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phantom-le6 · 1 year

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: Voyager Season 5 (7 of 7)

Episode 25: Warhead

Plot (as given by me):

Ensign Kim has begun volunteering to command Voyager during the night shift to build up command experience. During one such night shift, the ship picks up a distress call and changes course to investigate. When no life signs are detected, Commander Chakotay is awakened and takes command of the bridge, allowing Harry to lead an away team to investigate. The away team includes the Doctor, and they find the distress signal coming from a device that turns out to have a sentient artificial intelligence. The AI is suffering from amnesia and is in distress.

When the device is beamed aboard, the crew discover it’s a long-range missile with a highly powerful payload. While many of the crew argue in favour of destroying the device or abandoning it, the Doctor suggests they separate the AI out into a new form and then dispose of the explosive components. However, the attempt to do this goes wrong, as the AI commandeers the Doctor’s holographic form and remembers it is a missile, targeted at an enemy species of the race who built it. The weapon holds Harry and B’Elanna hostage in Sick Bay and orders Voyager to take it to its target, threatening to blow up and destroy the ship if the crew doesn’t comply.

While Captain Janeway and the others hatch a plan to disrupt the bomb’s takeover of the Doctor, which ultimately fails, Harry tries engaging with the weapon’s AI instead. At first, he tries holding the Doctor up as an example of an AI moving beyond its original programming, but the weapon notes the Doctor is still a physician as per his original design. As the weapon recovers more damaged files, it turns out it was launched in error along with nearly three dozen other warheads. The influence of the Doctor’s programming and being in his form helps the weapon to realise it must comply with the cancellation orders it has been sent. However, when the other warheads arrive, they refuse to comply because they’d past a certain distance to their target which prevents the order to abort being accepted.

Eventually, the weapon agrees to re-join its fellow warheads, only to detonate prematurely to ensure all the warheads are stopped as per their orders. Later, as Harry starts another night shift, he looks in on the Doctor, and both men extol each other’s performance in the crisis that has just passed.

Review:

According to Trek Wiki site Memory Alpha, this episode was born from one of the writers watching something on TV about the proliferation of Russian nuclear weapons in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. The idea that these weapons of mass destruction could have anything happen to them is reflected in the accidental launch of a group of alien warheads in the show, with artificial intelligence apparently thrown in just for that little sci-fi je ne sais quoi. However, the inclusion of AI in these weapons ends up raising a couple of interesting, albeit inadvertent, points.

These points are raised by the point Harry tries to make to the weapon when it initially takes over the Doctor. Harry tries pointing out that the Doctor has exceeded his original programming, but the weapon argues that because all the Doctor has done is add to his basic function as a doctor, he hasn’t really made the breakthrough everyone else might think. The first point to come out of this is how do we quantify artificial intelligence exceeding its programming. It’s an interest thing to think about, especially when you consider how many AI-based characters come to exist in various science fiction narratives. The Doctor in Voyager, Data in TNG, Vision in Marvel lore, Red Tornado in DC Comics, Kryten in Red Dwarf and more are all characters that start out one way and try to be something else. Do they succeed in this? Does an AI character have to completely break out of their originally intended role, or is it enough that they make that role their own choice and add around it?

The second point this raises relates to the metaphor many AI characters provide to autism and other forms of neurodiversity. In that context, breaking one’s programming could mean breaking societal barriers and stereotypes, or it could mean acting against one’s basic nature as a neurodiverse individual. The first is certainly possible to do, as stereotypes about autistics and the wider neurodiverse community are born from ignorance and the lack of understanding neurotypical society has about us therein. The second is something some neurodiverse people can do, but often with great difficulty and by asking a heavy toll on their mental well-being. As such, it is generally not sustainable and can only really be done as an occasional thing, meaning that where society tries to force this kind of breakthrough on the neurodiverse, it needs to stop and be a lot less selfish.

Sadly, these more interesting issues aren’t explored, and really neither is the issue that begat this story. Instead, it’s more hollow action, and a bit derivative of the earlier Voyager episode ‘Dreadnought’, which also dealt with trying to stop an AI-driven WMD. Still, at least the episode did start out from some kind of issue, and Harry taking on some command duty adds to his character development a little. On balance, I’d give this episode 7 out of 10.

Episode 26: Equinox (Part 1)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The crew of the USS Voyager is surprised to receive an emergency hail from another Federation starship, the Equinox, in the Delta Quadrant. They arrive to find the damaged ship under attack by nucleogenic lifeforms. Under advice from the Equinox captain, Rudy Ransom, Captain Kathryn Janeway has Voyager extend its shields around both ships, quelling the attack, though the creatures continue to bear down on the shields, weakening them over time.

Janeway and Ransom discuss how both their ships had been pulled into the Delta Quadrant, five years earlier, by The Caretaker. Ransom says that they found a wormhole and made enhancements to their warp engines, explaining how this allowed the smaller and slower Equinox to travel the same 40,000 light years as Voyager on its return to Earth. Of Ransom's crew, only 12 are still alive.

While surveying, Voyager's crew finds an area of the ship they cannot access due to intentional sabotage by the Equinox crew. Janeway sends the Doctor to the area, where he finds the Equinox crew has been harvesting bio-energy from the nucleogenic creatures, slaughtering dozens of creatures just to enhance their warp drive, able to traverse 10,000 light years in two weeks per alien killed and harvested. Janeway has the Equinox crew confined to quarters, but the Equinox EMH disables his Voyager counterpart, having had his ethical subroutines deleted. During the escape, the Equinox EMH remains on Voyager.

The Equinox crew know that they can reach Earth within weeks if they use more murdered creatures. Once they escape, they steal a new shield generator from Voyager intended to protect both vessels and escape, kidnapping Seven of Nine along the way. Voyager, unable to raise shields, suddenly finds itself under attack from the angry nucleogenic creatures.

Review:

After failing to produce a cliff-hanger season finale for the fourth season, Voyager has managed to come up with a pretty decent one at the end of season five. For once, we get to run across another Federation starship, and as has been the case across a few lines of Trek by this point, they’re not the heroes our main cast is. Picard’s had to deal with O’Brien’s conflict-mad former C/O in TNG season 4, plus the corruption of Admiral Doughty in Star Trek: Insurrection. Sisko has had to deal with the infamous and amoral Section 31 via Dr Bashir, and now Janeway is confronted by the survival-driven Captain Ransom. To some degree, the Equinox crew gives us a sense of “there but for the grace of the writers goes our main cast.” Voyager has been very lucky to pull through multiple issues with its ship and crew intact enough to hold fast to Star Fleet principles in most situations, and that’s largely because as the main setting and crew of a Trek TV show, it has to be. The Trek ideology and mandate for being episodic TV with no real chance to change over time back when this show was produced meant we’d never get any moral ambiguity or survival-first mentality on a regular basis.

In that sense, Ransom and the other Equinox survivors show us what Voyager could have become under different circumstances. There’s also the potential for new crew members to join the ship before the experiments done by the Equinox crew are discovered. It’s a good episode for looking at the question of what behaviour is acceptable in a survival situation, and I think there’s a bit of a character arc for a lot of the main cast over the two parts. In fact, I think this is a pretty solid Trek episode that’s only let down by not being complete in itself, so the end score here is 9 out of 10.

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kncrowder88 · 3 years

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Voyager and Romance

So, the thing about Voyager and romance that sticks with me is they seem to do one couple really, or more accurately two characters, any real justice overall. And that is B’Elanna and Tom. While moments for that relationship may not be perfect that is rather realistic for relationships, as no relationship is perfect all the time so that is tolerable. This post though isn’t going to be about looking at that particular relationship though but primarily at other relationships. Largely because a discord server I am in was talking about Counterpoint and I realized why I both love the episode but also have weird feelings with it. Which, I’ll touch more on that specifically after I discuss the relationship stuff (as that plays a part).

So, I will preface this with it has been a bit since I’ve done a binge of Voyager and really a full binge of Star Trek in general. As such, I may forget a few relationships on the show and overall, throughout Trek in general. From what I can really toss together … I honestly am beginning to believe that when it comes to Voyager and the other shows (the older ones not the new ones – I am not including any NEW Trek in this) that for some reason the relationship writing with Voyager was rather different. Like, they gave 3 characters active relationships prior to being stranded. That being Harry Kim, Kathryn Janeway, and Tuvok. Out of these three we get Janeway and Tuvok holding onto those relationships in their own way while … it seemed mildly convenient for Harry to mention it when it suited him, I guess (like that time Tom wanted to set them up for a double date or you know when he ended up in that alternate timeline but still wanted back with Voyager even more like). Like, the reason I don’t list Tuvok-T’Pel above is because we don’t actually get to SEE that in full, we just get to see Tuvok’s side of it and his dedication – we don’t see the relationship, we don’t see the couple.

Harry and Tom, prior to his relationship with B’Elanna, seem to frequently do this sort of two bros dating around thing which is fine but like … same time the show used them for that. And once they settled Tom with B’Elanna they used Harry in those plot lines when it worked. Thus the alien STD episode and the “how dare you not get the standard permission from your CO and CMO” line (like they really put that into a Trek ep and I’m still unable to not picture Riker, Kirk, Picard, and everyone other Trek character constantly getting permission for their latest romance – just remember Jadzia and Worf likely had to get permission from Sisko and Bashir if the Trill and Klingon weren’t already approved of in the system just saying, that’s a thing that happened). Anyways … my point is they went out of their way on this. Like, when Kes was with Neelix they wrote Neelix to be that jealous judgmental boyfriend who literally got upset she knew where other people’s quarters where, she was nice to Tom, she was … just yeah. They wrote Tom to come off as a player pulling Harry into it, when Tom settled down Harry seems to pick that up (I mean you got his “omg Seven” phase and the alien STD stuff and lord knows what else I’m forgetting with him).

And to top this off I haven’t even touched on the “Janeway can’t have a romance” stuff yet. Which is where my real problem is. Like, its bad enough they brought in Jeri for the sex appeal (which lets be honest stems from the fact they couldn’t use Janeway for that – which I get, Kate was right in the whole concept of the audience target having to keep respect for a female lead and sex appeal couldn’t be a focal point but they could have balanced it right and regrettably because they couldn’t that meant Jeri got all of the other side of the coin). Many of Seven’s eps center on romance or social stuff and honestly that is a whole other WTF post in its own right because it all leads up to the sudden get with the one person on the ship who didn’t want you here in the first place and who also would have served better as the male adult guidance figure/father figure than as a ROMANTIC partner but hey BS happened behind scenes to cause that chaotic romantic on screen set up. But yeah … this is just another example of the poor Voyager romantic plot lines.

Chakotay’s romantic plot lines are usually – and by that, I mean pretty much always – with these strong independent women. But usually, at least from what I recall, they are also typically the “needs help” (damsel in distress/can’t do it alone/etc.) plot. Like, Riley was strong independent but also set up to need help in regard to getting her little collective put back together on the planet. You got Kellin, again another strong lady who yet again also needed help. At least in the ep she’s in and if I recall much of the info on how they fell in love during that time as well – primarily with getting away from danger at the start and then during the initial romance finding her target. Valerie is the only one who doesn’t fall into the needs help plot and that’s largely because she was being manipulated by Chakotay for information – which honestly just goes to show how well Chakotay was at the whole undercover stuff (which tells us a lot about what he could have been doing as a Maquis). Seska was the plot point of “you once dated her, now she is going to badger you to get with her again and when that fails, she’s going to assault you” …. like all of Chakotay’s romances are literally him either 1) being manipulated (as that’s what Seska and Riley did) or 2) being the kind guy or 3) not an actual relationship (either because its undercover work or because the writers were too cowardly to make him and Janeway canon).

Then you got Janeway. Then you got KATHRYN JANEWAY. You know, the one where Kate Mulgrew said no romance, no sexualizing, no doing that sort of stuff because the audience had to maintain respect for the character. I’m sure someone has the exact various quotes out there. Like … this is why we don’t have JC as canon. But what we do got instead is …. Janeway in Prime Factors being flirted with by the administrator as if that’s going to get him what he wants because “female leader means flirt with her”. We got Janeway and a period drama holodeck adventure in the early years which was clearly meant to be her romantic tête-à-tête early on that never got followed up with. We got “delete the wife” with the Fair Haven plot point (because its totally respectable to see the FEMALE LEAD, the STARFLEET CAPTAIN, just straight up DELETE THE WIFE of another individual - yeah, I get its meant to be humor factor because hologram but come on). You have her whole thing with Mark which we get tidbits off but again similar to Tuvok we literally only get to see her side of it – the only couple moment of theirs we get is the comm call in Caretaker.

But Jaffen? You are correct. We got that lovely and touching and wonderful romance with Jaffen …. Oh wait … they had to remove her from the ship, strip her of her memory, and her autonomy in order for her to have a relationship with another individual. And yes, by losing her memories, by losing what made her who she was as a person, she did lose a sense of autonomy. She entered into a relationship without a full sense of independent choice. The point in which she made a choice in that episode, the point in which she – Kathryn Janeway – made a choice with all of the person, the individual she is, was at the end when she had her memories back and could decide based on the values and beliefs and all that she is. What I’m getting at is the people on that planet deliberately took away who she was, they took her memories and her ability to make the decisions they knew she would make --- they did that deliberately (that’s even established in the episode) --- and as such her decisions while in that state are not truly her full independent decisions but the ones impacted by the state she was forced into.

And while I love Resolutions, while I love all the JC goodies, we get in that ep … Yet again the only time we get to see Janeway in any sort of romantic situation is when they remove her from the ship. When they remove her from command. When they strip her of that setting. This time, though – well the first time – she keeps awareness and has to go through lose of it all in order to even start to let it all happen. I love the episode, I do, but I just find it rather amusing they went “’Hey we gotta strand them what should their tasks be on the planet?” and they immediately went “Well Janeway is scientist how about that” “Okay and he can build, Chakotay can start building. Man builds house, right?” and then like went “oh and then she can start a garden” …. Like really? Really? That’s what you got for me. Oh, and then there is the monkey. That’s the romance this ep. Boat, science, monkey.

Then we got Kashyk. We have dealt with Kathryn throughout this series dealing with various leaders of various styles. As mentioned, Prime Factors guy attempted flirting. Other leaders pulled similar or worse or even dismissed her …. Like the list goes on. Counterpoint is a great episode because it deals with prejudice and is rather dark. The thing is, had Janeway been able to have a healthy romantic relationship on screen to counter this episode this episode probably would have come off better. Episodes like Prime Factor could have been done different (that leader didn’t need to be as flirty for example). One or two eps through the series having creepy dudes she had to deal with, fine, whatever … that be a nice impact for the audience. But when you have to many prior to Counterpoint – even if its minor, small stuff – it makes this episode so much harder for fans. Especially the female fans who deal with this constantly.

See, here’s the thing with this ep…. Some of the fans who watch … we know Kashyk well. We know that character. He is that male leader, that male power figure, who uses the power he has to manipulate those in his control to get what he wants. And Kathryn … Kathryn was in his control. Kashyk is listed as a relationship on memory-alpha. But much like how I view Seska with Chakotay … I do not view Kashyk as a proper relationship. In Devore space, Kathryn did not have proper power. She had people in her command, on her ship, that she had to protect. That she knew she had to protect. Her own best friend … lives in her hand … and Kashyk right there willing to kill them. Willing to snatch them up and destroy them. And he used that power to manipulate her and play her. Yes, she played him right back but … did she truly have a choice? Did she have any other choice but to play his game? What would have happened if she said no? And that … that is why this episode is so unsettling for some people. And why this relationship being considered on is so off putting … that the writers, that memory-alpha, that the fact I’m putting it on this list as one of the ones on here for Voyager says so much … they wrote this as one of her relationships while out there … she had to do what so many women had to do to stay safe, to keep people she loves safe, and that’s not a relationship.

Voyager could have done romance/relationships such better justice.

#star trek #star trek voyager #i had some feelings about things #primarily the Kashyk thing #but that lead to other things #and honestly i am really begining to question romance in voyager #but also like overall in Trek in general #like the more i think about Voyager the more im like oh god they really did seem to fail there #because the only valid couple i can think of is Tom and B'Elanna

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coffeeblack75 · 4 years

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Hands by @theshortywrites

For our final rec for 2020, we have the delicious Hands by @theshortywrites. Kathryn has been struggling with feeling reactive in her work rather than active, so she and Chakotay explore how their relationship can support her to take back some control. A wonderfully mature look at Kathryn and Chakotay’s relationship, this sexy E-rated fic ensures that our Strokin’ year goes out with a bang!

