#yes janeway is the captain BUT chakotay is not afraid to challenge her. and she relies on him to set her aright!

[please-dont-pet-the-okapi]

"Will Anybody Ever Love Me?" by Sufjan Stevens // The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr. // Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare // Dune (2021) dir. Denis Villeneuve // "Whatever Makes You Mine" by John Van Deusen // The X-Files, "Anasazi" // "I'll Keep It With Mine" by Bob Dylan // Star Trek: Voyager, "The 37's" // "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie

[summahsunlight]

This Way Became My Journey, CH. 9

"Bring the weapons systems online," Janeway ordered as she stepped out of the turbo lift with Barrett, Paris, and Kim. She hoped that she wouldn't have to use them, but she had a nagging feeling that the Kazon weren't going to make things easy for them.

Tuvok told her that the phaser banks and photon systems were powering up. She made a mental note to congratulate Sarah on her leadership of the repair front. Janeway had half expected that because the counselor, who had very little command experience, had been put in charge they were going to be behind in repairs. However, she had heard rumors that Joe Carey not giving her a report on time had rendered a tongue lashing and the repair efforts had doubled. It was a good thing too, or they might not have had weapons going into this confrontation.

"Red alert," she ordered, coolly, stepping into the command center, Paris besides her. She squinted her eyes for a moment, going over what she wanted to do next. There were no guarantees that the Kazon were going to talk to her. She needed the best people possible at each station. And since they had lost half of the senior officers she had very little choices. Right now as it was, Rollins, who was an operations officer was laying in the course to the array.

Turning about she looked at Sarah. "Tuvok and I are going to beam over to the array once we arrive, Voyager's job and the Maquis' will be to keep the Kazon occupied while we do that. I'm guessing they aren't going to be too happy about us showing up."

Barrett nodded her head. "Understood, ma'am."

"That leaves you in charge Sarah."

Again there was a curt nod of her head. She had taken her Bridge Officer's test and passed with flying colors, Janeway knew this from reading her personnel file, but Barrett had never actually been battled tested. The Explorer had been a science vessel assigned to study the Borg and their technology, not actually a heavy armored ship, which had been purposely done so the Borg would take little interest in them since they weren't a threat or worth the assimilation.

But the young woman's command skills were going to be tested here.

"The lead Kazon ship is hailing us Captain," Tuvok announced.

Hands on her hips, Janeway told him to put it on screen. Jabin appeared before her. "Have you come to investigate the entity's strange behavior as well Captain?"

"All we care about is getting home, Jabin," Janeway told him. "We're about to transport over to the array to see if we can arrange it."

"I'm afraid I cannot permit that."

She knew she was going to meet resistance. "We have no dispute with you."

"I have a dispute with anyone that will challenge us," Jabin replied, coldly.

Janeway sighed angrily and made her way down the steps to stand behind Conn. "This is ridiculous," she said, leaning against the console. "We have no intention of challenging you."

"And I have no intention of allowing anyone with your technological knowledge board the array."

"Jabin, can we discuss this like two civilized-," she started to say, but he cut the link. The ship shook slightly as the Kazon began to fire on them. Glaring, she moved towards the command station. "I guess we can't."

"Shields are holding," Tuvok said.

"Fire phasers," she ordered, sitting in her chair. "Evasive pattern delta four."

While the ships exchanged fire, she had Tuvok hail the Maquis. She was going to need their help if they were going to make a run at getting home. "Janeway to Chakotay, Tuvok and I are beaming to the array. Can you hold off the Kazon?"

"I think so, Captain."

"Good," Janeway responded, standing up. She glanced at Paris, confidently. "Mister Paris, take the conn."

Paris looked at her shocked for a moment before replying with a yes ma'am. Rollins quickly vacated the seat and went to replace Tuvok as the security officer left the bridge with Janeway. Tom ran his fingers lovingly over the controls for a moment. It had been a long time since he had flown anything and it was sending goose bumps up his arms, especially since he was at the helm of one of the most advanced starships in the Federation.

"Tom, it's a helm, not a girl, stop caressing it and fly this thing," Barrett snapped behind him, bringing his attention about. "Ensign Kim keep a transporter lock on the Captain and Tuvok, I want to be able to pull them out of there at a moment's notice."

"Understood Lieutenant."

Lieutenant. The word vibrated in her brain for a while, it wasn't often that she heard people call her that, since she was after all a counselor. In fact that last time that she was sure she had heard it in succession had been at her court martial. The thought of that trial brought back bad memories and she purged them from her mind, she had a task at hand. The main one being that they had to give Janeway and Tuvok time to figure out how to use the array to get them home. It wasn't an easy task, but it wasn't necessarily turning out to be a hard. The ships that they were up against didn't have the fire power that was going to knock them out, and Tom was flying like he had never stepped away from the helm.

