Alternate Consequences by H.W.

Chapter 1

"So much for that," Jadzia said while she threw the PADD loosely onto the low table in front of her.

The PADD was picked up again by a soft and delicate hand that had clearly never seen a hard day's work in its existence. But then, that was how it was supposed to be. Deanna Troi had been influential long before she was appointed Betazoid Intendant. She had been 'bred' for only one purpose; to be the head of the Troi family.

While the Troi's were far from even having to think about financial problems, they weren't the richest family on Betazed. But the Troi's had been the most influential Betazoid family ever since the Coalition was created. Deanna's mother had made the calculated gamble to have herself impregnated by a very carefully selected human slave.

True, Deanna hadn't gotten all the telepathic powers full Betazoids had; she had gotten mostly only the empathic powers, and very limited telepathic abilities. However, in return she had gotten two things that the full Betazoids didn't have; a mind that with training could be blocked against mental probing, and Deanna had her mind trained to perfection, and by not having all the normal telepathic powers she never fully learned to rely on them.

It had set her apart from the other Betazoids. Where normal Betazoids relied fully on their telepathic powers while making deals, Deanna didn't. In negotiations others normally always sat trying to figure Deanna out, trying to figure out just how much she would give, how far she would go, but all they got was a total blank, and this while Deanna made full use of her cunning and sharp negotiation techniques. It normally resulted in Deanna coming out on top and the others never really knowing just what Deanna would have added to the deal to close it.

Deanna read the information of the PADD for a moment. "I don't know. True, by them entering into a life bond they cut off the easiest way of us gaining favors from them. But they aren't Kira. You have to remember that Torres appointed them. She wouldn't have done that if these Ro and Jetur women weren't people one could make deals with. I have a feeling that it won't be too hard to enter into the normal give and take negotiations with them."

"But that means that we also will have to give," Jadzia pointed out.

"And there are things we can give," Deanna countered. "At least we will be in a position again where we can once more deal with the Bajorans. Just think, Jadzia. Wouldn't it be worth something to you to get back that contract for casinos on Bajoran star bases? That contract you already had before Kira cut it off and sold it to the Ferengi because they were willing to give her a bigger percentage of the earnings. Surly it wouldn't be a hardship to in return open Trill territory once more to imports of Bajoran wine."

"Ah, give and take," Jadzia repeated, this time in a more understanding tone. "You may have a point. And as the Trill Intendant I would certainly once again get offered some of the best bottles as a small gift from the merchants. It truly was a sad day the day that I, as Trill Intendant, had to start buying my most favorite drink from the black market."

"I'm sure that these women will have ears to the idea of normalizing the relationships between the Bajor and the Trill."

"And the relationships between the Bajor and the Betazoid," Jadzia added before asking, "So, what do you want from them?"

"Not that much actually," Deanna said thoughtfully. "The Betazoid territory is suffering as much as the Trill territory from the trading embargoes Kira started. It won't really harm us in the long run, but it does put the markets under pressure. If I were to be able to get the Bajorans to lift the embargo it wouldn't make much of a difference for me personally, but it would make a lot of important people happy. It would cut down considerately on those audiences I have to hold in which I have to tell them all the same over and over again; 'I can't help you.'"

"So, you think we should go there together as normally, or do it separately?" Jadzia had long since realized that Deanna had a much better head for business then she did. Normally she and Deanna talked about subjects and if what Deanna said made sense, Jadzia simply went along with it. The symbiont in her, Dax, had several lifetimes of experience, some of them as different Intendants, but as Jadzia Dax she really didn't mind asking someone for advice, and taking the advice if it made sense.

Jadzia knew that she really trusted Deanna too much. She knew that if Deanna wanted, she could play Jadzia like an instrument. But she also knew that Deanna knew that she needed Jadzia. And the best way for the Betazoid to get her help was to have the Trill's full trust. Therefore Deanna refrained from using Jadzia, instead she leveled with her and accepted the relatively few times that the Trill disagreed with her.

Deanna knew only too well that that she and Jadzia had to form a team. They were the two least influential of the Intendants. Individually they could do not more than agree with others. But together, together they could put their foot down if needed. Together they could even question a decree coming from the Klingons.

"I think it would actually be a perfect time to go see them together," Deanna said after thinking about the question for a moment. "You saw the report, they didn't get to power under the most stable of situations. They could be challenged, just that nobody would dare doing this while they still have that clear Klingon support. If we, together, go see them now, we will be seen as officially supporting them. They will be thankful for that support. It will start us off with them on a good note, it would be a shame to waste that by waiting or going separately."

"You are right," Jadzia agreed. "But I think that it would be even wiser if we went by Torres first, tell her that we are planning on bettering our relations with the Bajorans. It would also add to the importance of our trip to Bajor. If it just happened to 'accidentally' leak out that we first went to see the Klingon Intendant before going to Bajor, people will think that we have full support of the Klingons in our clearing of the air with the Bajorans."

"True," Deanna said with a small smile. She really liked the way Jadzia could think. "Besides, it would be good to see Torres again. We have to make sure that our affiliation with her stays as good as it is now."

"Oh, yeah," Jadzia agreed. She lifted her glass of black market Bajoran wine to her lips and took a sip. "We better be nice to her. I like dealing with her now, I sure wouldn't want her to negotiate with us as she does with others."

"Truer words were never spoken," Deanna said with a smile.

They sat quietly for a moment, both enjoying their drinks.

"Anyway," Jadzia finally said after a few minutes, "Time for something else. I need to go to Risa soon, buy some pleasure slaves to give as presents to the five most successful business people on the annual Trill business people of the year celebration. You want to join me on the trip? We could combine it all. First go to see Torres, then on to Bajor and finally on to Risa."

Deanna thought about if for a moment before nodding her head slightly. "Sounds good to me."

***

Chakotay looked around the table. He could see in their eyes that most of them had noticed that he hadn't taken the Captain's chair. "Alright, as you know, with Kathryn... gone... I'm the new Captain, according to Federation law. But I have taken a few hours last night to look the laws over, and there is something I want to suggest. Now that we have decided to stay here for the next two years, we need someone who knows this space, this Coalition. I was thinking of having the situation of me as Captain and Tuvok as second in command be the second option. What I really would like to suggest though is that we offer Annika the position of Captain. She knows this space, and after having worked under her for a month now, we know that she is an excellent commander."

It was quiet around the table for a few moments while the senior staff contemplated his suggestion. It had been so commonly assumed that Chakotay would become the new Captain that they hadn't given other possibilities a second thought.

"That's some suggestion," B'Elanna finally said.

"You think she wouldn't be suited for the position?" Chakotay asked.

"I didn't say that. I think she would be great for the job..." B'Elanna was quiet for a moment before she leaned back in her chair and said softly, "But I think that I really shouldn't have a voice in this."

"Why not?" Chakotay asked bewildered.

It was Tom who answered that question. "Because B'Elanna doesn't want it to look as if she only voted for Annika because she is her girlfriend."

"She isn't my girlfriend," B'Elanna disagreed, before adding softly, "Yet."

"Want a sharper knife to split those hairs, Torres?" Tom asked with a smile.

"Watch it flyboy, or else you might accidentally fall off the second deck of Engineering one of these days," B'Elanna replied with a grin.

"Listen, B'Elanna," Chakotay said to get the focus back on him. "While I appreciate your honesty, I also know you long enough to know that you wouldn't simply agree because you happen to like Annika. You should have a voice in this, just like the others."

Tuvok felt that he had to point something out that the others seemed to forget. "May I remind you that a starship is not a democracy? A Captain is not chosen by the ship's crew. A Captain is appointed by Star Fleet Command, nor should a person become Captain on basis of popularity."

Chakotay nodded his head in agreement. "I know that. We didn't even work like that in the Maquis, as you know. But according to the laws, the crew can elect a Captain if the entire senior staff agrees, and if the second and third in command officially decline the position."

"Alright," Tom spoke up, "I'm the first to admit that I'm not too up to date with Federation laws, but I didn't know that you could decline becoming Captain."

"If I were to offer you a promotion to Commander, you could decline that, couldn't you?" Chakotay asked, knowing that Tom had meant him with the 'you.'

"Not that I would, but yeah, I could," Tom agreed.

"Well, the same goes for me. It is simply that it is not that common. The 'why not' is a combination of two things. First of all, in most situations the second in command will always make the most suited person for replacing the Captain. Second, normally a Commander is a person who wants to be promoted to a Captain at one point. So they are not going to turn down the chance to actually become Captain.

"The thing is, we aren't in a normal situation here. If I become Captain, we would still need Annika on the bridge most of the time, since we would be asking her questions all of the time. But it is more than that. I think that Annika is the kind of person we need as Captain if we are going to stay around here, which we are. She has shown us that she is an excellent Commander, and she has more command experience than any or us, except for Tuvok."

"Which means that he should get the job if you don't want it," Tom pointed out.

"With us Vulcans it is not unknown to decline a position so that someone else, more suited for the position, can conduct the work better," Tuvok explained. "Having the most suited person fulfill a position is only logical. Unlike humans and a lot of other races, we Vulcans do not have a problem with accepting that some people are better suited for a job. I do agree with the Commander that Annika Hansen would be very well suited for the position of Captain while we are in Coalition space."

"But?" Harry asked, the way Tuvok had finished his sentence, Harry was sure that a 'but' had to come.

"There is no, 'but,'" Tuvok said. "However," He went on, basically still saying 'but,' "I do believe that if we were to offer the position to Miss Hansen, we should have certain security factors in place."

"Such as?" Chakotay asked. Though he didn't show it, he was glad that Tuvok seemed to contemplate his suggestion. Chakotay had been worrying about what Tuvok's mindset would be. Either he would have seen the logic of the proposal, or he would have objected, offering himself for the position of Captain.

"We have decided to stay here for two years, hoping that we can go to the Federation at that point. I would suggest making it clear that the appointment would only be for those two years. After that time we should see what our position is, and decide if Miss Hansen should continue to be Captain."

"Why's that?" B'Elanna asked.

"Because there are several possibilities," Tuvok said before naming a few of them. "We might indeed go to the Federation at that point, but it is also possible that something would happen that would prevent us from getting to the Federation. It is also possible that we would have to flee Coalition space before that time, or return to the Delta Quadrant in our universe. There are a lot of possibilities, and while Miss Hansen would be suited to command us in most, she would not be suited to command us in all situations."

"A very valid point," Chakotay had to agree.

"Furthermore, I would suggest to not actually appoint Miss Hansen Captain, but rather to leave the post of Captain vacant," Tuvok continued. "Instead I would suggest offering her the position of Acting Captain. This is a position that can be fulfilled for several years, and it is something that has a well used base in several Federation occurrences."

"What's the difference?" Tom asked.

"The difference is," Chakotay said, knowing where Tuvok was going with his suggestion. "That an Acting Captain can be stripped of her powers if she loses the faith of the senior staff. With a full Captain this isn't possible. With a full Captain I, or the Doctor, can relieve her of her position for some very valid reasons stipulated precisely by Federation law. And 'we don't think you are doing a good job' isn't a valid reason."

B'Elanna leaned forward when Chakotay stopped talking. "Well, I personally think that Annika would be great for the job."

Chakotay nodded his head slightly. "That's one vote. Doctor, you are very quiet. Do you object?"

"Not necessarily. I have no problem with Annika being captain. She has shown to be a person I can actually work with better than... A person I can work with. Since she is commanding us, the amount of people actually showing up for their medical checks has gone up to one hundred percent. And that simply because she gave one order that the crew should have their checks. She had her own checkup and showed that way that she expected the rest to do the same; they did."

"While Janeway on the other hand made it a sport to stay out of sickbay as long as possible," B'Elanna spoke up.

"B'Elanna,"

"It's true, Chakotay, and you know it. I'm not one to talk bad about the dead, but a fact is a fact. And this fact shows you why the crew is eager to follow Annika's orders. Annika isn't ordering them to do things she herself doesn't do. Come on, if a captain breaks Federation law so blatantly on the small things, is it that really so surprising that the crew starts to slack on the unimportant things as well? But you know what? A week ago I saw Carlson actually scrubbing the plasma conduits without me having to remind him not to 'forget' them. When I joked with him about how surprised I was, his only explanation was that Annika had rethreaded one of the thruster coils by hand the day before."

"She did?" Chakotay asked, knowing only too well what a laborious and tedious task this was. So much so that it was something that was normally never done by an officer.

"She did," B'Elanna affirmed. "I was doing stuff that can really only be done by one person at a time, so she used the time to do something that had to be done. And that is the point, Annika leads by example."

"Which means," Harry pointed out, "that if she is captain, she will be even more at the front as Janeway was. Going on more away missions, putting herself in danger more than a captain should."

"He has a point," Tom agreed. "While I think Annika would be great for the job, I do also think that she would put herself in unnecessary danger."

Chakotay leaned back into his chair. He knew that the two men were right. The thing that made Annika so perfect for the job, was the very same thing that might have had her passed over for the job if they were in the Alpha Quadrant, their Alpha Quadrant.

"It really is not a point of discussion at this moment," Tuvok spoke up after a moment. "True, this might happen. However if something were to happen to Miss Hansen, we would be in the same position of not having a Captain. At that point Commander Chakotay could take the position..."

"So we can afford for her to get killed?" B'Elanna asked with a raised voice.

"May I remind you, Lieutenant, that we are in a senior staff meeting. Raising your voice will not accomplish anything," Tuvok said calmly. "And if you had waited a minute longer, you would have heard me add that therefore the real point we should discuss is not if we want Miss Hansen to be our Acting Captain, but if we are willing to put her in this position of elevated risk."

"Sorry," B'Elanna mumbled, being dutifully reprimanded.

"I think we should let Annika make that decision," Tom said. "You have to remember that she is used to a whole different level of danger. True, for our doing she would put herself in more danger than we like to see our Captains in, but she comes from a place where she was in danger every day. She only had to do something that her 'masters' didn't like and she could be killed just like that."

Chakotay nodded his head in agreement. "We will make sure to point this out to her, if we offer her the position. So, what do you all think?"

***

Seven didn't turn around when two hands were placed softly on her shoulders from behind. Instead, she continued to look out of the window, in the direction that Voyager had disappeared in the day before.

"Having second thoughts?" Torres asked softly while she lowered her hands to take the blonde into an embrace from behind.

Seven placed her own hands on those of Torres, which were now resting on Seven's stomach. "Never. I was merely wondering what would become of them."

"And I would be worried if you didn't." Torres looked over Seven's shoulder out of the window as well. "While you stayed with me, they are still your friends, still the only people you know, except me of course. This should be hard for you, because that is the person you are."

Seven smiled while she turned around. "You do realize, if Voyager's B'Elanna Torres were in your position, she would try to convince me to go after my friends, to leave her, thinking it would be better for me."

"Well," Torres said while she led the blonde to the couch. "Lucky for me, I can be damn selfish. You made your choice, Seven. You stayed, and I'm not going to pretend that I'm not happy about it. If you wanted to leave, I would let you go. But before that time I would beg you on my knees to stay."

"You do not have to worry about that, I will never leave you, I could never leave you. I just wish that it had been possible for me to be with you, and be in contact with my friends as well."

"Well, it isn't really in contact," Torres said slowly, "but I'm having the ship followed by a drone ship. You will know at all times where they are."

"You wanted to know where 'I' was," Seven said softly, indicating that she knew why Torres had Voyager followed.

"Yeah," Torres agreed just as softly before going on in a little louder voice. "I can't promise you this, Seven, but if they don't make too many problems I might, maybe, make it possible that you can contact them from time to time."

"How?" Seven wondered.

"Well," Torres said with a smile. "Space is a very vast and relatively empty area. I wouldn't be able to actively search out your friends so that you can see them, I as Intendant could never do that. But, if we were traveling from point A to point B, and your friends were to accidentally be on that same course... I think I could get away with stopping somewhere for a day or two."

"But if someone were to find out," Seven said before being interrupted by the Intendant.

"They'd do what? I'm the Intendant, remember? I'm the highest thing there is. People can't go over my head. Do you really think that the Chancellor would grant some unnamed person from some unnamed place an audience and listen to that person complain about the Klingon Intendant, me, rendezvousing with some space ship? No, it would have to be an Intendant who would bring forth such a claim before Worf would even listen to it, let alone actually acting on it. And all of the other Intendants know damn well that they better have a damn good reason before they get on my bad side. Tell me, Seven, if you were an Intendant, would you want to get on my bad side for nothing more than the fact that you saw me rendezvousing with some ship?"

"No I would not," Seven had to agree. "But if this on not something to worry about, than why can we not meet with them without having to be on our way to a different place?"

"Because," Torres sighed, "it is all about perception. If I were to go to some place with only one purpose, to see your friends, I would be officially recognizing them."

"Do you think that the other factions would find out that you had gone to see a ship?" Seven wondered. "As you said, space is a vast place. You do not have to give flight plans, nor do you have to tell anyone why you went somewhere."

"I doubt they would find out," Torres agreed, "but the fact is that I just can't take the risk. Seven, you have to understand, I can do a lot. I can get away with a lot more that I do now. I could kill people on a whim, I could plunder entire planets, I could put thousands of free people in slavery just because I thought it would be funny. I could do it all, but I don't want to. And the only way I keep myself from becoming what I don't want to be, from what Kira was, is by only doing things that I could explain if, by some miracle, others would actually call me on it. For myself, Seven, I CAN get away with meeting up with your friends if I happen to be going somewhere else anyway. But I CAN'T justify it to myself to go out to meet some escaped slaves. Please try to understand that, my dear. If I start shifting my own borders, soon there will be no borders left."

"I do understand," Seven said. "You enjoy the power you now have, but you are not addicted to it. Once you start doing things that make you addicted to the power, you will soon do more and more, just to get the rush you get from using the power. You do not want that to happen."

"Right," Torres agreed after untangling what Seven had said.

"How often do you think I could see them?"

"Wellll, I travel a lot, and I do make longer journeys from time to time. I think that once every three months or so might be doable. But that is no guarantee, my dear. If they start making trouble, if they start doing things I shouldn't let them get away with, then it will be longer."

"I understand. Thank you, mistress."

Torres smiled when she heard Seven call her 'mistress.' Despite the fact that they had agreed that the relationship would stay the same, Torres had decided that she would take the relationship in any form she could get it. If Seven had wanted to be Torres' equal at all times except when they were out, Torres would have agreed to that. But she was honest enough with herself to know that she really liked being the blonde's mistress.

She liked it that over all, she was clearly the one in charge of their relationship. The fact that she knew that Seven could, and would, say something if she wanted to, would object if something wasn't to her liking, it made Torres truly enjoy the fact that the blonde was hers. Knowing that Seven wasn't afraid to object, and would, if Torres started to act in a way that the blonde didn't like, made it possible for Torres to confidently be the mistress Seven wanted her to be.

"Well then, my pet. I need to go to the bridge for a moment, and you will come with me, and after that we will retire for the evening."

"But, mistress, it is only four o'clock in the afternoon."

"I know," Torres agreed with a grin. "But once I have been on the bridge and showed everyone that my body slave is here to stay, I want to come back here, and celebrate."

"Celebrate?" Seven repeated.

"Yes, yesterday I was glad that you stayed, I just wanted to hold you to make sure that you were really here. But today..."

"Today?" Seven asked, knowing that the Intendant was waiting for her to ask.

"Today we will celebrate 'til way past midnight."

"Ah, you mean you want to have sex for hours on end." Seven said with a smile, definitely liking the idea.

"No," Torres disagreed, "I don't want to have sex for hours on end."

"You do not?" Seven asked surprised, she was sure that this was what Torres had meant.

"No, I don't want to have sex. I want to make love to you, Seven. I want to love you until you don't even have enough energy left to pull up the sheets."

Seven's heart skipped a beat when she heard what the Intendant said. "I would like that," She said in nothing more than a whisper. "I would love to make love to you. I love you, B'Elanna Torres. I love you more than life itself."

"Good, let's get out of here then," Torres said. "I need to tell the Captain to set course for Kronos, we really need to have a little chat with Worf."

Seven merely smile while she got up. She knew how hard it was for Torres to say 'I love you,' after all, the Klingon had learned her entire life that love was a weak emotion. One did not talk about love. Even in married couples the word 'love' was seldom used. Oh, the Klingons sure did love, and sure believed in the strength that love could bring. They just didn't talk about it.

But just as they were walking out of the door, Torres totally surprised Seven by saying softly, "I love you as well, Seven."

***

"Wait, let me get this straight, you want me to become your Captain?" Annika asked, not really believing what she heard. She had been surprised when the senior staff contacted her after only four hours and ask her to come to the conference room. But now, after hearing them talk for more than half an hour about offering her the job of Acting Captain, she was actually totally astonished, "I thought you were going to talk about my position onboard this ship."

"And we did," B'Elanna said with a grin before Chakotay took over again.

"Believe me, we are not making some hasty decision."

"I appreciate that. But I was thinking that I would get appointed to Engineering or something like that. I mean, come on, half of the people around this table would be more suited than me to be your Captain."

"Acting Captain," Chakotay corrected just before Tom spoke up.

"And I'm glad to hear that you think that I could be Captain."

Annika saw the smile on his face and knew that he himself knew that he was one of the reasons why Annika had said that HALF of the people around the table could be Captain. She returned the smile. "Tom, no disrespect, you might be a great pilot, but you would be a lousy Captain. Commander, yes, somewhere about ten years or so down the line. But Captain, no." Then she turned to Tuvok. "Surely you, with your firm believe in Federation law won't agree to this. From what I read on Federation law, and from what B'Elanna told me, Chakotay is next in line to become Captain, and you would then become the first officer."

"That is the normal procedure," Tuvok agreed, "however; we are in a uncommon situation. One of the most important abilities of a Captain to be able to make decisions immediately. To do so, one needs to know what the situation is that one is in. We do not know that; you do. Normally that would have been enough to give you a position comparable to the one Seven of Nine got when she became a member of Voyager, or Mister Neelix before her; making your information available to the senior staff. However, you also have a life time of experience in command functions. You would be well suited to be in command of Voyager while we are in this alternative universe."

"But in the Delta Quadrant you also didn't know what was going on, yet Janeway continued to be your Captain. According to the reasoning you just gave, Neelix here should have become your Captain then; he knew what was going on."

Neelix let out a chuckle at hearing that.