A Star Trek Voyager fic.

Brought to you by Strokin’, a weekly fic rec where the Voyager Bookclub community celebrates a writer so they can drown in sweet, sweet love, affection and ego strokin’. Because they deserve it.

——

Some comments from @voyager-book-club members for @theshortywrites:

@traccigaryn “This was my first time reading your work, and can I say holy hell it delivers? Your writing is beautiful, of course, spare and subtle -- but I must praise the absolute trust that runs through it, from first to last. That, through this, she finds the strength to keep leading, and that his strength is a willingness and ability to give that to her plays in such careful counterpoint. It is absolutely adult, in the very best way. Thank you for giving that to us and to them.”

BlackVelvet42 “Love the thoughtfulness of this. The trust, the talking, the slow lovemaking, KJ taking care of C from start to finish. Love the clear consent, the simple commands, the idea that they switch roles depending on their needs. The ‘sex ed’ at the beginning is so powerful, I could feel that on my own throat while reading and that’s quite an accomplishment from a fic, i think. ... This is sexy and caring and overall just such a wonderful picture of a satisfying D/s JC relationship.”

@amoderngirl “[T]his is a masterclass. I could hear Janeway’s sexy, gravelly voice in the dialogue. I appreciate the way you set the backdrop for this story: Janeway and Chakotay’s sexual relationship isn’t the end in itself - it is one way for them to support each other on Voyager’s journey. The flow, the descriptions, are just beautiful to read. I enjoyed every word.”

@coffeeblack75 “This is just the best kind of smut: a story about love, and one which tells us so much about the couple in question’s relationship, and their characters. The heart is the trust they have in each other and their devotion to one another, explored here through the breath play. I love so much about the relationship you have created for them – how evolved and mature it is, their equality, their communication, the give and take, and how they use their personal life to support their professional lives. ... #relationshipgoals!”

#star trek voyager #fic rec #voyager bookclub #janeway x chakotay #moodboard #fanfiction #star trek

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annakie · 4 years

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Am I once again posting about the Voyager Relaunch Novels? Yes. Yes I am.

I am re-reading the Post-Endgame Voyager Relaunch novels and marathoned reading The Eternal Tide over the last two nights and all I have to say is Janeway and Chakotay love each other so much, I was literally sobbing through about six sections of the second half of that book.

The Kirsten Beyer books are SO GOOD. And as I’m re-reading them I love how she handles every single one of the Voyager characters but especially Chakotay. I feel like she understands Chakotay and gives him everything the writers of Voyager never quite grasped about his character in seven seasons. Full Circle is such a powerful story of his love and his grief, and the rest of the crew’s love for him (especially Tom, B’lanna, Harry and Sev-- wow his friendship with Seven is so awesome throughout the Beyer books, everything it should have been in the show and not what we got in Endgame. The support they have for each other without forcing a cringey relationship back onto them adds so much to BOTH of their characters. Hey this paragraph went way off the rails but I don’t care.)

Anyway I really love the plots of each of these books, I love how they handle EVERY character (well, I miss Tuvok -- at some point I’m gonna get to the Titan novels) and the new characters are pretty great (oh man Cambridge is a fave, and so much better than the new consular that was introduced in the Spirit Walk books. Loved Eden, love Farkas.)

I made a post a few days ago about how Chakotay is the whole “upstanding, solid, good guy” archetype that some people dare to call “boring” I’ve previously talked at length in a post about Mass Effect about how that’s just... my favorite kind of character. And Chakotay is just... so that. It also made me realize that the Janeway / Chakotay dynamic is also very similar to a Shepard / Kaidan dynamic (powerful commanding officer of her own ship woman character, solid, good, honorable mature right-hand man first officer (or close to it) male character and maybe that’s why they’re both two of my favorite ships.

Anwyay here’s some spoilery thoughts about The Eternal Tide.

Chakotay telling Seven about his relationship with Janeway evolving before she died, and how he doesn’t think he’ll ever love any other woman!

Confirmation that Chakotay was thinking about proposing when they were supposed to met in Venice!??! What!?

Janeway thinking about Chakotay right after her resurrection and how deeply she feels for him and wondering about how her death affected him! Also I kind of love that Chakotay DIDN’T come to her mind when deciding whether to return to life or not? This was her decision and making it about A Man I think would have made it feel less about her and how she knew she would be taking responsibility for The Multiverse, which is what it absolutely should have been about. Realizing what her death would have done to him basically the second she was alive again... that part was so well written. I loved it. Her relationship shouldn’t become the basis of who she is -- but it adds to her.

Their... reunion... scene... almost being ruined by Q... Chakotay’s utter shock and disbelief and the description of him slowly beginning to have his heart open up to the possibility, him inching closer to her as she’s thinking that maybe she’s made a mistake and understands just how deeply her death hurt him... that.... entire... SCENE. (Actually about once a year I dig that book and Full Circle out just to read their getting together / reunion scenes.)

Getting Seven’s reaction to Janeway was also very, very good. I wish they hadn’t cut past the scene where the rest of the Voyager staff sees her for the first time but we did get a little taste of it.

Um okay and then Janeway tells Chakotay she loves him for the first time and he says it back, naturally but like, this is as Chakotay was preparing to go on a suicide mission? SOBBING. They didn’t even get a day together, but at least they got to say goodbye this time.

Janeway forcing herself not to think about Chakotay’s death because things just got so much more dire.

Yes they won, but Janeway all alone on the battle bridge and she can’t even bring herself to contact Voyager yet because she just needs time to mourn Chakotay for a few seconds and takes a few seconds, a few breaths, a few moments... and then... OMG.... Chakotay is returned by Godson Q just before his death and they’re so happy... I CANNOT.

THE EPILOGUE where they’re in bed and had spent every possible moment together and so casual and free and happy together... it’s everything we ever wanted for seven seasons and seven more books.

Oh I started this post now almost a week ago and now I’m a few books forward and hey am I now going to talk about Protectors? Yes, yes I am.

J/C don’t get to spend a lot of time together in this book. Janeway gets sent back to the Alpha Quadrant to undergo counseling and evaluation which, tbh, is totally valid considering she DIED A VIOLENT HORRIBLE DEATH and then WAS DEAD FOR FOURTEEN MONTHS and then you know RESURRECTED AND IMMEDIATELY HAD TO SAVE THE MULTIVERSE oh yeah not to mention WAS REUNITED WITH THEN HAD TO TELL CHAKOTAY GOODBYE FOREVER A FEW HOURS LATER then oh wait THE MAN SHE LOVES WAS ALSO BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD (or the brink of death, whatever.)

There’s a short and sweet goodbye scene then for the bulk of the book Janeway is back on Earth going to counseling (which, that second counseling scene was so great, and seeing her slow down and enjoy life with her mother was so great, and um also that scene with her and Picard? Wow. Just Wow. Also I can’t wait to go back and read some TNG books because I need to see JL/B actually get together.) And the entire time she’s just like... not even doubting her relationship with Chakotay even a little. She thinks of him and is excited to be reunited but every time it’s like “the man I love” “The person I plan on spending the rest of my life with” and even “the love of my life.” WOW. Just Wow. Chakotay worries a bit but never doubts.

Oh and then she basically tells her commanding officer “yeah um, thanks but I absolutely have no plans on curbing my relationship with Chakotay to make you feel more comfortable. Also JL/B and Riker/Troi are all married so fuck you?” She does agree to keep separate quarters on another ship which is like.. fine... whatever. But also her going “Yes he’s my subordinate but we’re not going to let that affect our working relationship, we’re adults.” Fuck. Yeah. Montgomery asks if they’re gonna get married and Janeway is all “IDK, probably? We’ll let you know.”

And B’Elanna asks Chakotay the same thing and his answer is also basically “Yeah at some point, we haven’t talked about it yet but yeah we’re spending the rest of our lives together now stop prodding me.”

Their reunion when she returns doesn’t go as planned and it’s a teensy bit worrisome at the end but with notes of positivity.

OK I’m only about 1/3rd into Acts of Contrition but I got to a part last night that made me put the book down for a minute and thank Kirsten Beyer out loud.

J/C finally get to spend some time alone several days after she makes it back to the fleet in the Delta Quadrant. They have a brief discussion about The Plot, then Chakotay is like “Know what? We’ll talk about The Plot Stuff tomorrow in the briefing. Let’s instead talk about us.” And then he stands up for what he wants! And Janeway listens, and they talk, and agree! And then Chakotay is like “Okay, now I really want to hear about what happened to you back on Earth for all those weeks!” So... literally they just... sit and talk for several hours like, I don’t know, real people would? There’s no drama! And they both affirm their commitment to each other and their relationship!

It’s just... it’s... so good? Their relationship is so solid! They LOVE EACH OTHER and it’s based on their solid friendship (something else they actually say out loud!) and they talk to each other and there’s no like drama for drama’s sake about their relationship so far and it’s like, better than even any fanfic I’ve ever read (and there’s some great fic out there for these two) because nearly every other character is also getting their screentime and character development (minus Tuvok -- who’s off with Riker and Troi on the Titan and Neelix isn’t around much -- though he’s spoken of and we see him a bit when they visit New Talax). Also it’s... beta canon. No matter what, this is real and accepted beta canon.

I have been going back and listening to all the episodes of the Literary Trek podcast episodes about these books, and for Eternal Tide and Protectors Beyer herself was on the podcast and listening to her talk about Chakotay and Janeway both individually and as a couple her love for them both is clear, she loves the show and knows what she’s doing and is allowed to do it, and her writing is so damn good. One of the hosts of the podcast has said in several episodes that he used to really dislike Chakotay as he was in the show and now book Chakotay is one of his favorite characters. And honestly? I do love show Chakotay but book Chakotay is... everything show Chakotay should have been. But he’s also been through hell and back and I love how Beyer used that experience -- and now Janeway’s resurrection experience -- to advance them BOTH individually and how that’s affected them as a couple now that they actually get to be that.

There’s so much other good in these books. Tom and B’Elanna’s storyline and the way she writes them and their marriage... I could write so much about it. Harry gets better characterization! A plotline! A promotion! A love interest that may actually work out?!!? We’ll see. And SEVEN. Wow. So much happens with Seven and it’s so great, I love her so much and Book Seven is again, even better.

Two more books have come out since the last time I read the series and the final book comes out next month, I can’t wait to see all the great moments Beyer has coming up for them. It also makes me twice as happy that Beyer is so involved with Picard. It’s so clear the love she has for these two and I can’t imagine J/C not still being Alpha canon with her involved.

#star trek #voyager #janeway x chakotay #kathryn janeway #chakotay #Kirsten beyer #annakie's misc stuff

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summahsunlight · 4 years

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This Way Became My Journey, CH. 16

It figured that they had to crash land on the most desolate, resourceless planet in the system. Chakotay had spent nearly an hour trying to find water and something to eat besides the emergency rations. At least he had been able to find the stones to help them keep warm by simply heating them with phaser fire. Of course keeping warm would be pointless if they did not find water because they wouldn't survive long without it.

So, he kept pressing onward, talking to Sarah via their personal communicators. He would have preferred to stay with her to monitor her condition, however their need for water took president. Keeping her talking gave him at least the peace of mind to know that she was a wake for the time being and had not fallen into a state of unconsciousness. Since he had started out on this trek he was certain he had heard her life story, but it was the only thing he could think of to get her talking and keep her talking.

Every time that she would nod off, he would press her, yelling until she responded, fearing each time that it was the final time she would respond. It was hard to keep track of what she was saying since he was climbing into higher, rocky terrain, but as long as he heard her voice, he knew she was still with him.

At first he had hoped to find a way off the mountain side they had crashed against but that soon went out the window when he realized that they were wedged onto a cliff and the only way down was to climb up.

The sun was getting low in the sky and Chakotay knew that he didn't have a lot of daylight left. Suddenly his foot sank into something wet and cold. Looking down he realized he had stepped into snow. Snow, he thought with excitement, could be melted down into water. He quickly gathered up what he could in the storage containers he had salvaged from their damaged shuttle. Now, if only there was food to go with the snow, but given the climate and conditions of this planet, he was pretty sure that there was nothing of nutritional value here. The ration bars were going to have to do until Voyager found them.

"Commander," Sarah's voice came over their open comline. "Are you ever going to tell me your life story?"

He had to chuckle at the sarcastic tone in her voice. "Alright, you have a point. I've been making you spill your guts here about your life, it seems only fair that I do the same." Anything to keep you awake, keep you talking so I know you're alright. "What do you want to know?"

"Why did you join the Maquis?"

Leave it to her to come up with the most difficult question. There was a time it seemed like the answer was simple, at least to him anyways, but the more he thought about it, and he had thought about it a lot the past three weeks, he found that the answer was indeed complex. There had been many factors leading up to his joining the Maquis; the Federation's cold shoulder when it came to their colonies they had sacrificed in the name of diplomacy; the death of countless innocent people, the death of his father. "Because Starfleet was more inclined to listen to the Cardassians then their own people," he finally answered her. "However, I think the real reason was I was grieving the loss of my father."

"Funny how the death of a loved one can push you to do things that…you aren't proud of," Barrett replied.

"I wouldn't say I was ashamed of joining the Maquis," Chakotay retorted. "I was angry at Starfleet, yes, and would I have resigned my commission if my father had not been killed, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure Lieutenant. But enough about my joining up with the Maquis. My turn to ask a difficult question: Why did you turn to drugs?"

"Simple, I was stupid."

"I'm not letting you off that easily."

"I didn't know what else to do, really. My brother had turned his back on me and I had no where else to go, nothing to fall back on. I guess I found it weak that a counselor would need counseling. The drugs helped me relax; help me forget for a while that my father had been killed in some terrible accident. But eventually I just had to take more and more until I missed an important debriefing about the mission to study the Borg and I was arrested for dereliction of duty when they found me passed out in my office."

Chakotay closed the last storage container he had filled with snow. "We're more a like then I thought, Lieutenant."

"How so, Commander?"

"We both tried to run from our grief and it only gave us problems in the end. You were yanked from a promising career at headquarters, and I was tagged a traitor of the Federation," he replied, standing up and starting to make his way back down the mountain side. It wouldn't take nearly as long to climb down as it would up and already he could see that it was going to be easy going.

"I think you took a more noble route then I did, going to fight for something you believed in," Barrett said. "Starfleet was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I read it in your personnel report on my way to the Badlands. If you had helped them gather up more of the Maquis they were willing to give you your commission back. I'm not sure if they were willing to give me the same treatment."

"They allowed you on this mission," Chakotay replied.

"Captain Janeway had a lot to do with that," Barrett replied. "My area of study was terrorism, and no offense or anything, but many saw the Maquis as terrorists. She needed someone that…understood how they thought. But…I have to wonder how much Captain Dawson played a factor into my being assigned to Voyager."

"Captain Dawson?"

"My lawyer, Captain Janeway's brother-in-law," Barrett answered, softly.

Now there was a connection to Janeway that Chakotay didn't know the young woman had. He didn't believe that her relation to Barrett's lawyer had anything to do with the young counselor being assigned to Voyager, however. So far he had learned that Kathryn Janeway liked taking risks, she had taken one on him and his crew. Janeway had to have taken her service record prior to the court martial into consideration, just like she had taken his when choosing him for her new first officer. "I didn't even realize that the Captain was married."

"What, did you think the children came out of thin air?"

Good point, Chakotay thought, but she's never mentioned a husband, to me at least. "What about her husband? What does he do?"

There was a strange moment of silence that passed between them and for a brief second he worried that perhaps she had passed out from the blood loss. "He was a scientist," Barrett finally replied.

"Was?"

"I'm not sure if I have the…right to be speaking to you about this," Barrett finally said, ending the line of questioning. "Whatever happened to speaking to me about your life? Has that suddenly gone out the window? I'm interested to know about you Commander, and, well, the whole reason that we were put together on this mission was to get to know each other better, wasn't it?"

He should have known that she would have seen through Janeway's ploy. "Well…there's a lot to tell about me I suppose, it's just where do I begin?"

