Fic (Voyager/ Firefly): From the Stars, Knowledge (Janeway, Firefly and Voyager ensembles, PG)
From the Stars, Knowledge
Star Trek: Voyager/ Firefly crossover (Janeway and ensembles, PG)
Author's Notes: Written for the multiverse5000 2009. My prompt: "Voyager's new holoprogram is a space western." And well, yes, that's sort of what this is about.
“It’s violent,” Kathryn says, not looking up from her PADD.
“That’s what the safety protocols are for,” Harry says. He’s standing in front of her desk, all excited about a new holoprogram he’s found, something called “Serenity” which Kathryn has never heard of and no one has seen fit to bring to her attention before. It’s amazing how much useless data can be stored on an intrepid class starship’s database. It takes five years lost in a remote corner of the universe to get through it all.
“Parts of it are disturbing,” Kathryn says. “I mean, we’ve seen some terrible things out here but these Reavers...” She shakes her head. What kind of sadistic mind thinks of these plots?
“It’s not all bad,” Harry says. “It’s mostly about the coming together of a bunch of societal misfits and outlaws - people from all walks of life. You’d relate.”
“The plot does seem familiar,” Kathryn says wryly.
It’s not been popular amongst the crew,” Harry says. “But it’s interesting. Someone should try it.”
Kathryn looks up from her PADD. “Not you?”
“Someone braver than me.”
“You underestimate yourself.”
“I know my limits, Captain,” Harry says. He looks down at the ground for a second, like he’s contemplating his words. Eventually he says, “Also, I think there’s a political issue.”
“Really?” She looks down at the PADD again. She hadn’t noticed anything political at first glance. But what is political this far from Earth? “How so?”
“The crew of Serenity are a group of mercenaries who, after having their land taken from them as the result of a boundary dispute, flout the law and cause trouble for the powers that be.”
Kathryn frowns. She thought she recognised some of those characters. “You think it’s of Maquis origin?”
“It’s been here all along, Captain,” Harry says. “According to the logs it was created before the ship was lost in the Delta Quadrant.”
“Hmm,” Kathryn says. The Maquis had sympathisers in Starfleet but planting pro-Maquis propaganda in a Starfleet ship’s holoprogram’s database is kind of bold. It was only chance that prevented it from being discovered earlier. Chance and the crew’s penchant for holoprograms that are somewhat more removed from their current situation. “That is a mystery. “
“I just thought you should know,” Harry says.
“Thank you,” Kathryn says, giving him a short nod. He nods in return and then leaves, leaving her staring at the PADD wondering what possessed anyone to invent cannibalistic villains called Reavers. You surely wouldn’t find this kind of holoprogram on the Enterprise.
Maybe that’s why it piques her curiousity. This isn’t the Enterprise and she’s not Jean Luc Picard. Kathryn Janeway appreciates a little adult entertainment.
*
She enters the program as a passenger, a drifter scouring the space docks on a planet called “Ariel,” and looking to make a living by the seat of her pants. Curiously, there aren’t a lot of options in terms of choosing a character. She can choose to be a passenger or a fellow outlaw but the positions on the crew are fixed and there’s no entering into. Kathryn doesn’t pretend to understand the intricacies of holodeck plot development so she’s not about to complain about the narrative choices, but having to go through the process of winning the crew’s trust is laborious and detracts from the real challenge of plotting jobs and deals.
And the author clearly felt it necessary that the player spend the initial interaction with the program getting to know the crew and learning to get along with them so perhaps there’s more to it, something of value that she hadn’t considered before. It’s not like she isn’t up for the task, after all. She’s a Starfleet Captain. Winning people over is all in a day’s work. Especially in the Delta Quadrant where she’s the lone ambassador of a powerful federation that no one has heard of. Making friends out here is more than just interplanetary good relations, it’s survival.
And of course, in the beginning there was the Maquis to deal with, which is perhaps more relevant to the program given the crew of Serenity bear a somewhat striking similarity to the Marquis. They’re disciplined and righteous, and yet they distrust authority and are inclined to lawlessness. In essence, they are good people, and it’s the world around them that has turned them wrong.
Much of this information is available from the program summary on file, but one night in the dining room on Serenity and she can sense it too. The way the Captain is guarded about their work, the way the first mate looks at him warily when the subject steers toward the Alliance, the way the shepherd won’t tell them a thing about his past and the way the doctor and his sister shouldn’t be there at all. Something is very wrong on Serenity but no one will say it out loud. At least, not to a stranger.
*
After a day of hanging about the dining room and her quarters and not coming upon anything more exciting than a protein brick, Kathryn decides to take the iniative and volunteer for the crew’s latest job. It’s a smuggling operation - not that they’ve told her so but they’re docking at a space station and the Captain’s told all passengers to stay ship side whilst they “attend to some old business.” There are no weapons on board and it’s not like they’re master criminals so Kathryn figures they’re smugglers. What else can they do?
They barely trust each other let alone their passengers, so some degree of subterfuge is needed, possibly a sympathy card that will appeal to the barely concealed sense of honour the Captain wears on his sleeve. She corners him in the cargo hold and gives him her best “I lost the family home to raiders and now I’m just looking for a job where I can find it” speech, hoping the program is designed to give her the benefit of the doubt. What fun would there be in a program that kept her on the ship all the time?
To her surprise, the Captain says, “No,” and doesn’t give it a second thought. He and Zoe and Jayne take a shuttle to the space station, leaving Kathryn to watch them from the cockpit with the pilot. The pilot at least is conversational. He tells her about Zoe, his wife - much to his surprise.
“Does it bother you, being left behind like this?” she asks him.
“Well, sure,” the pilot says. “That’s my wife out there, after all.”
“Exactly,” Kathryn says. “Wouldn’t you rather be with her?”
“They do what they do,” he says. “And I’ve learned not to question them. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way but at least it’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
Kathryn wonders what he means, but he doesn’t elaborate. He leans back in his chair and goes back to watching the ships circle the space station, like just keeping an eye on the location is his role in the plan. Kathryn follows his look, trying to make out the shuttle amongst the myriad of ships. It’s too far away and most of the ships look like insects. It could be any of them.
“Mal’s not unreasonable,” the pilot says. “He’ll give you work if you need it. But he’s not about to get you killed - or more importantly, get himself killed taking care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Kathryn says.
“So can I,” the pilot says. “Well - most of the time. Electric shock torture is another matter altogether. Still, there’s taking care of yourself, and then there are certain skills. ”
“What do you mean?” she says.
“I mean, Jayne’s good in a fight and he’s a sure shot when he’s half asleep or dying. Zoe and the Captain have some kind of weird synchronised brain thing going on - and the rest of us are just more useful on the ship.”
“Skills,” Kathryn repeats, and she realises she’s been going about it all wrong.
*
“It’s complicated,” Kathryn tells Neelix over coffee. It’s late and they’re the only occupants of the mess. “It’s more than just making friends and fitting in. It’s strategising and negotiating relationships. It’s quite unlike any holoprogram I’ve ever experienced.”
“It sounds perfect for you,” Neelix says, refilling her cup. “Isn’t that what you do all the time?”
“Yes.” Kathryn laughs a little. “You would think I’d be drawn to something more carefree.”
“Most of the crew are,” Neelix says. “Maybe you need to be challenged constantly?”
“Maybe,” Kathryn says, and she sips her coffee. Maybe she just likes being on the other side for a change. “I’d suggest you join me, but we’d have to find you a human disguise. There are no aliens in this universe. I find that very curious.”
“As intriguing as it sounds, Captain, Voyager is enough excitement for me.”
“I think that goes for all of us,” she says. It should be true for her as well. She wonders why it isn’t.
*
The next time she opens up the program, she tries a different tactic.
“I think I can be of use to you,” she tells the Captain, following him along the catwalk from the cockpit.
“I have useful people,” the Captain says, refusing to slow down. “And in case you haven’t noticed, Jayne gets kind of antsy when he has to share, so I’m not looking to take on anymore.”
“I’m a scientist,” Kathryn says. “Applied physical science actually, with a wealth of field experience. You’d be amazed at what I can do.”
“Field experience?” the Captain says. He stops and leans one hand on the railing. “What is it you think we do here, Kathryn?”
“Small time smuggling operations,” she says. “Criminal, but not immoral.”
“Really?” the Captain says. “And you know this how?”
“Please, I was catching your sort before I left - “ She stops. If she’s going to tell them about her military expertise it’s probably better to change some names. Starfleet Academy could be hard to explain. “I used to be an Alliance officer,” she says. The Captain hates the Alliance, but he values honesty. She’s hoping out of the two, he’ll rate the latter of more importance. “A Captain.”
He looks at her without blinking, like he’s trying figure out if she’s telling the truth. Eventually, he says, “Huh.”
“It’s not something I advertise,” she says. “But I need work and I figure you’ll find out eventually.” She wrote her background into the program: an ex-Captain commanding a small exploratory ship on the outer edges of the system. She kept it as close to the truth as possible.
“You fight in the war?” the Captain asks.
She hasn’t a clue about the war. She knows the Captain and Zoe fought in a war - the pilot said as much - and she knows they lost. She’s hazy on the details of what and where.
But an Alliance Officer that didn’t fight in the war? Wouldn’t that be convenient? “Yes,” she says eventually.
“Where?” he says.
“Where?” She repeats dumbly. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I captained a clean-up vessel,” she says. During the Cardassian war, science teams scoured battle debris for useful technology. The odd skirmish broke out but it was far less bloody than the front. “We only ever fought when attacked.”
“You get attacked much?”
“On occasion.”
The Captain looks thoughtful, and then he smiles a little and relaxes his hand on the rail. “I appreciate your candour, Kathryn,” he says. “Took a lot of guts, seeing as how we don’t take kindly to the Alliance around here.”
“Just trying to be honest,” Kathryn says. As honest as she can be.
The Captain scratches his chin. “So you’re former Alliance?”
“Yes?” she says. She has a strange feeling she’s not going to like what she’s in for.
“Then I think I have a job for you.”
*
“We need to get past these Alliance check points,” the Captain says pointing to the monitor. “Here and here.”
She stares at the screen and for a moment she thinks she’s in over her head. She doesn’t really know anything about the Alliance after all and she’s used to having Starfleet technology at her fingertips. These ships aren’t even warp capable. She doesn’t know how they stay in the sky.
Gravity, she reminds herself. They fly using gravitational fields. It’s actually very simple.
