Star Trek Voyager: The Gift

Star Trek Voyager: The Gift 41. Badlands and Penitentiaries

A/n: Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all of your great feedback on the last chapter! I can’t wait to hear what you think of this, canon events are finally upon us!

The aftermath the incident at Deep Space Eleven was horrific for the Maquis as a whole, the covert Cardassian attacks, with Federation assistance, on all of their colony bases had threatened their very existence for a time. As the fallout of fear, grief and disarray began to disperse however, it was discovered that the annihilation had not been as total as most had feared in those paralysing first few days. Yes, many of their supply networks had been wiped out, capable leaders and staunch supporters killed, refugees who’d come to them for protection were once again homeless, but the main attacking force, the guerrilla crews in their battered ships, was for the most part intact, if now even more fragmented than before. This latter category of course included the Valjean, whose crew had had a front row seat to watch that destructive day unfold. It had affected them all. Whatever threads which had stubbornly tied them to the Federation were now well and truly broken, most of them no longer differentiated between it and the Cardassian Empire even in the more rational parts of their minds, enough was enough. Where their commitment had began to waver, it was strengthened by the conviction of a new betrayal and, even more so, necessity. Unlike before, where in the back of their minds they’d always known they could melt back into the crowds of disaffected colonists with relative ease, a knowledge that had given them a sense of security, everyone now felt like hunted animals.

In no one else was this new mindset more obvious than in Chakotay and Seven of Nine. They’d known within minutes of realising the Maquis’ dilemma that their plan to retreat into the background could never be. There were no others they could pass the buck to, if they believed in the Maquis they’d need to keep fighting for it. Chakotay was also acutely aware of the fact that if spies could unleash such a disaster, they would unveil Seven’s dangerous background in an instant, perhaps already had, and if that was the case the safest place for her was on board the close-knit Valjean. For Seven this was less of an issue, she’d been coping with the threat of persecution ever since she’d been freed from the Collective. She found that where pragmatic apathy and often resentment had once dominated her thoughts of the Maquis a new determination had formed, she stayed for the sake of survival now, not to obey a political conviction she felt detached from or to protect Chakotay from himself.

In a strange way, the blow to the Maquis had saved Chakotay from self-destruction. The intensified threat to his crew’s lives had helped him to push aside the guilt and uncertainty that haunted him. When he’d really needed to pull himself together and step up to true leadership he’d done it without a second’s pause, and it was this new found strength that ultimately held his crew together even tighter than before.

Stardate 48314.5, January 16th 2371

B’Elanna winced, complaining sparks from her console spitting into her eyes, as Cardassian phaser fire grazed the starboard side of the Valjean. She glanced angrily out at the pursuer, a Galor class Cardassian warship. “Shouldn’t an esteemed Cardassian Gul…” Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she parodied the Cardassian military’s etiquette, “…have something better to do than heckle a single Maquis vessel on the edge of the Badlands?”

Seven shot the Engineer a disparaging glance from her own nearby console, “I believe that the Cardassians consider the elimination of all suspected Maquis vessels, however minor, of the utmost importance or else we would not currently be in this situation.”

B’Elanna glared back at her, “Oh, so you consider our lives minor do you?” she snapped hotly in retort.

“I don’t and obviously Gul Evek here doesn’t consider us a minor target, he’s throwing everything at us!” Chakotay cut in sharply as he forced the ship into a dive to avoid another phaser strike. “I need the engines steady if I’m going to hold this ship together B’Elanna… ”