Thirty minutes later as he reached the shuttle, he had told her about his sister, his cousin in Ohio, a trip he had taken with his father when he was a teenager, how he had always felt trapped between two worlds. She had listened patiently, like a good little psychologist would, adding her two cents every now and then.

When he arrived back at the shuttle, the sun had already set and he could feel that the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, and was only going to continue falling. He set up the stones he had gathered in an arc around the base of the hatch and pulled out his phaser. With it set on a low setting he fired it at the stones which absorbed the energy and began to glow orange and let off a nice heat. With their little make shift fire and the blankets they could survive here for a couple of days at least.

He hoped that Voyager found them before then however. Chakotay wasn't sure how long Sarah could hold out, needing the surgery to repair all the damage her body had taken in the crash. He himself was injured, with several cuts and one large contusion going up his right leg, however, he knew he wouldn't die from them.

"Here," he said, handing her a cup with newly melted snow in it. "Drink this."

"You found water on this hell hole?" she quipped, taking the cup from his hands.

He smiled, wearily. "I may have learned a few survival skills growing up." It was a good thing too, because quite frankly, he didn't know how long they were going to be trapped on this planet.

"Good morning, Captain."

Kathryn Janeway looked up at Lieutenant Commander Tuvok. If she didn't know him any better she would almost say that the remark had been sarcastic because she was thirty minutes late. She had Ava's separation anxiety to thank for that. Although, she had to admit, that it was getting better. Instead of clinging to Kathryn for over an hour today, the baby had only latched onto her for thirty minutes. Small steps, that's what Sarah Barrett had told when she had complained to the young counselor how frustrating it was. "Any report from Commander Chakotay this morning?"

"Negative, Captain," Tuvok reported.

Janeway didn't find it odd, but she had asked anyways hoping that there was something about how their first night on Karva had been. She was sure that she would hear something by the end of the day. "How are the repairs proceeding?" she asked, blue eyes settling on Tuvok's face. For the past two days they had been docked at one of Karva's space stations doing routine maintenance. They had been lucky that their new friends had allowed them access to the space station, or Kathryn wasn't sure how much longer her ship would be able to hold out on the power levels it had been working on.

"They should be completed by thirteen hundred hours," Tuvok answered.

She felt a frown form on her face. She had wanted the repairs to be done and over with so they could be on their way. "Any chance they could be completed before that?"

"I supposed it could be arranged," Tuvok replied, "however, if we are to be thorough, I would not recommend pushing up the completion time, Captain."

Of course you wouldn't, she thought, amused. "Well, as soon as they are done, set a course for Karva. By then we should have heard from Chakotay on how things are going." Tuvok gave her a small nod of his head and she turned about, moving down towards the command station. It seemed strangely empty without Chakotay and Sarah Barrett there and she prayed that their mission was going well. It could mean safe passage through a long stretch of space if it did.

"Captain," Harry Kim said from Ops. "The Karvaian Prime Minister is sending us a message. He wants to know when to expect our diplomatic party."

Janeway turned her head to look at the young ensign with a confused gaze. "Commander Chakotay and Counselor Barrett should have been there already."

"He claims that they didn't show up," Kim replied, anxiously.

She stood, moving towards his station. "What's their last known coordinates?"

"The last time they reported in, they were about an hour from Karva," Harry commented, raising his dark eyes to his captain. "That was almost twenty-four hours ago, ma'am."

Janeway lowered her head, gripping the railing tightly. Then, with a determined look she spun about on her heal and gazed at the back of Tom Paris. "Mister Paris," she said, firmly, "set a course according to Chakotay's last report, maximum warp. Harry, inform the Prime Minister that we will investigate what happened to our people and thank him for notifying us. Our meeting with him will just have to wait a few days, I suppose."

Both Paris and Kim responded with a "yes ma'am."

"Captain, I should not have to remind you, that repairs are not complete," Tuvok spoke up from tactical, like she knew he would.

"I understand that Tuvok, we're just going to have to continue them en route," Janeway replied. "Our people could be in trouble, and I'm not waiting around for routine maintenance to be completed. That could mean life or death for Commander Chakotay and Counselor Barrett."

Slumping down in her seat, she heaved a heavy sigh. This was not the way that Kathryn had wanted to start her shift. Having Ava throw, what was becoming a ritual fit, that morning had been a rocky enough start, but now two of her officers were missing. They just could not afford the loss of another two officers, and not this early in their journey home.

She rubbed her temples thoughtfully for a moment. Perhaps they had run into some maintenance trouble themselves and been forced to set down on a planetoid before they reached Karva. No, no, they would have contacted Voyager, she concluded. Maybe they had miscalculated the time it was going to take them to get there and were actually touching down now as she sat there worrying about them. The Prime Minister would be back on the comline telling her that they had arrived and to stand down their search. But even as that thought crossed her mind, she quickly dispelled it. The Prime Minister had waited twenty four hours to contact her, meaning he had waited to see if perhaps her officers were simply late.

Could they have deviated from their flight plan that much that they were this late? She thought it highly unlikely. Something was wrong and she was sure whatever they found was probably not going to be good news.

"Captain, I've analyzed Chakotay's last known cooridnates and I think I can project their flight path," Kim said, breaking her concentration. "If my calculations are right, they would have crossed out of Karvaian borders for approximately an hour."

"Tom, adjust our course to match," Janeway ordered, standing up. "I'll be in my ready room."

Getting up rather quickly, Janeway exited the bridge leaving Tuvok in charge and retreated into the privacy of her ready room. Here she could think, perhaps get a grasp on all the information that she had just been forced to process. Like why did Chakotay's flight path take them out of Karvaian space? She had looked over the purposed course before they had left; it had cut a path through the outer rim of Karvaian space, close along the borders, but not that close. Had they run into trouble along the border? Is that what had happened?

Was the shuttle now in a million pieces and she had to find yet again replacement officers?

Sighing angrily, she fell onto the sofa. When we arrive at their last known coordinates we'll follow their ion trail. They can't be too far from their last known position, she mused, crossing her arms over her chest and peering thoughtfully at the glass coffee table. Can they?

Leaning back so her head touched the top of the sofa she realized how tired she was. She had not gotten a good night's sleep since, well since they had first been flung out here in the vast reaches of the galaxy. She constantly was worried about something, whether it was her ship or her children, there was something on her mind, nagging at her when she laid her head down every night. Lately it had been Ava's inability to let her mother go in the mornings when Tal Celes came to watch them. But now, she knew she had something to add to the constant bombardment of worries; the whereabouts of her first officer and counselor.

Tom Paris pulled open a panel to access the navigational array and sprawled out onto his stomach to get a better look. One hour of flying at maximum warp had burnt out the power relays. Janeway hadn't been happy when he had to slow the ship to impulse. In fact, Tom was certain that he could see steam coming out of her ears when she had burst from her ready room demanding a report. Tom had instantly volunteered, much to the dismay of B'Elanna Torres, to repair the power couplings.

It wouldn't take long and it got him off the bridge. The main center of command wasn't the place to be at the present time. It was clear that the stress of their situation was wearing Janeway down but no one had the guts to tell her to take it easy.

"What are you doing?"

"Jesus!" Tom cursed, dropping his tool on top of his hand at the sudden appearance of Michael Janeway.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

Tom shook his hand out, where the tool had dropped, and looked at the kid. "Next time, you might want to warn me. Why aren't you with your nanny anyways?"

Michael shrugged his shoulders. "Ava was crying. She's awfully loud and it hurts my ears. Tal's too busy trying to get Ava to stop crying to notice me gone."

Great, this kid needs a permanent security detail, Tom thought as he picked his tool back up and began to work. "You know kid, you ain't half bad. I used to sneak away from my baby-sitters all the time when I was your age. Used to drive my father crazy."

"Because you left your nanny?"

"Because I broke the rules. He loved rules."

"Mama likes rules," Michael said. "She gets mad when I break them. Why are rules so important, Lieutenant Paris?"

Of all the people to ask, the kid had chosen him. Tom stopped what he was doing and looked the boy in the eye. Dark brown hair was messy from probably climbing through the Jeffery's Tubes and his little rounded face reminded him of Janeway. "Well, if we all didn't follow rules...things would be a little crazy around here," Tom said, thinking, if they aren't already crazy around here. "Rules make sure we're safe."

"Is that why you were in jail? Because you broke the rules and weren't safe?"

"Yes, in a manner of speaking," Tom replied getting back to his work.

"Why didn't Mama put the Maquis in jail? They broke the rules," Michael said.

"Well, she had her reasons."

"They don't like it here," the boy said, plopping down onto the floor next to Tom.

Tom closed his eyes for a moment praying for a little bit of extra strength. The kid was making it hard for him to finishing the repairs that Janeway was ready to throttle someone if they weren't done. "We're in a... unique... situation. Your mother did what she thought was best for her crew and to make sure that we find a way home."

Michael looked at him pensively. "Are we really that far from home?"

"Afraid so."

"Mama feels bad," Michael said. "She doesn't tell me, but I know. She feels bad that we're far from home."

Tom finished what he was doing and went to close the panel. "Your mother didn't have an easy choice to make." He fastened the panel and turned to glance at the boy. "Everyone feels bad about what we had to do."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do they feel bad? We helped people."

Leave it to a child to simplify something so complicated. Tom smiled gently and reached out and ruffled his hair. "You know something kid, when you look at it that way, it's hard to feel bad about what we did." He gestured that it was time to go.

As they stood up and made their way back to the turbo lift Michael slipped his small hand into Tom's. "Are we friends now?" the boy asked, looking up at him in admiration. Tom had never seen anyone look at him that way, never in his life. It made his heart swell with emotions.

"Yeah," he rasped out finally. "We're friends now."

#star trek voyager #star wars fanfiction #kathryn janeway #chakotay #tom paris #sarah barrett (oc)#harry kim #b'elanna torres #tuvok #neelix #kes #the doctor (emh)#janeway x chakotay #tom paris x ofc #this way became my journey

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dgcatanisiri · 4 years

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Basics is kind of a flawed two-parter, suffering the usual issues that come from Star Trek doing the season spanning cliffhangers of writing an interesting part one without really planning what part two will be until they start work on the new season. And then there’s the poor wrap up to the ongoing plotlines and the casual bumping off of recurring characters like Hogan, Seska, and Suder.

But I do appreciate it being able to basically call out all the things wrong with Kazon society in its approach to things, even if it still kinda fails as a wrap up to that ongoing storyline by never actually addressing them directly.

Because earlier episodes had established Kazon society as basically a free-for-all, where they broke into bickering factions and had an every man for himself approach to pretty much everything. Even the First Majes were always only considered the most powerful until they could be killed - honestly, I kinda doubt Cullah and his son lasted very long after losing Voyager. (Which, you know, makes it really uncomfortable that THIS was decided to be the fate that kid got because the writers didn’t want to deal with Chakotay having a child...)

So Cullah leaves Voyager’s crew on the planet, expecting it to be payback for their failure to share their technology - “Let’s see how you manage to survive without it.” Because to the Kazon, being abandoned like this would spawn a fight for dominance and a fracturing into groups, just like what had happened after they overthrew the Trabe.

Instead, though, Voyager’s crew follow protocol and act together. Janeway orders plans for survival made, and, while there are hazards that take out a couple of people, they survive for the most part, even managing to make contact and even in-roads to peace with the locals, even without being able to understand each other.

In some ways, actually, come to think of it, the Hirogen ended up being the Kazon done right. Both species had engaged in a series of behavior that was actively destroying their society, probably eventually their species as a whole. Both took Voyager. But, where the Hirogen commander planned to use Voyager’s technology for his race’s benefit, give them a hunt and targets that don’t require the hunt to spread them out across the quadrant, the Kazon would only use Voyager’s technology for self-benefit. Every time Cullah spoke about what he’d do with it, it was always about his power - not the Kazon in general, and really only tangentially the Nistrim as well. It was all about him.

I think it’s a shame that they really only let this be subtext (though, given Voyager’s writing in general, it may simply have been an unintended subtext over intentional messaging...), not actually have Janeway or Chakotay give this as a direct message to the Kazon properly. But still, at least the message is there if you connect the dots.

#star trek #star trek voyager #star trek meta #basics #kazon #dg rambles

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cassyblue · 5 years

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☕ seven of nine (god if I got the numbers wrong I'll die bc I am too lazy to google it)

good news you got it right otherwise i would have texted you and been like, giselle, GISELLE.

Ok so this is going to be kinda long because there are three points I am going to touch on: The way that Seven of Nine’s agency is depicted, The dynamic between Seven of Nine and Janeway, and Finally the romance written for seven of nine.

1) Agency

Seven of Nine was assimilated in the borg collective when she was around 8 or 9. By the time that Voyager finds her, she is in her 20s. She has been in the collected for pretty much all her life. She is used as an representative for the borg queen when the crew of Voyager encounter her. Uh I think that’s right, The last time I watched voyager was in 2016.

The Voyager crew, particularly Janeway, decide to rescue her from the borg collective without her say in the matter because you know she’s assimilated by the borg so surely she has no agency. Which is pretty much the same thing essentially since she is not given the choice by the crew of Voyager to join them or stay with the borg. There is this focus on Seven reclaiming her humanity which I honestly fucking hate.

So basically, the Crew of Voyager separates her from the collective and basically figures out how to deborg her which they do. All this time, in the brig Seven is begging for them not to do it because it hurts her. It is essentially torture for her to be unassimulated. It could kill her. But despite Seven’s cries of pain and begging for it to stop and for them to let her go, Janeway refuses. This is painted as some heroic act of saving this girl from the horrible horrible borg and teaching her to regain her humanity and culture. But it’s not that. It’s literally conversion therapy.

They remove most of Seven of Nine’s external nonorganic parts and the only things they leave is literally the hand veins, the thing on the side of her face. Not only that but they put her in a cat suit that’s supposed to mimc the borg nonorganic parts that were removed so that Seven doesn’t get sick? This choice honestly can be blamed on Rick Berman because everything is LITERALLY his fault. Seven wasn’t given any choice of clothing to wear regularly basically. They completely take bodily agency from her in choosing how she presents physically.

Seven is treated as a child in many occasions because she is learning to be human again. Despite the fact she is human and a capable being. It’s infuriating that they are basically trying to recondition her.

Did the borg do wrong? Yes, they forcibly assimulated Seven of Nine as a child. Did the crew of Voyager do wrong? Abso-Fucking-lutely. Neither groups fucking gave Seven agency over her body. The two episode arc was so upsetting that I cried during it because it was horrid and disgusting the way the writers treated the matter.

2) Seven of Nine and Janeway dynamics

Seven/Janeway shippers you are not going to like my thots in this section. One, I know that Seven of Nine and Janeway was an huge ship when the show was running and fans were lobbying the writers and RICK BERMAN THE EVIL for it to happen because you know in DS9 there was the girl kiss in reunion. But yeaaaah Rick Berman being the giant piece of poop from a dumpster he is, was like nope never happening. So that’s the context. It remains a popular ship.

So here’s the thing. There is a huge power imbalance between Janeway and Seven that makes the ship really squicky for me. As you see above in the agency section, Janeway REFUSES to listen to Seven when she’s literally crying and sobbing and asking for them to stop the process. Janeway is so focused on this idea of saving this girl instead of fucking listening to the girl. Furthermore Janeway takes on this teacher / mother role for Seven. She gives Seven lessons on how to regain humanity. She is always acting as a guide or older more experienced source that knows best even if it is not the best for Seven. Seven quite honestly was her most vulnerable after the deborging and Janeway stepped in the teacher/mother role. Seven also turns to Janeway for emotional support which completely baffles me. Like this is the thing, I literally do not understand how Janeway and Seven have this positive relationship dynamic. Janeway literally ripped Seven away from her family and her life. It just ugh bad WRITING.

3)Seven of Nine and Romance

Seven of Nine is probably one of the MOST sexualized star trek characters. The costume required Jerri Ryan to not only wear a skin tight suit, but also a corset (badly made at that), and stilletos. The costume took some time to get into and it caused Jerri Ryan back pain (because the corset was TOO TIGHT. They normally do not if they are probably fitted). This once again Rick Berman’s fault.

So first off we have the emh doctor being incredibly creepy to Seven of Nine because he has romantic hots for her. Seven has to tell him she only wants a friend but he doesn’t stop being creepy until a big fight between them. So That romance subplot sure doesn’t make any sense.

