Part 55

Harry finally had to holster his phaser in order to use both hands to shut down the emergency system Chakotay had activated. He did it as fast as he could, eyes darting from side to side, on the look out for anyone to emerge from behind the falling sheets of water. At last, nearly ten minutes later, the water stopped flowing. The solid walls of white dropped to the floor, leaving Harry standing in water up to his ankles, with an unobstructed view across Engineering.

He drew his phaser, but he didn't see the Maquis anywhere. He did see, however, the doors to Engineering slide shut, as someone exited. He also saw Joe Carey lying on the floor nearby, blood streaming from his head, turning the water he was lying in pink. Harry rushed over to Carey, eyes falling on the head wound that was producing the blood.

A lot of blood.

Swallowing the surge of nausea, Harry turned around, stopped at the nearest console, and beamed himself and Carey to Sickbay.

Sickbay came into focus, a sharp contrast to the deathly quiet of Engineering. People, most with various injuries, were standing around. They all looked pale and slow, as if they'd just woken. Others, more severely injured, were on bio-beds and on the floor. He saw Tuvok, half sitting up, as someone injected a hypospray into his neck.

Two people picked up Carey and hoisted him on to a bio-bed, then began scanning him with a medical tricorder.

A hand closed around Harry's shoulder and turned him around.

Captain Janeway stood there, a hole burned in the front of her uniform, revealing a mixture of unnatural looking strips of false skin covering her own reddish skin. Her face was pale, but her eyes were burning as she began to speak.

---

Ayala dove behind the turn as phaser fire chased him down the corridor. He clutched his weapon, noting the draining power cells. Keeping his back pressed against the wall, he tapped his comm badge.

"Ayala to Chakotay."

He almost didn't hear the responding chirp as a phaser beam hit the wall in front of him. He scrambled to his feet, sending a blast back at the person firing at him.

As he was running, he heard Chakotay's voice emitting from his comm badge.

"What?"

"We have to abort. We're being killed out here," he panted as he ran.

There was silence for a moment.

Then, grudgingly, "Right. Get to the shuttle bays. Chakotay out."

Ayala tapped his comm badge again, still on the move.

"Jarvin, it's over. Tell everyone to get to the shuttle bays."

---

Chakotay felt Henley's eyes on him as he ended the conversation with Ayala. Turning, he could see Dalby nodding in agreement. Henley quietly redirected the turbo lift. Chakotay felt something between furor and intense disappointment well up in his chest. He sighed, noting the tight look on Henley's face, expressive of the same emotion. He was reaching for his comm badge when the silence of the lift was broken as the ship wide comm system was activated.

"This Captain Kathryn Janeway."

There was an audible shudder from someone in the turbo lift. Chakotay knew he was mirroring the dark look that had come over Henley's and Dalby's faces.

"I'm still in command of this ship," she continued, her voice like an audio phaser beam to their ears.

"The Maquis uprising has been put down. They've failed. They-"

That was when Henley raised her phaser rifle and shot out the speaker. She looked absolutely enraged, and perhaps a little guilty, when Chakotay looked at her.

"Thank you," he said.

She relaxed somewhat, nodding.

He tapped his comm badge.

"Chakotay to Torres."

Silence was the only response.

He tried again, with the same result.

And he knew from the sympathetic glance that Henley gave him that anger wasn't the only emotion on his face anymore.

---

Tom didn't hear Chakotay comm Torres, having left her propped up against the back wall of the turbo lift, unconscious. He was so thankful the EMH had left his phaser on the floor of Sickbay, without it, he had no doubt he would have had to have another wrestling match with Torres. Instead, he'd simply shot her in the chest with the phaser, as she flown at him. She'd already proven to be a hell of a fighter, both while injured and half-sedated. It was one more complication he didn't have to deal with.

He'd gotten rid of the last two obstructions in his path, on his way off the ship. Before he'd left Sickbay, he'd re-circulated fresh air into Shuttle Bay 1, the shuttle bay he'd had the Doc fill with the sedative. Torres was no longer a problem, and it sounded like the Maquis were being stopped. The Captain was awake, and very angry, from the announcement he heard as he walked into the shuttle bay.

He only half listened to it, carrying the two Maquis who had been inside and knocked out by the sedative, out into the corridor. Then, he turned around and went back inside. He'd only just climbed inside a shuttle and closed the hatch, when he heard the door to the bay open. Turning to look, he saw Chakotay and two other Maquis walk inside. With them, they brought the two Maquis he'd just carried out.

Chakotay, Dalby, and Henley.

Armed.

This had to be the worst timing ever.

Trying to keep from being terrified, Tom locked the shuttle doors. He watched the three, who thankfully weren't looking at his shuttle, not that they could see him through the dark pane, anyway.

