A Captain's Regrets
Author: Anne Rose
Email: anne3rose@yahoo.com
Web: http://annerose.cjb.net
Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Voyager and its characters belong to Paramount Pictures. No infringement intended.
Spoilers: none
Warning: parody, High, humorous (I hope) character death quotient.
Summary: What would happen if Janeway continues in the same habits and patterns all the way back to the Alpha Quadrant?
Archive: I would be honored if you want to archive it. Please let me know where so I can visit it.

Author's Note: It's not my fault, I was driven to this by reading depressing Christmas fic last year. © December 10, 2000. Entered in Jennica's 2001 Christmas Contest, http://voyagercontest.cjb.net/

Cultural idiom note: This story uses the "get a clue" expression, as seen in the phrases, "Here's a quarter, go buy a clue," and "The clue phone is ringing. Oh look, it's for you." I hope that isn't too confusing for non-west coasters. Thanks Jemima for lending a couple of extra clichés and lines.

****

Chakotay had invited her to the holodeck last night, as he did from time to time over the years, and as usual she rejected him, reaching into his chest, pulling out his still-beating heart, and stomping on it, cruelly. His dimples smiled at her as she did it. He knew she would come around. Just a couple more years and she would be his.

Janeway regretted treating him this way. She was lonely inside, deep down where she didn't tell anyone, not even herself. She wanted to go on a date with him, but she was just too stubborn, a stick in the mud, set in her ways, bull headed, inflexible, and just plain stubborn. As the Captain, she had to follow Starfleet's protocols to the letter - except, of course when acquiring
cool technology or interfering in morally suspect cultures, or altering the time stream. But where fraternization protocols were involved she was resolute, unrelenting, and unwavering - except, of course for non-bridge crew, but not senior officers, except for the Helmsmen and Chief Engineer, but that was different...

Yes, the clue commbadge was beeping, but Janeway didn't hear it...

~*~*~

The next morning, a strange alien ship appeared on the view screen. The Captain, eager as ever to make new friends *outside* of her ship, instructed the crew to make Voyager look "friendly" and to hail the strange aliens.

"Lower the shields, and take weapons off line," she ordered.

"Do you think that is wise, Captain?" her First officer said with concern in his melodious voice.

"Starfleet protocol in first contact situations is to put the new species at ease," she paraphrased in an acerbic huff.

"Captain, may I remind you that in the Federation, the source of that protocol, there are treaties in effect and a fleet of ships to back them up," Tuvok countered with typical Vulcan logic, precision, and a tone of voice that somehow reminded her of fingernails on a chalkboard.

"Duly noted, Lieutenant. Now drop the shields and power down weapons, I don't want to frighten them."

But before she could say, 'Let's exchange some technology,' or 'how about a romantic interspecies dinner?' the strange alien ship fired a strange alien energy weapon, causing hull breaches on decks two through seven, destroying the holodecks, the mess hall, sickbay, assorted crew quarters, and killing 47 crewmen.

The Captain sat in the center of the bridge in stunned amazement. Where had she gone wrong? She had followed protocol, and now 47 more members of her crew were dead. How was this possible? She vowed to spend her down time for the next few weeks studying, and memorizing if necessary, the relevant protocols and regulations.

Fortunately, while the Captain was lost in her inner monologue and self-recriminations, Tuvok, having anticipated this eventuality, blew the strange alien ship out of the sky with a familiar spread of photon torpedoes.

~*~*~

Some months later....

Voyager was repaired adequately, the hull breaches permanently sealed, and was back on course toward the Alpha Quadrant. Janeway knew the crew needed a morale boost since the holodecks were irreparable. What better way to boost morale, she reasoned, than to instill a feeling of confidence that they were prepared for anything. It was with this in mind, that she put Tuvok in charge of bringing all the remaining crew up to speed on all vital functions. Double shifts were just the thing for keeping their minds off their troubles. After all, didn't it say in one of her Starfleet Captain's manuals that a busy crew is a happy crew?

Tuvok had been conducting his training sessions for a while now, and the crew was showing definite improvement. The next topic in his logical progression was the use of shuttlecraft in combat situations. On the morning of their first full combat drill, the training teams reported to the shuttle bays. They broke into five teams of eight, and one team of seven (ensign brown was ill), boarded their shuttles and launched into space.