Then there were the special borgs that could maintain individuality outside of the collective, there was one that Seven had a crush on. Honestly that part really wasn’t that badly written.

Then the fucking final straw, the complete out of the blue, no previous writing support, pairing of Seven of Nine and Chakotay. Backgroun, Chakotay was Janeway’s love interest for the first couple seasons and it was quite good chemistry until I guess the writers just completely dropped it. And then the lobbying of the Seven/Janeway shippers got really intense toward the end of the show so you know what happened? Seven suddenly gets shoved with Chakotay which is the most what the FUCK out of all characters. Seven had never viewed Chakotay as an romantic interest or anything beyound colleague until the second to last episode of voyager when she starts to have like fantasies about him and turns out he is into her which like was never written in any of the other plots. It just was like WHAT THE FUCK where did this come from. Answer: Rick Berman cockblocking the femslashers. It was a bad decision and honestly made the finale arc disappointing. Like Star Trek ending arcs tend to be lackluster (don’t @ me tng, tos, and VOY fans). DS9 was probably the most decent one because at least it had followed the previously established relationships instead of bringing this out of the fuckin blue.

So tdlr: Seven of Nine’s character was treated pretty crappy despite all the interesting angles that could have been pursued. I am hoping that the writer’s Star Trek Picard treat her character better, which may be a really good possibility since Patrick Stewart was heavily involved in the story writing. Historically he has stood up for his female colleagues when they had to deal with sexism from the producers (RICK BERMAN). However, If I hear Seven of Nine utter, “My husband Chakotay” I will literally drive to Rick Berman’s house and egg and tp it.

Anyways I also have lots of parallels that can be talked about Seven of Nine, Breq, and Murderbot but I already probably wrote like a thousnad words at this point and its midnight and i have early morning work tomorrow.

#asks #long post #sorry i have many a thot

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mia-cooper · 5 years

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2018: Fanfic Year in Review (Part 1)

Listing my favourite fic I've posted each month this year. (You’ll note there are only 9 fics on this list, for reasons I’ll explain below.)

Coming soon: another post where I'll pick my favourite fics posted by other writers in each month of the year, which will (hopefully) help other writers feel good and (also hopefully) give readers something new to enjoy, or remind them to revisit a favourite. (This one will be hard because of all the quality fic that’s been posted this year, but I’ll do my best!)

All I ask from you is if there’s a fic you enjoy/ed on either list, mine or someone else’s, please give it a kudos or comment, especially if you haven’t done so already. ♥

My 2018 Fic Review Roundup

January – Queen of Swords (T)

ST:DSC, ST:MU | Mirror Burnham x Mirror Lorca, Mirror Georgiou x Mirror Lorca

Okay, so I didn’t have a whole lot of choice for this month because this was the only fic I wrote. Nonetheless, I don’t hate it. I’m grateful to Discovery for exciting my spleen over the Mirror Universe status of Gabriel Lorca (about which I am still, and will forever be, bitter) as it was the only thing that inspired me to write about anything during my post-Christmas mental wasteland.

It’s about Mirror Michael Burnham’s competitive, twisted affair with Mirror Lorca, but it’s really more about the toxic relationship between Burnham and her foster mother, Emperor Georgiou. It’s about escaping abuse and trying to find a new, better way, but not having the tools to do so. It’s about being caught between loyalties and being unable to choose. And there are some heavy Macbeth references in there, but I see Michael more in the role of Hamlet, though her fate at the end of the story is ambiguous.

February – Open Hand (M)

ST:VOY | Janeway x Chakotay

This was another dry month for the muse, so again, I had only one choice for Fic of the Month, and it was one I’d never planned on writing. @writtenndust commented in a discord chat about the role played by Janeway’s and Chakotay’s hands in a number of episodes throughout the show (these are the things we shippers analyse in crazy detail), and I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about hand-clasping being the most contact we saw in canon between these two and how many opportunities were missed, and then I climbed inside Janeway’s head as she was debriefed post-homecoming and she got very introspective about it.

I really like this fic. I like its melancholy feel, Janeway’s self-understanding and her calm acceptance that sometimes you don’t get the fairytale ending. And I like that we do get the fairytale after all.

March – Warmth and Colour (T)

ST:TNG | Guinan x Lwaxana Troi

Once again, the only fic I published all month (are we sensing a pattern here?) This one was for @gluecookie for the Trek Rarepair Swap, and I don’t mind admitting that it took forever to get into. I absolutely love both of these characters but I’d never thought about shipping them before, and I couldn’t word for some reason, and the more I tried to find the right angle the more twisted up I got. In the end, though I’d wanted to give my recipient something meatier, I ended up with a pretty light story full of banter and a couple of slightly more serious personal revelations.

The most amazing thing about this story? My recipient not only loved it, they gifted me back with fanart they drew themselves. This is the most wonderful thing that can happen to a fanfic writer! (Incidentally, I’ve been lucky enough to have been gifted a soundtrack for The Bitter End by @cheile and a moodboard for Laced and Bound by @supernovacoffee and I couldn’t be happier about it.) And I’m actually planning a sequel to Warmth and Colour, hopefully sometime early in 2019.

April – Displaced (T)

ST:TNG, ST:DSC, ST:MU | Lorca x Garrett

What do you know, I have two fics and two drabbles to choose from this month!

This is one of the weirder fics I’ve written. It not only involves an impossible pairing (Rachel Garrett is from a different century to Gabriel Lorca), it’s set on an alternate plane of existence: both of them are dead, and they meet in some kind of limbo or spiritual waiting room. Each of them has one last chance to connect with another human being, but then each gets to make the choice between life and death.

This story is also an attempt to explain what happened to Prime Lorca, and it’s not a happy ending; there’s a sequel, In the Wrong Light, that’s a whole lot darker than this fic.

May – Abandoned (M)

ST:VOY | Janeway x Torres

Wow, May was a great month for writing – I bashed out 10 fics in 3 fandoms at a total of over 25,000 words! This was mainly thanks to the inspiring prompt memes on tumblr – a kiss + a ship and six sexy words – and consequently, most of these works veered on the nsfw side. (I have a stack more prompts to write to in 2019, as well.)

As for a favourite? I’m going to have to go with Abandoned. It’s set during Year of Hell, one of my all-time favourite Voyager episodes, and it’s hurt/comfort and angst, and it’s about love that’s unspoken and complicated but no less real for it. And I like B’Elanna being the strong one for the captain, because in canon we only really get to see Janeway being strong for her.

June – To Those Who Wait (M)

ST:VOY | Sekaya x Phoebe Janeway

This is actually a work in progress – I’ve planned another three chapters – and it fits into a larger universe of loosely-connected stories that @jhelenoftrek and I have been blathering about for over a year now and we are definitely going to get started on the series that brings them all together in 2019, aren’t we Helen?

Anyway, I’m fond of this story. It was a birthday present for Helen in which I tried to combine a number of her favourite things because she’s one of my favourite people, and it’s the only Sekaya x Phoebe Janeway story on AO3, which is kind of cool. And Phoebe is sexy and angry and mouthy, and Sekaya is gorgeous and lonely and rebellious, and Mark is weird and self-aware and ridiculously in love with Kathryn, who’s damaged and brave and brittle, and Chakotay is confident and sarcastic and big-brotherly and has no idea of the tragedy that’s in store for him and his sister.

And J/C pass like ships in the night long before they meet in canon, and their siblings have a passionate, tempestuous one-night-stand which (spoiler alert) isn’t going to fit the one-night-stand category in the end.

July – Trigger (E)

ST:VOY | Janeway x Chakotay

Another fic prompted by tumblr memes, and one I’d been wanting to write for quite a while. It’s not my only Equinox-inspired fic (another of my favourite episodes) and probably won’t be my last. I wanted to explore Janeway’s loss of control in this one – her anger and bitterness and rage, and the way she takes them out on the people she loves – and I wanted more of Chakotay supporting her publicly but in private, not backing down one whit.

And I wanted really hot sex. Hopefully I achieved that.

(August and September are fic-free because I was posting The Epic. I’ll come back to that one.)

October – Nothing Like a Dame (T)

ST:VOY | Paris x Torres

Ah, fictober, how I loved you. For those who don’t already know, I decided to embark on fictober at approximately 8pm on September 30, despite having a thousand other things I should have been committing to. Just to make it trickier, I also decided I would write a missing-scene ficlet to every single daily prompt, and I’d keep it canon-consistent and in order of episode airing. As you can imagine, this was quite a challenge, and resulted in me producing almost 29,000 words in a single month.

Of these 31 ficlets, I think this one is my favourite. The two protagonists aren’t even really main characters on the show – they’re mindwiped alter egos in a World War II holodeck program – but they’re still relatable both to the show’s characters and to the world today. What ‘Brigitte’ experiences as a collaborateur horizontale is the kind of thing women go through in every war, and what ‘Bobby’ learns from her is a lesson a lot of men in power today could stand to learn.

It’s also given me an idea for a Killing Game-based fic series, so stay tuned for that, sometime in 2027, probably.

(November is fic-free because I hate the only fic I posted that month so much I deleted it from AO3)

December – Desperate Measures (E)

ST:VOY | Janeway x Chakotay, Janeway x other male, Chakotay x Seven, Kim x Seven

I mean, I had to include The Epic. And strictly speaking I’ve been writing it for well over a year, but it counts. At over 70,000 words so far – my longest fic to date – it absobloodylutely counts.

This is an Endgame-fixing post-DQ action adventure featuring angst, romance, conspiracy, drama and smut. Perfect for the holiday season, right? (And no promises, but I’ll do my level best to finish it before the end of January!)

______

Coming soon: My favourite fics by other people for every month of 2018

Happy reading (and reviewing)!

#miawrites #2018 year in review #on writing

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secretvixen83 · 6 years

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Quieter Souls

Chakotay felt reenergized after his session using the Akuna. Some questions were answered, while other questions were raised. He was right about his necklace, yes he was right about the glow from the stone. Ironically, he realized that the glowing hue was identical to Kathryn’s eyes. Smiling to himself, he silently wished her “good night”. Crawling into bed himself, he stared at the ceiling. It seemed lighter than it should be and he thought it was odd. He dismissed it though, and rolled to his side, and fell asleep.

He was dreaming. He knew he was, but the smell of fire still made him jumpy. He was in the cargo bay, and the computer wasn’t responding to his orders. Had Kathryn lost trust in him? Had she removed his status? He turned and looked around him. Fire everywhere. It wasn’t that he had been removed, but that he was trapped, and systems were malfunctioning to stop the fire. He tried to make it to the wall to manually override the computer. As he moved there was a flash, and a massive white fireball knocked him down. The air knocked out of him, he struggled once more to his feet. He wouldn’t die like this, dream or not. Silently, he called on his spirit guide to help him. He looked around again and noticed the flames had changed. They were completely white. Burning yes, but not moving towards him. They stayed static. Not wanting to tempt fate, he began to quickly move to the wall. In front of him a shape suddenly appeared. It was approximately 5ft in stature, maybe more. Pointed ears like an Ocampa, but lanky like an elf. It was almost like a statue but had been painted. He looked at it but was more anxious to handle the flames. Making his way to the wall finally, he pulled open the panel and began redirecting the circuit power. Just when he was ready to give up, the foam shot from the walls at floor level and extinguished the flames.

As the smoke cleared, the statue remained unharmed. He walked towards it and stopped about a foot away when he heard the voice. “This is not Borg space as she thinks.” It hissed. “Beware star seeker, you shall make friend and foe here.” The voice wasn’t scary, it just caught him off guard. As soon as the voice stopped a huge rush of wind seemed to envelope the room, and the statue shattered, then dissolved. Chakotay was picked up in the wind and thrown.

With a jump, Chakotay woke to find himself on the floor in his quarters. Sweating just as if he had gone back to the Holodeck to work out, his shorts clung to his legs, and the heat from his skin radiated out. Slowly getting up, he took a deep breath. The words replayed in his head “Not Borg space, friend and foe”. Chakotay tried to shake himself of the dream and looked at the clock. 0530. Great time to get ready for work. He ate breakfast quickly and replicated coffee. Not for himself, but for her. It wasn’t much, but he would give anything to see the light back in her eyes. The necklace glowed again. As blue as Kathryn’s eyes. Smiling, Chakotay grabbed the coffee cup from the replicator, and headed out the door.

Kathryn had just passed Chakotay’s door, and he saw her rounding the corner. He carefully trotted to catch up. The light demand on his muscles making them rebel after the workout yesterday. “Kathryn!” He called to her so she would turn. As she did, his heart sped up, and he could feel the stone against his chest cooling rapidly. He could see she hadn’t slept well the night before, and he realized that it bothered him. It never had before. Or was he so dense he had never noticed it? Either way, he was sorry he had never noticed it before now. As he stepped up to her, he took her right hand in his left, and carefully set the coffee cup in her hand. “I thought you might need this before duty.” He said smiling slightly. She looked down at the cup, and back at him. “Thank you.” It was almost a whisper. A weary whisper. He walked with her in silence as she drank, and he realized the stone was colder than usual under his uniform. So cold in fact, it made goosebumps on his skin.

As they made their way onto the bridge, Chakotay felt the shift in her. No personal feelings, only work. Tom caught his eye and gave a questioning look. Chakotay smiled and shook his head, as if to say “It’s nothing.” Kathryn had settled in her chair, still cradling the coffee cup he had given her, and if someone caused her to spill it, Kathryn decided she would probably just eject them into space. She wasn’t showing it, but it touched her deeply that he had used his rations on her. As Kathryn listened to the din surrounding her, she let her mind wander to the place where she kept everything she knew about Audrey’s disappearance. The police seemed to not be willing to help, her mother was crushed, and had blamed herself, Kathryn admitted she just quit feeling after the first 30 days.

Audrey’s father, Shane had been a promising officer at the Academy. Their romance had been a whirlwind. He had turned rogue though and took up a position as a no name Maquis. Kathryn understood the Maquis cause far more than Chakotay would realize. When she found out she was pregnant, she was terrified to tell anyone. Shane found out one night after they had gone dancing, and she fell extremely ill. While being checked out by medical, the truth came to light, and he had asked her; “Is it true Katy? Are you? I mean, are we?” When she had answered in the positive, she was sure he would be enraged. Instead, he swept her up off the bed in his arms and held her tightly. It was the safest she had felt the entire time she had been pregnant. Then came the night when she was seven months 3 weeks along, when the police came to her door with the announcement that Shane was gone. She thought she had lost her soul then but carried on anyway. When Audrey was born, she struggled to find a middle name, and Shane had been adamant that the baby should have a noble, and respectable last name. So, Audrey Shane Janeway was born.

Kathryn jumped as she felt Chakotay’s light touch on her arm. She looked up at him, and knew he saw her tears and pain. Quickly, she blinked them away, as she realized Tuvok had been calling to her concerning an approaching vessel. She went through the motions and could feel Chakotay just over her left shoulder as she stood to listen and speak back to their newly found species. Curious travelers were what they were. No hostility. No war. No fighting. Several times as Chakotay would speak she caught herself looking up and slightly back at him. On purpose, she took half a step back and gently bumped into him. Then as he spoke, she studied his profile. Just looking at this man calmed her. Calmed her, alarmed her, confused her. Running her teeth across her bottom lip, she forced herself to look away from him, and back to the screen. They said their goodbyes to this new species and went on their way. As soon as the screen went back to being just darkness and stars, Kathryn made a subtle break for the Readyroom.

Chakotay watched her go. He wasn’t sure if he should follow. The words from his dream repeated. “This is not Borg space as she thinks.” With that, he handed off command to Tuvok, and followed Kathryn. She was at her desk staring at her computer when he entered. “Captain” he said, and she looked up. Emotionless. That’s how she was looking at him, and it scared him. “I need to talk to you about where we are in the quadrant.” He said, trying to illicit a reaction from her. She blinked and motioned to a chair. “Borg space.” She said as he sat. “We have been through this before.” Her tone was flat, and still emotionless. “I don’t think it’s Borg space we will be entering.” As he said that, there was a flicker in her eyes. Barely. “I am not sure what we will find here, but I doubt it will be Borg.” As he said that, Kathryn’s brow furrowed as she processed what he was saying. “Commander,” She started, as she came around the desk and stood in front of him, leaning her hip on the edge. “What do you base your findings on?” She was curious. Still guarded, still numb, but curious.

