Work Text:
• • •
“Starfleet aren’t expecting you back?” Seven of Nine asked, when she and Chakotay were alone again in the mess hall. Raffi Musiker and Cristóbal Rios had gone to the bridge to run a few last systems checks before they launched La Sirena.
“Starfleet extended my period of leave. The message came through this morning.”
“Ah. That explains why Rios was suddenly in a hurry.” Seven considered Chakotay for a long moment. “Any hidden agendas…?”
“On Starfleet’s part? No.”
Seven huffed skeptically. “Seems like a wasted opportunity.”
Chakotay tilted his head. “We’re in the Neutral Zone, remember? I’m under strict orders to behave as a private citizen, no more and no less.”
“They don’t want you provoking a war?”
He matched her wry tones. “Not if I can help it.”
“Any ulterior motives on your part…?”
He couldn’t suppress a grin – but hastened to reassure her, “Only in relation to Cris, I promise.”
•
La Sirena was on a medical supply run to the third planet in the Zolan system – just regular supplies, and Zolan III was not currently in crisis, so the four of them were anticipating a few days free of drama. Or, at least, no more than the occasional edginess between Raffi and Seven as they endeavored to work out from one hour to the next what kind of relationship they most wanted. Cris was a far more mellow companion, Chakotay reflected, and their needs were meshing delightfully. He didn’t waste time wondering how long that might last, but only vowed to enjoy every moment he could.
The idyll was interrupted on the third day when La Sirena passed close by a cargo ship drifting in open space with no life signs aboard. Rios slowed La Sirena and turned their course to follow a long wary arc around the ship. “I’m not seeing any signs of damage,” he said, watching the visuals.
Raffi was frowning as she cycled through the readouts from various sensors. “It seems unharmed,” she agreed.
“Mechanical failure?” Seven suggested.
“But the crew all dead,” Chakotay added, “unless there was reason to abandon her.”
Raffi shook her head. “There’s a shuttle still attached under the hull, and no empty docking ports. Doesn’t seem like any are missing.”
The four of them looked at each other, eyes bright. They were a disparate group brought together by chance, but they all shared that old Starfleet sense of curiosity.
“Seven,” said Rios, “I’m not picking up any shields that’ll prevent us teleporting, but find a workable airlock just in case. Raffi, all the readings you can on the ship’s atmosphere. Chakotay, make sure our suits are ready. You and I will go across.”
“Aye, Captain,” Chakotay responded, already up and leaving the bridge for the lower deck. Of course the suits were ready for use – Rios kept everything in perfect order – but Chakotay could bring them out of their storage containers and have them ready to step into.
Minutes later, Rios came down the stairs at a jog, with Seven at a steadier pace behind him. “All set?” Rios asked. “Atmosphere’s acceptable, but the air temperature’s high – very high. I’d have recommended suiting up anyway…”
Chakotay had already stepped into his suit before Rios finished speaking. “Aye.”
Seven helped them each in turn, and then as they stepped up onto the platform she headed for the transporter controls. “I’ve got the coordinates for the bridge. Seems to be the largest empty space in the whole ship. The nearest airlock is three meters behind the bridge, to starboard.” She paused. “I think –”
They looked at her in expectation, and she swallowed before continuing.
“I think you’ll find someone’s remains towards the rear bulkhead.”
•
They looked for the body as soon as they materialized – and it was there, a humanoid half-curled on the edge of a wide bunk with one foot on the deck, as if it had been trying to either get up or lie down. Chakotay went over there to see what he could find out – but Rios kept his distance, and muttered, “I have a bad feeling about this.” Neither of them opened their helmets; the temperature was so high that Chakotay could feel it through his suit despite the insulation.
Over the com, Seven said, “It seems they were alone. I’m not picking up any other remains, and there is still no hint of a life sign.”
“The body is very desiccated,” Chakotay added. “This tricorder isn’t picking up much information.”
“What about the ship?” Raffi asked.
“I’ll investigate –” As Chakotay turned towards the pilot’s chair, he saw that Rios hadn’t moved, but was staring uneasily at the remains. “Come on, Cris,” Chakotay murmured, beckoning him over. “You’re the technical one.” To the others, he continued, “We’ll see if we can work out what went wrong.”
“If it wasn’t just a dead man’s switch,” Cris muttered. “A fail-safe device,” he added, using the modern term.
Chakotay sat him down in the only chair, and indicated the control panel. It seemed dormant other than a few static labels. “Do you recognize the language?”
