Alternate Choices by H.W.

Prologue.

A theory states that whenever an important event is decided by fate, all possible outcomes will happen, forming alternate universes; most of which are unstable and stop existing after a short time. But some continue on, moving in totally different directions.

In 2063, such an event occurred. Zephram Cochrane was the first human to reach faster than light speeds in a self-built rocket. Because of low self-esteem and heavy drinking the night before, he almost decided not to try his faster than light flight. But in the end, he rose to the task he set himself. His endeavors were noticed by a Vulcan space ship passing by and soon first contact ensued. But in the hundred years following first contact, the Vulcans successfully deterred human space travel, stating that humanity was not yet ready for the responsibilities that came with space travel. Finally, after one hundred years, the USS Enterprise was the first human interstellar spaceship built. And humanity began its space exploration.

But Zephram Cochrane's doubting had created a second reality, a second and alternate universe in which he made his faster than light flight a day later, after sleeping off the long night of drinking. In this parallel universe, the Vulcans missed his flight, since they had passed the day before.

Soon after this historic flight, humanity started to populate other planets, even if other species lived there. The humans took over a vast part of space and called it the Sol Empire. A lot, but not all, of the races that were freely part of the Federation which had formed in the first universe, were not so freely part of the Sol Empire in this alternative universe, just like many races that had never been part of the Federation in the first universe. One could have said that the Sol Empire had been another version of the Federation, just without the Federation nobility. The humans had no problem enforcing their will on others, having the vast power and recourses of the Empire to back them up.

But then came the day of the uprising; the day that the line in the sand had been drawn, and crossed. The Klingons and Cardassians started fighting back. In the beginning, it had been nothing more than a little skirmish, something that the Empire could have crushed easily. And they would have, if they had not underestimated their slaves. The Sol Empire had sent some of its highly advanced warships to destroy the rebels, who had nothing more than a few warp one freighters. But just when all seemed over, the slaves that had manned those warships rose up and overpowered the humans that commanded them.

Suddenly 'the Coalition' had warships. They started fighting the Sol Empire more and more, freeing more and more planets from the Empire's oppression. The Bajorans were freed and also joined the rebellion, the same for the Romulans, and the Betazoids, and the Trill.

Then came the point where the Sol Empire had enough of it. They sent their entire space fleet to end to this nonsense of resisting the Sol Empire. The Empire had learned from the slave uprisings on the warships and had made it impossible for uprisings to happen once more. Doors would only open for humans; every slave that was not in its proper place was immediately killed.

Four thousand Sol warships faced a Coalition force of thirty captured warships. The fight would be over before it started. The Sol commanders gave the order to attack... but nothing happened. Once again they had underestimated their slaves. They had made sure that the slaves could not rise up and take over the ships, but that hadn't prevented the slaves from doing nothing at all.

Suddenly ships that needed one thousand persons per ship to operate, had to be operated by forty humans per ship. The mighty Sol war fleet lay dead in space, far from any Empire help, and surrounded by planets that would support the Coalition. Before the day was through, the fleet was in the possession of the Coalition, and suddenly the 'mighty' Sol Empire had no fleet at all anymore.

The 'mighty' Sol Empire fell in the year that it took the Coalition to sweep from one end of the Empire to the other. The Coalition freed planet after planet. It moved its forces and supplies within days or weeks, from one place to the other while the Sol Empire troops were suddenly stranded on the planets they had once ruled. They received no help- nor reinforcements. They could only wait until it was their turn to surrender or die.

But with the obvious enemy defeated, fighting started between the different parties of the coalition. Everyone wanted their part of the spoils of war. The Coalition fell apart and wars broke out all over the known universe. The most infamous was the hundred day war between the Klingons and the Cardassians.

It soon became apparent to the Cardassians that even though they were far stronger than nearly everyone, they could never hope to defeat the Klingons. Faced with a possible future of becoming a spoil of war for the Klingons themselves, the Cardassians decided that placing themselves second in command under a Klingon Reign would be a lot better than having nothing at all. So the Coalition was reformed.

Once and once again they started taking over other territory. Knowing that they needed allies if they wanted the Coalition to survive in the long run they started dividing territory on the basis of loyalty given to the original Coalition. The separate parties could rule that part of the universe, as long as they were willing to be placed in a power pyramid with the Klingons and the Cardassians on top.

And so the Coalition's territory was divided into regions. The Klingon region being the largest by far, having their own territory, and also taking all the territory of the old Sol Empire that would not fall under any of the new regions. Next came the Cardassians, though their territory was no where near as substantial as that of the Klingons, it still was ten times as big as the territory they had been fighting for before they allied themselves with the Klingons once more. So the Cardassians were more than happy to give their support to the Klingons. The Bajorans, Romulans, Betazoids, and Trill, were not forgotten and received vast territories as well.

Those six factions formed from then on, the Coalition counsel; which in reality was nothing more than five parties aligning themselves with the biggest party of all, making sure that nobody could ever take away their powers.

And this was the way Alpha and Beta Quadrant had existed for the last hundred and fifty years. In that time, a Coalition house was also formed. The three thousand members of this house had no real power what so ever, most of the members were part of the one of the territories belonging to one of the six counsel members. They were there to advise the counsel, they were there to represent their planet or colony, they were there to make sure they would continue to get their share.

The real power in the Coalition lay with the Intendants. Each Coalition member had an Intendant who was the undisputed ruler over all that belonged to that Coalition member's faction. There were six Intendants in total; their importance amongst each other was determined by the race they represented.

First there was the Klingon Intendant, then the Cardassian, followed by the Bajoran, the Romulan, the Betazoid and the Trill. The only person more powerful than the Intendants was the Klingon Chancellor. So normally the Intendants only had to answer to one person, a person who in true Klingon fashion preferred not to be bothered with politics. Once appointed Intendant, the position was theoretically for life. There were only four ways one could stop being an Intendant: By stepping down voluntarily, by being demoted by the Klingon Chancellor, by dying, or by being killed.

This system was not liked by all, mostly not by those that were NOT in power, but it did give the coalition the stability it needed to continue to exist. It also ensured that a lot of internal battle went on secretly if a new Intendant had to be chosen.

Which was the case in the Bajoran system.

Bajor: Dahkur province.
The palace of Intendant Kira Nerys.

"What is going on here?"

The Klingon grabbed the Bajoran priest and threw him aside. He tried opening the old-fashioned swinging doors, only to find them locked. One powerful kick later he was finally inside the private chambers of Intendant Kira Nerys. Seeing nobody, he moved to the bedroom where he had stayed the night a week before. Finally he saw the Intendant lying peacefully in bed while several Bajorans surrounded her. Some priests, some not.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" He pointed to one of the priests, "You, answer me."

But the priest didn't speak.

The Klingon pulled his disrupter weapon and pointed it at the priest. "Answer me right now, or die."

"He can't answer you," one of the other Bajorans spoke up in a soft tone, "All priests serving the Intendant personally have their tongues removed. And show some respect for the dead. I thought that even you Klingons honored the dead."

"Dead?" The Klingon asked disbelievingly. The Intendant had been fine when he left her. He moved closer to the Intendant, wanting to feel her temperature to see if she was truly dead. She looked as if she was only sleeping. When he was almost touching the Intendant, the Bajoran grabbed his arm.

"Don't you dare touching her. Only priests may touch the Intendant."

The Klingon used his second hand to give the Bajoran a backhanded slap across the face. "She had no trouble with me touching her a few nights ago. When I'm going to inform the Chancellor that Kira is dead, I want to be sure that she is indeed dead."

The Bajoran barely stopped herself from jumping the Klingon. He had a point, and it would be a foolish move on her part right now to put herself in a bad light with the Klingons. But that didn't mean that she would suddenly be all nice to him, just that she wouldn't kill him where he stood.

After making sure that the Intendant was truly dead, the Klingon turned back to the Bajoran who was using a cloth to stem the blood flowing from her split lip. "Who are you, woman?"

"I'm Ro Laren, one of the advisers of Intendant Kira." Ro answered through clenched teeth. "Would you please follow me? Maybe I can answer some of your questions and that way we can give the Intendant the peace and quiet she deserves."

The Klingon started to follow Ro, but it was more out of the need to get answers then out of respect for Kira. "Huh, don't try to fool me, you couldn't care less that she is dead. You are actually more than likely glad that she is."

They had reached one of the offices always used by the Intendant's staff and Ro pointed to a chair while she went to sit behind the desk before she answered him, "You're wrong. Oh, I'm not going to tell you that I actually liked her. I don't think you will find anyone who did, not even her family. But right now I'm an adviser to the Intendant. That's a very nice and comfortable job. I only had to deal with the Intendant's temper from time to time. But a new Intendant will bring in new advisers. I will never again get a job like this."

"Hmm, unless you lobby for getting the job of Intendant for yourself," the Klingon stated thoughtfully. He was surprised when the woman started laughing.

"Me? I'm only one of twenty advisers. There are nineteen people more likely to get the position then me. And that is without other people from the staff and people from outside the staff who see their chance at getting power."

"Why would the other advisers have a better chance then you?" The Klingon was surprised that the Bajoran was not promoting herself. It was a public secret that the new Intendant was chosen by the people, but that it was the Klingons who decided the outcome of this 'honest' vote.

"The Intendant didn't like doing the work that came with the job, she only wanted the spoils. The advisers did all her work, except for things that required her personal presence. But I was only there to entertain her. She liked to be surrounded by pretty things, and apparently she thought that I was pretty. When she was bored, she asked me advice on certain things because it amused her to hear what I would come up with."

"I see," The Klingon said, leaning back in his chair, "Now, what happened to Kira, and why is her death not public knowledge yet?"

"The Intendant has been assassinated. She was killed by means of cellular destabilization. And that is also why this is not yet public knowledge. She had to be killed by someone who was able to get close to the Intendant with a cellular disruptor.

"As you know, this assassin's weapon is small and easy to hide. But the Intendant was paranoid as far as her security was concerned. It is more difficult to get into this palace without a weapon than it is to get into the Klingon high council packing a neutrino bomb... so to speak. To get a weapon in here, and to actually get into the Intendant's private chambers, it had to be someone close to her, someone from the staff."

"That does still not explain why it is kept a secret."

"Once it is known that the Intendant is dead, this palace is going to get swamped with people who want to get noticed by you Klingons as a possible replacement for Kira. With so many people around, it would be easy for the killer to get rid of the weapon they used."

"Hmm, I see," The Klingon once again said, "But the Chancellor has to know about this. I will contact him from my ship on a secure transmission. I'm sure that he will send an official representative to take care of this, and to see who could be a likely replacement for Kira.

"In the meantime, I will order the personnel from my ships to secure the premises. Nobody is to come or go without permission from us. Once the representative arrives, I'm sure a full investigation will be started into the death of Intendant Kira. She may have been the least liked Bajoran around, but she was still an Intendant. Intendants are not killed unpunished. Pray to your Prophets that we will find the killer. You will not like the alternative."

"And the alternative is?" Ro asked, already knowing the answer, but also knowing that the Klingon wanted to say it.

"If the killer is not found than the entire staff of the Intendant will be killed, thus still killing the killer."

Now it was Ro who leaned back in her chair, "I must say that you are taking the news of Kira's dead rather light, considering that you used to share the bed."

The Klingon waved his had dismissively, "Huh, she thought that she could secure some extra power by having my fleet in this system. If I have to be in this boring part of space, and she offers, who am I to turn down a good time."

Ro was about to react but was interrupted by the door opening. A handsome young Bajoran male, not much older than thirty, came into the room.

"Ro, they told me that you are keeping this secret? I..." The man stopped talking when he had walked far enough into the room to see a Klingon sitting in the chair, "Ah, that explains it," The first so handsome face was quickly becoming an unhandsomely red, "That is why I had to find this out by coming here when I didn't hear from the Intendant. You are keeping this quiet because you want to be the first to win favor with the Klingons. Did you promise him a good time, hmm? I mean, since you're used to working like that. I'm sure..."

