By Alex Voy
Rating: PG 13
Disclaimer:
Paramount owns the characters, Voyager and the images. No infringement of copyright is intended. I make no profit from them, just enjoy writing about them.
Summary: A year after the events of "Equinox". Noah Lessing, the survivor who was terrorised by Janeway, confronts his feelings about her.
Acknowledgements: My thanks to Seema for somehow finding the time to beta-read this story. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.
I've lived on this god-forsaken ship for more than a year. During those twelve long months, Captain Janeway has spoken to me just four times.
Until this moment, I have never even been alone with her. What does it say about me, to admit its the high point of my day, when the turbolift doors open, and I see her waiting outside in the corridor on deck twelve? Hell, its probably the most satisfying moment of my whole year.
Her slight hesitation before she steps into the turbolift is revealing.
She recovers quickly enough, and nods a greeting. "Crewman Lessing." She raises her voice and adds: "Computer, deck one. Bridge."
I stand to the side, slightly behind her. As the lift begins to move, I watch her. He hair is tucked behind her ear. The slow spread of colour rises up on her neck and face. I feel a surge of satisfaction my presence could have such a physical effect on her. In that moment, I realise the great Captain Janeway, who has faced down every galactic villain from the Vidiians to the Borg Queen, is afraid of me. Noah Lessing, the lowest form of life on her ship has the power to instil fear into this woman who rules our lives.
In the confined space, the Captain appears small and fragile beside me. I stare down at her, feeling the power of my own body compared to hers. She raises her head slightly, and I look at her slender neck, imagining how it would feel in my hands: soft and warm, the pulse throbbing ineffectively against my strength. She would fight, but then shed know the situation was hopeless. In that moment, she would learn what it was like to be completely powerless and at the mercy of an enemy without pity or compassion.
I can smell the faint perfume of shampoo on her hair. I remember the last time I was this close to her; down in that echoing cargo bay, in the green glow of Borg technology, when she had me helpless and handcuffed. She pressed down on my shoulders, her fingers digging with surprising strength into the muscle. I felt her breath on my face as she leaned over me, demanding I give her Ransoms tactical status. Her anger was almost palpable, her voice low and menacing. The air in the cargo bay was rank with the smell of my fear. I looked into her eyes, centimetres from my own, and told her to go to hell. I saw the crazed determination -- my own death -- staring straight back at me. There was no doubt in my mind she would leave me tied there, to be sucked dry by those avenging devils who came screaming from their spatial fissures.
First Ransom, then Janeway. What is it with Starfleet captains, when their backs are to the wall that they become more alien than the forces they are fighting?
I still dont know what drove me to defy her. Right to the end: to that moment when she gave one final shove against my shoulders, before leaving me alone with my terror. As the alien sound neared its crescendo, I knew she had left me to die, and deep within the pervading fear, I felt a small kernel of triumph and satisfaction that I had beaten her. It was ironic, that after all wed been through in the Delta Quadrant, my greatest achievement was to die with some shred of honour intact, while those ranked above me abandoned theirs.
But of course, I didnt die. I was not the only one who defied her that day.
Ive never been on Voyagers bridge - Chakotay assigned me to duties deep down on the lowest decks, far enough away from the Captains centre of command that she could probably forget my existence for days, even weeks at a time. I didnt mind. Although I will never forget her, spending my days on deck thirteen meant I didnt have to see her either. But even bilge-rats have ears, and rumours were quick to filter down. Through the grapevine, those of us down below learned Voyagers bridge was not a happy place. Relations between the command team were strained for weeks after Chakotay saved my life in that cargo bay.
He called me into his office a few hours after the Captain had agreed to incorporate the five of us refugees from the Equinox into her crew. I stood rigidly at attention, staring over his right shoulder. He studied a PADD for a moment, before looking up at me, his eyes wary beneath the tattoo.
"Are you going to file an official complaint?" he asked quietly.
"About what, Commander?"
Chakotay sighed. "You know what Im talking about."
"No, sir." I wasnt going to make it easy for him, even if he had saved my life.
"I understand you have a grievance, but let me give you a piece of advice. You could serve on this ship for a long time. If you keep your head down and do your job, the rest of the crew will accept you as one of their own in time."
Im not a natural cynic, but his words made me smile. "And the Captain?" I asked.
"The Captain has already entered your name on the crew manifest."
"What will happen if I make that complaint?"
"Then the Captain will enter it into the ships log, according to regulations. Youll get a chance to put your case at a Starfleet inquiry when we get home to the Alpha Quadrant."
