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The Voyage Without

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    • "Voyager to away team."

    I activated my comm, "Zephyr here."

    "We have detected three vessels entering the system. We believe them to be Kazon. Return at once."

    I got on my paws, "Acknowledged, returning to the ship," I confirmed as I turned.

    Something hit the side of my head and it felt like somebody had punched me. There was a booming sound in the distance.

    I turned to look, but didn't see anyone. Did somebody just shoo-

    Smack!

    Something hit the side of my neck and ricochet off into the distance with a whirring sound.

    Bang.

    They are shooting at me!

    How dare they!?

    "Zephyr to shuttle, I'm taking fire," I said and continued on my way, "Some cover if you please before they realize they need something of a higher caliber."

    "Navari to Zephyr, I'm extending the shields!"

    I felt a pressure flow across me and there was another small flash of light in the middle of the air followed by another boom, "Appreciated. Take off as soon as I'm onboard," I said and bounded up the ramp, smacking the close button with my tail on the way, "Go."

    As I felt a small shudder in the deck, I laid down and connected my visor to the shuttle's computer, bringing up the engineering systems and sensor data. The data link from Voyager told me all I needed to know.

    "Away team to Voyager, we'll arrive almost a minute after the presumed Kazon ships reach you," I said and then checked the local sensors as a muffled explosion reached my ears.

    A quad of those local fightercraft were on an intercept course and even as I watched, four blips disengaged from them.

    "And we're taking fire from the locals. That can be disregarded, they don't have anything that can touch our shields," I continued.

    "Acknowledged, away team," Janeway answered, "The Val Jean is moving to delay them and we're shifting to a closer intercept."

    "Appreciated, Voyager," I said and then turned my attention to the local fighters and their approaching missiles.

    They're not going to catch us, we'll be hypersonic in thirty seconds and too high in twenty for anything they had to reach us. But those missiles will hit us in ten. It's not impossible they have some sort of advanced warhead in those, they had traded with aliens after all.

    How are they tracking us? We should be invisible to both radar and IR by now from our shields. Optically maybe?

    I checked the sensors, detecting a coherent light amplitude beam from a ground installation aimed in our direction. Oh, I see. They have some actual sensors there and used them to aim a targeting laser at us to guide the missles.

    Cute.

    Taking control of one of the phasers, I dialed the power down and then fired, sending a beam straight to hit the laser emitter. The beam went away and the missiles seemed to lose track.

    Now, about those fighters. They shot at me, I don't like it when people do that.

    But they weren't a threat, it felt wrong to just blast them from the sky. But I did manage to figure out their comm system on the way down...

    Quickly, I set the shuttle to transmit music from my favorite bands on max volume on every single frequency the locals seemed to use. I poured some real juice into it too, I likely blanketed every transmission this side of the planet.

    Enjoy some 'Godslayer' arseholes. Maybe you'll learn some honor.

    "How're we looking?" I then asked, connecting to the flight deck.

    "Twenty seconds from intercept, Lieutenant," Ensign Kim answered, "The Kazon ships are engaging the Val Jean."

    "Get us onboard and we'll go help them," I said and curled my claws slightly, scraping against the metal deck. Treachery!

    We went down to trade and they contacted the Kazon. What more, the Neelix was the one to tell us to go here! If he was in any way involved, I'd vent him into space.

    From across the ship, I'm not going near him if I can help it. Or maybe it was Kes. I didn't know anything about her other than that she helped rescue Kim and Torres. The fact that she thought the Neelix was attractive was immediately suspicious.

    Growling to myself, I watched the sensors. The Val Jean was twisting through space, trading fire with three Kazon vessels. I had to give the Maquis this, they knew how to handle their ship.

    Was likely one of the reasons why they had been such a pain in the Cardassians' wide necks.

    We landed hard in the shuttlebay, enough so that the emergency tractor beams latched on to slow us down in time, but even then I felt a thump as we hit the deck and I winced. If I felt that through the inertial dampeners despite the catching tractor beams, we hit it pretty hard.

    Kim, you better not have dented my fucking deck! If you did, I'll have you hammer it back into shape with a rubber mallet!