"Delik, before you say something you will truly regret," Ro interrupted him calmly form behind her desk, "You might want to think about how it looks that you are already throwing accusations around. After all, you are the first adviser, I'm only the twentieth adviser. You have a lot more to gain from Kira's assassination than I do."

"Assassination?" Delik Jetir asked suddenly quite quietly, looking over to the Klingon who was following the exchange between the two Bajorans with full interest, "You have been able to establish that already?" When he saw the Klingon raise his eyebrow slightly at his words, he quickly tried to find better words to say what he meant, "I mean, they told me that Kira was found dead only five hours ago."

"You seem to forget that I was Captain of the Special Forces before Kira appointed me her adviser. When you know how to kill people, it is easy to recognize if someone is killed in a way that you yourself have mastered."

Now the eyes of the Klingon went to Ro, and Delik looked pleased, as if he thought that she had said something wrong. Knowing what Delik and the Klingon must have been thinking, she calmly addressed the Klingon to defuse a situation that could turn out to be very deadly for her, "I was recruited into the Special Forces at age twelve after showing promising potential..."

"Promising potential?" The Klingon asked.

"Being able to kill without remorse. My brother and father were killed in a street robbery, and after finding out who did it, I took my revenge by killing all members of the gang who killed my family," Ro explained calmly, "Anyway, I stayed in the Special Forces for fifteen years. By that time, I had been promoted to Captain and I was becoming too dangerous for the Intendant, I held too much influence in the Special Forces.

"So, Kira had to either kill me, or find another place to put me. She decided to make me an adviser instead. This way, I had no more influence in the Special Forces, and Kira had a highly trained person close around her, heightening her internal security. I have been an adviser for the last five years. I'm sure the first Bajoran you had asked about me would have told you this since it is common knowledge, inside the palace."

Delik Jetir saw that the Klingon was impressed by the state of service Ro had just laid out so calmly. And the Klingon was right to be impressed. The Bajoran Special Forces were amongst the most highly trained units in the Coalition, outshining even the Klingon Commandos.

The only reason why the Special Forces were still allowed to exist by the Klingons was because they had limited the numbers. Bajor was never allowed to have more than five thousand Special Forces at any time or else Bajor would have to suffer a Klingon embargo. Not worth it by any means. Having the Klingons as friends was much better than having more Special Forces.

Delik knew that he could forget about impressing this particular Klingon, he also knew that he had to get out of there quick before the Klingon asked about his career. Telling a Klingon that you had been a politician all your life without any military service what so ever would only bring you disdain from that Klingon.

"I'm going to inform the other advisers and ready an official statement," Delik said, turning around and starting to walk to the door.

"You do what ever you have to," Ro simply answered.

"But," The Klingon spoke up, "You wait with announcing that statement until my soldiers have secured the Palace and the compound."

"You're going to occupy the palace?" Delik asked disbelievingly.

"Only until Kira's killer is found. We don't want the assassin of an Intendant to escape, now do we? What kind of signal would that send? Either the killer will be found, or you all die. Now go."

Delik was smart enough to leave without another word.

Once Delik was gone, the Klingon stood up and tugged his uniform straight, "Well, as interesting as this was, it is time for me to inform the Chancellor. You do realize that with your background you will become a prime suspect?"

"Of course. But I also know that investigation will reveal that I had nothing to gain from the Intendant's death, only to lose. And, if I had really killed her, do you think that I would have used a manner that would point to me? I would have broken her neck; anyone inside the palace could have done that."

"True," The Klingon agreed. "Are there any other former Special Forces working inside the palace?"

"No. But there are always some Special Forces amongst the guards guarding the palace from the outside."

"So either someone killed Kira and wants to use you as a convenient suspect. Or you killed her in a way that points to you so that you could say that it is way too obvious to have been you."

"Could be," Ro acknowledged, knowing that it would be of no use to dispute that this was a possibility.

"You know, you could use someone putting in a good word for you right about now."

"I could," Ro acknowledged once gain.

The Klingon came closer and leaned a little over the desk towards Ro, "I could tell the Chancellor how helpful you were."

"At what price?" Ro asked, knowing where this was going.

"The nights can be so lonely sometimes, don't you agree?" The Klingon leaned a little closer yet until he was almost nose to nose with Ro.

"I'm sorry, Gowron. That price is a little too high for me. You might be commander over a fleet of battle ships. But I know that you have been ordered on patrol to the Bajoran sector so that you were out of the Chancellor's hair."

"True, the Chancellor and I get along better if we don't see each other too often," The Klingon agreed, "But I'm still one of his most valued commanders. Not everyone gets a command over thirty Birds of Prey."

"Nope, no can do," Ro said softly with a slightly amused voice, "You are just not my type, Gowron."

"Oh, and what is your type?" The Klingon asked, enjoying the little game.

"My type is female."

"What?" The Klingon asked, slowly standing up again.

"I told you that the Intendant apparently thought that I was pretty. You really don't think that all she did was watch? I'm the reason why Kira was sometimes too busy to see you."

The Klingon looked at Ro for some time, several emotions dancing over his face, amongst which mainly anger and disbelief. Finally the Klingon started to laugh softly, more of a chuckle. But quickly the laugh became louder and louder until it was a full-blown Klingon laugh, "Very well, Ro Laren, advisor number twenty," The Klingon said between his laughter, "Have it your way. But if you were that close to Kira, than you could indeed have killed her much easier. I'll be in touch to tell you when to expect the Chancellor's representative," With that, Gowron turned and left the office, still laughing.

Once the Klingon was gone, Ro let out the shaky breath to calm her nerves. It had been close, too damn close. The pride of a Klingon was a strange thing, especial the pride of a male Klingon. Turning Gowron down and then also telling him that she had been sleeping with the same woman he had been sleeping with had been a huge gamble.

She rubbed her hands over her face and let out another deep breath of air. If he had attacked her, it would have been all over. There was no way that she would have been able to get away with killing him. Gowron had told the truth, even though he was far away from the Klingon Chancellor, he still had the Chancellor's ear.

But no, Gowron had told her that he would be in touch with her. With HER. Not with any of the other advisors, not with the prime minister, not with the Kai, no. Her, puny advisor number twenty.

She had managed to make herself the Bajoran the Klingons would deal with. Maybe she could really pull this off. If she just didn't blow it.

They had taught her a lot in the Special Forces, but politics were new to her. She was used to seeing a problem and removing it. But she couldn't do that anymore. She had to learn how to deal with people, how to give and take. Even after five years as adviser she had never closed a deal.

It really had been a simple thing. Kira had wanted her but even the Intendant could not make a Bajoran Captain of the Special Forces into her plaything without some effort, it would have turned all the Special Forces against her. So she had taunted Ro that she was going the kill her, which hadn't impressed Ro at all. Surprised, and strangely amused by this reaction, Kira had promoted Ro to adviser only to have her around so that she could try to seduce Ro.

But Ro had known that her survival depended on her continuing to be of interest to Kira. Ro had played the game well, giving in to Kira at just the right time, making sure to make it seem that she had done so reluctantly and that she had not been able to resist the Intendant's charms, also making sure to look very ashamed and remorseful the next day.

Kira had never suspected that Ro was playing her, and always assumed that Ro was normally only interested in men. But that she, Intendant Kira Nerys, had managed to seduce Ro. And she continued to 'overwhelm' Ro once every several months. Every time Ro slept with her it seemed like a victory to Kira.

The nights with the Intendant weren't unpleasant, but they also didn't fill Ro with pleasure. Ro really couldn't care less. In the Special Forces, she had learned that her body was a weapon, to be used in whichever way necessary to survive. And survive she had, for five years, waiting for her chance. And now her chance might just have arrived.

**

Deciding that she had given Delik enough of a head start, Ro got up and left the office. She knew that by now Delik would have gathered the other advisers together in one of the two conference rooms. She moved through the corridors until she arrived at the conference room the advisers normally used for their weekly meeting, to her surprise it was empty. That meant that Delik had gathered everyone he could get his hands on and that they were in the big conference room instead.

She took a deep breath and walked further down the corridor. She wasn't afraid that they would hurt her, physically. None of the other advisors was anywhere brave enough to try to attack a former Special Forces member. She was afraid, however, of them talking her under the table. They were all seasoned politicians, making deals in name of the Intendant for years. The only thing she truly knew was giving and receiving orders. Taking another deep breath, she decided that she just had to learn and walked into the conference room.

The first words she heard when the door opened were Delik saying that Ro killed the Intendant.

"Throwing accusations around again, Delik?" Ro asked while she walked further into the room. Delik moved away from her a little bit, Ro liked that and it made her feel a little more secure.

"I'm only telling them the truth," Delik defended, feeling a lot more in control with a room full of people.

Beside the advisers, there were also the adviser's assistants. Ro never had seen the use in having an assistant. The only thing they could have helped her with was by coming up with new ways of playing the Intendant, and that she could do on her own.

"And I ask you again, how do you know so sure that it was me? To me it sounds as if you are shifting suspicion away from yourself. Tell me, Delik, why are you so desperate to point the finger at someone?" Ro slowly walked to one of the seats at the mainly empty table and set down. For some reason most preferred to be standing.

"You won't be able to accuse me of killing Kira, I'm so sure it is you, because all the evidence points to you," Delik said with a smooth voice. It was clear to Ro that he was really talking to the others rather than to her.

"What evidence?" Ro asked calmly.

"What evidence, you ask? What about the fact that the Intendant was killed in a manner favored by the Special Forces?"

"First of all, cellular destabilization is NOT a way preferred by the Special Forces, the Special Forces just know how to do it. Cellular destabilization is easy to determine, the Special Forces prefer ways that are untraceable. Second, while I'm trained to kill more effectively using the method, it is something you all could have done. It doesn't take that much knowledge, just the knowledge of knowing how to fire the weapon."

Knowing that he could not contradict the claim, and not wanting to lose his audience, Delik moved one to his next piece of evidence, "And you just happened to be the first adviser to arrive today."

"Delik, I have been the adviser to arrive first EVERY day for the last five years. And the last to leave."

"And not leave at all some nights," One of the other advisers spoke up.

"Not my choice," Ro simply said, knowing that it would build her statement of always being the first to arrive.

"And what about your fast-talking that Klingon?"

"Delik, you would be wise to research before making claims. If you had, than you would have found out that the Klingon had disturbed Kira's death vigil. I didn't search him out, he came in. I merely took him away so that the vigil could continue undisturbed. I can't help it that he started asking questions. What should I have done? Tell him not to ask? That the official statement would come later in the day and that he would find out then?"

"And what about you focusing the attention on us?" Delik came closer until he was almost touching Ro.

Ro stood up, pushing her chair back, and daring him with her eyes to actually touch her, "Sometimes I'm amazed to how you could become adviser, Delik. It is a fact that someone in this room has killed Kira. How long do you think it would be until the Klingons realized that? Then their attention would still focus on us. But by then hundreds of potential candidates for Intendant would have swarmed the palace, or they would have gone straight to the Klingons. Now the Klingons will focus on us. I thought that you would be pleased with a one in twenty chance on becoming the new Intendant instead of one in several hundred."

Seeing that Delik had run out of accusations, Ro pressed on, "But here is what I find interesting. The Intendant is killed; you point the finger at me. Let's say you can make people actually believe your nonsense. It's very clean and convenient, don't you think?

"The Intendant is killed, you lead the 'search' for the killer, you find the killer and you try her for the death of the Intendant. A sentence to death is imminent, and gone is your problem. Suddenly you are the hero, you are the one who found the killer of the Intendant, and you are the one who made sure that this killer got her just punishment. Hey, the Klingons might even endorse your bid for becoming the new Intendant for all this help you have given them."

