

In the eighteenth week, Kathryn wasn't sure that she had the strength to walk anymore.

She was dirty, hungry, sleep deprived, thirsty - and all of those feelings had taken far longer than she expected to register with her brain - and the two rest days that she'd had hadn't been enough to sustain her, not with her injuries.

And she didn't even want to think about what they looked like.

In the morning of the new week, she followed the women out of the sleeping area and met with Tom as they headed back to the mine.

His concern was obvious and, during the previous week, he had managed to charm a guard into giving Kathryn some water to bathe her wounds again, but it hadn't done more than separate her soiled tank from her skin and clean the dry blood and other fluids from around the edges.

"How are you?" He asked quietly.

Kathryn huffed and tried to force some sort of cheer into her voice, while she focused on a mantra that would keep her moving with the crowd. "Wonderful."

Left foot in front. Right foot in front. Left, right, left, right...

Tom rubbed at the stubble that had grown across his chin. "We've got to get you out of here. You've got a pretty bad infection and if we don't get the Doctor to treat you soon..."

He trailed off, but she didn't need a diagram to understand.

"I know."

Before he could say anything else, two guards grabbed Kathryn by the arms and led her away from the group while another screamed at Tom, no doubt warning him from trying to help her.

Walking quickly to keep up with them - though her feet dragged along the ground and they simply dragged her when she couldn't meet their fast pace - she frowned in confusion when they passed her work station and continued through the other corridor.

She hadn't seen it in months, but Kathryn recognized the interrogation cave that she'd first woken in and the guards pushed her through the entrance before the force field shimmered to life in front of her.

What...?

Asking the guard would do her no good, so Kathryn waited until, once again, the man that she had first met walked down the other corridor and stood at the entrance, staring at the dirty woman that lay sprawled on the floor where she had fallen.

"Thank you for your service."

She didn't bother to stand; at this point, she wasn't sure that she could.

"You are free to go."

Kathryn opened her mouth to reply, but she blinked and found herself sitting on a bed of ashes, boot prints scattered around her and her clothes/bedding and shoes in her lap, comm. badge attached to her uniform jacket.

***

Chakotay sat in his chair, staring at the picture of the planet on the view screen.

When his comm. badge beeped and a voice rang through, he thought it was quite possible that he was either experiencing a delusion or about to have a heart attack.

"Janeway to Voyager."

"Captain?" Her voice was tainted with tiredness and it sounded rough, but it was definitely her.

"Request for one to beam up."

He nodded to Harry and was in the transporter room to greet her before Ensign LeRoy had even energized the transport.

***

The Doctor frowned as he ran the regenerator across the lashes on her back. "It's a good thing you got out when you did, Captain."

"I know." And the faces that Chakotay was making at the sight of it spoke volumes.

He touched her newly healed hand. "Are you OK?"

"I'll feel better when we get Tom out of there but, yes, I am."

Chakotay nodded. "How did you get out?"

"That's the funny thing, I didn't. Throughout the whole time I was there," She had already explained the time dilation theory to him and the advancement of her infection supported that, apparently. "People would come and go but I never actually saw them leave. One morning, I was just taken back to the interrogation cave, thanked for my service and then I was sitting on the planet."

Chakotay's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "They thanked you?"

"Yes."

"They captured you into slavery and then thanked you for, what? Not running? Not fighting?"

Kathryn shrugged the best that she could from her position as she lay on her stomach on the biobed, the Doctor working silently on her back. "Thanked me for my services, apparently. I don't understand it either."

"So how do we get Tom out?"

"I have no idea."

The Doctor interjected then. "Enough. My patient needs treatment and this is a sickbay, not a briefing room." He had already healed her hands and, once her back was finished, he was planning to rectify the damage to her feet. "You can have this conversation when she returns to duty."

***

The Doctor had finally released her to her quarters - meaning that she naturally went straight to the briefing room and called the senior staff to a meeting on her way - and Kathryn took her place at the table and waited as everyone filed in.

When everyone had arrived and only one chair remained empty, Kathryn nodded to each person in turn before speaking.

"We need ideas for getting Lieutenant Paris out of there."

She didn't elaborate on where 'there' was.

Chakotay had, she didn't doubt, told them all the edited version of what she had told him.

Tom had only been there for seven hours - meaning that he would, by now, be experiencing the rest day, she estimated - but she wasn't prepared to leave him there for three months of mining.

B'Elanna frowned. "We didn't know how to get you out, Captain."

"I'm aware of that, but there had to be a way."

"There is not."

The reply didn't come from any of her staff and, when she looked to Tom's formerly empty chair, she saw her interrogator staring back at her.

Tuvok was immediately reaching for his comm. badge and rising to his feet, but she waived him back.

"Who are you?"

"I am Zech."

Kathryn fought the urge to leap across the table and beat the crap out of him for the three months - or was that eighteen hours? - of hell that she had endured.

Instead, she managed to force the urge down and keep her voice steady. "Are you Merrellian?"

Zech raised an eyebrow. "You know of my race?"

"Yes." She nodded once.

"Interesting."

I'm sure it is. "How do you take people like that?"

"Technology."

It was Tuvok that responded. "Elaborate."

"It is far too advanced for you to understand."

Kathryn was still considering leaping across the table and giving him something to 'understand' but a hand on her thigh squelched the urge.

Looking to her left, she saw Chakotay watching her with concerned eyes. She nodded just enough to let him know that she was OK and turned back to Zech. "Try."

