The BLTS Archive - Oubliette by Raonaid (raonaid@rocketmail.com) --- WARNING: This is a *very* depressing story. Chak and Tom do not die, but dang near everyone else does. You have been warned. Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and its characters are owned by Paramount. I'm just borrowing them. Comments? Please! This is my very first Slash story, and I could use some feedback! --- He was so relieved to be returning to Voyager. Four days in a shuttle craft with Commander Chakotay was too much to ask. They had worked hard on the mission, been impeccably polite to each other, and avoided the other when they could. At last it would be over. He missed Harry and B'Elanna, missed Sandrine's, and even his own quarters. He began hailing Voyager with relief when they neared the rendezvous coordinates. At first he wasn't alarmed. They were a few hours early in their survey mission. However, after ten minutes of not being able to contact Voyager, he began to get worried. The scanners showed that Voyager was stopped, waiting for them. So what was the problem? What could cause the communications to go out like that? 'Calm down, Paris, you're getting jumpy,' he told himself, but it didn't help. After fifteen minutes his emotions were tightly contained under his fragile mask of Starfleet protocol. "Commander," he called out to the back of the shuttle, "you better get up here." "What is it now, Paris?" Chakotay said icily as he walked towards the controls. "Voyager is not responding, *sir,*" Tom replied. That got Chakotay's attention. "How long have you been trying to raise them? They're close enough they shouldn't be having a problem." "For the past ten minutes." Chakotay tensed up at that information. "Well, perhaps they're having problems with their communications systems." They both sat silently for a moment. Finally Chakotay said, "Start running long range scans on the ship. I want to know exactly what's going on." "Aye, sir," Tom said absently as he began scanning the ship. It was several minutes before they were close enough to Voyager for extensive scans. "The ship is at minimum power, Commander, and is adrift. Life support appears to be functioning, but other extensive systems, including shields, weapons and propulsion are off-line. There. . . " here Tom hissed sharply. "Lieutenant?" demanded the commander. "There are. . . no life signs aboard ship." Both sat there stunned. After a few moments Chakotay replied, "Verify that, Lieutenant." "I have, sir," said Tom tersely, "there's no malfunction. No life signs." Chakotay breathed deeply for a moment, and then his Starfleet training took over. "All right, Lieutenant, gather as much information as you can. I want to find out what's going on. This could be some kind of trap. Let's stay on our toes." --- Chakotay and Tom worked side by side, gathering information. When they neared Voyager and slowed to impulse, they saw their home in space drifting peacefully. 'Maybe we're wrong,' Tom thought, 'and this is all some mistake.' He kept that hope within him until they docked in the shuttle bay ten minutes later. There were definite signs of a struggle. Scans from the shuttle had show that Voyager had been in a battle. The inside of the shuttle bay demonstrated the extent of that battle. Voyager had been boarded. They drew their phasers, cautiously moving down the corridor to proceed to the bridge. If the crew had been captured. . . That hope died when they reached the first turn in the corridor outside the shuttle bay. The bodies of several crewmen were strewn about the corridor. Tom dimly recognized that they were all security officers while the horror of the sight enveloped him. Each crewman's chest cavity had been ripped open, and blood and body tissue were scattered everywhere. Tom thought he was going to be violently ill. Chakotay was running scans over the corpses as Tom leaned heavily against the wall of the corridor. "Their internal organs have been removed," he said as he stood and turned to face Tom. 'Organs removed,' Tom thought. "The Vidiians," he whispered. In silence they worked their way toward the bridge. Power was out to the turbolifts, so they had to use the Jeffries tubes. When they finally arrived on the bridge, the scene was something out of a nightmare. Bodies were lying everywhere, dismembered in some cases, left with gaping holes in their chest cavities in others. Before Tom could take it all in Chakotay ran to the form lying before the command chair. He gently turned over the mutilated body of Kathryn Janeway. Tom fought down an instant gag response. She had been stripped of her organs as well as the others; to add to that indignity her eyes had been torn out of her skull. Only the golden blonde hair spilling out upon the floor gave any clue to her identity. Chakotay gently pulled the pitiful wreck into his arms, cradling her against his chest as his hand stroked her golden hair. "Kathryn," Tom heard him whisper, as the tears fell down the commander's face. It was a private moment of mourning, one Tom didn't feel privileged enough to share. He moved to the operations station to try and see if he could get internal systems online. As he was working a horrifying thought came to him. This was Harry's station. He looked around, but only found the body of Crewman Ayala. So Harry hadn't been on the bridge, and neither had B'Elanna. Perhaps. . . No, there was no time for that. 'Get the sensors online, Tommy, then you can worry about them.' As he was working he heard Chakotay get up and come towards him. "Ship's status?" he asked with a remarkably steady voice. "All major systems offline, sir," Tom replied shakily. Life support is slowly failing, and will be down in about seven hours. I'll have to check engineering, but it looks like the warp core. . . " "Alright, Paris," Chakotay said, "what about internal sensors?" "I think I can get them in a moment, Commander. It won't last long, but. . . " "Just do it, Paris!" Chakotay snapped. Tom simply nodded, too stunned to take offense. After a moment he began to read the ship's status report from the jerry-rigged console. "Oh god!" Tom gasped. "What?!" Chakotay said quickly. "Everyone. . . " here Tom swallowed the bile in his throat, "All the crew are accounted for on the ship, except B'Elanna." Both men stood there in shock, silent as tears came to their eyes. --- After both men had remained silent for some time, Chakotay snapped back into motion. "Lieutenant, it looks like the ship is about to shut down. There is no way the two of us could get her back into shape, even with the support of a Starbase, which we don't have. We have just under seven hours. You begin downloading files, I'm going to gather as much materials as I can. We'll meet back here in three hours." With those words the stripping of Voyager began. All useful files were downloaded while Chakotay had gathered essential power cells and survival materials. After three hours Chakotay had told Tom he planned to destroy Voyager rather than let it and its technology fall into alien hands. Tom wasn't surprised. It was standard Starfleet policy. Chakotay had even told him to return to his quarters and gather up anything he wanted. Tom didn't even want to see his quarters, but went and gathered up his clothes and data crystals. He thought about stopping by Harry's quarters, but then shook as he realized that Harry might *be* there. He really didn't want to see Harry looking like Janeway. 