"Nonsense."

"Oh, and what you say about me isn't? You accuse me only because I have done something else in my life besides just sit around and tell people how right they are. You seem to forget, once again, that I had no ambition to become an adviser. I was more than happy to be Captain of the Special Forces. But now that I'm here I'm not about to roll over and play dead, certainly not for you. Now, I have been very patient with you, but from now on be very careful with pointing that finger at me, I might just rip it off your hand and shove it where the sun don't shine."

Delik was speechless. He had never heard Ro talk like that. She always was the quiet one, sometimes not speaking all day. Finally, not knowing what to say, he threw out a 'this isn't over' and walked out of the room.

" Um, I have some PADDs to sign," The adviser who had spoken up before said and also left the room.

One by one people left the room until only two were left. Ro and Jetur Adami. Jetur was an assistant of one of the other advisers. She was a woman with blazing red hair, six years younger than Ro, who knew how to choose her clothing in a way that would show off her body in a very sexual, teasing way.

The flaps of her light blue shirt were held closed by a knot that showed off Jetur's stomach and navel, while pulling the rest of the fabric snug over the woman's ample chest. And of course Jetur had made sure that the fabric of her shirt was thin enough that the silhouettes of her nipples could just be seen if one took more than just a moment to look at the woman. Ro had always assumed that the other adviser had hired Jetur solely for her looks. She was truly a fine looking woman if Ro had ever seen one.

"Can I help you?" Ro finally asked when it became clear that Jetur had no intention of leaving like the rest.

"I would like to apply for the job of being your assistant."

"Come again?" Ro asked, thinking that she must have misheard.

"I want to be your assistant." Jetur repeated.

"I've never needed an assistant, why would I want one now?"

"Because of politics. Frankly, you suck at it," Jetur stated confident. "Your mentality will get you a long way with Klingons and soldiers, but if you want to be Intendant you also need to be able to sit in a meeting for hours on end with a Denobulan and still seem interested in what they have to say. Or you have to be able to out-bargain a Ferengi. You aren't able to do so now, eventually you will learn on your own, I'm sure. But by then, a new Intendant will already have been appointed."

"And you know how to do this, and want to teach me how to do it?" Ro asked, not dismissing the woman because she knew that politics were her one weak point.

"I'm willing to do it for you, for now. That way you can concentrate on impressing the Klingons while I take care of the rest. Once you are Intendant there will be time enough for you to learn yourself. You know how the Intendant had almost all her work done by the advisers? Well some of those advisers also applied that trick. I have been negotiating all the deals with the more boring political races for my boss, for the last three years now. I have connections that my boss doesn't even know of. And you need connections."

"And why do you want to help me? Being loyal to your boss might be the smart move right now."

Jetur stood up, came closer, and set down again in the chair next to Ro, "I want to help you because they don't think ahead. Before you came in, they were talking on how they had to work together against you. But they seem to forget that if they truly could discredit you, there are still nineteen advisers left. Who is going to be next? Who are they going to conspire against then? At least when I'm working for you, I will know up front that everybody else wants to put a knife in my back."

Ro could see the logic of that. It was a long shot betting on the one who seemed to have everyone against her, but long shots sometimes paid off. And when they did, you could often retire on the winnings, "What's in it for you?"

"Well," Jetur said sweetly, "If you make it to Intendant, then I'm sure that you would be very grateful to me, maybe even grateful enough to make me your first adviser?"

"I might," Ro said, finding it a fair price for help. Besides, if Jetur turned out to be a lousy adviser she didn't have to listen to the woman. Ro felt Jetur's leg against her own, and the way the woman was leaning forward a little gave Ro a nice view of her cleavage. "Are you trying to offer me some extra benefits to persuade me to give you the job?" Ro asked amused.

"I might." Jetur answered, mimicking Ro's words, "If getting the job requires it."

"No thanks, I don't want to get caught between fun and work on this," Ro looked the woman over once more and decided that it might be smart to think ahead once again, "But I might come back to you on that somewhere down the line. You got the job, but I expect you to make me look like the best politician that ever lived, for those whom it concerns," Ro stood up and started walking to the door, but before reaching it she turned around to the redhead, "I expect you in my office in two hours. There is a lot of work to be done. Oh, and Jetur?"

"Yes?"

"You are not an adviser yet, only an assistant. I CAN get away with killing you. Don't double cross me."

"Don't worry," Jetur said with a smile, "For siding with you I can only loose my job right now, which was a big possibility already anyway. I know that on first impression you are the least likely to become Intendant, but I like taking a gamble sometimes. And I'm gambling on you.

"The others are used to using charm and deception; they don't seem to understand that this won't help them with winning the Klingons' favor. But half an hour ago, it was from your office that I saw an influential Klingon leave, laughing. Believe me, Ro, I'm just choosing sides now in a situation where everybody has to eventually."

Ro slightly dipped her head to indicate that she accepted Jetur's explanation, "Alright then. And if I'm going to have an assistant who used to work for another adviser, then I can just as well piss them off some more. You can call me Laren from now on."

"Thank you," Jetur said in a slightly respectful tone, "In that case, please call me Adami."

"Thank you, I will," Ro's tone was soft, given the invitation the respect it deserved. "Two hours, don't be late," She said in a stronger voice before turning around and walking out of the room.

Now that Ro was gone, Jetur allowed herself to let out a soft laugh while she rubbed her hands in delight. Things were about to get very interesting.

*************
Authors note 1

The Bajorans have a different name system as commonly used. The given name comes last, while the family name comes first. The given name is only used between friends and close acquaintances. It is considered a privilege to be allowed to address a Bajoran by their given name.

Author's note 2
For information on the Klingon Negh'var class ships go to:
http://www.ditl.org/index.htm and then look under "Other Ships." I love that site. It has pretty much all the information a Star Trek fan fiction writer could use.

Chapter 1

"Evasive maneuver Gamma six!"

Janeway gripped the armrests of her chair even tighter as another impact shook the ship with so much force that Harry couldn't keep standing anymore and was violently thrown to the floor. This was lucky for him, considering that a second later his instrument panel exploded with a force that would have killed him if he still had been standing there.

"Bring those torpedo launchers back online!" Janeway commanded.

"Hull breaches on deck six through eight." Under the onslaught they were suffering even Tuvok couldn't keep his voice as calm as it normally was, "Shields down to thirty percent."

Chakotay had quickly taken over monitoring the information that would have normally gone to Harry's station. "They're coming around for another pass."

"Janeway to Engineering, B'Elanna I need those launchers now! Janeway to Torres, answer me!"

{Carey here Captain, the launchers will be back online in five seconds.}

"Where's B'Elanna?" The few seconds before Carey answered told Janeway that his news would not be good.

{She was caught in an explosion; she's been beamed to sickbay. Captain... I... I think she was dead at the point of beam out. The launchers are now online.}

"Incoming!" Chakotay shouted. There would be time to mourn the loss of his friend later, now there was a ship to save.

"Fire at will."

Strangely enough Carey's news had somehow made this personal for Janeway.

They came straight for them; it was the oldest and deadliest game in the book. They assumed that Voyager would be the chicken and run, but they didn't know that Voyager had some very convenient Borg enhancements. The damaged shields that would normally have been destroyed within seconds, now held long enough for Voyager to fire a deadly mix of phaser and torpedo fire.

Finally, Tuvok spoke those words they were all hoping to hear. "Direct hit. The second Klingon bird of prey has been destroyed."

It was an incredible feat, but they had pulled it off. The Intrepid class spaceships had been designed to be able to take on a Klingon Bird Of Prey in a one on one battle, but a one on two battle should have been lost. It would have been if it hadn't been for the Borg enhancements to the shields.

It was a bitter pill to swallow for Janeway that basically, they only remained alive because of the run-ins they'd had with the Borg.

"Janeway to Engineering, how fast can we get out of here?"

{The engines have cooled down enough by now and can take warp seven. But the rest of the ship... I would strongly suggest going no faster than warp four. And I would also suggest finding a place where we can land the ship to do external repairs. There are four places that really need the repair capabilities of shipyards or a space station.}

While Janeway was listening to Carey, she wondered about the report B'Elanna would more than likely have given her. She could almost hear it now. The Klingon would simply have said. 'Warp four at the most, and we need to look for a place to land. We have four gaping holes in Voyager.'

"I'm going to check in sickbay. Tom, set a course for Earth. Harry, send a message, I want to know why we were attacked by people who are supposed to be Federation allies."

"Captain..."

"I know you want to go check on B'Elanna, Tom, but right now we need everyone at their post, especially our best pilot. I will let you know what's going on as soon as I know myself."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Captain."

***

Once in the turbolift, Janeway let her thoughts go back to what had brought them to the Klingon border to begin with.

It had been a wormhole, yet again. They came across one of those at least once every year. It seemed that wormholes were a lot more common in the Delta Quadrant than they were in the Alpha Quadrant. But it was a wormhole never the less and so they had stopped and studied it.

At first nobody had believed the results. They had been disappointed so often already. It just couldn't be, but they had run the tests a second, and then a third time; every time with the same result. It was a steady wormhole. And though it didn't end in the Alpha Quadrant, it came darn near. The tests indicated that it ended in the Beta Quadrant, inside Klingon territory, two days from the Federation border.

And that had made the Voyager crew suspicious.

If this truly was a fully functional wormhole, as the tests said, then why wasn't anyone using it? Why wasn't there someone making money off this stable wormhole? Especially one that was so close to Federation space. And why had nobody ever heard of this wormhole? Surely the Klingons should have known of its existence, since it was inside their own territory and so close to the Federation border. Even if the Klingons hadn't know about the wormhole, Federation ships should have picked up its readings long ago.

But even if the Federation hadn't, it was no news to the Klingons that Voyager was lost in the Delta Quadrant. Certainly they would have suggested traveling to the wormhole and going home from there. The honor of helping Voyager would have been tremendous. The boasting rights alone would have been worth it; that the Federation had needed the help of the Klingons to get its ship home. Things just didn't add up and none of the senior staff liked it. Not even the always positive Harry.

But in the end, they'd all decided that they couldn't let a chance like that pass them by. They had to try it. The journey through the wormhole had been an incredibly smooth ride and before anyone really had time to admire the beauty of the wormhole, they were already through it. They were in the Beta Quadrant, only a couple of days until they would be home. Janeway had agreed with B'Elanna's suggestion that it would be better to let the Klingons know how they got there. One never knew how... paranoid the Klingons might be so shortly after the Dominion war.

However, just when they were to make radio contact, all hell broke loose. Suddenly, a ring of ninety-three Klingon weapon platforms de-cloaked around the mouth of the wormhole and started opening fire on Voyager. Voyager was hit three times before Janeway could order a warp jump. The ship went from zero to warp 8.5 in three seconds flat. A dangerous maneuver, but Voyager survived.

They had made it just outside the reach of the unmanned weapon platforms before the computer initiated an emergency shutdown that had left them without warp until the engines had the time to cool off some. B'Elanna had estimated that it would be two hours at least before they could go to warp again. Janeway was absolutely certain that they had only survived the situation because Voyager was amongst the fastest Federation ships ever built.

They had gotten out of there after only a few weapon platforms had fired. She thanked the gods that Klingon technology had to de-cloak before it could fire. Those ninety-three weapon platforms were enough to destroy an entire fleet of ships. Normally only one or two were used to protect strategic places.

But they didn't have long to celebrate that they were still alive. Five minutes before those two hours where up, two Klingon Birds of Prey de-cloaked and started opening fire. They never answered the hails or showed that they had any other intention than killing them all. Voyager had no other choice than to defend itself.

