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Chakotay took one look at his wife as she entered the kitchen before moving quickly across the room to pull her into a tight embrace.
“How’d it go?” he asked, his voice muffling into her hair.
Kathryn Janeway let out a deep sigh. “The Titan’s almost out of comms-range, so we didn’t have long. She’s pleased but, despite Shaw’s commendation, still a little unsure of herself.”
“She’ll make a fine captain,” Chakotay said, as he rubbed small circles on the small of Kathryn’s back. “She learnt from the best…” Chakotay pulled away to look at Kathryn, a twinkle in his eye, “… After all, Captain Shaw was one of Starfleet’s finest.”
Kathryn gave him a wry smile. “You joke, but there’s a reason I encouraged Seven to serve as Liam’s first officer.”
“Yeah, punishment for all the grief she gave you on Voyager…”
“Chakotay…” Kathryn hissed, swatting him half-heartedly on the shoulder, the barest hint of a smile tugging at her lips, but she quickly grew wistful once more. She’d attended Captain Shaw’s memorial service - and that of the hundreds of other Starfleet officers who’d lost their lives on Frontier Day - a mere three days ago and, say what you wanted about Liam Shaw, there was no denying that he was a dedicated Starfleet Captain who prioritised his crew above all else. Seven and Shaw may have had their differences, but Shaw had held Seven in high regard. Having just learnt this, Seven was feeling a little guilty for having resented and, at times, betrayed him. This was, as she had just confessed to Kathryn, one of the (many) reasons why she now felt conflicted at taking over Shaw’s command. And so, whilst Chakotay was right that Seven would make a fine Captain, Kathryn nonetheless felt that the former Borg drone had a lot of personal and emotional baggage to work through before she would truly be okay. “I wish I could’ve been there,” she mused for the umpteenth time that week. “I really should have been the one to promote her.”
Chakotay pursed his lips and gripped her shoulders, massaging them gently, before running his hands down her arms to caress his thumbs over the newly healed skin on her wrists. “Kathryn, we’ve been over this before. You’re in no state to travel, and besides…” his eyes flicked in the direction of their living room, “… the kids need you here.”
Kathryn sighed again and rested her forehead against his chest. “In a way, Seven is our oldest child,” she said, thinking back to the heated arguments she’d had with Seven when the former Borg drone decided to join the Fenris Rangers, and the late night calls as she’d counselled Seven through her break-up with Raffi. Heck, Seven even had her own room at the Janeway’s sprawling Indiana farmhouse.
“Yes, but she’s a lot older and considerably more mature than our other three,” Chakotay reminded her, careful not to think about the fact that he had once dated the woman that his wife now, and perhaps had always, thought of as a surrogate daughter. He licked his lips before rehashing the argument they’d been having since their discharge from Starfleet Medical just days ago. “I know you think Seven deserves…” At Kathryn’s raised eyebrow, he quickly correct himself, “… needs special attention because of all she’s been through and you feel guilty that you couldn’t be there for her after the incident with the Zhat Vash. But she’s smart, and she’s resilient - she’s a lot like you in that regard. Amelia and Gretchen need you more than she does right now; they’ve never experienced something like this before. How they get through it - how we help them through it - could dictate how they deal with trauma for the rest of their lives.”
Kathryn thought back to her first severe brush with PTSD after the deaths of Justin and her father. It was true - her therapist had told her as much - if she’d taken the time to work through and truly process their deaths, she might have reacted differently to a number of scenarios that the Delta Quadrant had seen fit to throw her way and, perhaps, she might even have let Chakotay into her life a little sooner. But right now, those comments only seemed to indicate that she was ill-placed to help her children in their time of need.
“Chakotay,” Kathryn started testily, rubbing a hand over her face. She hobbled slowly across the room, leaning heavily on the cane that was to be her constant companion for the next three to six weeks, to watch the rain cascading down the window. “I’m telling you now. I can’t do this.”
Wrapping her arms around herself to guard against an imaginary chill, she thought back to the events of the last three months. It had all started so innocently, she’d been on her way to her weekly coffee with B’Elanna at the Night Owl, when she’d felt a familiar lurch in her stomach; one that signalled she was just about to be engulfed in a transporter beam…
Kathryn materialised on the bridge of a ship which - once she’d gotten over the shock of the impromptu transport - she quickly recognised as the USS Tal Shebat : Tuvok’s command. Captain Tuvok himself, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded, looking around at the bridge crew. A few of them threw curious and confused glances her way, but otherwise carried about their duties, seemingly unfazed by her sudden appearance. She noticed, however, in her peripheral vision, that a couple of security officers had, surreptitiously, trained their phasers on her.
Before she could address them, the turbolift doors opened to emit her former Chief of Security. “Tuvok,” Kathryn acknowledged, unable to keep the edge out of her voice, although she couldn’t deny that she was relieved to see her old friend. “What’s going on?”