"Above the planet's surface is a ring of energy that captures people and sends them to the mines. I interrogate them, they work and then they leave."

"How?"

Zech shrugged.

"Is it just this planet?"

"Several similar rings are set up on other worlds. You are not able to detect them."

As much as she wanted to free everyone else that was trapped in the mines - and however many others the Merrellian Empire had set up across this part of the Quadrant - her first priority was her missing crewman. "You have another of my men in the mine. I want him back."

"In exchange for?"

"What do you want?"

Zech closed his eyes, projecting the aura of someone deep in thought. Kathryn wondered if he was telepathically communicating with someone else before answering.

They didn't know enough of the Merrellian people to rule it out.

Finally, Zech opened his eyes and focused on her again. "We release your crewman and you leave Merrellian space immediately."

She didn't like it - they were innocent people in the mines - but she knew exactly what her answer was without thinking about it. "Deal."

"Your crewman is on the surface." Zech nodded and disappeared from his seat.

Kathryn tapped her comm. badge, exchanging a glance with Chakotay. "Harry, scan the surface, see if you can find-"

"Got him."

She sighed in relief. "Beam him straight to sickbay and get us away from the planet, warp seven. Janeway out."

***

It was some hours later, when they were rapidly traveling towards the Alpha Quadrant and Kathryn was happily lying in a large bubble bath, that she finally took a moment to close her eyes and relax.

Tom, though she hadn't seen him, had been beamed to sickbay and all reports about his health were good and the Doctor had only kept him long enough to re-hydrate his body.

Apparently time dilation didn't matter when your body felt like it hadn't had any liquids in months.

The chime on her door rang out, pulling her from her thoughts and Kathryn rose quickly, wrapping a towel around her body and pulling a large, thick robe on over her damp skin.

Probably Chakotay coming to check on me, she thought as she padded into the living room and called for the doors to open.

Tom Paris stepped through the entrance to the Captains Quarters - and he'd never been in there before, so his eyes danced around the room a bit before settling on the small robed woman in front of him. "I hope you don't mind me coming here?"

"Not at all. Can I get you something to drink?"

Shaking his head, he smiled at the empty coffee cups that sat on her desk. No doubt she was making up for three months of withdrawals in one night. "No thank you Captain, I can't stay. I just wanted to make sure that you're alright?"

"I'm good. The Doctor is very talented." Normally, she wouldn't have referenced her wounds at all, but Tom had seen them and she knew that they were what he was asking about.

"No residual damage?" He winced. "It was pretty bad."

"None. And I appreciate the concern." She touched his arm lightly. "What about you? The Doctor tells me that aside from some chafing to your hands, you were OK?"

He grinned. "I managed to talk my way out of working a few of the days and the guards seemed to like me."

"You know," Kathryn smiled, "That doesn't shock me."

Tom laughed with her before he nodded once. "Permission to speak freely?"

"Granted."

"B'Elanna told me about the meeting." He wrung his hands, uncomfortable. "Why did you make the deal with Zech?"

Kathryn answered automatically. "We don't leave people behind."

"But the people in the mines were innocent, just like us. And B'Elanna said that the Merrellian had who knows how many others throughout the galaxy. I'm just one person."

"We don't leave people behind." Kathryn repeated. "I wish that we could have saved everyone too, but the fact of the matter is that we don't know how to get to the mines, where the mines are or even what planet we were on. How would we go about rescuing anyone?"

Tom nodded; he knew that she was right. "Thank you, Captain."

Turning to leave, he paused at the threshold and turned back to her, smiling once before he ducked around the corner.

***

It wasn't all that long after Tom left that her chime rang again and, this time, Kathryn knew exactly who it was on the other side of the door.

She had changed into some comfortably baggy sweatpants and t-shirt that was far too large for her, but she didn't care. "Come."

Chakotay walked in, a bottle of wine in his hand. "Feel up to some company?"

Kathryn smiled. "I'll get the glasses."

While she did that, Chakotay moved to the sofa and opened the bottle. When she was beside him again, he poured some of the green liquid into the glasses that Kathryn held out.

Raising hers slightly, she smiled "Cheers."

Echoing the toast, Chakotay took a sip of the sweet wine before he stared at her for a long moment, watching as she drank her own glass in small sips.

"I'm OK."

He knew that. "I know."

"Glad to be home though." She sighed as she made herself comfortable next to him. Phantom tinges of pain tugged at her as she laid her back against the sofa, but Kathryn knew that it was just her imagination. "So, tell me what happened while I was gone."

"B'Elanna pulled the transporter pad apart three times." Chakotay chuckled. Now that no one was in danger, it was almost funny. "We might need to run a diagnostic to make sure she put all of the pieces back together."

She raised her eyebrow. "I thought you said that you ruled out the transporter as a potential explanation for my disappearance?"

"We did. I think she just needed something to do." He shrugged. "I know how she felt."

Smiling at him, Kathryn took a sip of her wine and leant her head back against the top of the sofa, closing her eyes and sighing in contentment.

"Kathryn?"

Turning her head, she smiled again - though she didn't bother to open her eyes - as sleep started to claim her. "Mmm?"

Moving both of their glasses to the coffee table, Chakotay sat back, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. "I'm glad you're back."

Curling her body around until she was half lying on him, half on the sofa, Kathryn sighed comfortably. "Me too."

***

End