“Why not cut the engines,” she says. “Get enough momentum behind you and you’ll just float by.”
“Uh-uh,” the pilot says, looking over their shoulder. “We’ve tried that. Residual energy signatures give us away. Those Alliance scanners will pick up anything.”
“And there’s only so many times we can use the fake distress signal,” the Captain says. “Doesn’t work when there are two of them so close together.”
“Residual energy signatures.” Kathryn tries not laugh. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Something funny to you?” the Captain says.
Residual energy signatures. It can’t be larger than a smoke plume. Try masking a warp energy signature. “Oh, you have no idea, ” she says.
*
She teams up with the ship’s mechanic and teaches her how to use up the residual energy so that there’s negligible waste. It’s a small amount but it’s also a small ship with minimal systems so finding places to channel it is not as easy as Kathryn hoped. Still, the mechanic is a creative, not to mention a quick study. Between the two of them they work out a way to feed energy into the refrigeration units and store it there long enough to get past the check points unnoticed. The mechanic seems to be holding the engine together with hair pins and paperclips and yet despite the crude methods, it seems to work. Given a few pointers and the right materials Kaylee could probably invent warp speed if she put her mind to it. In Kathryn’s world, Starfleet would have snapped her up in an instant, not left her out in the back waters of the solar system to fall in with outlaws.
“It’s incredible,” Kaylee tells Kathryn. She pats the engine like it’s a pet. “I think she’s working twice as efficiently as she was too. And all we had to do is double feedback the waste product. The Alliance teach you that?”
“Not exactly,” Kathryn says.
“Some of those ships have got real fancy engines,” Kaylee says. “Serenity must look kind of rustic to you.”
More like ancient. Even the escape pods on Voyager have warp drive. Not that it’s designed to go long distances but it’s there none the less.
Still, Kathryn appreciates the simple mechanics of a gravitational drive. It’s solid and real, something almost human about it. “Too many bells and whistles,” Kathryn says. “I prefer the economics of a more traditional ship. Serenity doesn’t waste space.”
They exchange knowing smiles and go back to rerouting the engine waste. At the end of the day, her hair is tousled and she has sweat on her brow and she admits to herself that this is way better than programming a warp field any day.
*
She comes out of the holodeck covered in grease. It seems in the Serenity universe, there’s no self-lubricating parts.
B’Elanna catches her in the corridor outside. “You look like you’ve been playing in Tom’s ‘Grease Monkey’ program.”
“It’s the Serenity program Harry Kim introduced me to,” Kathryn says. “A pre-warp civilisation that never made first contact. Their ships are somewhat archaic.”
B’Elanna frowns. “What’s the appeal?”
“I don’t know,” Kathryn says. “Why are people so fascinated by pirates? I guess there’s romanticism to flying by the seat of one’s pants, living one day to the next.”
“You don’t get enough of that out here?” B’Elanna says.
“It’s different,” Kathryn says. And it is. Despite the overwhelming enormity of their predicament, Voyager is very orderly. She makes sure it is.
“Well,” B’Elanna says, stopping at the turbo lift. “I have a diagnostic to run.”
“I’ll expect your report at the usual time,” Kathryn says. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand and it comes away oily and black. “Make it later. I need to take a bath.”
“Will do,” B’Elanna says. The doors to the turbo lift open and B’Elanna steps inside. She turns around and gives Kathryn a scrutinising look. “You know, there’s something very Marquis about your clothes. Is that a coincidence?”
“I don’t know,” Kathryn says. “The program is something of a mystery.”
“You should look into it,” B’Elanna says. The doors to the turbo lift close.
*
After the smuggling operation is a success, the Captain keeps her informed of other jobs he thinks she can help with and even invites her planet side on a routine salvage mission.
Only it’s not so routine and it turns out they’re not the only crew claiming salvage rights to the abandoned plant. Kathryn knows neither of them have a right and it’s only a matter of time before the claims become more about force than argument.
“We should probably let them have it,” she suggests to the Captain. “They don’t look like they’re willing to negotiate.” They’re outnumbered two to one and half of them already have their weapons drawn.
“Agreed,” the Captain says. “But I’m taking the powers cells.” He hands one to Wash and one to Jayne. “Make a run for it.”
Jayne and Wash have barely moved before the other crew starts firing. They all drop to the ground and shelter behind an old water silo.
“Go,” Kathryn says. “I’ll draw their fire.” She has an advantage over Serenity’s crew after all. With the holodeck’s safety protocols set, she can’t be harmed. It’s a logical decision.
“Nothing doing,” the Captain says. “We all go together.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, and she stands up, takes an empty box and runs in the opposite direction to the ship.
Behind her she hears the Captain yelling, “Go! Go!” and when she turns around she sees them all running for the ship in staggered starts.
She makes it back eventually. The other salvage crew may have had more weapons but they were lousy shots. And in the end they just wanted the plant.
“And I thought the Captain had a death wish,” Wash says, back at the ship. “You know we would have made it, and even if we hadn’t, no one here wants you to die on their account.”
“Speak for yourself,” Jayne says. He’s making something that smells like coffee in a tin cup. She had no idea they had coffee.
“It was too close,” Kathryn says. “One of us would have gotten caught.” She nods at Jayne’s cup. “Is that coffee?”
“Only if you interpret the term very loosely,” Wash says.
Later, she volunteers to take a spacewalk when the navigational emitter goes down, and after that she takes the initiative of detonating a gas bomb in an enclosed space only seconds before exiting, cutting off their Alliance pursuers.
The Captain is impressed each time, but she catches him looking at her sometimes, like he’s not sure what he’s taken on board. She thinks he’s very astute for a hologram.
*
On the next job the Captain takes her planet side to help out with negotiations. She’s good with people but she’s even better with a weapon in her hand and when she takes out two bandits in an ambush before the Captain can get a shot off, he gives her that look again, the one that says he’s both impressed and disturbed by her level of competence.
“You saw that coming,” the Captain says, when the rest of the bandits turn tail and run.
“It was something in the air,” she says. She gets a feeling in the pit of her stomach when there’s trouble afoot. It’s something the Delta Quadrant has instilled in her.
“That so?” the Captain says.
“I can’t explain it,” she says.
“Seems the Alliance trains its Officers better than I thought,” the Captain says.
“The Alliance teaches discipline,” Kathryn says. “Instinct comes with experience.”
“I’m just a little surprised you got experience from the Alliance,” the Captain says. “They’re not known for being risk takers.”
Chakotay said the same thing about Starfleet. She’d always told him he should read Kirk’s logs some time and he said Kirk was the exception to the rule. The truth is, so is she.
*
She’d been meaning to mention it to Chakotay for some time, but with a brief (and accidental) involvement in a border dispute and a small replicator malfunction that caused a synthenol shortage, the opportunity hadn’t presented itself.
Eventually, it’s Chakotay who raises her holodeck hours with her during their daily de-brief. “You’ve been spending all your free time on the holodeck,” he says. “Do I need to stage an intervention?”
“It’s called Serenity,” she says. “I thought you might know something about it.”
“I don’t,” he says, “Should I?”
“It’s about a group of outlaws,” she says. “Mercenaries really - who lost their land in a war and make up for it by winning small victories over the powers that be.”
“Never heard of it,” Chakotay says. “But I can tell you how it ends.”
“No doubt,” she says. “The similarities between the story and yours make me wonder if a member of the Maquis wrote it.”
“I think we’ve already determined no one on board is the literary type,” Chakotay says. “Tuvok excepted, of course.”
She drains the dregs of her coffee and goes over to the replicator to order another. “Harry said it was on board when we set off for the Badlands,” she says. “A little strange, don’t you think?”
“Is it?” Chakotay says. “It’s an appealing idea. I’m sure it’s a common plot.”
“On a starship?”
“Maybe it’s a training program?” Chakotay says.
She sits back down in her chair opposite Chakotay. There’s a loose selection of PADDs they’re supposed to be reviewing but Chakotay is always up for a distraction. “A program that teaches Starfleet officers how to infiltrate the Maquis?” she says. “How insidious.”
“And not at all unlike them either,” Chakotay says.
Kathryn thinks he sounds a lot like Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Or is that the other way around?
*
Serenity needs parts and fuel and the Doctor needs supplies, so the Captain decides to touch down planet-side for a few days and let the crew get some rest and relaxation amongst other things.
They choose New Melbourne, a planet that straddles the median strip between the core planets and the border worlds. The Captain says he won’t go to the core planets unless he absolutely has to and even then he promises to protest loudly.
“Bad memories?” Kathryn asks him.
“You may find this hard to believe,” he says. “But I don’t go looking for trouble.” Behind him the companion snorts.
Inara is right to laugh. Even a simple stop over for supplies on a relatively benign planet ends in chaos. Kathryn isn’t sure how it happened. One moment she was admiring a fruit stand with Kaylee, and the next the shepherd is grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the rows of ship docks at the rear of the market place.
“What’s going on?” she asks. Ahead of her, Kaylee and the doctor are running, pulling River along by her wrists.
“We’ve been spotted,” the shepherd says.
“I didn’t see any Alliance officers,” Kathryn says. In fact, the market place had looked completely lawless, like they hadn’t seen a federal officer in years.
“Bounty hunters,” the shepherd says.
“How do you know?” she asks. There are footsteps behind them now, two, three pairs maybe, running, getting faster.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” a voice says, and then there’s a long pause where the only thing they can hear is their own pounding feet and their hearts beating in their throats, and then shots are fired, bullets singing as they fly past their ears.
Kathryn draws her weapon. “Go,” she says to the shepherd, pushing him away. “I’ll hold them off.”
“You can’t,” the shepherd says. “Not on your own.”
“Go,” she says, and it’s Captain Janeway talking, not Kathryn the drifter turned mercenary.
The shepherd gives her a strange look before he turns and runs, mechanically, like he’s been compelled by the sound of her voice. She doesn’t know how it works; she just knows that it does.
She holds them off and makes it back to the ship in time for the Captain to have returned and to be waiting in the cargo hold with the engines powered. “What happened?” he asks Kathryn and the shepherd when they’re in flight again.
“Bounty hunters,” the shepherd says. “They must have recognised River and Simon.”
“How did you know?” Simon asks.
“I know their type,” the shepherd says.
The Captain looks from the shepherd to Kathryn and back to the shepherd. “You know, you two are beginning to disturb me. How is it you know so much about bounty hunters?” he says to the shepherd. He turns to Kathryn again. “And how is it you are always where the guns are going off?”