Tuvok regarded her coolly. “Admiral Janeway, we require your assistance with an urgent matter. May I speak with you in private?” He gestured towards his ready room.
Kathryn glanced at the security officers, who had moved to flank her on either side. As much as she trusted Tuvok, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Tuvok would never abduct her - practically off the side of the road - with absolutely no warning, would he? Perhaps in an emergency, but that still didn’t explain the armed guards. He would know - should know - that she would never be a threat to him.
“What’s wrong?” She asked again, buying herself time to think. “Whatever this is, we can discuss it at HQ. B’Elanna’s waiting for me at the Night Owl . She’ll worry if I’m late.”
Both Tuvok and the security officers edged closer. “Admiral Janeway.” Tuvok’s voice dropped lower. “This is a matter of utmost urgency. Starfleet Command may be compromised.”
His face now inches from hers, Kathryn searched Tuvok’s eyes carefully. She didn’t like what she saw or, more accurately, what she didn’t see. Gone was the knowing look of a trusted colleague and the softness in his gaze that marked years of friendship. He may have been stood there right beside her, but felt more distant than ever.
Still, she couldn’t deny that his words piqued her interest. There had been rumours of peculiar behaviour among the Admiralty recently. Only a couple of days ago Harry Kim had called to complain that Admiral Shelby had postponed his mission to the Gamma Quadrant to ensure that he and his crew would be at the Frontier Day celebrations. “She told we needed a strong turn out at Frontier Day, especially after the troubles of the last few years.” Harry had sighed over the comm-channel. “Now the Schtorgan Wormhole might collapse before we even get there!”
“I can forgive Admiral Shelby for wanting a large turnout for Frontier Day, Harry.” Kathryn had placated him, knowing full well that (as much as it would have pained Harry to hear it) the Schtorgan mission was classed as non-essential. “There’ll be other wormholes. I’ll see to it that the Kiri’s next mission is a good one.” What was unusual (though she kept this to herself) was that Harry should have received this order directly from Fleet Admiral Elizabeth Shelby when it was well-known that Admiral Nechayev was overseeing the Gamma Quadrant missions.
“That’s because Nechayev’s busy sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong!” Chakotay had growled as they fluffed their pillows for bed later that day. “She wants almost all the cadets to join the fleet on Frontier Day. She’s pulling them out of classes for three weeks! Three weeks! And right before finals! What’s the point of being Academy Provost if I’m going to be overruled by the Admiralty at every juncture?”
If Tuvok was right and Starfleet Command had, in fact, been compromised, she could see why he may be distant and distrustful of her. “Alright, Captain.” Kathryn sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Lead on,” she said and gestured for him to precede her into his ready room.
“I should let B’Elanna know that I have to cancel and Chakotay that I’m going to be home late,” she said with a levity that she certainly didn’t feel as they crossed the threshold of his office. She tapped her combadge. “Janeway to-“
Before she’d even had the chance to register the person behind her, her combadge was ripped from her chest. “What do you think you’re doing?” Kathryn demanded, spinning sharply on her heel to face her assailant.
Not for the first time in her life (and perhaps not the last), Kathryn came face-to-face with a carbon copy of herself. “Who the hell are you?” She demanded, all but spitting in her doppelgänger’s face.
Her counterpart smirked as she affixed Kathryn’s combadge to her uniform. “I would have thought it obvious, Admiral,” she rasped, as she circled Kathryn slowly. “I’m you.”
She nodded towards the security officers and they edged closer towards Kathryn. One of them pressed his phaser deep into the small of Kathryn’s back. “Now give me your command codes!” Imposter Janeway demanded. “Give me your command codes and your family doesn’t get hurt. Give me your command codes and Ensign Amelia Janeway survives her first posting.”
“Like hell I’m giving you my command codes.” Kathryn spat back, trying to ignore the anxiety that had lodged itself in the pit of her stomach.
“Tuvok,” she turned to her friend, who was starting impassively at her. “What’s the meaning of this?” But she knew now that this wasn’t her Tuvok. Tuvok had been compromised, replaced by… by what? A hologram? An android? A changeling? But it couldn’t be, surely Starfleet would have alerted in their scans and transport logs…
“You’d be wise to cooperate, Admiral.” Imposter Tuvok counselled her gravely, interrupting her thoughts.
“Command codes, Kathryn…” Imposter Janeway demanded impatiently.
Kathryn looked from one imposter to the other before squaring off with herself. “Over my dead body.”
Her counterpart shrugged. “Alright then, suit yourself.” She gave an almost imperceptible nod and Kathryn felt a sharp burning blossom deep in her lower back before her world quickly faded to black.