He knew how his answer would sound but he had to say it. “A dream after my meditation last night.” He repeated the dream, every part of it. Kathryn listened actively. Again, a flicker, but this time it stayed. When he was done, Kathryn was silent for a minute as she walked to the window. Turning back to face him, she said, “Commander, at this point I say we prepare for Borg—but hope for whatever your dream may mean.” Just then Seven’s voice came over their Combadges. “Captain, Commander, The readings from the probe have returned. There are no Borg in the distances tested.” Seven said in her usual, factual tone. “Very well, Seven, thank you for letting us know. Please ready the probes again to be used in the next couple of days after their data has been loaded into our records.” Chakotay said as he watched Kathryn.

She looked like if she stood still long enough, she would sleep standing up. There was about five feet between them. Kathryn felt as if it could have been a hundred. Chakotay stayed where he was, not wanting to rush or frighten Kathryn. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to smell the intoxicating soap she used, to feel her weight against him. She looked back at him, and then back out the window. He shifted and began to stand. Before he was all the way up she was in front of him. He raised his eyebrows, letting her make the first move. Her gaze said it all. She was tired, hurt, confused, scared, and underneath it all, she trusted him. She reached out her arms to him, and he quickly pulled her to him, kissing her forehead as she let out a sigh. He coaxed her into taking a nap on the couch in her office. Promising her if anything major happened he would wake her. He stayed until she fell asleep. He started to leave, instead he walked to her, kissed her forehead, and sat back down in the chair he had been in, kicked his legs out, leaned back and took a nap along side his Captain. Along side Kathryn.

#wordsofjc #star trek voyager #delta quadrant #kathryn janeway #chakotay #j/c fanfic

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lodessa · 7 years

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It’s been a while since I did this

Tagged by@carlynroth

List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you like then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gif sets, whatever.

Okay so I set some rules for myself in making this list in an attempt to maybe clear it out a bit to what I’m more likely to write any time soon: I did not allow myself to look at any of my previous lists OR my WIP documents/folders until after I’d made the list (only to add details/links after I’d finalized it).

Star Trek: Voyager - Janeway/Chakotay

Stumbling: Post Endgame Janeway and Chakotay struggle to get back what they once had (trust) even though they both want it. Basically I really wanted to explore how messy emotions are and a realistic struggle to recover from what happened. I think it’s going to be like 8 chapters, but for all I know it will end up being 14 like Parameters and Voyager High; because, that’s apparently my natural length for drawn out chaptered fics. Three chapters are currently posted. Chapter four is partly written. Excerpt:

“Here’s the thing: She still wants him. It’s ironic, after all the years he was diligently waiting and she was able to stuff it down and put it aside some ninety something percent of the time Now, now she is so angry with him, so distrustful, but it’s like that pain has wrecked her self control. She can’t come back from the blunt honestly of her despair. When she’d been so secure in him it has been easy to set aside her desire.

Now. Now she feels raw, not just with the sting of his betrayal but also with her own longing.

Now he meets her for long afternoon walks between her meetings and his office hours and she can’t take comfort in his arm linked with her but she can’t ignore it either. His warmth beside her is a provocation, unsettling her.

He brings her a series of peace roses and part of her wants to feel comforted by the gesture but there’s something inside her that balks at any memory of how it used to be.”

Just Once: Five times Janeway and Chakotay were only going to kiss once (and the time they finally gave that pretense up). This is really a more drawn out version of “Why Janeway and Chakotay Can't Share the Couch: 5 Times They Slipped Up” but it’s not like there can ever be enough of that type of fic. Currently I have posted 1 of 6 total chapters, but I do have all of it outlined.

The Greek Mythology AU Epic. I only have a couple actual paragraphs of this written, but I have a very clear idea of the plot and style. Basically it’s a homeric style epic, wherein Janeway is the hero and involves a plotline with her going down to the underworld to get Chakotay back. Very different from my usual style, obviously. Excerpt:

“You have heard, of course, about the great ship Voyager, and it’s captain: the wise but willful woman king known as Janeway, favored by Athena. The tale of how her ship was blown off course by a powerful storm and ended up in distant waters far from home, how she subdued the outlaw ship she’d been chasing on the other side of the world, won over it’s captain: the noble Chakotay, how together they kept raiders from causing Atlas to drop the world, and thereafter Chakotay and his followers served under her and he became her most trusted subject and against all odds they returned to Greece in seven years and seven days is widely known.

Less famous, however, is the tale of Janeway’s descent into the Underworld and how she came to prevail upon Hades to undo what his wrathful brother, Poseidon, had done in spite and wounded pride. Many heroes have gone down to plead with the king of the dead for lost loves, but few are those to emerge again to the sunlight.”

That One Where Chakotay Gets Pegged. So I have a number of fic ideas involving this (Including a follow up to Happy Accident) but the longest standing one and one I really mean to write in the near future is one where Janeway happens to mention one of the ways she has gotten the upper hand in diplomacy situations with men who want to fuck her involving a strap on and well... Chakotay can’t get the idea out of his head.

Daxverse: After three years of intending to do this AU with Jadzia on Voyager and not actually writing it and @talsi74656 having been in the same situation for a couple, we are seriously exploring joining forces and merging our two different versions into one in hopes of getting it written. Because, the idea is too good to sit forever unpublished.

Year of Hell PWP: Chakotay offers Kathryn a different kind of birthday present. Excerpt:

Kathryn felt herself blush deeply at his probably innocently intended question. She was wound so tightly right now she might explode on impact at the slightest jostling.

Chakotay flushed as well as he realized from her expression what she wasn’t saying.

“Oh…” he pressed his lips together, “I see. No wonder you are having trouble sleeping.”

“Chakotay!” she replied with a scandalized gasp.

“Let me help?” his voice and his expression both were beseeching, “You know you’ll sleep better and that will make you way more productive. You wouldn’t accept my birthday gift… at least let me do something for you.”

Cracktastic Anthropomorphic Voyager/Janeway/Chakotay Situation: Sentient Voyager takes human form and interacts with its Captain(s) in a variety of ways. Set over the course of the series and post series when Chakotay takes command. Most likely ends with a threesome.

Post Endgame Angst Where Janeway is Hallucinating: Janeway cracks once the immediacy of all those years of pressure lets up and loses touch with reality. Feeling abandoned and lost, she hallucinates a Chakotay who is cruel and kind in turns, and by the time the real Chakotay shows up she doesn’t believe he’s actually there.

Timeless Timeline Chakotay/Endgame Timeline Admiral Janeway Fixit AU: Somehow the Admiral goes sideways instead of back and ends up in the averted Timeless timeline. Both of them are so damaged by loss and time in these timelines and I’d love to see them interact. Ultimately, they join forces and go back to save their past/alternative selves from becoming the selves they are then and there. This started out as a coauthored fic that got abandoned midway through, but I still really love the idea. Excerpt:

"Well that depends, what year is it and how long have I been dead for." She said it teasingly but the question still felt heavy, "How do you think I died?"

"Are you sure you want me to tell you? I'm not even sure I can." He shook his head, running his hand over his face, suddenly overwhelmed with the memory of seeing Kathryn dead on Voyager's bridge.

"It's important, I think." she sighed, running her fingers through his hair, "Unless you'd rather I tell you."

He wasn't sure what was worse, watching the pain that crossed Kathryn's face when she mentioned his death, or thinking about how hard it would be to relive her death. He couldn't bring himself to cause her more pain than he had to, even if that meant bearing the brunt of it himself.

"It was the slipstream drive..." he said quietly, trying not to go back to that day, "Harry and I went ahead in the Delta Flyer, but we'd miscalculated..."

He could barely get the words out, as the lump formed at the back of his throat. She reached for him, her hand cupping his face.

"All these years, and you still..." He could see her calculating how long it must have been.

"Always." He kissed her softly.

Her hands lingered on his face, thumb stroking his cheek.

"It's an alternate timeline," she said at last, "we never attempted that slipstream flight... Seven," he couldn't help but notice something off in Kathryn's voice as she said the former drone's name, "Seven got a message warning us."

RPF

KM/RB Fic No One Wants That Involves RealTalk(TM) Racism. Because I feel like this needs to be addressed in terms of KM’s exoticism when it comes to him and also that she only publicly dates white dudes. She looks like a jerk in this one.

Another One No One Asked For: Why Both KM and Braga Got Pissed At RB Really. As JR is added to the cast, RB is upset that KM chose Hagan and decides to get back at her by exploiting somewhere he knows she’s already feeling vulnerable. He looks like a jerk in this one.

KM Has Zero Sympathy for the Problems RB Created For Himself. Because KM sass is life and seriously CHOICES dude.

KM/RB As a Taurus/Scorpio Dynamic Case Study. Because they are.

Veronica Mars

Balacing Act: Two parts are written. Part 3 of the series is still in progress. Continued post movie threesome action with Logan, Weevil, and Veronica. Excerpt:

“I have acquired bagels… and coffee.”

It takes a moment for Eli to remember where he is or how he got there, gradually regaining enough consciousness to register Veronica’s way too chipper voice and remember that it must be Logan’s fucking arm he can feel slung across his hip. Reluctantly, he opens his eyes and there she is, looming over them with a take out tray of coffee cups in one hand and a paper bag in the other, looking cheerful and relaxed, like this is something that happens every day instead of being unprecedented, like she is used to him fucking Echolls up the ass until they both come.

“Enjoying the view from above from once, V?” he teases, refusing to act like this is weird if she isn’t going to.

“Wait… you went all the way to-“ Logan sits up, looking perfectly mussed as he notes the logo on the coffee cups.

This is weird. This is definitely weird, even for them.

That Season 3 AU I Started Around the Time The Movie Came Out: So season 3 was a mess as a whole, but it also always bugged me that Veronica’s “I was wrong not to trust” moment is about Logan (who didn’t deserve her trust and yeah actually his explanation in the end was shitty) and not about her dad (who deserved better than her judgement and criticism) and Weevil (seriously did she really think he’d rip Lilly’s necklace off her). It’s a lot bigger than that, but basically this AU starts from there and has Weevil be the one to find her in the parking garage instead of Logan and goes from there. I need to finish it because it’s important, even if it’s a dead fandom. Excerpt:

“Would now be an appropriate time for me to list the reasons why you shouldn’t even be wasting your time with that spoiled gringo asshole?”

Weevil knew that was never going to be a productive addition to any conversation with her. She had some mad feelings about Logan Echolls, every bit as much as Lilly had. He didn’t think about Lilly so much these days, but sitting in Veronica’s car talking about whether Logan was a bad boyfriend was bringing the memories back.

She must have noticed the parallel too; because she said, “Is that what you told Lilly?”

They had never talked about Lilly. Whenever possible she stuck to cases, favors, and harmless flirtatious banter that he knew didn’t mean anything at all. They avoided talking about Logan, but this - this was taboo. And Weevil doesn’t know what to feel about that.

And what the hell is Veronica thinking, anyway? Maybe it was the lingering effects of the drugs. What the docs call trauma? He hasn’t got a freaking clue . All he knows is that Veronica Mars had bought up the girl whose ghost seemed to have more life than most of the people walking around Neptune. And he doesn’t like to say no to Veronica Mars.

“Sometimes I think it was what she wanted me to do.” He answered, deciding to pursue this line of potential honesty, “It was probably just a way to stroke her ego. It’s not like I don’t get that, but she sure did like to paint a picture to me about how unhappy she was with him…”

“You and me both.” Veronica replied, gaze fixed away from him. “What were you supposed to tell her? That she could do so much better?”

Sometimes these days he almost forgot that Veronica had been Lilly’s best friend, that she told her everything that really mattered. Of course, that meant that he didn’t really matter. He had always known that, even when he maybe wanted to believe otherwise, but there is maybe a small part of him that wanted to hold on to the idea that maybe he did.

“Is that what you would tell me? If I said yes… If I asked you to tell me why I shouldn’t be with Logan?” Veronica turned around sharply to look him in the eyes.

“Pretty sure it would be a better option than giving you the spiel I gave her, the one that goes something like ‘I’d never let you feel alone’ and ‘Just let me show you how much better it can be.’ You know, that kind of crap.”

It was his turn to stare out the windshield, away from her. Normally he would make a joke out of it, wink and suggest that maybe she wanted that all along, for him to profess his undying love, but not now. They were both too raw.

“Tell you what. If I ever do decide I want you to talk me out of dating Logan, I’ll let you know which version of the speech I’m looking for.”

“Deal.” He agreed. He knew they would never have that conversation, or at least not that version of it. That was what Lilly wanted to hear - she got off on hearing how much he wanted her. But Veronica wasn’t Lilly. She liked having leverage of a different kind. Getting the better of someone. Oneupsmanship . Veronica wasn’t interested in the straight power of someone finding her desirable, even if she used it to her advantage if she felt it was needed.

A Song of Ice and Fire (really not Game of Thrones)

Jaime/Brienne Adventure Romance: Because this ship deserves a long plotty romance novel and I wasn’t ready to write that kind of thing in 2008 when I stopped writing them but I am now. Definitely book and not show universe. Jaime and Brienne go looking for Arya across Essos. Excerpt:

“Indeed father. He does know me. Do you not recognize Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer?”

Brienne waited for Jaime to respond to the barb, but he did not. Her father looked surprised, doubtless he had expected Brienne’s visitor to be of less consequence. She could see him going over Jaime’s features and attire, as if putting the pieces together.

“It is an honor Ser. We so rarely get such important visitors here on our humble island.”

“Doubtless, Ser Jaime is here for his reward.”

“Reward?” Lord Selwyn looked, if possible, more perplexed.

“For saving my life, father. Surely you will satisfy him.”

“He… he saved your life?”

“Yes, when I was in the bear pit at Harrenhal. Really father, you’d think you didn’t listen to a word I said about my travels.”

Her father was indeed no longer listening to her. Doubtless he was busy concocting some heroic version of her rescue that would culminate in his at long last marrying off his daughter. Brienne was sure that’s what he thought the outcome of this visit would be, though he must have known Jaime was part of the Kingsguard.

At last Jaime spoke, “You mistake me, my lady. I came seeking no reward.”

“Surely Ser, you came for something.”

“I came to see you, Brienne, for there are things I wish to discuss with you. That is all.”

“You might have sent a letter.”

“Perhaps, but it I did not. Will you walk with me? While I am here I was hoping to witness the splendor of the Sapphire Isle.”

Jon/Sansa Fake!Married Trope: Also definitely book!verse. Following Danaerys’ reconquest, both remaining Starks attempt to leave Westeros without attention. They run into each other. Excerpt:

She was undeniably lovely, with creamy skin and blue eyes he hadn't seen the like of since he left Winterfell. She stared at Ghost in surprise, but not in fear. Indeed she seemed transfixed by the direwolf as she reached her hands out to him and Ghost nuzzled his head against her. Jon was amazed; he did not think she had noticed his own approach, she seemed so distracted.

“It can't be.” She murmured to the direwolf, “But there is no mistaking you. How did you get so far?”

Jon was unsure of how to alert her to his presence without startling her, yet it seemed rude just to stand here.

“They are all gone now, aren't they? Lady, and Nymeria, and Summer, and Greywind, and even Shaggydog. Is he gone too Ghost, is that why you've found me?”

The woman sounded close to tears, and stranger yet she'd known. She had known not only Ghost but all the rest of the direwolf pups. Realization dawned on Jon and he recognized Sansa, although his half sister had grown from a pretty child to a beautiful woman since he'd last seen her. He wanted to say something, but the words caught in his mouth as he watched her fling her arms around the direwolf with a sob.

Crossovers

Restoration: Dresden Files/Revolution NBC, coauthored with @jaqofspades. Miles Matheson doesn’t remember he’s a wizard, not that it matters with all the magic gone after the blackout. Dark twisty multishipping with every kind of delicious wrong. We need to get back on writing this eventually.

Tagging: @talsi74656, @jaqofspades, @joyful-voyager, @sophia-helix, and @starfleet-vs-maquis if you guys want.

ETA: Oh I forgot one my favorite current projects!

That Massive 24th Century Trek Series Crossover AU: Which is a follow up to The Smallest Twine, in which certain details of the Cardassian Treaty get leaked before it is signed and the Federation is very nearly plunged into civil war. It continues to explore the J/C relationship from the first story in the AU but also features a lot of our favorites from TNG and DS9 as well as more of the VOY characters.