    Growling to myself, I got to my paws and headed for the hatch.

    Dinah, despite having been on the small flightdeck, beat me to it.

    She dodged around me and slapped the opening button. The ramp had barely lowered half way when she darted out and ran as fast as she could towards the closest turbolift in her haste to get to the bridge.

    "Engineering, report," I asked as I headed towards the closest cargolift, leaving Huginn and Muninn to bring up the rear.

    "Everything nominal, Chief," Carey reported, "We're transferring additional power to shields."

    As I entered the lift, I brought up the sensors on my visor again. We were leaving the planet, accelerating to assist the Val Jean. She was clearly the better ship, but with three ships attacking her, it was having an effect.

    I was reading her shields at fifty percent.

    The Kazon were fighting smart, staying spread out at high weapons range. They were moving in, firing and if the Val Jean moved to engage, it would turn away while the other two moved in to engage.

    A pack of wolves fighting a bear.
    ´
    Which was usually bad news for the bear, but also meant that they were being careful, cautious. The moment Voyager joined the fray, they should flee. They should do that anyway if they had any kind of sense, but they were literally cavemen in starships so who knew.

    From the cargolift, it wasn't far to get to engineering and I entered less than a minute later.

    The warp core hummed smoothly. We were moving into battle, but in my domain there was calm. Everybody is doing their jobs.

    Putting the sensor readings into a small window top right, I moved to sit down and bring up the engineering systems instead.

    Best make sure they don't break my ship again.
     
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    • I can't help but think of a quote from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "They chose...poorly."
     
    As a parting gift, Voyager ought to put a precision phaser strike throguh every fusion reactor on the planet. Minimum loss of life, maximum inconvenience. "Don't offer to trade and then delay so barbarians can try to steal the merchant's wares."


    Also, trying to snipe the dragon while he's politely waiting for your trade offer? There's no moral difference whatsoever between attempted murder and murder. Being bad at something doesn't absolve you of any guilt for trying in the first place.
     
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    Rathmun said:
    As a parting gift, Voyager ought to put a precision phaser strike throguh every fusion reactor on the planet. Minimum loss of life, maximum inconvenience.
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    The people it would most inconvenience would be the average civilian trying to get through winter with massively increased heating bills. It's not like the government ran on the platform of "We will totally (take bribes from/yield to threats from) Kazon clans". They probably promised the usual (lower taxes, economic growth, and whatever their favourite scare tactic is).
     
    Yeah, no civilization in Kazon space is likely to be safe, because either they are at least nominally vassals or they are fighting a war against them and might think some outsiders would make a great offer to make the Kazon fuck off
     
    Eh, safe is kinda relative. There is a big difference between 'they show up and raid a warehouse/steal a ships cargo every few weeks' and 'they are burning our cities from orbit'. The Kazon are pirates and raiders, but I dont remember them being conquerors, let alone genocidal.
     
    There has to be something else going on, like they work with the kazon or something, they attack was so irrational as to be suicidal otherwise
     
    I think voyager et al would be absolutely justified in nailing every above their own tech installation with a precision orbital strike
     
    Moochy said:
    I think voyager et al would be absolutely justified in nailing every above their own tech installation with a precision orbital strike
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    Define 'above their own tech' - and remember that tech levels are nothing more than a video game abstraction.

    Roaming_Guardian said:
    It does however explain why they havent been torn to shreds by Kazon Raiders already. They pay their protection money.
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    Creating a force able to do something about that will require concerted effort on an interstellar scale; arranging that would not only be a massive breach of the Prime Directive, but also require Voyager and Val Jean to stick around rather than make progress on their trip home.

    There aren't many good options for Janeway and Co. 😔
     
    ptbptb said:
    The people it would most inconvenience would be the average civilian trying to get through winter with massively increased heating bills. It's not like the government ran on the platform of "We will totally (take bribes from/yield to threats from) Kazon clans". They probably promised the usual (lower taxes, economic growth, and whatever their favourite scare tactic is).
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    Good point. Put beams through their capital buildings and any governmental bunkers. Execute the people who actually attempted the backstab.
     
