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By Root 436 0

time alone in the captain’s ready room. Apart from her quarters, Kathryn had only this modest space off the bridge to call her own. Though most Starfleet captains serving aboard smaller Federation vessels made do with similar accomodations, Voyager had been designed with other amenities for the captain’s exclusive use, including a private dining room, which had been sacrificed to the necessity of Voyager’s circumstances and become Neelix’s kitchen. The uneasy first officer paced the area between the entrance and the windows, awaiting B’Elanna’s arrival, and did his best to avoid even looking at the empty chair behind Kathryn’s desk. She had disappeared over ten hours earlier, and though he was a long way from losing hope, every moment that passed without finding her, or even a solid lead as to where she might have gone, added to the weary burden he bore.

He respected Kathryn. She was a force of nature who had entered his heart four years earlier and taken up permanent residence. Her absolute certainty that Voyager and her crew would overcome all of the odds stacked against them and return to the Alpha Quadrant someday reinforced his faith and transformed his doubts to hope.

Without her…

He would do what he could and what he must. He would not dishonor her by failing to live up to her fierce and lofty expectations. But her loss would break his spirit in a way he would never be able to express… to anyone but her. He was not willing to even consider that possibility at the moment. Duty demanded that he push it from his mind until every alternative had been exhausted. The tightrope they had walked daily together since their journey home had begun was suspended above a pit of uncertainty, and Chakotay had always secretly suspected that the rope would snap without their unflinching mutual resolve.

His gaze strayed again to her empty desk. Despite the room’s illumination, the faint blue light of the docking bay pouring through the room’s observation windows cast a pulsating glow across its lonely surface that beat in rhythm with his heart. Each beat marked the distance between them, and with their inexorable passing pushed him closer to accepting the unacceptable.

A chiming at the door pulled him from these thoughts and he called, “Come in.”

To his surprise, Neelix entered, asking, “Am I disturbing you, Commander?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “Report.”

“I have finished my study of the Monorhan documents we recovered, and there are a few things I felt I should bring to your attention.”

“Certainly,” Chakotay nodded. He remained standing, shifting his weight slightly from side to side.

Neelix could sense his discomfort, and, keeping his eyes fixed on Chakotay’s face so as not to even suggest the loss that hung heavy between them by acknowledging the emptiness of the rest of the room, began to speak.

“I believe that the entity we came to know as ‘Phoebe’ may very well be related to the entity the Monorhans call their Blessed All-Knowing Light. At the very least, she… or they… will most likely be fighting on the same side of the battle that is to come.”

“What battle?” Chakotay asked.

“Are you familiar with the Heresy of Gremadia, Commander?” Neelix asked.

“Of course,” he replied. “That was the belief in the promised city called Gremadia… the belief that caused division between the Fourteenth Tribe and the other tribes of Monorha.”

“That’s almost right,” Neelix said. “Had that belief been the only difference between the Fourteenth Tribe and the others, I don’t believe the Fourteenth Tribe would have been so difficult for the rest of Monorha to accept.”

“Explain,” Chakotay said.

“The real problem with the heresy is not its assumption of the promised city. The problem is the suggestion that the Blessed All-Knowing Light, the one god worshipped by all Monorhans, would have had to build the city in the first place in order to do battle with other entities, or gods. You see, for most of Monorha, monotheism is an essential tenant of their faith.”

“I see,” Chakotay said.

“Dagan said that the All-Knowing Light would restore