Star Trek: Voyager®: Full Circle

by Kirsten Beyer

  He looked up to study her face. He saw trepidation there, but also a hint of relief coupled with a compelling tinge of mischief.

  Searching his heart, he realized that nothing in the universe would make him feel as complete as walking into the future with her by his side. It was a simple truth, arrived at with little fanfare. Chakotay only wished they had reached it sooner.

  “Then how do you, I mean…” Chakotay found himself fumbling for words as the choice he had just made sank in, flushing his cheeks and sending a pleasant anticipatory rush through his body.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” she said with a smile.

  “I’m listening.”

  “You’re going to be slogging through the Yaris Nebula for the next ten months, and I don’t imagine you’ll be encountering many fascinating women while you’re there.”

  “Many?”

  “All right, any,” she corrected herself. “But then again, one never knows what fate has in store.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “And I have yet to meet anyone in the Alpha quadrant I really enjoy having lunch with, much less anything else,” she admitted. “When you get back, assuming nothing has changed for either of us,” she said softly, “we’ll meet in Venice.”

  Chakotay considered the proposal. It was sensible and practical.

  Rising from the table, he moved to stand beside her, still holding her hand. She hesitated for a heartbeat, then stood to face him.

  Dropping any pretense, he allowed himself to fall freely into her eyes. He was a patient man, but knowing what he did now, waiting for another ten months was completely out of the question.

  In the last few years, she’d begun to allow her fine auburn hair to grow long and had fallen once again into the habit of pulling it up into an efficient bun while on duty. Gently he reached up and removed the comb that held it neatly in place and watched with pleasure as she shook her head softly, freeing herself in a gesture from the symbol of her years of self-imposed confinement.

  “I let you go once, Kathryn,” he said, his voice low. “Please don’t ask me to do it again.”

  “Come to think of it…” she whispered.

  He silenced her with a kiss.

  Their lips met, tentatively at first. Soon enough, however, they moved beyond timid exploration and succumbed to the promise that had always lived between them.

  The next few hours were the most satisfying of Chakotay’s life. They parted with the assurance that as soon as Voyager returned, a new chapter would begin for them, duty be damned.

  They would meet again in Venice, and Chakotay no longer doubted what the future would hold beyond that.

  When Chakotay finished describing the evening for Cambridge, the counselor was good enough to reply with a compassionate nod.

  Chakotay stared hard, searching for any trace of his typical nonchalance, but found none.

  Finally Cambridge said, “You said that was the last time you met. Why didn’t she join you in Venice?”

  Chakotay felt certain that at any moment, the anguish which had accompanied every previous visitation of this memory would resurface, but to his surprise, under Cambridge’s unflinching stare he felt only cold and terribly alone.

  “She was detained,” Chakotay replied, “by her death.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Eden looked up abruptly as Willem entered her office without announcement, followed quickly by her clearly flustered aide, Tamarras.

  “Captain, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Admiral Batiste wishes to see you,” Tamarras said unnecessarily.

  “So I see,” Eden replied.

  “Get out,” Willem barked at Tamarras.

  The frightened aide threw a pleading glance at Eden, who simply nodded apologetically, saying, “Thank you, Tamarras, that will be all.”

  Willem stalked to and fro before her desk, clearly agitated. Torn between anger—at both his gall and his rough handling of her aide—and curiosity as to what had riled him so, she rose and rounded her desk, halting his steps by standing before him and crossing her arms indignantly.

  “The day you signed our divorce decree, you forfeited the right to behave like an ass in my presence,” she said. “Whatever’s troubling you, we’re on duty, and I expect you to remember that when dealing with me and my staff.”

  Willem dismissed her complaint with a huff and replied, “Damn it, Afsarah, he’s not going to pass.”

  Eden was well aware that Captain Chakotay’s evaluation had been scheduled for this morning, but found it hard to believe it had been completed in less than an hour.

  Which could only mean…

  “Willem, are you actually monitoring the captain’s session?” she asked incredulously.

  “Of course,” he replied. “The fleet launches in a week. The mission briefing for all department heads takes place tomorrow morning. Until a few minutes ago, I assumed Captain Chakotay would be standing beside me during that meeting, but I’m no longer confident that’s going to be the case.”

  “Willem.” Eden shook her head, truly at a loss to prioritize the vast number of things wrong with that statement.

  Taking a deep breath, she continued, “In the first place, who authorized you to watch a confidential counseling session?”

  “He didn’t come to us asking for help, Afsarah,” Willem retorted sharply. “He’s been ordered to undergo this evaluation, and its results don’t fall under the purview of doctor/ patient privilege.”

  “Its results,” Eden said with emphasis, “but the actual contents of the session?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Time is a luxury none of us has right now,” Willem replied.

  “You think I don’t know that?” she said. “I’ve been supervising six hundred officers and crewmen working around the clock for the last ten weeks to get this mission launched. Right now nobody can say for sure that all traces of the Borg are gone, or the Caeliar for that matter, and no one is more anxious than I to start getting some answers to those questions. But there are lines we don’t cross, Willem.”