#writing #long post

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carter-sg-1 · 7 years

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Curiosity killed the tribble

Why do these things always happen to me? Short JC piece.

Rated: Fiction K+ , Humor -

Chakotay, K. Janeway

Words: 1,199

It’s been posted before, originally in 2007 :)

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager was not a happy camper."How do we get into these situations?"

"And how come I am the only one here freezing!?"

She levelled another death glare at her first officer. The effect was somewhat spoilt by the wild chattering of her teeth. Having spent better part of an hour in the freezing cave Commander Chakotay was by now immune to the glare. The teeth chatter, of course, was entirely different matter. He sighed. Loudly. This only earned him another glare which he ignored. His lack of reaction only made her angrier.

Suddenly, a blood curling scream spread through the cave.

Chakotay had been expecting it. Rationally, he knew she had to get it out of her system; still, when it came his heart skipped a couple of beats. Had it been anyone else, cardiac arrest would have been unavoidable. Finally exhausted Janeway sank down on the floor. She didn't quite manage to suppress the shiver that accompanied the movement.

"There are times I really hate you Chakotay!"

He choose not to comment. The cold was not getting to Chakotay, for one simple reason, he had arrived prepared for the weather. The same, unfortunately, was not true for Janeway. The thin jacket she wore over her uniform offered little protection from the freezing air.

Chakotay allowed himself a moment to thank the spirits for keeping him safe from her wrath before unzipping his jacket and the thermo insulating micro fleece shirt. He handed it over wordlessly. Janeway did her best to ignore him and the peace offering.

A minute or so of chatter later her self preservation instincts kicked in and she snatched the proffered article of clothing from his unresisting hand.

Damn the cold. It was getting to her.

Chakotay sealed his jacket and studiously ignored her attempts to zip up the shirt with her frost numbed fingers. Offering any form of assistance at this point would have been suicidal.

5 minutes later and no closer to zipping up Janeway finally gave up and just wrapped the several sizes too big shirt around her slim torso. The chatter diminished somewhat. She untangled her hands from the shirt and started blowing warm air to warm her frost numbed fingers only to have a pair of mittens land squarely in her lap. Kathryn tuned her head to look at Chakotay but he was still studiously ignoring her and staring at the wall of ice in front of them. His hands were conspicuously hidden in his jacket pockets.

"Chakotay", Janeway started conversationally while pulling on the warm mittens.

"Hmm?"

She remained quiet until he finally turned to look at her, question in his eyes.

“Why are we still here?" Her voice had lost some of its edge with the heat permeating her body.

Chakotay considered his answer carefully.

"Because the transporters are offline." he said finally.

"Yes, but why? Everything was ok when I left the ship this morning?"

Evasion was the best course of action at present.

"That is true."

Janeway sighed when she realised nothing else was forthcoming. He was being evasive. That could only mean bad news. She gritted her teeth and ploughed on.

"Chakotay, exactly why is it that the transporters are offline?"

Her question was met by a wall of silence.

"COMMANDER!"

Nothing. It seemed he had developed resistance to her "obey or die" tone of voice somewhere along with the body heat.

She had to stay calm. Frustration was not the answer.

Calm.

That was the key. Don't bite his head off until you have all the facts.

Calm. Janeway forced herself to calm down. She decided a change of tactics was in order.

/Ahh Chooooooooo/

That got his attention. His head snapped, worry evident in his eyes.

"Kathryn?"

Two could play the game. She ignored him. Just when he thought no further comment was forthcoming her teeth started chattering again. Chakotay scrambled to his knees and moved to face her. He took hold of her hands, rubbing some heat into them. The chattering continued unabated. He was beginning to worry.

"Kathryn? Are you still cold?"

Nothing.

He started to take off his jacket when she put hand on his chest to stop him. He looked up into her eyes.

Big mistake.

She had adopted the kicked puppy look, even adding a slight tremble to her lip to enhance the effect. Basically, that meant he was screwed.

Janeway had to restrain herself from braking into a huge grin. It wouldn't do. Not at the moment. She had to find out what was going on with her ship and knew he would now tell her whatever she wanted to know.

"Chakotay, why are the transporters off line." She repeated quietly.

Sighing once more he surrendered to the inevitable and settled down next to her.

"Because the ship is running on auxiliary power."

Her eyes grew as wide as saucers.

"It's not as bad as it sounds." he hurried to explain. "B'elanna was running a level one diagnostic on primary systems when we ran into a bit of trouble."

"A bit of trouble?! What do you mean ..." Chakotay raised his hand to interrupt.

"Bethard rigged the aft turbo-lift to get stuck once he and Megan got in. It seems they've hit a bit of a rough patch and he thought this was the best way to straighten things out. Unfortunately he didn't count on B'elanna running a diagnostic and in turn overlooked the possibility of a cascade failure of ..."

"The Primary systems. Oh Gawd, again!" she clutched her head in her hands.

"Why do these things always have to happen on my ship.... when I'm away? Am I such a bad captain Chakotay?"

Chakotay made crooning noises and enveloped her in his arms.

"Don't I deserve one single away mission where nothing goes wrong with my ship?"

Kathryn rested her head against his shoulder sniffing. "Other Starfleet captains don't have to deal with this sort of lunacy."

"I know, I know, but look on the bright side - at least we have auxiliary power this time."

Janeway managed to turn in his arms just enough to level him with another glare. She then used her gloved hand to point his face towards the cave mouth, which offered a spectacular vista of a burning wreckage amidst a raging snow storm.

Chakotay cringed "OK, so I should have added another crushed shuttle to the tally."

Kathryn burrowed further in his lap "Bright side indeed!" she huffed.

Chakotay grinned - she was safe and warm in his arms - and off the captain's hook for a few hours. Things were starting to look up.

If only he had not crashed the shuttle - again - B'elanna would never let him live it down.

Oh well.

#JetC #janeway x chakotay #commander Chakotay to the rescue

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cnrothtrek · 7 years

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On the Q

It was a revelation to me when I first rewatched Star Trek on Netflix a couple of years ago, that John DeLancie’s Q is considered malevolent or villainous. Given that I was born during the summer between seasons one and two of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), and that the series I remember most clearly from childhood is Voyager (VOY), one can understand my confusion.

In the pilot episode, the Q are introduced as a species of extremely powerful beings who can manipulate space and time to their will. They place themselves as judges over so-called “lesser” species, issuing subjective rulings about whether or not these other species are worthy of expanding, growing, or even existing. Sins committed by members or factions can be held against the whole species, being used as evidence of their immorality. Of course, Captain Picard convinces Q to allow him and his crew to prove themselves as having transcended the sins of their past, and is (more or less) successful.

By the end of TNG, the character of Q has evolved. Because audiences responded more to his snide humor and chaotic-neutral alignment than to the possible metaphors to be found within his character, that heavily influenced what he became—an amusing pest who pops in every so often to teach someone on the Enterprise a lesson about life or exploration or themselves. Yet, as he revealed to Picard in the series finale, he never really stopped being what he always was. The trial was not over, and the fate of humanity had yet to be decided.

Then, came his arc through VOY. As with anything related to VOY, this has been the most heavily criticized portion of his development. His first appearance, in the episode Death Wish, followed quite well with where his character left off at the end of TNG, and remains one of my favorite episodes of any Trek series. After that… well… he goes a bit off the rails.

Now, let’s just step aside for a moment to acknowledge the elephant in the room. A large number of the *cough* cisgendered-heterosexual-male *cough* Trekkers/Trekkies who hate VOY, hate it because both the primary protagonist (Captain Kathryn Janeway) and the primary antagonist (the Borg Queen) are strong, authoritative women. WAIT! Don’t tune me out yet; stay with me.

Yes, I know there are many legitimate criticisms of the series—its writing, its quality, the lizard babies, blah blah blah. Yes, I know. I fully acknowledge those things. I don’t deny them. And no, I am not turning this into a rant about how Janeway-haters are all misogynists. That’s another topic entirely. Simply, I do not want this to become a VOY-bashing session. I adore that show, and if you insult Captain Janeway, I will have to toss you out of an airlock.

That being said, I personally do not like where the writers took Q in the later seasons of VOY. It simply does not fit his character for me, and I think it cheapens what he represented throughout his run on TNG. It sold him out for easy laughs and entertainment instead of building into what I think could have been an incredibly potent allegory for power and privilege—one that was wonderfully fleshed out in Death Wish and then surreptitiously dropped in favor of a much more shallow and subtly sexist plot meant to garner lolz at the expense of strength and complexity in Janeway’s and Chakotay’s characters.

Power and privilege, I think, is where I really hone in on the essence of Q, for better or for worse. In some ways, he knows exactly what he has over everyone else; in other ways, he is blind to it. That is the nature of being a privileged person, is it not? For example, men can be fully aware that there is a social power imbalance that favors them and disadvantages women, yet completely blind to the fact that their reasons for disliking Janeway are characteristics they overlook and even praise in the male captains. That is the nature of privilege. Q knows that he is more capable than humans are, yet he never seems to grasp that his own privilege is exactly what skews his understanding of humanity in unfair and stereotypical ways. It also blinds him to the things they have in common.

But, here is where I want to get meta on my meta: Q is a character representing privilege, who is created and written by people of privilege. He is Bill Gates lecturing about income inequality. He is Iggy Azalea giving an interview on the value of rap. He is a mansplainer, telling women what sexism looks like. Sometimes, he does actually get the idea across. Sometimes, the allegory is good and poignant. Other times, it’s problematic. Always, it ignores the perspective of those for whom the issue is most real.

This character misappropriates the issue of power and privilege. It skews the allegory in favor of the privileged viewer, to the detriment of the oppressed. The fact that he uses epithets against Worf and Chakotay go unnoticed. Remember that time he turned Dr. Crusher into a dog in the middle of her absolutely spot-on criticism of his actions towards Amanda, rolling his eyes at the “shrill” woman? Or the time he tried to coerce Captain Janeway to have sex with him in exchange for getting her crew home? Did you laugh at those interactions and then promptly forget about the implications when the “real” moral of the story came to light? Those things soil otherwise good episodes for me, not because they exist but because they are written simply to make privileged viewers go, “lol, Q’s an asshole.” It isn’t so funny to those of us who actually live with that sort of treatment on a regular basis. If anything, it twists the knife. Meanwhile, white men can pat themselves on the back for watching such an enlightened, progressive tv show.

Still, there are positives to be pulled from this mess. I cannot help but think about the story of two Q who chose to leave the Continuum and move to Earth, and I consider the parallels to be found in how horribly allies are often treated by people of privilege who view them as traitors. I think about how it boggles Q’s mind that Riker did not want to give up his human life in order to be a Q. I think of how petty I can be when I know that I have a larger base of knowledge on something than someone else does, and how quickly I can dismiss their perspective as being beneath me. I think of how utterly unjust and narrow-minded it is for “developed” societies to judge “underdeveloped” cultures when the truth is that they have no such moral right. I think of how, sometimes, having everything handed to you can suffocate that which makes life worth living until you don’t know why you even bother anymore.

I think of these things and I wonder if Q, like the Borg, is simply another antagonist blatantly abusing power and privilege in order to teach people with real world power about themselves.

#star trek #tng #st voy #q continuum #star trek meta

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delwin47 · 7 years

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Fanfic (ST:Voy), Blind Draw

In honor of the anniversary of its original air date, I thought I’d re-post a couple of my old “Caretaker” fics over here today. Anyone else have early Voyager fics and want to join the fun?

Summary: Janeway and Paris. Beginning at the beginning and filling in some blanks during "Caretaker".

Originally posted on FFN and AO3

Blind Draw

It is the sheer contrast of expression that demands her attention, despite her better intentions.

The cynicism, the guardedness, the affected arrogance have fallen away leaving... leaving the look of a man who was dying of thirst and has been offered a drink.

Kathryn knows better than to be drawn in. She has her ship waiting for her, with a crew that will no doubt have its share of lost sheep needing attention and care, and a trusted officer who is already in danger and in need of her aid. The man sitting at that table, staring out one of the viewports of McKinley Station that faces not Earth, but open space and endless stars, is an after-thought, his presence an (unasked for) favor to a long-time friend and mentor. She has neither the time nor the inclination to hand-hold him.

Nonetheless, she finds herself approaching his table, curious as to when he will notice her presence, or anything other than those stars in front of him. When he does, the effect is instantaneous – his features falling into practiced lines of politeness. He moves to rise from his chair and she waves him back to sitting with the hand unencumbered by her habitual cup of coffee.

"Captain," he nods his greeting.

"Mr. Paris," Kathryn returns. "Enjoying the stars?"

And whether he doesn't choose to or is unable to mask it in time, there is a flash of emotion in his eyes and a catch in his otherwise casual and off-hand, "I never got used to seeing them from the Southern Hemisphere. And even a right-side up Orion and the Big Dipper can't compare to this," and he gestures generously at the view before them.

She can't help noting the difference in his manner from their encounter planetside. Guarded he might still be, but the particular peevishness? adolescent-pique? that he displayed in New Zealand has been replaced by an almost urbane politeness. And sitting there in his command red Starfleet uniform, she has little doubt that most would assume him to be an officer – until they came close enough to notice that pip-less collar.

Kathryn begins to wonder how many other personas this man can pull on at will.

She is still standing, despite the fact that his last gesture was also an invitation and there is an empty chair in front of her. He waits patiently, undisturbed by her silence and hesitance, acknowledging her age-old right as a superior officer (as an officer – apparently it's not just those at a distance who might be prone to seeing non-existent pips where Tom Paris is concerned) to choose whether or not to join him at the table.

At one of the docking ports in view, a starship begins to power up, pulling her attention away from Paris. The coffee in her hands is beginning to cool, its presence a reminder of the tasks she still has to accomplish in the next few hours. "I'll be leaving for DS9 in the morning; has the rehabilitation board arranged transportation for you once your final paperwork comes through?"

A shadow of a smile crosses his lips and his nod is not only an acknowledgment of her question but also of her decision to keep her distance. And – Kathryn is fairly sure – an expression of approval for that decision. He answers, "I'll be heading out a day behind you; Voyager won't have to wait long for her 'observer'." And then he does stand, knowing that she will take her leave.

She gives a perfunctory smile and a nod of her own. "I'll see you on Voyager then, Mr. Paris. Safe travels," and she turns to leave, the mention of her ship pulling a myriad of pre-mission details to the front of her mind.

"Captain?" Paris calls after her, interrupting her thoughts. She turns back. "Thank you," he says simply and then turns back to his stars, releasing her from any burden of response.

"Mr. Paris, take the conn."

The words require a moment – and a double-take in the Captain's direction – to process, and it is still more ingrained habit than conscious decision when he responds, "Yes, ma'am," and moves to relieve Rollins at Voyager's helm. Rollins, in turn, heads up to take over for Tuvok, but Tom's focus is on the controls that his fingers have found of their own accord and on the feel of the ship – alive and responsive – beneath them.

"Maintain transporter locks, Ensign. Emergency beam-out status." Behind him, he hears Janeway's final order to Kim and then the swish of the turbolift doors, almost immediately followed by another blast from the Kazon vessel.

He half turns towards Rollins at tactical, awaiting any order, but the man is focused on his station, apparently unaware that the bridge has once again been left in his hands. Turning the other way, Tom sees Harry at ops, who evidently has made the same observation and looks slightly panicked in response.

Taking a single deep breath, Tom turns back to the helm, entering a series of commands. "Initiating evasive sequence alpha-beta-alpha," he announces to the bridge at large. "Rollins, you should have a clear shot as we come across their starboard bow. Harry," and he can hear in his own voice a confidence that he learned to mimic long before he ever reached Starfleet Academy, "how is that transporter lock?"

The relief in his friend's voice is unmistakeable. "Holding for now. They've arrived on the array."

Tom nods, his hands now steadily dancing across his panel. "Good. Keep an eye on them and let me know if anything changes," and he rolls Voyager away from the Kazon's renewed fire.

"You asked to see me, Captain?"

She had, though she almost regrets it as she surveys his expression, which has tightened considerably from when he and Ensign Kim checked in a few hours earlier. Given that and the less than warm welcome that he received from Cavit on the bridge, Kathryn suspects that Tom Paris's sojourn aboard Voyager is not off to the best of starts.

She nods though and indicates the chair on the other side of her desk. As Paris moves to sit, she asks neutrally, "You were able to find your quarters?"