    Silverias said:
    There has to be something else going on, like they work with the kazon or something, they attack was so irrational as to be suicidal otherwise
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    Could be as simple as raw greed.

    Or the Kazon have a deal where they can get fusion reactors or other advanced tech Voyager made clear they wouldn't sell for selling out particularly interesting visitors. They seemed far more interested in a reactor than in the raw metal, despite Zephyr's preconceptions.
     
    Steven Kodaly said:
    Define 'above their own tech' - and remember that tech levels are nothing more than a video game abstraction.
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    First i'll note that they wouldn't and shouldn't, it would plunge that world into absolute chaos at a minimum. but they would be justified in such retaliation.

    And I think that any actual definition would come from zephyr and the crew of voyager. they've already decided that the world is "twentieth century earth tech level" so presumably could easily pinpoint e.g. fusion power generation and the like. the damage to the civilisation would be immense though. i'd personally demonstrate i could by shutting down maybe one with a controlled burst. and then inform them of how utterly terrible a decision that was and that now everyone voyager meets is going to be told what happened and to stay away.
     
    Just have zephyr hack into their systems and trip the fusion reactors safety/maintenance systems to do a full shutdown.
    No permanent damage but a terrifying example of what they could of done and having them scramble to diagnose and restart the reactors with probably a few hours of worrying for the politicians on the fact of if they still work.
     
    24
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    • There was a slight tremble through the deck plates and I flicked through the information.

    Shields holding at 84%.

    "Sir, I'm getting an increase in temperature in section fifty seven Beta," Crewman Jones said.

    "Keep an eye on it," I told him, "If it spikes, lock it down and flush it. Redirect through alpha."

    "That'll drop our engine power while it's flushing," Carey warned me.

    "Better than blowing a plasma conduit," I said and flexed my claws against the deck, careful not to scratch it, "I'll give Paris this, he sure can fly," I admitted. One eye on the sensor readings of space around us as I mostly focused on the status board of the ship.

    He was throwing Voyager around like she was a ship half her size.

    I might not trust the convict, but he sure had flying skills.

    The ship shuddered and a part of the ship turned yellow. Shields at 76%.

    "We have some bleedthrough," I said, "Kiara, damage control, section five, deck seven."

    "I see it sir, thruster damage," she agreed and gathered four others before grabbing tool boxes and heading out.

    Shields may be up and strong, but if unlucky there may still be damage done. Especially when taking damage from something like those plasma warheads. Some thermal energy may bleed through or kinetic energy transfer.

    So shields can be fully up and at close to full strength and you can still take some damage.

    A glance at the sensor readings showed the Kazon ships having broken off and were moving away at high warp. Well, high warp for them.

    "This is the Captain," Janeway's voice said through the ship, "Stand down red alert, senior crew to the meeting room".

    Because I don't have actual work to do apparently.

    "Carey," I said while sending Muninn to go to the meeting room just off the bridge, "Damage report?"

    "Nothing serious," he said as he scrolled through his console, "We took some bumps, but the biggest damage is to that thruster."

    "The shuttlebay?"

    "Sensors read no significant damage to the shuttle deck."

    You are so lucky Kim. Because I swear, rubber mallet if you break it, you're the one hammering it back into shape.

    Climbing up to the upper level, I moved around to settle down to the side to join the meeting. I timed it pretty well, when I brought up the feed from Muninn the drone was just walking in through the door.

    Everybody else had already been on the bridge it seemed so Muninn was the last one there.

    Janeway looked away from a PADD Tuvok was showing her and at Muninn as it walked in, "Lieutenant," she said, "What happened?"

    "What you heard happened," I said as Muninn sat down, "Treachery. When we didn't give them what they wanted, they contacted the Kazon and told them where we were."

    Janeway frowned, "Alright, Lieutenant? You were hit."

    I snorted, "Low caliber projectile weapons. They bounced off my scales."

    It's significantly annoying, there was a scratch on one of my neck scales and at the side of my nose! Did they have any idea how difficult it was to keep scales shiny between moltings!?

    Outright rude it was.

    Janeway nodded, "Even so, I want you checked out in sickbay," she said before she turned to Neelix, "What happened?"