"Mister Neelix would not have been suited for the position of Captain of Voyager," Tuvok disagreed in his blunt straightforwardness. "So we were in a position where all the people that were suited for Captain did not know the situation we were in. Besides, we had a Captain then. One does not replace ones Captain only because one is in a part of space one does not know. If Captain Janeway was still alive, we would not be offering you this position. But now we have the situation that we need a new Captain, and now we have a person that is very suited for the position, and knows the territory we will be staying in for the next two years. Appointing you Acting Captain in a logical step, and it is allowed according to Federation law, just not that commonly used."

"I'm sorry, but I just can't believe that you would just hand me the command over your precious ship," Annika said to the senior staff in general. "And truth be told, I don't really know if I want to take on the job of commanding you all on a continued basis."

"We don't just hand you the ship," Chakotay corrected, "that is why we are offering you the position of Acting Captain, and not the position of Captain."

"And the difference is?" Annika asked.

"The difference is that just like we now offer you that position, the senior staff can take you out of that position again without it being considered a mutiny."

"I'm not used to having my orders questioned," Annika pointed out.

"It's not about that," Chakotay said while softly shaking his head. He really hoped that Annika would say yes, but he also knew that the more they had to work to convince her to take the job, the better she was suited for it. If she had jumped at the chance, then it would have indicated that she wanted the power that came with the job and a person who wanted only the power wasn't suited for the job. "As your second in command it will be my job to question things you do. Playing the devil's advocate is in my job description. No, the thing is that we decided to stick around here and wait those two years, hope that we can really go home then.

"But we also decided that we want to go on like we have; living up to Federation standards. So this is our middle way. We trust you, Annika. We have seen how you command and we think that you would be an excellent leader for us. But, we also want to make sure that we as the senior staff can still go back to the second option if things don't work out."

"The second option being that you become Captain and Tuvok your second in command?" Annika asked.

"Right," Chakotay agreed.

"Alright, before I say more on this, I want to know some things. First, who suggested this? Second, did you all vote on this? And third, if you voted on it, what was the outcome of the vote?" Annika was slowly coming around to their idea, their point about her knowing the universe they were in was a very solid one. But if she really was going to think about taking the position, she wanted to know just how welcome she would be as a commanding figure.

"I was actually the one who suggested you for the job," Chakotay said. "Tuvok was the one who suggested that we would make the offer or Acting Captain and not for Captain. Yes, we voted on it, and the outcome of the vote was unanimous."

"Alright, I'll make you a deal," Annika relented. "I'll only think about this if you extend that vote to the rest of the crew. You make it an anonymous vote so that everyone can vote the way the want and not the way the feel they HAVE to vote. And if the vote is seventy-five percent in my favor, I will give it serious thought."

"Seventy-five percent is quite a hurdle," B'Elanna pointed out.

"I know," Annika greed, "but if I do this, I will only do so with the support of the crew. I don't want to start the job by having to fight the people on this ship as much as we will have to fight what ever we will come across out there."

"Alright, I'll send out a ship wide message," Chakotay said, "letting everyone know about the vote and that they have to turn a PADD with their vote, and only their vote, in to Tuvok by tomorrow."

"Make it the day after tomorrow," Annika suggested. "Give them a full day to actually think about it. We are safe here for now. Come to think of it, this planet is extremely unstable because of the excessive mining that was done here. But some of those very same mine corridors should be wide enough to conceal a ship like Voyager. We can stabilize one of those corridors so that Voyager can hide in it if needed. When we do that then we would be totally invisible unless someone does a level two surface scan. It would mean that we could hide without having to have the cloak on all the time. If we are going to stay in Coalition space, we might as well use this planet as our base for now and once we are good and ready for it we can go look for others places we can use to hide, I have some ideas."

"You think having that many places to hide is really necessary?" Tom asked.

"You have to remember," Annika pointed out, "that here you have nobody to help you but yourself. Even if the Klingons are not actively hunting us, there are still thousands of ships in Coalition space, all of them more or less hostile. It will not be a bad idea to have a hiding place nearby no matter where we are. Let's say that in a fight the cloak system is damaged, I would still like to get away then. Because make no mistake, there will be battles, and we will be on the run. And also, it will keep us busy for the first couple of months, by the time we finished with the hiding places we will have decided what we are going to do with the rest of the two years."

"Alright, sounds good," Chakotay greed. "I'll make a roster and we will start work on stabilizing a corridor, once we find one of course."

"Sounds like a plan," Annika looked around the table before asking, "Anything else?"

When nobody spoke up, Annika continued. "Alright, then I would suggest that we suspend this meeting and get together again the day after tomorrow to see how the crew feels about your suggestion."

Annika looked around the table once more and when nobody spoke up, she stood up and left the conference room.

Once the door closed behind Annika the senior crew looked at each other and all of them had a smile or grin on their faces. All except for Tuvok, he merely lifted his eyebrow. None of them said it, but all of them knew that Annika had just walked in, taken over the meeting, and told them what to do. Truly a sign of an excellent leader.

Chapter 2

More than one set of eyes did a double take when the turbolift doors opened. It was not that surprising to actually see the Intendant on the bridge, but to see her in the company of her body slave was something else entirely. Where Seven's standing as the Intendant's body slave had been firm before, now it was well and truly cemented down. As soon as the Alpha shift was released from duty with shift change, they would go to the mess hall and the talk would be about how the Intendant had brought her body slave with her to the bridge.

"Anything of interest, Captain?" Torres asked, pretending not to notice how the eyes of the Alpha shift stayed on her longer then normal. Normally they were quick to look away again as soon as they had seen who had entered the bridge. One didn't want to awaken the interest of the Intendant. But now they were looking at her, her and Seven, with there mouths almost hanging open.

Torres smirked inwardly. 'Good, let them understand what this means, let them understand how powerful my pet is.'

"Nothing of importance to report, Intendant. We noticed the captured ship leaving the star base yesterday, but we received a message from the Security Department a few minutes later that we didn't see that."

"Really now?" Torres asked, very much pleased with how fast Martok had worked. "Then tell me, if you got a message that you didn't see it; why are you telling me about something you didn't see?"

The Captain dipped his head slightly. He understood that the Intendant was giving him a warning. "I personally didn't see anything, Intendant. And I also know that the Alpha shift didn't see this happening, but I thought that I should bring your attention to these baseless rumors."

"Well then," Torres said while studying some information on the screen that was built into the Intendant's chair, a chair that was reserved only for her, not that she happen to sit in it much. She preferred that the Captain and the crew were good at their work, if ever the day would come where she would have to be on the bridge longer, it would mean that the entire shift would be replaced with a better crew; and the crew knew it. They didn't want to be replaced, once could only guess what would happen with the replaced crew. One thing was sure, it wouldn't be pretty. "Next time you have a meal in the mess hall, if you hear some more gossiping, remind those people that gossiping is not good for their health. I even heard that gossiping can kill people. Get the drift?"

"Very much so, Intendant."

When Torres shut the screen down, she saw her slave looking at the Captain with a certain air or superiority.

Seven remembered only too well how the Klingons had treated the Voyager crew when they were boarded. Now the roles were reversed, now it was the blonde woman who had the power, and the Klingon who had to fear what the other would do.

"Am I missing something here?" Torres asked with slightly narrowed eyes.

"No, mistress," Seven said after letting the Captain sweat for a moment. "I am sure that the Captain is thinking, just as I, that we both have been standing on the bridge of a different spaceship not so long ago."

Torres understood what the slave meant and grinned at the Captain, "Isn't irony a bitch?"

The Captain nodded his head in agreement. "A bitch that hits you over the head with a pain stick at times."

"Well, don't worry, Captain. I, and my pet, understand that you were capturing a ship full of slaves that had just destroyed two Klingon ships. But, situations are different now. If someone doesn't give my pet the respect she deserves, I will rip their fucking head off. You can spread that news as well once you go for dinner in the mess hall."

"Yes, Intendant," The Captain quickly said, knowing that he had gotten of easy.

"Alright, Captain, set a course for Kronos. But you don't have to hurry too much, let's take a little time to get there."

Since Torres was the Intendant of all of the Klingon part of the Coalition, she had chosen the planet as her home base on which her uncle had built the house he had left to her. A planet that was pretty much in the center of the Klingon territory. But Worf, as the Klingon Chancellor, lived on Kronos, where the High Counsel was seated. Because of this there was a fourteen day trip between the two places. But Torres had been known to not travel as full speed if there was no important reason for it. After all, if she got to a place sooner, it only meant that she would leave again sooner for her next trip.

"Yes Intendant," The Captain said, moving to give the order to the helm, even though the pilot must have heard it as well.

Torres moved to the turbolift and was just about to get on when she heard the ops officer say that he had an incoming message for the Intendant.

"What is it?" Torres asked, moving to his station.

"Intendant, it's a message from Betazed, from Intendant Troi."

"Is it a secure message?"

"No Intendant."

"Well, in that case, let's have it, and get it over with."

"Yes, Intendant. Intendant Troi politely informs you that she and Intendant Dax are planning on going to Bajor to better the relationship with the Bajorans. She asks if it suits you if they meet up with you before that time."

Torres did a quick calculation of where she was, where Betazed was, where Kronos was, and where Bajor was. "Sent a message back. I'm on my way to Kronos, but I will cross their path in ten days. If they are at that point at that time, I will grant them two days of my time." Torres looked over to the Captain. "As soon as you get their ships on our sensors, correct the speed needed to meet up with them where our roads cross. Once there, we will stay there for two days."

"Yes Intendant."

"Come, my pet. Let's get out of here before more messages appear."

"Yes, mistress," Seven said while getting into the turbolift with Torres. Once the doors were closed, and the people on the bridge could no longer hear then, Seven turned to Torres. "Mistress, I am curious."

"About?" Torres asked.

"About the interaction between Intendants. I do understand that you as Klingon Intendant are the most powerful of the Intendant. But what I am wondering is, how great is the difference between Intendants? When Intendant Dukat contacted you, I heard you ask the Captain if Intendant Dukat was wishing, or demanding, to speak to you. So the Cardassian Intendant has enough power to confront you on certain things if needed." They stepped off the turbolift and started to walk down the corridor before Seven continued, "Yet the tone of the message from Intendant Troi was very polite, almost painfully so. Why?"

"The interaction between Intendants is very complicated, my pet. Tell you what, I'll answer that in a moment, when we are in our quarters and have something to drink."

"Yes, mistress," Seven said with a small smile.

"What are you smiling about?" Torres asked.

"You choice of words, mistress."

"Why, what did I say?"

"When we are back in 'our' quarters," Seven repeated.

"You know, my pet, you shouldn't weigh my words that much, it will only cause me to watch what I say."

"I do not want that," Seven said before adding softly, "Mistress, if I may point out,"

"What?"

"You asked me what I was smiling about. I would not have said it otherwise."

"Are you telling me that I shouldn't ask you what's going on with you?" Torres asked while they walked into... their quarters.

"I," Seven stopped, despite the fact that Seven knew Torres loved her, she also knew that there still were some very fine lines with the Klingon. Lines she could not cross until Torres was ready. Apparently pointing out what Torres did for Seven was one of those lines. "Forgive me, I like it very much that you want to know what is bothering me, or amusing me."

Torres sighed, she knew that she was being an ass. "No, you forgive me. I'm sorry, my pet. I can certainly understand why you would like hearing me address these quarters as our quarters. It was just the knee-jerk reaction. I'm the Intendant, I don't do or say nice things."

"I understand mistress," Seven said before changing the subject. She had the feeling that the particular conversation about Torres doing things for her could better be left for another day. She knew that there was a difference for the Intendant between doing obvious things for Seven, like letting Voyager escape, and doing small things, like saying 'our.' For some reason, Torres didn't mind doing the big things, but also didn't like to be reminded of the small things. "Would you like your drink now?"

"Yeah. Join me on the couch when you are finished."

A moment later they were sitting on the couch and sipping their drinks.

"Now," Torres said after taking a final sip, "as to your question about Intendants. It really all comes down to power. First there's me, the Klingon Intendant, then the Cardassian, then the Bajoran, then the Romulan, then the Betazed, and finally the Trill. All of coalition space is divided between those factions. Even though there are only six slave races, other races still live in that territory. For instance, the Bolians live in Klingon space, while the Ferengi live in Cardassian space. Both races are free, but have to bow to the rule of the Coalition partner that rules over that part of space.

"Here is where it becomes complicated. The Intendants can pretty much do what they want in their part of the Coalition. But for certain things they need the help and support of the other Intendants. The less powerful the Intendant is, the more they have to beg for help.

"As you could see from the fact we had a fleet of Birds of Prey close to Bajor, we, the Klingons, are so powerful that we can move our ships where ever we want. Hell, I could raid a colony of the Bajorans and the biggest thing they could really do about it is file an official complaint with Worf. But the... say, Trill, wouldn't dare to have their fleet longer in Klingon space that it would take to get to a certain point. And if they were to raid a Klingon colony... they... well, let's just say that from then on there would be seven slave races, not six.

"The more power you have, the more weight you can throw around. Dukat can demand to see me because he can get away with it, as long as he has a valid point. He could throw up an embargo against us, and we Klingons would actually hurt from it. But, if the Trill or the Betazoid were to threaten me with an embargo, I would probably... double over laughing. And they know it.

"Since Jadzia, the Trill Intendant, and Deana, the Betazoid Intendant, are actually on a good footing with me, they will do pretty much everything to keep me happy. After all, I'm more inclined to help them if I like them. If I don't like them, I would very easily do things just to spite them. They could survive the embargo Kira had placed on them, but if I were to establish such an embargo, they would really hurt. So much so that they might get killed just so that new Intendants could be appointed, Intendants that would clear the air with me."

"Is it normal for Intendants to travel together?" Seven asked. "The message said that it would be the Trill and the Betazed Intendant."

"Yes and no, my pet," Torres said thoughtfully. "I, Dukat, and Shinze, the Romulan Intendant, we work on our own, only calling in the help from the others from time to time if needed. But Deanna and Jadzia know that individually they have not much influence with the other Intendants. But together, together they can even stand up to me. Not that they would, they have other ways of gaining my favor."

"What other ways?" Seven asked, having a pretty good idea what Torres meant.

"Um, never mind," Torres said, trying to change the subject. She remembered how jealous the blonde had become on Bajor. "So anyway, they always travel together. As a matter of fact, they don't just travel together, they are almost always together."

"B'Elanna, what other ways?" Seven asked coldly.

"I really only had sex with them once," Torres said halfway defensively.

"Once with them both together, or once with both of them separately?" Seven asked even colder.

"Um, separately," Torres said weakly.

"Tell me, B'Elanna. In this universe, are all influential women uninterested in men?"

"What?" Torres asked totally confused. Finally Torres saw the small smile tugging at the blonde's lips. "Why, you... I thought you were going to go jealous on me again."

Seven leaned closer and kissed Torres softly. "I know. That is why I could not resist and had to tease you, despite the fact that we are on a master/slave level."

"Hmm, do you want to take this above that level?" Torres asked.

"No need. Mistress, you told me about your past, getting jealous of two of many women from your past is a truly futile exercise."

"But you got jealous damn quick on Bajor," Torres pointed out.

"That was because Jetur Adami formed a threat in present time, women from your past do not form a threat. The fact that you no longer have sexual intercourse with them means by default that you are no longer interested in them in the way that you are interested in me."

"I see," Torres said relieved before adding, "Seven, I never have been interested in someone the way I am interested in you."

As an answer, Seven leaned in once more, this time to share a long series of kisses.

"By they way, what kind of question was that?" Torres asked once they finally broke apart.

"What question?" Seven asked.

"That question about powerful woman not being interested in men."

Seven merely summed up, "You, Kira Nerys, Ro Laren, Jetur Adami, Deanna Troi, Jadzia Dax."

"Ah, you got a point," Torres agreed. "But that point isn't fully correct. It would be more correct to say that all of those are also, or mainly, interested in women. As far as I know, I'm actually the only one out of all of those that never slept with a man. I know for a fact that Jadzia and Deanna have a male sex slave. From Kira's files we know that Kira went both ways, and both Ro and Jetur have slept with men."

"True," Seven agreed.

"It's more about power than gender," Torres went on. "The fact is that at this point in time we have many women in power, and what do you do if you want to gain more power? You sleep with another powerful person. Deanna won't gain much power by sleeping with some man. But by sleeping with Jadzia, another female Intendant, she gains power. Sleeping with me, that gives her even more power."

"The 'give some ass' concept taken to the level of Intendants," Seven said, referring to a conversation she and Torres had a few weeks before.

"Right," Torres agreed.

"But would Deanna and Jadzia not gain even more power by sleeping with the Cardassian or Romulan Intendant than merely with each other? Those are men."

"Wellll, yes. But remember how I told you that Dukat always held his promises, the promises that he made to me at least? In the past Both he and the Romulan Intendant double crossed one of the women on a big deal they were all involved in back then. Dukat double crossed Jadzia, and Shinze double crossed Deanna. It was actually while dealing with the aftermath of that mess that Deanna and Jadzia noticed that they worked well together, and could get back at the Cardassians and Romulans if they teamed up. So they did, and continued to team up on everything from then on."

"Do they still not work with the Cardassians or Romulans at this point?"

"That was almost six years ago. Unless you are Kira, six years is a long time to hold a grudge... towards another Intendant at least. They really needed the every day deals with them, and the other way around as well. Dealing with that mess was my first real high level task as Klingon Intendant." Torres grinned for a moment. "I was Intendant for a year by that time, but had really only resolved Klingon based problems. I established my 'tough bitch' name that day. I very bluntly told them that if the four of them couldn't reach an agreement that all could live with in twelve hours, then I would take all that they were fighting for and make it mine. That business deal they made that day to keep me from simply taking it all, stands 'til this day."

"If Deanna Troi and Jadzia Dax are together that much, I assume that their sexual relationship is still continuing," Seven deduced before asking, "Are they lovers?"

"Eh," Torres said while wiggling her hand from side to side a little. "It really depends on your definition of lovers. I think that they don't just have sex, I do think that they make love. They are very good friends, and I do think that they love each other. But I don't think that they are 'in' love."

"Do you have an idea as to why they want to see you?"

"Well, if I were to put some credits on it, I would bet that it is for the very same reason I would come to see me if I were them," Torres said after thinking about it for a moment. "Kira caused a lot of trouble with both Deanna and Jadzia, and they are now going to Bajor to make a fresh start with Ro and Jetur. By coming to me first it will seem as if we Klingons support them in normalizing relations with the Bajorans."

"So they use you as well," Seven pointed out, knowing how touchy the Intendant was on being used.

"True," Torres agreed, "but as I told you before, I don't mind being used if it is only to a certain extent and by people I know. I can understand why they are doing it, and I can't argue with their reasoning. So, I'm going to meet them, see them a couple of times during those two days and talk about nothing... Actually, you know what? You are going to be more than likely the subject of most of the talks."

"Me?" Seven asked surprised.

"Yeah. They know more than anybody just what it means if I have a body slave. Everyone else knows that you are damn powerful because I'm your mistress. But they as Intendants, they will know just what you can do. They will know that because I'm your mistress, you are actually pretty much equal to them."

"That is still a concept I am trying to comprehend," Seven said thoughtfully. "I know that because of my status I am above most individuals in the Coalition, but I do not know what precise position I have in regards to the other Intendants."

"Well, it is a kinda complicated thing," Torres agreed. "And truthfully, I'm not sure how to answer that. The simple explanation is the one I once gave you once before, that only I and Worf can truly command you to do something. So, given the fact that the other Intendants can't command you, one could say that you are even above them. But where everyone who isn't an Intendant or Chancellor would have to follow an order coming from you, the Intendants certainly don't have to follow such orders.

"So... from one side, the other Intendants are more powerful than you, since they can give orders in their own name to everyone who falls into the jurisdiction of their part of the Coalition. But, you, who can only give orders in my name, can give orders to anyone in the entire Coalition. So where Dukat can give an order in his own name to a Ferengi, but not to a Bolian, you can only give orders in my name, but you can give orders to a Ferengi AND a Bolian.

"Of course, that is the simplified version. Dukat can order Bolians around if they are in the Cardassian territory. It would undermine the authority of the Intendant if they didn't have total control over their territory. Does this answer your question?"

"Yes, mistress. Since the Klingons are on top of the command chain you, and therefore by extension I, can do what ever you want in the entire Coalition, but the other Intendants can only do whatever they want in their part of the Coalition."

"That's pretty much it," Torres agreed. "But as I said, it's complicated. Even I have to deal with the other Intendants if I want to do something in their space. It is just that they are more likely to agree with whatever I want to do. For instance, that Bajoran space station that your friends will need to be at if they can go home,"

Seven dipped her head to indicate that she knew what the Intendant was referring to.

"Well, I could go to the Bajorans with some lame ass excuse about how we Klingons need it as a station for our trade routes and there really isn't that much they could do about it, save trying to get the best deal for them out of it. Something like them still being allowed to use the station, and maybe getting the rights to some other station in Klingon space. This would mean nothing of course since we would then give them some station we pretty much aren't using anymore anyway. But that's the deal they would have to swallow, the deal they would have to agree with."

Torres was silent for a moment before asking, "So, aren't you going to ask me to help your friends get home sooner?"

"No mistress, I am not. You gave your reasons as to why you could not help them home sooner, and I fully understand them. I also understand that you could take command of the station, but that it would cause friction with the Bajorans. Getting the Voyager crew home earlier is not worth that trouble."

"I'm glad that you under stand that," Torres said with a smile. "Most people from this universe are selfish enough to not see the bigger picture. They would simply demand that I do it if I can."

"Which would mean that you would have to kill them for demanding something like that from you," Seven countered with a smile.

Torres laughed when hearing the reply, "Well, yeah, there is that."

"Mistress, talking about Voyager raised a question."

"Let's have it," Torres said while draining the last of her drink.

"Mistress, when you first brought up the possibility of returning the Voyager crew home, you talked about it as if it was just that; a possibility. However, recently you are talking about it as if it is a given fact. That as long as they are able to survive those two years, you will make sure that they will get home. Why? What has changed this from a possibility to a certainty?"

"Well, it's not beyond a doubt certain. But yeah, it is a lot more certain now. The answer is simply that the game of chess is further along now. At the beginning I was talking from the facts I knew then. But things have changed again, even today."

"Mistress?" Seven merely asked.

"We got the message that Deanna and Jadzia want to see me, and we talked about how this would be perceived as me supporting them in normalizing the relationships with Bajor. Well, the Bajorans, especially Ro and Jetur, will see it like that as well. Which means that there is even more that they have to be thankful to me for. Because, as you know from Kira's reports, the Bajorans as a people are in need of normalizing those relationships, just that Kira never did it because that would mean less credits for her. So, it is now even more likely that we can use that station two years from now.