Rios cast a searching glance over the interfaces. “No. But this is not a sophisticated vessel. Seems it was designed to be operated by only one person. It shouldn’t be too hard to…”
Chakotay was pleased to see Rios already deeply invested in the puzzle, and for long moments watched those nimble fingers flittering over surfaces and bringing the panel back to life. Within moments, he was relieved to feel the temperature dropping.
Seven announced, “I’ve worked out the quickest route down to the shuttle, if you need it.”
“Can you leave him to it, Chakotay?” Raffi asked. “Crew quarters are behind the bridge’s rear bulkhead. They’re pretty minimal, but there might be clues.”
“I’ll go have a look,” said Chakotay, resting a reassuring hand on Rios’s shoulder for a moment before leaving the bridge.
•
He thought he caught movement from the corner of his eye, but after a moment Chakotay shrugged it off. If anything, it had looked like a wisp of smoke, but maybe that wasn’t unexpected. And any of the four of them would have picked it up on sensors if there were a fire anywhere there shouldn’t be.
The crew quarters were minimal and messy, but there seemed no story to be told. Chakotay wondered if the pilot had spent most of their time on the bridge, using the utilitarian bunk when needed. He opened cabinets and found clothing but few recognizable personal effects. “I’m not seeing much of interest,” he announced over the com.
Which, ironically, was when he caught another glimpse of… something. Smoke maybe, or mist. When he turned to find it, there was nothing. Perhaps the changing temperature…?
“Copy that,” Raffi acknowledged, sounding as if she were distracted by more important things.
Chakotay took a moment to confirm the airlock’s location, and that it was fully accessible, then headed back to the bridge. “Finding anything, Cris?” he asked on the way.
“I’ve isolated a serious leakage in the turbine,” Rios replied. “That wouldn’t be enough in itself to stop the engines running, but if something else went wrong at much the same time – overheated, maybe, or a fuse blew and a redundant system didn’t kick in – and the pilot had died unexpectedly…”
“So they couldn’t fix it.” Chakotay settled his rear on an empty part of the control panel so he could watch Rios at work. “I wonder why there was only one crew member. A lonely journey for them, and all the responsibility of the goods in the cargo pods…”
A tiny vibration hinted that Rios had shuddered within his suit. “Do you think the owners will be coming to find the ship, or will they just give it up as abandoned?”
Another wisp – stronger, and then another again, nearer – and Chakotay registered a distinct something approaching. “Do you feel that, Cris? Almost a… presence.”
“Oh fuck, no,” cried Rios, clumsily pushing up onto his feet and whirling to look around – an endearingly unwise move when suited up. “She’s not still here?”
“She?” Chakotay asked.
Rios gestured back towards the control panel. “They weren’t specific on pronouns, but it seemed appropriate.”
“There’s still no life signs,” Seven was saying with an edge of urgency in her voice. “What do you mean, a ‘presence’?”
“Her soul, maybe,” Chakotay mused.
“A ghost?” Rios demanded.
“Cris,” asked Seven, “she wasn’t Vulcan, was she? Maybe it’s her katra.”
Raffi was scoffing. “That’s not how they work, Seven. It’s more like Chakotay’s overactive imagination.”
The sensation had quietened again, anyway. “She’s gone now. Maybe I did imagine it.”
“Right,” said Rios, sounding as if nothing was actually right at all.
“Cris,” said Chakotay, “what else have you found? We need to know what the second problem was – or the complicating factor, or whatever it was.”
“Why?” It seemed as if Rios’s curiosity had completely drained away.
“So that we can fix the ship.”
“And…?” Raffi demanded.
“And fly it to its destination.”
Upon which, Rios, Seven and Raffi all burst into a babble of reasons why not.
•
Chakotay half-listened to them while he wrapped up the body as carefully as he could in a blanket he’d taken from the crew quarters.
“Yes, I found the navigation route,” Rios was saying impatiently, “but that doesn’t mean we should follow it!”
The pilot was still in one piece, more or less, but probably wouldn’t stay that way for much longer. Chakotay lifted her gently into his arms, and carried her back to lay her on the bed.
“Is there a beacon of some kind we can set off?” Seven was asking. “A distress signal?”
Chakotay bowed his head for a few moments’ respect. “Whether this is the start or the end of a journey,” he murmured, “may you find peace.”