    "I-I don't know," he admitted with a shrug, "These people have always been friendly if a bit nervous anytime I traded with them."

    "It seems clear we will not be able to trade for supplies until we leave Kazon space," Commander Tuvok observed.

    Janeway nodded, "Agreed," she said with a small frown, "Neelix, do you know of any uninhabited systems where we can take on supplies?"

    "Oh, absolutely captain! I know several that have plenty!"

    Janeway nodded, "Get together with Commander Tuvok and mister Paris, plot us a course for everything we need," she said before tapping her com badge, "Janeway to Chakotay."

    "Chakotay here."

    "How's your ship doing?"

    "We're fine over here. We took a bit of a beating but nothing we can't fix. We'll have our warp drive back up in thirty minutes. It looks like we have to locate supplies somewhere else."

    "Agreed. Neelix says know of some uninhabited systems where we can gather enough supplies. Hopefully things will improve once we leave Kazon space."

    "We can hope. Chakotay out."

    Janeway turned to me again, "How soon can we get going?"

    "When the Van Jean is ready. We only sustained minor damage," I answered, "I agree with Commander Tuvok, we should avoid the locals for the moment."

    She nodded, "Alright. How are we on engineering supplies?"

    "Good for now. But we best start looking for a way to replace photon torpedoes. We already lost over ten percent of our supply. I have some ideas, but I have to look into if any of them are possible."

    "That should be a priority," Tuvok observed.

    "Yes, Commander, I'll make sure to balance that against keeping the ship from falling apart," I told him a bit dryly.

    "Alright," Janeway interjected, "Do what you can. Let's get going."

    I disconnected from Munnin and turned my head to see Carey climb up onto the second level and approach with a PADD in his hand, "Yes?"

    "Report from the damaged thruster. It's fixable, but somebody needs to go outside to weld a line," he said without preamble, "It works, but less efficiently right now."

    I considered it for a second or two before I shook my head, "Leave it until we're in a parking orbit somewhere. Just alert the helm to be aware of it, we shouldn't stick around here longer than necessary."

    "Yes sir," he agreed, "Other than that, the damage is mostly cosmetic. Shuttle two needed a look over, however; it had a bit of a rough landing."

    "To say the least," I agreed with a small growl, "Put someone on it when we're underway."
     
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    • nice chapter thx for writing it
    wonder what they will find in the systems neelix knows with his current luck a borg cube ?
     
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    • "We should do something."

    I slowly blinked beneath my helmet and turned my head to look at Dinah. She was leaning against the wall of the shuttle's cargo bay, arms crossed. I was curled up the best I could to fit. Even so, I was on top of a lot of equipment.

    Five people on the flight deck, another twenty going down in the second shuttle and another ten from the Val Jean in their shuttle.

    I had to say, The Neelix may have come through this time. We had stayed in orbit around the M class world, scanning it and the surrounding system for a full day before deploying our shuttles.

    No traps, no signals, no sign of Kazons or locals.

    "...We're in the delta quadrant. There is not much to do."

    "Just because we're in the delta quadrant does not mean we can't do stuff. Look, we're going to gather a bunch of food on this planet. We should have... I don't know, a harvest party or something when we return. Good for morale."

    I tilted my head in thought, "That's not an awful idea I suppose. You should bring it up with the Captain."

    "I will. And you could work on being more social."

    I snorted at her, "I'm social."

    "You're not social. I knew you during the academy, remember? You needed to be poked and prodded then and you do now too. We're going to be stuck on Voyager for decades, likely longer. You need more than one friend."

    Growling at her, I then looked away.

    Dinah rolled her eyes, "Zeph, stop being difficult. You know I'm right. Challenge Commander Tuvok to a game of Kal-toh or something."

    "I never played Kal-toh."

    "That one, not the point, and two, completely in your wheelhouse so you'd like it," she said with a frown, "What would your counselor say?"

    "Likely something about social bonds being important," I grumbled.

    She raised an eyebrow at me, "So?"

    I sighed, "You're a pest, Navari."

    "I'm also right."