"But, things might change again. It might be that something happens that will make it be even less that two years, or it might be that something happens that will make sure that your friends can never go home by using that station."

"Mistress?" Seven merely asked again.

"Well, let's take something simple. Say the station explodes in some accident. No more station means no more using it in getting home."

"I see." Seven said, not liking that thought at all.

Torres sighed. "If something like that were to happen, I would find another solution for them, my pet."

"Would you like another drink, mistress?" Seven asked before asking the question that was on her mind. "What kind of solution?"

"Sure, but get me some blood wine," Torres waited until the blonde was at the replicator before answering the second question. "Well, there is of course the obvious solution of just killing them."

Seven merely looked at her over her shoulder and raised her eyebrow.

"Okay, bad joke," Torres admitted with a small grin. "I don't know yet, my pet. Maybe get them a bigger ship so that they actually have room on the ship to live the rest of their life. Or find some uninhabited planet or moon what would then come under my direct protection. Something like that. But I have to see that when the moment comes, if the moment ever comes. Right now, the most likely thing is still that they will go home in two years."

Seven handed one of the two glasses she had replicated to the Intendant before kneeling down between the Klingon's legs instead of sitting back down on the couch. "Mistress."

"Yes?" Torres asked.

"I am curious."

"Should I get scared?" Torres asked amused.

Seven merely smiled at her before asking, "You told me that you were the first ever female Intendant. You came to power seven years ago. Now you told me that this deal between the others was six years ago, so that means that Deanna Troy and Jadzia Dax both must have become Intendant within one year after you became Intendant. In the files from Kira Nerys that we read on Bajor, her first entry was five years ago. I was wondering, if there never was a female Intendant before you, then why suddenly appoint four female Intendants in two years?"

"Um, because Worf really likes a cat fight and hoped to see some in Intendant level? Kidding, just kidding." Torres thought back for a moment to how the situations were whenever one of the female Intendants was appointed. "Different reasons really.

"As I said, I was the first female Intendant. The only reason why I was appointed was because people who thought that they could push Worf around did too much pushing. Mind you, I'm glad that I became Intendant, but I know only too well that the only reason why I'm sitting here now is simply because I was a pawn in a power struggle. The Klingon Intendant before me died in an unlucky fall, broke his neck on a hunting trip and it took too long before help arrived; he was dead beyond the point of medical return. I know, it sounds convenient, and truth be known, nobody ever found out just what happened to him, which is why Worf appointed Martok head of the Securely Department once the whole mess with who the next Klingon Intendant was going to be was over. He wanted someone he could trust in that position.

"Anyway. There was one very obvious choice for the new Intendant, and it sure wasn't me. Hell, since I was a woman, my bid to become the next Intendant was first totally ignored. I actually had to go to Worf and complain about the fact that they didn't want to add my name to the list before I was added to that list. Sometimes being related to Worf is convenient, even if that relation is around ten corners. At least I did, and do, see Worf in person from time to time, and I could speak to him uninterrupted. I knew that I wasn't going to be the next Klingon Intendant, but I was pissed about the fact that women didn't stand a chance, so at least I wanted one woman's name on that damn list.

"But as I said, people thought that they could push Worf around, that he would simply do what they said because they were influential. Apparently they didn't know Worf as well as I know him. Half the high council, a lot of influential houses, all were working him to get this one candidate into the chair. One day, I happened to be with Worf when a delegation of the high council came in and demanded of Worf that he make his choice for the new Intendant. 'You want me to make a choice right now?' Worf said to them. 'Very well, you can have your choice, the new Klingon Intendant is going to be the only person who didn't try to persuade me to choose for them, Torres come here.'

"He appointed me right then and there, and told everyone that he had enough from them trying to play him. It was time that they remembered just who held the power on Kronos. He gave them a choice, either they would fully and loyally support me, or they would be killed and the names of their houses would scratched from the Klingon archives. So, here I am, Intendant Torres, the first female Intendant ever."

"Do you not have to worry about some of the high council members plotting against you?" Seven asked, she had thought that Torres had the full support of the Klingons.

"No I don't... or better said, no I don't anymore. You have to understand that the Klingons on the High Council aren't stupid, if they were, they wouldn't survive there for long. They knew that they had pushed Worf too far. Even if they got rid of me, there was no chance in hell that Worf would ever appoint one of their cronies. So they did the only smart thing that they could do, what Klingons have done for centuries if it suits them; rewrite history.

"Suddenly they started to turn the events in such a way that they helped me to power. Which they did, they just left out the little detail about why I came to power. They, and I, of course know that this is a load of bull, but it suits us all well. So we live that bull. Like it or not, I'm 'only' the Intendant, I can't afford to ignore the High Council members like Worf can. So, I am thankful to them for their 'support' in getting me the job, since I do need their support now. And they are loyal to me since it pays to have a thankful Intendant.

"As for the others, well. Dax was the next female Intendant. I don't know if you know this, but with the Trill it is the symbiont that is the actual Intendant, not the host. Before Jadzia Dax, Curzon Dax was the Trill Intendant. In fact, Dax was actually also the first Trill Intendant ever. Dax has been around so long that he...she... it, I guess it's it, actually lived all through the Sol slavery. It had just been implanted into its first host three hundred years ago when the Sol Empire conquered the Trill home world.

"Now, I must admit that I don't really know how this works, but for some reason, even someone as high as the Intendant doesn't have any power over which host they are going to implanted into next. So Dax has been a woman several times already. Until Jadzia, this meant the symbiont couldn't be an Intendant during the time the woman was its host. During those times, since the Intendant wasn't dead, just... unavailable... Dax's second or third would rule, depending on who the male was, and Dax would live a normal life."

"I did not know that the power could go to someone that is not an Intendant," Seven said confused.

"With any of the other factions it can't," Torres agreed. "But you see, the thing is that the first Intendant of a faction makes the rules that the other Intendants of that faction have to follow. Once those rules are set, they can only be changed by the Klingon Chancellor. Now, normally, even in the beginning with the first Intendants, people who want that job don't want to share it. So with all but one faction the first Intendants created the rules in such a way that they had absolute power. But Dax is smart now, and was smart then. It knew that there would be times that it wouldn't be able to rule as Intendant. So it made the rules in such a way that someone else could rule for it, temporarily, as long as the symbiont is alive."

"Which prevents the person that is ruling for it from killing it since this would mean that a new Intendant would have to be chosen," Seven said, indicating that she understood why Dax had made this rule.

"Right," Torres agreed. "And as an extra precaution, a person who has ruled in the Trill Intendant's name can never become a real Trill Intendant themselves, even if they only ruled for a few minutes.

"And so the strange rule of Intendant Dax had gone on. But then I came onto the scene. Suddenly the precedent of a female Intendant was created. So Curzon Dax appealed to Worf to have the Trill rules changed. Worf could certainly understand why Dax wanted the rules changed to where the Trill Intendant was simply the Trill Intendant, no matter whether male of female. Since it also simplified the rules a damn lot, Worf agreed.

"Now, at that time it was still Curzon Dax, and he thought that he would still have many years to live. He had just changed the rules to have them in place the next time Dax would be joined to a woman. But then Curzon died. Actually, he died on Risa while performing a fertility ritual. The Dax symbiont was joined to another host. The host chosen was a young woman who had achieved perfect scores on all the tests; Jadzia. So there you have your second female Intendant. Jadzia could become Intendant because I had become Intendant before her, and when it was time for a new Trill host for the Trill Intendant, they picked the person with the best scores for the tests; Jadzia.

"The third female Intendant was Deanna. And once again there was the precedent of me, and by then also Jadzia, which made it possible for a woman to take her chances. Deanna had taken over from her mother as head of the Troi enterprises, now her mother would pull back to perform the role of the family matriarch, while Deanna took care of the non-family related things, which is the custom on Betazed. The Trois have been the politically most influential family for a long time. Even the Intendants didn't dare to cross them.

"You can understand that once there were female Intendants, the Trois took their chance. They made a deal with the Intendant. He would step back and promote Deanna as his successor, and his family would be taken under the protective wing of the Troi family. Had he refused to step down, then a political battle would have erupted between the Trois and him. Now, granted, this might have destroyed the Troi family, but it would also certainly have destroyed him. So either way, his time as an Intendant was numbered. He made the smart choice and took the Trois' offer. Last thing I know he and his entire family have been very well taken care off, and Deanna does push the lucrative businesses his way from time to time.

"Then we have the last one; Kira. By the time she came to power there were already three other female Intendants, so gender really wasn't an issue anymore. Her selection was a simple standard process with nothing special going on. And last we now have Ro and Jetur, and you have seen how that came about.

"Does this answer your question?"

"Yes mistress, it does. But now I have a different question for you."

"Really, what?"

"When will we start the celebrating?"

"Celebrating?" Torres repeated, slightly confused by the sudden change of subject. Then she smiled, now knowing only too well what the blonde was talking about.

"Yes. You said that once we were back in the quarters, we would celebrate the fact that I stayed."

"Ah, that celebration," Torres said with a grin. "How about as soon as I finished my drink?"

"Acceptable," Seven stated while coming a little closer. "Mistress?"

"Yes?" Torres asked again while taking a very small and deliberately slow sip from her glass.

"Would I be out of line if I asked you to drink faster?"

"Yes you would," Torres said but still suddenly finishing the drink in a few big swallows. "As a matter of fact, I think I have to punish you for such impudence. Go into the bedroom, strip, and get on your hands and knees on the bed."

"Yes, mistress," Seven said while she got up and started to move to the bedroom.

Torres watched the blonde go and shook her head slightly with a small grin. She wondered how long it would be before the blonde who was following her order so willingly now, would have Torres begging and pleading. Torres got up and started to strip herself. While she entered the bedroom and saw the blonde waiting for her, she decided that she really didn't care. With so many hours still left in the day, she was sure both of them would be the one 'on top' more than once.

Chapter 3

"Hi," B'Elanna said while she entered her quarters. After the senior staff meeting to discuss the headway that was made in stabilizing one of the mining corridors, B'Elanna had gone back to Engineering while Annika had gone to their quarters to do some reading. "So, what is that mysterious reading that you were going to do?"

Annika looked up from the PADD and tilted her head slightly. B'Elanna thought that Annika looked absolutely adorable when she did that, not that B'Elanna was going to tell this to Annika of course.

"I never said that it was mysterious," Annika disagreed. "I merely said that I was going to do some reading."

"Yeah, well, since I don't know what it is, it's a mystery to me. So, what is it?"

"Starfleet procedures," Annika relented with a smile. "I may know front from aft, and starboard from port, but I didn't know the commands you normally use. I thought it would be quite convenient to know what a red alert really means."

"Good idea," B'Elanna agreed. "Especially since you might be calling them yourself in the future."

"With the emphasis on 'might.'"

B'Elanna decided to not try and convince Annika to take the job, knowing that the woman had a point in wanting to know how the ship felt about having her as Captain. "And?"

"I'm surprised."

"Surprised about what?" B'Elanna asked while she walked to the replicator to replicate some underwear along with some slacks and a t-shirt.

"About all the stuff that has to be done at a command. I'm used to the fact that I tell someone to go do this, and that person goes and does it. But here an order is given to one person and that same order might have an effect on someone on the lower decks as well."

"Well, yeah," B'Elanna agreed while walking to the shower. "Join me?"

"I thought you would never ask," Annika said while she walked into the bathroom.

"Yeah, yeah, you can hand me the towel again when I'm done."

The behavior had quickly formed while they were in the prison, talking while taking showers, and even now that the shower was actually in a different room, the behavior continued, neither of them really seeing a good reason to stop talking only because one of them was standing in the shower.

B'Elanna let Annika pass so that she could sit on the toilet seat, before she opened the shower door so that she could strip behind it.

Annika decided to not point out that though the door might obscure her view, she could still see the reflection of B'Elanna in the mirror above the sink if she wanted to. After thinking about it for a moment, Annika decided to keep her eyes firmly on the door, and not on the mirror. "I don't mean the obvious things, like how a red alert means that people might have to leave the place they are that the moment. But the simple things. Let's say on an away mission. If Tuvok goes on that mission, then someone of the Beta shift has to come in and take his place, and their place on the Beta shift is taken by someone else. And the position of that person is then more than likely filled by someone from the lower decks."

"True," B'Elanna agreed while stepping into the shower and opening the water. "I myself have three Engineers that are tagged for replacement duty. They had to leave Engineering more than once to fulfill other tasks."

"I don't like that," Annika said thoughtfully. "Engineers aren't people you should take away from where they are needed the most in case of an emergency."

B'Elanna adjusted the temperature of the water a little before reacting. "Well, it may look like that at first, but a lot of thought went into that. I mean, think about it for a moment. When do you need Engineers the most?"

"In case of an emergency, or when the ship is under attack," Annika replied.

"Right," B'Elanna agreed. "But the Senior Staff is not about to leave on an away mission at a time like that. So, the Engineers won't be called away then. The Engineers are only called away when they can be missed. And even if the Senior Staff would have to leave in the middle of a battle, they would call people other than the Engineers to take their places."

"Hmm, well, I guess that means that the next thing I have to read is the guidelines of summoning replacement personnel."

"Sounds like a good idea," B'Elanna agreed while shutting off the water and opening the door a little. "Do you think that this different way of ordering will be a problem for you, if you decide to do it? Towel please."

Annika handed B'Elanna one of the towels that lay always ready and waiting in the small bathroom replicator. "Here. No, I don't think it will be a problem, it just means that I would have to change my way of thinking a little. But I don't think that should be a problem. Anyway, to change the subject, are you hungry? I feel like doing some elaborate cooking to help me think about whether or not I actually want to do this."

B'Elanna stepped out of the shower with the towel wrapped securely around her and grinned. "Like I would say no to that."

A few minutes later, after B'Elanna had dressed, they moved to the kitchen area.

While Annika was busy creating some wonderful smelling food that made B'Elanna's mouth water, the Klingon looked at the kitchen unit with a halfway sad look on her face.

When Annika looked up from what she was doing for a moment she saw the expression on B'Elanna's face and asked, "What?" Before looking down again to the vegetables she was cutting. "It doesn't smell that bad, does it?"

"No!" B'Elanna was quick to assure. "It smells absolutely wonderful, I can't wait to taste it. No, I just..."

"You just... What?" Annika asked when B'Elanna didn't continue.

B'Elanna sighed, and then decided to say what was on her mind, despite the fact that she had told herself before that she wouldn't bring it up. "I was just thinking, it's really sad that once you are gone, this kitchen won't be used anymore."

Annika's eyes shot up at that and the knife was put down. "What do you mean, 'once I'm gone?'"

"Well," B'Elanna slowly started. She was mentally kicking herself, she knew that she should have stayed quiet, but now that was no longer an option. "Well, it's just that... Once... if, you become captain, you will be granted the captain's quarters to live in."

"Ah," Annika said, understanding, or so she thought. "Well, yeah, you are right, it will be a shame to leave these quarters now that we just changed everything. But, I don't like they layout on the Captain's quarters anyway. So, we can just copy the layout of these quarters there. I really would like a kitchen unit."

"I would love to help you with the redecorating before you move there," B'Elanna said lamely.

Annika was starting to get the feeling that something else was going on, but couldn't quite put her finger on it. "Well, I think that you should have a say in it too. Just like we did here. After all, it's going to be your place as well."

"No it won't," B'Elanna disagreed, and immediately wished that she had kept her big mouth shut.

"What? What are you talking about?" Annika asked, all thought of preparing food forgotten.

"Well, I mean. I would stay here, of course. Annika, the captain's quarters aren't shared quarters. If I would stay there, it would give the impression that we are in a relationship. The captain can't be seen having a weak spot like that."

"Weak spot?"

"Yeah, the captain has to be above having a personal life."

"You're nuts," Annika said while pointing at B'Elanna. "You are ready for the voluntary deep minding detail,"

"What's that supposed to mean?" B'Elanna interrupted.

"It means that you are nuts," Annika repeated. "Nobody volunteers for that unless they are absolutely crazy. Why the hell shouldn't I have a personal life if I were to become captain?"

"Captain Janeway,"

"I'm NOT Janeway!" Annika interrupted forcefully. "A Captain shouldn't be above love and compassion, a Captain should be able to do things despite being loving and compassionate. I'd be damned if I would give up the woman I love just so that I would be able to become Captain. As a matter of fact..." Annika put the knife down and slapped her communicator forcefully. "...Annika Hansen to Commander Chakotay."

"Chakotay here."

"Commander, I just wanted to inform you that I decided that I won't take the position of captain on this ship."

"I... See." Chakotay said slowly. "Is there any chance of you changing you mind on this?"

"None, I'll fill you in tomorrow, Annika out."

"You can't do that!" B'Elanna said bewildered.

Annika put both her hands firmly on the counter and looked at the Klingon with narrowed eyes. "I just did."

B'Elanna slapped her own communicator in irritation. "B'Elanna to Chakotay."

"Chakotay here," The voice came back with a trace of confusion in it.

"Commander, ignore that last conversation with Annika, she will take the Job. B'Elanna out."

Annika's eyes narrowed even more and once again, she slapped her own communicator. "Annika to Chakotay."

"Yes?" Chakotay now merely asked.

"Commander, I stand by my decision to not take command of this ship. And I would furthermore request that the next time you speak to B'Elanna, you tell her that she has no right to make my decisions for me. Annika out."

B'Elanna growled and leaned a little closer over the counter, now their faces were not more than a thirty centimeters (1 ft) apart. "B'Elanna to Chakotay."

"Yes, B'Elanna?" Chakotay asked, and now both women could clearly hear the trace of amusement in his voice.

"Next time you speak to Annika, could you please let her know that she should stop acting like a child? B'Elanna out."

"I should stop acting like a child?" Annika repeated.

"Yes, start acting like a grownup and do what's right," B'Elanna said with a growl.

Annika leaned even closer at that. "Acting like a grownup, and do what's right?"

"Yeah, that what I said," B'Elanna, also leaning a little closer.

Annika nodded her head a little. "Alright, I can do that." Suddenly she grabbed B'Elanna's T-shirt and pulled her closer still, closing the distance between them. "I think what I'm about to do is very right," She said softly before capturing B'Elanna's lips with her own.

"Feels very right too," B'Elanna said breathlessly after a moment before leaning in once more to share a long and very passionate kiss.

Annika moved from behind the kitchen unit so that she could get closer to B'Elanna. They had just started kissing again when they were interrupted.

"Chakotay to Annika and B'Elanna."

B'Elanna was the one to answer. "Yes?"

"I am about to go to the mess hall. Is there something you want to talk about before I go out and others can hear you?"

"Um, no."

"Alright. But are you able to tell me Annika's stand on taking the position of Captain?" Chakotay asked, and B'Elanna could tell that he was trying very hard not to chuckle.

"She hasn't accepted, nor has she declined. I'm sorry, Chakotay. Annika and I had a disagreement, I'm sorry we pulled you into it. It won't happen again."

"Alright. Have pleasant evening then, ladies. Chakotay out."

Annika and B'Elanna looked at each other for a moment, both of them smiling.

"Talk about lousy timing," B'Elanna finally said.

"Actually, I think it is a good thing he interrupted us," Annika said while moving back behind the counter. "I think it is time we had a little talk."

"Um, sure," B'Elanna said, not really knowing if she was going to like this conversation.

Annika moved back behind the kitchen unit, picked up her knife and started cutting the vegetables some more. "I know that I'm not making this easy for you, B'Elanna. I know that I'm testing your patience by teasing you and hinting that there can be more between us, but never actually giving you anything except some peeks at my naked body. Something, we both know isn't a real hardship for me. I could walk around naked on this ship and it wouldn't bother me."

"Yes, it would," B'Elanna disagreed. "It would irritate the hell out of you that everyone stopped doing their job every time you came walking by."

The both smiled at that. "True," Annika agreed, "you are right, that part of it would bother me."

B'Elanna sighed and decided to get back to the matter at hand. "Annika, I am a Klingon, and yes, I have healthy libido, but I don't want anything that you are not fully ready to give me. I enjoy the fact that you love to tease me, I really do like that, no matter how much it makes me groan. But I also know that you are not ready for more."

"I'm glad to hear that you understand me so well," Annika said with a smile. "But I really want to see us in a relationship in the near future. I'm not about to give that up for the fact of what position either of us will have in the chain of command."

"Yeah, but if you are Captain, I will have to follow your orders. Don't you think that will cause problems at some point?"

"I really don't see the problems you apparently see," Annika said while she put the knife down once more, she decided that the conversation needed her full attention. "You have been following my command for the last month, and there never was a single problem."

"Yeah, but that will be different here on the ship," B'Elanna said lamely.

"B'Elanna, if I don't accept the position of Captain, I will more then likely be posted in Engineering, under your command. Do you object to that as well?"

"That's different," B'Elanna could only repeat. Now that Annika was asking her these obvious things, B'Elanna herself didn't even really know what the problem was.

"Why's that different? If I have to follow your command in our professional life it's not a problem, but if you have to follow my command it suddenly is a problem?"

"No... Yes.... Well, no, but..."

"You know what I think the real problem is?" Annika asked, believing that she finally had figured it out. "I think the command thing isn't really the issue. I think that it's the name thing. It's the 'Captain.' You are so used to the fact that the Captain is this elevated command figure that is beyond reach, beyond even being able to have a simple conversation with that person without having to watch your word, that you just can't see yourself in a relationship with a Captain."

"Maybe you are right," B'Elanna agreed, wondering when she had lost the lead in the conversation. "Just thinking that I could be the Captain's girlfriend freaks me out."

"B'Elanna, forget about the Captain issue for a moment and answer me this honestly. I need this answer anyway, no matter what I do in the future. Can you see us together?"

"Yes." B'Elanna said immediately.

"Together as more than just friends, as lovers?"

"Yeah. I would really like that. But I know that you aren't ready for that yet," B'Elanna repeated. She really did want Annika to see that she understood this.

"Yet you are willing to give that up before it even happened?"

"If it is for the good of the ship, then yes. Annika, you have to understand, in the years that we are underway now, we have become Voyager. Voyager is no longer just a ship, it is an entity. Every single one of us would give their life to save the rest."

"But how would us two being in a relationship harm the ship?" Annika asked. She just couldn't see that. And she knew that B'Elanna also didn't see that, not really.

"It would undermine your position of Captain," B'Elanna said weakly.

"That's crap, and you know it," Annika shot back immediately before sighing. "Knowing that you and I live in the same set of quarters doesn't undermine my authority. Acting in a way not fit for a Captain would. Hell, if people know that we are in a relationship, and yet I can treat you like everyone else while we are on duty, it will actually enhance my position as a fair Captain. What would undermine my position would be if I would treat you differently from the rest, or if I would contact you from the bridge and ask you, 'honey, do you think you could get a little more power out of those engines for your baby,' that would undermine my authority."