Kathryn drifted in and out of consciousness as she hung, dangled from her wrists, her feet barely skimming the floor, in the brig of the Tal Shebat. Over the last ten - or was it eleven - days, she had been routinely tortured by a group of, what she had now determined to be, changelings impersonating both senior- and mid-level Starfleet officers. How they had evaded detection, she didn’t know. She could only guess that these changelings were more sophisticated than any Starfleet had encountered before.
Kathryn tried to take a deep breath and felt a sharp, but familiar, pain lance across her chest. A broken rib, she diagnosed, adding it to her mental catalogue of injuries. Kathryn was no stranger to brusque treatment and corporal punishment, but it had been a long time since her body had been forced to withstand such treatment and it certainly wasn’t holding up as it used to. And then there was the mental toll. It was one thing to threaten her crew, but entirely another to threaten her family. Kathryn was finding it increasingly difficult not to give in to her captors as they described, in painstaking detail, the cruel and unusual ways in which they would make her children pay for her silence. The needs of the many, she reminded herself over and over again. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Her only comfort was that they didn’t seem to have acted on any of their threats as yet. She only hoped that Chakotay would have been able to tell, at once, that she had been replaced by a fraudster and taken the necessary precautions to keep their children safe. They had often posited the steps they would take should one of them become compromised or indisposed under suspicious circumstances, but that had been in the early days of their marriage, when a small, but vocal, faction of the population had taken umbrage at the fact that Starfleet’s golden girl had seen fit to “shack up” with a former terrorist. Their life since had been relatively idyllic in comparison.
The doors to the brig hissed open, drawing her out of her reverie just in time to see a couple of security officers lower the force field to her chamber and dump a body, rather unceremoniously, at her feet.
“Chakotay!” She gasped, struggling against her bonds in a futile attempt to get to him. His face was blooded and bruised and, from this angle, she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. “Chakotay, wake up!” She implored desperately, drawing on some heretofore unknown source of energy to shove at him with the heel of her boot. “Commander, I am ordering you answer me this instant!”
Chakotay groaned, forcing himself to roll onto his back. “Kathryn?” He asked groggily, through half-lidded eyes.
“Kathryn!” He exclaimed again, more alert now that he had seen her and taken in her injuries. With difficulty, he pulled himself to his feet, cradling his arm - which protruded at an awkward angle from his shoulder - close to his chest. “What have they done to you?” He asked, carefully running his hands over her body to feel for injuries. Determining that they weren’t too serious, with his good hand, he fumbled to release the handcuffs strapping her to the wall.
“Careful with my leg,” she muttered, her store of energy suddenly depleted. “I think it’s broken.” She allowed her body to sag against his as he lowered her to the floor gently. “The children…”
“The kids are safe. I knew the moment I saw her that she wasn’t you. Before she could suspect I got Ed and Gretchen to B’Elanna and Tom, and asked Ro to reassign Millie to the Kiri. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best I could do in the time I had. Starfleet’s been infiltrated - Ro has made some startling discoveries. I’ve relayed this to Harry, but I’m not sure how long he’ll be able to stave off the vultures.” He looked over his shoulder at the door to the brig, unsure how long they had before their captors returned and keen to impart all the information at his disposal.
“Why are you…” Kathryn hissed in pain, clinging to him as she stretched out her injured leg in front of her. Her vision blurred in and out of focus. She licked her lips and tried again, willing herself to focus. “How did they get you?”
“You… she… the other Kathryn… She listened in on a conversation I was having with Ro. Kathryn, the house is bugged. I think it’s been bugged for months. They know so much - everything about us. Kathryn, whatever it is… I think they’re planning something big. Bigger than Wolf 359…”
Kathryn nodded. She’d pieced together something similar from snippets she’d overheard. “They’ve got Tuvok. And I think they got Shelby and Nechayev too. They must be targeting the Frontier Day celebrations.” She tightened her grip on his arm. “Chakotay, we have to get out of here. We have to stop them. Amelia - the children - as long as they’re with Starfleet, they’re not safe...”
Their attempted escape had been a futile endeavour. Their bodies were too weak and the ship too overrun with changelings for them to mount a meaningful insurgence.
Besieged by a troop of changelings and junior officers in the corridor just outside the brig, Kathryn and Chakotay had taken shelter in a Jeffries Tube, reconciling themselves to the fact that if they didn’t die at the hands of their enemies, they would soon die of their injuries. In a manner that was so matter of fact, it would have made Seven proud, they professed their love for one another and waited out the inevitable.