    I shifted and tried to get comfortable with a large cargo crate digging into my side, "Fine. I suppose you have a point."

    "At least stop growling at people."

    I growled at her and she laughed,

    "Yes, like that."

    Glowering at her from beneath my helmet, I then shook my head and a voice came from the comm system,

    "Thirty seconds out. Landing site looks clear from here."

    "Acknowledged," I answered Paris and settled down to wait for the last little bit. Damn it, shuttles were cramped without also being filled with cargo.

    True to his word, the shuttle soon shuddered slightly and the soft hum died down to nothing.

    Dinah climbed over a cargo box and hit the button to lower the rear ramp.

    Sunshine filled the cargo bay and as the ramp lowered, more and more of thick vegetation at the edge of the clearing started to come into view. It was a mix of thick green and dark purple.

    I slowly started to back out of the cargo bay, seeing the other two shuttles coming in to land close by.

    Sniffing the air, I listened to the call of the flying... whatever they were in the distance, they didn't look like birds. If anything they looked like some sort of bird sized bat.

    The air was full of smells.

    Some more familiar than I liked as The Neelix climbed out of the other shuttle. It was tolerable out in the open air however so I ignored it.

    "Everybody listen up," Chakotay said as he and his group walked up to join us. Janeway had allowed him to take charge of the away team.

    Some good PR outreach thing I think.

    "We'll set up the base here, starting with the perimeter fencing," he said, "That's our first priority. We'll start collecting supplies tomorrow, but we need to have the structures and defenses up before tonight."

    As he rambled on, I instructed Huginn and Muninn to start unloading the shuttle to a spot a dozen or so meters away.

    Meanwhile I smelled the air and stretched my wings, just enjoying the feeling of not being confined in a shoebox for once. The holodeck helped and so, but it just wasn't the same as the real deal.

    "Lieutenant?" a voice asked and I turned my head.

    "Torres," I acknowledged her, "My drones are unloading the fence components now. Enough for an area forty meters a side, I'm thinking we set it up in the middle of the clearing?"

    My half klingon counterpart on the Maquis ship crossed her arms and nodded, "Seems as good a place as any," she agreed, "I'll get my people on it if your people set up the tents?"

    "That seems reasonable," I agreed, "Just mark out the designated area where the fence will be."

    It was just simpler to keep people down here to gather and collect than shuttle people up every night. It would take at least a few days to gather everything we needed so might as well be efficient about it.

    Also, gave Carey and his group time to weld that thruster.

    I activated my com, "Kiara, the Maquis group is going to mark out the fence location, get our people to set up the structures in that area."

    "Understood, sir."

    Closing the channel, I dug my claws slightly into the soft... not grass exactly? On closer examination it looked more like a kind of sort of fern than anything else.

    Well, if they were doing that, Huginn and Muninn were unloading, I might as well make myself useful in turn.

    Getting up, I took some running steps to gain some speed, spread my wings and climbed skywards. It was slightly more difficult than on Earth as the atmosphere was a hint thinner, but not significantly.

    I circled around the clearing and then activated my tricorder as I started out over the forest.

    Might as well use the excuse of mapping the area and scanning for food sources as I got some flying time in. Besides, I might spot something useful from up here if we're lucky. Like a fruit tree or a herd of animals or-

    ...A T-rex.

    I looked down as I flew above the large animal I spotted through a breach in the trees. I shifted course to circle around for another look and damn if it didn't look like a t-rex. Not exactly, it was fuzzy for one thing.

    It was covered in what looked like short brown fur and clearly had four eyes, but the proportions and size were damn close to spot on from what I remember..

    "Zephyr to Chakotay," I commed.

    "Chakotay here. How can I help you, Lieutenant?"

    "I'm scouting the area from the air and thought I'd let you know that some of the locals are big and bitey. How do you feel about dinosaurs?"

    He was quiet for a moment, "How big?"

    "Well, I'm looking at a furry t-rex right now," I said and slowly circled, "I'm five kilometers from camp and it's moving slowly the other direction. You may want to hurry with that fence and we might have to rethink our gathering strategy."

    "Acknowledged, keep me informed. Chakotay out."
     
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