B'Elanna had to laugh when she heard Annika talk about contacting her. She could just imagine standing in Engineering and hearing THAT question come over the communicator.

"Look, B'Elanna. I don't desperately want to become captain of this ship, I'm not indifferent to it, but it also isn't that I'm hoping with all my being that the outcome of the voting will be yes. You all are asking me to do that, and if enough people ask, I think I will do it, but on my terms. In the place where you come from your captains might be trained to want command no matter what the sacrifices, but I don't work that way. I'm not about to give you up, give us up, to take command, a command that you all are asking me to take.

"If you want me to be your captain, than you have to take me the way I am. And I am very interested in a woman with whom I want to be in a relationship. Let's be honest, with who I AM in a relationship. The fact that we don't make love doesn't change the fact that for all intents and purposes we are already girlfriends."

"Yeah, but once we do make love,"

"This would change how?" Annika interrupted. "At this point you can take my orders on duty, and yet not be my subordinate when we are alone. Why do you think that would change once we do become lovers? I really don't understand that, B'Elanna. Why is it okay if we are in these quarters and play chess for five hours, but it wouldn't be okay if we used some of that time differently. The others don't know what we do in here. All they know is that we are in the same set of rooms. Explain to me, how me knowing what you sound like in ecstasy prevents me from being you Captain."

After a moment of silence, the only answer B'Elanna could give was; "Damn you."

"Well, damn you too," Annika replied with a smile. "At least we are damned together."

"Why do you have to make this so complicated?" B'Elanna asked with a growl.

"I'm not," Annika disagreed. "You are the one making this complicated. All I'm doing is refuting every statement you make, showing you that it is just a lot of crap and not the real issue. First it was that a captain should not have a private life. Then it was that being seen as the captain's girlfriend freaked you out. Yet I was easily able to steer you away from that without truly talking about it, and you never came back to it. So that can't be that much of a problem either. Tell me, B'Elanna. What is the real problem?"

B'Elanna pushed away from the counter and stalked over to the dinner table that stood two meter away from the counter. She dropped down in the chair that she normally sat in during dinner and sighed. "The fact that I would be the captain's girlfriend really does freak me out. You could steer me away from that issue because all that you say makes so much damn sense."

"Then what is it? B'Elanna, talk to me, tell me what the real problem is. I want to work this out. I don't want to worry about if I may lose you, I don't want to lose the best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life."

"You say that you don't want to lose me, but it might be that you have to choose the ship over me."

"I know that. While I don't want to lose you, I would, if it is needed, also not hesitate to give you an order that could mean your death." After a second of silence, Annika added the question she knew had to be on B'Elanna's mind. "How I would be able to do that you wonder?"

B'Elanna nodded her head to indicate that Annika had guessed right.

"It's surprisingly simple. Because I know, if I would not do it, I would still lose you. You could never stay with me if I had chosen you over the life of your friends, over the rest of the crew. Is that what you are worries about? B'Elanna, I can't promise you that I won't put your wellbeing over my own in our private life. But I can promise you that this will ONLY be in the private life. While on duty, I will be your captain, I will ask the same sacrifices from you that I will ask from any other person on this ship."

B'Elanna gave Annika a smile. "It was a very big part of it."

"If it is a big part of it, than what is the rest?" Annika pressed on.

"It's stupid," B'Elanna merely sighed.

"B'Elanna, don't have secrets from me. Talk to me."

B'Elanna gave a small chuckle at hearing that. "Funny, you just brought up the very point."

"Secrets?" Annika asked.

"Dishonesty," B'Elanna corrected. "I want honesty from my partner. That is one of the reasons why things didn't work out between Tom and me. He lied to me. Oh, not about big things, but he never understood that the small things he lied about did more damage to our relationship that one big lie could ever have. If I asked his opinion on something, he more than once gave the answer he thought I wanted to hear, not the answer he really would have liked to give. And if I asked him what was bothering him, I got back a 'nothing, I'm fine.' While this might work in a relationship with another full human, it doesn't work with me."

Annika also walked over to the table and sat down in her own chair, "Sometimes people have to work out their problems for themselves, and not even you as the partner can help them."

B'Elanna waved her hand as if brushing something away. "I don't mind that. But then simply tell me that it is something you have to work out for yourself, don't lie to me and say 'I'm fine.'"

"Alright, I won't," Annika said with a smile, even though she knew that B'Elanna had talked about general behavior, and not about Annika specifically.

B'Elanna returned the smile with one of her own. "But you see, Annika, as Captain, you will have to lie to me, you will have secrets from me. There will be things that you as Captain can't tell anyone, not even your partner."

"I would tell you," Annika disagreed softly. "I won't have secrets from you, I won't have secrets from my partner. I don't care one bit about what those regulations say I can't tell you, I would still do it. But, you will have to be up to the task. I will tell you things the others aren't allowed to know, but I will also trust you to not tell anybody else. If I tell you, 'this stays between us,' then I have to be able to trust that it will indeed stay between us. Are you up to that?"

B'Elanna thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, I think I'm up to it."

"Think, is not good enough, B'Elanna."

"You are right," B'Elanna agreed. "Yeah, I KNOW I am up to that."

Annika reached over the table and took hold of one of B'Elanna's hands. "But B'Elanna, there is one exception. If a person tells me something private about themselves, I will uphold that privacy. I do this now already. This has nothing to be with being captain, but with the person I am. I want people to feel comfortable to tell me things that are bothering them, that are influencing them and their work. If someone will tell me a personal problem, it will stay personal, and I won't even tell you."

B'Elanna reached over the table with her second hand, right away getting Annika's second hand to hold. "Alright, that's fair enough."

Annika looked B'Elanna in the eyes for a moment before asking, "So, if I do take the job, would you mind being in a relationship with the captain of the ship?"

B'Elanna held the gaze for a long moment while setting her mind. Finally she said with full sincerity, "It would be my honor to be the captain's partner."

"This won't be a silent thing, B'Elanna. Every person on this ship will know. Do you mind that?"

"Do you?" B'Elanna asked, not really answering the question.

Annika laughed at the question. "Would I mind? B'Elanna, I was just ready to turn down being Captain, just so that I could be with you. Do you really think that I would hide our relationship? I'm proud that you want to be my partner, and I would be honored to call you my partner in front of others."

B'Elanna smiled and after a moment she let go of one of Annika's hands so that she could activate her communicator. "B'Elanna to Chakotay."

"Chakotay here."

"Chakotay, are you in the mess hall by now?"

"Yes, and there are about twenty people here. You want me to go somewhere private?"

B'Elanna brought Annika's second hand to her lips and placed a kiss on the knuckles before speaking to Chakotay again. "No, no need. I just wanted to ask you to let people know, before they hand in their choice tomorrow on Annika becoming captain, that the captain will continue to share her quarters with the Chief Engineer, and that we are involved in a romantic relationship. The people that have a problem with that should vote 'no' to Annika becoming captain, because we aren't going to give that up."

Now Chakotay actually did chuckle before answering. "I will send out a ship wide note. But I have a feeling that I will only be spreading news that people already know. For some strange reason nobody but me is still talking here. Seems that they suddenly really like the food. Chakotay out."

Annika let go of B'Elanna's hand and leaned back with a smile. "Guess you truly are over having trouble with being my partner. Good."

"I am," B'Elanna agreed. "That's another thing you better learn really fast about me; I'm not into doing things halfway."

"And that also go for our relationship?" Annika asked.

"More than anything else," B'Elanna answered softly. "Also one of the reasons why I was willing to end this now if it was needed. I don't do relationships in a 'kinda' way. If I did, I would still be with Tom."

"I'm glad to hear that. I really want to make this work. Be patient with me, B'Elanna. I promise you, once I am ready to go all the way, I'll make it all worthwhile for you."

"Annika, stop worrying about where you are giving me enough to keep me interested in you. I enjoy every minute I spend with you, I feel more at ease with you that I ever did with my lovers. Even if what we have now would be all I could hope for, I would gladly settle for it."

"As long as it wouldn't be at the expense of the ship, right?" Annika more added than asked.

"Right." B'Elanna agreed.

"Well, as I said, give me time and you won't have to settle."

"You got all the time you need, and talking about settling," B'Elanna said, knowing it was time to change the subject. "Now that we settled the fact that you will move, and I will move with you, if you take the job... are we going to get some food today yet?"

Annika stood up, but instead of walking back to the kitchen unit, she walked around the table to B'Elanna. Annika sat down on B'Elanna's lap, which was a little bit of a squeeze since the table was a little in the way. But that was okay, Annika liked how it made her body mold to that of B'Elanna. "B'Elanna, I'm not ready yet to make love to you," Annika repeated.

"I know," B'Elanna agreed while she put her hands around Annika. It was an automatic reaction which she had no control over. Not that B'Elanna really tried to control it. The woman had sat down on her lap, chances were that she actually wanted to feel B'Elanna's arms around her.

"But," Annika continued. "When we were standing at that counter I noticed something."

"What?" B'Elanna asked hoping really hard that Annika was going to say what B'Elanna wanted to hear.

"I noticed that I really, really like kissing you. I would love to be able to kiss you."

"I would like that as well," B'Elanna said breathlessly. "I would really like to simply kiss you when ever I feel like it."

"You feel like it a lot?" Annika asked, bringing her lips within a fraction from B'Elanna's.

"Almost all the time when we are alone," B'Elanna admitted. "When I see you making something to eat for us, and I really have to hold myself back from leaning over and kissing you to thank you for it. Or when we are discussing a problem with Voyager, I would really love to kiss you and say 'you are right', instead of only nodding my head in agreement."

"B'Elanna?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

And so, B'Elanna did.

***

"Torres, it is good to see you again," Deanna said while she stepped off the transporter.

"It is good to see you too," Torres said while returning the hug that Deanna was now giving her.

Jadzia also stepped down and gave Torres a hug. "It has been too long."

Seven looked at how the two women hugged Torres and a certain feeling of irritation started to grow. While she had seen people touch the Intendant before, it was not that common. Generally Martok was the only one to be close enough to Torres to touch her on a regular basis. To then suddenly see these women touch Torres in a way Seven normally only did, it ticked Seven off, despite the fact that she knew that she had nothing to fear from these women.

"She is very possessive of you, isn't she?" Deanna suddenly asked Torres while looking at Seven. "She doesn't like the fact that we are touching you, and I don't need my empathic abilities to see that."

"Hmm," Torres agreed, "we have to work a little more on that. But having said that, she has every right to be possessive of me, I want her to be possessive of me." Torres knew that she would never be able to hide from Deanna, and therefore by extension Jadzia, how she felt about Seven. Best to just acknowledge it and get it over with. Which was also why nobody else was in the transporter room. "As Intendant you don't make someone into your body slave if that person is just another slave for you."

"True," Jadzia agreed. "As far as I know, Curzon Dax was the last Intendant to have a body slave. He ended up having to kill her."

"Why?" Torres asked, while she moved out of the room and into the corridor.

"She deceived him. She thought that getting freedom was only a matter of having enough credits, even if she was a slave. She used Curzon's name to make some deals, she just didn't figure on him finding out long before she could actually make a profit from those deals. Pity really, I wouldn't have minded keeping her around. She was trained on Risa for five years before he bought her."

"Deals or not," Torres said. "She can't have been too smart, it is commonly known there is no way that she could have actually taken possession of those credits. She had no name, and therefore no account."

Jadzia laughed, "I never said that she was smart; I said that she was good. No, I think that actually was her biggest problem. Oh, she wasn't stupid, after all, if she had been stupid, I would never have made her my body slave, but certainly not smart enough to actually be able to pull off her plans. She just thought she was."

They were quiet for a few minutes until they walked into Torres' quarters.

Seven was glad to see that no matter how close the women were to Torres, even they weren't brought into the private part of the quarters. Seven suspected that these women didn't even know that there was a second, more private part to the quarters. By now, Seven knew the official part just as well as the private part, and she also knew that the official part existed out of a full set of quarters, including a bedroom.

While they were on their way to meet the two Intendants, Torres had told Seven that the two women had never slept in the bed that Seven was now sharing with Torres. They had sex in the bed of the official quarters. Seven was glad for this, and had said as much to Torres. Glad for the fact that she truly was the first women ever that shared the bed that Torres actually slept in.

"My pet, get us something to drink please," Torres said before asking the two women, "Still the same?"

Both women nodded their head and Seven went to the replicator, having been told by Torres what the two women used to drink the last time Torres saw them.

"Well. That is something I don't have to worry about," Torres continued the conversation from a moment before. "See, my pet is actually smart enough to be able to pull that of. That is why I said the 'commonly known.'"

"Impossible," Jadzia said right away.

"Mmhmm," Torres hummed in agreement. "That is what I thought too, until my pet showed me otherwise yesterday. We had a conversation about slaves and how we made sure that they couldn't really do things without us masters knowing about it. And she, being her stubborn self, disagreed. So, I had her prove to me that slaves can indeed set up an account."

Now it was Deanna who asked the question. "They can?"

Seven offered the two women their drink and, when she came back from getting Torres' and her own drink, she was about to kneel beside Torres when she was stopped with a single word.

"Couch."

Seven understood and sat down on the couch beside Torres.

"Yes, they can, if they are smart enough. My pet here set up a fully functional account in less than one hour." Well, thirty minutes was less than one hour, wasn't it?

"How the hell is that possible?" Jadzia asked.

"Explain it, my pet," Torres said, wanting to get as fast as possible through the problem of all of them talking through Torres, instead of straight to each other.

"Yes, mistress. The mistake that most people make is to set up an account and then try to hide it from the automated scans of the financial system. Not understanding that if it truly was so simple than the scan system would never have been installed. The system is designed for exactly this thing."

"Then how get around it?" Deanna asked, having a good feeling that she knew why Torres had told the slave to speak up.

"By not hiding the account. Make it seem as if it is just one of many, make some transitions that are actually bound to draw the attention of the scanning program."

"Hiding in the open," Jadzia said thoughtfully. "If someone checks the scanning program's log, they will think that the account is a legit one, since if it was an illegitimate account, surely those transactions would have been hidden better. That could work, but the scan would still make it clear that the account only 'jumped' into existence a few days before, at most."

"True," Seven agreed. "Therefore, most work does not go into setting up the account, but into creating a history. For the account I set up, I created a history that could be tracked back to the creation date of the Coalition."

"Including all the right backdating of course," Torres added. "And she didn't just 'create' the account, she made is seem as if it had been in use for all the time of its existence. Adding and removing credits, making sure that it the amount of credits change, making it seem as if the amount of credits on the account is the result of a family being good in handling their credits and finally being able to build up an saving of six million credits."

"So, what stops her from getting out of here as fast as she can?" Jadzia asked.

"Jadzia," Deanna interrupted, "Torres doesn't have to worry about that. Torres is very lucky, she found a slave that has actually fallen in love with her."

"However," Seven said, knowing that her feelings would be enough for Deanna, who could sense what she felt for the Intendant, but not enough for Jadzia, who would wonder about the ulterior motives. "Even if I did not love my mistress, it would still be in my best interest to be at her side."

"Why?" Jadzia asked. She knew why it would be better for the slave to be with Torres, but she wanted to know if the blonde knew it, her own... or better said, Curzon's body slave, hadn't understood just how good her life had been with the Trill.

"If I were to leave her, I would be nothing more than a slave on the run, even if I could use the credits in the account I created, I would still have to hide, still have to worry every minute that I could be captured and my freedom taken away from me. But if I stay at my mistress' side, I have a warm bed to sleep in, good food every day, and more power and freedom than most free people in the Coalition."

"Interesting," Jadzia said thoughtfully. "Most people, and certainly almost every slave, would never understand just how much freedom you truly have."

"True," Deanna agreed. "Most see as the most important thing that they are free and can pick up and move out when ever they want. But in reality, how many people truly do that? Even if they aren't in long contracts that they have to serve out. They still stick with the same lousy job they have, keep living on the same planet, in the same lousy apartment. But, hey, they are 'free.'"

"Indeed," Seven could only agree. Even in her own universe people had normally only moved to different places in the Federation if they or their family were posted somewhere else by Starfleet.

"Not to be one to look at things pessimistically," Jadzia said thoughtfully, "but aren't you afraid that this will open you to being influenced?"

"By Seven?" Torres asked. "Sure she will influence me, but even a slave that I hated could influence me, if she knew how to play me. Just make it seem that she wanted me to do one thing, because she would know I would do the opposite to spite her. At least with Seven I will know that I'm doing something she wants me to do."

Jadzia shook her head slightly. "No, I mean by someone using her to influence you. One of the reasons why most people don't try to influence us Intendants by force is since there is nothing higher than us, nobody that can give in to their demands to save us. But what if... Well, say that I was to put a disrupter to her head and tell you to lower the tax on Trill products, or else I would kill her?"

Torres grinned, knowing that Jadzia was truly only asking out of curiosity and not because the Trill would truly ever be so stupid to actually try that. "Well, if you were to put a disrupter against her head... she would kick your ass. She is a lot more than 'just' a human slave. How much more, we are keeping silent so that people will underestimate her. They would think that a group of four would be more than enough to overpower the helpless slave, the mere human. Not knowing that even if they had come with a group of ten people, my pet could sweep the floor with them.

"That is what would happen if someone was to only try something. But let's assume that you succeeded in taking my pet away from me, and then did kill her. Well, if you were to do something as stupid as that... I would eradicate every fucking Trill in existence. And you would be the last to die, knowing that your action would have resulted in every Trill that lived being killed."

Jadzia looked at Torres with wide eyes, she saw that Torres' grin had changed from being amused to something even the Trill Intendant took as a warning. Knowing that she didn't have much to fear since it was clear to both of them that she was only doing a 'what if,' she merely said; "You're bluffing."

"No she isn't," Deanna spoke up. "She is being fully sincere."

It was quiet for a moment when all of them, even Torres herself, contemplated just how far she would go if someone were to take Seven away from her. It was one thing to think you would do something, but to actually hear Deanna tell her that she would truly do what she thought she would do, made even Torres understand just how deep her feelings for the blonde were.

"But," Torres finally said into the silence that was slowly becoming uncomfortable. "I would kill all the Trill because you as their Intendant had done this. I wouldn't kill all Trill if some unknown person from some unknown colony had killed my pet. If that were to happen, I would do the same on a scaled down level. If it was some person with no power, with nothing but a grudge, I would eradicate the city they came from. If some colony administrator were to do it, I would eradicate the entire colony, and every friend, family, or acquaintance that didn't live in the colony."

All of them were quiet once more after that, until Deanna finally asked, "You know something, Torres? You truly know how to bring the mood down."

Torres laughed at that. "That's what you get for talking about taking away something that's mine. Alright, let's change the subject. You both interested in lunch?"

"Sure," Jadzia said right away and before Torres could add, "We'll be sitting at a table with four chairs."

Deanna and Jadzia looked at each other for a moment, both knowing that they still could decline the dinner if they wanted to, knowing that Torres would not hold it against them. Finally it was Deanna who answered for the both of them. "That's fine with us, as long as you don't have us eating that Klingon stuff again that you put in front of us last time."

"Gagh you mean?" Torres asked. "Why? What was wrong with it? I thought it tasted great, I noticed that you both only ate the other stuff, never touching the Gagh."

"I didn't eat it in sympathy of Jadzia," Deanna explained.

"I'm not following," Torres was forced to admit.

Jadzia put her hand on her belly before speaking up, indicating the symbiont living there. "Torres, considering who I am, eating living worms seems a little too much like cannibalism to me."

Torres thought about that got a second before bursting out laughing. "I never thought of that. Alright, no Gagh, you can make the selection this time."

Chapter 4

He didn't have eye for the beautiful nature around him. All he knew was that he had to hurry. He knew that they were closing in on him. He knew that he had only once chance to get safe. Once he was safe he was sure that he could send out the messages to clear it all up, once he was safe they would listen. Surely they would.

He stumbled over a tree root and while trying to regain his balance, stepped with his second foot deeply into the wet mud.

"Damn," He cursed while trying to pull his foot free. But a few simple tugs didn't do it. He was stuck deep in the mud. Finally when putting all his strength behind it, he managed to pull free. But unfortunately he had pulled so hard that he lost his footing on the tree root again and fell face forward into the mud. "Damn it all!"

Then he saw something through the threes that he hadn't been able to see while standing. Now, lying down he could just see a roof through a hole in the trees. He knew that this was what he had been looking for. It was sooo close. Much closer than he had dared to hope. Only five more minutes and he would be safely inside a Trill sanctuary. Being that there were several Trill at the top, Trill sanctuaries were the only safe place that was recognized by 'them.'

With renewed hope he tried to get up. Just five more minutes. But just as he had crawled onto his hands and knees, he felt a boot on his back pushing him firmly back into the mud.

"Did you really think you could get away from us, from me?"

"Bejal Mingan," The Ferengi sputtered through the mud that was seeping into his mouth.

"I'm so honored that you remember me, Vash," The man holding him down said mockingly. "Here I thought that you had developed an extreme case of forgetfulness. After all, you also forgot to pay me back. I thought you Ferengies were smarter than that. You don't loan credits from us and than don't pay it back. Your first installment was due last week, but I didn't see any credits."

"Bejal, you get your credits back, including the interest. I'll... I'll even pay you twenty-five percent instead of the twenty you asked."

"Will the miracles never end? A Ferengi who offers more credits than asked of him? I have no interest in your empty words, Vash. If you couldn't pay me my twenty percent, you certainly won't be able to pay me my twenty-five percent. I really hate it when I don't get my credits, and yours was the biggest loan I ever wrote out. Maybe that was my mistake, trusting your name like that, one doesn't trust a Ferengi. What have you done with it, Vash? You told me that you were going to buy into that star base. I liked the idea of having a star base under syndicate control. I was actually looking forward to buying into more bases. But imagine my surprise when I found out that a Bajoran had bought into the star base instead of you."

Bejal had allowed Vash to crawl back onto his hands and knees, but now Bejal once more pushed him back into the mud. "Where, are, my, credits, Vash?" Bejal asked, pushing the Ferengi's face into the mud with every word.

"I... I did invest it Bejal. I invested it into something that will bring a lot more profit on a much shorter base."

"Go on," The Trill merely said.

"Remember how I told you that being part owner of that base would bring three million credits every year? Bejal, I saw a deal that will make me half a billion credits in five years."

"What did you do?"

