13 Chapter 13 – The Lucky

Chakotay was beside himself. Never had he seen such a callus and cold-hearted ploy from a group of individuals. Seska, a former member of the Maquis crew, had sold all of them out to the Kazon and in return she would get their help in getting herself home sooner. It also transpired that she was a Cardassian who had genetically modified herself to look Bajoran so she'd fit in when she joined his crew and to get close to him; the ruse was so good that they even saw each other romantically for a time. That fact alone hurt his pride, but her informing the Kazon of the shield modulation frequencies that Voyager used when they started attacking, that hurt the most. Since their evacuation from Voyager, they had been beaten and then bartered over like livestock, it made him angry and sick to his stomach. There was also a feeling in the pit of his stomach that was telling him that he was partly responsible for the situation he and the crew had found themselves in. His hope was that Janeway and Torres were still alive and they would be able to communicate and formulate a plan with them to escape.

He'd been sat in his cell with twenty other crew members when suddenly, a blue light descended over all of them. He recognised it as a transporter confinement beam and the next thing he realised he was rammed against a small shuttle's wall with the other twenty crew members he was sharing a cell with just a few moments ago; they were like sardines all squeezed into a small tin box. He thought he was going to suffocate when the group were bathed in another blue light.

He blinked his eyes and then realised he was back on Voyager. At least a very run-down version of it. "Hello sir" A security officer said from the other side of the transporter terminal "Please can you all move off the transporter pad, more will be coming soon." Chakotay walked off the pad and towards the young security officer "You're... Crewman Sharp? Aren't you supposed to be with our overly aggressive friend?" He asked

"Yes sir, on both questions sir" Sharp replied nervously with a wistful smile "We came back early and discovered the ship in this state. The Captain was incapacitated so the EMH has relieved her of duty; Chief Torres is still stuck in engineering, trying to hold everything together on her own. So, Darth has taken command of the ship and planned out this rescue mission." He reported in a rushed, hesitant manor.

Chakotay was dumbstruck with what he'd just heard, he then uttered "I best go to the bridge then… Everyone else, go and assist in engineering." He managed to pull himself together for the latter part of the sentence to command the crew, then walked out of the transporter room with a newfound sense of urgency.

"I said six at a time, not all twenty!" Petra shouted at Cross and then shoved him back to his side of the shuttle "I thought we were going to be crushed to death!"

"I'm a security guard damn it, not a transporter technician!" He argued back "I only know the basics of this thing; I'll just need to narrow the confinement beam next time."

"Get to it then, we need to keep going" Petra growled in annoyance.

The next few groups went much smoother; six bewildered Starfleet officers appeared in the aft section of the shuttle and before they could say anything, they were beamed again from the shuttle back to Voyager. All was going well, until the last two…

"The Kazon have noticed, Petra" Aidan solemnly said.

"Well it was about time. Let Voyager know, we may need to meet up with them later." Petra said casually. Aidan nodded in agreement and sent a text message to Voyager, when complete he moved back to transporting the Voyager crew from the planet again.

Chakotay stormed onto the bridge only to find Neelix and Diederick chatting about the Kazon; one sat in the Captain's chair whilst the other in his. "Having fun guys?" He asked in a hostile tone. Diederick smirked and rose from the chair whilst Neelix pailed and ejected himself from the chair "Ah Chakotay, welcome back to paradise!" He replied mockingly "I'm only gone for a few days, only to find this mess; and then I have to mount a rescue mission to save you and your crew!" He exaggerated waving his arms to showcase the destruction of the bridge. Chakotay Scowled "You're relived, Darth" he growled and drew closer.

"Until this mission is complete, I'm afraid I will not be relinquishing command" Diederick smiled back at the Commander provokingly. Just as things were starting to get interesting for the Sith, the computer pinged and then spoke "Priority one message has been received in text format only." Diederick raised a brow and ordered "Play message" The computer pinged again to acknowledge the command.