“It’s a game,” River says suddenly. “It’s not real, is it?” She looks at Kathryn.
Kathryn feels like she’s been woken up mid-dream, strangely disorientated and not sure where she is.
“She’s a telepath,” the Captain says, in what Kathryn suspects is supposed to be a reassuring tone. She doesn’t feel reassured.
Kathryn’s met telepaths before. Some had particular codes about the way in which their gifts were used, some were just plain abusive. None of them were holograms.
River laughs. “You’re wondering how I know,” she says.
“End program,” Kathryn says. Serenity’s cargo hold disappears and is replaced by the holodeck grid.
Kathryn frowns at the empty walls. And then she hits her comm and calls for the Doctor to respond.
“Yes, Captain?” he says.
“Do you have a moment, Doctor?”
*
“So you think a hologram read your mind.” The Doctor looks sceptical. “Are you sure she hasn’t been pre-programmed with certain information? Personnel files, for example?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Kathryn says. She leans against a biobed, while the doctor gives her a quick medical scan. He says he likes to utilise the opportunity when it presents itself. She’s not the most forthcoming patient after all. “But it was the specificity of her responses I found unsettling. Like she knew what I thought, when I thought it. How is that possible?”
“Well, I suppose it’s not out of the question,” the Doctor says. He checks the scanner and returns it to his console. “On some of the planets we’ve encountered, artificial life forms are considered to be sentient beings. Some sentients are telepaths. Does it not follow that artificial life forms can also be telepaths?”
“I’ve always imagined a telepathic intelligence to be somewhat more complex,” Kathryn says.
“More complex than black humour and existential inquiry?” the doctor says. “I believe I’ve mastered both.”
“Indeed you have,” Kathryn says. She lets out a breath and folds her arms across her body. “I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. As you say, it could be a program design.”
“If you like,” the Doctor says. “I can give the program a try. Perhaps observe it from my somewhat more sympathetic point of view.”
“If you like,” Kathryn says. “I would appreciate your insight.”
“As soon as I have some recreational time, I’ll get right on it,” the Doctor says. “You’re fine, by the way.”
“I know,” she says. She pushes off the biobed. “A cup of coffee a day keeps the doctor at bay.”
“That’s not true at all.”
“Indulge me, Doctor,” she says grinning.
*
She enters the program again, taking up where she left off. Holodeck programs can be fickle, inclined to exhibit the personality of their author and not every author, for example, allows for adjustments to the scenery or modifications to the personalities of characters. The author of Serenity seems to believe the confrontation she’s having with the doctor’s sister is one she needs to have as she’s unable to bypass this particular portion of the story.
“You’re wondering how I know?” River says again, and if Kathryn’s not mistaken there’s a slightly measured tone to River’s voice this time, like she’s speaking lines.
“River,” Simon says. “Remember how we talked about private thoughts?”
Kathryn decides to wing it. “She’s right,” she says. She searches deep inside herself, looking for a truth even a telepath can’t deny. “I guess it’s true of anyone who’s been burdened with responsibility. After a while, every danger, every death becomes your fault, whether you’re justified in the belief or not. When the burned is lifted, nothing seems real anymore.” It might not be true for now. But maybe one day it will be.
River tilts her head to the side a little, like she’s giving Kathryn’s answer thought. Kathryn sees the edge of a smile on River’s face and wonders if she’s fooling anyone at all.
“You don’t have to explain,” Simon says. He takes River by the shoulder and steers her toward the infirmary. “I think it’s time you took your medication,” he tells her.
“It’s a good story,” River says, as she’s being lead away. “I wonder how it ends?”
The rest of the crew looks at Kathryn with vague sympathy. “She kind of weirds you out sometimes,” Kaylee says.
“Not intentionally,” Inara says.
“Oh no,” Kaylee says. “She’s got a big heart. You just have to get to know her a little.”
“It’s okay,” Kathryn says. “I’ve seen stranger.” Just to the left of Inara’s shoulder she can see the Captain watching them, his arms crossed across his body and his lips set in a thin straight line. His expression is unreadable, but she suspects he’s no more reassured than River. She wonders if he wants to know how the story ends too.
*
The exchange on Veda was supposed to be uneventful and badger had said the meet would be unarmed - just a bunch of farm folk - so it’s a little surprising when it turns into an ambush.
Zoe says they should never have trusted Badger but the Captain wants to know how in gorrams name they got weapons when they can’t even put a roof over their heads.
“Guns before beds,” Zoe says. “You should be used to that by now.”
There are at least ten of them. Maybe more. And the Captain didn’t think to find cover. They weren’t expecting a fight.
“I say we get the hell out of here,” the Captain says quietly.
“What’s that?” Zoe says.
“Run!” the Captain yells, and then they’re all running and there’s yelling and screaming and it’s only moments before the bullets start to fly and their singing past Kathryn’s ears again.
Kathryn is too slow. She spends a moment wondering whether to stay, draw their fire and let the others get away, or whether she’s adding fuel to the already sparking fires of their suspicion. She deliberates just long enough to get shot, to feel her skin pinched just above her abdomen, like she’s been stuck by a needle, and then the pinch develops into a burn, growing in intensity until she’s screaming out in pain and her vision goes black. She feels herself sinking to the ground, knees giving way underneath her, and then strong arms take her by the shoulders and carry her away. The last thing she remembers wondering before she blacked out is how she could have set the safety protocols so low? How could she have been so careless?
*
She wakes up in the infirmary. Serenity’s infirmary, not Voyager’s.
“Kathryn?” she hears Simon say.
She tries to speak but her throat is dry. “It’s not supposed to-“
“Take it easy,” the doctor says. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“No,” Kathryn tries to raise herself up on her elbows and her head spins. “It’s not - It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What wasn’t supposed to happen?” Simon says.
“I can’t -“ She tries to raise herself up again and this time succeeds. She takes a breath and focuses her mind on her situation. She’s in a holoprogram. None of this is real.
Still, it’s a somewhat convincing approximation. She feels real pain, real dizziness and very real distress. Without the safety protocols a holoprogram can cause real damage, which means there should be a real transfusion port in her arm and not the simulation the doctor has rigged up.
If it is a simulation. The blood going into her arm feels real too.
“End program,” she says. Nothing happens.
“What did you say?” Simon says.
“End program,” she says again. Still, nothing happens. It’s the same room, the same doctor the same transfusion in her arm.
Simon frowns. “What program are you talking about?”
“Something’s wrong,” Kathryn says, looking about the room.
“You were shot,” Simon says.
“I can’t be shot,” Kathryn says. She swings her legs over the side of the bed. “I need to get out of here.”
“Whoa,” Simon says, stepping forward to stop her. “You’ve just had major surgery, Kathryn. I need you to rest and let your body heal.”
She touches her stomach, there’s a slight burning sensation on the outside and a heaving sensation inside. Her legs feel weak and her head is heavy. Whatever the simulation is, it’s very effective. She lies back down on the bed. Her need for rest too, is very real.
“What happened?” she says.
“The drop didn’t go according to plan,” Simon says. “It seems the Captain’s contact has been building an army these last few months.”
“Same old story,” Kathryn says.
Simon smiles wryly. “That’s putting it mildly,” he says. He clears his throat. “Ahm - Kathryn, there’s something we need to talk about.”
She doesn’t like the sound of that. Something tells her she’s about to have a very strained conversation. “Doctor,” she says. “I understand my behaviour might seem a little strange-“
“Strange we can handle,” Simon says. “You might have noticed we’re in not short supply of strange here. It’s suicidal that worries us.”
“I know I could have been more careful,” Kathryn says. “But you must appreciate, I’ve had extensive military experience. I’m used to being shot at.” That part at least is true.
The doctor looks at the floor guiltily. “I’ve - ah - being doing a little research into your history, Kathryn.”
“You have?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “How?”
“Former military officers have public records,” he says. “So do psychiatric institution escapees.”
Kathryn doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The author of Serenity clearly has a unique sense of humour. “You think I escaped from a psychiatric institution?”
“Outwardly, you present as normal,” the doctor says. “But River reads thoughts, and your thoughts are far from normal.”
“Normal is relative, Doctor,” she says. River is far from normal. Surely he’s noticed. She’d tell him that but then she’d be arguing with a hologram and god knows she’s disagreed with the Doctor often enough to know it never resolves well. There’s way too many stubborn holoprograms on her ship.
“True,” the doctor says. “And I’ve recently come to appreciate that there may be good reasons why someone would escape an Alliance institution that treats psychiatric maladies, but I’ve taken the liberty of contacting your doctor, and I believe he has only your best interests in mind.”
“My doctor?” she says. She shifts her position on the bed. Her stomach is sore. It hurts when she exerts pressure on her left. “I have a doctor?”
“Dr Zimmerman,” Simon says. “We’ve arranged to meet him on Beaumonde.” He looks sheepish. “I hope you understand, Kathryn. We really were worried about you.”
Dr Zimmerman. She wonders why the name is so familiar. “It’s fine,” she says. “Really.”
*
She’s still in the infirmary when they reach Beaumonde. She’s too weak to move and Simon says they don’t need her to go anywhere, so she sits and waits and says “end program” occasionally in case the program didn’t hear her the first fifteen times.
Doctor Zimmerman, when he arrives, is instantly recognisable. It’s the Doctor. At least, it looks like him. His behaviour is another matter entirely and it leads her to believe that either the Doctor has a holo-doppelganger or he’s a lot better actor than any of them were aware of.
“Kathryn,” he says. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you’re all right. Your family has been so worried.”
“My family?” Kathryn says.
“Your mother has been sick with worry.” He turns to Simon. “We’re very grateful to you and your Captain for notifying us. You say she was injured?”
“Ah, yes,” the doctor says. “I did the best I could, but I’m not properly trained.” He gives Kathryn a meaningful look.
She’s still not sure what the doctor is hiding from but she’s not about to give up his secret. “I’m fine,” she says. “The - Simon did an excellent job.”
“If your nurse here has achieved what the best doctors in the alliance could not,” Zimmerman says. “Then apparently frontier medicine has progressed considerably since I was last out this way.”
“She’s physically fine,” Simon says. “Mentally she’s - well, I’ll let you be the judge of that.”
“Indeed,” Zimmerman says. “Kathryn, do you know why I’m here?’