"I wonder what are the chances of my surviving until that official inquiry?" I asked. Chakotay could take my question any way he chose.
He leaned forward until his face was as close as Janeways had been in that cargo bay.
"Thats not her style, Crewman. Whatever your opinion is of her right now, the Captain doesnt ordinarily make a habit of threatening her crew." He must have seen my disbelief. He looked away for a moment, rubbing wearily at his tattoo. "Shell defend her ship and her people to the last breath, but she would never harm anyone to save her own reputation. Youre a member of this crew now, Lessing. In time, shell give you exactly the same rights and privileges as everyone else on the ship."
I didnt trust him, and I dont think he believed himself at that moment either. I guessed hed seen a side of her he never knew existed until that day. He had no way of knowing what else she had kept hidden from him all those years.
"This has been a bad day for all of us," Chakotay said. "I suggest you think long and hard before you make a decision." He dismissed me with a nod.
I could feel his eyes boring into my back until the doors closed behind me.
I never filed an official complaint. What was the point? The odds were against any of us ever making it back to a Starfleet inquiry. Chakotay was right about one thing: I was going to be on this ship for a long time, and it wouldnt be easy. Issuing a complaint against the Captain could only make my life more difficult.
Now, as I watch her in the turbolift, I see the faint movement of the pulse in her neck and the taut lines of her clenched jaw muscles. I cant smell her fear, the way Id known my own in the cargo bay, but its here, thick and cloying between us in the confined space. She stares straight ahead at the closed doors. I wonder what she would do if I put my hands on her shoulders, as she did to me, forcing her around to face the retribution she deserves.
The five Equinox survivors tended to get together when we were off duty. Im sure Janeway would have liked to divide us, force us to share quarters with Voyagers crew, but even she must have understood the resentment that would have caused in her own people. In those early days, we were assigned to basic maintenance and cleaning duties, scattered around the ship, but in our strictly limited free time, we ate and roomed together. The regular crew tolerated us, but we were aware of being watched wherever we went. They didnt trust us, and I couldnt blame them, in the circumstances.
A few days after we joined the ship, I tried to tell Marla about the incident in the cargo bay. We were in the mess hall, eating some over-spiced Talaxian concoction that was better than anything Id tasted in the past three years on Equinox.
Marla looked up at me across the table. "She was bluffing, Noah. She wouldnt have let the aliens kill you." Her wide and haunted eyes had dark smudges beneath them. She wasnt finding life aboard Voyager any easier than I was.
"She meant to do it, Marla. If Chakotay hadnt stepped in, Id be floating out there in a torpedo pod like all the others." I looked out through the viewport at the streaking stars and wondered if maybe my dead crewmates were indeed the lucky ones.
"No, I dont believe it!" Marla pushed away her tray and stood up. Her eyes were bright with tears. "Why cant you just let it go?" She drew in a breath that changed to a sob and added, "Damn you, Noah Lessing!"
All eyes in the mess hall watched her run from the room, and then they turned to me. The stew remaining on my tray had congealed to an unpalatable mess. I no longer had an appetite for either the food or stares. I followed Marla from the room with not much more dignity than she had shown.
I learned my lesson that day. My fellow Equinox survivors just wanted to forget what had happened. There was nothing to be gained by trying to convince them their new captain was just as flawed as Rudy Ransom. He did what he thought was necessary to get us home. Maybe he went too far in the end, when he stole the field generator, and left Voyager with no defence against the aliens. But he did it for the sake of his crew. Janeway was willing to sacrifice me for her own personal vendetta against him. It was a few weeks before I made one last attempt to share my knowledge.
Although most of Voyagers crew werent actually hostile, they didnt go out of their way to invite us to their private parties. I dont think it was just because we were from the Equinox. Theyd been together a long time before we came along: they already had their established friendships and cliques long before they even knew of our existence. But Tom Paris was an exception. I suppose he sympathised with underdogs, with those whod broken the rules and were expected to pay the penalty. I played a few games of pool with him and even joined him in the holodeck a couple of times.
One night, after hed beaten me six times in a row at the pool table, we sat drinking from a bottle of local brandy hed acquired from a nearby planet, while he told me of his time with the Maquis. I dont know if it was the drink or the fact that he was sharing his criminal past, but I felt the urge to confide my own secret. He listened while I described what had happened in that cargo bay. And then he laughed.
"Dont you get it?" he asked. "Havent you ever seen those old mysteries? You know, the ones where the detectives catch the bad guy, but he wont tell them where the loot is hidden or where hes holding the heroine prisoner? Its called good cop, bad cop and it always seemed to work out pretty well in those old stories."