“Yes, send a distress call,” Raffi agreed. “So her own people can find her… and the cargo.”
By the time Chakotay returned to the bridge, Raffi was grudgingly asking, “What kind of cargo are we talking about? I guess maybe we should take it to them… If we can.”
“Basic supplies,” Rios replied. “I can’t make out all the details, but clothing, household goods, communal technology, medical. Maybe a few luxury items… Things I have no idea about.”
“Sounds useful,” said Chakotay. “Even if they’re a few years out of date.”
Seven added, “The ship’s memory banks are storing cultural items, stories, histories. I’m not sure if that’s part of the cargo, or intended for the pilot’s use. Either way, I fed it into the Universal Translator.”
Raffi sighed. “All right, all right… Where’s the ship headed?”
Chakotay’s sense of a presence suddenly returned, and he looked around to try to find a visual trace of it. Was there an unexpected reflection drifting across the bridge window…?
Rios reluctantly replied, “It’s two systems further out than Zolan. I’m not sure that the Federation has even visited before.”
Starfleet curiosity kicked in. “Let’s do this, then,” said Chakotay. “If we can.”
•
They renewed the air and waited another half-hour for the temperature to cool, before finally taking off their suits. Then Rios wriggled his way down into the engines to find the leak. After poking around a bit, he called up to Chakotay, “Sí – yes, this is doable!”
“Can you see what caused it?”
“Just one of those things… Diablo!” Rios muttered. “No, I have it!”
Chakotay chuckled. “I have the utmost faith.”
“You can have backups and redundancies on everything possible, and still something no one thought about goes wrong.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” said Chakotay. “I’ll stay in hearing distance.”
•
Raffi teleported over some food and drink from La Sirena, and the two men ate while sitting on the floor, as if it were a picnic. Rios, despite casually leaning back against the hull, seemed anything but relaxed.
Eventually Chakotay said, “We need to complete her mission.”
Rios looked alarmed. “She’s telling you that…?”
“No, but maybe that’s why she’s still here. To see the job done.”
“I like Seven’s idea about setting off a distress call. Let her people come get the ship, if that’s what they want.”
“Have you found a way of doing that?”
Rios had to admit, “No.” Which he immediately followed with, “I haven’t managed to convert their way of measuring time to ours, either. How long have they been waiting? Decades, maybe! They’d have given up on it, long ago.”
“She hasn’t,” Chakotay replied.
Rios stared at him. “Who’s to say the cargo isn’t completely redundant at this point?”
Chakotay nodded. “Who’s to say, indeed.”
A long silence stretched, and Rios began gathering up the remains of their dinner. His head was down, but eventually he muttered, “All right.”
Chakotay leant in to catch his gaze, and he simply said, “Thank you, Cris.”
•
They teleported back to La Sirena to discuss their plans with Raffi and Seven.
“Look,” said Raffi, “I sympathize, I really do, but we’re already pushing close to a deadline with our own supply run.”
“You and Seven complete that run in La Sirena,” said Chakotay. “Cris and I will deliver the cargo ship, and then you come and pick us up. I already sent the coordinates through. You might even get there before us.”
Rios nodded a resigned kind of agreement. “I’m taking it slow and steady with those engines.”
Seven brought over their com badges. “I’ve updated the translators. You should be able to understand these people – at least enough to hold a basic conversation.”
“Thank you, Seven.”
“All right, all right,” Raffi grumbled. “I’ll put together some food packs for you!” she called over her shoulder as she headed for the mess.
“I’ll get a change of clothes for us both,” said Rios.
And sooner than he could have expected, Chakotay was standing on the transporter platform with Rios beside him along with a small pile of supplies.
“We’ll join you in approximately fifty hours,” said Seven before she teleported them back to the cargo ship.
•
“This ship can practically fly itself,” Rios remarked. He was sitting in the pilot’s chair, swiveling back and forth a little as if he had nothing better to do.
“You’ve completed all the repairs you identified?” Chakotay asked.
“I did. Everything’s shipshape and Bristol fashion… As far as I can tell.”
Chakotay was lying on the bunk at the rear of the bridge, looking through what appeared to be a history of the people who’d built the ship. His PADD’s translator might have been struggling with it. “Come and have a look at this, Cris,” he suggested. “I can’t decide whether it’s factual history or a fantasy. Or it could be philosophy!”
Rios came over and lay down beside Chakotay. The bunk was wide enough for both of them, but it seemed Cris wanted to snuggle. Chakotay put down the PADD and welcomed the man into his arms. “All right?” he asked.
