Title:   Colony
Author:  Jemima
Contact: jemimap@crosswinds.net
Series:  VOY
Part:	 8/20
Rating:	 PG
Codes:	 crew, J/C
Date:	 November 2000

Disclaimer:  Copyright has expired on the works of Alfred, Lord
	     Tennyson quoted herein.  Certain of the names below have
	     been trademarked by Paramount; be assured I am not
	     conducting trade with them.

*****

Part 8

*****

    Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
    When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life; 


"They're late," Tom said, as he brought Shuttle Prime to a halt at the
rendezvous point.  Chakotay said nothing.

After an hour and a half, Tom spoke again.  "How long are we going to
wait here?"

"Six hours," Chakotay answered gruffly.

Tom decided to take a catnap.  Two hours later, he was awakened by a
soft beep from Chakotay's console.  "A ship is dropping out of warp at
the designated co-ordinates," the Commander explained.

"It's them," Tom said, when the battered profile of Shuttle Second
appeared on the screen.  

Dalby's voice came over the comm system.  "Mission accomplished.
However, we've lost impulse power."

Dalby went on to explain that once they'd turned the power back on in
Shuttle Second, it had taken almost an hour to recreate the warp field
- a difficulty inherent in Leigan warp technology.

Chakotay beamed Tom over in exchange for Dalby.  Paris was very good
with impulse drives, and the two Maquis needed to review the new
information and choose their course of action.  They resolved on the
Poetic Justice plan long before Shuttle Second was repaired.

Tom gave the engine a once-over.  They would have to replicate parts
to fix it, and it would take a while.  He and one of the Leigi
tinkered with it; Jenny served tea.  She had changed over the years,
Tom thought as he watched her out of the corner of his eye.  He hadn't
kept tabs on the single girls like he used to, not since he'd gotten
involved with B'Elanna three years before.  It seemed like forever
since he and Harry had double-dated and played Captain Proton with the
Delaney Sisters.  Jenny hadn't been so...domestic back then.

Tom stood back as his companion wrestled with a spanner.  He took the
opportunity to chat with Jenny.  "So how was the trip?  It looks like
you got banged up a bit."

"Yeah," she said.

"Weren't you afraid?"

Her answer was surprisingly bitter.  "What's another day in a tin ship
being fired on by nasty aliens?  It certainly beats being sucked out
of Hydroponics in a hull breach.  At least *we* were doing something
worthwhile."

"And we're not done yet," Tom said, flashing her a mischievous grin as
he leaned over the remains of the engine.

Eventually, no longer four hours but four days behind schedule, the
shuttles headed for Leigus Prime.

*****

Captain Janeway was holding an impromptu engineering conference in the
mess hall.  Torres, Carey, Vorik, Seven and Harry were bouncing around
ideas about primitive sensor systems.  The new Leigan cook was pretty
good, though he wasn't as cheerful as Neelix; nevertheless, the
harried staff pushed the slightly radioactive Leigan pot roast around
their plates like so much leola root.

Seven was for restoring the sensors to their pre-war configuration,
including all Borg modifications made over the years.  Carey, on the
other hand, wanted to start with a sonar-like system, little more than
old-fashioned radar - using the deflector array to send and collect
the electromagnetic waves.  Janeway was fuming at the image of her
once-graceful Intrepid-class starship reeling away from the slightest
false radar signal like a frightened bat.  She was almost glad to see
Tuvok approaching the table, interruption in his eyes - almost.

"The Leigi have news," Tuvok said blandly.

Yes, the Leigi had plenty of news - three hundred thousand dead on
Leigus Seventh, two million killed on Leigus Eighty-third, and the
other million evacuating to its barren sister planet.  Tuvok couldn't
handle the Leigi quite as well as Chakotay had, so she'd already had
to listen to far too many of these news reports in person.  The Leigi
seemed to think that if they reported directly to her, she'd be more
likely to do something.  What, exactly, they thought she could do was
beyond her.

"Carry on," she told the others as she turned to follow Tuvok back to
the conference room.

*****

     On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
     As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. 