  Willem paused, his jaw tensing. “If Captain Chakotay isn’t up to sitting in Voyager’s center seat—”

  “We’ll find a suitable replacement,” Eden finished for him. “It may take a few more weeks—”

  “We don’t have a few more weeks.”

  Eden shook her head. “Command isn’t going to scrap the mission, Willem. I know it was a long road getting here, but there is simply no longer an argument to be made that this proposal isn’t vital to the ongoing security of the Federation.”

  “There never was,” he interjected, “but that didn’t stop them in the past.”

  “Of course there was,” she corrected him. “This is a massive reallocation of resources which has been approved at a time when a lot of Federation citizens aren’t sure where their next meal is coming from. Sixty-three billion people just died, and still, Command and Operations have thrown everything they have at these nine ships to get them ready in one-quarter the time such an undertaking should warrant. This, even after we learned about the damn Typhon Pact! Our old adversaries have banded together when we’re at our most vulnerable, and still, still, Starfleet is going forward with this mission. No one could have foreseen these cataclysms, and you can’t fault Command for treading lightly in the past.”

  “It was never Command,” Willem retorted sharply. “It was only that damned Kathryn Janeway.”

  At this, Eden was forced to turn away. She crossed to the windows behind her desk, unable to revel in the glorious late spring morning she beheld, the sun glistening off the bay as the city of San Francisco buzzed with life. Such a stark contrast with the devastated reality of so many other Federation worlds brought a lump to her throat.

  While she, too, had been frustrated by Janeway’s resistance to Willem’s proposal, she had never resented the woman as Willem had. Unlike Willem, she had actually gotten to know Admiral Janeway, at first through her logs and reports, and ultimately through the l
engthy debriefing session they had shared once Voyager had returned from its aborted mission to Kerovi. Eden had found the admiral to be unflinching in her honesty and ability to look objectively at her work over the seven years Voyager had spent in the Delta quadrant. She hadn’t needed to meet Janeway to know that her devotion to duty was a sacred thing. The logs of her senior officers and crew testified to her resolve to adhere to Starfleet principles throughout their journey, even when it was most inconvenient to do so.

  All Eden had to do was consider the fate of the Equinox, the first known Federation vessel pulled into the Delta quadrant by the Caretaker, to fully grasp the reality that not every Starfleet officer would have been capable of Janeway’s accomplishments. Nor had she been overly surprised by the depths of the admiral’s disappointment in Captain Ransom and his crew, and the lengths to which she had gone to bring them to justice.

  When they had reached that point in Voyager’s narrative, Janeway had stated clearly that this was the incident during her command that she felt the least pride and satisfaction in. The admiral knew she had crossed a personal and professional line in her determination to right the abhorrent wrongs of the Equinox’s crew, and felt that her actions had tarnished her reputation both personally and in the eyes of her crew. She had been most grateful that during those dark days, the constant if unheeded voice of Commanders Chakotay and Tuvok had helped her to maintain her perspective.

  Janeway had been much harder on herself throughout the course of their meetings than Eden would ever have been on her or anyone faced with Voyager’s unique circumstances. When they were done, Eden had been left in awe of the admiral.

  Eden had not been present the first time Batiste had proposed to Starfleet that Voyager should return to the Delta quadrant. She had, however, been so disconcerted by Willem’s fears about the potential for another Borg attack that she had completely revised her analysis, giving her full-throated support to the Delta quadrant mission. They would never know how many lives might have been saved had Willem’s proposal to send a fleet of exploratory vessels back to the Delta quadrant in June 2379 been approved.

  In light of Janeway’s ultimate fate, Eden found it impossible to consider this with any objectivity. Secretly, she always believed that Willem had felt vindicated by her assimilation and death. He had been arguing for years that a return to the Delta quadrant was needed, and Janeway had shouted him down at every opportunity. Her death at the hands of the Borg, no doubt, seemed like poetic justice to him.

  But Eden was among only a handful of people who knew that Janeway hadn’t gone to investigate the cube that killed her simply because her curiosity got the better of her. The moment Captain Picard had successfully rendered the cube inert, Batiste had brought his proposal to Command for a third time. Given recent events, they were hard pressed to ignore the Borg threat and were clearly ready to approve his proposal. Admiral Janeway had stepped up and volunteered to investigate the cube herself, and Command had agreed to table discussion of Voyager’s pending return to the Delta quadrant until her analysis was complete.

  Eden had never been able to shake the sense that she and Willem had sent a great woman to her death. She knew that everyone had been doing what they thought best at the time. She had actually been moved by the lengths Janeway was willing to go to protect the lives of her former crew. And no one could say for certain whether or not sending Voyager back to the Delta quadrant would have made a difference.

  But Afsarah couldn’t help but hate Willem a little every time he spoke of Janeway with such disdain. All Eden knew for sure was that she deserved better.

  Willem pulled her from these thoughts with a question. “Did you know they were intimately involved?”

  Eden’s stomach fell as she turned to face Willem.

  “Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay?”

  Willem rolled his eyes and nodded.