“More or less,” Rios replied. He didn’t seek a kiss, as he often did, but instead asked, “Is she here?”
Chakotay turned his spiritual focus outwards, and felt around the bridge, as it were. “No, I don’t think so. She’s been quieter now that we’re on the way to her home.”
Rios made a half-skeptical, half-comforted sound.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you’re in the mood to –”
“I’m not an exhibitionist!”
“She’ll understand. I could ask her not to be here for a while.”
“Will she?” Suspiciously, Rios added, “I thought you said you couldn’t talk with her.”
“I can’t,” Chakotay agreed easily.
“So she might, like, drift in through the walls at any time, and you wouldn’t tell me, because it would be… counterproductive.”
“And you wouldn’t forgive me?” Chakotay laughed softly.
Rios wriggled so as to fit even closer against Chakotay. “You told me once that ghosts won’t harm us.”
“You remember that? I honestly believe it’s true.”
“Mmm…” Rios rumbled with his head tucked in against Chakotay’s throat.
Chakotay shifted his embrace into something more ardent. “I won’t lie to you, Cris. But we can wait until we’re on La Sirena again. There are a thousand other things we can do in the meantime…”
“Such as…?”
“This,” Chakotay murmured, pressing a kiss to Rios’s temple, “and this,” he continued, shifting a gentle hand across Rios’s sensitive waist.
Rios sighed in satisfaction.
•
Static burst over the com just as Rios finished settling the ship into orbit around its home planet. He made an adjustment or two, and the static resolved into “welcome” and “time long return” interspersed with untranslated words.
Chakotay leaned closer to the control panel and waited for Rios’s nod before saying, “Hello. We’re not who you’re expecting, I’m afraid. My name is Chakotay and my colleague is Cristóbal Rios. We’re from the United Federation of Planets.”
“Ship … nor … what…”
“Our translator isn’t working very well.”
“Who …” and more words, then silence.
Chakotay forged on, in the hopes that the people on-planet were picking up more than he and Rios were – and the more they talked back and forth, the sooner the translators would learn. “We found this ship drifting in space. Xuelian Lua – I don’t know if that’s the name of the ship or the pilot. We wanted to bring them home to you.”
“Xuelian Lua, yes … thanks due …”
“We were glad to help.”
Rios murmured, “I’m picking up La Sirena’s signal already. Maybe an hour away.”
“Our friends are coming to pick us up,” Chakotay said over the com. “We’ll leave your ship here in orbit, unless you can give us other instructions.”
“Orbit, yes … Send shuttlecraft, yes.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find the remains of your pilot here. She – they died. We’re not sure how.”
Silence.
“We found her on the bridge, and I carried her to the cabin. If we did anything inappropriate, I apologize. We meant no offense.”
A pause before the response, “Offense, no.”
“I’m not sure how to convey this, but I sensed her here – as if her presence was still here in the ship. Not only her body. We wanted to bring her home.”
A few more untranslatable words. Then, “Name, yours?”
“My name is Chakotay.”
“Helped us, yes. Helped her, yes. Help you, Chakotay?”
Rios grinned at him, as if he’d had faith all along in this side mission of theirs. Chakotay grasped his hand for a moment in joy and gratitude.
“Could I come back one day? With a few of my colleagues from the Federation? We like meeting new peoples, making new friends.”
No immediate response.
“I hope you won’t mind,” Chakotay continued, “we’ve been reading your stories, your histories. As much as we can, anyway. Our translator is struggling, and so am I. But we obviously have much to learn from you, if you wish to share – and we can share our knowledges with you, if you’d find them useful.”
Another brief silence. And then at last, “Reading, yes. Come back to us, yes, and we’ll share. Understanding, yes.”
“I’ll look forward to it. Thank you.”
The connection ended, and Rios stood to take Chakotay into a warm hug. “Gracefully done, arroz con leche,” he murmured.
Chakotay kissed him, as sweet as rice pudding, indeed.
“Cris,” came Raffi’s worried voice over the com badges, “are you there? Everything all right?”
Rios grinned. “Never better, Raffi.” He went to gather up their gear to be teleported back.
Chakotay looked around the bridge, wanting to catch a last glimpse of the ghost… or maybe hoping not to. “Have you found peace, Xuelian Lua?” he murmured. “Fare well, my friend.”
• • •