"Kazon have detected prisoner disappearances, two batches left. Get ready to Warp out of the system. We will need to meet up at this location. We will keep the last batch with us. Go to warp after next batch has been transported. – Cross"

"OK. Time for team Voyager to give them a bloody nose" Diederick chuckled darkly and walked over to the tactical station; Chakotay followed him "What do you mean 'give them a bloody nose'?" He questioned

"Oh, just watch" He grinned sadistically and press a button on the console whilst looking at the view screen, Chakotay followed his gaze and was shocked at what he saw.

"That's the last batch Petra" Aidan sighed, relieved that this matter was at a close.

"Something's... Not right…" Petra said confused about what the force was trying to tell her; it was as if it was screaming at her or something was coming for her. Acting on the feeling she started tapping rapidly at the console. The shuttle started to come back to life with the sounds of the impulse engines coming online.

"The Kazon will see us if you do that!" Cross exclaimed

"Something tells me that'll be the least of our worries, get us out of here!" Petra ordered. Aidan sprang into action and fired up all of the shuttles systems, should they need to fight their way out. Once he'd finished the warp core screamed into life and they took off. The crew in the back were worse for wear and they knew they wouldn't be much help in this situation, so they fastened their restraints and hoped they'd make it out OK.

As the shuttle took off there was a shockwave that shook the moon they were just on. The ground cracked and split apart. Space started to distort around the moon and the shuttle started to violently shake.

"Get us to warp, now!" Petra shouted at Cross

"The warp field keeps destabilising!" He shouted back whilst furiously typing in commands into the helm. Eventually the shuttle's warp bubble formed and made the jump to warp, just as the moon was obliterated only seconds later.

There was a blindingly bright light, even at the edge of the solar system the light far outshone the star in the system. On the bridge Diederick was chuckling darkly at the sight whilst Chakotay was looking at the sensor readings "I'm reading multiple warp core breaches… What did you do?" He demanded.

"Granted, this is a little bigger than what I was expecting, but isn't it glorious!" A devilish grin was still plastered to his face "I transported a photon torpedo to each engine room of those ships and triggered a remote detonation" He said this casually but in his mind, was a different story. The force was making him feel all the emotions the Kazon people that were on those ships just moments ago; helplessness, anger, despair and reluctance. His eyes, a deep shade of red, that contrast on his pale skin and dark circles around his eyes. In this moment, Chakotay was convinced that he was a reaper death of a sort. One that wouldn't just get revenge, but would bury his foes if given the opportunity.

With a Savage smile still plastered to his face, Diederick walked to the helm and plotted a course along the same trajectory the shuttle had just taken. Voyager's hull creaked and moaned as the ship primed itself for warp travel. The Starfleet officers, now filtering onto the bridge, looked concerned at the realisation that the ships navigational deflector shields weren't working but the ship was still being taken into warp. "Darth. The ship can't go to warp in this state" Chakotay said almost pleadingly.

"Of course, it can" The Sith retorted "How do you think we got here?" He then ignored any other replies and made the reluctant ship jump to warp.

"Warning. Hull Integrity is below twenty-five percent." The main computer relayed the warning message over the intercom. The Ship was trying ripping itself apart at the seams, wailing in the slight course corrections it had to go through to keep itself in warp.

"Mr Kim" Diederick raised his voice over the wailing noises the hull was making "How long until we reach the shuttle?"

Harry was at his operations station and after typing a few commands into the console he replied, "I'm reading them a couple of minutes ahead, they don't seem to be alone though."

"Mr Tuvok, how many ships are we talking about?" Diederick asked

"Two dreadnoughts, reading as Kazon origin" He replied stoically. Diederick hummed and then reached for the black card in his pocket.

