The BLTS Archive - Extreme Risk: Another Take
by ILuvKate

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She punched a sequence of keys in the keypad beside the holodeck
entrance and waited. "Program JanewayTau is engaged," the computer
stated.

"Disengage safety protocols," she ordered.

"Warning. Disengaging safety protoco--"

"Override," she snapped impatiently, interrupting the computer's
warning about disengaging safety protocols. She'd heard it before. She
turned and strode through the doors of the holodeck. She pulled off
the jacket she wore over her tank top and tossed it aside. She moved
forward into a harsh and blighted landscape. The barren, rocky ground
was dry and wasted. Stunted, twisted trees clawed a choked existence
from the unforgiving ground, and sparse grass poked dry, heartless
blades here and there up through the dusty earth. Rubble from
destroyed buildings littered the ground for meters and Kathryn picked
her way through it to a bare patch of ground where a silent figure
stood waiting.

As she approached, the figure drew a wicked-looking sword from the
scabbard strapped to its side and advanced on her menacingly. Kathryn
cursed and slowed her pace looking around, her eyes darting about
searching for some kind of weapon to defend herself with. She hadn't
been expecting it to threaten her with a weapon today. The sunlight
glinted off the sword-blade as though emphasizing her helplessness.

Unwilling to retreat, but unable to find anything with which to fight
off the sword-wielding creature coming on exorably toward her, she
sprang sideways and jogged off to her left, her eyes still searching
for a weapon. Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades in an
uncomfortable clammy stream. Her head swiveled from side to side
searching. The familiar knot of panic was beginning to uncurl deep in
her belly as her scanning gaze saw nothing useable.

She could hear the thud of her pursuer's footsteps sounding closer
behind her, and a spurt of the panic building inside her galvanized
her into a frantic sprint in an effort to put some distance between
them. At the same time, she spied the glint of metal in a clump of
lifeless grass a short distance away, and the broke into a flat-out
run toward it. That would be the sword she dropped here the last time
she ran the program. A sword she'd thought she wouldn't need again,
dammit.

The whistle of the descending blade gave her little warning before it
sank into her upper arm and blood spurted. She cried out and
staggered, falling to the ground. She reached for the fallen sword and
got it up just in time to block another vicious swing by her opponent.
The clash of metal against metal rang sharply through the air as she
fought desperately to keep her enemy at bay.

Dizziness and nausea from loss of blood clouded her vision and slowed
her reflexes, but she fought valiantly, pushing the pain and weakness
back and focusing on defeating her seemingly invincible opponent.
Reaching down deep inside herself, she found the necessary strength
and resilience to beat the creature back. From some dark crevice deep
in her soul, a dark and primal rage came boiling up and with renewed
vigor, she laid into the creature with vicious and deadly swings of
her blade and finally dispatched him, standing over him bloody and
victorious, a feral grin stretching her lips. It was an empty and
mirthless grin, however, and she turned wearily away, stumbling with
weakness, toward the holodeck entrance.

"Computer, end program." Her voice was thick and blurry with pain.
"Arch."

She made it back to her quarters without meeting anyone. She staggered
into the bathroom and retrieved the medikit she'd stowed there. Her
fingers were clumsy with weakness and she nearly dropped the
regenerator. Her breathing rasped harshly in her chest as she slowly
and shakily passed the device over the gaping wound in her arm. She
studied herself in the mirror to see if there were any visible wounds
she needed to heal, and seeing none, put the regenerator back in the
medikit. She gave herself an injection to compensate for the blood
she'd lost, knowing it was a poor substitute at best. Then, making her
way to her bed, collapsed onto it and fell into a heavy, dreamless
sleep.

---

She awakened hours later, feeling leaden and dopey. She dragged
herself into the living room and called up a cup of coffee from the
replicator. She sat on the couch staring dully at nothing, cradling
the hot mug in her palms. Even her hands ached and the heat felt good.
Her thoughts drifted, as they usually did, to B'Elanna. She'd moved
out four weeks ago and the emptiness of Kathryn's quarters grew each
day instead of lessening. Time wasn't healing this wound. She doubted
anything would heal it.

She could still remember the horrible fight they'd had the night
B'Elanna left. B'Elanna had begun it by asking her how long she was
going to continue to wallow in the black depths of depression. It had
been understandable at first, B'Elanna had said. The Void, as they'd
called the lifeless area of space they'd been slogging through for
months, had been enough to cause even Neelix to be down in the dumps.

However, B'Elanna had continued, they'd been out of the Void for two
months now. There was no excuse for Kathryn's ongoing glumness, which,
she declared, was driving her up the wall.

"If you loved me," Kathryn had flared, "you'd understand that you
don't just climb out of a depression. You have to work through it."

"You're a starship captain," B'Elanna had shot back. "You should've
worked through it long before now." They'd stared miserably at each
other, studies in frustration and betrayal. Kathryn wanted comfort
from B'Elanna, not condemnation. B'Elanna wanted animation and
fellowship from Kathryn not numb despair and bleak silence.