She was even a little surprised at how calm Kim was staying. Perhaps it was the adrenaline rush that they were all feeling that was keeping them going. But this was, after all, one of the things that every officer in that room had been trained for; they were just doing their duties.

Barrett nestled down into Janeway's chair, telling Paris to use evasive maneuvers. The little ships couldn't outrun Voyager, nor could they keep up.

"Ah, Lieutenant," Kim said nervously from operations. "I think we've got a problem."

Barrett snapped her head to her left and glanced over her shoulder at him. "What do you mean you think we have a problem?" Harry's eyes flickered to the screen and she turned to look. A massive warship had joined the Kazon in the fight. Damn. "Hail the Captain."

It was night time on the array. Crickets could be heard chirping in the background and Janeway felt a sense of nostalgia at the thought of Indiana summer nights. But she couldn't think about how much she longed to get home, first thing first, was to find the way to get home.

Both she and Tuvok had their tricorders out as they entered the barn that Barrett had taken officers to find Paris and Kim just a few days before. It was hard to believe that it had been that long, so much had happened since then, Janeway realized. She could hear a banjo playing; someone was softly strumming the cords.

"The data processing system is behind this wall, Captain," Tuvok told her, pointing to the left of where she was standing.

Janeway glanced over at the old man, playing his banjo, and then looked at Tuvok. "You know what to do," she said as they parted ways, Tuvok heading for the data processing system and Janeway heading for the old man. She put her tricorder away and went to stand at the entrance to the stall that the old man was sitting in, around a gas lantern, playing his instrument. He looked up at her when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

"You're nothing, if not persistent," he said, with a chuckle when he saw her.

"We need you to send us back from where we came from," Janeway said to him, softly, leaning against the stall's open door.

He waved her off. "That is impossible. I barely have enough strength left to complete my work."

Janeway stepped into the stall. "You're sealing the conduits before you die," she said, recalling what Barrett had told her in the Ocampa city.

"If I don't the Kazon will steal the water," the Caretaker replied. "In a few years when the Ocampa's energy runs out, it won't matter. They'll be forced to come to the surface. And they won't be able to survive."

Janeway kneeled down like she would when speaking to her children and looked at him gently; the pieces were beginning to fall into place, finally. "Something you did turned their planet into a desert, didn't it? That was the debt that could never be repaid."

The Caretaker covered his face with a hand and nodded his head. "We were explorers from another galaxy, but we had no idea that our technology would be so destructive to their atmosphere. Two of us were chosen to stay behind and care for them."

"There's another like you here?"

A soft laugh, "Not anymore, she…she went off to look for more interesting places," the Caretaker said.

"Why were you bringing ships here?" Janeway inquired. "Infecting people with a fatal illness?"

The old man scoffed. "Oh they didn't die from an illness. They died because they were incompatible."

"Incompatible?" Janeway repeated.

"I've been searching the galaxy for a compatible bimolecular pattern," the Caretaker answered her. "Now in some individuals I found cellular structures that were similar, but I—,"

"You've been trying to procreate?" Janeway guessed, standing up.

"I needed someone to replace me," the Caretaker said, looking up at her and pointing to himself, "Someone who would understand the enormous responsibility of caring for the Ocampa; only my offspring could do that."

Janeway looked about for something to sit on. Pulling up an empty crate she sat down facing the Caretaker. "Did you ever consider allowing the Ocampa to care for themselves?" she asked him.

He looked appalled by the idea. "They're children."

Thinking of her own children, right now aboard Voyager, she offered him a small smile. "Children have to grow up." She paused for a moment to let him mull over her words, then said, "We're explorers too, most of the species we've encountered have overcome all kinds of adversity without the help of a caretaker. It's the challenge of surviving on their own that's helped them to evolve. Maybe your…children will do better than you think." As she spoke the words she knew that she was speaking words not only to put his mind at ease but her own.

She wasn't giving her children enough credit to be able to spend time away from her, just like the Caretaker wasn't giving the Ocampa enough credit to survive without him providing for them. The similarities in their situation were startling.

They were two parents afraid of what was going to happen to their children when they weren't around.

"Voyager to Janeway," Sarah Barrett's voice interrupted the conversation.

"Go ahead."

"We've got problems, Captain. They Kazon just received a little back up."

"We need more time, can you hold them off for another few minutes?" she asked, hopefully.