"I invested the credits into buying a moon. I..."

"A moon?!" Bejal shouted. "You loaned that amount of credits from me to buy a damn moon? You damn Ferengies with your love for damn moons to retire on. You are going to die Vash, and it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt for a long, long time. It will be hours before I'm through with you."

"NO. No, Bejal, you don't understand. This isn't about the moon, but about what's on it. There lives a species on the moon. It is so close to the humans in appearance and makeup that you need a DNA scan to see the difference."

"So? There are several races that look just like humans, just like there are several races that look just like the Vulcans, the Romulans come to mind here. That is why there is an automated DNA on every damn entrance to every damn ship or damn star base, and every time you beam somewhere your DNA is scanned as well. Everyone knows this."

"True," Vash was forced to agree. "But not every place has scanners. There are places that don't care where the slaves come from, as you know, since you normally deliver slaves to those. Normally people from those other look-alike races can't be used because their government would complain to their people being sold into slavery. But Bejal, that is the beauty of this moon. There is no government. This moon has been a private position for as long as the coalition exists, been in the same family for all that time. The people on it never thought about getting official status since their 'government' was the family that owned the moon.

"But now I own the moon. There is no government that can complain as I sell them off into slavery. It is perfect Bejal. So that I don't flood the marked and people wonder where all my slaves come from, I will sell them over a five year time frame. At the end I will have made half a billion, and I can sell the moon again for the same price that I bought it for."

"Hmm, that does sound interesting," Bejal agreed. "You just made one small mistake. You see, since you didn't pay me on time, that moon is now mine, and I'll be making that half billion."

"What? Surely you don't think that I'll just sign over a PADD worth half a billion to you? Come on Bejal, surely we can reach a deal here."

"So the contract for the moon is still only on a PADD? Perfect. Hand me that PADD and I will think about actually letting you live."

"How stupid do you think I am? If I give you that PADD, I have nothing left to deal with and you will kill me."

Before Vash could even try to react, Bejal had pushed him into the mud once more and grabbed one of his arms, pulling it back until Vash screamed from the pain. "You seem to forget, my dear Vash, that I know that a PADD is always signed with a thumb print. That means that I can cut off eight of your fingers before I might cut off the one you used to sign the PADD." Bejal flipped a knife suddenly from apparently nowhere and cut Vash's pinky until he reached the bone. "Now, my good friend Vash, this one I'm going to cut off simply because I can, and because I like doing it. Then I'm going to ask you where the pad is. After that I'll continue to cut until you sign the PADD over to me.

"And once I have done that I will decide just how I'm going to kill you. Am I'm going to do it slow and painful, or am I'm going to do it very slow and very painful. I haven't decided about that part yet. Why am I going to kill you regardless you wonder? Well because you didn't pay on time. Nobody doesn't pay on time and continues to live. All you had to do was come to me and tell me about your changed plan. Sure I would have asked more. I would have probably taken half. But you see, you would have still had the other half, you would have continued to live. But now, now you are going to die. Slow, painful."

For a long time the painful screams of a dying Ferengi continued to fill the beautiful nature.

***

"So what's so special about this planet?" Chakotay asked, more in an effort to make small talk than truly hear a lengthy explanation. He had been at the senior staff meeting after all, he had heard Annika explain the very thing he was now asking her.

"Well, since it's a class J gas giant we really can't go hide in some mine corridor," Annika said with a smile. She was glad to actually be able to talk a little. It was her first day as Acting Captain of Voyager, and she had quickly found out that it was surprisingly boring, doing nothing more than sitting and looking at the view-screen for hours. "It's more a good place to run to than actually hide. The outer one third of the planet is quite safe to travel through, except for storms that will tear any ship to shreds that has shielding that is less strong than Voyager's. It's the inner two thirds you have to watch out for. The closer to the center you get, the higher the radiation ratings get."

"But we can survive there?" Chakotay asked.

"Yeah. Those Borg enhanced Federation shields are some of the best inside Coalition space. Oh, there are stronger shields out there, but the shields of this ship do so much more than just stop weapon fire. If we ever have some ships on our tail that we can't shake, we can fly into the atmosphere of the gas giant and have them follow us. While we can safely navigate there, their sensors will be blinded by the radiation affecting their instruments. Quite some years ago, even before I became a master slave, I had to work on a ship that had flown into the atmosphere while following a smugglers ship. The smugglers were destroyed by the planet's atmosphere, and the Klingon Battle cruiser only barely survived."

"But instead of assuming that we will be fine, you want to check it?"

"Right," Annika agreed. "Better now while we have the time to send in a probe, than when we have several ships on our tail." Annika sighed and after a moment asked, "What the hell do you people normally do during a shift? As master slave I was busy all the time, working, doing things I didn't trust others with. But here I'm just looking at a screen showing the stars."

Chakotay chuckled at the slightly frustrated tone in Annika's voice. "Well, normally the captain took an hour in the seat in the mornings, talking to me about the small things from the last day that weren't really important enough to make it into an official report. After that she normally went into her ready room to spend the rest of the day there doing 'Captain work.'"

"Captain work?" Annika asked.

"Read reports, go over personal files, tedious and time consuming stuff."

"She couldn't do that here?"

"Sure, but why would a captain do that when there is a perfectly good ready room waiting just a small walk away? Besides, that is what the ready room is designed for."

"To separate the captain from the rest of the crew?" Annika asked.

Chakotay leaned a little closer and whispered amused. "No, to get the Captain off the bridge for most of the day, and therefore out of the bridge crew's hair."

Annika gave him a smile. "Was that a hint for me to go to the ready room and be bored by myself?"

"No, I was just letting you know that nobody would hold it against you if you did."

"Maybe tomorrow, but I got to tell you, I'm not planning on hiding away in there. A PADD can be read out here just as well."

"Aye Captain," Chakotay merely said. Privately he agreed though. A captain did have the ready room to retreat to, but that didn't mean that she basically had to live there.

"We are coming within range of the planet," Tom spoke up after a moment of silence. "Dropping out of warp now."

"Alright. Tom, take us as close as you can to the planet without actually entering its atmosphere," Annika said before turning to Chakotay. "As we agreed, this ship is going to be run like a Federation ship. If I read regulations right, you would also do scientific test in a situation like now?"

"Yes," Chakotay agreed. "When we go into that gas giant, we will be using the sensors anyway, it would be waste to not use that chance to do some research."

"Alright. Now, from what I read in the reports, Voyager didn't start out with a chief science officer since the mission that brought the ship into the Delta Quadrant was really only supposed to be a short mission to find Tuvok."

"Right," Chakotay agreed, having a feeling that he knew where Annika was going. "But once we got stuck in the Delta Quadrant, I kinda took that under my wing. That is until we took Seven on board. Ever since that day she fulfilled the job of chief science officer, even though she never got an official Starfleet rank, or that it was even discussed that she now headed up our science department. It was more like 'report to Seven,' and Seven simply dealing with the task expected of her."

Annika nodded her head in understanding. "Seven is no longer here, and I don't want to dump that work back onto you. I think that the best thing to do would be to make the position official and promote someone to it. Do you have a good suggestion?"

"Well, that depends," Chakotay said thoughtfully. "Do you want the chief science officer to truly only be a scientist, or do you want this officer to work close to Engineering like Seven did? For only science I would suggest Wildman. She is a very good scientist. There are one or two better, but they lack the organizational skills a chief needs. If you want them to work close with Engineering, than I would suggest Ayala. He actually has an engineering degree. He did it for some time before deciding that he likes science better. He still helps out in engineering whenever we need someone there."

"Chakotay, even though I am captain now, I must admit that I don't know which approach would work better, so you will have to decide that."

"Captain, we are in position," Tom spoke into the silence that had fallen while Chakotay thought about the issue for a moment.

"Thank you, Tom. Hold position for now."

"Yes Captain."

"Well," Chakotay finally said. "I like how close Engineering and the science department work now. With Seven gone, this is going to water down again if we don't do anything against it. Ayala is Lieutenant junior grade now, while Wildman is an Ensign. I would suggest promoting Ayala to Lieutenant and making him chief science officer, and promoting Wildman to Lieutenant junior grade and making her second in command of the science department."

"Alright. I'll go to the ready room now. Tell Ayala and Wildman to report to me. I want my chief science officer and his second in command promoted and in position before we do some exploring. When they get here, you will join me in my ready room?"

"Certainly," Chakotay merely said. A small side affect of the Acting Captain position. If someone was promoted to where they would become part of the senior staff, like Ayala as chief science officer, the first officer had to be present and also authorize the promotion. Everyone who wouldn't be serving on the senior staff could be promoted by Annika herself.

**

An hour later, with the new, and first ever official, science officer of Voyager on the bridge proudly wearing his new pip, Voyager slowly started it's descent into the planet's atmosphere.

"Alright, Tom, hold it here. This is as far as I know for sure it is safe. Commander, you may take over now." One of the agreements Annika had made with Chakotay and Tuvok. Even though Annika was now captain, she lacked the years of experience commanding a ship. She was used to giving commands to individuals or small groups. So, in effort to let Annika learn 'on the job' she would hand command to Chakotay or Tuvok from time to time and learn from how they did the job.

"Aye Captain. Tuvok launch the probe. Ayala, while the probe is descending we will also use Voyager's sensors to find out what we can from here. Is your department ready to catalogue the information?"

"Yes Commander."

"Commander," Tuvok spoke up. "The planet's radiation is interfering with our sensors, limiting their range. While we can continue with these tests, we are 'blind' to anything that happens outside this solar system, and I would surmise that the sensor range will deteriorate more the further we go into the planet's atmosphere."

Annika and Chakotay looked at each other for a second before Annika lifted her eyebrows slightly, indicating that this was still his show.

"Continue as planned. We scanned before we came in here, the chances of suddenly someone coming here are extremely remote. They would have to specifically come to this planet for some reason for that to happen."

"Yes commander."

**

"Definitely a useful place," Chakotay said two hours later while Tom was slowly taking them out of the gas giant. The had managed to go half way to the center without any risk of damage, and the probes had indicated that if needed they could go further still, but the risk had been deemed unnecessary to take for nothing more than a test to see if it could be done.

Once they had left the planet's atmosphere entirely Tuvok spoke up to give them some unwelcome news. "Commander, sensors are picking up a Cardassian ship."

"Cardassian?" Chakotay asked before turning to Annika. "Aren't we still in Klingon space?"

"We are," Annika agreed. "What class of ship?"

"Keldon class."

"Isn't that one of their battle cruisers?" Tom asked.

"It is," Annika agreed, "but Cardassians really have to have it from their numbers in bigger space battles. Keldon class is the biggest thing they have, yet even four of them would lose a fight with the Klingon Negh'var class. Having said that, the Keldon class is powerful enough that we would lose much of the advantage this planet can give us, especially if they decide to not follow us in but wait us out."

Annika got up and looked at the view screen for a moment, seeing the Cardassian ship changing course and coming straight for them. "Commander, I don't like that we have a Cardassian ship right here in the middle of Klingon space. I have a feeling that this will come down to a battle. I did read the files of the senior crew, do you agree with me that Tuvok would be better suited to deal with such a situation?"

"Absolutely," Chakotay agreed, knowing the Vulcan's tour of duty in Starfleet.

"Alright," Annika said while she got up and walked over to Tuvok's station. "Commander Tuvok, you have command of the ship for now. But, I want our cloaking abilities to be only used as a last resort."

"Very well, Captain. Helm, set a course that will take us way from this planet and from the Cardassian ship."

"Course laid in, Commander."

"Engage, warp four."

"Engaged," Tom said while pushing Voyager into warp.

"They are following us at warp six," Tuvok said after a moment. "They will reach us in five minutes at these speeds."

"Given where we are I don't think that it would be a good idea to have a lengthy pursuit," Annika said. Both of them knowing that at the moment she wasn't speaking as the captain, but merely advising Tuvok. "If we were to come across any Klingon ships it is certain that they would join the Cardassians in hunting us down before asking the Cardassians what they are actually doing in Klingon space. I think the best thing to do is try to deal with them here. If we don't succeed then running is still a last option, just as the cloak still is."

"I agree," Tuvok said after thinking for only a second. "Helm, change course once more, back closer to the planet. "Miss Hansen," Tuvok said, deliberately not addressing Annika as captain to prevent confusing any of the bridge crew about who was in command at the moment. "I do know the weak spots of the Keldon class ships from our dimension, but there is a chance that the ships are build different here."

"Right," Annika agreed, knowing what Tuvok was going to ask. She bent over the screen of Tuvok's console and pointed out two places to him. "My best advice would be to concentrate phaser fire on this point first, and then consider this a secondary target. If you see an explosion with the first target, just keep firing never the less. The real target lies deeper in the ship, but we have to get through the primary and secondary hull first."

"I am familiar with the second target, but I did not know about the first one."

"The first once is the matter/antimatter stabilizer. That is why you have to keep firing after the first explosion, it lies deeper in the ship than that. With that gone, they can forget about using their warp engines. And besides them being limited to thruster speed only, it also means that they are reduced to emergency power only. There is no way that they can keep their shields up for long using emergency power only."

"Would a photon torpedo not be better? With the right warhead it should penetrate both hulls at once."

"No," Annika disagreed. "If both hulls are destroyed at once in that area, it could set off a chain reaction that could destroy too much of the ship."

"Doesn't the Keldon class outrank us on all fronts?" Tom asked from his chair. He really wasn't a coward, but going up against a battle ship while only having a scout ship themselves, seemed a little like suicide to him.

"The Keldon class outranks us on everything except for the torpedoes," Tuvok agreed. "And they could easily destroy us, if we did not know their weak spots. Federation ships would never be allowed into service with weak spots like these. But the Cardassians never minded, knowing that the weak spots can only really be exploited in a one on one battle, and the Cardassians never liked those odds to begin with."

Tuvok saw that the Cardassian ship had come close once more. He activated his comm. link and requested a ship wide channel. "Red alert, all hands to battle stations. Prepare for hostile fire."

"We are being hailed," Harry said from his station.

"Miss Hansen, would you like to handle this?" Tuvok asked.

"Sure, why not. It's going to be a short conversation anyway. You are still in command during this, Tuvok, I'm just doing the talking."

"Very well. Commander Chakotay, take over reading out the relevant information to the bridge crew."

Chakotay nodded his head in agreement. He folded out his information screen and switched it to the tactical station. "Ready."

"Miss Hansen, you may react to the hail."

"Alright, kill that siren and the red light, I want this bridge to look normal." Annika moved back to her chair and set down. "Harry, open the channel."

"Channel open."

"Good day, I'm Acting Captain Annika Hansen of the Federation starship Voyager. How can... I be of service?" Those last words had been said to a once again blank screen when the conversation had been broken off.

"They are powering up their weapon banks," Chakotay said while bringing up the shields.

"Told you it would be short," Annika said. "Once they saw a 'slave' on the bridge they were done talking."

Chakotay continued to read the information out so that the bridge crew knew what was going on, and could react if needed. "Shields are ready, weapons are ready."

"Helm, lay in evasive maneuvers at your own discretion, but let me know which ones you are going to use," Tuvok said. He needed to know what Tom was going to do so that he could better aim on the targets.

"Aye Commander. How about maneuver Gamma three, Beta one, and Charlie four?"

"Very well."

A blast rocked the ship, making Harry automatically hold on to his console. While he was no longer standing, this reaction drilled in by years under fire in the Delta Quadrant was hard to let go.

For a few seconds there was nothing more to be heard than the impact of Cardassian fire and the hum of Voyager's phasers when the fire was returned.

While Tuvok fired a new set of phaser shots, Chakotay gave the status of the ship. "Our shields are down to sixty percent, our phaser fire is having no affect on their shields."

"It will," Annika said confidently. "Tuvok, if I may suggest, while you keep targeting those two points, sent a photon torpedo or two directly at their bridge. It won't do any damage, but is will keep them from shifting too much shield energy to those other points."

"Shields down to fifty percent, still having no affect on their shields."

Tuvok nodded his head a little to indicate that he had understood Chakotay. "Tuvok to Torres."

"Torres here."

"Is the cloak system still fully functional?"

"Sure is."

"Understood. Monitor our shields, if the power drops below twenty percent, power up the system. As soon as the shields drop to ten percent, you can activate it, no further order from the bridge is required."

"Understood, Torres out."

"Mister Paris, I want you to lay in an evasive course and initiate it if the cloaking system is activated. But until that point, keep using the evasive maneuvers."

"Aye Commander."

"Our shields down to forty percent, their shields are buckling."

"Not much longer," Annika said to nobody in particular. And as if the Cardassian ship had heard her, Chakotay read out, "Their shields are dropping rapidly. Down to eighty, seventy, fifty..."

Their generators are overheating," Annika explained, "But don't get comfortable just yet. When their shields hit thirty percent, their auxiliary generator will kick in and it will stay at thirty for a moment longer."

"Our shields are down to thirty percent and holding."

Suddenly the ship was rocked by a heavy impact.

"Our shields are down to twenty-one percent, hull breaches are reported on deck six and seven. Engineering has sent out repair crews."

After yet another heated exchange of fire, which luckily didn't drain the shields this time, Chakotay spoke up. "The outer hull of the first target has been destroyed, shields in that area have been deactivated."

Nobody said anything as Tuvok started targeting the second target for a moment. It was clear that he was giving the Cardassians a few moments to evacuate the area of the first target.

"Their shields are holding at thirty percent, and they are trying to shift energy to the points that Tuvok is targeting."

That was the last thing that they wanted, so Tuvok fired another torpedo at the bridge, highest possible yield this time.

"Direct hit... they are shifting energy back once more. Their shields are dropping further, they stopped firing."

Annika was a little surprised at that, she had expected their shields to hold minutes longer. She looked at Tuvok with raised eyebrows for a moment, conveying her surprise to him.

"Their shields have dropped completely," Chakotay said.

For a moment Annika, Chakotay, and Tuvok looked at each other. They didn't need to talk to know that the best thing to do would be to destroy the ship. If they let them live to tell their tale then people were bound to come after Voyager. But if the ship was destroyed, then it would be just that; a destroyed ship, nobody would know what happened.

But... they weren't cold blooded killers. Defending themselves, yes. Killing while defending themselves, yes. But killing unarmed and defenseless people stuck on a crippled ship... no.

"Stand down torpedoes, stand down all but front phasers," Tuvok finally said.

Chakotay was drawn back to the screen in front of him when he saw movement. "It seems that they are changing course."

Annika snorted at that. "They are Cardassians alright. Tuvok, target their engines, compensate the phaser strength, make sure that you only destroy the engines, and not the ship." With the shields of the Cardassians down, this last was a very strong possibility. Even the strongest Duranium deck plating didn't stand a chance against direct phaser fire from a spaceship cannon.

"Aye Captain," Tuvok merely said, easily handing command back to Annika.

"Sorry," Annika said when she realized that she had just simply taken back her command. "I need to work on that." She gave him an apologetic smile before officially taking back the command. "Commander, I have the command again."

"Targeting their engines," Tuvok merely said. "Firing... Direct hit... Their engines are shutting down."

"Alright, Harry, open a channel." Annika waited on Harry's nod before continuing. "This is Acting Captain Annika Hansen of the Federation starship Voyager, please respond."

"No response, Captain."

Annika got up and moved over to Tuvok once more. "Alright, target that first target again, corrected phaser strength. Harry, when he did that, repeat my message."

"Firing."

After a moment Harry spoke up. "Still no response."

"Once more, Tuvok."

"Firing." Now they all could see the Cardassian ship shake with a violent explosion.

"Harry?"

"They are responding."

"About damn time." Annika moved to the middle of the bridge. "On screen."

A moment later the harried looking face of a Cardassian filled the screen. "Slaves, you will surrender to us right now, and just maybe we won't kill you."

Annika merely smiled at that, a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Tuvok, ready phaser, highest setting. Target their bridge."

Since Tuvok already had the phasers ready, he knew that Annika had spoken so that the Cardassian could hear her, and not to actually give him the order.

"Aye Captain. Readying phasers."

"No!"

Annika focused her attention back on the view screen with the Cardassian. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"You can't do that!"

"Well, the way I see it, you are the ones sitting on a ship that has its weapons, shields, and engines down. Not us. So, I would say that I can do pretty much anything I like. Now, would you please be so kind as to tell me why you opened fire on us without provocation from our side?"

"You are slaves, you should not be on the bridge of a spaceship."

"And who are you to know that there aren't any Klingons on this ship? You didn't scan us. How do you know if we are not simply taking this ship on a test run, and the only reason why we were on the bridge is because the Klingons are busy in the rest of they ship?"

"There are Klingons on the ship?" The Cardassian asked, getting slightly paler.

"Do you really think that if there were Klingons on this ship, that they wouldn't be on the bridge by now?"

"Then,"

Annika interrupted him with a wave of her hand. "My point is that you didn't know. Just like you still don't know why we are in command of this ship. Maybe we stole it, but maybe we are doing tests with an experimental ship and we are the ones doing it because we slaves are expendable if something goes wrong. The point, as I said, is that you, don't, know. Now, we were on our way to somewhere, and I really don't feel like wasting too much time talking to you. So here is a little message you can take to your superiors. As you just saw, we have just taken on your Keldon class ship with ease. Next time a Cardassian ship opens fire on us, we will not be so nice and spare your lives; we will destroy the ship. Do I make myself clear?"

"Do you really think we will simply let you leave? My troops are ready to beam over to your ship. This is your last chance to surrender."

"Captain, don't take me for a fool. Even if your troops where ready, which I know they are not, they would die if you tried to beam them over here because you can't penetrate out shields. As you like to say yourself, this was your last chance. Test my patience once more and you will be destroyed."

"What do you want?" The Cardassian finally asked, knowing that he had just run out of bluffing room.

"I want nothing from you. You were the ones changing course, you were the ones contacting us, and you were then ones opening fire. We merely reacted. That is another message that you can take to you superiors, leave us alone, and we will leave you alone. Attack us, and we will defend ourselves. Annika Hansen out."

It was quiet on the bridge for a moment before Annika finally moved back to her chair. "Alright, Tom set in a random course, as long as it isn't in the direction of our home base. Tuvok, once we are out of their sensor range, activate the cloaking system. At that point we can set course back to home base."

"Well, the good thing about this planet is that is does indeed hide us perfectly, that Cardassian ship didn't see us until we emerged from the atmosphere. But a down side is that we also can't see too well what's going on outside," Chakotay said once they were underway for a while. "I think the best thing to do would be to come back at a later time and put some sensors into the different layers of that gas giant. Connect them so that they can send us information from closer to the surface when we are deeper inside."