***

Janeway stepped out of the turbolift and walked to sickbay, nodding to the occasional crewmember she passed on the way to the Doctor's realm. When she entered, she was glad to see the Doctor treating relatively small wounds. A broken arm, some burns. And of course Neelix was there helping the Doctor, making up for the Doctor's bedside manners by taking good care of the patients with a gentle word or a comforting touch.

The Doctor saw Janeway enter and after finishing with his patient he first made sure that the others could wait for a minute before he motioned her over to him.

"Doctor, I heard that B'Elanna had to be beamed out of engineering. How is she?"

"We have relatively few wounded, considering what we just went through."

A burden fell off Janeway's shoulders when the Doctor started speaking about wounded. It meant that this time nobody had died, but when he continued she soon understood that not all the news was good.

"I had to keep five people here because of severe wounds. Lieutenant Torres is one of those people. The other four should be alright in a couple of days; one of them will need a second operation in two days."

He moved to the only bed in sickbay that had been separated from the rest by a non-transparent force field. They both stepped through the low-level privacy field and Janeway could see B'Elanna lying on the bed, surrounded by machines that the Captain had never seen before.

"B'Elanna is another story. It's only because she is partly Klingon that she lived long enough for me to work on her. I was able to repair most of the damage, but I had to remove one of her lungs, her primary heart, some of her intestines, both of her livers, her right eye, and part of her reproductive system. There was more damage to other organs, but as I said, I was able to repair that damage."

Janeway could not believe the list of damage that the Doctor was listing. "But she looks only as if she's sleeping."

"That is because, thanks to my programming, you have the best doctor that Starfleet has to offer onboard... had to offer when we got stranded in the Delta Quadrant, that is." For once the Doctor didn't sound as if he was boasting about his knowledge, but as if he was relieved that this knowledge had been at his disposal. "And also because most of her wounds are crush wounds, they are mostly internal. From what I understand, part of the second deck of engineering came down and B'Elanna, who saw this, jumped and pushed Nicoleti out of the way. This means that she was lying on the floor when the second deck fell on her. Besides the damage I just told you, I also had to repair thirty-seven broken bones, some with more that six fractures in them."

"Ok, now tell me the good news."

"Um, Captain... that was the good news." When Janeway's eyes shot from B'Elanna to him, he started to explain in more detail, "The organs I mentioned are fully Klingon. Because of that her heart, lung, and livers can easily be replaced with cloned organs. This is a standard Klingon procedure, and every major Klingon hospital usually has some cloned organs in stock. But even if we could not get cloned organs, I would be able to build some artificial ones, given some time.

"Her eye will have to be replaced with an artificial one. But as Seven can tell you, once replaced, the artificial eye functions just as a regular eye and over time the wearers forget that it is not their real eye. The damage to her reproductive system is such that she will need some medical help if she ever wants to get pregnant, but once she is there should be no problem with her carrying and giving birth to her child. She will never notice the loss of part of her intestines, so that really isn't a problem either."

"Do I want to know the bad news then?" The question had been voiced as not much more than a whisper. Janeway didn't trust her voice to function at that point.

The Doctor knew that the Captain had to be told, but that didn't make telling it any easier. "The bad news is that I could declare her dead at any moment. At this point, she is only being kept alive by those machines. There has also been brain damage, but not the kind everyone is familiar with. If I were able to fix this, then B'Elanna would wake up and be the same B'Elanna she was yesterday, so to speak.

"Of course, her other wounds would still need time to heal, but a metal splinter has penetrated her scull and brain, destroying the organ that produces stem cells. And no production of stem cells means no healing what so ever in the human body. The human body simply does not know what to do, how to heal without the unspecified stem cells giving rise to specified cells like muscle cells, blood cells, or nerve cells which do not normally replicate themselves."

"But you were able to heal the damage. You just said so."

The Doctor sighed. Trying to make a novice understand things that some doctors even had trouble understanding sure wasn't easy. "I healed the damage, but nothing else is happening. Captain, you are a healthy person. If you suddenly had no more stem cells, your body would no longer be able to repair itself."

"I'm afraid I'm still not following, Doctor."

"Alright, Captain. Have you ever heard of the disease hemophilia? How a person can bleed to death from a little scratch if they don't take their medication?"

"Sure."

"Well, this is different, but the same in the fact that basically the body doesn't know how to heal itself. People with the disease need medication to do the work that the body can't. But with B'Elanna there is no medication. She needs the stem cell organ to heal her. I healed B'Elanna's body for the most part, but the body doesn't know what to do with those healings. Her body is simply not healing itself.

"At this moment there are thousands of cells that are dying off in your body, Captain, and they are being replaced by new cells at the same time. With B'Elanna, those cells are still dying off, but they are not being replaced unless I do it with a dermal regenerator. But I can't replace the cells dying off deeper inside her body."

"Ok, I think I understand what you're trying to tell me, so what can we do about this?"

The Doctor moved over to one of the machines, clearly stalling for time. "Nothing, I'm sorry to say. Her being part Klingon makes sure of that. It was that part Klingon that kept her alive long enough for me to heal her wounds, but that same part is preventing me from finishing my job. Had she been fully human or fully Klingon, then it would have been a relatively simple procedure of finding someone that was a close enough match and then clone the organ from that person. But because B'Elanna is a mixture of the two, there is nobody genetically close enough, not even another Klingon/Human hybrid. The only way to get a donor would be to clone B'Elanna - make a second B'Elanna.

"But beside the fact that this is highly illegal, it also is no longer possible now because you need some stem cells of a person to clone that person entirely. Understand the problem? I need a healthy B'Elanna to clone her stem cell organ, but I first need a stem cell organ that is cloned FROM B'Elanna before B'Elanna will be healthy enough to have the organ cloned. It's the famous 'chicken and egg' dilemma. I need the one to GET the other, but I can't have the one without first HAVING the other."

"How... how long before you have to pronounce her dead?" Janeway tried to swallow, but her dry throat would not allow it.

"Well, I can keep her like this and use a dermal regenerator to reproduce cells that are close to the surface of her skin, but because no new cells are being made inside her body... I would say that in about two weeks to a month, the damage would be too great to be repaired, even if the organ were to be replaced at that point."

"But can't you put her in a stasis field? Prolong that time indefinitely?"

"Sorry, Captain. I can't. Remember when we had to put the whole crew in stasis to get through the void? Remember how weak you felt when Seven and I woke you again? The reason for that is that stasis does damage the body, but a normally healthy person recovers from that damage in a few hours. But if I were to do that to B'Elanna, in the state she is in even now, she would die as soon as we'd taken her out of stasis."

"Okay, so that means that we have less than a month." Janeway took B'Elanna's hand between her own and squeezed softly. "We will find a way to save you, B'Elanna."

"You have an idea?" The Doctor knew that there was no real way to save B'Elanna, but that didn't mean that he couldn't hope.

"We have been gone from the Federation for a number of years; the first thing we are going to do is see what kind of advances there have been in stem cell research while we were gone."

The Doctor followed Janeway out of the privacy force field. "Captain, I wish it was so easy, but stem cell research has been done since the late twentieth century. I really don't think that suddenly after almost four hundred years they will have come up with a way to clone a living stem cell organ from a dead one."

Janeway looked around sickbay at the other patients still there before turning back to the Doctor. "As I said, it's a first step. All I can tell you now is that I'm not just giving up on B'Elanna. I will find a way of helping her." Janeway turned around and left sickbay, now even more convinced than before that she had to get Voyager home as soon as possible.

**

Janeway went back to the bridge and called a senior staff meeting before anyone could ask how B'Elanna was. Once the senior staff was in the conference room, Janeway gave the word to the Doctor who once again grimly told about B'Elanna's situation.

Once the doctor was finished, and all the obvious questions had been asked and answered, Janeway spoke up, "As you can see, our returning to the Federation has become top priority. Repairs just have to be made on the run; I'm not stopping until we are in orbit around earth. Harry, what did the Federation have to say about us being attacked by the Klingons?"

"Nothing, Captain," Harry answered uncomfortably.

"What do you mean nothing? Who have you spoken to?"

"That's just it, Captain. I didn't speak to anyone. There was no reaction what so ever to our hail. And I also couldn't hear any Federation messages whatsoever."

Chakotay decided to help poor Harry out a little and spoke up, drawing that force ten glare towards him, "We picked up something else though. Something that makes no sense at all. Klingon and Cardassian massages, a lot of them."

"Given where we are I don't think that this that strange. The absence of any Federation messages is more disturbing."

"It isn't so much the messages that are strange. It's the things they are talking about. They are talking about places, planets we never heard of and other planets we did hear of, but the messages just don't make any sense. For instance, subspace was filled with messages talking about how the Bajoran Intendant has been killed and that nobody is sad to see the bitch go. Um... those are their words, Captain."

"What has Bajor to do with this? Maybe something happened at DS9..."

Janeway was interrupted by a hail over the comm. system. {Captain, sensors are picking up a Ferengi ship that will cross our path.}

"Ferengi? Maybe they are friendlier than the Klingons in this part of space. At the very least they might be willing to sell us some information. Set an intercept course. We are on our way. Janeway out."

She took a quick look around the table to see if someone had something they desperately needed to say, but nobody spoke up. "Alright, let's get some information."

**

Two hours later they were once again sitting in the conference room, this time trying to digest the information the Ferengi had sold them. They were indeed in Klingon space in the Beta Quadrant, but there was no Federation. They were so close, and yet so far from home. The wormhole had led them into an alternate universe. Of course, for the Ferengi it was Voyager that came from an alternate universe. In this universe things were so different. There was a Klingon/Cardassian coalition that ruled over everything that the Voyager crew had known in their Alpha and Beta Quadrant, and then some.

"Clearly we have to get back to our universe," Chakotay said, "but we have two problems with that. The only way back that we know of is guarded by Klingon weapon platforms. There is no way that we can go back through that wormhole. But even if there was, that would not save B'Elanna. The only chance we have of saving her is if we could get the help of the Klingons."

"Why would they help us?" Harry asked. "Those two Birds Of Prey made it pretty clear that they wouldn't help us."

Tom could only agree. "Especially since we destroyed those ships. I don't think the Klingons will take that very lightly. A bunch of humans, which are normally slaves here, destroying not one, but two Birds Of Prey."

The Doctor was the third person to object. "And as I just pointed out, the Klingons can't really do any more for B'Elanna than I can."

Janeway let the arguing go on for a moment, wondering what kind of points would be made, but when no new points were forthcoming she spoke up. "Ok, calm down everyone. Chakotay didn't actually say that we should ask the Klingons for help or that they would help us. He just said that it would be B'Elanna's best chance. And on that point I have to agree with him.

"We were about to go to the Federation to see if they could help us. But here there is no Federation here. The Klingons and Cardassians have ruled for the last one and a half centuries, so it stands to reason that the Klingons would also have the most advanced medical science. Who knows? Maybe the Klingons here were not hampered in their research by the moral rules the Federation normally abides by.

"But beside B'Elanna we also have another problem, the state that Voyager is in. We simply can't go on like this for much longer. We have to make some major repairs at some point. So for now I think it would be best if we try to find a smugglers hole somewhere. They might have some things we need to repair Voyager and they might also be able to find out just what the standard of Klingon medical science is. Once we know whether or not they would be able to help B'Elanna, we can then make a plan dealing with that situation. I would like some plans within the our.

"Carey, I want to know what is needed to put Voyager back in the state she was yesterday. The rest of you concentrate on thinking on how we can find some smugglers. Questions anyone?"

"I do not have a question," Seven said, peaking up for the first time, "But I would like to point something out. The Ferengi are known for trying to make a profit on everything. It is very conceivable that they would first make a profit from doing business with us, and then make an extra profit from selling what they know about us to the Klingons. The Klingons might already know our present course and that our ship is damaged. I would strongly suggest changing course."

"Good point, Seven. We'll do that. I want plans in one hour, dismissed."

