Title: Colony Author: Jemima Contact: jemimap@crosswinds.net Series: VOY Part: 19/20 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 19 ***** Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth! Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth! The Triumvirate gathered to lay in their course. B'Elanna wanted to stop at one of the colonies near the demilitarized zone, and Chakotay had already arranged to pick up Dalby, Ayala 'and maybe some more people' at Dorvan. The Captain would take the Delta Flyer out to Utopia Planetia, collect Voyager, and gather her scattered crew. The two ships would meet up at DS9, fold past Cardassian space, avoiding it completely, and make one final pause at the edge of the galaxy nearest Andromeda, just to get a look at their destination. Such was the plan, roughly speaking. B'Elanna and Chakotay saw Kathryn and the baby off on the Delta Flyer. The engineer gave her a message for Tom and tried not to watch the tender parting scene. She wondered how he could kiss his wife that way, considering the use to which he intended to put her absence. Torres' cheeks were still red when the shuttle door closed; as they walked back to the control room she turned to Chakotay and commented, "I still don't think we're going to get away with this." "We'll be at the edge of the galaxy before anyone knows they're gone." Torres wasn't so sure about that part of the plan. "We're not Maquis anymore," she protested impotently. "You never stop being Maquis. I'm sorry if no one warned you about that part." He was right. She wasn't willing to leave her old comrades in a Federation penal colony, especially when the only thing between her and a cozy cell in that same penal colony was the impenetrable crust of Toleighanomir. "What if they don't want to come? Will we leave them on Dorvan?" she asked. "We'll be back in a few years. Most of them wouldn't even have been released by then." In other words, B'Elanna grumbled to herself, you never stop being Maquis. When they reached the control room, she called up the intelligence reports about Altassa that she'd purloined from her father-in-law's home computer terminal. 'By any means necessary,' Tom had whispered in her ear, before bringing the baby out to her doting grandfather and informing him that the exhausted mother was taking a nap. She hoped Admiral Paris wouldn't be implicated in the prison break. More importantly, she hoped *she* wouldn't be implicated in the prison break. "Are you ever going to tell her we did this?" Torres asked, gazing up at a schematic of the prison. 'Her' meant Kathryn, of course. "If she asks," Chakotay replied. "But I'd rather not give her a reason to ask." He'd cleared the entire Starfleet crew off Toleighanomir for just that reason. The freed Maquis would have blended in with the millions of Leigi passengers by the time Voyager rejoined them. He touched the console, and the moon went to warp. ***** Janeway summoned her helmsman to Voyager; Admiral Paris hugged his son one last time and watched him dematerialize. Intelligence reports began to trickle in as Voyager's crew disappeared from various Federation worlds. Only a handful had decided to stay - mostly crew from the Equinox. It seemed that the comforts of home faded after the first few months and deep space called to Voyager's crew. Despite the resignation of her Maquis crewmembers, Janeway had been reluctant to take on replacements. The Admiral suspected the Maquis would regain their field commissions at the edge of the Federation. At least he'd convinced her to take on Lieutenant Hildegaard and a few engineers from Utopia Planetia. Colonists and former Maquis were gathering on Dorvan V - three thousand so far and more coming, according to Starfleet Intelligence. The Cardassians didn't seem to mind, yet. If they filed a complaint, he planned to tell them it was only a sort of reunion that would disperse without violence soon enough. Some weeks later, the long-awaited report appeared on his desk. The Admiral read it over slowly, then laughed until his aide came into the office looking worried about him. ***** Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun: Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun. Toleighanomir's transporters had pierced the radioactive cloud around Leigus Fifteenth, and as far as B'Elanna could tell, they were capable of beaming through the heavy shielding of Altassa. But like the rest of the moon, their purpose was peaceful - they were designed to disable all weaponry in transit. A fight, therefore, was out of the question. Although most of Voyager's Maquis crew were gathering at Dorvan right now, Carlson was still aboard, and he had a certain talent for impersonation. She had laughed when Tom first suggested that part of the plan, until