"Sounds like a good idea," Annika agreed.

"I wonder what a Cardassian ship was doing here," Chakotay finally asked. "As I said before, the only way that a ship could be here is if they had deliberately set course here."

"Maybe they did," Annika said thoughtfully. "After all, it was one single Cardassian ship in Klingon space. It isn't so uncommon to have Cardassian ships in Klingon space, but when they are they are normally simply on course from point A to B, and taking the fastest route. If it had been something like that, something that the Klingons could have known about, then it would have been more then just one ship. Cardassians normally like to travel in pairs of two or three ships. So... maybe they were here for the same reason as we were; to see if this planet is a good hiding spot."

"But why would the Cardassians want to hide here?"

"Now, that... is a question that I can't answer."

Chapter 5

It was the second day of the meeting with Jadzia and Deanna and things were going really well. Torres was delighted to see that both women seemed to like Seven, and seemed to accept her position in Torres' life. Not, of course, that they could do anything about it if they hadn't liked it. But it was so much better that she didn't have to deal with that problem as well. They would meet once more in five hours time to spend the rest of the day enjoying each other's company.

But right now, Torres had other things to do. With difficulty she concentrated on the PADD once more. Torres hated this part of her job; the damn reading of deals and agreements. Just so that she could sign it to approve it, or of course ask them if they really wanted to die that badly. But this was another thing that she was glad to have Seven around for. Seven now read all of the PADDs first, selecting the ones that she could simply sign for Torres, and only leaving a few that Torres had to decide on.

Torres smiled for a moment. Normally this was the part of the job that took most of her time. But not anymore. Seven, with that wonderful brain of hers, could read a hundred PADDs in a morning since most deals were only a few margins long. Something that people had learned long ago. If the text of the deal was too long, Torres would simply send it back with the message, 'if you reduce this to a normal length I might actually read it.'

In the end when Seven was done with them there would be on average ten deals waiting for Torres to read.

Torres shook her head slightly as she finished reading the last PADD. Some people never learned. She thought for a moment before entering her three line reply. 'This is the fourth time I see you trying to sneak this deal by. I gave you a clear NO all those times. If I see this deal again in any kind or form I will personally pay you a visit and fucking kill you myself.'

As she signed the PADD she saw the date and time stamp that was added and could not believe that she had forgotten what date it was. She thought for a moment on how to correct her oversight and then smiled as an idea struck her. "My pet."

"Yes mistress?" Seven asked from the other side of the table where she was reading the PADDs that would never reach Torres' eyes.

"Please go get me the daily report from the bridge."

Seven lifted her eyebrows slightly at the request, knowing that Torres could simply acquire them by addressing the computer. Figuring that Torres must have her reason, Seven got up and left the quarters.

Once she was sure that Seven was not just gone, but also out of the ranger of her enhanced hearing, Torres hailed Martok. "Torres to Martok."

"Martok here."

"Martok, do you have plans for this evening?"

"Not concrete ones, why?"

"Because I forgotten what date it is, and now have to throw something together in a few minutes while my pet is getting me my report from the bridge."

Martok laughed at that. "That is the best reason you could come up with to get her from your side? What time would you like me to be there?"

"I invited Deanna and Jadzia for dinner at six. That is as good a time as any. And Martok, I made my decision. I am ready and willing to deal with the consequences if it ever becomes known. You can bring it if you want."

"That is some decision, my friend. But for you, I am glad that you took it. I'll see you at six, Martok out."

"One down," Torres said to herself. "Torres to Troi and Dax."

**

"General Martok," Seven said slightly surprised when she opened the door a few minutes before six. She had been expecting Jadzia and Deanna, not Martok.

"Hello Seven, can I come in?" Martok asked amused when Seven didn't make way for him.

"Of course," Seven said while hastily stepping aside. "I was merely not expecting you."

"Clearly." Martok saw Torres and asked her, "Didn't you tell her I was coming today?"

"Um, now that you mention it, no. Must have slipped my mind. What do you have there?" Torres asked while pointing at the box that Martok was carrying, knowing that Seven must have seen it.

"A present I got," Martok merely said.

Seven was just about to ask him if he wanted something to drink when the entrance chime sounded again. This time it was indeed Deanna and Jadzia at the other side of the door. Seven merely stepped aside to let them enter, surprised to see that they too were carrying boxes. Deanna was carrying a relative small box, only as big as her hand, but Jadzia was carrying a long flat box that was wider than Seven's under arm, and longer than half her body length.

"Ah, Jadzia, Deanna. I know this was short notice, you really didn't have to bring something."

"Well, once you told me what Martok was bringing, I had the perfect idea for a gift," Jadzia said while she put her big box behind the couch and out of the way.

"And I simply stole my gift from you, Torres," Deanna said as she put her box on the small table beside the couch where Martok had put his. "I'll explain later."

"You better," Torres said with a fake growl, knowing that if Deanna said that she stole it from her, it either was that it was something that was actually meant for Torres at some point, or something that once had belonged to Torres but that she had gotten rid of.

"Mistress, is today your birthday?" Seven asked softly when the others weren't talking to Torres. She wondered how it was possible that this B'Elanna Torres had a different birthday than Voyager's B'Elanna Torres had.

"Not at all, my pet. My birthday is next week. No, my dear. Today IS a birthday, but it is your birthday. You really didn't think I would forget about that, did you?" Torres asked with a grin, smartly leaving out that she had indeed forgotten about it until only several hours ago.

"And General Martok, Intendants Dax and Troi are here to celebrate the birthday of a slave?" Seven asked amazed.

"No," Martok interrupted while putting his hand firmly on Seven's shoulder. He had clearly heard the conversation between Seven and Torres. "Today, tonight, some friends of Torres and her Mate are here to celebrate that Mate's birthday. Tomorrow is early enough for you to be the slave again.

Seven looked in amazement at the four people around her, not believing that others besides Torres were willing to treat her as anything but a slave in the universe she was in now. Finally, not really knowing what to say, she turned to Torres and whispered something in her ear.

After a moment, Torres nodded her head in agreement. "You are right, Seven. Since tonight we are only friends, we should not celebrate your birthday here." Torres pointed at the three boxes their guests had brought. "Take those and follow me."

Martok had been in the private quarters of Torres numerous times of course, but Troi and Dax had never been there, didn't even know that they existed.

"You have been holding out on us, I see," Jadzia said with a smile while looking around the kitchen/living room.

"I have," Torres agreed. This... you are now in the part where I live when I'm truly home. The part that you have seen of my quarters until today is the official part, but this, this is home."

"This is a lot more modestly decorated than those rooms out there," Deanna said, feeling that Torres was indeed even more at ease than she had in the other room. This truly was her home.

"So what more have you been hiding?" Jadzia asked. "Somehow I don't think that this living/eating room is all."

"It's not," Torres agreed. "Through that door you will find my office. The most I collect there is dust since I normally only read from PADDs. So I had one of the alcoves that my pet needs installed in there."

Jadzia walked to the door, but not close enough to open it. "May I?" She asked, not because Torres as Klingon Intendant was higher than her, but simply because she was in a friend's house and didn't want to go anywhere uninvited.

"Sure," Torres merely said.

Jadzia stepped into the office and looked around. The office did indeed give a feeling of not being used, but what definitely was the eye catcher was the bulky machine standing against the far wall. "What do you need that thing for?" Jadzia asked as she stepped back into the room where the others were.

"I need it to recharge," Seven said, simplifying matters to the extreme.

"Recharge?" Jadzia asked confused.

Seven raised her eyebrow before saying, "I am a sex toy. Is it not normal to recharge a sex toy when the energy cell runs low?"

"What?" Jadzia asked, her mouth hanging open slightly, as Torres and Martok burst out laughing at the remark.

"Seven, don't tease her," Torres said while still grinning. She was glad that Seven felt so comfortable with these people, comfortable enough to tease them a little. "As I told you the first time you met my pet, she is more than she seems, as you can see she has implants, these are cybernetic implants. Implants that enable her to do things that none of us can do. But one downside of those implants is that they need pure energy to work. So Seven has to regenerate a certain time every so often. Or as she just said, basically, she has to recharge."

"I see. Every positive comes with a negative," Jadzia said in a demeanor that was totally different from her normal behavior. It was clear that now it was purely the symbiont in her talking. "If that is the only price you have to pay, than you have made a good deal."

"There is more," Seven said sincerely, thinking only for a moment about her time as a drone and what she had done as that drone. "But since it brought me to my mistress, I would gladly endure it all again."

"So what else is there?" Jadzia asked being once more the Jadzia they all knew.

"Through that door there you will find our bedroom, and after that, through the other door, you find our bathroom."

All of them had heard the 'our' instead of the 'my,' but none of them deemed it fit to comment on that.

"May I?" Jadzia asked one more. And after getting the permission she inspected those rooms as well. "That is some bath you got there in the 'bath' part of your bathroom, Torres," Jadzia said once she got back. "You can do laps in there. Would you object to moving this party to the bath? I'm in the mood for a warm bath anyway. Jadzia looked around the women before finally resting her eyes on Martok. After looking at him for a moment, she added, "You do have a replicator where we can replicate some bathing clothes, right?"

Martok merely snorted at that. "Women, they would bathe naked even though they love to see another women naked, but suddenly get modest if a man can see the same woman naked that they would like to see naked as well."

"It's just different," Jadzia and Deanna said at the same time.

"Yes I have a replicator, and sure we can move there," Torres spoke up. "But why don't we first give Seven her gifts? I think if may be easier here on the dry."

"Sounds like a good idea," Deanna agreed while getting up and handing her box to Seven. "Happy birthday, Seven."

"Thank you," Seven said softly while taking the box. She slowly opened the box as she realized that this was the first birthday present that she had gotten in her adult life.

Once she had opened the box all the way, she could only look amazed at what was lying in it. She didn't dare touch it, it was so beautiful to her. She also knew that this gift had to be priceless. Even in these modern times, replicators couldn't recreate the materials used for this gift.

"Well what is it?" Torres finally asked, curiosity getting the best of her.

Seven merely handed the box to Torres. Torres looked at the gift for a moment before looking at Deanna. "You said that you stole this from me. I knew that you were joking, now I know even more, I never had anything like this."

"I did steal it from you," Deanna disagreed. "It is just that you never got it before I stole it." Deanna smiled before relenting and explaining. "It was a gift really meant for you. It is created by the best Betazoid craftsman. It was commissioned by the rare gems syndicate. It was supposed to be a thank you for you for allowing them mining rights on that Klingon colony. They are making a killer profit, and they want to keep you happy. But I know that you never wear jewelry, so no matter how wonderful it is, all you would do is look at it, and put it away somewhere where it would never be seen again. Am I right?"

"You are," Torres was forced to agree.

"But when you told me the reason for this party, I thought this would be perfect for Seven. I am certain that she will appreciate it more. So, as I said, I stole it from you and now I gave it to her. I hope you can forgive me for this theft."

"You are forgiven," Torres said right way. She looked at the present once more before standing up, "Seven, would you do me the honor of wearing my mark?"

"Yes," Seven said softly while getting up as well.

Torres stepped behind Seven and put the chain around that long and elegant neck. She took the opportunity to place a soft kiss on Seven's neck before moving those blond hairs back into place.

Seven sat back down before looking at Deanna. She wanted to thank her, but as she looked at her, Seven knew that it wouldn't be necessary. Deanna smiled and dipped her head slightly in a 'you are welcome' manner. Being a Betazoid, Deanna could feel Seven's emotions. Deanna understood probably even better than Torres did just what this meant for Seven.

Seven lowered her eyes to look at the necklace. More precisely, it's pendant. It was an even sided triangle with all sides being about ten centimeters (four inches), with the third point pointing down, and the other two points attached to the chain around Seven's neck. While the chain was made out of woven tri-colored Latinum with small gems delicately woven into the thin, but extremely strong chain, the triangle was a flat scene set in different color gems. Diamonds, natural gem quality Dilithium crystals, and Zali gems; the most expensive and rare gems in entire Coalition space. Seven knew that the Zali gems in the triangle alone had to be worth more than three million credits.

But what really made the triangle priceless for Seven was that these different colored gems had been used to form Torres' shield. The famous B'Rel bird, holding a bat'leth in one claw, while holding a Ver'Zok bird in a struggle for life in it's other claw.

"Guess we can now stop putting my shield on your clothing, huh?" Torres asked amused, knowing that such an expensive mark would say much more than a simple mark on clothing ever could. One didn't give, or allow a slave to wear, something as expensive as that necklace if one didn't care deeply for that slave.

"Indeed," Seven could only agree. She knew, no matter what, from now on she would be wearing this chain every minute of the day, except for when she slept, was naked, or Torres told her not to, of course.

"Well, I don't know if I can top that," Jadzia finally said into the silence that had fallen after the blonde's one word answer. "But let me give it a try anyway." She handed her big box to Seven with a 'Happy birthday Seven,' and sat back down.

Seven had assumed that since the box was so flat, but big, that it would contain some sort of clothing. Therefore she was quite surprised at the solid weight of the box.

Seven opened the box and once more was totally astonished about her gift. Seven could not believe that anyone, let alone an Intendant, was giving her this gift. She slowly took the bat'leth into her hands and lifted it out of the box.

The weapon was beautifully decorated with engraved scenes of battles on one side, and an engraved scene of a pair of lover in the grips of ecstasy and passion on the other side, and Seven had no doubt that the weapon was of the highest quality, unlikely to ever break. But they all knew that the real present wasn't the weapon, but getting it. To be given a bat'leth you had to be seen as a warrior. Seven knew that Jadzia had to know this as well. After all, Torres had told her just how interested Curzon Dax had been in Klingon culture.

To be presented with such a gift meant that the giver respected you. More over, respected you enough to give you this honor laden weapon. Oh, a Klingon could buy their own bat'leth at any time, but there was a not so small percentage of Klingons that went through life never receiving a bat'leth as a gift.

Seven stood up once more and swung the blade into the position of a warrior salute. "Thank you. I swear on my honor that I will never disgrace this blade, nor the spirit in which it was presented to me. Unless you disgrace yourself towards me at some point, you have a friend for life in me, Jadzia Dax."

Jadzia stood up as well, giving Seven a short nod, like Klingons normally did. "Very well spoken, Seven of Nine. It honors me that you accept my gift so openly."

Torres sat back and enjoyed the interaction to the fullest. Though she hadn't told Seven this, she had worried how Jadzia and Deanna would react to Seven. Torres should have known not to worry. Give a chance, Seven could win everyone over, simply by being herself.

Just as she had with the necklace, Seven presented the bat'leth to Torres so that she could look at it. Having a feeling that Torres had not clearly seen the engraved scenes, Seven presented the bat'leth to Torres with the battle scenes facing her.

"This is incredible work Jadzia. Somehow I don't think that this comes out of a replicator."

"It doesn't," Jadzia agreed. "I bought that when I was still Curzon Dax. It was such an unusual piece that I just had to have it. I never saw an engraving like that on a bat'leth. I actually bought it on Kronos, from a guy called Hak'Uk'."

"That is the best blade maker that is still alive at the moment," Torres said impresses. In fact, that was were her own bat'leth was created. "But perfect as this engraving is, I have seen scenes like that before."

"Oh, that isn't the engraving I bought it for," Jadzia said amused. "That is merely the 'decent' side that you can have facing out if you want when you hang it on the wall. Flip it over."

Torres did so and looked at the other engraving for a moment. "Oh, for crying out loud. Dax, I always knew you were a hound, but this confirms it."

The other side of the bat'leth had only one engraving. It was in the center of the weapon, up to the blade side. It depicted two lovers laying down, very clearly both women. The first woman had her hand between the legs of the second woman, who's head was thrown back in ecstasy, and the first woman was making good use of that and had her head placed to the second woman's throat in an eternal kiss.

"Kahless, why would Hak'Uk' make something like this, and why would you buy it?"

"Why would Curzon buy it?" Jadzia asked laughingly. "Come on, Torres, you know how he liked women. And if he couldn't be with them because they were not interested in men, he loved to watch. He was good at persuading women to at least let him watch, even without the added weight of it being an Intendant that was asking. Do you really think that he could have walked away from that once he saw it? As for why Hak'Uk' made it, he told Curzon that it was a commissioned 'spare no expenses' piece. But the woman that commissioned it never came back to buy it, leaving her down payment and the bat'leth with Hak'Uk'. Come on, be honest Torres. Don't you think that it is a very erotic scene, yet not obscenely so?"

Torres looked at it for a moment longer before having to agree. The scene was erotic, but nothing more. "Alright, you are right."

"See? Well, as I said, I bought that as Curzon Dax, and I never could get rid of it. I tried several times to just throw it way. But I would look at that scene one last time and I just couldn't. I couldn't throw the love you can so clearly see between those women away as if it was nothing. And once I became Jadzia Dax, I had an even harder time throwing it away because of that, but I'm also not so into Klingon weapons like Curzon was, so I just stowed it away somewhere.

"But now, with you and Seven, I found the perfect placed for it. Tell me that it doesn't remind you of you and Seven. Hell, you can only see the face of the woman that has her head back, the other face you can't see because she is kissing the throat. You can't see the Klingon ridges, so it is every easy to imagine her having no ridges and having blonde hair."

"You are right, you are right," Torres relented while she handed the bat'leth back to Seven. Then she pointed at Jadzia before adding, "But I still say that you are a hound."

Jadzia spread her arms with a grin, "Torres, being a hound is fun. You better believe that I'm a hound and proud of it."

"But she is my hound, and that makes it alright," Deanna added, giving a peek into just how close she and Jadzia were. Apparently there were closer than Torres had assumed.

"Enough with the mushy stuff already," Martok growled, before grinning. "You make a Klingon want to puke." Martok handed his box to Seven. "Here, see what a real gift looks like."

Seven took the third box with a smile and was once more surprised by the weight of the box. But just before she opened the box, Martok put his hand over Seven's. "You have to understand, Seven. Though this is a gift from me, I have the permission of the chancellor to give this to you. But this is more a gift from us to Torres than merely a gift to you. She asked Worf if you could have this, she was willing to give him whatever he asked so that she could give you this, so Worf is now giving you this through me, as a gift to Torres. You may never show this to anyone except the people here, and you may never tell anyone that you have this, for officially it is impossible for you to have this. And it could even bring Worf into trouble... not that he couldn't handle the trouble, but still."

Seven nodded her head in understanding and Martok took his hand away. Seven opened the box, and once she saw what was inside, her heart actually stopped beating for a moment. She could not believe that she was getting this, getting this gift moved her so much that it was second only to when she had found out that Torres loved her, truly loved her.

For inside the box lay a Daqtahg, also known as the Klingon ceremonial blade. Seven took the blade out of the box with a shaking hand. She pushed the button that opened the two side arms, turning the blade into the well known three-bladed knife that represented a Klingon's honor.

"I know that it is extremely unfair of us to give that to you, and then not allow you to carry it with you," Martok said as Seven pushed the button once more to fold the two side knives back in.

Seven looked at the emblem on the hilt for a moment, not really believing what she saw. But no matter how long she looked at it, the shield of the house of Torres didn't disappear. "You made me a member of the House of Torres," Seven said in nothing more than a whisper.

"No, not officially," Martok disagreed. "You, are merely a slave and therefore can't be part of the House of Torres. But, while this is not officially, this is official enough for you to find Torres in the afterlife... should you go to the same place. But as I said, this is more a gift to Torres than it is to you. Worf and I care for her. Enough to be glad that she finally found someone who doesn't want to kill her." Martok grinned at that sentence.

"With this we are showing her that we accept you as her mate, even if only unofficially. But, that doesn't mean that Worf has made any decision on what he thinks of you, Seven. He still thinks that Torres is nuts for putting you in the position you are now in. But he doesn't begrudge Torres the chance to be happy, even if that happiness comes from lunacy."

"All that may be so," Seven agreed. "Still, mere words can not convey how thankful I am for this. Please, do send the Chancellor my most sincere gratitude for this. And thank you very much. When I stayed here, all I knew was that I would have my mistress. I gave up all my friends to be with her. I am proud and honored to have found a new friend in you. And I could not wish for a better one. Thank you."

"I have a present for you as well," Torres said while she got up and took one of the many PADDs that were lying on the table. "But before I could give you this, I wanted you to have the gift Martok brought." Torres handed the PADD to Seven, but didn't let go just yet. "Now, I don't want you to get the wrong impression. As you know, one of my tendencies is to get rid of problems. This is nothing like that. This is something I want to give you, and also something I want to give myself. Yes, you stayed, but I don't want to have to wonder years from now if you are still staying because you have missed your chance to go. I want to know even then that you are staying because you want to, not because you have to. So, this is as much a gift to you as it is a gift to me."

Seven nodded her head in understanding before Torres fully let go and Seven could read the PADD.

Once she had, her eyes shot to Torres. In the PADD there was the account and name that Seven had set up to prove that a slave could set up an account. But just as important, in the PADD was a contract in which Torres 'sold' her body slave to the person who's name Seven had made up, and that the new position of Seven was now to be this person's body slave. The contract was already signed by Torres, and all Seven had to do to make it legal was to add a date.

Seven knew only too well what this meant. Since this new master didn't really exist, Seven could simply write out orders in this master's name. She could order herself to be brought anywhere in the coalition, and she could simply go there. After all, she was following an order from her master. Torres had given her freedom in a place where slaves couldn't be free. Seven could simply add a date, and from that point on, she would no longer be Torres' possession.

"I do understand why you gave me this, but I can guarantee you that this will never be used. Thank you B'Elanna. Thank you, my mistress."

Torres merely smiled for a moment before realizing that she and Seven weren't alone. "Alright. Now it is time to move this party. Martok, as you know, there is a replicator in my bathroom. Why don't you use it and get into the bath? Deanna, Jadzia, there is a replicator in my bedroom as well. Why don't you two use that one and then get into the bath. Seven and I will change here."

Everyone agreed to that and soon Seven and Torres were left alone to change.

"I can not believe the presents they gave me... that my friends gave me."

"As friends go, you made some damn good ones," Torres agreed when she heard Seven change her words from 'they' to 'my friends.' "I have to admit though that I'm also partially responsible for that."

"You? How?"

Torres smiled at the question that been brought down to the most economic use of words. "When I contacted Deanna and Jadzia I told them what present Martok would bring, which gave them an indication of how free they were with what to bring. Last thing they want is to bring a gift that outshines the gift I gave you. And Martok only brought his gift after I told him that it was alright to do so. I'm sorry my pet. You know I love you, but even I had to think about the risks of you getting that."