**

Two hours later, they were on their way to some of the old Maquis hideouts. Of course they knew that there wouldn't be any Maquis there, but the only real plan that they had been able to come up with was to go to these places and hope that some smugglers had found them to be just as convenient as the Maquis had.

**

The Doctor didn't try to stop the steady flow of visitors. It wasn't as if B'Elanna needed to rest from having too many visitors. How he only wished that this was the problem, that B'Elanna was healing and needed rest to do so. Instead, he let them all be, hoping that this way at least the visitors would be able to handle this tragedy.

Seven came into sickbay just when the Captain was leaving. "Captain."

"Seven, how are you?"

"I am functioning."

"And how are you really doing?"

Even though it forced her to talk about feelings, Seven was glad to see that the Captain knew there was something wrong, "I am severely worried about Lieutenant Torres. She has to get better."

"We will find a way." Janeway stepped passed Seven and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Seven. If it takes too long, then we will find someone else to help you with the repairs. You shouldn't have to work that hard for much longer."

While Janeway left sickbay, Seven felt sick to the stomach. After all this time everyone still thought that she didn't have any real emotions, not even the Captain.

"Hi, Seven. I'm glad you came. B'Elanna will be happy."

Well, almost everyone, "Tom, do you think she will know that we are here?"

Seven and the pilot were well on to their way to becoming friends. After he and B'Elanna had broken off their engagement he had tried to date Seven to get back at B'Elanna, but Seven had been smart enough to see right through that plan. She had told him that his chances of copulating with her were zero, and not likely to ever improve. He had given up on his plan, but during the time that he had tried, he had discovered that he did indeed like Seven and slowly a friendship was starting to form between them. Luckily for him, shortly after that incident, he was also able to call a truce with B'Elanna and they had gone back to being the friends they were before they got involved.

"The Doctor says no, but I like to think that she does. It makes me feel better to know that I'm really talking to her, you know?"

Seven moved closer until she was standing beside B'Elanna, "I think I do. It is... hard seeing her like this, knowing that my last words to her were me telling her that I thought that she was a mediocre engineer, at best. Now, I might never have the chance to tell her that this is not really how I feel. That in reality, I like her very much."

"Don't worry, she will get through this. And she also knows that you like her. She told me so."

"She did?" Seven was astonished to hear this.

"Come now, Seven. You know that B'Elanna is a smart woman. She discovered long ago that you like the fights just as much as she does. Heck she... um, this was going to be a little surprise for you, but seeing the circumstances I think I can tell you. She was going to invite you to her birthday party next month. Only five other people were invited, her five closest friends."

"She was going to..."

"As close as she can ever come to asking you to be her friend without actually saying the words. Don't you think?"

"Indeed," Seven agreed, making a vow to her self at that moment, and voicing it to make it more... real, "I will not say that she will get well, since the odds against it are phenomenal, but I will do everything I can to make sure she gets better. I give you my word. She has to get better."

The voice of the Captain interrupted them before Tom could ask what she was planning to do, which was good since Seven didn't have any plans, just a rock steady resolve.

{Red alert, all hands to the battle stations.}

**

Seven and Tom arrived on the bridge just in time to hear the demand.

"Surrender or be destroyed. You have five minutes."

Their eyes went to the view screen where the face of a Klingon was replaced by a huge Klingon ship.

"I'm not even going to suggest fighting that," Janeway said while Seven and Tom took their places, "But can we outrun them?"

Knowing that time was limited, Seven gave the answers that others would have to look up. "It is a Klingon Negh'var class ship. If Voyager was in good condition, we would be able to outrun them on speed, and also outmaneuver their weapons which retarget relatively slow. But what they lack in speed is made up in force. Their weapon strength is four times that of the Federation Galaxy class, and their hull armor is three times as strong. In the Federation universe, the original Negh'var is, to the last of my knowledge, currently serving as the Klingon Flagship. In our present state, we are no match for them."

"They are hailing us again."

"Short five minutes," Janeway mumbled before saying in a louder voice, "On screen."

The view screen changed once again to show the Klingon Captain. "If it was up to me, I would destroy you right now, but the Intendant wants to see the slaves that were able to destroy our ships. Surrender now, or die... now."

For a moment Janeway was thinking of initiating the self-destruct, but if this Intendant wanted to see them they still had a chance. "This is the Captain to all hands, prepare to be boarded. Cooperate and do not resist." She looked over to Tuvok and sighed before giving the final order. "Tuvok, lower the shields."

Tuvok had barely done as he was told or the sound of transporters could be heard and ten heavily armed Klingons appeared on the bridge, making the bridge suddenly seem a lot less spacious, and a lot more crowded.

One Klingon had appeared close to Chakotay's chair and he barked at the first officer, "Get up."

Chakotay looked at Janeway for a moment and slowly started to get up, but this was apparently not fast enough for the Klingon. He gripped Chakotay and pulled him out of his chair.

In reflex, Chakotay took hold of the arm pulling him out of the chair. "Hey, easy."

The Klingon brought his second hand up and slammed his fist in Chakotay's face with enough force to break his nose.

Tom had turned around to the commotion behind him and when he saw how Chakotay was being treated, he jumped up from his chair and moved to the Klingon to intervene. "Hey, come on. There's no need for that."

But Tom had hardly taken a step when another Klingon took hold of him. He was spun around and a fist hit his face, breaking his jaw. But the Klingon wasn't done yet. The Klingons were clearly pissed, and they were taking it out on them. The Klingon took hold of Tom's arm, twisting it behind Tom's back with enough force to dislocate his shoulder. The Klingon pushed Tom forward, sending him flying six feet through the air. This was followed by a powerful kick to the crumpled man's stomach.

Seven started to move, wanting to interrupt Tom's treatment, but when she had almost reached him, a voice stopped all movement of the Klingons on the bridge.

"Stop it, you fools. The Intendant wants to see them. Do you want to stand in front of the Intendant and explain why the prisoners look like they do now? The Intendant will decide what happens to them, not you."

Seven looked at the voice and saw that it was the same Klingon that had been on the view-screen a moment before.

Janeway had already stood up to help Tom, now she turned to the Klingon who had just spoken, "Do you always treat you prisoners like this?" Janeway asked, wanting to radiate enough superiority to make the Klingons back down a little.

The Klingon stepped in front of Janeway and looked down at the woman he towered above. "You are damn lucky that the Intendant wants to see you first, that the Intendant wants to be the one to decide what should be done with you. If it was up to me, you would all die a slow and painful death. You destroyed our ships. You killed Klingons. You deserve to die by torture."

"They attacked us. We had to defend ourselves. What would you have us do? Sit and wait to be destroyed ourselves?"

"Yes." The Klingon took hold of Janeway's uniform and lifted her of the ground. "You are slaves. You shouldn't have a ship, and you do whatever you are told, and if we decide to kill you, then you as slaves should sit, wait and be happy to be killed. Don't speak to me again."

He turned to the other Klingons. "The Intendant wants to see the senior staff of this... scrapheap. Round them up and clean them. It should not be visible that they have been mistreated. Bring them to a doctor if you need to. But the ones that aren't part of the senior staff..." the Klingon grinned, "...well, the Intendant didn't say anything about them."

"What about the blonde?" Another Klingon asked while looking at Seven, giving the impression of licking his lips without actually doing it.

"Since she is on the bridge, I assume that she is part of the senior staff."

"Damn."

The other Klingon laughed. "You really didn't think that you would get her? If the Intendant is willing to part with her, I'll take her. Now, time to get going. Clean those two up," the Klingon pointed at Tom and Chakotay, "and take inventory of all the slaves onboard."

Chapter 2

A little more than half an hour later, all the senior staff members, except the engineering representative, found themselves standing in a room inside the Klingon ship awaiting the arrival of the Intendant who, Janeway assumed, was inspecting his latest spoil of war: Voyager. The door behind them opened and someone came storming in. From the reaction of the guards in the room, Janeway assumed that this would the Intendant. The Klingon stopped in front of them and the Voyager crew was shocked to find themselves face to face with a fuming and obviously severally pissed off B'Elanna Torres, "What are you doing with that clone of me?!"

Janeway took in the warrior uniform this B'Elanna was wearing and she saw the clear confidence with which she was wearing it. This B'Elanna had been wearing Klingon battle armor for a long time. Knowing that this was not her B'Elanna, Janeway spoke carefully, not sure how volatile this B'Elanna could be. "I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway. I oegf!..." Janeway was cut off by a fist to her stomach; the force behind it had been enough to actually lift Janeway off her feet.

When the human had started to give her name, Intendant B'Elanna Torres stepped up to her, taking a good hold of her with one hand and hitting her in the stomach as hard as she could with the other. "Listen, human, I didn't ask for your name, I asked what you are doing with a clone of me. Don't try my patience again." The Intendant let go of Janeway who immediately sank to the floor, trying very hard to draw air into her lungs.

The man with the facial tattoo further down the line spoke up, clearly trying to get the Intendant's attention away from the woman lying on the floor gasping for air. "She isn't a clone. She is B'Elanna Torres, the B'Elanna Torres from our universe."

"There, that wasn't that hard." The Intendant strolled up the line until she was standing in front of the man. "Well, go on. Don't stop now that you got my attention. Talk. And you'd better make sure that I believe you."

And so Chakotay started to explain in a short and clear manner the story of who they were, where they came from, and what had brought them into the situation they were now in.

The Intendant barked a short laugh when Chakotay was finished. "Oh, are you ever shit out of luck. I love it. Here you poor humans go from being so fiercely independent, to being slaves, all in the matter of hours; and that while your Terran Homeworld is within spitting distance. Do you know what your planet is here? It's nothing more than a slave breeding ground." The Intendant took a step to the right and was standing in front of Seven. She looked into Seven's eyes for a quiet minute and then reached up to tap against the metal above her left eye. "Hmm, looks nice. But I'm willing to bet that this is no mere decoration."

"What of our B'Elanna?" Seven asked.

"Good question," the Intendant agreed. "Your doctors should not have tried to save her. They cheated her out of an honorable death." She looked to one of the guards and addressed him, "Give the order to have those machines turned off. Let her die."

"No!" Before any of the guards or the Intendant herself could react, Seven had taken a hold of her, threatening to break her neck. "She can fully recover with your help. Say that you will help her, or die."

The Intendant was surprised to find that she could not break the hold the woman had on her, and that while she had trained to escape holds like that, it was the sheer strength of the blonde woman that was preventing the Intendant from doing so now. The Intendant was also surprised to find that she was enjoying the situation. The blonde presented a real challenge for the Intendant, and she didn't come across those often these days. "Stay back," she ordered the guards before addressing Seven, "I find it interesting that you are threatening to kill me, B'Elanna Torres, to save B'Elanna Torres."

"Irrelevant."

"Yeah? Then how about this? You say that I can save your B'Elanna, but if I'm dead I can't save her, now can I? So if you kill me, you also kill your own B'Elanna."

The Intendant could feel the hands of the blonde start to shake a little when she started to realize her dilemma.

"I... You can save her. You have to help her, please."

The Intendant stopped the little struggling that she had been doing the entire time. "I must admit that this is the first time that someone is begging and pleading for my help, and yet at the same time has my neck ready to break. What is it going to be, human? Are you going to kill me or release me?"

Realizing her emotion driven stupidity, Seven let go of the Intendant.

The Intendant turned around and in one fluid motion treated Seven to a right hook that would have floored Kahless himself. Seven was indeed floored, but stood right up again. While the Intendant on the other had was shaking her hand to get rid of the pain. Blood was seeping from the wounds where her fist had hit Seven's implant.

"Kahless be dammed! What are you!?"

"I am Borg."