"We'll do our best, Barrett out."

Even as the words left her mouth, Sarah wasn't so sure she meant it. The warship was much larger than Voyager and had much more firepower the smaller Kazon scout ships. The tiny Maquis ship and Voyager just didn't have what it was going to take to disable the warship.

There was an explosion near the tactical station. A crewman who had been helping Rollins went flying through the air, over the railing, and banged into the console violently before falling to the deck. Barrett gripped tightly to the railing at Conn. "Paris, put some distance between us and that warship before they rip the ship apart!"

"I'm trying ma'am," Paris replied, "but we've sustained damage to the navigational systems."

Another volley shook the ship, this one more violent than the last and she lost her grip on the railing. Thankfully she didn't bang her head on anything else; she was getting sick and tired of hitting her head on railings lately. Pulling herself to her feet she brushed a stray piece of hair that had fallen out of her French twist, aside.

"Weapons just went off line!" Rollins shouted.

What now? She thought, her mind swimming over every possibility that she could think of. Naturally the next course of action to take was retreat, but Janeway and Tuvok were still over on the array and she wasn't about to leave them behind. "Try to get those weapons back online!"

Someone yelled out a yes ma'am, she really wasn't sure who it was. At that moment she didn't care who fixed it, as long as someone did. If they didn't get those weapons back online they were as good as sitting ducks.

"Paris my crew is coming over. Tell one of your one your crackerjack Starfleet transporter chiefs to keep a lock on me," Chakotay's voice came over the open comline with the Maquis ship. Barrett prayed that the former Starfleet officer had an idea, because she was fresh out of them. "I'm going to try to take some heat off your tail."

Barrett and Paris exchanged glances, realizing what he was about to do. "Acknowledged, but don't think for a second that this makes us even Chakotay, you're life is still mine, Paris out."

"He's setting a collision course with the Kazon warship, ma'am," Kim told her, although she had pretty much guessed that already. If he was successful then it just might take a lot of heat off their tail.

"Transporter room two, keep a lock on Commander Chakotay and a wait his orders to beam him out," Barrett ordered. She wasn't even sure if the transporter room responded, there was another loud explosion and she found herself ducking.

B'Elanna Torres suddenly appeared on the Bridge. She made her way down towards the conn and nearly knocked Sarah over in the process. The counselor didn't have time to say anything, Harry was speaking to her. "I'm maintaining a lock on him, ma'am, but he's getting to close."

"I'm getting you out of there Chakotay," Paris told him.

"Not yet!"

Barrett, Paris, and Torres watched on the screen as the Maquis ship closed in on the large warship. It started to catch on fire as it got too close to the Kazon ship and began to break up. "This is crazy, Chakotay, you're breaking up!" Barrett shouted, nervously looking at Paris to tell the transporter room to beam him out. All she needed was the Maquis commander to be killed on her watch.

"Stand by to transport," Paris said.

"Wait!"

The ship continued to get closer and Torres held her breath, waiting to hear Chakotay tell Voyager to beam him out. The ship was practically on top of the Kazon warship when they heard the commander yell out "Now!"

As the Maquis ship collided with the Kazon warship it exploded into a brilliant ball of fire and light, forcing the Kazon ship to spin out of control and towards the array. Barrett couldn't worry about where that ship was going to land, not at the moment. "Transporter room two do you have him?" she asked, anxiously.

"They have me," came Chakotay's voice.

Barrett smiled, shaking her head at Paris. "That was close."

"Too close."

"Lieutenant!"

Barrett glanced up to see the Kazon ship crash into the array. One of the arms broke off and the Kazon ship exploded. "Harry, do you still have a lock on the Captain and Lieutenant Tuvok?" she asked the young Asian man.

"Yes ma'am."

"Voyager report."

She was a bit startled to hear the Captain's voice. "A Kazon vessel just collided with the array, ma'am. Are you alright?" Barrett asked Janeway.

"Affirmative. Stand by."

The tone of her voice wasn't good and Barrett felt a sinking feeling creeping into her stomach. She had a feeling that this day was not going to end the way that they wanted it too.

"The self destruct has been damaged," the Caretaker said, no longer in the holographic image of the old man, but rather a glowing form of sporocystian energy. In fact the barn was gone as well, and Janeway and Tuvok found themselves standing amongst alien technology and the entity that lived there. "Now this installation will not be destroyed."