she realized what a good cover story it would provide. Carlson only had to fool them for a few minutes. Using the schematics of the prison as her guide, Torres prepared to transport everyone who was not in a cell into a large, secure building on the inner surface at the moment the moon dropped out of warp. "Now!" she shouted, though Toleighanomir's comm system could have conducted a whisper. The jailers, including four visiting Cardassian observers, materialized in the large, darkened room. The ancient technology produced no shimmer and the new arrivals experienced no feeling of being transported. In the sudden darkness, they shouted alerts and reached for communicators, but no signal would escape the moon's crust. In the midst of the confusion, Carlson snapped his fingers. A spotlight appeared in the rafters, shining on him. "Please calm down, ladies, gentlemen, Cardassians." "Who are you?" "Where are we?" "I demand an explanation." "This is an outrage!" and various other predictable shouts greeted Carlson. The more alert among his guests drew their phasers, but Carlson snapped again, B'Elanna providing the trademark flash of light, and the weapons appeared to become useless. "I am Q. I have come to investigate your primitive penal system. I heard that Altassa was the premiere facility in the quadrant--" At this point, the murmurs drowned him out. Those who kept up with such things were telling the others, including the angry Cardassians, who Q was and what his powers were. A few guards tried to rush him, but he waved his hand menacingly as they approached the force-field Chakotay had set up hours before and they bounced back. B'Elanna signaled Carlson, "I have the Maquis." "As I was saying, I heard that this was the best the Federation had to offer, but I have found it highly reprehensible. The penal system of the Donji is far superior. Their main penal colony, Decron III, in the Gamma Quadrant, is a gorgeous world, with pristine beaches and perpetually sunny weather. I have remanded your prisoners to their custody. By the way, are any of you prisoners?" Two figures in the back, still held by the guards who had been transferring them to another cell, shouted "Yes!" Carlson waved an omnipotent finger and Torres beamed them over to the main transporter pad, where Chakotay was greeting the other prisoners. "Are the rest in uniform?" Torres asked her Leigi assistants, who were gazing up at infrared displays of the darkened room. "Yes, ma'am," they answered. "You're clear, Q," she whispered to Carlson via the versatile comm system. The faux Q continued his immortal tirade in an even more disgusted tone. "But, gentlemen, since you are so proud of your penal accomplishments, your humanitarian ideals, and your Federation civilization, I will not deprive you of their benefits." He snapped his fingers. In a dramatic flash of light, B'Elanna beamed the jailers into the recently vacated jail cells. Toleighanomir resumed course for Dorvan. ***** And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men: Chakotay contemplated the ruins of Dorvan. There had never been much to destroy, so it was easy for him to imagine that the scenes of his youth still existed, over the next dune or beyond one more outcropping. He almost wished his wife and child could be here with him to see it - almost. But it wasn't safe here; B'Elanna was keeping a transporter lock on him at all times, and an eye on every ship in the sector. Despite the dangers, he had come down early to see his homeworld, and to go on a vision quest. The vision quest had gone well. For the past year, he had had difficulty distinguishing his own visions from the historical ones provided by Toleighanomir. Today he had seen a world not unlike Dorvan, under different stars, populated with Leigi and Maquis. It reassured him; before he had had his doubts about transporting the Maquis to Andromeda. He had wondered whether they would be willing to exchange the cause, the hopelessly lost cause, for a future in another galaxy. Now he was sure they would. Chakotay strode confidently over the last hill and down towards the makeshift podium. The crowd looked larger close up. It seemed as though the entire surviving population of the demilitarized zone was gathered here in on this dusty plain. They sat on heaps of rock or broken walls, scattered debris which had once been the main city of Dorvan V. A great weight of history descended upon him, of people fleeing oppression, seeking newer worlds and wider skies - for a moment he couldn't move, but then the cloud lifted. He mounted the podium with renewed energy and began his speech confident that his audience would follow him to the end of the universe: "Come, my friends,/ 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world..." *****