  Cold and trembling, Eden sought out the edge of her desk and took a seat.

  “Since when?”

  “Just before Voyager’s mission to the Yaris Nebula,” he replied.

  Eden struggled through the math to place the timing in some kind of context. Just before that mission, Willem had approached Command for the second time to propose the Delta quadrant mission. Janeway had made an impassioned speech, calling for Starfleet to focus their efforts on defensive rather than offensive action when it came to the Borg. Starfleet had again come down on her side, and Voyager had been spared. Now Eden was forced to wonder if this knowledge on Janeway’s part had in any way impacted her decision to enter into a deeper relationship with her former first officer, to risk happiness by reaching out for a more fulfilling personal life.

  Nothing in their logs had even hinted that such a relationship had ever been present. But Eden had rarely met two officers who had served together as long as Janeway and Chakotay had and spoke in such glowing terms about the other. She knew that Janeway had been engaged to be married and that her intended had married another when she was pronounced dead. To the best of her knowledge, neither Janeway nor Chakotay had ever been romantically linked with anyone else, either during or after their return from the Delta quadrant, though Eden rarely paid attention to gossip about her co-workers’ personal lives, as she knew all too well what it was to be on the receiving end of such speculations.

  Eden found her heart pounding. They had loved one another, probably for years, and once they chose to consummate their relationship, they had been torn apart forever by the Borg.

  “Dear gods,” she murmured.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Willem said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, certain he wasn’t sharing the same regrets now tormenting her.

  “I mean, Captain Chakotay’s problem has less to do with posttraumatic stress following the debacle at the Azure Nebula and more to do with a broken heart than either of us suspected up to this point. He’s not grieving the loss of a dear friend and comrade. His behavior since her death makes a lot more sense now, and I’m guessing won’t improve a whit if we put him back on active duty. Of course, Montgomery will make the final call, but I’ve been watching the man talk for the last hour, and believe me when I tell you, he’s not ready.”

  Eden found it harder to care about that right now. Her many regrets over Janeway’s death had just been increased by an order of magnitude.

  “I’ll start making a list of potential replacements,” she said dutifully.

  In the long pause that followed, Eden actually believed Willem had left the room without bidding her farewell, but a minute later looked up to find him still standing where she’d left him, staring at her.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Nothing,” he said with a look of surprise.

  To Eden’s consternation, he seemed positively relieved.

  “Then if you wouldn’t mind, Admiral,” she said, “you’ve just added another huge task to a list that’s already too long.”

  “Of course,” he replied thoughtfully, then turned and exited looking considerably better than he had when he’d entered.

  As Eden could guess that whatever new idea he was chewing on would become clear eventually, she dismissed any further reflections.

  Turning to her computer interface, she called up a list of active-duty captains who might be free for reassignment, but after a few moments, found her eyes glazing over.

  “Computer,” she called, “display transcript of closed session, Starfleet Command stardate 56467.3.”

  In response, the visual record of the meeting in June 2379 during which Admiral Janeway had taken the floor to refute Batiste’s proposal for the second time appeared on the screen. Eden hadn’t been in attendance at that meeting either, but had been granted access to its transcript by Willem when he had once again been bettered by Admiral Janeway. Eden had watched it for the first time after learning of Janeway’s death.

  Settling in, she forwarded the visual record to the frame that contained an image of the admiral rising to
address her colleagues and began the playback.

  “I would never attempt to minimize the threat posed to the Federation by the Borg,” Janeway had begun. “They are driven by the purest of instincts and a biological and sociological imperative to achieve what they perceive as perfection. But thanks in large part to the efforts of my former crew, we now have a vast repository of information about the Borg and their weaknesses, as well as the knowledge of a former Borg drone, Seven of Nine, which we can and must use to continue to bolster our defenses.

  “I understand that Admiral Batiste is not proposing to send Voyager back to the Delta quadrant under the same circumstances which prevailed during our first unexpected mission there. He has spoken eloquently about the vast strides made in our quantum slipstream technology over the past year and its ability to send an entire fleet of vessels to the far reaches of the galaxy without cutting them off from the support and resources of the Federation.

  “However, neither he, nor anyone here, can assure us that this technology is ready for such ambitious deployment. We tested slipstream technology. We worked for months to integrate it into our systems, and believe me when I tell you that no one was more committed than my crew to making it work. It would have ended our exile in a matter of days. I cannot tell you how disappointed we were when we ultimately concluded that it was not safe.

  “What I can tell you is that no crew should be forced to face that disappointment again. Until such time as slipstream technology has been thoroughly tested, the mission Admiral Batiste is proposing remains untenable.

  “Further, to return to the Delta quadrant solely for the purpose of gathering more intelligence about the Borg will most likely only antagonize them. We’re not talking about a show of force, which might convince the Borg to respect our borders. As Voyager’s logs indicate, their territory in the Delta quadrant is vast, and they have ships and resources at their disposal we cannot hope to match. To seek out a confrontation with them again, even with the purpose of ‘investigating’ their capabilities, might only hasten the eventuality that we are all seeking to avert.