Voyager dropped out of warp just outside of an asteroid field, not too far away were two imposing Kazon ships, their main attention was on trying to destroy a small shuttle that was darting about between the rocks. "Torres, any chance for some shields?" Diederick asked

"No chance, and the hull can't protect us from the small debre that's floating about in there so don't go in there" She replied with a commanding voice "Weapons could be operational in a few hours but that last jump just nearly ripped us apart. We need to spend some time trying to figure out what needs priority, Darth" She said

"OK. Keep it up. Bridge out" Diederick sighed and looked at the black card that was in his hand and pressed the button in the middle.

"Sir. There is a new unidentified ship approaching at high warp." Tuvok alerted the others on the bridge. Chakotay looked at Darth with an accusatory glare, the Sith smirked back at him.

A few moments later, sleek black and red painted ship jumped out of warp between Voyager and the Kazon ships. It first scanned Voyager and then moving onto scanning the others, once complete it then opened fire on the Kazon ships. The fiery red bolts tore into the ships, ripping through their shields like they were made of paper.

"The new ship has done considerable damage to the Kazon ships. Their shields have been destroyed." Tuvok read out what his scans were reporting "Those red blasts Commander, are anti-proton-based"

Chakotay felt cold, there was only a handful of races he knew of which used this kind of destructive technology and they were either extinct or shouldn't be this far out of known space.

"It is amazing, isn't it?" Diederick started to muse "I've only seen this ship once before, but I have to commend it in its efficiency" He smiled, crossed his arms and continued to watch the main view screen as if watching some sort of movie.

The small ship continued to fire rapidly on a single parts of the two ships with its cannons until all the lights on the Kazon ships went out a few minutes later. The Kazon couldn't but up a fight, even to defend themselves. small ship ceased its fire, all was silent.

"Well, that's them taken care of." Diederick clapped "Open a channel to the ship" he ordered Tuvok. The Vulcan did so and a picture of a female imperial officer with Borg implants appeared on the screen "One. Scan the area and find us a planet that has a breathable atmosphere that isn't too far from here."

"Yes, my lord" A feminine mechanical voice replied and the woman bowed slightly.

"Voyager to Shuttle two" Diederick now turned his attention to the battered shuttle that was hiding in the asteroid field.

The view screen split into two sections, the new section contained Cross and it seemed that the shuttle had taken a lot of damage from the look of the tattered uniform he now wore and the soot on his face, most likely from consoles exploding near his face "Shuttle two here" Cross replied "Thanks for bringing help"

"Get back to the ship as soon as you can, we're going to need the additional resources to keep us going" Diederick ordered.

"My lord, I have found a planet that meets your criteria. However, my scans suggest the ship you are on cannot achieve warp speed without substantial structural degradation. At impulse power it will take you a year to get there." One reported.

"Can we utilise any parts from these Kazon ships?" Diederick frowned and asked back.

"Yes, however the ships are currently flooded with dangerous levels of anti-proton radiation. Anyone who goes over there will need to be well insulated, or else they will die in under thirty seconds."

Diederick smiled and then turned to the officers on the bridge "I need your engineers to go over there and get the parts to make warp possible, I refuse to wait a year to get to the safe port" He commanded. Chakotay looked at Tuvok and then spoke to Torres "Torres, we're going to board a couple of Kazon vessels and strip them for the parts we need, I need as many teams as you can spare to suit up and meet us on Deck 9A in the Wave Runner." He ordered and then looked back at the Sith "Is that your ship?" He asked.

"Yes." He answered back raising an eyebrow.

"Then why stay with us for all of this time?"

"You're still useful to an extent; and it would be bothersome on a personal level if you all died" came another glib and cryptic reply. Chakotay frowned at him. He couldn't understand the thought process, but he figured that it would become clear eventually, after he'd spoken to the others. He turned around and walked to the turbolift. Looking back as the lift doors started closing, he saw the Sith still standing there, watching him leave, with that grin on his face that made him feel cold. The feeling in the pit of his stomach was still there, it felt as if it was getting worse by the minute.

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