Repost: "CIRCLE" VOY, (J) 1/3

[Pegeel]

Disclaimers: Voyager belongs to Paramount; "Talking Stick"
belongs to Macedon. "Circle" belongs to me, and I have only
myself to blame.

If you have't read "Talking Stick" I recommend you go over
to the archives and do so right away. (Or read the repost, which
god willing is up now.) Not only will this story make a lot
more sense if you have, but "Talking Stick" is too good to
miss.

Macedon's given Chakotay a voice, and some real complexity
of thought, and a strength, and cultural identity that don't
always show up very well on the show. All I can say is I've
tried to do a little of the same for Janeway. If you're
looking for hot romance...this ain't it. Just a quiet
little transition piece, as I try to work my way to what I'd
like to see Janeway become. In another portion of reality
I'm on record as claiming this thing is a "first step in a
process" story. If I'm lucky, some of you will like it. If
I'm really lucky, the gods of hapless writers will smile on
me, and I'll be able to take Janeway a few more steps along
the way before I wander off to other projects.

Oh, and yes: if you're worried that I leeched off of
Macedon's excellent story, I did have the good manners to
*ask* about it...and I must say I've never been treated more
graciously. (Macedon, I'll flatter you all day if you
like...it's too much *fun* not to! And every word true!)

And like many a soul before me, I do follow the great
dictum: If you're gonna steal, steal from the best.



"CIRCLE"

c.1995 Peg Robinson (aka Peg...@aol.com)


Captain's personal log, stardate 2785.9.
Hell. I hate this log. Back in the old days I never used
it at all. If I needed to talk, I went to a counselor, or a
friend, or wrote to Mark, and avoided the whole diary
question altogether. I don't like the things anyway, and
knowing that all that "personal" material was going to end
up on file in the Star Fleet Intelligence archives somewhere
didn't exactly thrill me.
Often nowadays the only people I can see opening this file
and listening to it are the children my crew may have, and
their children: only Wildman's born so far, most not even
conceived. I imagine them sometimes: grown, wearing faces
that echo the ones I see every day, walking through the ship
as I do. I can imagine them opening this file, and trying
to find out by listening to it how it is that their world
came to be just so. Guess they'll just have to live with
the fact that I'm at least as confused as them.

It's him again. Chakotay.
He's started a story telling circle.
Well, no. It started itself, and dragged him in. But
there's no real question that it is his.
He told me about it right away. He's good that way;
better than I ever expected. Better than I would have
expected even a straight-line officer to be. When there's
even a little shift in the dynamic of the ship he shows up
at my desk, or materializes at my shoulder on the bridge,
and the next thing I know he's handing me some bit of
information that...changes things. A good officer, better
than I had any right to have hoped for.
Why does that shake me? It shouldn't. It should be a
relief, under the circumstances. It isn't every day you
take on an enemy as your partner. To find out he's the best
first officer I've ever had should be a relief.
It is. But it's also...I don't know...

Things were simpler when this all began. I remember
sitting at my desk, in my ready room, Tuvok on alert, like a
good hunting dog on a fall morning. We were reviewing the
Intelligence Reports, the personal files on the "enemies of
the Peace". I suspect it stings Chakotay, to look at those
reports now and see just how much we knew. The strength of
his ship, the names and faces and records of his crew. The
truth is, Tuvok was going in because we did know so much
about them...we could tailor a cover story perfectly,
fitting it to the specific needs of that one little group.
And once in Tuvok could learn what we didn't know. The
locations of bases, the overall plans of the Maquis. "The
big picture". But the small picture...we had those details
well in hand, thank you very much.
We gave particular attention to Chakotay, that day. He
was the key. We went over everything. Psych profiles,
biographical history. His resignation from the Fleet at the
death of his father. It made for interesting reading, even
the less intimate stuff. His Academy records: good, but
uneven, with odd quirks and idiosyncrasies. His service
records, similar. The final report from the Captain of the
Exeter, placed in Chakotay's files at the time of his
resignation, was painful to read. Old Kuto Falin had been
grooming him, waiting for the day that his first officer, a
Commander T'Alti, took her first command. Then Chakotay was
to move into her spot, and Kuto had been expecting great
things. The regret and the anger were biting, and directed
as much at Star Fleet, and at Federation policy as at
Chakotay himself.
As a Maquis he came into his own. That, of course, was
what made him worth the hunt. He developed too many ties,
become the focal point of too much information. He'd welded
a rummage sale crew into a skilled attack force, and like
many other former Fleet officers was helping the Maquis pull
their other ships together, turn them into a true unit,
instead of the independent clusters they had started as.
Not yet as deep in Maquis command as some of the other Fleet
renegades, but that made him a better target. Prominent
enough to be useful, obscure enough not to be too well
protected.