She had hoped it was to rescue her. Now she’s not so sure. If the Doctor has a plan it’s far from being obvious. “I -- I have no idea,” she says eventually.
“Hmm,” Zimmerman says, frowning. “I’m afraid it’s worse than I thought.”
“What’s worse?” she says. “Doctor, do you mind telling me what’s going on?”
“It’s all right, Kathryn.” He leans forward and pats her arm. The Doctor she knows is distinctly un-tactile. But then maybe this is all part of the act? “I’ll explain on the way back.”
“Where are we going?” Kathryn says.
“Back to the Warren Institute on Ariel,” Zimmerman says. “You’re a very sick woman, Kathryn. You need help.”
*
Jayne and the Captain help her out of the infirmary and into the cargo hold. She’s still a little unsteady on her feet but at least she doesn’t have to be carried. It’s bad enough they think she’s crazy but at least the last impression they have of her won’t be of an invalid.
She wonders why she cares.
“I’m sorry,” the Captain says, and he won’t look her in the eye as he does it.
Kaylee gives her a hug and says, “Hope you get better real soon, Kathryn,” and her hand lingers on Kathryn’s shoulder for a second longer than it needs to, like she’s trying to leave an imprint. Inara and the shepherd are similarly tactile and it reminds Kathryn of trying to calm a child, letting it know you’re there by touch.
Wash and Zoe are more hands off, but Wash tries to smile in a reassuring way while Zoe just nods. Jayne nods too but Simon puts his hand on her shoulder in a deliberate manner. “You’re going to be okay, Kathryn,” he says.
River watches from Simon’s side. She doesn’t come forward, doesn’t smile or try to look away. Her eyes are on Kathryn, studying her like she’s registering every reaction.
What am I thinking now? Kathryn thinks, looking at the doctor’s sister. River tilts her head to the side but she doesn’t respond.
“Say goodbye to Kathryn,” Simon tells River.
River reaches out and touches Kathryn’s hair, strokes it once and let the strands fall between her fingers, and then she leans forward, her lips brushing Kathryn’s ear. “He isn’t,” she whispers, and she stands back again, takes her watchful place next to her brother.
Who isn’t? Kathryn thinks, but River doesn’t respond.
*
There’s an infirmary on Zimmerman’s shuttle. There’s a doctor and a nurse and a pilot but no sleeping quarters so Kathryn figures they’re not going far. Persephone and Ariel are core planets and she knows there’s no great distance between them. Less than a day’s travel and they’ll be there.
Curiously, Ariel is where she started this game and she wonders if that’s the Doctor’s plan, to take her back to the beginning and exit the way she came in.
She asks him when they’re finally alone. “Do you have a plan, Doctor?”
“A plan?” he says, looking baffled. “What kind of plan?”
“A plan to get us out of here,” she says.
“Kathryn,” he says. He looks serious, suddenly very grave. “Where do you think you are?”
“On the holodeck,” she says, and even as she says it, she remembers River’s words: he isn’t. She suspects she’s known all along but she’s been clinging to the hope that she was wrong. It’s not him. The Doctor was created in the image of his creator and someone saw fit to reproduce that image here. There’s probably a reason for it, some kind of connection, but she can’t put her finger on it now.
“We’re going back to the Warren Institute, Kathryn,” Zimmerman says. “You’re mother and Phoebe are waiting for you there. Don’t you want to see your mother and sister again?”
She hasn’t seen her mother and sister in years. She has pictures and video but they are still distant in her memory, their mannerisms and movements slipping away as each year passes. She’s spent the last five years thinking about how to get home, but being there has always been an alien thought, something unimaginable.
“Yes, I want to,” she says, not even sure if it’s possible. “I want to very much.”
*
They’re waiting for her in her room at the Warren Institute. Her mother and Phoebe, looking much like they did they day she left for the badlands, maybe a little older, their hair and clothing suggesting the passage of time. When they see her, they immediately leap to their feet and throw their arms around her shoulders, holding her close like they’re scared she’ll disappear again. They are warm and solid and, god, they even smell like them. It’s so real, so them, and Kathryn cries real tears of joy that well in her eyes and fall heavily down her cheeks.
“It’s okay,” her mother says. “It’s okay. We’re here now.”
But it’s not, and they’re not, at least they shouldn’t be. Where did the holoprogram get her mother and sister from? Her personal files? But they’re so real, so complete, how could they possibly know?
Unless they are real. Unless she really is deluded. She doesn’t know what to believe anymore.
*
Zimmerman says she has post-traumatic stress disorder, a side-effect of fighting in the unification wars. She saw things she was never supposed to, witnessed the torture and execution of her crew, and the years since the fighting stopped have been a slow slide into insanity. It started out with short bursts of personality disruption, moments of forgetfulness or confusions, but eventually the disruptions became fugues, months and even years when she completely reinvented herself.
“You once believed you were blind,” Zimmerman says. “You truly couldn’t see when we found you. It’s incredible what the mind can achieve.”
He doesn’t need to tell her about the power of her delusions. Voyager was as real to her as this room, as tangible as Zimmerman’s credentials above the faux fireplace and his desk by the window.
She thinks she sees them sometimes, Harry standing in the visitor’s line, Tuvok wearing a white coat, B’Elanna working in the kitchen. It’s never them. It doesn’t even look like them, just fragments really, parts that are familiar.
They must have been real, she tells herself. Where would she have got them from? Somewhere out there in her unremembered history there must have been an Annika Hansen or a Tom Paris or even a short, round man who became Neelix in her delusions, if that’s what they were. She was inventive when it came to aliens but not so much when it came to the Maquis. Perhaps she tried to reconcile Serenity’s crew in her subconscious? To resolve their troubled relationship with the universe and draw them back into the fold.
Reality is what you make it. She’s stuck here, in this universe, in this asylum on a terraformed planet she’s never heard of. The Earth she knew is a short trip away travelling at warp speed but no one has warp speed here and they call her Earth, Earth That Was. Eventually, she calls it Earth That Was too.
“It bothers me that you still don’t remember,” Zimmerman says to her, during one of their sessions. “You should be making better progress.”
Kathryn looks out the window to where there other patients are walking around the grounds. The Warren Institute is located in picturesque environs and the sun is shining, coating everything in a yellow glow. She’d rather be outside today. She’d rather be anywhere but here.
“You said so yourself, Doctor,” she says. “My delusions were very powerful.”
“But they were delusions just the same,” Zimmerman says. “Most patients come to understand this.”
I’m not most patients, she thinks. At least, not in her mind. What’s real, what isn’t - does it even matter anymore? “It’s a beautiful day outside, Doctor,” she says. “Must we spend it like this?”
He smiles a little and for a moment he’s the EMH, indulging her in her madness once more. “All right, Kathryn,” he says. “But we’re not done here.”
“We never are,” she says.
*
The Warren Institute is a large steel and glass building amidst grass and trees and rose gardens. It reminds her of the Starfleet Academy Physics building where she spent her entire fourth year writing her thesis. Even the roses lining the path are the same colour. Delusions are mutations of reality, they come from somewhere real, and so maybe she plucked the Warren Institute from her memory or maybe it’s Starfleet Academy that she’s recreated here. She hardly knows what to think anymore.
She spends long hours in the gardens, walking the path until she finds the gazebo near the pond and sits watching the ducks comb the ground for bugs. It’s peaceful. That at least is real.
Zimmerman finds her there in the late afternoon. He’s got visitors with him. As they come closer she recognises Simon and River.
“They wanted to see you,” Zimmerman says. “I thought you would appreciate some friendly faces.”
“I do,” Kathryn says. “Thank you.” She doesn’t get many visitors. Mostly her mother and sister and other members of the extended family she doesn’t recognise. It doesn’t bother her at all. She’d rather be alone than see that look on their faces, the one that says they don’t know what to say.
Zimmerman leaves her with Simon and River. “We don’t have much time,” Simon says. “The Captain doesn’t know we’re here.”
The Captain doesn’t like the core planets. Too much trouble. She wonders how Simon and River got here at all. “Why did you come?”
“River wants to talk to you,” Simon says. “She’s been quite insistent.” They exchange looks that only siblings would understand. Sometimes, Kathryn thinks, River appears quite normal. “Be quick,” Simon tells her and he leaves them there to join Dr Zimmerman.
River sits on the opposite side of the gazebo. She looks different somehow. Less like the fragile child Kathryn remembers. Something has changed. She stares at Kathryn from the other side of the gazebo, sizing her up as if they’re about to prize fight.
And then she speaks. “Simon said you would like it here.”
“There are worse places I could be,” Kathryn says. “So I’ve heard.”
The doctor’s sister looks about the gardens. “That man over there thinks he’s a sparrow,” she says. Kathryn follows in the direction of River’s look and sees Henry, one of the patients who, like Kathryn, appreciates the outdoors, except unlike Kathryn he’s prone to throwing himself off the gazebo if given the chance and he has to be watched constantly.
“It’s an asylum, River,” Kathryn says. “Everyone here thinks they are someone else.”
“He also thinks you have nice breasts,” River says.
“Oh,” Kathryn says. “Well, I suppose I should be flattered.”
“He also thinks he’d like to...”
“That’s quite enough,” Kathryn says, holding up her hand. “Why are you here, River?”
“I wanted to tell you,” River says. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What wasn’t your fault?”
“What I can do,” River says. “What I did to you.”
Kathryn feels her senses sharpen, like something is about to happen. She gets up, crosses to the other side of the gazebo and sits beside River. “What do you mean?”
“They created me,” River says. “They didn’t know it at the time. They didn’t know what I could do.“
“Who created you?”
River looks out to the garden where Simon is conversing with Dr Zimmerman. “I should go.”
Kathryn grabs her arm. “No,” she says forcefully. “Tell me what you mean.”
River moves fast, twists out of Kathryn’s control and flips over until she’s on the other side of the gazebo. “I’m sorry.”
“River?” Simon is coming toward them.
Something tells Kathryn his arrival is the end. She has to know now. “Please,” she says to River. “You have to tell me.”
For a moment River’s face falls, like she actually feels Kathryn’s pain. But the moment is fleeting. “Don’t worry,” River says. “They’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Who?” Kathryn says. “When.”
“They will,” River says. “One day.” And then Simon is there, taking her by the arm and telling her they need to go. He touches Kathryn’s shoulder again before he leaves, one more impression Serenity has left on her.
Kathryn waves to them from the gazebo, watches them take the path back to the Institute and disappear inside. Reality is what you make it, she thinks, and the ducks fly off the pond.
