TITLE: Human Frailty
AUTHOR: Matt, October 2002
SUMMARY: One of Kathryn's worst nightmares is being realised and there's nothing she can do about it.
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: I will rightfully claim the story as mine, but the characters belong to themselves... ahem, oh, okay, the tptb!
NOTE: thanks to SaRa who not-beta'd so wonderfully at the crazy hour of 2am!
Darkness. Nothing but inky darkness. Not even a star or meteorite to distract the eye. The scene from each viewport was the same. Voyager was in a murky void.
Kathryn hated it, abhorred it with a passion. The one thing she could not stand was absolute darkness. Even in the depths of her depression, the last time Voyager had traversed such space, she had kept a light on in her quarters. At night, she usually slept peacefully in starlight. Tonight, sleep would be hard to come by. Thank goodness they would be free from this within twenty-four hours, or so Seven's report had approximated.
"Chakotay to Janeway."
She turned from the viewport, leaned forward and picked her combadge up off the coffee table. "Yes, Chakotay?"
"I was wondering what your plans were for dinner tonight?"
Kathryn smiled; she'd not seen Chakotay for most of the day due to issues that had taken them to opposite ends of the ship. "I don't have any," she replied. "Are you about to make some for me?"
He chuckled. "I could. Neelix's or rations?"
"What's on offer tonight?"
"I hear it's Mingolan Stew again."
Oh dear. "Better make it rations."
"Sounds like a good choice," Chakotay replied. "Give me an hour to finish up here and then I'll be over."
"Anything up?" It wasn't like Chakotay to work later than his captain.
"Just a couple of crewmen needing some attention. Nothing for the captain to be worried about."
That was the moment the lights chose to go out. "Chakotay?" Kathryn called. "You still there?"
There was silence. She hit her combadge. "Janeway to Torres."
Nothing.
"Computer," she called and waited for its affirmative beep.
Still nothing.
She sat back on the couch and forced herself not to panic. Computer was down, communications offline and no power. Complete systems shutdown. There was no way of even contacting Tuvok to see if weapons had been rendered useless as well.
Hastily, Kathryn kneeled up and pressed her face to the viewport. Desperately, she peered into the total darkness, but couldn't even make out Voyager's outline, let alone enemy ships.
Be rational, she told herself. This is not an attack. There are no aliens out there. It's just a systems failure. No doubt B'Elanna already has teams looking into it. Just stay where you are.
But I'm the captain, another voice inside her parried. I can't remain here. I have to do something.
Kathryn, the original voice replied, you have always been taught that if you are lost you should stay where you are. You have no light sources here to help guide you through the jeffries tubes. Knowing your luck, you'd end up in the recycling room.
It's my ship. I do know my way around.
Have you ever had to leave your quarters via jeffries tube before?
Kathryn threw herself back onto the couch. She was off duty. Chakotay knew where she was and...
"Damn it," Kathryn cursed. "I can't stay here." Slowly but surely she edged her way from the couch along the wall to where she knew the hatch to the tube was located. Her fingers sought the small panel and when she found it she began to work the manual spring mechanism that would open it. It didn't move. In growing desperation she began to tug at the edges of the metal square, wrenching both her shoulders and her back. Still, it would not give. "That's it then," she muttered in defeat.
In despair, she inched her way back to the couch.
She was alone, completely cut off from the rest of the ship, and with no clue how her crew was fairing. And she was in the dark. It was one of Kathryn's worst nightmares. Ever since her time serving under Admiral Paris on the Al-Batani, and then the horrific shuttle crash that had taken the lives of her father and her fiancé, Kathryn had loathed being in complete darkness, avoiding it whenever she could. The isolation was unbearable.
Desperately, she tried to control her breathing. It won't do to have a panic attack, she told herself. But it was difficult. For while she could not only see nothing, she could hear nothing as well. Most of the time the crew was oblivious to the hum of the vessel as her veins coursed with power from the warp core. It was something crewmen learned to do early on in their Starfleet careers. But now there was no hum.
As Kathryn's senses grew more finely tuned in the darkness, her ears began to detect one faint sound, that of the hull plating shifting to accommodate the pressures of space. It was an eerie sound, one she didn't much care for, especially when it brought back nightmarish images of icebergs in the water, creaking loudly as they moved.
"No!" she cried out.
She tried to think of happier things. Chakotay! Yes, Chakotay. Oh god, where was he? He'd been in his office. What if there were alien intruders? Maybe they thought he was the captain? Maybe he'd let them believe he was the captain. What if they were holding him and the rest of the crew captive and he was thinking she'd been on her way to manufacture a rescue plan? Even worse, what if they'd decided to kill the captain as a show of strength? Maybe he was lying in a pool of blood somewhere.