He gives that small smile of acknowledgment. "I was. By the way, your replicators could use some work. I had a heck of a time getting mine to produce a bowl of tomato soup."

She lifts an eyebrow at that, but, having already had her own arguments with the device about the meaning of "coffee: black", lets it pass. She moves to the business on which she has called him to her ready room. "I know you've already given what information you have on the Badlands to my conn officer, but I wanted to have the chance to speak with you about the region myself." Which is partially true, but more, as Voyager approaches danger, she has found herself wanting to get a better read on this unknown variable who has temporarily taken up residence with her crew.

And what is it about the slight twist to that smile that tells her that Paris knows that as well? "What would you like to know, Captain?" he offers, evenly enough.

She picks up a PADD sitting before her. "I've read what little official information Starfleet has on the region, which is less than helpful; and my security officer who is embedded on Chakotay's ship has sent back snippets of information, though his reports are focused on the movements of the Maquis themselves." She glances up at Paris here, but, if he has any reaction to the mention of his erstwhile shipmates, it escapes her notice. "What I'm looking for is firsthand knowledge before I take my ship in." She quirks an eyebrow at him. "You flew through those storms, Mr. Paris: what was it like?"

He gives her an assessing look, as if considering where to begin. "Have you had experience with plasma storms generally, Captain?" he asks.

"Not really," Kathryn answers; few Starfleet officers have. General directives are clear about giving such phenomena a wide berth. Then, she admits, "I've always been curious about them, from a scientific perspective."

A spark of appreciation glints in Paris's eyes. "Your average plasma storm defies prediction, far more than something like an ion storm. While ion storms will typically travel along a straight path, plasma storms can shift direction at any time." He glances over at the viewport of the ready room. "In the Badlands, you have not one, but dozens of active plasma storms in close proximity. Not only are they individually unpredictable, but they can merge and increase force exponentially without warning."

She nods. Some of this has been in Tuvok's reports. "So how do you navigate the unpredictable?"

Likely unconsciously, he gives the barest hint of a shrug. "You avoid them where you can, and ride the waves at the edges where you can't – or when you need to get close." Kathryn gives another nod: Tuvok has also described how the Maquis have been able to use the plasma storms as a weapon against Cardassian pursuers. Paris continues, now somewhat hesitant, "Frankly, Captain, when it comes down to it, a lot of it is just..."

"...instinct?" she finishes.

The corner of his mouth twists again. "Not exactly the explanation a former science officer wants to hear, I'm sure – not to mention a Starfleet captain."

Kathryn chuckles and wags a finger at him. "You might be surprised, Mr. Paris, how much instinct and intuition factor into the work of a science officer – as well as into the decisions of certain Starfleet captains."

And the twist turns into what Kathryn could swear is an honest grin. "You know, I just might at that, Captain."

At which point she makes her own gut decision about the easiest way to get a better grasp on both the Badlands and Tom Paris before Voyager crosses into the storms. It's an idea that Cavit will no doubt be less than happy with, but, then again, every new first officer needs a bit of breaking in.

"When we arrive, Mr. Paris, I'd like to take a shuttle into the Badlands before Voyager enters. Would you be willing to pilot?"

For just a moment, she sees the excitement she's expecting. Paris sits suddenly forward and his fingers visibly twitch. Then, however, altogether unexpectedly, a frown creases his features and he shakes his head. "Captain, I can't recommend that. Voyager may be able to handle the plasma storms, but there is no way that a Starfleet shuttle could without significant modifications. I wouldn't be able to ensure your safety."

As willing as she was a moment before to throw her first officer's expected objections out the airlock, Kathryn finds herself listening to Paris's measured assessment and nodding.

Damn, he would have made – must have made – a fine officer. And she begins to understand both the sheer pride that once sparked in his father's eyes when he talked about 'his Tom' and, for the last two years, the depths of his pain and disappointment.

"All right, then, we'll skip the scouting mission." She lets just a touch of honest regret color her tone as she continues, "Though I would have liked a chance to really study those storms, if only for a short time." And seen Paris handle a shuttle under those conditions. This quiet confidence makes her reconsider whether his whine in Auckland about being "the best pilot you could have" might, in fact, have been the truth and not just the empty boast she had assumed. His hands are now clenched together in his lap, and she wonders how much denying himself the chance to sit at a helm once again has cost him. "We'll be approaching the Badlands in a little under four hours. I'll call you to the bridge when we arrive."

"Yes, ma'am," he acknowledges and then rises and turns to leave. After the door closes behind him, she finds herself staring at it distractedly before pulling her attention back to final reports sent by her security officer before his disappearance.

And just when everything was going so well...

"Rollins, are our weapons penetrating that ship's shielding at all?" Tom shouts in exasperation as he banks Voyager hard starboard. The viewscreen shows the lumbering mass of the Kazon's idea of reinforcements – a vessel that could visually define 'mother ship'.

"I'm not reading any appreciable damage to their hull or major systems."

Tom swallows a profanity and calls back to Harry: "Any word from the Captain?"

"She says they need more time." Kim's tone is borderline apologetic, and Tom allows himself a brief moment of self-congratulation as another curse goes unuttered.

Catching the edge of a weapon's blast, Voyager shudders, and Tom ducks her under the belly of the larger ship. The Captain needs more time and he damn well would like to buy her some but, right now, he's running out of options.

Chakotay's voice, coming over the open comm line between the ships, breaks into his thoughts. :Paris, my crew's coming over. Tell one of your crackerjack Starfleet transporter chiefs to keep a lock on me. I'm going to try and take some heat off your tail:

Caught between profound relief at Chakotay's offered aid and amusement at his assumption that Tom has any status on this ship, the pilot shoots back a sardonic reply to the Maquis captain before glancing towards Rollins. "Make sure you keep that lock, okay?"

"I'm holding the lock on him, sir, but he's getting too close."

'Sir'? Tom has a flash of empathy for the emperor in that old children's tale who must have known on some level that he was naked despite the insistence of all around him that he was fully clothed.

But he can see the Val Jean ahead of them, its tail now aflame, and he turns his attention back to the comm line. "I'm getting you out of there, Chakotay."

She literally runs into him as she turns in the corridor toward the mess hall. It's deep into the ship's night and she had little expectation of encountering anyone; those crewmen who are awake are on duty making slow repairs as Voyager limps from the array to the neighboring system and the planet towards which the energy pulses appear to be directed. A frazzled and clearly pacing Tom Paris takes Kathryn by surprise.

A frazzled Tom Paris? Kathryn had been under the impression that the man was unflappable.

"Captain!" he stutters in apology, backing away and rubbing at the nape of his neck. "I wasn't expecting..."

She waves off the apology. "Quite all right. There aren't many people wandering the corridors at this time of night."

Her intonation turns the statement into a question and Paris answers somewhat sheepishly, "Well, I had some energy to burn." And although he avoids her eyes, Kathryn has little difficulty reading the worry in the lines of his face and she remembers his earlier statement on the bridge: "I'd hate to see anything happen to Harry."

She reaches out to touch his arm. "We'll get him back, Mr. Paris," she reassures, with all the confidence which she so recently admitted to Tuvok that she does not feel. Then, on impulse, she gestures toward the mess hall doors. "I was just about to find some late night coffee. Care to join me?"

Paris's surprise is evident and she is struck again by how easily she can now read him. Perhaps he's always this transparent if one catches him during the graveyard shift, but Kathryn suspects it's anxiety for a friend that has caused the shift: it may well have been more than just the stars for which the grounded Tom Paris was starved.

He nods his assent. "Of course, Captain."

Entering the mess hall, she heads for the replicator, explaining breezily as she does so, "The replicator in my quarters and I have been having some disagreements. I thought I might have better luck here. Coffee?" Paris politely declines and she rolls her own dice with Starfleet's most stubborn piece of technology before joining him at the table.

His posture is much the same as it had been that evening at McKinley Station and she can't stop herself from reflecting that it is a very different starscape into which he is staring. "As disorientating as the stars of the Southern Hemisphere?" she asks, indicating the view as she takes a seat.

Paris chuckles in response. "I'll admit that I never expected to be getting to know the constellations of the Delta Quadrant."

"Not exactly the trip you signed up for."

Kathryn means for her tone to be light, but she knows there is some underlying guilt there. Paris hears it, she is sure, and cocks his head towards her. "I think you'll find that I'll be the last to complain about that, Captain."

She sips at her coffee – mercifully unadulterated this time though the temperature still needs some work – and considers asking him how he's faring with the crew. But that would be to admit that it matters, that this little detour of theirs might well last more than a few days, and that is a concession that Kathryn Janeway is not yet ready to make.

Instead she throws over the easier, "So I take it you don't have many friends on Chakotay's ship," curious how he will respond.

Paris snorts. "Not likely. I didn't do much to endear myself to my fellow freedom-fighters while I was among them." As she watches, his jaw tightens. "There are one or two that might have still tolerated me, but seeing me in a Starfleet uniform will no doubt cure them of that." Paris looks back over at her then, his expression once again etched with cynicism. "I seem to have perfected the art of burning bridges, Captain."

Kathryn meets that gaze evenly, brows raised. "And yet you seem to have found a friend in Mr. Kim."

And, as she can now predict, his jaded look falls away to be replaced by that obvious worry. "Harry seems to be the exception to the rule there." He holds her eyes for a moment. "He's one of the good ones, Captain."

Again, she musters confidence and reassurance into her tone. "We'll get him back, Mr. Paris," she repeats. "I don't give up on my people."

Tom doesn't bother to hide his relief when the Captain strides back onto the bridge. Particularly with Torres and Chakotay already hovering somewhere just behind his left shoulder, he is more than happy to have this particular situation back under someone else's command.

As a result, his "Yes, ma'am" in response to Janeway's order to move Voyager into position to destroy the array is reflexive, and only after entering the commands – and hearing Torres's virulent objection – does he process what they are about to do.

Destroy the array. Destroy their means to return the Alpha Quadrant. Destroy their one path home.

Except Tom Paris hasn't had a home in years, and the Alpha Quadrant means only a return to a penal colony in New Zealand.

And right now, either by some odd stroke of fate or by some whim of Kathryn Janeway, he is sitting behind the helm of a starship.

Which is why, as the Captain gives the order to fire, Tom is fairly sure his reaction is dynamically different than that of the rest of those occupying Voyager's bridge. In fact, as he watches the impressive destructive effect of the tricobalt devices upon the array, the flippant thought passes through his mind that perhaps he yet has something to learn from this captain about how to burn bridges with a vengeance.

After the array disintegrates and the Kazon move off with their less than veiled threat, the Captain moves up behind him and rests a hand on the back of his chair. "Mr. Paris, consult with Mr. Kim on what's ahead and plot a course for us away from here. I'd like to put some distance between Voyager and this system."

And there again is that confidence, that trust, as if she were speaking to any member of her crew. Wondering if she fully understands the gift she has just handed to him, Tom responds, "Aye, Captain," and prepares to take Voyager into the vast, unknown space before them.

#fanfic #star trek voyager #delwin47 fanfic #voyager anniversary fic

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summahsunlight · 5 years

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This Way Became Our Journey, CH. 2

Word Count: 4569

Pairings:Janeway/Chakotay, Tom/OFC

Characters: Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay, Tom Paris, Sarah Barrett (OC), Harry Kim, B’Elanna Torres, Tuvok, Kes, Neelix, the Doctor

Against her better judgement, Kathryn Janeway has taken her children with her on the trip to the Badlands to track Chakotay and the Maquis rebels. But when the ship is thrown into the Delta Quadrant, Janeway is forced to join with the Maquis in order to survive the treacherous, unknown part of the galaxy.

Kathryn watched anxiously as the doctor looked over his patient. His expression had not changed since she had walked in here and she was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to speak to her.

Julian Bashir straightened his form and moved about the biobed, reaching for a hypospray.

"Well?" Kathryn asked, impatiently. "Is it an ear infection?"

Bashir looked up at her and smiled warmly. "Nope, it's not an ear infection." Well that was a relief, she thought. Perhaps now the children could return with her mother back to Earth and she could forget that this had all happened and how many strings she had to pull to get the approval to bring them on the mission to the Badlands. "It's a double ear infection."

It took her a moment to take in his words. "A what?" she asked, blinking wildly.

"A double ear infection, it means she has it in both her ears," Bashir said, taking her hesitation as meaning she didn't understand what it was. He pressed the hypospray to little Ava Janeway's neck. The child was lying on her back, watching the Doctor intently, but not with nervous eyes, with curiosity. She was clutching tightly to a pink blanket that had been a gift from her father's sister for her first birthday. Kathryn hadn't been able to pry the blanket out of the baby's hands since she they had arrived in San Francisco and she had taken it everywhere since they began on this trek to the deep space station.

"It's quite common in young human children. They eventually grow out of it," Bashir was telling Kathryn, placing the hypospray on a nearby tray.

Kathryn looked dismayed. "Grow out of it?"

"Children who get ear infections usually are prone to getting them," he replied.

"Wonderful," Kathryn muttered.

Bashir patted the child on the shoulder and told her mother, "I've given her a pain reliever as well as medication for the infection. She's going to need two more treatments in the next couple of days. Your medical staff should have it on board your ship. She might be a bit fussy until it completely clears up."

Fussy wasn't the word that Kathryn was thinking of. Ornery, inconsolable, those were the words that Kathryn was thinking of. Ava had screamed pretty much the entire time she was awake on the trip to Deep Space Nine. The CMO on their transport had said she was teething and had told Kathryn to let the child suck on a piece of ice. When that yielded no results, Kathryn had turned to the CMO on Deep Space Nine. Needless to say the man had nothing to say that she wanted to hear. "She's okay for space travel though?"

"Oh yes," he nodded his head. "She should be just fine. Of course, if it is her first time being out in space for long periods of time there are other issues that you might run into. It could take her time to get her…sea legs."

Kathryn rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. I should just leave them with my mother. But she couldn't do that, and she knew that she was using the ear infection as an excuse to get the children on board with her. Her mother had told her as much on their journey to Deep Space Nine. Kathryn just wasn't ready to be separated from them for so long. "I don't suppose you know of any good baby-sitters who'd like to travel to the Badlands?"

Bashir looked confused. "Pardon?"

She waved a hand about, dismissing him. "Never mind, I'll make do. Somehow I always do, Doctor," Kathryn replied, picking Ava up off the biobed. As she turned to go she thanked him for his time and made her way through the crowds to where her mother had promised to meet her with Michael. Gretchen had insisted on going with them as far as Deep Space Nine and since she was the wife of an Admiral, Starfleet didn't mind offering her transport. Even though Kathryn never told her mother, she was glad that the woman had come this far with them, but now it was time to part ways.

Her mother had been supportive of her the past year and a half, trying her best to weather the storm with her daughter, but the time had come for Kathryn to start moving forward on her own. There had always been someone there to support her since Bryan's death. Gabriel, her sister Phoebe, or her mother, but if she was going to get her career moving again, she needed to get her personal life moving again, without the help of loved ones.

She was aware of people's opinions of raising children on starships and she was certain that she was going to meet aversion to the idea from her own crew, but they didn't understand the intense desire to keep them close, to not let them go.

Gretchen and Michael were waiting near by Voyager's docking port. The boy was playing with some toy starships that Gabriel had given him and seemed oblivious to all the people coming and going on the station. He was in his own little world, much like Kathryn had been at a younger age.

"So," Gretchen said, stepping forward. "What did the Doctor say?"

"She has a double ear infection," Kathryn reported. "But I'm told that my sickbay has the proper medicine for her."

"Are you sure you want to do this Katie?" Gretchen asked. "What are you going to do without childcare on that ship of yours?" Kathryn did have a baby-sitter, Emily Lenox, who watched the children from time to time when the Captain was in meetings at Starfleet Command, however the girl wasn't a long term solution. Gretchen had been the children's long term care since they were born. She had spent the entire trip out to Deep Space Nine trying to get her daughter to remember that. She sighed, "Really, I don't mind taking the children back to Indiana with me. I'm perfectly capable of giving Ava her medicine; I am after all the mother of two children."

Kathryn chewed on her lower lip for a moment. Then, "We'll be alright, Mom," she said.

