Star Trek Voyager: The Gift

Star Trek Voyager: The Gift 11. Shadows and Ashes

“Cardassians.”  Chakotay felt his gut twist horribly within him as Seven’s broken whisper hit his ears. He knew from the way her gaze focused on the far distant sky, blocking out everything else around her, that this was a statement of fact rather than speculation.

Despite this knowledge, his voice was still hot with denial as he exclaimed, “What? It can’t be! We have a treaty…”

Seven shook her head, still intently watching something he couldn’t see. “Not any more.”

“How can you even tell it’s them?” he asked, almost accusingly, as if her obvious fear was ludicrous, as if they were playing some sort of game.

Pain radiated in her eyes for a split second before she closed them, shutting him out from her feelings, when they opened again they had an odd pinched, withdrawn expression. “Look up.” She murmured morosely.

He cringed, suddenly unwilling to confront whatever he would face. Taking a deep breath as the ground shook again, he slowly walked to the cavern’s mouth, to the side least obscured by the waterfall’s spray, and looked up. The sky was a faded blue, a sun-bleached, cloudless shade that was rarely seen on the sub-tropical Dorvan V, the sun a scorching merciless disk in the centre of it, filling even the canopied forest with shafts of white light. He stared up at it, oddly mesmerised, until suddenly a huge looming dark shape snuffed the light out, as if the planet were experiencing a solar eclipse. A primeval form of panic began its rapid rise within him as the shadows around them became darkness prematurely and he may have been able to hear the thudding of his own heart in his chest if not for the roar that filled the air, a sound that seemed to permeate the planet’s crust, a sound he now recognised as idling warp engines, and wakening weapons. He wheeled around to face Seven again with wild eyes, “We have to go back to the village, evacuate…” He muttered, barely aware of what he was saying as he bent his tall frame to leave the cavern.

“No!” Seven hissed, suddenly beside him, restraining him with a vice like grip, her eyes flashing with desperation. “This cavern consists primarily of granite and may withstand the attack, but outside…” She swallowed hard to stop her voice from cracking, not wanting his panic to escalate to levels were self-preservation would be irrelevant to him.

Growling as he twisted around to glare into her face, his arm numb with the crushing power of her enhanced muscles holding him back, he snarled in disbelief, “How can you just leave them all out there? They’re fish in a barrel!”

“It’s too late…” Seven choked out in anguish as an unnaturally bright flash of light filled the cavern for a moment, followed almost in tandem by the unmistakable smell of smoke and burning.

That scent of death pushed Chakotay over the edge and his rage boiled over, fighting her pleading restraining arms with strength he hadn’t been aware of having, in his mind every second he spent in here cowering was a second he could be using to save his father. Finally as the adrenaline fuelled energy was replaced with desperation, he turned to Seven and spat, “Let go of me! What about Dad? Don’t you even care about saving him?”

The quick, burning slap of her human hand connecting with his cheek stunned him enough to stop fighting and stare, dazed, into her frantic, tear filled eyes sunk into her ghostly white face. “Do you think he’d want you to die?” she shot back at him, dragging him further into the cave by the wrist, “I’m…save…” Her voice was overwhelmed by dread as she mentally considered that after this they may both wish to be dead, but she forced the thought away as he looked at her. “I’m saving you for him! Please Chakotay!”

He staggered as the ground shook with another bomb, falling to his knees, shaking. She spoke as if their fate were already sealed, as if they could do nothing… It was then that he noticed a pair of glowering golden eyes in the darkness and heard a low growl, to his shock it was Lucky, cowering against the wall of the cavern and snarling with panic, ears pinned to the back of his head as he stared out into the forest. The dog looked as if it had somehow regressed back to being wild; his fear so extreme that not even the presence of his beloved owners calmed him. Chakotay gulped as he remembered his father telling him that animals had a sixth sense about danger, natural disasters and the like, and humans would be better to follow those instincts… Forcing himself upright with his father’s voice still lingering in his memory, he shakily addressed Seven again, “What should we do, to be safer?”