"I have no idea what that means, but I'm sure that explains it all." The Intendant looked at Seven for a moment, not really sure what she should do with this human woman who had challenged her in front of her men. The obvious response would be to kill her, to kill them all. Kill... an idea snuck into her mind. She was going to have some fun with this human. "Hehehe," the Intendant chuckled while she licked the blood from her knuckles. "I'm going to enjoy breaking you. You are going to be my little special project."

Seven was surprised to see several of the guards looking slightly disappointed at the Intendant's words.

The Intendant strolled up and down the line of the senior staff until she was standing in front of Seven again. "Tell me about my counterpart, and why you think I can save her."

Before the blonde could start, the bald man in the middle of the group cleared his throat. "Intendant, I know I have no permission to speak, but I'm the medical officer onboard Voyager. Maybe I could explain."

The Intendant strolled back to the man and gave him a quick once over. She liked the way had had addressed her, like someone that knew his place and who only spoke up if it was about something he could actually talk about. However, there was something strange about him but she couldn't quite make out what it was. Taking a deep breath she realized it was something about his smell, or lack there of. The man wasn't giving off any smell at all. "You're not human."

"No, I'm not. I am a sentient hologram. I started my life as an emergency medical program. Originally, I wasn't designed to be online for long, only in emergencies. But since Voyager's original human medical officer died, I have been online all the time as his replacement. Over the years I have become a sentient being." The Doctor knew that speech from heart; he had deliberately stopped counting the times he had to give that little speech to get people to see him as more than just a thing.

The Intendant strolled back until she was standing in front of the blond, but talked to the bald man. "Keep your holographic shirt on. You might be glad to know that in this universe, that means that you are above humans. Now, start talking, but keep it quick and simple."

The Doctor did and a couple of minutes later the Intendant spoke to Seven again. "So that's what you meant when you said that I could save her. I, as B'Elanna Torres, can save your B'Elanna Torres. You need me, and only me. So, Borg, wh... What's your name anyway?"

"My name is Seven of Nine."

"Seven, huh? Well, Seven, what is it worth to you if I would save your B'Elanna?" The Intendant knew only too well that there was nothing that the slave could offer, but that didn't mean that she could not torment the blonde a little.

Seven thought about that question for a few seconds. What was it worth to her to save B'Elanna? She remembered what she had vowed less than an hour before; she would do everything to help B'Elanna. But there was one problem. There was nothing that she could give the Intendant in exchange for help. There was absolutely nothing. She possessed nothing... except for one thing.

What was it worth to save B'Elanna? What was it worth to help the rest of the crew? Seven had heard the Klingons. She knew that she would end up with one of them if the Intendant didn't keep her with her. She had a feeling that this was something she would not like at all. She had seen how the senior staff was treated and the ex-Borg could only guess how they would be treated if the Intendant actually gave the other Klingons free rein to do with the Voyager crew what ever they wanted. Seven knew there was no easy way out. The only thing she could do was to beat the Intendant to a decision that the Klingon already had hinted that she would make.

What was it worth to help the Voyager crew? "I would do anything you want, save killing someone." Her blue eyes never left the Intendant's brown ones and Seven got the feeling that she had made a smart decision to put the limit of killing in her statement.

"Anything?" The Intendant laughed.

"Anything," Seven repeated calmly.

"Human, you have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into."

"I think I do," Seven disagreed.

"We will see, we will see. I will think about whether or not I'm going to help your B'Elanna." The Intendant now looked at the rest. "And I will also think about what I will do with the rest of you." She walked away from the group a little and addressed one of the guards. "For now, throw them and the rest of their crew in cellblock A. There should be enough room there, since I had to kill those two hundred slaves that tried to escape." The Senior staff understood very well that this last statement was a warning towards them.

"Intendant, there are also some non-slave races under their crew. Including, Bajoran and Trill."

"Never easy," the Intendant said in a way that made it almost a curse. "Until we know their loyalty, they go with the rest of the crew. Throw some other slaves in the A block too so that the non-Terrans can hear from them what kind of life they can expect if they don't distance themselves from the slaves."

"Intendant," one of the other guards braved, "there are also several blonde slaves amongst them..." He left his sentence unfinished; knowing that leaving his statement open would be the best thing to do. Make a clear suggestion, and chances were that the Intendant wouldn't do it just to spite him.

"Put them with the rest. Until I make a decision on what I want to do with them they are to be left alone, and not just the blonde ones. I'm talking about all of them."

"Yes, Intendant." The guards started to shove the senior staff out of the room, but when one of the guards went to Seven, the Intendant spoke up. "No, not her. She stays here. She's mine. She said she would do anything, so I'm going to keep her reeeaal close."

Two of the guards stayed behind while the rest and the Voyager crew disappeared out of the room. "Leave us," the Intendant told the guards. "And you, come with me," she addressed Seven.

"Intendant..." one of the guards said when being dismissed.

"Don't worry. I'm perfectly safe. Aren't I, Seven?" Seeing the doubt on the faces of the guards, she said what Seven obviously had already understood. "Of course, were something to happen to me before I can decide what I'm going to do with these new slaves, then you can just kill them all. Including my look-alike." The Intendant was not in the habit of explain herself to her guards, but they had a right to be concerned. Seven had already shown that she was capable of overpowering the Intendant.

"Yes, Intendant, you are safe from me."

"See? Now leave us."

The guards left without another word.

**

Seven followed the Intendant through the ship for several minutes, which included one turbolift ride, until they entered what were obviously the Intendant's living quarters. The Intendant headed straight for the bathing room and started to strip out of her uniform. Once she was naked, she got into a large sunken bathtub that could hold at least ten people, "I was about to take a bath when we caught up with you." The Intendant looked up at the blonde who was still standing fully clothed at the side of the tub. "Do those things rust?" she asked, pointing a leisurely finger at Seven's implants.

"No."

"In that case, strip and get in. I'm about to explain my rules to you," While Seven hesitantly started to undo the bio-suit, the Intendant continued, "The first thing you should know that it is up to you how we do this. We can do this easy, or we can do this hard. As long as you always do what ever I say, we should have no problems. Since you are new to being a slave, I can accept you not knowing certain things. So if you do something wrong I won't punish you for it... the first time. I will tell you what you did wrong and what you should do the next time. If you do it wrong a second time though..."

The Intendant left the sentence unfinished since it didn't really need further explanation, and because Seven was now standing naked at the tub's edge. The Intendant took her time to admire the blonde's beauty. "Very nice. I see that those things are also on other parts of your body. I never saw anything like it before. They look good on you. Get in."

Seven did as she was told, for a moment wondering how the Intendant could find her Borg implants attractive. Standing in the bathtub the water came exactly to the apex of her legs, covering her most private parts, but showing off some of her blonde curls. Seven realized that if she had embraced her humanity as much as the Captain had wanted her, then she would have felt insecure and ashamed standing in front of a virtual stranger naked. But being naked didn't bother the blonde at all. She could help B'Elanna; she could help the Voyager crew, her collective. The how was irrelevant. Why else would she feel glad to see approval in those eyes?

The Intendant took her time taking in Seven's body, her eyes flashed to Seven's breasts first but soon roamed to every other part of the blonde's body. Taking in every square millimeter; loving every curve she saw. "Turn around."

Once again, Seven did as she was told, strangely satisfied when she heard the Intendant making a 'mmmhmm' sound behind her back. She wondered why she would feel satisfaction from the fact that the Intendant liked her body. Then she reasoned that it was that if the Intendant liked her, she would be more willing to help B'Elanna. That HAD to be the reason why hearing the 'mmmhmm' felt so good.

"Sit." The Intendant grinned when Seven set down on the other side of the tub, as far away as possible, 'That will change soon enough,' She took the bath soap and put some on a sponge and started to move it over her body, "You know what you are from now on?"

"Your slave."

"My body slave," the Intendant corrected, "You will see to all my needs. You will do this next time." She lifted the sponge lightly to explain what she meant with 'this.' During the next bath Seven would be washing the Intendant. "You will get my food for me. Stuff like that. Since this is actually the first time I will have a body slave since I was a child, I don't know all of your tasks yet. I will make them up as we go along. But there is one thing you can be sure of, you will have to service me when ever I'm in the mood, including tonight."

"Service?" Seven wasn't sure if the Intendant meant what Seven thought that she meant.

"Pleasure me, fuck me, what ever you want to call it. We can do that two ways too. You can resist, or you can work along. You're mine. If you try to resist me, I will take what is mine. Oh, I know that you're stronger than me, but I can put you in chains. I can have you beaten. I can have you violated until you die from it. You understand me?"

"Yes."

"Good. But that is normally not what I like. As long as you do what I tell you, it shouldn't be to hard for you." The Intendant put away the sponge before turning back to regard Seven, "When we are private like now, you can talk to me without being spoken to, just don't argue with me and shut up when I tell you to. You understand?" The Intendant grabbed the sponge again and threw it at Seven, who caught it in mid air. "And for Kahless sake, we are in a bath, bathe yourself."

Seven started to use the sponge to wash her body, it took her a moment to realize that the Intendant was watching her closely, her eyes following the sponge on its way over the blonde's body. "I will not resist, but you can not make me enjoy it. What should I call you?"

"I think I could prove you wrong if I wanted to put the effort in to it, but I really don't care if you enjoy it. You just make sure that I enjoy it. And what do you mean, 'what should I call you?'"

Seven finished her quick and efficient bath, and sat back against the tub wall again. "I just thought that since I am your slave, you would not like me to call you the same as your soldiers call you, Intendant. Neither would you like me to call you B'Elanna, I assume."

"Did I tell you to think or assume?" The Intendant asked, raising her voice slightly.

"No you did not. Are you now telling me not to think?"

The Intendant laughed at the question. Her new slave certainly was smart, in more ways than one. "No, I'm not telling you that. Just don't try to outthink me. And you can call me Mistress until I get tired of that."

"Yes, Mistress."

The Intendant grabbed the bottle of bath soap and threw that to Seven, showering the blonde in a spray of soap before she could catch it. "Use this on the sponge and wash yourself again, slowly this time. Make it an enjoyment for me to see you bathe." The Intendant watched Seven's slow movements for a few minutes. "Much better. Don't rush, take your time."

Seven was glad that for now, the Intendant seemed happy to just watch her take a bath. It gave her a few minutes to sort her thoughts and think. The last hour, from the moment that they had first seen the Intendant, Seven had only been reacting to the situation at hand. Now she had a moment to think about the situation she found herself in. She knew from what the Ferengi had told the Voyager crew that in this universe, the Klingons were the most powerful race. And that meant that the Klingon Intendant had to be one of the most influential people. Nobody would dare to ask the Intendant about the fate of a group of humans.

The Intendant, this B'Elanna, could have them all killed with a single word. However, that also meant that this B'Elanna had the power to heal Voyager's B'Elanna; that she could have Voyager repaired, that she could deactivate the weapon platforms guarding the entrance to the wormhole. Seven knew that she had to gain the trust of the Intendant. It was the only way that she could help Voyager. And she could gain the trust of the Intendant, simply by doing whatever the Intendant told her to do.

Seven judged this Intendant on what she knew of Voyager's B'Elanna, keeping in mind that the character of the Intendant would be different because of living her life as a Klingon, and because she was a very important person, used to people listening to her. From that she guessed that the Intendant had told her the truth. The Intendant would treat her fairly, as long as she did what she was told. But she also knew that she was only a 'thing' to the Intendant, a mere slave. The Intendant had more than likely also told her the truth about what would happen is she resisted. The Intendant would take what was hers.

Seven's thinking focused on what it would be like to be a slave. Her first reaction was that she wouldn't mind it too much. Seven had been told what to do, how to move, when to regenerate, for twenty-four years. The first six years by her parents, and then eighteen years by the Borg. She missed the simplicity of that life sometimes. She had tried to explain this to the Captain once, but Janeway had not been able to see the freedom that came from having someone else make all the decisions for you.