"Risks?" Seven merely asked.

"Seven, as Martok said, if it is found out that you as a slave have a Daqtahg to call your own, and that Worf knows about this, than Worf gets into deep shit. But I, having been the one that gave my house name to you... At the very least I would be forced to step down as Intendant. At worse, the name of my house would be scrapped from the Klingon archives, all assets from the House of Torres would be confiscated, and not to forget, you and I would be killed. No matter how much I love you, that, my pet, I had to take into account."

Seven looked at Torres silently for a minute, she hadn't realized how much Torres was risking. Seven saw Torres as a person who was firmly in control of the Klingon forces. Now Seven realized that this was true, but that Torres was putting herself in a dangerous position simply for Seven's sake.

"Mistress... B'Elanna, I do not know how to react to this. I do not want you to be in danger merely for my sake."

Torres smiled and shook her head slightly. "I'm not really at risk as long as I can trust you, Seven. People will not find out about this unless you let them know. But as you have shown, you can play my slave, even though we both know that you are not. I may be your mistress, and you are my pet, my 'slave,' but this is simply because we both want it like that. But you have never truly been a slave to me. As long as we can go on like that, I'm perfectly safe."

"Jadzia and Deanna could use this information to their advantage though," Seven pointed out.

Torres grinned at that. "You just called them your friends, yet now you state that you don't trust them, are you sure that you weren't born in this Universe?"

Seven got a crestfallen look on her face than she realized that this is exactly what she had done; mistrust her new found friends. "I, I..."

"Seven, relax. I think Deanna and Jadzia would be disappointed in you if you did blindly trust them. You have to remember that, just like me, they are a person but also an Intendant. As a person you might trust them blindly, but as Intendant there is a chance that they have to do something that hurt them as a person, but something they have to do never the less to survive as an Intendant.

"Take Deanna and Jadzia. You once asked me if they were lovers, I thought that they aren't fully lovers. Today we have found out that they are closer than even I thought them to be. Yet, as much as they might like each other, if needed, Deanna would still do some things that would hurt Jadzia personally, and vice versa."

"So even they do not trust each other?"

"No, I don't think that you understand what I mean. They do trust each other. The just know that maybe one day that trust will be misused. It is a sign of caring for someone. In fact, this should have shown me that they are closer than I thought. If you open yourself so fully to being used by another person, knowing that one day they might, or might HAVE to, use you. It shows how much you care for that person."

"I do not understand."

Torres sighed. "I'm sorry, my pet, I know that I'm explaining this badly. It's like... Wait, I think I know something to explain it to you. You told me that you can assimilate me, if you wanted to. That you could make me do things against my will. If you wanted to, you could command the entire Klingon forces through me. You could start a war with any of the other factions, simply by having me command it. You could do that, I know that you could do that. Yet I trust you not to do that. I don't fear you touching me with that hand when we make love, I don't fear you putting that hand at my neck to guide me to where you want me. You can hurt me, Seven. You can use me. Yet I trust you not to do it.

I think it is the same between Deanna and Jadzia. The point is, that they are close to you, they are your friends, but if you were to trust them blindly right now, you would be making a mistake. You really only know them two days, to trust them fully you should know them a lot longer then that, maybe even years."

"I trust you fully, yet we only know each other for less than two months. Does this mean that I also should not trust you?" Seven asked.

Torres grind her teeth together while saying a silent 'shit.' "You shouldn't," Torres finally said.

"Unacceptable."

"Unacceptable?" Torres repeated.

"It may be common practice in this universe to not trust people, and I am certainly not going to trust every person I know, but I will not start to mistrust my friends simply because it is common here. And I will certainly not start to mistrust the person that I love more than life itself. The Federation has the standard that they initially trust the people they meet, until they prove untrustworthy. I like that approach, and I will adapt it to my needs.

"However, I do know that trusting everyone I meet in this universe would be an unwise thing to do. Therefore, my compromise is that I will be distrustful of people I do not know, but once I have decided that I can trust them I will do so until the point that they prove that I should not trust them. I trust my friends."

Torres shook her head in amusement. "You, my dear, are an extremely stubborn woman, and I wouldn't want to have you any other way."

Seven smiled, having a feeling that Torres still had her reservations about trusting others. "You do realize that you trust me, do you not? You only know me for less than two months, yet you give me the ammunition to bring you, and your house, down."

"Oh, shut up and start changing," Torres growled, knowing only too well that the blonde was right. With Seven, Torres was going against all her own rules.

Seven gave Torres a superior smile before nodding her head slightly. "Yes, mistress." Seven moved to the replicator and replicated two sets of bathing clothes, handing Torres a set before starting to open her bio-suit. "Mistress, I have been wondering, why does everyone call you Torres? I hardly ever hear someone address you as B'Elanna. Martok sometimes does to give a statement more meaning, but other than that, he too calls you Torres."

Torres took the two piece bathing suit that Seven had replicated and started to strip as well. "The answer to that is very simply, my pet. I never really liked my first name. So I always urged, and later on simply told, people to call me Torres."

"But you do not object to me calling you B'Elanna. Why not?"

Torres moved over to the by now naked blonde and took a moment to kiss her, using the opportunity to softly squeeze Seven's behind with both hands. "Mmm. Sorry, I just had to do that. No matter how or what, seeing you naked never stops affecting me."

Seven let her eyes roam over Torres' naked body before doing the exact same thing to the Klingon as she had done. "I can certainly understand that," Seven said after they finally stopped kissing. "You affect me very much as well. In fact, I would love to make love to you right now."

Torres laughed at that. "We have guest, my dear. It would not be polite to have them wait while we make love, especially since they are here to celebrate your birthday. But tell you what, tonight when they are gone, you and I will spend the rest of the night in bed, making love."

"I would like that," Seven said softly.

"Make love as Seven and B'Elanna," Torres added after a moment.

"I would really like that," Seven said after kissing Torres again. "I would like it even more if you promise me something."

"What?" Torres asked.

"Today, with my birthday we make love as B'Elanna and Seven. But next week, with your birthday, you will be my mistress and I your body slave for the entire night."

"Ah, I see. You want to be ruthlessly used for nothing but my pleasure, denied pleasure yourself, unless pleasing you pleases me. You want to be my sex toy?"

"Yes," Seven said in nothing more then a whisper. Just thinking of Torres making love to her that way affected Seven to the extreme.

"Very well, my dear, you will have your wish. But you better make sure that my sex toy is charged all the way," Torres joked, referring to the joke Seven had told Jadzia about charging the 'sex toy.' "Because I can promise you, you will have to work damn hard next week."

"I hope so, mistress."

"We really should get going, the others must be waiting for us."

"I know," Seven said while she stepped away and staring to put on the bottom of her two piece bathing suit. "You were explaining to me why you do not object to me calling you B'Elanna," Seven pointed out, mostly to get the conversation to a 'safe' level again.

"Right, well, because, my dear, for some strange reason I like it when you call me by my first name. And besides, it is for us the perfect way to distinguish between what we are. Master/slave, or equal level partners."

"I see. Thank you for explaining that."

"No problem, my dear. So tell me, how did you like your gifts?" Torres asked, even though Seven had already stated being impressed with her gifts. But then, one could be impressed without necessarily liking something.

"They were wonderful," Seven said while she was about to reluctantly take her necklace off.

"You don't have to take that off if you don't want to," Torres said when she saw how hesitant Seven was to take her necklace off. "That's the real stuff, not cheap fakes. The water, nor any of the bathing salts I sometimes use, affect it."

"I that case I would like to wear it."

"Then you should, my dear." Torres took hold of the pendant and lifted it slightly from where it hung between Seven's breasts. "All I ask of you is to take it off when we are in bed. Somehow I think it will be in the way, especially when we make love."

"I will," Seven assured. "I also do not think that I would be comfortable while I am lying in bed. I think it would become... annoying." Seven put on her top and saw Torres smile. "Is something wrong?"

"No, not at all," Torres assured while she trailed the edges of the top with her finger. "I just really like the way you look in this. You do realize that it still leaves quite some of your breast visible? I think that was designed for people that have a little... less wonderful assets than you do. "

Seven looked down at the top, which really was nothing more than two strips of cloth as wide her hand that were attached to each other with a few thin strings of cord. It covered her nipples and the middle part of her breasts, but leaving more than enough area free on both sides. "I know," Seven agreed. "It was originally designed several sizes smaller, but I lengthened the cords, without widening the cloth." Seven looked up and smiled at Torres. "You know that I am not a modest person, and I know that you like to look at me. This is what I would like to wear while enjoying a bath with our friends. It is 'decent' enough to not be disturbing or distracting, yet it will give you a very nice view to enjoy."

"And I'm sure that the others will enjoy the view as well," Torres pointed out with a grin.

"Should I choose something else?" Seven asked, knowing what the answer would be.

"Nooo, you go on and wear that. I don't mind them enjoying the view. After all, I'll be the one who will be taking that off of you later, and not them."

"I cannot wait, I want you, B'Elanna."

"And you'll have me, later. Now let's go join our friends."

Chapter 6

"Did you have fun tonight?" Torres asked Seven when their friends had left for the night.

"I did, very much so," Seven said while holding the bat'leth against the wall. "Is this acceptable?"

Torres looked at the bat'leth for a moment and a small smile crept onto her lips. She had to admit that the bat'leth looked good, right under her own bat'leth. "Yeah, that's fine."

"Why are you smiling?" Seven asked as activated the hooks that she had clipped to the bat'leth, holding the weapon securely in place while hooks cold-fused themselves with the wall. Once secured, Seven took the bat'leth out of the hooks and placed it back; satisfied with the secure hold the hooks had on the weapon when it was placed in them.

"Nothing," Torres answered once Seven was finished putting her bat'leth in place. "It is just a mere two months ago I would never have believed that I would meet someone who I would allow to live in my private quarters. Now, I'm in love, it's no longer my quarters but ours, and for the first time ever, my bat'leth is graced by the company of another bat'leth. Who would have thought?"

Seven turned away from the now secure weapon and moved closer to Torres. "Do you object to the fast pace? I do not think that I could have moved at a different pace, that I can move at a different pace. This is how the situation evolved, and I am not sorry about it."

Torres shook her head no. "No, my pet... sorry, Seven. Though you do sometimes drive me to where I want to pull my hair out, I wouldn't change a thing, including how fast things went between us."

"You do not have to correct yourself. I do not mind if you call me 'my pet' even if we are on an equal level. As I told you, I like that name."

"Well, it's good to know that I don't have to correct myself when I slip up, but really, Seven, I would like to keep 'Seven' and 'my pet' separate. I kinda like that difference, how with nothing more than the change of a name we can switch to master/slave or to equal partners."

"Very well, I just wanted to let you know that I do not mind the name regardless of on which level we are communicating."

"Good. Now, as for the fast pace, fast pace is not uncommon for Klingons. It's not uncommon to meet someone, and be married to them the next week, and be divorced the week after that."

"Which is probably why you have a Klingon marriage, and a Klingon marriage where the oath is given and taken," Seven guessed.

"Mmhmm," Torres agreed. "Short term and long term marriage. So you see, I have no problem with the pace. I was only contemplating. It's amazing how a life can change in a mere two months."

"Indeed," Seven agreed. "Which is why a smart person plans ahead, but lives for the moment."

Torres grinned at that. "That sounds very profound, that's what you do?"

"Now, yes. But before I met you, I merely planned ahead. Now I plan ahead, but live for every moment I can spend with you."

"You know, you really have a way with words. And talking about spending time, I really, really would like to go to bed with you right now and celebrate you birthday some more."

"Are you going to give me another birthday gift?" Seven asked with a smile.

"Oh, yeah," Torres agreed. "But it is the kind of gift that has to be given personally, very, very, personally; preferably on a soft horizontal surface like a bed."

Seven stepped closer to Torres until she could kiss her, which she did. "I would really like such a gift right now."

"Good, but first you turn that thing around."

Seven followed Torres' pointing finger and looked at the bat'leth that she had just placed on the wall. "I like that engraving better than the ones on the other side."

"Seven, I'm not going to have a picture of two lovers hanging on the wall. How would it look if... just no, alright?"

"These are your private quarters. Only people you consider friends, and servants, are ever allowed in here. Having this side facing out, adds to the personal value. This is what makes this bat'leth personal."

"Seven," Torres sighed.

"Please."

It was nothing more than a single word. Yet the second most powerful person in Coalition space had absolutely no defense against it. "Fine, leave it like that, it's not like I care either way."

Seven smiled at the gruff words. She leaned in and shared a long and tender kiss with Torres. "I love you," Seven said once they finally broke apart.

"Well, now that you have a personal bat'leth, I guess I have to train you in the use of it," Torres said, as always not really knowing how to react to Seven's declaration of love.

Seven kissed Torres once more before moving away from her to take the Daqtahg. Where Torres could carry her ceremonial blade with her whenever she felt like it, Seven could never do so, she couldn't even display it in the privacy of the private quarters. No, the only place where it could be kept would be in the drawer of the nightstand. "I know how to use a bat'leth."

"No you don't," Torres disagreed. "Oh, you know how to kill very efficiently using a bat'leth. But a bat'leth fight can be so much more. If you spar with a friend, or when you fight someone to show how skilled you are, and not how quick you can kill, than you have to use the bat'leth in a whole different way. Sometimes deliberately leaving openings in your defense, just so that you can show how you handle an attack while being on the defensive."

"That does not sound logical."

Torres shrugged her shoulders and put her arm around Seven, starting to move to the bedroom. "Logic never stopped a Klingon, my dear. The 'logic' thing to do is not fight in the first place. A Klingon isn't into logic, a Klingon is into showing off."

"I see. So are you telling me that you are nothing more than a showoff?" Seven asked with a smile.

"Funny, very funny. Come on, let's get naked."

Seven shared a long and tender kiss with Torres. "You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl."

Torres laughed at the remark. "Baby, you ain't heard nothing yet."

"I do wonder though, how Jadzia knew that it was acceptable to give me a bat'leth," Seven said as she started to strip.

"Well," Torres said while starting to strip as well. "As I said before, when I contacted her and Deanna earlier, I told them what Martok would be bringing, I didn't want there to be any unpleasant surprises so I wanted to give them a chance to 'graciously decline' coming by. So, knowing what Martok would bring, Jadzia knew that it would be alright to bring the bat'leth."

"I can understand that part, but there is still the fact that a bat'leth is normally only given to someone who has proven themselves in battle. How did she know that I had proven myself, how have I proven myself as a warrior?"

"Seven, you seem to forget about K'Trelan Erzian. If you haven't proven yourself as a warrior when you and I took on his group in my house, than I don't know who has."

"But how would Jadzia know about that?" Seven persisted.

"Well, I did confiscate all of his positions, not that there was that much to confiscate. As a reason I did give the fact that he tried to kill me. I can only assume that Jadzia's spies informed her of what happened."

"She has spies inside the Klingon forces?" Seven asked surprised.

"Sure," Torres said as she stepped out of her panties, leaving her naked. "I told you, every Coalition member has spies in the other faction. I also told you that in fact you couldn't really call them spies anymore because the really don't do any efforts anymore to change their appearance. To be honest, I think that nowadays the term 'observers' is a lot more fitting than 'spies'. But where observers normally only observe, these spies/observers actually do good work for the party they are spying on. "

"You did tell me about the spies," Seven agreed as the slipped her naked form into the bed. "I just find it strange that people who are clearly your friends still have spies to check on what you do."

"Back to that subject huh? Remember though that I also have spies to keep track of what they do," Torres pointed out, getting into bed as well. "You really do have to see the people of Jadzia Dax, Deanna Troy, and yes, B'Elanna Torres, separate from the Intendants. As people we might be friends, but as Intendants our own faction is our first priority. Besides, we have a saying here that is very popular between the Intendants. 'Friends will only be friends for as long as they know that you check what they do."

"Trust, but verify," Seven said in understanding.

"What?" Torres asked as she crawled closer to Seven, placing a soft kiss on the blonde's throat.

"It is a saying much used in the Federation. It means that you trust people, but do verify whatever they say or do."

"Yeah, I guess you can compare it to that," Torres agreed. "So, are we done talking now?"

"Why?" Seven asked, knowing the answer only too well.

Torres moved one of her hands up until she was cupping one of Seven's breasts. "Because I would really, really like to make love to you right now."

Seven put her own hand over Torres' "I would really like that."

"Good," Torres said before softly kissing Seven. "I think I would really like to..."

"Martok to Torres."

"No!" Torres half shouted, half growled. She knew that it had to be important, otherwise Martok wouldn't have overridden the 'do not disturb.' "This is SO not happening."

"Martok to Torres."

Torres rolled off Seven and sighed. "Computer, open the channel. "Martok, you better have a damn good reason to interrupt me, I'm lying beside a very hot and willing naked blonde right now."

"Sorry to interrupt, but this is really important."

When Martok didn't use the opportunity to tease her a little it told Torres that what ever the problem was had to be important indeed. "What's up?"

"You have a very big problem. The drone ship sent back something I think you might want to see. Go to a monitor."

Torres got out of bed and walked to the wall mounted monitor in her bedroom. She activated it and merely said 'go' when she saw Martok filling the screen.

"The slave ship encountered a Cardassian ship and there was a battle between them."

"Oh, that's just great," Torres said. She looked to her side when Seven handed her something. She had to smile when she saw that Seven was handing her a robe. Klingons weren't vain, and Martok had seen her naked before, but apparently Seven didn't want other people to see what she considered hers. Seven lifted her eyebrow and Torres merely grinned in response. "Thanks." Torres put the robe on and as Seven turned away, she added, "Oh, and put a robe on as well, my pet."

"Yes, mistress," Seven said with a small smile, making it clear that she had totally forgotten about her own nakedness.

Torres looked at the blonde for a second longer before turning back to the screen. "Alright, let's have it."

Martok started the recording that the drone ship had sent, including the communications between the two ships that the drone ship had intercepted.

"So much for them not causing any trouble," Torres said with a growl once she had seen what happened.

Seven merely stood by and listened, she had no idea how Torres would react to this, but she did know that Voyager had just caused a big problem for the Intendant.

"My spies informed me that Dukat has been awakened for something important, I have a feeling that you will hear from him in a really short time."

"I'm willing to put credits on that one," Torres agreed. "Alright, I'll take care of this. As soon as he contacts us, let me know and put him through."

Martok merely nodded his head and then terminated the connection.

"What are you going to do about this?" Seven finally asked.

"Kill them? Hunt them down and use their heads in a match of Jak'I ball? Skin them alive?" Torres asked as she got up and moved to the replicator to replicate her uniform. Better to speak to Dukat in her battle uniform than in a night gown. When Seven didn't reply, Torres looked at her and saw that the blonde was looking at the floor. "What? No raised eyebrow? No asking me what I'm really going to do?" Torres asked surprised.

"No mistress. I know that they broke the one rule you set forth for them; to not cause you any problems."

"Hmm, mistress, is it?" Torres asked. "Can you tell me the same thing and address me as B'Elanna?"

Seven lifted her eyes and looked straight into those of the Intendant. "Yes I can, but I am not happy about it."

"Well, don't worry," Torres said after a moment of silence. "You don't have to tell me that. I'm not going to kill them."

"For me?" Seven asked, needing to know the answer, but also fearing it. She didn't want Torres to start making Intendant decisions on nothing more but her feelings for Seven.

"No," Torres said in a clear voice. She took the replicated uniform out of the replicator before adding, "Look, Seven, me telling you to tell them to not get into trouble was really nothing more than wishful thinking on my part, in hindsight. They are a ship with slaves, according to the entire Coalition. It is bound to happen that they run into problems. I won't hold it against them that they defended themselves today. I saw that they didn't start the fight, in fact, they first tried to get away. That is good enough for me, for now."

"I am glad that you feel that way," Seven said relived. "But how are you going to... handle this situation?"

"I got a few ideas, but I really must see what Dukat brings up, I'm going to react to whatever he does."

"So you are not... displeased by this?" Seven asked as she came closer and shifting some of the armor pieces on Torres' uniform to make them fit better.

"And here I though I didn't need any help with putting my clothes on," Torres said with a half grin. She didn't know how Seven had done it, but that uncomfortable piece of metal that was always pinching her suddenly didn't pinch anymore. Until now she had always ignored it, knowing that the pinching was simply a part of wearing a battle uniform with metal in it. Now, with nothing more than a twist of the armor piece, Seven had proved her wrong. "From now on, one of your tasks as my slave is to put all of my armor bits in their right place."

"Yes, mistress," Seven said, glad that she had one more thing that she could do for her mistress.

"And as for me being displeased," Torres continued, "You bet your ass that I'm displeased. As a matter of fact, I'm downright pissed. But, I understand why your friends did what they did. I would have done the same, therefore I can't hold it against them and just have to accept it." Torres sighed and started to walk to the door. "Come on, I'll wait for Dukat to contact me in the official part of my quarters."

A mere ten minutes later, Martok contacted them. "Torres, he's online."

"Alright, put him through." Torres pointed in front of her, and Seven, still in her robe, reacted right away, kneeling in front of Torres, facing away from her so that she was looking at the screen as well. Torres had told her that this was how she had to kneel when there was company, and she had to kneel of course.

The face of Martok on the wall screen disappeared, only to be replaced by the face of Dukat. "Dukat, to what do I owe the pleasure of you contacting me at this time of day?"

"You know damn well why I'm contacting you," Dukat said very clearly extremely annoyed. "A Cardassian ship was attacked and nearly destroyed inside Klingon space. I can't tolerate that."

"Now, how would I know that a Cardassian ship was attacked in Klingon space? Was it attacked by a Klingon ship maybe?"

"I don't know what kind of ship it was," Dukat answered evasively.

"So it could just as well have been attacked by a second Cardassian ship."

"Nonsense," Dukat said dismissively, as if he was almost offended by that idea.

"And just why is it nonsense?" Torres persisted.

"Because a Cardassian ship would never attack a second Cardassian ship," Dukat said, forcing himself to remember that he was not talking to some Cardassian commander, but to someone who he could only negotiate with; not pressure.

"If you say so," Torres said, brushing off the subject in a way that made it very clear that she didn't believe it for a one minute. "But answer me this question, Dukat, just what was that Cardassian ship doing inside Klingon space?"

"What?" Clearly Dukat hadn't expected that very obvious question.

"I asked just what that Cardassian ship was doing in Klingon space? Was it on its way to or from Cardassian territory and simply passing through Klingon space?"

"Well, yes, of course it was."

"Than maybe you can explain to me what this ship was doing deep in Klingon space. Cardassian space is a damn long distance away from sector 1563. There is no way that a Cardassian ship could be there if it was simply on its way through Klingon territory. So, just what was that ship doing there?"

