Star Trek: Voyager®: Full Circle

by Kirsten Beyer

  The saddest truth of all was that no power she possessed would have been sufficient.

  Montgomery stepped away and in the brief interim, Julia whispered to her husband, “Why don’t we go and say hello to our son?”

  Owen turned his weary face to hers and replied softly, “If our son wishes to speak to me, he knows where I am.”

  Julia’s eyes brimmed with fresh tears, not for Kathryn, who was now beyond them, but for Tom, whose pain was all too fresh.

  The moment the ceremony had ended, Eden hurried through the crowd toward the park’s western gate. For weeks she had been torn between shock and rage at the news of Janeway’s death. The shock was easy to understand. Eden had never truly believed that Janeway could not survive another encounter with the Borg.

  The rage was more difficult. She wasn’t sure who she blamed more for this horrific turn of events: herself, or Willem. As he hadn’t bothered to attend the ceremony, at the moment she was more inclined to weigh his guilt a bit heavier than hers.

  A small group of familiar faces was gathering around Seven and Chakotay. Tom, Harry, the Doctor, Jarem, Reg, Vorik, and Icheb had already exchanged many hugs and polite comments about the beauty of the service.

  For her part, Seven couldn’t really see the beauty. It had been an uncomfortable several hours in which nothing remarkable had been said—nothing that gave any deeper meaning or shed any light of understanding upon Kathryn’s death.

  In a way, Seven still did not understand why she had been spared the same fate. She had been ready to meet it, as there seemed to be no alternative. But she had been granted a reprieve, and in the countless difficult hours since then had begun to make some sense of the chaos that churned inside her.

  She alone truly understood that Kathryn’s death had been far preferable to the alternative, a life among the Borg. She alone had shared Kathryn’s brief victory and the resultant destruction of the cube that had enslaved her. The Doctor had suggested gently that this should comfort Seven.

  It did not.

  But frightened as she was for herself, she believed that ultimately she would adapt. Staring at the lost faces around her, particularly Chakotay’s, she was not certain that her friends possessed sufficient resilience and wondered what she might do to aid them. Had Kathryn been among them, this task would have fallen to her. As she was not, Seven decided that she must summon the strength to help them begin.

  Icheb moved from her side to make way for Naomi and Samantha Wildman to join their small circle.

  “Hello, Seven,” Naomi said almost shyly.

  “Naomi Wildman, you are looking well,” Seven replied politely.

  Concern flashed across the child’s horned forehead.

  “I am not well, Seven. How could I be?”

  “Naomi,” her mother admonished her softly.

  Seven stepped toward Naomi, surprised by how much she seemed to have grown in the few months which had passed since the last time they laid eyes upon each other. Too soon, Naomi would be as tall as Seven. Though she was only nine years old, the top of her head already reached Seven’s shoulder.

  “I am certain you are experiencing feelings of distress, Naomi,” Seven said. “But we must all do our best to be brave. Admiral Janeway would expect nothing less of us.”

  “I guess.” Naomi shrugged. “I just don’t know how.”

  “None of us do,” Tom said gently, tugging at Naomi’s long braid.

  Naomi turned to Tom and asked, “Where are B’Elanna and Miral? I was looking forward to seeing them. I bet Miral doesn’t even remember me.”

  Seven caught the loaded glance between Tom and Harry that followed this innocent remark. Inside she wished to chide Lieutenant Wildman for not telling Naomi in advance that B’Elanna and Miral would not be in attendance. Then again, she rationalized that Naomi should not be burdened with adult concerns.

  “I’m sure she does,” Harry assured Naomi kindly. “Tom and B’Elanna tell her about you all the time. How well you’re doing in school. All of it.” He then turned to the group and said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think the last thing Admiral Janeway would have wanted would be for us to stand around with these long faces. We should find somewhere to go, and raise a glass to her memory.”

  Everyone seemed to concur. Seven had no immediate objections, but turning to Chakotay, she doubted he had even heard Harry’s words.

  Seven moved to face him and said softly, “Lieutenant Kim is right. We should adjourn to a more private place.”

  Chakotay briefly raised his eyes to hers. He looked at her as if she had just spoken to him in a language the universal translator was unable to parse.

  The others immediately seemed to sense the tension and began to shuffle away in twos and threes.

  “Chakotay?” Seven demanded.

  “What?”

  “Our friends are waiting.”

  “Let them wait.”

  Wordlessly Chakotay lifted her hand from his arm and began to walk toward the white pillar. The few guests who remained near the base drifted off to allow him a moment of solitude.

  After a brief internal debate, Seven followed. She understood the depth of Chakotay’s pain. She shared it. But she did not recognize the anger that flared from him unprovoked so often since Kathryn’s passing, any more than she had understood Phoebe Janeway’s absurd call for vengeance.

  Vengeance was irrelevant.

  Chakotay waded carefully into the sea of flowers adorning the base of the pillar. When he was close enough, he raised his hands and placed them at the sides of the pillar, almost caressing the monument’s cold white surface.

