The BLTS Archive- The Bridge is Mine by august (appelsini@hotmail.com) --- c Aug 1999 A Janeway/Kashyk story. If this is likely to disgust, do not pass go. Standard disclaimers. Probably R-rated. --- indicates shift in point of view Thanks to Boadicea, for all her help and wit. --- I consider, briefly, about taking her up on the offer. I can't say it isn't tempting - the idea of leaving everything behind, traveling the stars for the rest of my life. And, as she points out, there is always another Aurora Borealis to see, somewhere. No star is worth so much that you should never move, just to see it. --- I know he won't join us. Maybe that's why I ask. Maybe that's why I kiss him. Maybe that's why I do what I do. Who knows? Sometimes it's not good to explore the psyche. Sometimes you don't like what you see. --- She comes to me late at night. She holds my gaze in briefings during the days. She talks to me in the messhall over lunch. We discuss worm holes and gravametric distortions on the bridge. At night she transports to my quarters. I am surprised, yes. I didn't expect her to take me up on the offer. Sleeping with the Captain is not usually part of my duties. Sometimes, yes, but not always. She tells me, afterwards, that it has been a long time -- years, since she has been with anyone. I wonder briefly if she was even with me, tonight. I ask her why she only comes at night. I know the answer, of course (one can hardly take a captain on the bridge of her ship) but I ask all the same. She rolls to face me and says quietly "I never sleep." --- I know he is lying to me. I knew from the first day. All the signs were there: the convenient escape, the implausible story. I knew, we all knew, and we kept that knowledge. I turn this knowledge over in my mind. He talks of his home, of his people and I start to wonder which words and real, which are not. He speaks of finding a irl in the containment tank, but his words are hollow. I smile and nod, and agree that it must have been terrible. It shouldn't be his easy to play this game with him. --- Three months ago my teams were inspecting a plasma-refining vessel. We found a family of telepaths hiding in one of the extraction tanks. There was a child. Very young. She'd been inside it for days, barely able to breathe. When I lifted her out and set her down on the deck -- she thanked me. I tell Janeway this; deliver the lines like a masterful actor. I pause at the right moments. What I didn't tell her, what I failed to mention, was that my soldiers had cheered when we lifted her out of the containment tank. Rape is not an uncommon tool of torture. My sexual interests have always been a little more ... refined. I turned away. --- He tells me the story about the child in the containment container. It reminds me of a time, years ago now, in a Cardassian prison. The smell of sex and death and inevitability surrounded me. I remember what it's like to be 'lifted out' of that containment tank. He tells me that after he lifted her out of the tank, he could think of nothing else. It is strange that we would have that in common, in a way. --- I sometimes think I would have liked to have met her in a different way. If she were not gaharay, if she were not harboring telepaths.... I would have stayed on this ship, but her mind strangles me. I know when I touch her, when I kiss her, when she holds me in her, that she thinks she is better than me. I read her database and know that should she get home, she will be tried for her breach of regulations. I read her database and know that she - like me, is a killer. I kiss the back of her shoulders and know that she can't see it that way. That in her eyes, only one person in her bed is a murderer. --- Part of me hopes that we are wrong. Part of me hopes that he will leave Devor; that he will stay on board. Most of me knows that he won't. That he can't. That if he stays, he could not share my bed. It wouldn't be right. --- "The bridge is yours." I tell her. She smiles. I know now that it always has been. I want her, even now. As we discovered the false readings and the vegetables, I could see her sitting quietly. My plan falls apart before me, and she sits quietly. In bed, I had mistaken it for passivity. I had lain on her body, she had whispered "harder". The same feigned deference I see now. The quiet, cold glint in her eyes. I have never been more aroused. --- "The bridge is yours." He tells me. I smother a smile. It has always been mine. Even in death it will be mine ("Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager"). No one can take that away. (Who could give that away?) He bids me farewell for the second time. He does not kiss me this time. (Memories of hands bracing bodies, of hot lips, of slow slow trails of hair on skin.) We are courteous and cordial. He wishes me a good journey and I think in some respects, he is sincere. It reminds me to stories from the twenty first century. Soldiers fighting for days in mud and blood, breaking to play soccer together over Christmas. I watch his ship leave. --- It is possible to live with violence, but not in it. I do things that I should not accept. I do them because I have to, but I do not let them become me. She tells me it is a fine distinction. She tells me that actions make a person, not intention. Maybe she is right. But I am the one who can sleep at night. --- The bridge is mine. --- The End