"So you do know that the ship was attacked, you know the place where it was attacked."

"Of course I know!" Torres said annoyed in a raised voice. "I know everything that goes on in Klingon space." It was an exaggeration, and both of them knew it. But the thing was that Dukat had no way of knowing just how much of an exaggeration it was. "For instance, I also know that Cardassians are behind the smugglers that plague the Coalition."

"What?" Dukat asked, wondering why Torres was suddenly bringing that up, and where he had lost control over the conversation.

"Dukat, just how stupid do you think I am? Klingons normally serve on those smugglers ships. Do you really think it would take long for me, the Klingon Intendant, to find out that while Klingons normally man those ships, they are always commanded by Cardassians?"

"I can't simply ignore an attack on a Cardassian ship, Torres," Dukat said, trying to get back the control over the conversation. "If you don't do something about this, I'll,"

"You'll, what?" Torres interrupted in an absent voice as she played a little with Seven's hair. "Remember who you are talking to, Dukat."

The tone in Torres' voice told Dukat that he was pushing a line that even he didn't want to cross. "Damn it Torres, if I start to ignore attacks on Cardassian ships simply because they took place in Klingon space, my days as Intendant would soon come to an rather abrupt end, and you know it," Dukat continued, both of them knowing only too well that he hadn't continued his threat and instead had backed down.

"If you start ignoring attacks on smuggler ships you mean."

"Damn it, Torres, that wasn't a smuggler ship, it was a Cardassian military ship."

"Dukat, don't be upset with me simply because you got careless. Now I have no idea why you as Cardassian Intendant want to bother with supporting smugglers, and really, I also don't give a damn. But if you, or the people that work for you, are so careless to actually use a Cardassian ship then don't come crying to me if something happens to it. You wouldn't have contacted me if it had been one of the ships the smugglers normally use."

"Torres,"

"Look," Torres interrupted. "We can go back and forth here all day, so let's cut to the chase. I'm going to simplify this to the extreme for you. I will continue to ignore those smugglers, for as long as they aren't a real problem, and you will ignore that ship."

Dukat seemed to think about that one for a moment. "And what if I decide to hunt down that ship?"

"Bring even more Cardassian ships into Klingon space?" Torres asked in an amused way that sounded far from pleasant. "Do you really want to go down that road, Dukat? You know only too well that even if we hadn't had this little conversation I could never let that pass without reacting in an appropriate way... like destroying the ships. Do you really want to go there? For be assured; I will if you make me."

"I'll ignore the ship," Dukat smartly agreed after thinking about it for a few seconds. "But only for as long as they are in Klingon space. If I find them outside Klingon space though..."

"Fair enough," Torres had to agree. She looked at Dukat for a moment. She had a fairly tolerant working relationship with him; she didn't want to jeopardize that. "Dukat, what I tell you now will stay between us. I'm just telling you this to prevent this little, nuisance, from becoming a real problem between us."

"Go on," Dukat said intrigued.

"That ship, those people on that ship, they aren't escaped slaves; I let them go, and I had a very good reason for doing so. I have plans for them, and that ship. It would be for the best of both our interests that you really do ignore that ship. For you, that ship doesn't have anything of interest. Let me give you some free advice, Dukat. Don't go against this deal. Because I promise you, if you do, you'll get on my bad side more than anyone ever has in my entire life, and I would act accordingly."

"That is quite threat for just one ship," Dukat pointed out, not really sure what he should make of Torres' statement. There was one thing he did know though; Torres didn't bluff. He knew that even if Torres had told him that the ship would have been the answer to all problems, he still wouldn't hunt it down. Being on Torres' bad side like that was something even he didn't want.

Torres grinned slightly. "I consider that ship mine, Dukat. Have you ever known me to be anything but fiercely protective of the things I consider mine?"

Dukat dipped his head in agreement to that statement.

After a moment of silence, Torres softly patted Seven on her head. "My pet, how safe are ships that don't bother Voyager?"

"Mistress, even under Captain Janeway, Voyager was not in the habit to be the first to attack, I sincerely doubt that this would be different now."

Dukat looked at Seven for a moment as if seeing her for the first time. "I saw the log of the attack, you do realize that she looks just like the captain on that slave ship?"

"Hmm, I wondered about that when I saw the log," Torres agreed.

"You saw the log?" Dukat repeated.

"Yes, I have that ship followed; I'm keeping an eye on them. As for their captain looking like my pet, the reason for that is that they are sisters." Both Torres and Seven knew that this little lie was the easiest way of explaining the resemblance. An idea struck Torres, and she smartly added, "Which also gives you a little peek into one of the reasons why the ship is so important to me, as long as her sister is alive, my pet is happy. As long as my pet is happy, I'm very, very happy, get my drift Dukat?"

"I do," Dukat said while nodding his head a little. "It is an... odd way of dealing with a slave though."

"It would be, if my pet was just another slave. But she isn't a mere slave; she is my body slave."

"You, got a body slave?!" Dukat asked surprised, suddenly the woman that he had been pretty much dismissive of, was set in a whole new light.

Now Torres grinned. "I do, and I'm sure that you will understand that the normal treatment for a slave won't really work with someone that lies in the same bed as you while you sleep."

"Right," Dukat said, finally understanding why the ship would be of importance to Torres. Not knowing that it really was only one of many reasons. "As long as her sister is safe, your slave will be more than willing to do freely whatever pleases you. But if you lose the ship, your leverage over your slave is gone." Dukat lifted his hands slightly when he saw that Torres was about to say something. "I know, I know. If I were the one to take that leverage away by destroying that ship, you would be less than pleased with me. Don't worry, Torres, now that I know why the ship is of importance to you, I can also see that it is of no importance to me. If I were to, take possession, of your slave's sister it wouldn't get me any leverage with you, but it sure would get you pissed at me. See, Torres, I'm an reasonable person, all I needed was an honest explanation."

"As long as we understand each other." Torres frowned her eyebrows a little. "Though I must admit that I have no idea why they made my pet's sister captain. My pet, why would they do such a thing?"

"I do not know, mistress, all I can do is speculate," Seven said in a low and soft voice, her eyes low, once more being the perfect slave.

"Then speculate."

"Yes mistress. I can only assume that they made her captain because she knows the Klingon part of the Coalition much better than any of them," Seven said, making sure to not bring up the thing that Torres was clearly keeping from Dukat; that Voyager didn't actually come from that Universe. "The others do not know what is dangerous and safe in this part. However, they do know that their mentality of always first assuming that people are good, until they proven otherwise, will not work here. They need someone on the bridge that can make decisions right away, without having to ask someone else first if they can tell them about a situation. However, I did notice that the Voyager crew took a precaution. They made her Acting Captain, and not a normal captain."

"You take advice from you body slave?" Dukat asked disbelievingly.

Torres patted Seven's head before replying. "Oh, my pet here is not just your average body slave. Do you really think that I would have made her my body slave if the only asset she has was that she is good in bed? She also is highly intelligent. In fact, she possesses more knowledge than any of the Klingon scientists... combined. And on top of that my little pet here is as loyal as they come, even without me keeping her sister alive, though the fact that I do keep her sister alive makes her that much more loyal. I suggest that you catch up on your spy reports, Dukat, and read what happened on my home planet, and you might understand one of the reasons why I made her into my body slave."

"If you say so," Dukat said, not quite believing Torres boast about her slave.

"Now, Dukat, since we are talking about things that will stay between us, tell me, just why the hell do you bother with those smugglers? You sure don't need the profits."

Dukat leaned back in his chair, for a moment wondering if he should answer that question. Finally he grinned. "It's a hobby."

"A hobby?" Torres asked surprised.

"Yes, as you know, as Intendant you can have things done simply by saying that you want them to be done. But 'playing' with those smugglers keeps me sharp. It is, interesting, to do things and succeed in doing it without the power of being the Intendant."

"If that is the case, then why did you contact me now?" Torres asked. "Losing ships is a part of the smuggler existence."

Dukat spread his arms a little. "Honestly, Torres, a Cardassian ship almost being destroyed in Klingon space, I would be stupid not to try and get an advantage out of it, which I have."

"That almost sounds as if you deliberately used a Cardassian military ship, Dukat. In fact, your smugglers using that ship does sound a little suspicious."

Dukat shook his head no. "Believe me, Torres, while I did use that attack to get the deal we just made, I myself am less than pleased that they used a military ship for that. It seems that some of my commanders became a little complacent. Don't worry, I'll take care of them. This won't happen again."

Torres nodded her head slightly. She had known from the beginning that there had to be an ulterior reason. Dukat couldn't care less that a ship had been destroyed, especially since the ship hadn't been on official Cardassian business. She patted Seven softly on the head. "My pet, what's so special about her being Acting Captain instead of Captain? We don't have a position with that name. And furthermore would they attack a ship without being attacked first?"

"The position of Acting Captain means that the senior staff has put her in charge of the ship, but that they can take her out of that position without it being considered mutiny. As for if they would attack first, that is highly doubtful. They have a standard policy of never opening fire first. Though Captain Janeway sometimes disregarded that policy, I do know that Commander Chakotay and Commander Tuvok disagreed with her on those occasions. I am fairly certain that they would hold Acting Captain Hansen to the rules they are used to."

"Good enough?" Torres asked looking at Dukat.

"For now," Dukat agreed. "I will give the command to ignore the ship from now on. But let there be no mistake, if they do attack ships, and especially Cardassian ships on a mission, than we will be talking again."

"Fair enough," Torres agreed. "But let there also be no mistake about the fact that I will take a close look at just who started the fight. Remember, I have the ship under observation, so I will know who started the fight. If you contact me about a fight when it was your side which started that attack, than I will be severely... displeased."

Dukat looked at her for a moment before giving a short nod. "As you like to say, fair enough. But, if they wander into Cardassian space, then all bets are off."

"Of course, as long as they wandered there by themselves, and weren't lured there. Remember, I will know."

Dukat tilted his head slightly in agreement. "Well, as interesting as this is, I have other things to do. We will be talking again, Torres."

"I'm sure," Torres agreed. A moment later the connection was terminated. "So much for that."

Seven turned around until she was facing Torres. "Mistress, I am sorry that this is causing you so much trouble."

"B'Elanna," Torres corrected. "Remember, tonight it would be B'Elanna and Seven. We had to take a little break from that to deal with this, but the night is far from over."

"Very well, B'Elanna. But I am still sorry about the trouble this is causing you."
"No need to be sorry. As I said, I can understand why they did what they did; I would have done the same thing."

"Still, you had to use a piece of information and deal with Dukat. Now you can not use that information to deal again."

"Seven, stop trying to feel sorry alright? Look, yes I had to use some valuable information. But really, I have known this for two years already, and never before found a reason to use this info. Normally if I need help from Dukat I call in one of those favors he owes me. In fact, I could have done that today as well, but I decided to finally use that info. Now was as good as a time as any."

Seven came closer until she was almost touching Torres. "I just do not want you to jeopardize your position for me."

"Seven, listen to me. You made your decision to stay with me. Now let me make my own decisions on how I deal with you being here. I know what I can do without it hurting me in whatever way. Making that deal with Dukat just now? Believe me, you haven't seen anything yet. What do you think we do if we have to negotiate about mining rights on some border planet? Or if some Klingon High Council member makes an ass of himself on his visit to Cardassia Prime? That what you just saw was nothing more than a friendly talk between Dukat and me, in comparison."

Seven sighed. "Very well, I will accept that you know what you are doing, and do not let the matter that you like me cloud your judgment."

Torres laughed at that. "Like you? My dear, I do a lot more than just like you."

Seven leaned in and kissed the Klingon. A moment later she stepped back and pulled Torres along by their linked hands. "Come to bed with me, B'Elanna. I need you."

Torres was only too happy to follow along.

***

B'Elanna looked at the box and nodded her head a little. She had just put it down on the table when the door opened behind her. She turned around to face the door, very effectively blocking the view of the table. "Hi. Long day huh?" B'Elanna asked the obvious.

"Very long," Annika agreed as she set down on the couch. "Hi, by the way. Oh, talking of by the way, I asked Chakotay if the could plan our next off days at the same time so that we can use that time to move to the captain's quarters."

Sounds like a plan," B'Elanna agreed. "But why have Chakotay plan that?"

"Personnel planning is his department. Besides, I don't think it would look to well if one of the first things I'd do as captain would be to make sure that we have time off at the same time. I did not tell him to plan our time off at the same time; I asked him, just like any other crew member would do."

"Guess you got a point there," B'Elanna had to agree as she picked up the box and slowly walked towards Annika, hiding the box behind her back. "So, do you have plans for this evening?"

"Actually, Chakotay invited us both to dinner at the mess hall in two hours."

"Really?" B'Elanna asked innocently, knowing only too well that Chakotay was going to invite Annika to the mess hall. In fact, it would have been B'Elanna's task to take Annika there if she had declined Chakotay's invitation.

"Yeah. I hope you don't mind that I accepted for the both of us. I figured that if you had other plans, we could still let Chakotay know that we can't make it."

"That's fine. I do have plans, but that doesn't cross the dinner plans."

"What plans?" Annika asked, looking up at the standing Klingon.

"Here," Was B'Elanna's reply as she handed Annika the box she had been hiding.

Annika didn't take the box, instead she looked at it for a moment before looking back at B'Elanna's face. "What is that?"

"A gift," B'Elanna said, not knowing what the problem was.

"And what do you expect from me in return?"

"What? Why would I expect something back?" B'Elanna said as she set down beside Annika.

"It is my experience that people who want to give you 'gifts' usually want something back in return."

"What? No, no I don't want something back in return. Look, it's just a birthday present for you." B'Elanna once more tried to hand the box to Annika, but once again the blonde didn't take it.

"Birthday present?" Annika asked, clearly not seeing the concept of it.

"Yeah, why..." Suddenly B'Elanna realized what the problem had to be. "Today is the same date as it was in the year that you were born. In the Federation it is customary, though not mandatory, to give friends and family a present for their birthday."

"Why would you do that?" Annika asked bewildered.

"Because... um, come to think of it, I actually have no idea," B'Elanna admitted with a sheepish grin. "But that doesn't take away that it is normal to give friends and family a gift."

"So you want nothing from me in return?" Annika asked again to clarify that part.

"Nope," B'Elanna assured. "Well, a thank you would be nice."

"You know for sure that today is my birthday?" Annika asked suddenly.

"Well, um, I think it's a pretty sure bet. Today is the birthday of Seven, and since she and you are the same person, I'd say that today is your birthday as well."

"Do... do you also know how old I am?"

Suddenly it struck B'Elanna truly how bad Annika's life as a slave had been. True, B'Elanna knew about the horrors of being at all time at the mercy of the 'Master' about the forced labor, about the sex slaves, but there was even more than that that was taken away from the slaves. Slaves simply did not have a real life, they couldn't do anything but live to serve the masters. They didn't even know simple things like how old they were, certainly for them every day was nothing more than a continuation of the last day. Why keep track of that? Why calculate just how many days, months, years you had to suffer? "Twenty-seven standards Federation years," Annika said after a moment.

"Which is?"

"Here on voyager we use standards Federation days, and there go three-hundred sixty-five days in one standard year."

Annika did a quick calculation and decided she liked the number. "How old are you?"

"I'm thirty."

Once again Annika thought about that for a moment, then she smiled. "Good thing I like older women huh?"

Seeing the smile, B'Elanna was only too happy to go along. "Oh yeah, I'm so old compared to you, my child, that history will see me as a cradle robber. Now, I assure you that I don't want anything in return, will you please take my gift?"

Annika slowly took the box, and once she had it, B'Elanna grinned. "You know, this is the hardest I ever had to work to give someone a gift."

Annika looked up from the box and saw B'Elanna's grin. A smile came to her lips. "Thank you, this is beautiful."

"You don't even know what it is," B'Elanna pointed out.

"It doesn't matter. Getting this is beautiful. It could be filled with nothing more than dirt and I would still find it beautiful." Annika looked down at the box once more before softly adding, "My life changed so much ever since I was appointed master slave to Voyager. It is so much more now. I'm alive now, and at every beautiful moment in my new life; you were there. You are so good to me. I love you, B'Elanna Torres."

B'Elanna's eyes fluttered close when hearing those last words. She had heard the words before, Tom had never been hesitant to say 'I love you,' but those words never had to impact on B'Elanna as they did now. Now she could finally understand why so many deeds in history were done for those three little words. Why wars had been fought for three little words. B'Elanna took hold of one of Annika's hands and brought it to her lips, placing several soft kisses on her knuckles. "I love you too, Annika Hansen. I think I fell in love with you that night we first slept in the same bed."

It had been while they were still sharing a cell. One night B'Elanna had been awoken by a soft sound. It had turned out to be Annika pleading and begging in her sleep, of what Annika had been afraid, B'Elanna had never found out. She knew that with Annika's life, just what exact moment the blonde had been reliving in her sleep hadn't been important. What had been important was how B'Elanna had gone over to awaken Annika, only to be gripped in a tight hold. B'Elanna had held Annika for the rest of the night, and the secure hold of B'Elanna's arms had held Annika's nightmares at bay for the rest of the night. Even since that night, whenever Annika had nightmares, B'Elanna would go over to hold her, and every time, B'Elanna succeeded in keeping the nightmares at bay.

"But I think that for fairness, I have to point out," B'Elanna continued, "that maybe your feelings for me are guided by the fact that I was the first person who actually was nice to you."

Annika put her head on B'Elanna's shoulder. "That may be," She was forced to admit, "but I'm not sorry for the fact that your kindness made me realize that it is actually possible for me to love someone."

B'Elanna put her arm around Annika, pulling her a little closer. "Now that I have done my good deed and pointed out that the situation in which we got to know each other might be important to how you feel about me, let me also tell you that I'm damn glad that I happened to be the person 'volunteered' to be in that cell with Janeway."

B'Elanna changed position until she could kiss Annika, which she did. They shared a long kiss which soon threatened to become much more. With much difficulty the broke apart. B'Elanna softly caressed Annika's cheek. "I love you Annika Hansen."

"And I love you, B'Elanna Torres." A smile came to Annika's lips. "You know, it feels damn good to sit like this, I could do that for the rest of the evening."

"So could I," B'Elanna greed. "But we have a dinner appointment in..." B'Elanna quickly looked at the timepiece hanging on the wall. "...one and a half hours. So how about you open my gift and after that we can sit for a little longer before getting ready to go to dinner."

"Alright," Annika said with a smile before looking at the box she was still holding in her hands. She slowly took the lid of the box and looked inside. Inside there were two plain but beautiful necklaces. "Thank you," Annika said after a moment, not really knowing what to make from the fact that B'Elanna was giving her two necklaces at the same time.

B'Elanna gave Annika a small smile before starting to explain, she knew only too well that Annika was a little confused. "They are Bolian commitment necklaces. It is an indication that you are committed to the other person that is wearing the same necklace." Seeing Annika's eyes shooting up to look at her, B'Elanna was quick to add, "It isn't a heavy commitment, Annika; which is why I choose it. I don't want to pressure you into anything, but on the other hand, I did want to show you how much I care about you.

"If you accept the necklace, you accept the fact that I'm interested in you, it's kinda like saying that you don't mind me being interested in you. It is up to you if you give the second necklace to me."

"If I were to give the second necklace to you, I would be stating that I'm interested in you?"

"Right," B'Elanna agreed. "And if I take it and wear it, I'm saying that I like you being interested in me. Having said that, I don't think that many people on Voyager would know about this custom. Maybe the Bolians, but I'm not sure about that, it is not commonly done these days. Once they joined the Federation they drifted more to using the more common Federation commitment symbols."

"It doesn't matter," Annika said as she handed one of the necklaces to B'Elanna. "Would you?"

"It would be my pleasure," B'Elanna said with a big smile as she took the necklace and opened it. She put the necklace around Annika's neck and used the opportunity to place a soft kiss on that elegant neck.

"Thank you," Annika said softly as she looked down at the necklace she was now wearing. After a moment she looked at the second necklace that was still laying in the box. She took it out and looked at B'Elanna. "Would you?" She asked. It were the same words that she had used a moment before, but it was a totally different question.

"It would be my pleasure," B'Elanna said right way, reaching to the necklace. "But I should tell you that we are only allowed to wear these when we are off duty. Federation regulation; no wearing of jewelry while on duty."

"No, let me," Annika said while keeping the necklace out of B'Elanna's reach.

Only too happy to oblige, B'Elanna turned away from Annika, offering her neck to the blonde.

Annika put the necklace around B'Elanna's neck and also used the opportunity to place a kiss on B'Elanna's neck, soon followed by a second one, and a third one. When B'Elanna felt one of Annika's hands drift up her side, B'Elanna finally spoke up. "Annika, what are you doing?"

"Touching you, of course," Annika stated the obvious.

"Annika, you don't have to do this," B'Elanna pointed out, but she could not bring herself to tell Annika to stop.

"I know that I don't have to do this, which is why I want to do this. "B'Elanna, I'm still not ready to go all the way with you, but I am ready to touch you a lot more intimately than I have been doing until now." The hand drifted higher until it was cupping one of B'Elanna's breasts. "A lot more intimately. Would you mind me touching you like this as we sit here and hold each other? Would you mind me touching your breasts, caressing you all over you body without going all the way, for now?"

"I wouldn't mind at all, under one condition," B'Elanna said as she turned around to face Annika.

"What condition?" Annika asked, tilting her head slightly.

B'Elanna placed her hand on Annika's hip. "That I can do the same to you."

Annika took B'Elanna's hand and placed it on one of her own breasts. "I would really like that."

B'Elanna relished her first real feel of Annika's soft breast in her hand, even if it was still covered by a Federation uniform. "You know, Annika, you have really lousy timing."

"Why?" Annika asked as she started to explore B'Elanna's body with soft caresses.

"Because we can only sit here for an hour before we have to get ready to meet Chakotay."

Annika smiled at that. "I think that this is actually very good timing, it prevents us from getting carried away."

"Is there a chance of that?" B'Elanna asked as she started her own trek of exploration.

"Oh, yeah," Annika said, arching her back as B'Elanna hit a sensitive spot. "A very big chance."

"Good," B'Elanna said as she leaned in to kiss Annika. B'Elanna knew that she would end up telling Annika about the surprise party. Having seen how Annika reacted to getting a gift, she didn't want to spring a fully organized surprise party on the poor woman. Most people, including B'Elanna herself, tended to forget that this confident commander, their new captain, could still be a very insecure person when confronted with personal situation.

Continued...