Star Trek Voyager: Here I Stand

Here I Stand, Part 15

Part 15

                The ship was frigid.

                She’d been unoccupied and abandoned for weeks, life support and environmental control scaled back drastically to conserve energy while no one was working on her. Every surface was freezing to the touch, every breath icy in the lungs. Even with the air recyclers and heating systems working again, the stale, musty cold seeped through Kathryn’s light clothing and made her shiver.

                It wasn’t the first time, but being marched under guard through the corridors of her own ship galled Kathryn just as much as ever. The fact that the guards were Cardassians and Jem’Hadar this time made it infuriating on a whole different level, and Gul Evek’s presence was nothing short of surreal. Chakotay had been evading Evek in the Badlands when his Maquis ship had been thrown into the Delta Quadrant. In a way, Evek was a catalyst for everything that had happened to them for the last eight years, both the good and the bad. The thought was bewildering. Kathryn hoped she would be able to share the paradox with Chakotay later, preferably with a glass of wine in hand and a blaze roaring in the fireplace.

                Kathryn shivered again, wishing for the warmth of that fire. Neither the Cardassians nor the Jem’Hadar  seemed to be affected by the cold. Beside her, Kayma rubbed her hands together as best she could while they were still bound. One of the Cardassian soldiers saw the furtive movement of Kayma’s hands and sneered. When the girl paused to blow on her fingertips, Suder jammed his weapon into her back and pushed her ahead of him.

                Kathryn gritted her teeth and kept walking toward main Engineering.

=/\=     

                The Flyer dropped out of warp on the far side of Mars.

                But for the starlight, the darkness was absolute.

                Not a single orbital dock was functioning and all of them, with or without ships in them, were starting to fall from their orbits. The station itself was down to emergency lighting and life support.

                “Power down,” Chakotay ordered.

                “Powering down, aye,” Harry Kim replied. The young man was still ashen and shaky, but he’d boarded the little ship under his own steam and determined to help. The Doc kept a wary eye on him. He’d only agreed to release Kim if he stayed put on the Flyer while the rest of the team boarded Voyager. “We’re running silent and adrift.”

                From his place standing behind Tom Paris, Chakotay peered out the front viewport. “Where is she?”

                There was a shift of bodies in the back of the craft as everyone moved to the nearest port. “There,” Dalby said. “The last dock to our portside, the furthest one out. I think that’s her.”

                Chakotay moved to join him and nodded. “Tom, can you nudge us that way?”

                “Aye, sir,” Tom replied. “Prepare to be nudged, everybody.”

                Chakotay braced his hand on the bulkhead and waited for the impulse engine to fire. They were running dark to avoid detection among the dead docks and ships in the area. A split-second’s blast from the impulse engine would give them a bit of momentum toward Voyager while still remaining unnoticed to anyone who wasn’t either staring out a viewport or reading an active scanner.