In a matter of minutes, the shuttle bay was filled with Maquis, more than twenty, who began boarding the shuttles. Someone tried to open the hatch to his shuttle, but didn't persist when it didn't open, walking over to another one.

They waited ten minutes, probably waiting for more Maquis, who didn't come. Then the shuttle bay launch doors began to open. They stopped half way, clanking and starting to close.

Tom suspected the Captain or someone was trying to prevent their departure. It didn't work. The doors opened fully, and the shuttles began launching.

They didn't notice there was extra shuttle launching, or if they did, they didn't care to do anything about it. Tom didn't give them time to think about changing their minds, going to warp immediately.

It felt wonderful to be piloting a shuttle again, but that feeling was nearly destroyed as he sadly watched Voyager and Alpha 634 turn into streaks. It wasn't so much the ship, which he'd grown to hate, or the planet, about which he had no feelings in particular, but the fact that he was whispering an unheard goodbye Harry, Neelix, and Naomi.

---

Daylight was beginning to bloom on Alpha 634, or Samantha Wildman might have seen the tiny bright dots, looking a lot like stars, shoot away from the planet. As it was, she stood on the top of the mountain where she and Naomi, along with Neelix and Chell had taken refuge.

She'd woken from a particularly horrible nightmare, one in which everyone on both sides died, while her daughter was watching. She'd climbed out of the cave, heart pounding, to stare up at the sky until the fear subsided.

Only to have it reappear with a vengeance when a voice broke the silence.

"Voyager to Ensign Wildman."

She didn't recognize the voice as any one of the Maquis or Starfleet crew.

Gulping back the emotion, hoping to keep it out of her voice, she responded.

"Wildman here. I'm supposed to have three more days of uninterrupted shore leave," she said, trying to sound peeved and not terrified.

"It's an emergency. Everyone's being called back to Voyager. You're needed in Sickbay. There are lots of injuries and you have more medical training than most."

He didn't even warn her, before she felt the transporter tingle filling her body. Then she was standing on the transporter pad, looking out on Harry Kim and another man standing behind the transporter console. Presumably, he was the unknown voice.

"Harry, what happened?" she asked, trying not to sound like she knew. "What emergency? Injuries?"

He stepped on to the pad with her.

"There was Maquis mutiny," he said. "A *failed* Maquis mutiny."

She gasped, hoping it didn't sound nearly as rehearsed to his ears as it did to hers.

"The EMH's been deleted or hidden or something. You were his assistant briefly."

She nodded.

"There are a lot of injuries."

"Are you going to beam up Naomi and the rest?" she asked.

"He'll do it right after he beams us to Sickbay," said Harry, signaling the transporter officer.

"Okay," she said, feeling the tingling begin again before it had completely faded.

Samantha couldn't believe her eyes when they rematerialized in Sickbay. Ken had warned her it was going to be bloody, but she'd been to busy imagining the actual fight to think about the consequences.

"No EMH?" She asked Harry, unable to think that she was going to have to treat all these injuries.

"I'm going to see if I can find him," Harry said, moving toward the Chief Medical's Officers Office.

"Please do," she told him, picking up an instrument from the medical tray and moving towards the nearest patient.

"Treat Tuvok first," came a voice from behind her. She turned to see Captain Janeway.

"He's critical," Janeway finished, looking none too healthy herself, a half-healed, ugly wound visible in the tattered front of her uniform.

Samantha found him, scanning a nasty looking phaser wound.

"It doesn't require surgery," she told Janeway, who had moved to Tuvok's side.

As she began running an instrument over it, she felt Janeway watching her every move.

"I can't believe the Maquis thought they could take the ship," she said, feeling like a despicable liar as she reached for another instrument. "Did you catch them all?"

Did you catch Ken, her mind wanted to know.

"No, some shuttles were launched and some Maquis escaped after they realized they weren't going to win. The rest are in the Brig."

"Good. Um, on the planet I saw what I thought were escape pods landing. Were those Maquis escaping?"

"No. Those were some *cowardly* members of my crew escaping."

"Oh," Samantha said neutrally.

She could just imagine the words Captain Janeway would use if she knew that Samantha had been aware of the mutiny almost since it was thought up.

"Rollins to Janeway."

Samantha glanced up as Janeway responded to the comm.

"Bridge life support is back up."

"Good."

With that, Janeway turned on her heel, stepping over the patients on the floor on her way to the exit.

"Let me know his condition when you're done," she called back, pausing at the door.

"Certainly."

Standing there, concentrating on Tuvok's injury, Samantha felt awful. She guessed it had been a Maquis who'd inflicted the injury. Possibly even Ken.

Maybe she'd picked the wrong side to win, but she'd managed not to be on the ship when it went down. More importantly, Naomi had been safe, if miserable on the planet.

Not much had changed, really. Voyager was functioning, if damaged. The crew was alive, if reduced. And it was still going home.