"As I remember those stories, the cops were always bluffing," I replied.
"And so was the Captain." He slapped me on the shoulder, "Believe me, Noah, you never want to play poker with Captain Janeway."
"Somehow, I dont think thats likely to happen."
"She was just playing the bad cop, Noah."
I could see in Toms eyes that he wasnt going to believe me. Marla had run away from what she didnt want to hear. Tom Paris simply wasnt going to listen. I wasnt really surprised. We have all been blind to our captains faults here in the Delta Quadrant, where the old rules no longer apply.
I wondered how Janeway had fooled them for so long, keeping the crew believing in all that sanctimonious crap about the Prime Directive and Starfleet values for six years, before she finally let the mask slip. Or maybe it wasnt the first time. I remembered the way Chakotay had looked at her when he hauled me out of that cargo bay. I wondered how many times hed had to clean up after the Captain before.
There is no sound in the turbolift above the faint hum of the mechanism. I watch her chest rise and fall in the almost-silence, the air heavy and claustrophobic with unspoken thoughts. Shes breathing hard, as though her lungs are struggling to extract enough oxygen from an atmosphere polluted with dark memories and the distant dead.
I shift my weight and lean a little closer. I expect her to move away or turn and face me. I know shes not a coward. Shes proved her bravery countless times, even since Ive been on board her ship. She may be afraid of me, but shes always faced her fears head on. I am surprised when she remains still, while I invade her personal space.
I need her to remember what she did in that cargo bay: to experience the terror she inflicted on me: to know the restless nights, and share the horrors when sleep reveals the darkest fears made real in the mind. She never shows herself in my nightmares. There are no human hands pressing me down, no pitiless eyes to freeze my soul. There is just the echoing dark of the cargo bay and the terror that rises in tune with that alien whine. But I know shes there, outside the door, her hands working the control panel that will let them in. I see the fissures open above me as the sound reaches its peak, and the screams that wake me are my own.
Its almost amusing, that when I had the chance to be free of her, I didnt take it. A few weeks ago, there was a mutiny aboard the good ship Voyager. I dont know all the details, but apparently, some of the ex-Maquis, under the influence of a crazy Bajoran, used Tuvoks mind control to take over the ship. Chakotay offered the crew the choice of continuing home to the Alpha Quadrant with the Maquis, or staying marooned here in the Delta Quadrant with the Captain.
God knows, I didnt want to be stranded on a primitive planet with her, but somehow, I couldnt bring myself to join the mutineers. Maybe it was pride, or just plain stubbornness, but I wasnt going to repeat my mistakes and betray Starfleet principles again. So, in a final irony, I joined the loyal members of the crew down in the cargo bay Chakotay had converted into a temporary brig.
After the mutiny, and Captain Janeway regained her command, we heard rumours down on the lower decks. They became more detailed over the days and weeks; stories about Chakotay trying to kill the Captain. Or maybe it was Tuvok. Sometimes it was both of them, but whatever the truth, they didnt try hard enough. Shes still here.
I find I am holding my breath in the turbolift. I can feel the Captains body heat radiating through my uniform as I stand over her. Her breathing is slightly ragged above the steady background hum, when the lift slows and then stops at deck two.
When the doors slide open, I dont move. I remain looming over her, reluctant to give up those brief moments of power. I wonder if Captain Janeway will leave, despite having been on her way to the Bridge, but she stays unmoving. And so we stand together: a frozen tableau in the open turbolift. Its probably only a few seconds before I step into the corridor leading to the mess hall.
I turn back to look at her through the open doorway. Her eyes meet mine for the first time since she left me to die in the cargo bay, and I feel the sudden shock of revelation. Then the doors close and the turbolift continues on to the bridge deck.
What I saw in her eyes will haunt my dreams as much as those aliens in the cargo bay. I understand now that she has never been afraid of me, but rather she fears what I know about her. Ive seen the darkness she keeps from the rest of her crew. I have witnessed her time of shame, when she finally revealed that hidden truth. The almost tangible fear I sensed in the turbolift was never for my superior physical strength, but for her moment of weakness or madness, or whatever failure it was that had driven her beyond her own reason.
There was a pleading in her eyes too, though for what, I dont know. Forgiveness? Silence? Regret as well, maybe. I only know that I was shamed by what I had felt in the turbolift. I understand now, that dreams as dark as my own must invade her nights in the isolation of the Captains quarters.
END
Aye on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green,
There is a budding morrow in midnight,
There is a triple sight in blindness keen.
To Homer John Keats
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