Janeway reflected later how it seemed like such a good idea at the time. Chakotay was one of the more experienced pilots. Who better to train the rest on shuttle combat tactics? In fact he was demonstrating a particularly complicated evasive roll when he collided with Harry's shuttle, causing it to ricochet into a third shuttle, piloted by Tom. The subsequent explosion of the first three shuttles engulfed the others, and the fiery ball of flames could be seen for light-years in every direction.

She reminded herself that the drills had been partially Tuvok's idea, but he was dead now too, so it was a small comfort. Janeway tried to remember exactly how Tuvok had died. It was all a tragedy of confusion and friendly fire. When
the shuttles exploded, the crew thought Voyager was under attack. When no enemy presented itself, the crew assumed shape-shifting aliens or invisible aliens or mind-controlling aliens had once again overrun the ship, and - probably due to sleep deprivation - they forgot their mentor's training, and began firing at random. In the chaos that ensued, most of the remaining crew were killed, and Neelix left a pot of Leola root stew out of the refrigeration unit too long.

It was Tuvok's idea, but it happened on her ship, on her watch, under her authority. She knew the vague sense of guilt would gnaw at her until it eventually ate through some vital organ justly sealing her fate.

It was at this point that Neelix snuck off the ship. He took Sam Wildman, Naomi, and a half dozen other crewmen and escaped in his small freighter. With Voyager in such disarray, the first the Captain knew of it was when they received the transmission, from inside Talaxian space, letting her know their government had granted them asylum.

'Good riddance,' she thought, 'I can run this ship by myself if I have to,' and looking around, she discovered that was almost what it had come to. The remaining crew had gathered in the mess hall and consumed the soup Neelix left for them. No one knew how it was supposed to taste, so they were all caught unaware when the food poisoning hit. Of the crew that had remained, most of them died of food poisoning.

The clue commbadge was beeping again, but Janeway continued to ignore it...

~*~*~

She sat in her ready room, thinking of Chakotay's death. She had always assumed they would share one night of earth-shaking, illicit passion that would make angels weep and warm her heart in her golden years. One night she could remember with a mix of secret guilt and regret for the rest of her life. But now he was dead. Dead, dead, dead, and it was all her fault. All she had were memories of missed opportunities and a vague, ambiguous sense of guilt to take Chakotay's place in her miserable excuse for a heart.

Just then, her console beeped. It was a delayed message from him. She wondered what the message could possibly be - an efficiency report, a new crew schedule, crew evaluations? She couldn't imagine what it was. After pondering the dilemma for 10 minutes, she decided to play the message and find out for herself.

First Officer's Personal Log

"Kathryn, if you are viewing this, it means I am dead...

Please don't be sad. I want to thank you for all the wonderful years we had together after you threw away the rule book and acknowledged our love. As I record this, we are still apart, but I know in my heart you cannot have been so cruel as to deny me forever. I know we will be together soon, and for the rest of our lives. I love you Kathryn."

Her heart almost stopped beating, then it nearly exploded, and then it jumped up into her throat and tried to choke her. It was beside itself. What had she done? He had died still loving her and still hoping. She didn't deserve to live! Her first thought was to point the ship at the nearest sun and end this nightmare, but she was a Starfleet Captain, and Starfleet Captains didn't fly their ships into stars unless they had very good reasons. She was pretty sure this didn't make the short list of good reasons, but she hadn't memorized that section of the manual yet. Ah, something to do next month.

But today, she had a ship to run...she would include her negligence in this situation on the long list of her sins she penitently transmitted to Starfleet in her ongoing confessions by datastream. No doubt she would spend the rest of her life in a New Zealand rehabilitation purgatory after her return to the Alpha Quadrant, but she deserved no more and no less.

How to get the ship home was becoming an issue. She had almost no crew. 'No matter,' she thought, 'we have all those left over singing holograms of the Doctor. I'll just reprogram them to look like the crew. I can probably even program them to carry out basic commands.' She collected the tiny representations of the singing Doctor, and began reprogramming them. Soon,
every duty station was manned by a holographic projection of the person formerly assigned to that area. They were extremely limited in their abilities, but they could push buttons and reply to 6 or 8 commands.