Janeway watched as the life form began to shrink and grow dim. The Caretaker was on his last few legs of life. "But it must be," he continued, even as he shrank some more, growing even dimmer. "The Kazon cannot be allowed to gain control of it…they will annihilate the Ocampa." The being shrunk down to the size of a rock at the Captain's feet and went silent. Janeway knew that he was gone and she was faced suddenly with a terrible decision to make. She bent down to pick up the rock form that the Caretaker had become in his death and studied its crystal edges.

"Shall I activate the program that will get us back?" Tuvok asked above her. She still stared at the rock turning it over in her hands.

"And what happens to the Ocampa, after we're gone?"

Tuvok knelt down besides her, softly speaking, "Captain, any action that we take to protect the Ocampa would affect the balance of power in this system. The Prime Directive would seem to apply."

"Would it?" She challenged him, emotion laced thick in her voice. "We never asked to be involved, Tuvok. But we are," she finished, looking up at her friend. "We are." Her fingers lightly traced over the remains of the Caretaker in her hand. "Can we turn our backs on them, Tuvok, knowing what will happen if we do? An entire race could be destroyed if we do nothing. I'm not sure I can live with that knowledge."

"You do realize if we destroy the array we destroy any chance of getting home."

"I do, in fact I realize it too much, Tuvok."

"Then I do not envy your position, Captain."

Janeway smiled sadly, her eyes glistening. In her heart she couldn't turn her back on the Ocampa, even though helping them would be a violation of the Prime Directive. She toyed with several ideas, one being to reactivate the self destruct on the array, send them home and hope for the best. But the Kazon would board the array once they were gone and surely figure out how to disable the self destruct. Perhaps she could give the tools to destroy the array to Neelix and Kes and leave the task of ridding this sector of the entity's home to them. But then visions of the two aliens dying because of her left her shaken. They only way was to destroy the array herself. "Neither to I, Tuvok," she finally said, rising from the floor, the Caretaker's remains firmly in her grasp. "But I know what must be done."

The most recent volley knocked Barrett into Chakotay and Torres into the back of Paris' chair. The commander help Barrett gain her bearings as Kim announced that the Captain and Tuvok had beamed back to the ship.

She felt a little bit of relief coerce through her veins. She no longer had to worry about the Captain and Tuvok getting hurt over on the array. She could only hope that they had found a way to get them home now.

"Mister Tuvok," she heard Janeway speaking as the Captain stepped back onto the Bridge. "Ready the tri-cobalt devices."

Barrett glanced at Janeway as she made her way down to the command station. For a brief moment their eyes met, and Sarah didn't know why, but she knew that Janeway was about to destroy the array, thus stranding them seventy thousand light years from home. Well, you wanted an opportunity to prove yourself, here it is, she thought, trying to remain hopeful.

"Open a channel to the Kazon," Janeway ordered, stopping next to Barrett. Kim informed her that the channel was open and Jabin's face once again appeared on the screen.

"Be advised Captain," the Kazon Maje told her. "I have called for additional ships."

"I'm calling to warn you to move your vessels to a safe distance," Janeway told him. "I tend to destroy the array."

"You can't do that."

"I can, and I will. End transmission!" The image of Jabin disappeared as another violent volley of weapon's fire hit the ship.

"They're increasing weapon's fire, Captain," Kim reported. "Shields are holding."

"Move us four hundred kilometers from the array Mister Paris," Janeway instructed.

B'Elanna Torres looked about anxiously. Even though they were on a Federation Starship and the prospect of going home meant prison time, it sure was a hell of a lot better than spending the rest of her life out here. She moved towards Janeway. "What do you think you're doing? That array is the only way we have to get back home!"

"I'm aware that everyone has families and loved ones that they want to get back too, so do I," Janeway told her softly. And I'm about to condemn my children to a life on a starship, she added in her head. "But I'm not willing to trade the lives of the Ocampa for our convenience. We'll have to find another way home," she finished moving away from the Klingon woman.

"What other way home is there?" Torres snapped following her. Chakotay reached out and grabbed a hold of her arm. She looked down at him. "Who is she to be making all of these decisions for us?"

His answer was simple. "She's the captain."

"The tricobalt devices are ready."

"We're in position."

"Fire!"

The white balls of tri-cobalt energy fired out of Voyager, striking the array. The bridge crew watched as it exploded, arms collapsing, in a brilliant ball of oranges and yellows and whites. There was silence, no one spoke, not sure what to make of what they had just done, destroying their only way home.

Janeway was fighting her tears, wondering how she was ever going to explain to Michael and Ava that they were now forced to live on a starship, with very little chance of seeing Earth again. Ava was still a baby, their situation wouldn't fully settle in until she was much older, if it ever did settle in, after all Voyager was going to be the only home she would ever know now, barring a miracle getting them home sooner. Michael on the other hand, Kathryn wasn't sure how to reason to him what she had done and why she had done it.