End.
Star Trek: Voyager/ Firefly crossover (Janeway and ensembles, PG)
Author's Notes: Written for the multiverse5000 2009. My prompt: "Voyager's new holoprogram is a space western." And well, yes, that's sort of what this is about.
“It’s violent,” Kathryn says, not looking up from her PADD.
“That’s what the safety protocols are for,” Harry says. He’s standing in front of her desk, all excited about a new holoprogram he’s found, something called “Serenity” which Kathryn has never heard of and no one has seen fit to bring to her attention before. It’s amazing how much useless data can be stored on an intrepid class starship’s database. It takes five years lost in a remote corner of the universe to get through it all.
“Parts of it are disturbing,” Kathryn says. “I mean, we’ve seen some terrible things out here but these Reavers...” She shakes her head. What kind of sadistic mind thinks of these plots?
“It’s not all bad,” Harry says. “It’s mostly about the coming together of a bunch of societal misfits and outlaws - people from all walks of life. You’d relate.”
“The plot does seem familiar,” Kathryn says wryly.
It’s not been popular amongst the crew,” Harry says. “But it’s interesting. Someone should try it.”
Kathryn looks up from her PADD. “Not you?”
“Someone braver than me.”
“You underestimate yourself.”
“I know my limits, Captain,” Harry says. He looks down at the ground for a second, like he’s contemplating his words. Eventually he says, “Also, I think there’s a political issue.”
“Really?” She looks down at the PADD again. She hadn’t noticed anything political at first glance. But what is political this far from Earth? “How so?”
“The crew of Serenity are a group of mercenaries who, after having their land taken from them as the result of a boundary dispute, flout the law and cause trouble for the powers that be.”
Kathryn frowns. She thought she recognised some of those characters. “You think it’s of Maquis origin?”
“It’s been here all along, Captain,” Harry says. “According to the logs it was created before the ship was lost in the Delta Quadrant.”
“Hmm,” Kathryn says. The Maquis had sympathisers in Starfleet but planting pro-Maquis propaganda in a Starfleet ship’s holoprogram’s database is kind of bold. It was only chance that prevented it from being discovered earlier. Chance and the crew’s penchant for holoprograms that are somewhat more removed from their current situation. “That is a mystery. “
“I just thought you should know,” Harry says.
“Thank you,” Kathryn says, giving him a short nod. He nods in return and then leaves, leaving her staring at the PADD wondering what possessed anyone to invent cannibalistic villains called Reavers. You surely wouldn’t find this kind of holoprogram on the Enterprise.
Maybe that’s why it piques her curiousity. This isn’t the Enterprise and she’s not Jean Luc Picard. Kathryn Janeway appreciates a little adult entertainment.
*
She enters the program as a passenger, a drifter scouring the space docks on a planet called “Ariel,” and looking to make a living by the seat of her pants. Curiously, there aren’t a lot of options in terms of choosing a character. She can choose to be a passenger or a fellow outlaw but the positions on the crew are fixed and there’s no entering into. Kathryn doesn’t pretend to understand the intricacies of holodeck plot development so she’s not about to complain about the narrative choices, but having to go through the process of winning the crew’s trust is laborious and detracts from the real challenge of plotting jobs and deals.
And the author clearly felt it necessary that the player spend the initial interaction with the program getting to know the crew and learning to get along with them so perhaps there’s more to it, something of value that she hadn’t considered before. It’s not like she isn’t up for the task, after all. She’s a Starfleet Captain. Winning people over is all in a day’s work. Especially in the Delta Quadrant where she’s the lone ambassador of a powerful federation that no one has heard of. Making friends out here is more than just interplanetary good relations, it’s survival.
And of course, in the beginning there was the Maquis to deal with, which is perhaps more relevant to the program given the crew of Serenity bear a somewhat striking similarity to the Marquis. They’re disciplined and righteous, and yet they distrust authority and are inclined to lawlessness. In essence, they are good people, and it’s the world around them that has turned them wrong.
Much of this information is available from the program summary on file, but one night in the dining room on Serenity and she can sense it too. The way the Captain is guarded about their work, the way the first mate looks at him warily when the subject steers toward the Alliance, the way the shepherd won’t tell them a thing about his past and the way the doctor and his sister shouldn’t be there at all. Something is very wrong on Serenity but no one will say it out loud. At least, not to a stranger.
*
After a day of hanging about the dining room and her quarters and not coming upon anything more exciting than a protein brick, Kathryn decides to take the iniative and volunteer for the crew’s latest job. It’s a smuggling operation - not that they’ve told her so but they’re docking at a space station and the Captain’s told all passengers to stay ship side whilst they “attend to some old business.” There are no weapons on board and it’s not like they’re master criminals so Kathryn figures they’re smugglers. What else can they do?
They barely trust each other let alone their passengers, so some degree of subterfuge is needed, possibly a sympathy card that will appeal to the barely concealed sense of honour the Captain wears on his sleeve. She corners him in the cargo hold and gives him her best “I lost the family home to raiders and now I’m just looking for a job where I can find it” speech, hoping the program is designed to give her the benefit of the doubt. What fun would there be in a program that kept her on the ship all the time?
To her surprise, the Captain says, “No,” and doesn’t give it a second thought. He and Zoe and Jayne take a shuttle to the space station, leaving Kathryn to watch them from the cockpit with the pilot. The pilot at least is conversational. He tells her about Zoe, his wife - much to his surprise.
“Does it bother you, being left behind like this?” she asks him.
“Well, sure,” the pilot says. “That’s my wife out there, after all.”
“Exactly,” Kathryn says. “Wouldn’t you rather be with her?”
“They do what they do,” he says. “And I’ve learned not to question them. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way but at least it’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
Kathryn wonders what he means, but he doesn’t elaborate. He leans back in his chair and goes back to watching the ships circle the space station, like just keeping an eye on the location is his role in the plan. Kathryn follows his look, trying to make out the shuttle amongst the myriad of ships. It’s too far away and most of the ships look like insects. It could be any of them.
“Mal’s not unreasonable,” the pilot says. “He’ll give you work if you need it. But he’s not about to get you killed - or more importantly, get himself killed taking care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Kathryn says.
“So can I,” the pilot says. “Well - most of the time. Electric shock torture is another matter altogether. Still, there’s taking care of yourself, and then there are certain skills. ”
“What do you mean?” she says.
“I mean, Jayne’s good in a fight and he’s a sure shot when he’s half asleep or dying. Zoe and the Captain have some kind of weird synchronised brain thing going on - and the rest of us are just more useful on the ship.”
“Skills,” Kathryn repeats, and she realises she’s been going about it all wrong.
*
“It’s complicated,” Kathryn tells Neelix over coffee. It’s late and they’re the only occupants of the mess. “It’s more than just making friends and fitting in. It’s strategising and negotiating relationships. It’s quite unlike any holoprogram I’ve ever experienced.”
“It sounds perfect for you,” Neelix says, refilling her cup. “Isn’t that what you do all the time?”
“Yes.” Kathryn laughs a little. “You would think I’d be drawn to something more carefree.”
“Most of the crew are,” Neelix says. “Maybe you need to be challenged constantly?”
“Maybe,” Kathryn says, and she sips her coffee. Maybe she just likes being on the other side for a change. “I’d suggest you join me, but we’d have to find you a human disguise. There are no aliens in this universe. I find that very curious.”
“As intriguing as it sounds, Captain, Voyager is enough excitement for me.”
“I think that goes for all of us,” she says. It should be true for her as well. She wonders why it isn’t.
*
The next time she opens up the program, she tries a different tactic.
“I think I can be of use to you,” she tells the Captain, following him along the catwalk from the cockpit.
“I have useful people,” the Captain says, refusing to slow down. “And in case you haven’t noticed, Jayne gets kind of antsy when he has to share, so I’m not looking to take on anymore.”
“I’m a scientist,” Kathryn says. “Applied physical science actually, with a wealth of field experience. You’d be amazed at what I can do.”
“Field experience?” the Captain says. He stops and leans one hand on the railing. “What is it you think we do here, Kathryn?”
“Small time smuggling operations,” she says. “Criminal, but not immoral.”
“Really?” the Captain says. “And you know this how?”
“Please, I was catching your sort before I left - “ She stops. If she’s going to tell them about her military expertise it’s probably better to change some names. Starfleet Academy could be hard to explain. “I used to be an Alliance officer,” she says. The Captain hates the Alliance, but he values honesty. She’s hoping out of the two, he’ll rate the latter of more importance. “A Captain.”
He looks at her without blinking, like he’s trying figure out if she’s telling the truth. Eventually, he says, “Huh.”
“It’s not something I advertise,” she says. “But I need work and I figure you’ll find out eventually.” She wrote her background into the program: an ex-Captain commanding a small exploratory ship on the outer edges of the system. She kept it as close to the truth as possible.
“You fight in the war?” the Captain asks.
She hasn’t a clue about the war. She knows the Captain and Zoe fought in a war - the pilot said as much - and she knows they lost. She’s hazy on the details of what and where.
But an Alliance Officer that didn’t fight in the war? Wouldn’t that be convenient? “Yes,” she says eventually.
“Where?” he says.
“Where?” She repeats dumbly. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I captained a clean-up vessel,” she says. During the Cardassian war, science teams scoured battle debris for useful technology. The odd skirmish broke out but it was far less bloody than the front. “We only ever fought when attacked.”
“You get attacked much?”
“On occasion.”
The Captain looks thoughtful, and then he smiles a little and relaxes his hand on the rail. “I appreciate your candour, Kathryn,” he says. “Took a lot of guts, seeing as how we don’t take kindly to the Alliance around here.”
“Just trying to be honest,” Kathryn says. As honest as she can be.
The Captain scratches his chin. “So you’re former Alliance?”
“Yes?” she says. She has a strange feeling she’s not going to like what she’s in for.
“Then I think I have a job for you.”
*
“We need to get past these Alliance check points,” the Captain says pointing to the monitor. “Here and here.”
She stares at the screen and for a moment she thinks she’s in over her head. She doesn’t really know anything about the Alliance after all and she’s used to having Starfleet technology at her fingertips. These ships aren’t even warp capable. She doesn’t know how they stay in the sky.
Gravity, she reminds herself. They fly using gravitational fields. It’s actually very simple.
“Why not cut the engines,” she says. “Get enough momentum behind you and you’ll just float by.”