The fight had become more acrimonious as they hurled accusations and
recriminations at each other, and B'Elanna had finally stormed out,
telling Kathryn to call her when she decided to rejoin the human race.

If she'd known despair before, Kathryn now knew utter desolation. She
felt as though B'Elanna had torn her soul in half and taken it with
her when she left. She retreated even further from everyone else than
before. She didn't eat, didn't sleep, performed her duties in only the
most perfunctory manner, leaving most of the work to Chakotay.

And then the seductive lure of danger had beckoned her to the
holodeck. In an effort to rekindle some kind of sensation in her
wasted soul, she started going to the holodeck and running programs
that challenged her to the outer limits of her physical, mental, and
emotional endurance. Then the idea of disengaging the safety protocols
on some programs had occurred to her and she'd begun running
physically dangerous programs without the computerized safety net.

She felt now, sitting on the couch holding the cooling coffee cup,
that she'd almost gone too far with the sword-wielding creature. It
was due to just sheer dumb luck she hadn't been killed, not her skill
and physical prowess. The adrenaline rush of excitement had quickly
been replaced by scorching terror, exacerbated by the blow the
creature had landed.

Placing the coffee cup on the table, Kathryn suddenly curled into a
tight ball of misery and began to weep. She wept for the loss of her
mate; she wept in self-pity for B'Elanna's lack of understanding; she
wept in self-condemnation for not being able to pull herself up by her
bootstraps as B'Elanna had suggested, and get on with life; she wept
in suppressed fear and terror as she remembered other close calls and
thin margins.

---

The experience in the holodeck had frightened her badly and she shied
away from it for the next three days. She stayed in her quarters, not
going to the bridge or walking the ship. She couldn't make herself
care about anything anymore. She couldn't even agonize for more than a
couple of short minutes over B'Elanna. Something in her had lost the
essence of life and sensation. She sought danger through the holodeck
in an attempt to stimulate some spark of life within herself. She had
even welcomed the terror and panic that her last experience had netted
her. At least it was feeling.

The fourth day after her near-miss in the holodeck, she felt its
seductive allure once again. Was it that she wanted to feel the stark,
white-hot burn of fear along her nerves again? Maybe. She didn't know.
It didn't pay to get too psychoanalytical about this thing. She
thought she might try some other kind of simulation this time. Not
something involving another person or being who was out to kill her,
but perhaps some kind of situation that she would have to think her
way out of in order to avoid injury or death.

She settled on a program that put the player into a situation where he
or she was trapped in a reactor chamber with no tools except a coil
spanner, reactor about to blow, and the door sealed. Kathryn activated
the program, hearing the chamber door clang shut and seal with a hiss
of pressurized air. "Computer," she said, "disengage safety
protocols." She interrupted the computer's automatic warning.
"Override."

The simulation began and she worked feverishly, attempting to halt the
reactor's meltdown. The temperature within the chamber rose quickly
and although stripped to her tank top, she found the heat unbearable.
Sweat rolled down her face and into her eyes, but she had to ignore it
and concentrate on getting the reactor under control.

At the last second before the imminent explosion, slammed her palm
down on a large red button in the console and drew a breath of relief
as the blinking red lights changed to a steady green. She drew her arm
across her streaming forehead and rose.

The door exploded inward with no warning, its seal weakened by the
heat in the chamber. Kathryn lunged to the side, but a huge steel
chunk of the door slammed into her head and she fell to the deck
unconscious. Blood poured from the gash on her head as she lay in a
spreading pool of it, insensate.

Chakotay and Kim headed for the holodeck when the captain failed to
appear on the bridge at the sound of the red alert klaxon. They
entered the holodeck and found her and Chakotay initiated an emergency
transport to Sickbay.

---

Kathryn lay on the biobed, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. Chakotay
and Tuvok had just left. By the narrowest of margins had she avoided
being relieved of her command, and her insides were still quaking.
She'd never seen Chakotay so furious, and the cold glint in Tuvok's
dark, usually impassive eyes had been an icy shock.

She sat up on the side of the biobed, hot quivers of fear still
prickling down her spine. This had been the wake-up call. With a
clarity heretofore lacking, she now saw the sheer stupidity of her
actions over the past few weeks, and with self-loathing, despised the
swamp of depression in which she'd been wallowing. It was time to turn
it around while she was still able, and she vowed to do so.

The doors to Sickbay hissed open and B'Elanna came striding in. I
can't take any more, Kathryn thought in panic as she took in the look
of rage on B'Elanna's features. She held up her hands in a blind
gesture of self-protection as B'Elanna approached. B'Elanna's hands
were clenched so tightly, her knuckles were bone-white and Kathryn
could see the muscles bunching in her forearms.