"Well, Tuvok...do you think you can manage it?"
One of those human things: asking the question that
doesn't need an answer. When you've been in Star Fleet for
a while you get used to...transposing...from one culture or
race to another. If Tuvok had been a Klingon he'd have been
grinning hard enough to give a tiger an inferiority complex.
If he'd been a Ferengi, he'd have been rubbing his hands and
doing that little shuffling jig they all seem to do when
they see a hot prospect ahead. As it is he's Vulcan, and a
Star Fleet officer, and Tuvok; and if his eyes were a bit
brighter than usual, and his stance a bit
more...anticipatory...he wouldn't have liked having it
called to his attention.
"Undoubtedly, Captain. Given the information at our
disposal, I estimate my chances of success at better than
84.783%. Granted that Mr. Chakotay displays a
certain...unpredictable randomness in his actions. None the
less, I see no reason to be concerned. The final outcome is
nearly assured."
I grinned. I've known Tuvok a long time. The certainty
might be there...but it was that elusive 15.217% that had
brought the look of anticipation to his face.
" A worthy foe, Tuvok? You haven't had a good hunt in a
long time."
"Captain, you are mistaken in my motives. There is no
"hunt". Only a job to be done. Criminals exist, and
divisive elements; and I, in my capacity as a Star Fleet
officer, attempt to bring them under control for the well
being of the Federation as a whole. But I take no pleasure
in the pursuit, only satisfaction in a job well done."
Right.
I've known Tuvok a *very* long time. Long enough to know
he lies like a angel: not often, but when he does he never
flickers an eye lash. And like most Vulcans, he lies as
much to himself as to anyone else, to protect that silence
he tries to cultivate at his center. It's one of those
things I think they need and fear humans for. We challenge
their perceptions, and knock at the foundations of their
assumptions about themselves. I believe they'd find us
downright unbearable, if we didn't have enough compassion
not to let our nosiness and challenge-lust go too far too
often. That day I let it ride. There'd be another day to
stir up the hornets in that hive. I dismissed him, with a
little promise to myself that I'd pull his leg a bit the
next time I saw him. My Great Aunt Fannie's girdle there's
no "hunt"...the man *lives* to hunt. Half the trouble I've
had with Tuvok out here has to do with that. It's hard for
him to accept his prey as his equals, and as full partners.

There was no problem at first. We got back several
worthwhile reports from him, slipped out through override
links in the computer systems of every space station they
passed through. Things were going well, and I was hoping
that soon we'd have enough information to call it a day, and
pull Tuvok back in. After that it would be up to
Intelligence to get as much use as they could out of the
information, before gathering up Chakotay and his crew. I
don't enjoy it when my people are out on their own,
particularly when they're as close to me as Tuvok is. It's
necessary, and I deal with it. But I'm damned if I like it.
It would be good to bring him back in. I had even planned
to embarrass him a bit by dragging him out to a little
Punjabi restaurant I know on Deep Space 9. It was something
that would remind him of T'Pel; something he'd love, not
that he'd ever admit it. I thought of it as a little teaser
to sweeten him up for her.
And then the ship disappeared, dropped out of all report,
somewhere in the badlands; and I spent the next weeks
sifting through those Intelligence Reports with a dilithium
lattice filter, looking for some shred of a clue as to what
had happened. The old information; the new bits that Tuvok
had passed on. It's amazing how your sense of control and
certainty can crash. Before the disappearance I had felt as
though the information we had on that little group and on
the general practices of the Maquis was ample...maybe even
over-generous. There wasn't much sense of mystery, and I
had felt disappointed for Tuvok that the hunt had been so
lackluster. Now I looked at the files again with a new
uncertainty.
It's been hard times in the Federation lately. The
Cardassian Treaty was...unfortunate. One of those
compromises politicians love, and the rest of us struggle
with. So much about Cardassian culture is unacceptable by
our standards. Violent, cruel; and that seems to bring out
the same elements in us.
I kept thinking of the tales of Cardassian torture
chambers, the containment camps of Bajor, the manipulations
of the Obsidian Order. All of that violence is rumored to
be reflected in the Maquis in new and frightening ways, as
though they have no choice but to mirror it back; to attempt
to return it in kind. I still don't know how much of the
rumor is true, and how much just an extension of the fear
and resentment that the whole issue raises in the rest of
the Federation. But true or not I went over those records a
hundred times, looking for some hint as to where the ship
had gone; but looking even more closely for hints of what
Tuvok would be facing if he had been discovered. The idea
of him in the hands of angry Maquis terrified me.
Worst of all was the visit to tell T'Pel. Not that she
hadn't been informed already, but there is a bond between
Tuvok and I that carries over to T'Pel and the children,
and it would have been wrong to have avoided that visit. I
went over the evening before I left Vulcan for Earth, to
meet with Intelligence and pick up Tom Paris. The sun
hadn't set yet, but the air had already begun to cool off,
and the shadows were long. The younger children ran in the
cool red court yard in the shade of early evening, herded
gently and patiently by Tuvok's oldest daughter, as I spoke
to their mother. I'm still shaken by look on her face as I
promised to bring him back. That's one of the hardest
things about dealing with Vulcans. Whatever lies they tell
themselves, they won't accept the ones you tell them. Not
for comfort, not for hope. Her eyes said she was waiting.
Hoping. But not believing. I knew that she had already
started to gather the incense for the Ceremony of Endings.
I knew she was waiting in the night for the moment when she
would feel her marriage bond with Tuvok snap, like a guy
line giving way, and know that he was gone. Nothing I could
say would remove the tension from her eyes. I hoped action
would do better than words. If there was no hope, if he was
dead by the time I reached him...I had some very unethical
thoughts right about then. Most of them inspired by
Cardassian torture chambers and rumors of Maquis cruelty.
And so to earth, to pick up Tom Paris. And then to Deep
Space 9. Then to the Badlands, and then....