The Captain faced the usual assortment of prelates, legates, attaches
and other representatives of the amorphous Leigus Union.  A tired and
bedraggled man, probably the one who had brought the latest news from
yet another decimated colony, was introduced to her as Ovin.

"Have you come from Leigus Eighty-third?" she asked him, trying to
sound concerned instead of merely tired.

"No, ma'am," he answered her, "I've come from Leigus Prime."

Janeway shot a look at Tuvok, who replied with a raised eyebrow.
Apparently, he knew no more than she did.  Ovin began his story.

"I was part of a small expedition that was...charting the moon."  A
prelate whispered in the speaker's ear; his eyes widened for a moment,
then he spoke again, but softly, as though discussing a state secret.
"We were looking for the way in.  My pilot and I set down our shuttle
in a small crater and began to explore part of the cave system we were
mapping.  The composition of the caves blocked all communications; by
the time we'd finished our day's work, the battle of Leigus Prime was
over.

"We assumed the other ships in our expedition had joined the battle
and been destroyed.  Unwilling to draw the Periti's attention to the
moon, we remained hidden on the surface.  A month later, our sensors
picked up a Leigan shuttle behaving erratically.  It passed through
the system a couple of times, then came to Leigus Prime but was chased
off by at least ten Periti ships.

"From then on, we kept a close eye on the sensors.  Five days later,
we picked up two Leigan shuttles pursuing an unidentified ship.  They
swung around the sun and into the blockade force.  The other ship
tried to land aboard one of the Periti motherships, but something went
wrong and both of them exploded.  Something must have happened to one
of the Leigan shuttles, too, because they attempted to land on the
moon.  We saw that they had gone down in a sheltered crater near ours,
so we took the opportunity to escape.  The Periti were fooled; they
chased us out of the system as though we were that other ship.  They
took out our weapons systems and killed my pilot, but I'm fairly
certain they never realized we weren't the people they were after."

"Do you know what happened to the other Leigan shuttle?" Janeway
asked, looking pale.

"As far as I could tell from the sensors, the Periti hit it and took
out its engines.  It was plunging into the atmosphere of Leigus Prime
when we lifted off from the moon."

"They may all be dead," she said to Tuvok once the Leigi had left the
conference room.

"It is a logical possibility," he answered.

*****

"They should have been back already," she told Tuvok a week
later.

"Evidently there were complications."

Complications - that was Tuvok's term for managing to crash three
shuttles at once.  But Janeway had known Tom and Chakotay's record
with shuttlecraft when she'd let them go on that wild mission.

"What's the dilithium situation?"

Tuvok raised an eyebrow at the question, but decided to respond as
though the Captain didn't already know the answer.  "Leigus Prime is
the only planet in the region with natural dilithium deposits.  The
other stockpiles were gathered on long-range missions.  The Leigi do
not plan any more such missions for the near future."

"I'm going after them, Tuvok."

"Captain?"

Ah, the famous Vulcan technique of Selective Deafness!  He was
implying she was a rational being who could not possibly have said
what she had just said.  But it was ineffective - she continued to
pain her stoic friend with her irrational plans.  "We're dead in the
water without dilithium, and I'd also like to get a look at that moon.
I'll need Torres - Carey can handle the repairs from here on."

"Captain, as your security officer, I would be--"

"--the logical choice," she finished his sentence.  "I know, but if
anyone can get that moon moving again, it's B'Elanna."

"You intend to complete the Commander's mission," Tuvok stated calmly.
Janeway should have been familiar with the Vulcan technique of Stating
The Obvious, but she had always thought of it as an annoying cultural
trait rather than a tactical move.  Thus, she fell into his trap.

"Yes, I do."

"Then I recommend that you include Seven of Nine in your away team."
The jaws of logic closed around her.

"Seven?" she asked, realizing she'd made a false step.

"You may require her nanoprobes to save the Leigi," Tuvok explained.

She'd forgotten about the humanoiditarian aspect of Chakotay's
mission.  "Fine," she muttered.  "I'll also need Ovin, as a guide."

"I'm sure he will be honored to accompany you."

*****