“Uh-uh,” the pilot says, looking over their shoulder. “We’ve tried that. Residual energy signatures give us away. Those Alliance scanners will pick up anything.”
“And there’s only so many times we can use the fake distress signal,” the Captain says. “Doesn’t work when there are two of them so close together.”
“Residual energy signatures.” Kathryn tries not laugh. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“Something funny to you?” the Captain says.
Residual energy signatures. It can’t be larger than a smoke plume. Try masking a warp energy signature. “Oh, you have no idea, ” she says.
*
She teams up with the ship’s mechanic and teaches her how to use up the residual energy so that there’s negligible waste. It’s a small amount but it’s also a small ship with minimal systems so finding places to channel it is not as easy as Kathryn hoped. Still, the mechanic is a creative, not to mention a quick study. Between the two of them they work out a way to feed energy into the refrigeration units and store it there long enough to get past the check points unnoticed. The mechanic seems to be holding the engine together with hair pins and paperclips and yet despite the crude methods, it seems to work. Given a few pointers and the right materials Kaylee could probably invent warp speed if she put her mind to it. In Kathryn’s world, Starfleet would have snapped her up in an instant, not left her out in the back waters of the solar system to fall in with outlaws.
“It’s incredible,” Kaylee tells Kathryn. She pats the engine like it’s a pet. “I think she’s working twice as efficiently as she was too. And all we had to do is double feedback the waste product. The Alliance teach you that?”
“Not exactly,” Kathryn says.
“Some of those ships have got real fancy engines,” Kaylee says. “Serenity must look kind of rustic to you.”
More like ancient. Even the escape pods on Voyager have warp drive. Not that it’s designed to go long distances but it’s there none the less.
Still, Kathryn appreciates the simple mechanics of a gravitational drive. It’s solid and real, something almost human about it. “Too many bells and whistles,” Kathryn says. “I prefer the economics of a more traditional ship. Serenity doesn’t waste space.”
They exchange knowing smiles and go back to rerouting the engine waste. At the end of the day, her hair is tousled and she has sweat on her brow and she admits to herself that this is way better than programming a warp field any day.
*
She comes out of the holodeck covered in grease. It seems in the Serenity universe, there’s no self-lubricating parts.
B’Elanna catches her in the corridor outside. “You look like you’ve been playing in Tom’s ‘Grease Monkey’ program.”
“It’s the Serenity program Harry Kim introduced me to,” Kathryn says. “A pre-warp civilisation that never made first contact. Their ships are somewhat archaic.”
B’Elanna frowns. “What’s the appeal?”
“I don’t know,” Kathryn says. “Why are people so fascinated by pirates? I guess there’s romanticism to flying by the seat of one’s pants, living one day to the next.”
“You don’t get enough of that out here?” B’Elanna says.
“It’s different,” Kathryn says. And it is. Despite the overwhelming enormity of their predicament, Voyager is very orderly. She makes sure it is.
“Well,” B’Elanna says, stopping at the turbo lift. “I have a diagnostic to run.”
“I’ll expect your report at the usual time,” Kathryn says. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand and it comes away oily and black. “Make it later. I need to take a bath.”
“Will do,” B’Elanna says. The doors to the turbo lift open and B’Elanna steps inside. She turns around and gives Kathryn a scrutinising look. “You know, there’s something very Marquis about your clothes. Is that a coincidence?”
“I don’t know,” Kathryn says. “The program is something of a mystery.”
“You should look into it,” B’Elanna says. The doors to the turbo lift close.
*
After the smuggling operation is a success, the Captain keeps her informed of other jobs he thinks she can help with and even invites her planet side on a routine salvage mission.
Only it’s not so routine and it turns out they’re not the only crew claiming salvage rights to the abandoned plant. Kathryn knows neither of them have a right and it’s only a matter of time before the claims become more about force than argument.
“We should probably let them have it,” she suggests to the Captain. “They don’t look like they’re willing to negotiate.” They’re outnumbered two to one and half of them already have their weapons drawn.
“Agreed,” the Captain says. “But I’m taking the powers cells.” He hands one to Wash and one to Jayne. “Make a run for it.”
Jayne and Wash have barely moved before the other crew starts firing. They all drop to the ground and shelter behind an old water silo.
“Go,” Kathryn says. “I’ll draw their fire.” She has an advantage over Serenity’s crew after all. With the holodeck’s safety protocols set, she can’t be harmed. It’s a logical decision.
“Nothing doing,” the Captain says. “We all go together.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, and she stands up, takes an empty box and runs in the opposite direction to the ship.
Behind her she hears the Captain yelling, “Go! Go!” and when she turns around she sees them all running for the ship in staggered starts.
She makes it back eventually. The other salvage crew may have had more weapons but they were lousy shots. And in the end they just wanted the plant.
“And I thought the Captain had a death wish,” Wash says, back at the ship. “You know we would have made it, and even if we hadn’t, no one here wants you to die on their account.”
“Speak for yourself,” Jayne says. He’s making something that smells like coffee in a tin cup. She had no idea they had coffee.
“It was too close,” Kathryn says. “One of us would have gotten caught.” She nods at Jayne’s cup. “Is that coffee?”
“Only if you interpret the term very loosely,” Wash says.
Later, she volunteers to take a spacewalk when the navigational emitter goes down, and after that she takes the initiative of detonating a gas bomb in an enclosed space only seconds before exiting, cutting off their Alliance pursuers.
The Captain is impressed each time, but she catches him looking at her sometimes, like he’s not sure what he’s taken on board. She thinks he’s very astute for a hologram.
*
On the next job the Captain takes her planet side to help out with negotiations. She’s good with people but she’s even better with a weapon in her hand and when she takes out two bandits in an ambush before the Captain can get a shot off, he gives her that look again, the one that says he’s both impressed and disturbed by her level of competence.
“You saw that coming,” the Captain says, when the rest of the bandits turn tail and run.
“It was something in the air,” she says. She gets a feeling in the pit of her stomach when there’s trouble afoot. It’s something the Delta Quadrant has instilled in her.
“That so?” the Captain says.
“I can’t explain it,” she says.
“Seems the Alliance trains its Officers better than I thought,” the Captain says.
“The Alliance teaches discipline,” Kathryn says. “Instinct comes with experience.”
“I’m just a little surprised you got experience from the Alliance,” the Captain says. “They’re not known for being risk takers.”
Chakotay said the same thing about Starfleet. She’d always told him he should read Kirk’s logs some time and he said Kirk was the exception to the rule. The truth is, so is she.
*
She’d been meaning to mention it to Chakotay for some time, but with a brief (and accidental) involvement in a border dispute and a small replicator malfunction that caused a synthenol shortage, the opportunity hadn’t presented itself.
Eventually, it’s Chakotay who raises her holodeck hours with her during their daily de-brief. “You’ve been spending all your free time on the holodeck,” he says. “Do I need to stage an intervention?”
“It’s called Serenity,” she says. “I thought you might know something about it.”
“I don’t,” he says, “Should I?”
“It’s about a group of outlaws,” she says. “Mercenaries really - who lost their land in a war and make up for it by winning small victories over the powers that be.”
“Never heard of it,” Chakotay says. “But I can tell you how it ends.”
“No doubt,” she says. “The similarities between the story and yours make me wonder if a member of the Maquis wrote it.”
“I think we’ve already determined no one on board is the literary type,” Chakotay says. “Tuvok excepted, of course.”
She drains the dregs of her coffee and goes over to the replicator to order another. “Harry said it was on board when we set off for the Badlands,” she says. “A little strange, don’t you think?”
“Is it?” Chakotay says. “It’s an appealing idea. I’m sure it’s a common plot.”
“On a starship?”
“Maybe it’s a training program?” Chakotay says.
She sits back down in her chair opposite Chakotay. There’s a loose selection of PADDs they’re supposed to be reviewing but Chakotay is always up for a distraction. “A program that teaches Starfleet officers how to infiltrate the Maquis?” she says. “How insidious.”
“And not at all unlike them either,” Chakotay says.
Kathryn thinks he sounds a lot like Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Or is that the other way around?
*
Serenity needs parts and fuel and the Doctor needs supplies, so the Captain decides to touch down planet-side for a few days and let the crew get some rest and relaxation amongst other things.
They choose New Melbourne, a planet that straddles the median strip between the core planets and the border worlds. The Captain says he won’t go to the core planets unless he absolutely has to and even then he promises to protest loudly.
“Bad memories?” Kathryn asks him.
“You may find this hard to believe,” he says. “But I don’t go looking for trouble.” Behind him the companion snorts.
Inara is right to laugh. Even a simple stop over for supplies on a relatively benign planet ends in chaos. Kathryn isn’t sure how it happened. One moment she was admiring a fruit stand with Kaylee, and the next the shepherd is grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the rows of ship docks at the rear of the market place.
“What’s going on?” she asks. Ahead of her, Kaylee and the doctor are running, pulling River along by her wrists.
“We’ve been spotted,” the shepherd says.
“I didn’t see any Alliance officers,” Kathryn says. In fact, the market place had looked completely lawless, like they hadn’t seen a federal officer in years.
“Bounty hunters,” the shepherd says.
“How do you know?” she asks. There are footsteps behind them now, two, three pairs maybe, running, getting faster.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” a voice says, and then there’s a long pause where the only thing they can hear is their own pounding feet and their hearts beating in their throats, and then shots are fired, bullets singing as they fly past their ears.
Kathryn draws her weapon. “Go,” she says to the shepherd, pushing him away. “I’ll hold them off.”
“You can’t,” the shepherd says. “Not on your own.”
“Go,” she says, and it’s Captain Janeway talking, not Kathryn the drifter turned mercenary.
The shepherd gives her a strange look before he turns and runs, mechanically, like he’s been compelled by the sound of her voice. She doesn’t know how it works; she just knows that it does.
She holds them off and makes it back to the ship in time for the Captain to have returned and to be waiting in the cargo hold with the engines powered. “What happened?” he asks Kathryn and the shepherd when they’re in flight again.
“Bounty hunters,” the shepherd says. “They must have recognised River and Simon.”
“How did you know?” Simon asks.
“I know their type,” the shepherd says.
The Captain looks from the shepherd to Kathryn and back to the shepherd. “You know, you two are beginning to disturb me. How is it you know so much about bounty hunters?” he says to the shepherd. He turns to Kathryn again. “And how is it you are always where the guns are going off?”