"I know that you're thinking," the voice of the Intendant suddenly interrupted. "But you better start moving again; give me something to watch while you make up your mind."

"Yes, Mistress." Seven continued to move the sponge across her body, making sure not to stop again.

However once she was severed from the collective she also discovered that she liked her individuality, to make decisions on her own. The Captain had informed her that she could not have it both ways: have someone order you around, yet keep your individuality. Janeway had assured her that eventually she would grow out of wanting someone to have control over her. Seven had not been so sure.

Seven focused her eyes on the Intendant, surprised to see that B'Elanna was caressing her own body leisurely. "Do... um, I know that YOU own me, Mistress. But as slave, does it mean that I have to do whatever anyone else tells me to do?"

The Intendant's fingers stopped for a moment before continuing across her own throat and down her side. "If you were a common slave, yes." The Intendant could see that the blonde did not like that answer at all, and for a moment, she thought about leaving things at that, but there was something about the blonde. Something that made the Intendant suddenly take a personal slave even though she had not had one since she killed the annoying slave that was supposed to raise her as a child.

For some reason the Intendant wanted the slave to be hers, willingly. This, she assumed, was also the reason why she had given the slave already more patience and explanation than she usually showed her subjects. The Intendant was not in the habit of explaining herself, especially not to a slave, but she had a feeling that giving the slave some patience at this point would only pay off in the long run.

After letting the slave wait for a moment longer, the Intendant finally continued, "But that is the advantage of being a body slave. You're mine. You have to do what ever 'I' tell you. This means that the trials and tribulations of all your actions fall back on me. If someone has a problem with something you do, than they have to take it up with me. If I think that they are right then it is up to me to give you what I deem a proper punishment.

"You are my slave. If I say that you have to lick my boots, then you will kneel and do so right away, no matter where we are. But as far as humans go, you will be one of the most independent humans alive; one of only a hand full of humans that actually have rights. If anyone but me commands you to do something, you actually have the right to say no. Not even the other Intendants can order you around." The Intendant could see that this answer was a lot more to the liking of the blonde. "And now, human, it is time to make a decision. What is it going to be?"

It was an easy choice for Seven, having already decided that working along with the Intendant would be in the best interest of the Voyager crew, and herself. Seven lowered her eyes, assuming that a slave was not to look her master in the eyes, "I am yours to command, Mistress."

"Good, but look at me. There is no need to do that... when we're alone. If we are in public your position as my body slave means that you can look everyone lower than me in the eyes. So that really means that in public you can't look me or the Klingon chancellor in the eyes."

"There is something you need to know, Mistress." Seven lifted her mesh-covered hand out of the water. "These implants need periodic maintenance. The Doctor has the right tools for this onboard Voyager. In addition, because of these implants I need to regenerate for eight hours every seventy-two hours. This is done in certain alcoves also onboard Voyager."

The Intendant stopped her wandering hands and used them to lift herself out of the water until she was sitting on the side of the tub, her legs still hanging in the water, "I will keep that in mind. Now, come here."

Hesitantly Seven came closer until she was standing in front of the Intendant.

"Kneel."

Once again, Seven did as she was told and kneeled in the tub. This brought her head on the same level as the Intendant's knees.

"Enough talking for now, it is getting late and I need something from you. We will talk more in the morning." The Intendant leaned back until she was resting on her elbows and spread her legs, opening herself for the blonde. "Service me, human."

Seven blinked her eyes a couple of times in a severe un-Borg like manner and tried to swallow against a suddenly dry throat. She could smell the Intendant and see moisture that she knew only too well from her own body. Seven leaned in slowly, hesitantly. She knew why the Intendant was doing this, beside obviously also needing release, this would make it real. Up to that point it had only been talk, but once she started to satisfy the Intendant, to touch and taste her, it would be more than words. From than on, she would truly be the Intendant's slave. Seven started to use her tongue and lips slowly, hesitantly; exploring the Intendant's most private parts.

After a few minutes of that, the Intendant suddenly griped a hand full of blonde hair and pulled Seven's head back. Brown eyes filled with annoyance locked on blue eyes filled with unease. "What?! You don't like women? You better learn real quick." The Intendant's question made it clear that she was disappointed in the way Seven was pleasuring her.

"No, Mistress. I have not yet been with anyone, male or female, but I know that I like only women. It is... please, Mistress, give me one minute."

"I'm starting to lose my mood here. Don't make me regret taking you as a body slave, human."

"Please, Mistress, I do want to please you." While she was saying it, Seven felt it to be the truth.

The Intendant let go of the blonde's hair and leaned back again, mentally counting the seconds of a minute.

Seven looked at the sight in front of her, knowing that what she did at that point would plot the course of the rest of her life. She deliberately forgot about any possible consequences that would come forth from her choice. She asked herself what she really wanted. Disregarding the rest, what did Seven of Nine really want?

The Intendant had counted to fifty-six when she felt a tongue start to explore her once more. It felt different this time, a lot different. It felt right, and then all the Klingon Intendant could do was lay back and hold on for the best ride she ever had in her life.

End of chapter 2

Authors note: Since we get to know a little more about the Intendant from here on out, I found myself in the position where I also wanted to call her something else besides 'the Intendant'. However, I also wanted to make it easy to see difference between the Intendant and Voyager's B'Elanna Torres. Because of this I decided to make use of the fact that the name B'Elanna Torres consists of two usable parts. So from here on, I will use the name 'Torres' for the Intendant, and the name 'B'Elanna' for Voyager's B'Elanna Torres.

Chapter 3

The following day Intendant Torres woke to the sight of her new slave standing against one of the walls looking off into nothing. She took a moment to take the blonde in. "I don't like what I see."

Blue eyes went to the Intendant immediately and Seven came closer until she was standing beside the bed, "Mistress?"

Torres moved back a little until she was sitting against the headboard. "You are still naked, yet you're not here in the bed. You're just standing around. I don't like it at all."

Seven didn't know what to do. Was the Intendant telling her to get into the bed, or was she telling her to get dressed? Her unease must have shown because Torres continued to explain.

"I want you to do what ever I tell you to do, but I don't what to have to tell you every move you should make. I want you to act on your own, to a certain degree. As soon as I tell you to do something, you do it. For instance, I want to tell you go get something for me, but I don't want to have to tell you to get up, walk to a certain place, get what I want, and come back. You did it the right way last night. I told you what I wanted and you did it. But I didn't have to tell you how to move your tongue or when to use your fingers. I want to give you an order and it is up to you how you fulfill it. You understand?"

"I believe I do. But I fail to see how this affects my current state of dress."

"Why are you naked?"

"Because I do not know if you need my services again."

"When I went to sleep last night that was a good sign that I wouldn't need your 'services' again for at least a couple of hours. It's ok to get dressed then. If I had needed your 'services' again this morning, I would simply have told you to strip. Got it?"

"I believe I do."

"Don't believe, know."

"Yes, Mistress. Should I dress my self now?"

"Yes."

While Seven went to the adjacent bathing room to retrieve her bio-suit, Torres got up herself and looked around for her uniform. Not seeing it, she realized where she left it and shouted after her slave; "Get my uniform while you're in there."

Torres was standing beside the bedroom replicator when Seven came back, "Come over here." The Intendant waited until the now fully dressed blonde was standing beside her before she continued, "I don't believe in having a slave dress me, it takes longer than when I do it myself, and my clothes fit better if I put them on and in the right place myself. However, from now on it is your task to make sure that every morning there is a clean uniform waiting for me. You take my old uniform, take these decorations off, put it in the replicator and choose clothes cycle one, on this replicator." While Torres was explaining this, she was also showing it by replicating her uniform. "I saw replicators on that ship of yours so don't tell me you don't know how to use them."

"Yes, Mistress."

"I worked very hard for those decorations. The Chancellor didn't make me Intendant on the mere fact that I'm adopted family. I earned that title. These are the original decorations. If you forget to take even one of them off and I have to replicate it, you will be severely punished."

"Yes, Mistress, I will not forget."

Torres started getting dressed and realized that the blonde was wearing the same clothes as the day before. "I will also put some patterns in the replicator for clothes for you. I expect you to change whenever I do. You will always do what I do. If I bath, you bath, if I eat, you eat. If I change clothes, you change clothes. I also expect you to always be in the same room as me, unless I tell you otherwise. So from now on I'm not going to tell you anymore that you should follow me. If I move from one room to another, you will follow."

"Yes Mistress." Seven realized that she had already stopped seeing B'Elanna in the woman in front of her; she had become Intendant Torres. For a moment Seven wondered if she shouldn't be resisting the woman more. But she decided that this would not be the right move. The best course of action was to wait until she got the chance to help the Voyager crew in some way. She would not help the crew by testing the Intendant's patience. "Mistress?"

Torres tugged her uniform straight before looking over to the blonde. "Yes?"

"This suit is called a bio-suit. There is technology incorporated in it that interacts with my implants. Wearing these suits allows me to go up to seventy-two hours without regenerating. If I were to wear normal clothes, I would have to regenerate more often, but more importantly, my implants would need twice as much maintenance."

They left the bedroom and headed to a small room attached to it. Seven noticed that the Intendant's quarters were basically divided into two parts; the main section that she had seen the day before when entering the quarters, and a more private part that, as far as she had seen till now, consisted out of a bathing room, a sleeping room, and the room they were in now. It was a combination of a cooking area and a resting area. For a moment it looked as if the Intendant was going to sit on one of the couches, but then she changed her mind and sat down at the table at the side of the cooking area.

"Who made the clothes you are wearing now?"

"The Doctor designed this and two other suits."

"The Doctor? That bald hologram?" Torres asked surprised. "Get me program thirty-nine from the replicator and get yourself the same. You will always eat the same as I. And when we are alone you are allowed to sit when you are not doing something I ordered you to do. But if I have a guest, or if someone enters and it seems that they are staying longer than just a moment, I expect you to get up quietly and go stand out of direct sight against a wall." Torres waited until Seven was sitting at the table before continuing. "I will give the hologram some clothing patterns for the clothes I would like you to wear. He can incorporate the needed technology into them."

They ate in silence until the Intendant was finished eating. She looked over to Seven's plate and saw still half of the food on the plate, "Stop eating. Whenever I am done, you are done. I don't care if you still have something left or not."

"Yes, Mistress."

Seven put her fork down just a little too quick for the Intendant liking. "Once I'm done you clean everything up. Don't wait for me to leave the table or something. When I get up to go somewhere, I expect you to be ready to go too. And that goes for everything."

"Yes, Mistress." Seven got up and put the plates and utensils back in the replicator. Once done she went back to the table and sat down, but not before looking at Torres to see if it was alright to do so.

The Intendant nodded her head slightly to indicate that Seven had acted correctly. "Stop saying 'yes Mistress' all the time," Torres said, continuing the conversation from a moment before. "If you keep that up I will be tired of hearing it by tomorrow. Just keep it for when I ask you something. If I tell you something, let's just assume that you got it. However, if you don't understand something, tell me. It would be a shame if I had to punish you simply because you misunderstood something."

Torres got up and moved to one of the couches. She noticed that the blonde didn't move with her and was about to say something about it, when she realized that a little earlier she had told the slave that she could be seated, but she had not told her that she had to be as close as possible. The Intendant thought for a moment about adding that little part to the rule but then decided against doing so. 'The fewer rules I make for her, the fewer rules I have to keep track of.' She closed her eyes for a moment, mentally going over the task that lay ahead.

She had to meet the Klingon Chancellor in two days, but for the rest there were only unimportant things; things that could easily be postponed until after her visit with the Chancellor. So if she wanted, she had two free days on her hand. Time to play with her new toy, and the ship that toy had arrived on. She opened her eyes and found the slave looking at her, "What?"

Having been caught staring, Seven quickly looked away. "Forgive me, Mistress. I am not used to having nothing to do. While I was on Voyager, I was either working or regenerating."