~*~*~

Some more months later...

Emerging from her ready room, she turned and considered Ensign Brown, literally the last human in this part of the galaxy. She had clung to her protocol for so long, and what had it brought her? Endless sleepless nights, long days of pining for her First Officer, lost replicator rations in Tom's betting pools, and, oh yes that other thing, the death of all but one of her crew. Protocol
had brought her to where she was today, but no more. She had finally seen the light, smelled the coffee, and woken up to the reality of her Delta Quadrant existence. She had one remaining chance for happiness and a normal life. She was going to seize this opportunity - not to mention the ensign.

He saw this was his moment, his big chance. After all these years of unrequited lust and cold sonic showers, pining for the Captain, he finally had her all to himself.

"Ensign," she said, sighing and resigning herself to the inevitable. "It's going to be a long trip home, and we're going to be operating in close quarters. You can call me Kathryn."

His face lit up, this was beyond his wildest dreams. He could die a happy man.

KABOOOM!!! His commpanel choose that moment to overload. It exploded sending shards of metal and composite transparent viewing surface through his previously enraptured form. Killing him instantly.

~*~*~

For weeks she wandered around the ship, fixing systems and dusting the holograms. They were all gone now. Just ghosts looked back at her as she roamed through the empty corridors. She wondered how long she could keep the ship going before it fell apart from lack of maintenance. There was plenty of food at least - emergency rations meant for a crew of 150 would last a long long time.

Her commbadge beeped, and she threw it across the room...

~*~*~

She emerged from the wormhole into the Alpha Quadrant. She tried to stand and realized her joints were stiff and her muscles weak. Looking at the chronometer, 50 years had passed since entering the wormhole, and each one was etched on her body.

~*~*~

Her trial went quickly. It would have gone quicker if she hadn't insisted on pointing out all the various regulations, protocols and directives she had violated, repeatedly. The statute of limitations had expired on most of her "crimes", but in the end, they gave up and sentenced her to life in the New Zealand penal colony more out of self-defense than any real legal finding. The actual conviction read like a fine for overdue library books, but it seemed to satisfy her. Perhaps the counselors in New Zealand would have more luck with this poor, old, crazy woman who had once had a promising career in Starfleet and the respect and admiration of her peers.

The End?

Epilogue:

Years later, sitting in her cell in New Zealand, a 110-year-old Kathryn looks out through her window at the stars. The end is near. She can sense it. She welcomes the death that will put an end to her suffering.

Suddenly, her commbadge beeps. "Chakotay to the Captain." She looks at the commbadge. Obviously she has lost whatever slim remaining grip she had on reality. The old voice reminds her of happier days - days she turned her back on. If only...

A flash of light.

"Kathy, you humans really are so vexing. What more do I have to do? Dress up as the ghost of Christmas past? Are you going to answer Chuckles or not?"

She looks at her old nemesis. Time has been kinder to him than to her. His boyish good looks are still intact and he is wearing the uniform that had been fashionable in those days...

Snap! Snap! Snap!

"Yoo hoo! Kathy," Q said impatiently, snapping his fingers just under her nose, "Plenty of time for maudlin introspection later, the clue phone is ringing now. Answer it!" He pointed at the commbadge.

"Chakotay to the Captain, are you there Captain?" the voice asked again.

She slapped the commbadge, that wasn't there before, and answered, "Yes Chakotay, I'm here. Where are you?"

"Captain, I'm on the bridge. Duty shift started 15 minutes ago."

Kathryn sat up in bed, in her old quarters, on Voyager, 50 plus years ago. It wasn't demolished by Borg, or Species 8472, or some other malevolent, previously unknown aliens, it was intact and whole. In fact the only thing out of place was the odd red hat with white fur on her nightstand. She hugged her pillow and then leaped out of bed. "I'll be a little late this morning Commander. In fact, tell Tuvok he has the bridge, and meet me in the holodeck!"

"Captain?"

"I need your help... preparing something special for Mr. Neelix's Christmas party tonight."

"Yes Captain," he said with a puzzled smile.

Fade to black...

~*~*~*~

~*~*~

"Ask not for whom the commbadge beeps - it beeps for thee." - Q

~*~*~ THE END ~*~*~

~*~*~*~
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