“It’s a game,” River says suddenly. “It’s not real, is it?” She looks at Kathryn.
Kathryn feels like she’s been woken up mid-dream, strangely disorientated and not sure where she is.
“She’s a telepath,” the Captain says, in what Kathryn suspects is supposed to be a reassuring tone. She doesn’t feel reassured.
Kathryn’s met telepaths before. Some had particular codes about the way in which their gifts were used, some were just plain abusive. None of them were holograms.
River laughs. “You’re wondering how I know,” she says.
“End program,” Kathryn says. Serenity’s cargo hold disappears and is replaced by the holodeck grid.
Kathryn frowns at the empty walls. And then she hits her comm and calls for the Doctor to respond.
“Yes, Captain?” he says.
“Do you have a moment, Doctor?”
*
“So you think a hologram read your mind.” The Doctor looks sceptical. “Are you sure she hasn’t been pre-programmed with certain information? Personnel files, for example?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Kathryn says. She leans against a biobed, while the doctor gives her a quick medical scan. He says he likes to utilise the opportunity when it presents itself. She’s not the most forthcoming patient after all. “But it was the specificity of her responses I found unsettling. Like she knew what I thought, when I thought it. How is that possible?”
“Well, I suppose it’s not out of the question,” the Doctor says. He checks the scanner and returns it to his console. “On some of the planets we’ve encountered, artificial life forms are considered to be sentient beings. Some sentients are telepaths. Does it not follow that artificial life forms can also be telepaths?”
“I’ve always imagined a telepathic intelligence to be somewhat more complex,” Kathryn says.
“More complex than black humour and existential inquiry?” the doctor says. “I believe I’ve mastered both.”
“Indeed you have,” Kathryn says. She lets out a breath and folds her arms across her body. “I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. As you say, it could be a program design.”
“If you like,” the Doctor says. “I can give the program a try. Perhaps observe it from my somewhat more sympathetic point of view.”
“If you like,” Kathryn says. “I would appreciate your insight.”
“As soon as I have some recreational time, I’ll get right on it,” the Doctor says. “You’re fine, by the way.”
“I know,” she says. She pushes off the biobed. “A cup of coffee a day keeps the doctor at bay.”
“That’s not true at all.”
“Indulge me, Doctor,” she says grinning.
*
She enters the program again, taking up where she left off. Holodeck programs can be fickle, inclined to exhibit the personality of their author and not every author, for example, allows for adjustments to the scenery or modifications to the personalities of characters. The author of Serenity seems to believe the confrontation she’s having with the doctor’s sister is one she needs to have as she’s unable to bypass this particular portion of the story.
“You’re wondering how I know?” River says again, and if Kathryn’s not mistaken there’s a slightly measured tone to River’s voice this time, like she’s speaking lines.
“River,” Simon says. “Remember how we talked about private thoughts?”
Kathryn decides to wing it. “She’s right,” she says. She searches deep inside herself, looking for a truth even a telepath can’t deny. “I guess it’s true of anyone who’s been burdened with responsibility. After a while, every danger, every death becomes your fault, whether you’re justified in the belief or not. When the burned is lifted, nothing seems real anymore.” It might not be true for now. But maybe one day it will be.
River tilts her head to the side a little, like she’s giving Kathryn’s answer thought. Kathryn sees the edge of a smile on River’s face and wonders if she’s fooling anyone at all.
“You don’t have to explain,” Simon says. He takes River by the shoulder and steers her toward the infirmary. “I think it’s time you took your medication,” he tells her.
“It’s a good story,” River says, as she’s being lead away. “I wonder how it ends?”
The rest of the crew looks at Kathryn with vague sympathy. “She kind of weirds you out sometimes,” Kaylee says.
“Not intentionally,” Inara says.
“Oh no,” Kaylee says. “She’s got a big heart. You just have to get to know her a little.”
“It’s okay,” Kathryn says. “I’ve seen stranger.” Just to the left of Inara’s shoulder she can see the Captain watching them, his arms crossed across his body and his lips set in a thin straight line. His expression is unreadable, but she suspects he’s no more reassured than River. She wonders if he wants to know how the story ends too.
*
The exchange on Veda was supposed to be uneventful and badger had said the meet would be unarmed - just a bunch of farm folk - so it’s a little surprising when it turns into an ambush.
Zoe says they should never have trusted Badger but the Captain wants to know how in gorrams name they got weapons when they can’t even put a roof over their heads.
“Guns before beds,” Zoe says. “You should be used to that by now.”
There are at least ten of them. Maybe more. And the Captain didn’t think to find cover. They weren’t expecting a fight.
“I say we get the hell out of here,” the Captain says quietly.
“What’s that?” Zoe says.
“Run!” the Captain yells, and then they’re all running and there’s yelling and screaming and it’s only moments before the bullets start to fly and their singing past Kathryn’s ears again.
Kathryn is too slow. She spends a moment wondering whether to stay, draw their fire and let the others get away, or whether she’s adding fuel to the already sparking fires of their suspicion. She deliberates just long enough to get shot, to feel her skin pinched just above her abdomen, like she’s been stuck by a needle, and then the pinch develops into a burn, growing in intensity until she’s screaming out in pain and her vision goes black. She feels herself sinking to the ground, knees giving way underneath her, and then strong arms take her by the shoulders and carry her away. The last thing she remembers wondering before she blacked out is how she could have set the safety protocols so low? How could she have been so careless?
*
She wakes up in the infirmary. Serenity’s infirmary, not Voyager’s.
“Kathryn?” she hears Simon say.
She tries to speak but her throat is dry. “It’s not supposed to-“
“Take it easy,” the doctor says. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“No,” Kathryn tries to raise herself up on her elbows and her head spins. “It’s not - It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What wasn’t supposed to happen?” Simon says.
“I can’t -“ She tries to raise herself up again and this time succeeds. She takes a breath and focuses her mind on her situation. She’s in a holoprogram. None of this is real.
Still, it’s a somewhat convincing approximation. She feels real pain, real dizziness and very real distress. Without the safety protocols a holoprogram can cause real damage, which means there should be a real transfusion port in her arm and not the simulation the doctor has rigged up.
If it is a simulation. The blood going into her arm feels real too.
“End program,” she says. Nothing happens.
“What did you say?” Simon says.
“End program,” she says again. Still, nothing happens. It’s the same room, the same doctor the same transfusion in her arm.
Simon frowns. “What program are you talking about?”
“Something’s wrong,” Kathryn says, looking about the room.
“You were shot,” Simon says.
“I can’t be shot,” Kathryn says. She swings her legs over the side of the bed. “I need to get out of here.”
“Whoa,” Simon says, stepping forward to stop her. “You’ve just had major surgery, Kathryn. I need you to rest and let your body heal.”
She touches her stomach, there’s a slight burning sensation on the outside and a heaving sensation inside. Her legs feel weak and her head is heavy. Whatever the simulation is, it’s very effective. She lies back down on the bed. Her need for rest too, is very real.
“What happened?” she says.
“The drop didn’t go according to plan,” Simon says. “It seems the Captain’s contact has been building an army these last few months.”
“Same old story,” Kathryn says.
Simon smiles wryly. “That’s putting it mildly,” he says. He clears his throat. “Ahm - Kathryn, there’s something we need to talk about.”
She doesn’t like the sound of that. Something tells her she’s about to have a very strained conversation. “Doctor,” she says. “I understand my behaviour might seem a little strange-“
“Strange we can handle,” Simon says. “You might have noticed we’re in not short supply of strange here. It’s suicidal that worries us.”
“I know I could have been more careful,” Kathryn says. “But you must appreciate, I’ve had extensive military experience. I’m used to being shot at.” That part at least is true.
The doctor looks at the floor guiltily. “I’ve - ah - being doing a little research into your history, Kathryn.”
“You have?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “How?”
“Former military officers have public records,” he says. “So do psychiatric institution escapees.”
Kathryn doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The author of Serenity clearly has a unique sense of humour. “You think I escaped from a psychiatric institution?”
“Outwardly, you present as normal,” the doctor says. “But River reads thoughts, and your thoughts are far from normal.”
“Normal is relative, Doctor,” she says. River is far from normal. Surely he’s noticed. She’d tell him that but then she’d be arguing with a hologram and god knows she’s disagreed with the Doctor often enough to know it never resolves well. There’s way too many stubborn holoprograms on her ship.
“True,” the doctor says. “And I’ve recently come to appreciate that there may be good reasons why someone would escape an Alliance institution that treats psychiatric maladies, but I’ve taken the liberty of contacting your doctor, and I believe he has only your best interests in mind.”
“My doctor?” she says. She shifts her position on the bed. Her stomach is sore. It hurts when she exerts pressure on her left. “I have a doctor?”
“Dr Zimmerman,” Simon says. “We’ve arranged to meet him on Beaumonde.” He looks sheepish. “I hope you understand, Kathryn. We really were worried about you.”
Dr Zimmerman. She wonders why the name is so familiar. “It’s fine,” she says. “Really.”
*
She’s still in the infirmary when they reach Beaumonde. She’s too weak to move and Simon says they don’t need her to go anywhere, so she sits and waits and says “end program” occasionally in case the program didn’t hear her the first fifteen times.
Doctor Zimmerman, when he arrives, is instantly recognisable. It’s the Doctor. At least, it looks like him. His behaviour is another matter entirely and it leads her to believe that either the Doctor has a holo-doppelganger or he’s a lot better actor than any of them were aware of.
“Kathryn,” he says. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you’re all right. Your family has been so worried.”
“My family?” Kathryn says.
“Your mother has been sick with worry.” He turns to Simon. “We’re very grateful to you and your Captain for notifying us. You say she was injured?”
“Ah, yes,” the doctor says. “I did the best I could, but I’m not properly trained.” He gives Kathryn a meaningful look.
She’s still not sure what the doctor is hiding from but she’s not about to give up his secret. “I’m fine,” she says. “The - Simon did an excellent job.”
“If your nurse here has achieved what the best doctors in the alliance could not,” Zimmerman says. “Then apparently frontier medicine has progressed considerably since I was last out this way.”
“She’s physically fine,” Simon says. “Mentally she’s - well, I’ll let you be the judge of that.”
“Indeed,” Zimmerman says. “Kathryn, do you know why I’m here?’
She had hoped it was to rescue her. Now she’s not so sure. If the Doctor has a plan it’s far from being obvious. “I -- I have no idea,” she says eventually.