"Get used to it." Torres knew the golden rule, keep slaves uneducated, and they are less likely to cause trouble. That was why slaves were normally only trained in one thing. Of that one thing they would know everything there is to know about it, but have them do something else and they would be hopelessly lost. Put a farmer slave on a field and he would get the highest yield out of it, but put that same slave in a house to clean and he wouldn't even be able to clean the windows. The only exceptions to this were the engineering slaves. Since they had to work on so many different things, they were trained in a broader spectrum; everything having to do with engineering.

So it only stood to reason that one should have a body slave learn nothing except what pleased her master. But the thing was that this blonde slave had not grown up as a slave. She already knew a lot. She was already smart. There was no changing this and it could be a mistake to disregard it. It would be a lot better to use it. "On second thought, I will give you something to read later on. It is the history of this universe. The history of the Klingons from the moment we started to walk upright, and also the history how three hundred years ago the Sol Empire started to form, and how we eventually defeated them.

"I want you to study all of this in great detail. When I ask you a question about history, I expect to hear the right answer. If you are wrong, you will be punished. Why did you eat so little? Didn't you like the food?" The last two questions had come out without Torres really realizing it. Why would she care if a slave liked her food? The blonde should be happy to get food in the first place.

"Klingon food is normally too... strong for me," Seven started, since that was the reason why she ate so slow, but not why she ate so little. "But I normally do not eat much because regenerating takes care of a lot of my bodily functions, including imbuing my body with energy."

The Intendant seemed to understand this and slightly nodded her head, "Alright, I can accept you not eating much for that reason. But you will eat what I eat, and you also will eat when I eat. Now, get over here and sit down."

Seven went to the second couch, the one across from the Intendant and sat down on the place the Intendant had pointed to.

Torres looked Seven in the eyes for a long moment and finally asked, "Why are you so submissive?"

"Mistress?"

"Yesterday you overpowered me, no small feat by any means, and you even threatened to kill me," Torres explained. "And then suddenly last night you turn around as if someone threw a switch and now you're all 'yes Mistress.' Why? I expected more of a challenge from you. Don't tell me that I have broken you. I did nothing that would even come close to breaking someone like you."

Seven thought for a moment about how to answer that. There were several answers she could give, all of them true. Finally, she decided on an answer, keeping in mind that the Intendant had thought she would be a challenge, "No, you have not broken me. However, you have my fellow crewmembers under your control, you are the only one that can save our B'Elanna Torres, and you have the means to have Voyager repaired. You are more likely to help on these matters if you are pleased. Annoying you, at this point would be... unwise."

"Hmm, I see your point," Torres agreed. "So you will double-cross me when you get the chance?"

"My priority lays with Voyager and her crew," Seven started slowly. She knew she was treading a fine line between telling the Intendant too much, and not telling her enough. If she told the Intendant too much, then it would be too easy for the Intendant to counteract what ever plan Seven would come up with in the future, but if she didn't tell the Intendant enough, then the Klingon would think that Seven was already planning something and be suspicious of every thing the blonde would do. "In this universe, at this point in time, you are actually the best hope for them. The Klingons are the most powerful race here. You, as Klingon Intendant, are one of the most powerful Klingons here. There is no reason to double-cross you. I would always get less than I have now."

"At some point I have to decide what I'm going to do with the rest of your crew. I won't be able to hold them over your head as leverage forever. What is there to keep me from just simply killing them all?" The Intendant had smiled while asking that, but it certainly hadn't been a nice smile.

"Their safety is the one thing you have over me. If they were dead, there would be nothing to stop me from killing you."

Torres laughed when she heard the slave's answer. She liked the blonde's honesty. Oh, she knew that the slave was choosing her words very precisely, and that there were things she was keeping for herself. But still, maybe having a smart slave wasn't that bad after all. "You really think that you would be able to kill me? There are some very nice cells I could put you in. You would never get close to me."

"I would escape, and I would reach you."

Though she didn't show it, Torres was impressed with the confidence she had heard in the blonde's statement. "Well," she said still amused, "let's hope we never have to find out. It would be a shame to lose you. I was very impressed with your services last night. Which reminds me, what changed last night? In the duration of one minute, you went from being a huge disappointment to giving me the best lay I ever had, doing things to me that even I didn't know I could do or would like."

"You just said yourself that you have not broken me. I think that the day will come where I tell you what happened last night. But for now, I will not tell you."

Suddenly Torres was up from the couch and had a hand at Seven's throat. "You will answer me right now!"

For a few minutes nothing happened, Torres was depriving Seven of air to breathe, while Seven just kept sitting there, looking up at the Intendant. Finally the Klingon applied some more force, and then let go with a growl, "I should kill you right now! I can't believe I put up with this shit!" Torres started pacing back and forth in the room, thinking about how to handle the situation.

Seven was about to say something, but realized that she should not be sitting on a couch with her master pacing around. She got up and moved to block the Intendant's way. Before Torres could say or do anything, Seven sank to a kneeling position on the floor and lowered her eyes. "Mistress, I could have told you a lie. I did not. Please, Mistress, if you allow me not to answer on some questions. I will swear to you that I will never deceive you, and at some point, when I am ready, I will remind you of your question and answer it."

Torres grabbed some of Seven's hair and forced the blonde's head up until she was looking at the Intendant. "I can't believe that a slave is giving me terms," Then she pushed Seven's head away and went back to sit on the couch. Once seated, she pointed to the floor in front of her. "Get over here." The Intendant waited until Seven was kneeling in front of her before leaning back. "And I also can't believe that I'm actually inclined to listen. But if I really want to suggest my plans to the Coalition Counsel this might be a good training."

"Mistress?"

"Never mind, maybe at some point when 'I'm' ready I will tell 'you' what I'm talking about." Torres let the slave's words go through her mind again, and realized something, "You said that you wouldn't deceive me. But that means that if you say things in just the right way that you can still lie to me."

"Yes, Mistress, but this is only because certain questions could be asked in such a way that my saying that I will not answer, would be an answer in and of itself. I want to prevent this from happening."

"Very well, slave. I accept your deal. But pull anything like you just did in front of my men, and I have to kill you just to retain my authority."

"I know this, Mistress. And I will not."

Torres was about to tell the slave to go sit on the couch again when she decided that she kinda liked having the slave sit in front of her like that. She opened her legs and motioned the slave closer until she was kneeling between the Intendant's legs. Seeing the look in the slave's eyes, she had to laugh. "Don't worry slave, you don't have to service me right now. But you are my pet, and I'm in the mood to pet you. Let your hair down."

Seven did as she was told and freed her hair. As soon as she had, Torres grabbed the slave's chin and forced her head up with a surprisingly soft touch.

"This looks better on you; from now on you leave your hair like this." The Intendant let go of Seven's chin and started to move her fingers through the blonde hair. "Mmm, nice. Klingons don't have soft hair like this. You are one very fine slave."

Seven didn't really know what she should do. What the Intendant was doing to her felt nice; she liked the feeling of fingers running through her hair. But it also seemed strange to be kneeling in front of someone and be looking at the cloth-covered place she visited so thoroughly the night before. Finally, she decided to just close her eyes and enjoy. Only a minute later her head was leaning against the Intendant's thigh, eyes closed, while enjoying the feeling of the Intendant's fingers caressing her scalp. But then her thoughts started to roam and she remembered something very important. "Mistress?"

"Yes?"

"Forgive me for bringing this up, but the state of affairs considering Voyager's B'Elanna Torres health deteriorates with every passing day. Have you considered helping her?"

Torres' fingers stopped for a moment but almost immediately continued, "Actually, it's good that you've reminded me of that. I was about to explain the reward and punishment system I have thought up for you. But first answer me this, why are you so concerned about her? Are you both lovers?"

"The relationship between us is... complicated. But no, we are not lovers. I told you last night that I have never been with anyone."

Torres took hold of Seven's chin one again and lifted it. "But you want her to be your lover?"

"I want her to be my friend," Seven corrected, "B'Elanna Torres is the chief Engineer onboard Voyager. She had been maintaining Voyager for four years when I came onboard. Even though she did an excellent job of maintaining Voyager, I had several suggestions on how to enhance the ship. The captain ordered some of those suggestions implemented and the Lieutenant felt threatened by me because of it. I assume she feared that the captain would soon make me Chief of Engineering.

"I, on the other hand, did not understand why the Lieutenant was being so difficult, it was highly inefficient. Soon a hostility started to form between us that has lasted for several years. But over the last half year, this slowly changed to a mutual respect for another, and the last couple of weeks we were moving in the direction of being friends. I think we already are friends in some way, just that neither of us has actually said the word."

"Very interesting," Torres said, and Seven could hear that the Intendant actually meant it. "But that still doesn't answer my question. You want her to be your lover?"

"I think that B'Elanna and I could become very close friends, but not partners. There is something I want from a partner that I know B'Elanna would never do. No, I do not want her to be my lover."

"What do you..." Torres stopped talking when Seven raised her head and looked the Intendant in the eyes.

"Please, Mistress. Do not ask me what it is that I want. Not yet." Seven lowered her eyes again, but straightened up a little, fully expecting the Intendant to explode again.

But instead of exploding, the Intendant softly put Seven's head back against her thigh and started to run her fingers through the blonde hair again. "You are making it very hard for me not to beat some sense into you, slave. But I have a feeling that you have a very high tolerance for physical pain." Torres moved her hand until she was caressing Seven's cheek. "Besides, I like your flawless skin in tact. So here is what I will do. I'm a firm believer of that if you punish slaves, you should also reward them from time to time. And here is my reward and punishment system for you. Look at me."

The Intendant waited until those azure colored eyes found hers. "The crew that you were a part of consisted out of 139 people. From now on, each of their lives represents one point. So that means that you have 139 points to work with. You will start with zero points. Every time you do something that I think should be rewarded you get an amount of points I deem a fair reward. That could be one point, but that could also twenty points. As soon as you have more than 139 points, the others live. They are still my slaves, but I won't order them killed and will see at that point what I will do with them. But what ever it is, it won't be work that still gets them killed. So 140 points or more buys the lives of your friends. Understand?"

"Yes Mistress," Seven confirmed, not breaking the eye contact.

"Good. That is the reward part, now comes the punishment part. Whenever you do something that I think you should be punished for, you lose points. This also can vary from one point till twenty at one time. And from now on, whenever you don't tell me something, like you have already done twice now, you will loose one point for it; having zero points is the bottom line. If you lose even one more point after you have nothing left, you pay with the life of your friends. They will all be killed at that point. I won't tell you all the time how many points you have, make, or lose; I keep track of that in my head. But I do promise you that I will be fair and keep an honest score. Understand?"

"Yes, Mistress."

Torres let her hand drop to Seven's shoulder and patted it softly. "I want a drink. From now on, if I don't specify what I want, then I want you to get me drink pattern one. And again, if I drink something, you drink too. You will have the same as me. Get my drink, but keep listening."

The Intendant waited until the slave had reached the replicator before she continued. "This reward and punishment system starts from now on. But there is one thing we have to deal with first. I'll gladly admit that you gave me the best lay of my life last night." Torres took the drink Seven handed her and was glad to see that the slave went to sit between her legs again, not as close as she had been, but still close enough that the Intendant had to open her legs to give the slave some room. "I hope that you keep being so good by the way... which reminds me, why is it that someone who has never been with anyone, is so good in giving pleasure?"

Seven took a sip from the drink, expecting it to be some strong Klingon beverage, and was surprised to find that it was the beverage that was known on Voyager as prune-juice. "At some point during my stay on Voyager, I did some research into the mating rituals of several people on the ship. I noticed that each species had different rituals, and this also made me curious as to whether there were also differences in actual copulation techniques between species. So I researched everything I could find on the subject, including what pleasured the different species. Since B'Elanna Torres was one of the people I