Spirit Walk_ Old Wounds (Book 1) - Christie Golden [3]
There were other reasons why Chakotay found himself gravitating to the doctor. The Trill’s previous host, Gradak, had been a Maquis, something he and Chakotay had in common. Gradak Kaz had died shortly after the devastating sneak attack on Tevlik’s moon base—the very site out of which Chakotay himself had operated during the war. As Chakotay had once told Janeway, if his ship hadn’t been spirited away to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker, he would probably have died on Tevlik’s moon along with several thousand other Maquis and their entire families.
Even more significantly, both Gradak and Chakotay had personally known the traitor Arak Katal, the Bajoran who had betrayed the Maquis to the Cardassians and was directly responsible for the massacre.
Chakotay liked Jarem for himself, never having known Gradak. But the knowledge that part of his new friend understood what it meant to be Maquis made Chakotay even more inclined to befriend the Trill.
As much as he personally liked Kaz, he respected him even more. The Trill had been Chakotay’s first choice to replace the Doctor on board Voyager. Kaz had readily agreed, and Chakotay was looking forward to working with him.
“Oh, come on,” sputtered Kaz as Janeway prepared to sink yet another ball.
The outburst was perfectly timed. Janeway laughed and her shot went wild. Still laughing, she yielded to Chakotay.
“I pass it to you, my old friend,” she said, and he knew she referred to more than the table.
Tomorrow would mark his first official day as captain of the U.S.S. Voyager. The ship would be re-launched, with its new captain, new crew, and new missions. It was a bittersweet moment for Chakotay.
“Six, right-hand side pocket,” he said, and lined up the shot.
Janeway had always told him the truth, and she’d been frank about how hard it had been for her to persuade some in Starfleet Command to award Chakotay the position of captain. He’d found out later just how hard she’d argued.
“You should have seen her, Chakotay,” Admiral Kenneth Montgomery, former foe and now friend, said to him one night not too long ago. “I’ll be frank—it ought to have been impossible. You were a Maquis, and the only proof they had that you could be trusted was her word and Voyager’s logs. But Janeway wasn’t going to leave the room until she’d gotten you that captaincy. I’ve never seen anyone argue so passionately for something in my entire life. By the time she was done, I think everyone was prepared to offer you the presidency of the Federation.”
Chakotay found out later that others, too, had come before Starfleet Command to speak to his accomplishments—Montgomery among them. He’d blushed to hear how highly thought of he was among both relative strangers and his former crewmates. Chakotay knew he’d been given a rare opportunity, and he was determined that his friends—especially Kathryn—would never regret their decision to support him.
He’d also been allowed to assemble what he considered to be a “dream crew,” the finest from Voyager and some of the best the Federation could offer in the Alpha Quadrant.
In addition to Kaz, he’d been able to get Harry Kim to agree to take over security, Lyssa Campbell, Voyager’s former transporter officer, to step into Harry’s old position at ops, and the unwittingly entertaining and intelligent Vorik as chief engineer. Two amazing women as pilot and science officer and a Huanni counselor—every captain’s first choice for that important, delicate, and sometimes difficult job—rounded out the senior staff.
“You’re sure you don’t want to work as a team, Kaz?” Chakotay asked as he lined up his second shot. “It might take both of us to beat her.”
“No, I’ll wait and play the admiral—I mean, whoever wins this game,” said Kaz.
“Yeah, yeah, wait until you’re on my ship, my friend,” said Chakotay. He missed the next shot, and Kaz looked at him meaningfully.
Chakotay drank some of his water and looked around.