“Hmm,” Zimmerman says, frowning. “I’m afraid it’s worse than I thought.”
“What’s worse?” she says. “Doctor, do you mind telling me what’s going on?”
“It’s all right, Kathryn.” He leans forward and pats her arm. The Doctor she knows is distinctly un-tactile. But then maybe this is all part of the act? “I’ll explain on the way back.”
“Where are we going?” Kathryn says.
“Back to the Warren Institute on Ariel,” Zimmerman says. “You’re a very sick woman, Kathryn. You need help.”
*
Jayne and the Captain help her out of the infirmary and into the cargo hold. She’s still a little unsteady on her feet but at least she doesn’t have to be carried. It’s bad enough they think she’s crazy but at least the last impression they have of her won’t be of an invalid.
She wonders why she cares.
“I’m sorry,” the Captain says, and he won’t look her in the eye as he does it.
Kaylee gives her a hug and says, “Hope you get better real soon, Kathryn,” and her hand lingers on Kathryn’s shoulder for a second longer than it needs to, like she’s trying to leave an imprint. Inara and the shepherd are similarly tactile and it reminds Kathryn of trying to calm a child, letting it know you’re there by touch.
Wash and Zoe are more hands off, but Wash tries to smile in a reassuring way while Zoe just nods. Jayne nods too but Simon puts his hand on her shoulder in a deliberate manner. “You’re going to be okay, Kathryn,” he says.
River watches from Simon’s side. She doesn’t come forward, doesn’t smile or try to look away. Her eyes are on Kathryn, studying her like she’s registering every reaction.
What am I thinking now? Kathryn thinks, looking at the doctor’s sister. River tilts her head to the side but she doesn’t respond.
“Say goodbye to Kathryn,” Simon tells River.
River reaches out and touches Kathryn’s hair, strokes it once and let the strands fall between her fingers, and then she leans forward, her lips brushing Kathryn’s ear. “He isn’t,” she whispers, and she stands back again, takes her watchful place next to her brother.
Who isn’t? Kathryn thinks, but River doesn’t respond.
*
There’s an infirmary on Zimmerman’s shuttle. There’s a doctor and a nurse and a pilot but no sleeping quarters so Kathryn figures they’re not going far. Persephone and Ariel are core planets and she knows there’s no great distance between them. Less than a day’s travel and they’ll be there.
Curiously, Ariel is where she started this game and she wonders if that’s the Doctor’s plan, to take her back to the beginning and exit the way she came in.
She asks him when they’re finally alone. “Do you have a plan, Doctor?”
“A plan?” he says, looking baffled. “What kind of plan?”
“A plan to get us out of here,” she says.
“Kathryn,” he says. He looks serious, suddenly very grave. “Where do you think you are?”
“On the holodeck,” she says, and even as she says it, she remembers River’s words: he isn’t. She suspects she’s known all along but she’s been clinging to the hope that she was wrong. It’s not him. The Doctor was created in the image of his creator and someone saw fit to reproduce that image here. There’s probably a reason for it, some kind of connection, but she can’t put her finger on it now.
“We’re going back to the Warren Institute, Kathryn,” Zimmerman says. “You’re mother and Phoebe are waiting for you there. Don’t you want to see your mother and sister again?”
She hasn’t seen her mother and sister in years. She has pictures and video but they are still distant in her memory, their mannerisms and movements slipping away as each year passes. She’s spent the last five years thinking about how to get home, but being there has always been an alien thought, something unimaginable.
“Yes, I want to,” she says, not even sure if it’s possible. “I want to very much.”
*
They’re waiting for her in her room at the Warren Institute. Her mother and Phoebe, looking much like they did they day she left for the badlands, maybe a little older, their hair and clothing suggesting the passage of time. When they see her, they immediately leap to their feet and throw their arms around her shoulders, holding her close like they’re scared she’ll disappear again. They are warm and solid and, god, they even smell like them. It’s so real, so them, and Kathryn cries real tears of joy that well in her eyes and fall heavily down her cheeks.
“It’s okay,” her mother says. “It’s okay. We’re here now.”
But it’s not, and they’re not, at least they shouldn’t be. Where did the holoprogram get her mother and sister from? Her personal files? But they’re so real, so complete, how could they possibly know?
Unless they are real. Unless she really is deluded. She doesn’t know what to believe anymore.
*
Zimmerman says she has post-traumatic stress disorder, a side-effect of fighting in the unification wars. She saw things she was never supposed to, witnessed the torture and execution of her crew, and the years since the fighting stopped have been a slow slide into insanity. It started out with short bursts of personality disruption, moments of forgetfulness or confusions, but eventually the disruptions became fugues, months and even years when she completely reinvented herself.
“You once believed you were blind,” Zimmerman says. “You truly couldn’t see when we found you. It’s incredible what the mind can achieve.”
He doesn’t need to tell her about the power of her delusions. Voyager was as real to her as this room, as tangible as Zimmerman’s credentials above the faux fireplace and his desk by the window.
She thinks she sees them sometimes, Harry standing in the visitor’s line, Tuvok wearing a white coat, B’Elanna working in the kitchen. It’s never them. It doesn’t even look like them, just fragments really, parts that are familiar.
They must have been real, she tells herself. Where would she have got them from? Somewhere out there in her unremembered history there must have been an Annika Hansen or a Tom Paris or even a short, round man who became Neelix in her delusions, if that’s what they were. She was inventive when it came to aliens but not so much when it came to the Maquis. Perhaps she tried to reconcile Serenity’s crew in her subconscious? To resolve their troubled relationship with the universe and draw them back into the fold.
Reality is what you make it. She’s stuck here, in this universe, in this asylum on a terraformed planet she’s never heard of. The Earth she knew is a short trip away travelling at warp speed but no one has warp speed here and they call her Earth, Earth That Was. Eventually, she calls it Earth That Was too.
“It bothers me that you still don’t remember,” Zimmerman says to her, during one of their sessions. “You should be making better progress.”
Kathryn looks out the window to where there other patients are walking around the grounds. The Warren Institute is located in picturesque environs and the sun is shining, coating everything in a yellow glow. She’d rather be outside today. She’d rather be anywhere but here.
“You said so yourself, Doctor,” she says. “My delusions were very powerful.”
“But they were delusions just the same,” Zimmerman says. “Most patients come to understand this.”
I’m not most patients, she thinks. At least, not in her mind. What’s real, what isn’t - does it even matter anymore? “It’s a beautiful day outside, Doctor,” she says. “Must we spend it like this?”
He smiles a little and for a moment he’s the EMH, indulging her in her madness once more. “All right, Kathryn,” he says. “But we’re not done here.”
“We never are,” she says.
*
The Warren Institute is a large steel and glass building amidst grass and trees and rose gardens. It reminds her of the Starfleet Academy Physics building where she spent her entire fourth year writing her thesis. Even the roses lining the path are the same colour. Delusions are mutations of reality, they come from somewhere real, and so maybe she plucked the Warren Institute from her memory or maybe it’s Starfleet Academy that she’s recreated here. She hardly knows what to think anymore.
She spends long hours in the gardens, walking the path until she finds the gazebo near the pond and sits watching the ducks comb the ground for bugs. It’s peaceful. That at least is real.
Zimmerman finds her there in the late afternoon. He’s got visitors with him. As they come closer she recognises Simon and River.
“They wanted to see you,” Zimmerman says. “I thought you would appreciate some friendly faces.”
“I do,” Kathryn says. “Thank you.” She doesn’t get many visitors. Mostly her mother and sister and other members of the extended family she doesn’t recognise. It doesn’t bother her at all. She’d rather be alone than see that look on their faces, the one that says they don’t know what to say.
Zimmerman leaves her with Simon and River. “We don’t have much time,” Simon says. “The Captain doesn’t know we’re here.”
The Captain doesn’t like the core planets. Too much trouble. She wonders how Simon and River got here at all. “Why did you come?”
“River wants to talk to you,” Simon says. “She’s been quite insistent.” They exchange looks that only siblings would understand. Sometimes, Kathryn thinks, River appears quite normal. “Be quick,” Simon tells her and he leaves them there to join Dr Zimmerman.
River sits on the opposite side of the gazebo. She looks different somehow. Less like the fragile child Kathryn remembers. Something has changed. She stares at Kathryn from the other side of the gazebo, sizing her up as if they’re about to prize fight.
And then she speaks. “Simon said you would like it here.”
“There are worse places I could be,” Kathryn says. “So I’ve heard.”
The doctor’s sister looks about the gardens. “That man over there thinks he’s a sparrow,” she says. Kathryn follows in the direction of River’s look and sees Henry, one of the patients who, like Kathryn, appreciates the outdoors, except unlike Kathryn he’s prone to throwing himself off the gazebo if given the chance and he has to be watched constantly.
“It’s an asylum, River,” Kathryn says. “Everyone here thinks they are someone else.”
“He also thinks you have nice breasts,” River says.
“Oh,” Kathryn says. “Well, I suppose I should be flattered.”
“He also thinks he’d like to...”
“That’s quite enough,” Kathryn says, holding up her hand. “Why are you here, River?”
“I wanted to tell you,” River says. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What wasn’t your fault?”
“What I can do,” River says. “What I did to you.”
Kathryn feels her senses sharpen, like something is about to happen. She gets up, crosses to the other side of the gazebo and sits beside River. “What do you mean?”
“They created me,” River says. “They didn’t know it at the time. They didn’t know what I could do.“
“Who created you?”
River looks out to the garden where Simon is conversing with Dr Zimmerman. “I should go.”
Kathryn grabs her arm. “No,” she says forcefully. “Tell me what you mean.”
River moves fast, twists out of Kathryn’s control and flips over until she’s on the other side of the gazebo. “I’m sorry.”
“River?” Simon is coming toward them.
Something tells Kathryn his arrival is the end. She has to know now. “Please,” she says to River. “You have to tell me.”
For a moment River’s face falls, like she actually feels Kathryn’s pain. But the moment is fleeting. “Don’t worry,” River says. “They’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Who?” Kathryn says. “When.”
“They will,” River says. “One day.” And then Simon is there, taking her by the arm and telling her they need to go. He touches Kathryn’s shoulder again before he leaves, one more impression Serenity has left on her.
Kathryn waves to them from the gazebo, watches them take the path back to the Institute and disappear inside. Reality is what you make it, she thinks, and the ducks fly off the pond.
End.