By:AW

Published in Unicorn Press. Editor: Nancy Border & Pat
Hayden.

You can buy it from Unicorn Press @
http://members.aol.com/UnicrnPrs/press.htm

Disclaimer: You know it, I know it, I don’t own idea
of Star Trek: Voyager. I just own the story.

Date With Destiny II

of Star Trek: Voyager. I just own the story.

13. Truths

“I need to know what happened to Kathryn Janeway at Tau Ceti.”

The Admiral looked at the man in front to him. Chakotay was in pain and the Admiral knew that all those months ago he had promised Chakotay the world for the life of his daughter. Now, here he was ready to collect. How was he supposed to know that Kathryn Janeway, daughter of the Starfleet admiral, Starfleet golden girl and this ex-Maquis would become close friends and possibly even…

Admiral Johanis looked hard at the child. Chakotay’s eyes, but there was something else…

“This is Kathryn’s child isn’t it?”

Chakotay saw the wheels turning and realized he knew. He knew Kathryn. He knew her well; he knew things about her that Chakotay had to know. “I’m going to ask you again Admiral. What happened to Kathyrn Janeway at
Tau Ceti?”

The Admiral hesitated, then realized he owed Chakotay at least that much. “The files were sealed Chakotay. They were sealed…end of story. The case was closed never to be re-opened or reviewed again.”

“What happened to her Admiral? I need to know. If you can’t tell me because I’m fleet…I’ll resign, but I need to know.” Chakotay was yelling at this point.

Admiral Johanis watched the emotions play across Chakotay’s face. I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into Chakotay.

“There was a horrible accident…”

/\/\

Kathryn cried a thousand tears and when she quieted, she started all over again. Her child would be nearly three months old now. Little Kearstin, her little angel. An angel with her father’s eyes. This little darling contained so much of both of them. It was her life and his combined in beautiful purpose and perfection. Kathryn missed her baby and she missed Chakotay, but she had turned over that page and closed that chapter of her life forever, just as she had all those years ago with Justin. If history is mean to repeat itself as it seems it is, why ust only the darkness and the tragedy haunt my dreams and my life? She began yet another day. Another day alone and empty; Writing the book, and repeating the hurt as she went.

/\/\

“It was the most terrible tragedy of that time.” He knew how much Kathryn’s father and her fiancé had meant to her. He regretted that such a wonderful
person had been hurt, but it had been no one’s fault.“They hadn’t thought even Kathryn would survive the brutalities of the accident. And how was anyone supposed to have known she was pregnant at the time? Kathryn’s father had brought her and her fiancé on a test run of a prototype craft.” Admiral Johanis knew these revelations could only destroy Chakotay or make
him a better and stronger person. He hoped for that child’s sake, it was the latter.

“Kathryn had always thought the crash was an accident, but it wasn’t. They had been testing the cloak, they were working on. Section 31 was trying to
perfect it.” Chakotay’s eyes were widening with understanding. He was starting to put the pieces together. He was starting to realize there really was
no end to the lies. And the point at which the lies ended and the truth began was not a clean-cut line between black and white, but rather a fuzzy gray
barrier.

“They had perfected the cloak, but they wanted to test out the new missiles they thought they could use with the cloak on. Kathryn and her father, their ship had been the random target to test the missile. The one they were after was Justin.” He was now revealing thing to Chakotay that were never meant to be spoken and he knew his life was over, but he did it for Kathryn. She had been through things in her life no one should ever have to endure. “Kathryn, her father…they were expendable. The work her father was doing…Section 31 was twenty years ahead of him.”

Chakotay looked at the person, the Admiral he had thought he had known. What a joke, but then again he thought he had known Kathryn Janeway as well. “So they were killed? And it was assumed that Kathryn would have perished. This was their assumption, that she would have died?”

“Yes, that was the assumption, unfortunately, that wasn’t how the events unfolded.”

Chakotay was beyond angry. “Unfortunately? How could you say that? How can anyone say that? A life is a life no matter how small, or seemingly insignificant! Kathryn’s, her father’s, that of the child she was carrying and Justin’s. They were all important and significant. No matter what Section 31 thought. What gives you the right? How could anyone in or affiliated with Starfleet ever think anything else?” He eyed the Admiral. “What happened to the child?”

“The child was adopted by a Starfleet family. His name was Christopher. He was killed, an innocent in the battle of Wolf 359. He was aboard the Excalibur with his family when the Borg attacked.”

Chakotay felt his eyes watering. He looked down at Kearstin. He loved her so much, and he felt sorry for the child who had died a senseless death. “I only have one question,” Chakotay hesitated if only for a moment. “Why?”

The Admiral had no answers. He wasn’t sure anymore if it was his answer and his opinion or the one that had been brainwashed into him since the day he had been unwittingly recruited, against his will by Section 31.“It was for the good of the people. For the good of the Federation. For the good of your children and mine and theirs after them.”

Chakotay was so full of hatred at that moment he could have killed. It was not in his nature and it was not something, an impulse he had ever before
experienced, but all of a sudden he realized how serial killers, soldiers, how they could justify their acts. “You’re a fool Admiral, and you’re a hypocrite.
And I hope I never become like you, because on that day, the day we all become what you are…humanity has reached a state of being that should never be achieved. At that point evolution will have stopped and life will begin to revert. I hate what you are and what you represent.”

With that he handed the Admiral his pips and walked out of Fleet headquarters. Now he remembered why he had left Starfleet in the first place. He needed to find Kathryn. He needed to get her; his life and his family back together before it was too late.

He pulled out the final sheet of paper B’Elanna had handed him. It was just about empty save a name and some coordinates. It read: Santos VI, heading 289.4.

TBC in Date With Destiny II - Chapter 14: Ever Present Doubts

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