  For the first time, Seven realized that something had been engraved there. Searching her eidetic memory, she discovered the quote’s source, an American poet. It read: When a great person dies, for years the light they leave behind them lies on the paths of men. Beneath these words were carved Kathryn’s name, rank, and dates of birth and death.

  Chakotay stared at the words, but Seven did not believe he was processing their meaning, which she found appropriate. Finally she said, “Kathryn died a valiant death, Chakotay. She saved us all from the scourge of the evolved Borg cube, and when she died, she was herself, and free of the Collective.”

  “There is nothing valiant about it,” Chakotay replied harshly. “She should never have gone out to investigate that cube with only a science vessel for backup. Starfleet shouldn’t have allowed it. You shouldn’t have allowed it. I shouldn’t have allowed it.”

  Seven wanted to argue that it had been none of these parties’ choice to make, least of all his. Instead, stung by his tone, she turned on her heel and walked away.

  Chakotay had never experienced anything like the emptiness that now consumed him. He had lost family and dear friends before. But this was different.

  There had been times in the past when he had come close to losing Kathryn. But never in these brushes with death had he felt this crushing weight. And never had he imagined that rage could burn so deeply or constantly.

  He knew why this was different. For the first time he had honestly believed that he and Kathryn were about to build a future together, and he had welcomed that possibility the way a man walking in the desert welcomes water. Instead of an oasis, he had found a mirage.

  He couldn’t blame Kathryn. She had taken more foolhardy risks in the past.

  But there was plenty of blame to go elsewhere.

  A soft hand grazed his arm. Startled, he looked up to see a pair of clear blue eyes so like those he had loved in silence for too long.

  Phoebe Janeway stood beside him.

  “Captain,” she greeted him softly.

  Chakotay had heard little of the speeches made during the service. In fact, he remembered nothing until Kathryn’s sister had begun to speak and had given voice to his own dark thoughts.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her with an icy calm. “I will see that the Borg pay for what they’ve done to us.”

 
UNREGISTERED VESSEL 47658: BETA QUADRANT: JULY 2380

  B’Elanna stared at the message on the viewscreen in the cockpit of her shuttle, waiting for the words to rearrange themselves into something possible, something vaguely resembling a reality that she could accept.

  She waited until her mind finally sensed that there was now an abyss where her heart had been beating only moments before.

  Her heart was human.

  It was weak.

  It wanted to cry bitter tears.

  But tears were useless in the face of death.

  And Kathryn Janeway had died as she had lived.

  She had died fighting an honorable battle.

  B’Elanna would have given anything to have died at her side, or better, in her place. B’Elanna had become more than she ever dreamed imaginable under Janeway’s watchful eyes, and this was a debt she could now never repay.

  All she could do was cry out with fury that shook the shuttle’s frame.

  B’Elanna fell to her knees and began to wail.

  She raged at the silent heavens surrounding her so that the living and the dead would hear her call.

  A warrior was on her way to Sto-Vo-Kor.

  After only a few moments, Miral’s frightened cries were added to those of her mother.

  U.S.S. TITAN: BETA QUADRANT: AUGUST 2380

  No matter how many times Counselor Deanna Troi had performed this particular duty, it never got easier. There was nothing for it. The harder work would begin only once it was done.

  Steeling herself, she tapped the chime at Tuvok’s door. When it hissed open, his stately wife, T’Pel, stood before her.

  “Good evening, Counselor,” she said in a voice much warmer than Deanna usually found among Vulcans.

  “Good evening, T’Pel. Is Tuvok available?”

  “My husband is meditating, as is his custom before retiring for the night.”

  “May I speak with him?”

  “Is it urgent?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Deanna replied.

  T’Pel stepped aside with a nod and gestured toward the small room in their quarters which Tuvok regularly used as an office during his off-duty hours.

  Deanna moved briskly toward the room and soon caught sight of Tuvok, dressed in a long blue robe, kneeling before a lamp lit by a single flickering flame.

  “Tuvok,” Deanna said softly. She knew intimately how traumatic it could be to rouse anyone from deep meditation abruptly.

  After a moment, Tuvok rose from his serene pose and turned to face her.

  “How may I help you, Counselor?” he asked evenly.

  Deanna took a deep breath.

  “We’ve just received our latest communication from Starfleet Command,” she began. “Several months ago, a Borg cube entered Federation space. Captain Picard was able to eliminate the immediate threat. The cube, which showed no further signs of life, was quarantined. Admiral Janeway went with a team of scientists to investigate the cube and to ensure that it posed no further danger to the Alpha quadrant. Once on board, she was assimilated. The cube was ultimately destroyed. However, Admiral Janeway was not recovered. I’m so sorry, Tuvok, but Kathryn Janeway has died.”

  Tuvok did not even blink. After a brief pause during which she presumed he waited to learn if there was anything more she had to say on the subject, he replied, “Thank you for informing me, Counselor. If you will excuse me, I will return to my meditation.”

  Part of Deanna bristled. If someone had come to her to say that Captain Picard had suffered Janeway’s fate, she would have been inconsolable. She knew it was irrational, but part of her had honestly believed that news of this magnitude must elicit some kind of obvious response, even from Tuvok. He and Janeway had served together for more than twenty years.