'I'm sorry, Harry,' Tom thought, 'but I'm too much of a coward. If I saw your face I'd be haunted by it forever. Please forgive me, Harry.' It took all of Tom's energy and focus to remain calm and steady and do what Chakotay ordered him to the next few hours. Chakotay seemed so. . . detached from everything. 'Hey,' Tom thought, 'if you had seen the Cardassians at work you'd be used to such sights.' He was determined not to give the Commander a reason to find fault with him, and kept himself hard at work, his mind blank, his bleeding heart unnoticed. Finally it was nearing their deadline. Tom remained impassive as Chakotay set the computer's auto destruct sequence and they both headed to the shuttlebay to board the now well-stocked Seattle. They flew away from Voyager, back the way they had come, Tom noticed, as Chakotay set the coordinates and turned them around, heading off at warp three so they wouldn't see Voyager's destruction. Chakotay seemed cold and distant, but Tom's brain finally began asking him questions, questions that only the commander had the answers to. "So, we're going after B'Elanna?" Tom said softly. The commander glanced over at him and said nothing. "We're going after her, right?" Tom said more forcefully. Chakotay took a deep breath. "Tom. . . " he began. Tom didn't let him finish. "I can't believe you!" he shouted. "After all she's done for you, you're going to leave her to the *Vidiians*!" "Do you think I want to!" Chakotay shouted back. "They're in a starship, we're in a runabout. We don't know where they took her, and it's highly likely they've already started operating on her, splitting her in two. It's very likely that her human half will be dead by the time we get there, if by some miracle we learn where 'there' is. They somehow made it through or around Borg space, something we can't do again, especially not in a shuttlecraft." The commander's voice became almost a whisper as he said the words that cut to the bone. "They're all gone. The best thing we can do is head towards an inhabited M-class planet and go on with our lives." Tom sat there in shock. Then anger and hatred began to boil through his brain. "Go on with our lives?!" he shouted. "And just that easily, everything's okay? It doesn't work that way for me, Chakotay. *I* can't forget them that easily." With a contemptuous glance Tom left the cabin and stormed back into the sleeping area. Falling on one of the bunks, he curled up in the corner and tried to hold on to the anger inside, to keep the other feelings from. . . it wasn't working. They came out anyway. An icy chill had penetrated his heart. Tom lay shivering on the bunk, unable to stop. The shocking sights of the past day had taken their toll, and his body and mind were finally reacting to the horror of the situation. Tears streamed down his face as he convulsed with despair and grief, mourning the loss of the friends, the true *family*, he had lost. Life had never seemed such a hideous burden before. As the grief threatened to overwhelm him, he felt strong arms raise him up and cradle him against a man's chest. He knew it was Chakotay, but nothing could have shocked him more at this instant. He looked up, expecting to see. . . What? Contempt, anger, maybe even pity. He was shocked to see instead his own pain and despair mirrored in the commander's tearful eyes. They gazed at each other deeply for several moments, a look of shared loss, shared hopelessness, and despair. Then, as one, they each tightly clasped the other and held one another as they sobbed together. So tightly were they pressed together, it seemed they would never be able to separate again. Tom was desperate to be even closer to the man in his bed, to have some link to humanity left him in this distant place, where home was now only a dream, a memory, and not a future. He reached out a hand and began to roughly stroke Chakotay's cheek, jaw and neck. The commander breathed in harsh panted breaths, as he drew Tom towards him, hand grasping the back of Tom's neck, and pulling him forward. So quick was it that Tom realized that they had been kissing for several seconds before he was even aware of it. So passionate - pain and need and despair merging with their tongues. . . It was so sweet, so bitter, this celebration of humanity, of life, in the face of death. Tom thought Chakotay would never let go of his lips, and they would stay that way for eternity. He didn't much care. It was enough. . . this fire within, burning him through, dulling the pain, the memories. He clasped Chakotay more tightly, his hands exploring the strong body beside him. Oh, it felt good to be held this way, to *feel* another person . . . . He moaned as Chakotay began grinding his erection against Tom's. Oh, this was heavenly! He responded in kind, and soon they were arching against each other, kissing and stroking each other feverishly. Soon, though, they needed more; more contact, more feel of skin on skin. They broke apart and began rapidly undressing. When both were naked they moved into each other's arms again. Oh, this was exquisite! The touching and stroking, the recognition that they were *alive*. They kissed with abandon as their bodies writhed together. All too soon they felt the climax come upon them, as they moaned in release. They both lay there in exhaustion, each gently stroking the other's back and sides, soothing each other's trembling. Tom was floating somewhere, he was sure of it, hardly aware of Chakotay rising from the bed to return a moment later with a towel and begin cleaning them up. Then Chakotay enfolded Tom in his arms, kissed him passionately on the lips, and then pulled the covers up over them. Wrapped in Chakotay's embrace, Tom felt safe and needed and cherished. It had been far too long. He sighed in contentment, falling asleep before the memories could return to haunt him. --- The End