Homecoming - Christie Golden [31]
Four thousand two hundred fifty-six men, women, and children were slaughtered. The Cardassions took no prisoners. This plaque is to commemorate the dead. May they never be forgotten, and may the principles for which they stood always be remembered.
There followed a list of names, many that Janeway recognized. She’d been told about the attack, of course, [89] but she hadn’t realized there had been whole Maquis families based here. Nor had she fully appreciated the sheer number of lives lost. And she had not known that they were betrayed by one of their own. For a moment, she and Chakotay stood in reverent silence.
Finally Janeway said softly, “What became of Arak?”
“No one knows,” answered Chakotay. “He could have been a Cardassian agent, like Seska. Or he could have had other reasons for betraying us. According to Sveta, he simply disappeared. He had better never show his face in this quadrant,” he added, his voice suddenly harsh and angry. “I know many who’d kill him on sight. I’d be one of them.”
“With B’Elanna right behind you,” said Janeway. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. I’d hate to have to visit you in prison for the rest of your life.”
He looked at her and smiled, a little. There was no hint that there had been a base here. All equipment had been salvaged long ago; all the dead, identified and buried. All that remained was this standing stone and the plaque.
“Will we ever move beyond this?” Janeway suddenly said, the words bursting from her. “We claim to be so advanced, to value peace and good relationships with all species. And yet, I stand here, and I see this, and I wonder.”
“I wonder too,” said Chakotay. “Peace is precious. But there is such a thing as too high a price for peace.”
She reached out and slipped a comforting arm around his waist. His arm came up and draped across her shoulders. They stood like that, side by side, wordlessly thinking about peace, and prices, and other destinies.
[90] “If I hadn’t been hiding in the Badlands,” said Chakotay, “I’d have been operating from this base. It’s more than likely that my name would be there, too.”
Janeway shuddered at the thought. “Do you feel guilty that you didn’t die with them?” she asked, softly.
He didn’t answer at once. Finally, he said, “No. I was where destiny placed me. I shirked nothing. But I desperately wish that Starfleet had seen what we had seen earlier, that the Cardassians were not to be trusted. Then maybe all these good people would still be alive.”
Slowly, they turned and walked back to the small ship. As they lifted off, Janeway turned to Chakotay and said, “I’m glad our destinies coincided, Chakotay. It was a privilege to have you at my side these past seven years.”
He smiled. “And it was a privilege to serve with you, Captain. Or I suppose I should say Admiral now.”
She laughed and held up a hand in protest. “Kathryn. I’m not your captain anymore.”
“Ah,” he joked, “you’ll always be Captain to me.”
Suddenly serious, she looked into his dark eyes. “I hope not,” she said.
For Tom and B’Elanna, the five-day trip to Boreth, deep in the heart of the Klingon empire, seemed to take four years. B’Elanna was only reluctantly acknowledged by the captain, who had apparently been pulled off a more important assignment to “ferry” her to Boreth, and Tom and Miral were regarded with outright contempt. There was a bad moment right at the beginning when it looked as though the two of them would be refused passage, but B’Elanna had managed to talk [91] some sense into the captain. Well, yell some sense into him, anyway. They stayed in their cramped cabin, out of the way, until on the fifth day the captain asked Torres to report to the bridge.
“This is it,” said B’Elanna. Tom gathered her into his arms and kissed her deeply.
“Don’t worry about us,” he said, as he gave her their