  “Would you like to discuss it, Tuvok?” she asked.

  “I would prefer to be left alone,” he replied calmly.

  Deanna turned and started toward the door to his quarters. Her first thought was that she must now compose a note of condolence to Reg. She knew too well of his special relationship to Voyager’s crew and presumed he had been terribly upset by this event.

  Troi had almost reached the door frame when a rush of agony rolled through her. She paused, wondering whose turmoil she was sensing, and, after a moment, realized that it was Tuvok’s.

  More than once since they had begun to serve together aboard Titan, she had shared telepathic connections with the Vulcan. She knew that beneath his carefully tended walls there were vulnerable wells of deep emotion where he buried the feelings his mental disciplines would not allow him to express. She was caught off guard, not only by what had to be an unintentional lapse on Tuvok’s part, but also the intensity of the pain she had tasted.

  Almost as quickly as it had come, the feeling passed, leaving Deanna a little dizzy. She refused to prod, even with her empathic abilities, into her crewmate’s private discomfort. She did turn back, however, to see Tuvok still standing where she had left him, his face revealing nothing of what they had just shared.

  “If you wish to speak with me further, I will be available to you at any time,” she assured him.

  Once the counselor had left, Tuvok turned again to his meditation lamp. He knelt, joined his hands at his heart and made a steeple of his forefingers in preparation to resume his deep and cleansing ritual. Clearly he had not engaged in this practice as often or as rigorously as was required. He, too, had felt the brief connection to Counselor Troi, and was appropriately disconcerted by the event.

  It would not happen again.

  Tuvok closed his eyes and took several long, slow breaths. He then opened them and focused on the flame. It danced and darted above the wooden vessel that housed its fuel. It was a focal point that provided the doorway to the calm place at his core where he would begin to integrate the knowledge of Kathryn’s passing and reinforce the discipline that sustained his mind and body through such trials.

  Tuvok stared at the flame.

  He kneeled silently for several minutes, awaiting the inevitable descent into the serenity it promised.

  Death was a part of life. It was inevitable. It was not to be feared. Kathryn would remain alive in his thoughts until his eventual passing. She would never truly be lost to him.

  Tuvok again closed his eyes.

  The flame still danced in his mind, but he could go no deeper.

  Finally, he reached his hand out and held it just above the flame. Its heat was intense and would soon cause damage to his palm if he maintained the position.

  In a brief motion, he dropped his hand over the flame and extinguished it.

  He remained kneeling in the darkness for several hours, searching for a peace he was unable to find.

  PART TWO

  WHAT MEN ABIDE

  MAY 2381

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Admiral Montgomery found it hard to believe that the man standing before him now had once been, in his estimation and that of many others, an exceptional Starfleet captain.

  Though Chakotay stood at attention and his uniform and grooming were well within regulations, the man inside the uniform was a shadow of his former self. He had always been in excellent physical condition. Now he was a good twenty kilos underweight. Visible cheekbones set beneath his strong brow gave him an almost gaunt appearance. He looked years older than the fifty-one Montgomery knew he’d lived.

  Most shocking of all, however, were his eyes. The deep shadows beneath them could have been credited to loss of sleep if Montgomery hadn’t personally granted him a leave of absence over two months earlier.

  But his eyes.

  Once they had been lively, alert with frequent displays of good-natured mischief, and sometimes given to deep, reflective pause that testified to the balance he had long ago achieved between his spiritual heritage and passionate scientific curiosity about the universe and its many mysteries.

  Now, the black stones that were fixed unsettlingly at a point on the wall behind Montgomery’s head b
espoke nothing of the man’s soul—only its absence. They looked as if death had arrived long ago, without bothering to notify the rest of his body.

  In a way, of course, it had.

  For all of us.

  From the moment the Borg had reared their monstrous heads in the Alpha quadrant almost a year earlier, when the Enterprise had engaged what Montgomery had prayed was a lone renegade cube, many of those tasked with protecting the Federation and her citizens had worn a similar haunted expression. As the body count had risen exponentially in the Borg’s final assault, most could calculate in double digits the number of friends they’d buried, or more often, been denied the closure of burying. Sixty-three billion had been lost in a matter of days.

  After the Federation’s protracted war with the Dominion, Montgomery had honestly believed that he had seen the worst the universe had to offer.

  He had learned in the most brutal way possible that worst could be a frighteningly relative term.

  But against the longest odds imaginable, the Federation had survived. No, it had done better than that; it had actually clutched victory from the gaping maw of annihilation. Grief would linger, but all around him people were starting to move past the horrors they had witnessed and, one day at a time, begin the painstaking process of rebuilding.

  Montgomery was not indifferent to the particular tragedies Chakotay had suffered, but he did not believe that they were greater than anyone else’s. Nor did he think it would be helpful for anyone if he was allowed to continue to wallow in them.

  The saddest truth of all was that Montgomery needed Chakotay’s experience and expertise, now more than ever. Starfleet needed them. It seemed that they might have been buried, along with his heart, beneath a white pillar at Federation Park eleven months earlier.

  “Thank you for responding to my request so promptly, Captain Chakotay,” Montgomery said kindly.