Kathryn shuddered and took a deep breath. Chakotay was the first officer, but she was the captain. She had to stand strong and firm. But, oh god, the dark. The darned dark. If only she wasn't encased in such total, complete darkness.
"I'm the captain," she said out loud. "I will stand firm, as others have done before. I will not let Starfleet or this crew down."
She heard a scuffling noise and tensed. Perhaps the enemy intruders were coming for her. In desperation she looked around - a natural instinct - for some kind of weapon. Her phaser was in her ready room; one of Tuvok's ridiculous rules that prohibited the use or storage of weapons in personal quarters. It had probably made sense at the time…
The noise was getting louder and now she could definitely pinpoint it as coming from the direction of the jeffries tube. Thanks to the jammed hatch she was safe for a few moments longer.
The panel swung open, revealing a small patch of light illuminating a very familiar looking silhouette. "Chakotay?" she gasped in relief.
The light turned into her face, momentarily blinding her. "Kathryn?"
"Yes. Oh, thank goodness you're here." She watched the dark figure slide himself out of the tube. "No, don't shut the..." Too late. The spring contracted and the hatch closed. "It won't open from this side," she told him.
"Oh." The light danced and flickered as Chakotay picked his way over to her place of refuge. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," she replied. Of course she was fine now that she had light, even if it was only a tiny palm beacon, and the company could not have been better. It just begged one question. "What are you doing here?"
He laughed. "It's a funny thing, but wouldn't you have thought that if a jeffries tube was to lead anywhere, it would lead to a major part of the ship?"
"Possibly."
"And one from a first officer's office might lead to, say, the first officer's quarters?"
"You mean it doesn't?"
"Apparently not. When I realised I wasn't headed to a corridor, or another department, I thought maybe it might go to my quarters, and there's another tube that leads from my quarters to the corridor that runs by engineering."
"Let me get this straight," Kathryn said, trying to comprehend. "The jeffries tube from your office runs to my quarters?"
"Yeah. Useful information to have, isn't it?"
"For whom?" She just knew he was grinning.
The palm beacon began to flicker and Chakotay quickly turned it off. "Probably should preserve what little power we have," he said.
Now it was dark again, with no sound except that of Chakotay's breathing. Kathryn's heart rate began to quicken, and it wasn't due to her handsome first officer's close proximity. "Talk to me."
"What about?"
"Anything," she said quickly.
"Kathryn, are you all right?"
"Damn it, Chakotay," she said in frustration. "I have this problem with being in complete darkness. I don't like it. So talk to me, tell me a story, distract me, anything."
"Distract you?" His voice had a humorous tone to it.
"Chakotay!"
"Okay, okay. Well, I could tell you a story, but you've heard most of those. I could talk of ship's business, but that wouldn't be good when you're off-duty, and besides, most of it is already on a padd waiting to be given to you. So..."
She felt the couch shift a moment before she felt him. His hands flew everywhere, mainly focusing on the soles of her feet and waist. "I could always tickle you," he exclaimed.
"You bastard," she yelled, descending into laughter. "You complete and utter bastard." She shot her arms out and proceeded to defend herself.
Chakotay had been pinned to the couch by Kathryn when two things happened. First, a low light enveloped the room, and secondly, the jeffries panel swung open.
"Looks like auxiliary's back." It was Ayala. Thank goodness for small mercies, Kathryn thought as she hastily sat up and patted down her hair. Ayala, being one of Chakotay's former crew, could be trusted to keep his mouth shut.
Chakotay tipped his head back. "Hi, Ayala," he said cheerfully. "Come to rescue us?"
"Sort of," the former Maquis replied. "Did you know there's one tube that leads from engineering to your office and then another one from there to here?"
Slowly, Chakotay got to his feet. "I knew there had to be one somewhere."
Kathryn glared at him and then turned back just in time to watch the lieutenant put his feet on her floor. "Don't shut the hatch," she practically shouted.
It made the young man jump, but he did as he was told. Five minutes later three people were crawling through a tube in single file on the way to Chakotay's office. "Mister Ayala," Kathryn began as she led the way, "the knowledge of this passageway is to stay strictly between the three of us. I do not want this to become another piece of ship's gossip. Do I make myself understood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't expect me to forget it though," Chakotay whispered in her ear as they entered his office.
In reply he received a tired version of the Janeway glare. But as she turned away from him he could have sworn he saw her wink.
FINIS
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