Janeway, Chakotay and Paris stood at the rendezvous point. They hadn't heard from B'Elanna or Harry since they had disappeared into the night and they'd had no luck all morning trying to find them.
"They must have run into trouble," Paris commented to the captain, as he paced the little lane beside the sandstone chapel. They had less than twenty minutes to go before they would be transported back into the Delta Flyer.
Janeway scoured the crowded street. Everywhere she looked, she saw Anawin civilians; dotted among them was the odd priest or two, but none were familiar. Tayna was again asleep in her arms. The child was lucky she could nap through the din. Janeway still hadn't become accustomed to all the noise and bustle of the Anawin City. The rushing wind whistled down the street where they waited and she could hear vendors loudly trying to entice customers in the background. Somewhere, not too far away, a disrupter was fired. People conversed all around her. It was so hard to think and time was running out.
As Tayna started to stir, she transferred the child to Paris then signaled for him and Chakotay to shield her from the view of any passing pedestrians. She pulled out her combadge. During the night, just like B'Elanna, she too had dissected her combadge until she'd deciphered a way to adequately scatter the signal pattern.
"Janeway to Torres." She chose to speak quietly at first, but receiving no reply she tried again a little louder. "Janeway to Ensign Kim. Please respond." Still the badge stayed silent.
"No response," she said.
Chakotay shook his head, while Paris beat his forehead lightly against the sandstone wall out of worry and frustration.
***
"Perhaps you should answer your friend," the guard spat at B'Elanna.
B'Elanna had her back pressed up against a cold stone wall. The guard relaxed his fingers from their position clutched around her throat. She coughed a little, before responding to the captain's hail.
"Torres here."
The three officers all moved in closer on hearing her voice.
"Where are you?" Janeway asked, but her words were met with silence.
"Are you okay?" Paris cut short the unnerving pause.
"I'm fine." B'Elanna hurriedly shot back the words. Her reply was strained, breathless, uncharacteristic, making Tom look up with a worried frown.
"B'Elanna, what's going on?" Janeway asked. Another long empty pause followed the words. "Is Harry with you? Can you tell us where you are?"
"Harry's not here," B'Elanna said.
Paris shook his head. "Captain, I know B'Elanna. This isn't like her. Something's definitely wrong."
Chakotay agreed and commented he was pretty sure he'd heard the murmur of another voice in the background. A voice he thought might be coaching her.
"What about Tuvok?" Janeway asked.
"Where are you? You didn't tell me where to find you?" B'Elanna questioned.
"She knows where to find us," Janeway said, kneading her forehead with her hand. "Don't answer the question."
They were caught in a conversation lock and the three stared at the combadge that had gone silent.
***
As she noted the guard's menacing expression, B'Elanna wondered why he had singled her out of the crowd. She had exited the priory with Tuvok and Harry and a half-dozen more priests following close behind. She didn't feel she looked more suspicious than any other member of the clergy, yet for some reason, the guard had picked her out and forced her up against the exterior wall of the priory. In fact, many more people had entered and exited the building since the pack of red uniformed guards descended on the family quarters. Several civilians and priests had even stopped to stare at her, as she tried to fight off the guard, but no one had been courageous enough to assist her.
Harry and Tuvok had been walking alongside her when she was arrested. She had been unsure of the guard's intentions at the time and had signaled they were not to interfere. Harry had been reluctant to leave, but she'd been adamant. He moved away, but still kept watch over her from afar for quite a while, before he indicated he was going to find the others and bring them back to help her. Now she wished he and Tuvok had hung around a bit longer so they could collect her body. She presumed the guard who was holding her captive would eventually shoot her, after he finished pummeling her.
The guard thrust B'Elanna violently back up against the wall. Her head collided with the cold, hard stone and she felt a sharp pain echo through her skull. The guard held his sonic disrupter beneath her ribs, letting her feel the weapon prod even deeper under her ribcage. She doubled over before defiantly kicking out at her captor. In response, the guard took a fistful of her purple hood and, catching her hair in the handful, pulled her upright.
"You owe me one offering," the guard said angrily.
"I owe you nothing!" B'Elanna answered back. She continued to fight against his tight hold. Her temper was seething.
"You owe me one offering," the guard repeated and pushed his disrupter even deeper into her flesh.
B'Elanna found his angry voice surprisingly familiar and wondered where she might have heard it before. Pinned between the weapon and the wall, she had a sudden flashback to the guard standing opposite her in the marketplace. She remembered how angry he had been when she pardoned the merchant and kept the pieces of gold chain. Too bad she didn't still have them on her. All this time, she'd presumed the guard who held her captive knew she was an intruder to the Anawin City. But now, as the man repeated his demand, she felt the strongest desire to laugh. She had been prepared to die for her status as an intruder. But she wouldn't give up her life just to hold on to a few personal possessions.
She opened her hand in front of the guard's face. The silent combadge lay in her open palm.
"One offering," B'Elanna said. "Take it, or leave it."
The guard dug the combadge out of her hand. He examined his newly acquired toy in fascination before he pocketed it. But he didn't let go of her.
"You think I don't know who you are and what you're doing here?" the guard whispered, his face only inches from her own. "Your alien technology is worth far more to me than your life. If it weren't so, you'd already be dead. Don't forget me. I'll be seeing you again." The guard released his tight hold and ran inside the priory to catch up with the others.
B'Elanna stepped away from the wall, clutching her bruised ribs she searched for the spire on the sandstone chapel. Then she ran, as fast as she thought was acceptable for a priest, toward the center of the city.
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Fanfiction"You really care about her, don't you?" Tom said, but the commander didn't answer. So Tom clarified his statement. "The Captain, I mean." "I have the utmost respect and admiration for Captain Janeway." Chakotay's response had been a long time comin...