"The Kazon are hailing us," Kim whispered, hoarsely behind her.

Janeway swallowed her tears and put on her command face. "On screen."

Jabin's face appeared before her once again, he looked displeased with her. "You have made an enemy today, Captain."

With those words the alien disappeared from her sight. In the back of her mind she heard Tuvok tell her that the Kazon were withdrawing. How he could remain emotionless at a time like this, she wasn't sure, and she envied him and his abilities to just shut the emotions off. Right now her heart was breaking. "Tuvok, please bring Michael and Ava to my ready room. I have some explaining to do."

When the Vulcan had left the bridge to retrieve the Captain's children, and Janeway had disappeared into the safe confines of her ready room,Torres angrily rasped out. "How could she do that? Doesn't she care what anyone else thinks? Doesn't it matter to her that we're over seventy thousand light years from home now? We'll probably never see home again!"

"Captain Janeway's decision affected her more than you think," Barrett responded to the hotheaded woman. The counselor turned about going to sit down, realizing that her body was aching from being tossed about so much in the Kazon's attack. "Stand down red alert," she ordered, softly and the lights were brought up.

"Her decision was selfish," B'Elanna hissed.

Barrett spun about before she could sit down and glared at the Klingon woman. "Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't. But tell me this, Miss Torres; do you honestly think a woman would strand her children so far away from the only home they've known because it was selfish? Or because in the end it was the right thing to do?"

Torres was dumbfounded, she had no idea that Janeway had children, let alone the fact that they were on board the vessel. The doors to the bridge hissed open then and she could see Tuvok return with two children, small children, the little girl being not much older than one. Perhaps she had misjudged Janeway.

Tuvok brought the children to the door and allowed them to enter the room. Michael held firmly to Ava's hand as they stepped in, Tuvok not following them. Their mother was sitting on the couch looking out the window and she looked like she was upset. There was a picture being displayed on her personal computer of the small family with Molly.

"You wanted to see us Mama?" the boy said, stepping closer to the couch.

Kathryn turned to smile at them, but it was a sad smile, and she knew that the children were going to be able to pick it up in her eyes. "Come sit with me for a moment. We have to talk about something."

Michael guided his sister up the steps and the two children went to sit on opposite sides of their mother. "What do we need to talk about?"

"Do you remember when we read about the Mayflower, at Thanksgiving?" she questioned.

"Yes, it was ship that traveled a long way across the ocean to find a new home," Michael answered. "Why are you asking me about this? Thanksgiving was months ago."

Kathryn chuckled softly and ran a hand through his hair. "Because, we're kind of like the Mayflower and the pilgrims now, traveling a long way to get home; they didn't know what they were going to find, neither do we." She pulled the baby up onto her lap and draped her free arm around Michael. "They were alone and far away from anything that they knew."

"Are we far away from home?" Michael asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid that we are," Kathryn replied, sadly.

"Are we trying to find a new home, like the pilgrims?"

"No," Kathryn answered a bit too sharply, "but it's going to take us a long time to find our way home."

The boy mulled it over for a moment. "Well, as long as we're home by summer. I promised Billy we'd go fishing at Grandma Gretchen's. He doesn't believe me that she has the best creek to go fishing in."

Kathryn bit her lip, hard, almost to the point where she drew blood. "Michael, honey, I don't think you understand," she whispered. She had tried to put it in terms that he could grasp, but maybe he was still too young to understand their situation. "When I say a long time, I mean years, honey." We may never see Earth again, Voyager could fly into the shipyards with my grandchildren at the helm. If we even make it to Earth.

"Oh, so no fishing," Michael quipped, disappointment flashing in his blue eyes.

"Mama was selfish, honey, and I'm sorry," Kathryn said, gently brought out of her musing. "I was selfish and took you with me when you should have stayed home with Grandma all because I was afraid of being separated from you." Ava was playing with her combadge and she shifted the child about in her lap. "I was selfish when I chose to destroy the only way home we had, to protect others and I'm sorry for all the things you're not going to get to do because I was selfish."

"But, if you had left us with Grandma, then you'd be far away from home, without us," Michael offered.

"I suppose you're right."

"Wouldn't that have made you sad?"

She couldn't help it, tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes. "Yes."

The child snuggled closer to his mother on the couch. "I don't want you to be sad, Mama. I don't mind missing fishing; I'd rather be with you anyways."

Struggling against her tears, Kathryn held both children to her tightly, vowing to someday get them home.