"Of all the things I might've had you pegged for," B'Elanna began,
ignoring Kathryn's retreating stance, "a goddamned idiot was not one
of them." Although stung by anger at the younger woman's words,
Kathryn couldn't summon the energy to flare back.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," she said bleakly.

"Oh, self-pity, too," B'Elanna shot back. "That's been the norm, too.
Poor, poor pitiful me." Kathryn's shoulders slumped and she made no
reply.

"What the hell is it that's been going on with you?" B'Elanna
demanded. "You're right. I don't understand. This self-pity is
unattractive." Kathryn's jaw set and she stared silently at something
across the room. "But this holodeck business," B'Elanna went on, "is
completely crazy. That I really really don't get."

"I just felt like doing something exciting," Kathryn told her. "You do
it all the time, and--"

"Not with the damn safety protocols disengaged!" B'Elanna almost
shouted. "I'm not that stupid." Kathryn lowered her eyes to stare at
the toe of her bare foot. She didn't like to admit that B'Elanna was
right, but she was.

B'Elanna put a finger and thumb under Kathryn's chin and snapped her
face up sharply and none too gently. A building fury in Kathryn's
eyes, made a cold smile stretch B'Elanna's lips. "Get your hands off
me, Lieutenant," Kathryn's low and furious voice hissed, deliberately
emphasizing B'Elanna's subordinate rank.

Instead of doing as she asked, B'Elanna stepped in closer and put her
face in Kathryn's. "You know I'm right, don't you?" she asked softly.
Kathryn knocked her hand aside with no ceremony and got down from the
biobed, crowding into B'Elanna, who didn't budge.

"I may be stupid. I may be crazy," she said succinctly, "but I am
still the captain of this ship. You would do well to remember that."
B'Elanna stared back at her, meeting her baleful gaze levelly. The
anger faded from her eyes to be replaced by sadness.

"I do remember that," she said softly. "And I miss her." Kathryn's
chin lifted and her eyes glinted. Their gazes locked and then Kathryn
drew in a sharp breath of dismay as she saw a single tear roll down
B'Elanna's cheek. She watched its progress as if mesmerized and then
looked at B'Elanna again.

"Oh, Kathryn," B'Elanna whispered. "I can't go on like this. I need
you. I've only been half a person without you."

"So have I," Kathryn responded. "I've been in another kind of void
since you left. One with no light, no happiness, no reason to live."
B'Elanna nodded wordlessly. Then they were in each other's arms and
Kathryn was tasting B'Elanna's sweet mouth, and luxuriating in the
double pleasure of the feel of her arms around B'Elanna and of
B'Elanna's arms around her. Her blood sang with desire and delight and
as B'Elanna's arms tightened around her and the kiss deepened, she
felt she felt the jagged fragmented pieces that had been her life come
together in a healed, complete whole.

B'Elanna reveled in the taste and feel of Kathryn, feeling the
deprivation of the last few weeks melt away. "Oh, Kathryn," she
murmured between kisses. "I have missed you so." Her hands moved over
Kathryn's body through the thin gown and she could feel Kathryn's
mounting desire as she could feel her own. She pushed Kathryn back so
that she lay across the biobed and she gently pushed her legs apart
and stood between her thighs, smiling down at her love and taking
pleasure in the flush of arousal that stained Kathryn's cheeks.

"I didn't ask the doctor," B'Elanna murmured as she slid her hands in
torturous inches up Kathryn's thighs, moving the hem of the gown up
with them, "if you'd be up to a bout of sex."

"I'm up, I'm up already," Kathryn muttered. "You're making me crazy."
Chuckling, B'Elanna bent to kiss skin her ministrations were exposing,
smiling as she felt Kathryn's thighs quiver in response. When she had
pushed the edge of the gown all the way up to Kathryn's belly, she
pushed the trembling thighs farther apart and with just the bare tip
of her finger, stroked Kathryn's erect clitoris, drawing a tormented
moan from her lips.

"God, "Lanna," Kathryn pleaded, "you are killing me here." B'Elanna
just beamed a serene grin at her and kept on with her soft stroking,
entering Kathryn by bare millimeters and making her writhe. When
Kathryn was unable to bear it any longer, B'Elanna began to stroke her
hard in ever widening circles. Kathryn breathed in shuddering gasps
feeling the heat and pressure build inside her, and finally exploded
in a cataclysm of pleasure, with breathless cries and moans.

B'Elanna leaned over her, bracing herself with her arms on either side
of Kathryn's thighs, watching with a pleased smile as Kathryn breathed
in deep gulps of air while her orgasm ebbed away. Kathryn reached for
her after a minute, but B'Elanna caught her hands. "No, love," she
said, smiling. "You've exerted yourself enough for now. You can make
it up to me later." Kathryn protested half-heartedly, but in truth,
she was too drained to have really done B'Elanna justice.

B'Elanna came around and pulled a blanket up over Kathryn and leaned
over to kiss her. "Good night, my dearest love," she said. "And
welcome back."

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Copyright 1998 ILuvKate

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The End