Gretchen Janeway eyed her oldest daughter for a second. She knew this was hard on her daughter, her first deep space assignment since Bryan's death and Ava's birth. However, it wasn't healthy to cling to the children so tightly, maybe it wouldn't affect them now, but it would affect them in the near future, as they got older. But what would it hurt to let them go on this one mission with their mother, even if their grandmother highly disproved of children on starships. Sighing, she reached out and touched Kathryn's face for a moment. "You're just like your father you know that? Stubborn."

"I know," Kathryn answered, then with a deep breath she looked at five year old Michael. "Ready?"

The little boy's response was to eagerly pick up his small, starship covered travel bag. "Ready!" He hugged his grandmother good-bye and then slipped his free hand into his mother's.

Gretchen took in a deep breath to steal her self for the good-bye and gently hugged her daughter. "Just take care of your self Katie, and those babies."

Pulling away from her mother, Kathryn gave her a small nod, and together she stepped up to the docking port. As the doors slid open, she glanced back once at Gretchen, who gave them all a tiny wave and grin. "See you in a few weeks," Kathryn told her mother.

Gretchen nodded her head, and repeated, "See you in a few weeks."

Tom Paris watched as the attractive Betazoid pilot maneuvered her fingers over the computer console. He longed to take control of the tiny shuttle, even if it was just a short range shuttle. Up ahead he could see the claw like structure of Deep Space Nine. Standing up, he tugged on the uniform that Starfleet insisted he wear on this god forsaken mission and approached the pilot.

"Stadi," he said, coming up behind her. "You're changing my mind about Betazoids." He had always found their species, intriguing, to say the least, but this woman was nothing like the Betazoids he had known previously.

She didn't take her eyes off her work. "Good."

"Oh that wasn't a compliment," he said. "Until today, I always thought your people as warm and sensual."

"I can be warm and sensual," she replied, there was a slight smirk on her face.

"Just not to me?" He asked.

"Do you always fly at women at warp speed Mister Paris?" Stadi questioned, cocking an eyebrow.

"Only when they're in visual range," Tom flirted. It was a one way street though, she wasn't buying it. She seemed more interested in her work than in him.

As they came closer to the space station, Tom could see a ship docked there. "That's our ship," Stadi said, proudly. "That's Voyager." She steered the shuttle towards the vessel, going slowly around the warp nacelles, and then flying it out over the hull so Tom could get a good look at it. "Intrepid Class, sustainable cruising speed of warp 9.975; fifteen decks, crew compliments of a 141; bio-neural circuitry."

"Bio-neural?" he questioned, he had never heard of such a thing before. But then again it had been a while since he had been in the 'know' about such things in Starfleet. His father never told him anything anymore, in fact the man barely communicated with him at all.

Tom stood, moving around her chair, and leaned against the console, trying to get a better look at Starfleet's newest design. It was impressive, small but powerful. Stadi was still talking about the circuitry, something about it being more efficient and using gel packs, but he wasn't listening. His eyes were transfixed on a ship that Captain Janeway was never going to let him fly.

This thought saddened him, because he knew he was the best pilot that she could possibly have on that ship. He could almost picture the ship weaving in and out of the plasma storms in the Badlands. He had seriously doubted Janeway when she said that her ship could maneuver through them. But now, seeing it, he figured that ship could fly through anything, especially at the speed it could reach. Incredible, he thought.

The shuttle was soon docked and Stadi informed him that he had about an hour or so before he had to report in. He tried to get her to accompany him for a drink on the station, but she refused, telling him that she had some work to do on the ship before they left.

"Your loss," he told her grabbing his travel duffel and slinging it over his shoulder. With the bag firmly in place, Tom made his way out of the shuttle and onto the station. It was good to be out and about again, even if his freedom did have certain strings attached to it. It was better than being at that penal colony in New Zealand doing mindless jobs for the Federation. And if all went well, Janeway would give him a good review and perhaps he could get out on good behavior. There was no where to go from here but up, he concluded. And out of the Federation forever, he thought recalling his conversation with his mother before he'd left Earth.

Tom looked about the busy station. He had an hour to explore and do what he wished pretty much. The only place he really wanted to check out was the bar owned by a Ferengi civilian, by the name of Quark. A fellow prisoner at the colony had talked about it.

It was something to do anyways before he had to report to Voyager.

Stepping inside the bar he took in the sights, ordered a drink, dropped the duffel bag and proceeded to watch as a young Asian man was about to become a victim of Ferengi 'sales.' After several seconds of watching the young man fumble over his words, and the bar tender start to rant and rave that he was going to report the young man to his commanding officer, Tom decided to play the Good Samaritan and intervene.

With his mug firmly placed in his hand, he stepped up to the bar. "Dazzling aren't they," he said, reaching into the tray of stones that the Ferengi was trying to sell. He picked one up in his fingers and looked at it more closely. "As bright as a Kolodan diamond."

Quark slapped the stone out of Tom's hand. "Brighter."

"Hard to believe that you can find them on any planet in the system."

"That's an exaggeration."

Tom finished his drink in one swallow, informing the young man, who had called himself Harry Kim, that he could find the gemstones on a nearby colony, selling for little money. "How much are you selling these for?" he inquired of the Ferengi bar owner.

"We were just about to negotiate the price," the Ferengi replied.

Harry closed the tray in front of him and got up to leave with Tom when he said he was going. "Thanks," he told the new acquaintance, as Tom picked his travel bag up off the floor.

Tom slung the bag over his shoulder and smiled. "Didn't they tell you about Ferengi at the Academy?"

The two shared a few more good hearted laughs on their way to Voyager's docking port. Tom was pleased to find that there was one person in Starfleet that didn't know about him or his past; but he was sure that it wouldn't take long for someone to tell this young ensign on his first mission what he had done.

Once on board the vessel, Tom was surprised to find that such a small vessel had such nice corridors, not as spacious as a Galaxy class, but it was roomy enough that people could pass without bumping shoulders. The two made their way to sickbay so Tom could check in to see if his medical records had arrived.

"Can I help you?" the Doctor asked as Harry and Tom stepped inside sickbay.

"Tom Paris reporting on board."

The Doctor turned his attention to the hypo spray in his hand. "Oh yes, the observer."

"That's me," Paris said, maybe a bit too defensively, but he didn't care. The CMO obviously didn't think highly of him.

The Doctor glared at him briefly before going to administrate the newly modified hypo spray to his patient. The nurse was standing at the head of the surgical biobed, looking over some data on a PADD. She was a Vulcan and seemed highly uninterested in what was going on expect the patient lying on the biobed.

"As a matter of fact I seem to be observing some kind of problem right now, Doctor," Paris snapped, seeing the look on the Doctor's face. He had expected some hostile feelings from the crew of Voyager, he was after all a convicted felon, however, it didn't negate the fact that it still irked him that he was being treated with such disrespect.

The Doctor only glanced at him once while giving his patient the medicine. "I was a surgeon at the hospital on Caldik Prime when you were stationed there. We never actually met." Here he dropped any mention of the past and continued on his work and PADD in his hand. "Your medical records have arrived from your last posting, Mister Paris. Everything seems to be in order. The Captain asked if you were on board, you should check in with her." He finished stepping right into Paris' face.

The two men glared at each other for a moment before Harry, silent until now, spoke up. "Uh, I haven't paid my respects to the Captain either." He didn't know what Tom had done in the past to garner such feelings of tension, but he was going to do what it took to deviate it a bit. Where was the ship's counselor when you really needed her? Harry thought, eyes searching the face of his new friend.

The Doctor turned his attention to the young man. "Well Mister Kim, that would be a good thing for a new operations officer to do," he replied, before disappearing into his office.

Paris and Kim exchanged glances before they left the sickbay. As they walked, Harry Kim asked his new friend a question, "What was that all about?"

"It's a long story Harry and I'm tired of telling it," Paris snapped. "Besides, I'm sure someone here will tell you before long." The two men stepped into a turbo lift. "Come on," Paris whispered. "The Captain's waiting for us."

With a tug on her uniform to make sure it was presentable, Sarah Barrett reached out and activated the door chime of Kathryn Janeway's ready room. Nervously she waited to be admitted; this was their first meeting face to face. Rumor had it that Janeway had been presenting at her sentencing hearing, but Sarah had been going through severe withdrawal from the drugs that she couldn't even recall parts of the whole trial.

When the door slid open she was half expecting to see the children running around wildly, however, it was quiet, and the Captain was seated on her sofa reading over a PADD. Sarah felt slightly embarrassed that she thought Janeway wouldn't have taken care of her children first before getting to work, after all Cavit had mentioned that she had been busy taking care of other things when Sarah had beamed on board.

"You requested to see me ma'am," Sarah said, stepping into the room.

Kathryn looked up from what she was doing to see her new counselor standing there. She had only seen the young woman once in person, when she had gone to offer Gabriel her support at the sentencing hearing. The Lieutenant had changed since that hearing almost a year ago. Where there had been a broken and defeated young officer sitting in a defendant's chair, now stood a young woman who had regained some of her confidence. "I did," she replied, placing the PADD on the coffee table. "Commander Cavit tells me that you're already testing the waters, young lady."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I had to know where he stood on Mister Paris and our mission," Sarah told her, flinching slightly.

"You're not in trouble," Kathryn told her, standing up. "In fact, I like officer's who…test the waters. It's one of the reasons I chose you, Sarah. You were unorthodox in your days on the Explorer. Commander Fletcher thought very highly of you."

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am," Sarah requested, her eyes locking with the Captain's.

"Permission granted," Kathryn said.

"I know your relation to Captain Dawson, ma'am," the young woman said. "I'm sure that you took me on because you felt sorry for me and perhaps had some coaxing by Captain Dawson himself, but I'm not some washed up officer. I can do this job for you ma'am."

Kathryn cocked an eyebrow. "Well, you do like testing the waters, don't you?" The Captain crossed her arms over her chest for a moment. "And to clear the air, Sarah, I didn't choose you because of Gabriel coaxing me, in fact, he thought I was taking a big risk on you, only out of rehab six months, but your service record indicates you're worth taking the risk. If you perform like you did on the Explorer then I'd say you can do this job for me."

She gestured for the young woman to sit down. Sarah reluctantly did so, her posture still stiff.

"Do you want to know one of the real reasons I chose you Sarah?" Kathryn questioned her. The young woman nodded her head. "I chose you because of your study of the Borg. You spent months psychologically analyzing them, even going as far as to 'abduct' a drone, serving it from the Collective to see what happened to it. There were many in Starfleet that thought this a cruel course of action to take, seeing how no one knew what would happen once a drone was removed from the hive deliberately. Your work is well known throughout the Federation, even if it was a little unorthodox."

"I wouldn't compare the Maquis to the Borg ma'am. They are both entirely different entities," Sarah replied. "I'm not sure if my skills or experience with studying the Borg are going to help you."

Kathryn sat down on the sofa with her. "Maybe, maybe not. The Borg are considered terrorists for what they do; some consider the Maquis terrorists. Your thesis at the Academy was about terrorist cells on Cardassia Prime. You know how groups like this operate, you know how to get inside their mind, and that's what I need right now."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Would you like me to abduct a Maquis ma'am? For further study?"

The humor was not lost on the Captain. "No, that won't be necessary," she replied with a faint smile. "What's necessary is that my crew understands how these people think. They're different from us, Sarah; they don't have regulations like we do. They're unpredictable. I'm going to need all the help I can get.

"That's why you asked Tom Paris to come on board, isn't it, Captain?" Sarah inquired.

Kathryn nodded her head. "What about Tom Paris? What are your thoughts on him?"

"He'll help you Captain, if he feels he can get something out of it," Sarah replied, coldly. "I've been reading over his file, he's got the skills to be a great Starfleet officer, he just lacks the attitude of what it takes to be a good officer."

"I tend to agree with you," Kathryn let out a heavy sigh and stood up, Sarah followed suit. "The last of the crew has reported in. We're just waiting for the approval from Ops for departure. I'd like you to study any profiles we have on Commander Chakotay's crew. I want to know what kind of people I'm bringing on board my ship."

"Captain, speaking of bringing people on ship, can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Why are your children here?"

Kathryn stared at her for a moment. Cavit had also informed her, when they had spoken about the young woman questioning where his duty lay, that she had also shown a displeasure in the children being brought on board. The Captain had been expecting this to come up. "I'm aware that you and other officers aren't happy with the situation, to be honest with you, neither am I at times. However, Lieutenant, my personal business is mine and mine alone. If I chose to bring my children on this trip, then I chose to bring my children on this trip, understood?"

Sarah nodded her head as the door chimed again.

"Come in," the Captain called out.

The door to the port entrance of the ready room swished open. Sarah watched as two young men strode into the room, knowing that it was Harry Kim and Tom Paris from the pictures in their personnel files. Tom stood a little ways behind Harry, his hands crossed in front of him. He looked as cocky and arrogant as his picture.

"Gentlemen," Kathryn greeted. "Welcome aboard Voyager." She gestured towards Sarah. "This is Lieutenant Barrett, ship's counselor. If you have any personal issues I suggest that you speak to her."

Harry looked exceedingly nervous, eying the Captain and Counselor. "Thank you sir," he finally addressed Kathryn.

"Mister Kim," the Captain addressed the young Asian man, "at ease before you sprain something." Tom repressed a chuckle as Harry tried to relax. "Ensign," Kathryn continued, stepping up to him, "despite Starfleet protocol I don't like being addressed as sir."

"I'm sorry…ma'am," Kim said, pausing briefly.

Kathryn nodded her head. "Ma'am is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer Captain." She looked at Paris, then Barrett, and then back to Kim. "We're getting ready to leave. Let me show you to the bridge." Stepping around the young men, Sarah following behind her, Kathryn led the group out onto the Bridge. "Did you have any problems getting here Mister Paris?"

With one little peek back at Kim, Paris replied, "Not at all, Captain."

Harry Kim looked around the bridge like an awestruck child for a moment until he saw that the Captain was trying to introduce them to someone.

"My first officer, Lieutenant Commander Cavit," Kathryn was saying, gesturing to the graying man standing to the right of the group. "Ensign Kim, Mister Paris," she finished, nodding to each man when she said their name.

Cavit reached out and took Kim's hand and shook it. "Welcome aboard," he said warmly to the young ensign. There was however, no warm welcome for Paris. Cavit eyed him with a hostile look and only took his hand when Paris offered it to him. He didn't bother to say anything to the man though, and averted his eyes during the whole hand sake.

This had been the reaction that Sarah Barrett had been expecting from the Commander, and he knew it as well, because the moment he broke the hand shake and stepped away from Paris, his eyes flickered to her stern looking face briefly. Crossing her arms over her chest she watched as the man went to make small talk with Stadi, the helmsmen. The Captain was showing Harry to his station and Paris was standing near her, observing the silent battle going on between First Officer and Counselor. Glancing at the latter, he realized she was a pretty little thing, with a fierce look in her sapphire eyes. Her dark brown hair, which was almost black in the light, was pulled back into a tight French twist, showing off her perfect facial structure. In another place or time, Tom may have seriously thought about asking her on a date.

The First Officer was looking over his shoulder at Janeway, and doing his best to avoid Barrett's glare. Tom found it highly amusing how two small women had made two different Starfleet officers nervous; first Janeway practically had Harry quaking in his boots, and now Barrett was making Cavit do everything in his power to avoid her piercing eyes.

With a small nod of her head, Janeway had told Cavit what to do. "Lieutenant Stadi, lay in our course and clear our departure with operations," Cavit said, descending the steps towards the Conn station. He was happy to see that Lieutenant Barrett went to take her own seat, crossing her ankles and placing the palms of her hands on the bench.

"Course entered. Ops has cleared us," Stadi reported.

"Ready thrusters," Cavit ordered Kim.

"Thrusters ready," Kim responded.

"Initiate launching sequence," Cavit commanded. Kathryn sat down in her command chair. She leaned back in her chair, feeling a familiar exhilaration that she always did while starting out on a mission. It had been a long time since she had felt this way, a real long time.

"Sequence under way," Stadi's voice answered.

"Engage," Kathryn ordered.

The ship pulled away from Deep Space Nine, gracefully floating away from the structure like a butterfly, and flew off into space, in route to find the missing Maquis ship and their missing crewman, Tuvok.

#star trek voyager #star trek voyager fanfiction #kathryn janeway #chakotay #tom paris #sarah barrett (oc)#harry kim #b'elanna torres #kes #neelix #the doctor (emh)#janeway x chakotay #tom paris x ofc

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