It never came. A mere hours after Picard and the former crew of the Enterprise-D (ably assisted by Seven and a rag tag team aboard the Titan) had thwarted the changelings, Kathryn and Chakotay were discovered and immediately beamed directly to Starfleet Medical (receiving preferential treatment perhaps due to their age, or perhaps due to their hero status). As it turned out, the changelings had merely been a vessel for the Borg Queen to execute a plan to build a new collective and destroy earth’s major cities. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Starfleet personnel had been affected. Using the transporter systems, the Borg Queen had (via the changelings) imprinted Borg technology into almost all of Starfleet’s junior officers (and any Starfleet Academy cadets who had the misfortune of using an infected system), ultimately turning them into drones by using Admiral Jean-Luc Picard’s son as some sort of homing beacon. And, as Kathryn and Chakotay knew all too well, a number of high-ranking officers had been imprisoned and tortured for their access and command codes. Without them, the changelings would have been unable to fully impersonate officers and infiltrate Starfleet and since Kathryn and Chakotay were amongst few others who had successfully held out, as far as everyone else was concerned the duo had simply disappeared off the face of the earth for two weeks.
“I was trying to find you,” Seven complained as she relayed the events of the last few weeks to Kathryn as she lay recovering in Starfleet Medical. “They made it seem like you were around, but never available. How was I to know…”
Leave it to Seven to make it seem like it was your fault that she hadn’t been able to mount your rescue. “It’s alright, Seven,” Kathryn placated her gently. “You saved us all in the end.”
Despite Chakotay’s best efforts, the Janeway children hadn’t fared much better. Ensign Amelia Janeway was one of the junior officers assimilated by the Borg. Soon after she’d been assimilated, she’d turned on her Captain, Harry Kim, and would have killed him if she hadn’t quickly been disabled by his ops officer, Lieutenant Naomi Wildman.
Although she wasn’t a serving officer, Cadet Gretchen Janeway must - perhaps as part of the drills and preparations for Frontier Day - have taken a transport via an infected system and was similarly assimilated by the Borg. Being Earth-bound, she’d turned on her god-parents, B’Elanna and Tom Paris-Torres, severely injuring her godfather before B’Elanna, together with her son Michael and Eddie Janeway, had been able to trap her in their laundry room.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s over now,” Chakotay moved behind Kathryn to enfold her in her arms as the rain kept tap-tapping down on the kitchen window.
Kathryn turned in his arms and he gently brushed away the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. She hadn’t even realised she’d been crying. “All those innocent people lost Chakotay…” she murmured softly. “And I can’t help but think that it was because I angered the Borg Queen… because I wanted to take a short cut to get our crew home…”
“Hey now, stop it Kathryn.” Chakotay tilted her face towards him so that she was forced to look him in the eye. “The Queen had a vendetta against Earth and the Federation long before Voyager came along. Do you know how many factors had to line up for her plan to have the slightest chance of success? Beverly and tens of Starfleet Medical’s finest failed to identify Jean Luc’s Irumodic Syndrome for Borg infection that it was; the changelings not only had to capture and impersonate dozens of Starfleet personnel, but also access and use their command codes; and the Borg Queen had to track down and lure Jack Crusher to her lair. I hate to break it to you Kathryn,” he said, with a quirk of his mouth, “But not everything is your fault.”
She smiled at him softly, the wrinkles in the corner of her eyes creasing gently. It was, perhaps, her first genuine smile in days. “How is it that you always know exactly what to say?” she asked, leaning in to place a couple of soft kisses on his lips.
“Easy. I’ve had 33 years of practice.”
Kathryn sighed as absentmindedly, but affectionately, she traced the lines of the tattoo on his forehead. “What are we going to do about the kids?” she asked, looking over her shoulder towards the living room, where their three children had been sat in a huddle of arms and legs and blankets for days. “Millie and Gretchie are distraught at having attacked Harry and Tom. And Ed just seems so scarred by everything that happened; I’ve never seen him so quiet... I don’t know how to help them, Chakotay. I can barely help myself.”
Chakotay turned to the kitchen counter where he’d been readying a pan of piping hot cocoa and handed a couple of mugs to her. “Tell them that, Kathryn. Tell them how you feel. Be there for them. Listen. Help them with through their problems. In time, we may all need to seek professional help, but right now, they just need us to be there for them and to love them. ”
Kathryn nodded solemnly as she followed her husband into their living room. “Mama,” Amelia murmured, and her children shuffled around to make room for her under their blankets. Having distributed the cups of cocoa, she tucked Amelia and Gretchen closer to her sides and reached her hand across the sofa to caress her hand through Edward’s hair. She smiled softly at Chakotay as he sandwiched Amelia and Edward between them. You were right, she told him, needing no words to do so. I was trying to run away - to hide behind Starfleet again - but I can do this. All we need is each other.
Resting her head on Amelia’s forehead she thought back to an old prayer that she’d learnt as a child, quite some time before she’d declared herself an atheist to her parents: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
”Kids,” Kathryn began softly. “For a while there, your father and I thought that we might never see you again and, I have to confess, it scared me…”
END