That first conversation by subspace radio was quite an
event. Unique.

My bridge was still God's own wreck from the sleigh-ride
that had brought us there, and my brain was feeling about as
bad. So much had happened. That blazing trip through, the
deaths, the sudden transport to the array. The old mom and
the Banjo man. Seeing the faces of the Maquis: still as
they lay in that morgue of a med area. Tuvok's face more
still than even his own control could make it.

Then waking on Voyager; Tom announcing Harry Kim's
absence.

And the only possible ally I had for seventy light years
was the man I had tracked into the Badlands, and into
nowhere.

It was a hell of a situation, and a hell of a choice.
For both of us. I remember calling him by his Fleet rank,
and then wondering if I shouldn't have granted him his
captaincy, even if it was Maquis. I still don't know why I
didn't; whether I needed to exert some kind of authority, or
whether I was trying to call up old habits and training, or
just the fact that right then I needed him to be the Fleet
officer he had been, not Maquis, and my enemy. Those first
moments of contact that's what he was, though. Suspicious.
Angry. More than a little scared, caught at the back of
beyond between me and the array. I wasn't at all sure he'd
consider a truce, much less make alliance.
Well. It worked. I can't even take any credit for it.
It would be nice to see myself as the mastermind who brought
the whole thing together, but I can't afford the self-
flattery. The whole damned thing would never have worked if
it weren't for him. Somehow he jumped past the anger, and
the suspicion and the betrayals, past the outrageousness of
the situation and found a way to give me what I needed in
spite of it all. And he carried the rest of them along with
him.
It was strange seeing that corroded, beat up,
reconditioned excuse for an assault ship ride shotgun beside
Voyager. It felt as though there was...I don't know. I do
know it helped to look into the view screen and see her
gliding ahead of us, or tracking along side. She wasn't
much of a thing to lean on; a ratty heap of a former
freighter, with reconditioned everything and an arsenal out
of a salvage yard. But damned if I didn't feel good as she
paced us. I've never had the nerve to ask him what it cost
him to ram her to hell the way he did.
It was a strange time. A strange alliance. It worked
then. It works now. You know what they say: don't fix it
if it ain't broke.
But God, it's been rocky. I could have shot him for the
laughter in his eyes when I made the offer to meld
crews...and commands. The sonofabitch has the most cross-
grained, scraggy sense of humor. It keeps cutting through
everything I think I know, and rattling my sense of dignity.
But I love it, too. I know the bridge crew thinks we're
crazy...sometimes things happen, like Neelix on another
idiotic morale mission, and the next thing you know we're
half dying from the strain of not laughing ourselves
senseless.
Why is it that the things that make him the best officer
I've ever worked with are the very things that throw me off
balance? He does it every time. I look at a familiar
pattern, something I think I understand. He inserts himself
into it, and Whoops! Hey presto! Familiarity goes out the
airlock, and everything starts to look quirky. As though
just by existing he was an agent provocateur for chaos.

--continued!--