When the three of us returned to the surface, we found destruction. Katye had destroyed several small shuttlecrafts which had wrecked across the fields around the mountains, and even one of the buildings around the mine shaft. She had been standing on the corner of the tallest building, that was still standing, but jumped off and flew over to us.
"We don't have long. The Fae Dragon is this way," Katye said, motioning towards the east.
L'Naan huffed and charged past Echo and I, even Katye, without a word. I sighed with disappointment, but understood her mindset. Sancu had used Raven as a juicy piece of bait, thinking we would lose, yet we won and were still denied our victory. Raven seemed meaningless to 'them', so why would it be different for her?
We were able to board the Fae Dragon and leave the solar system without any problems. With how things ended, and another two weeks before we could contact Voyager, we headed in the general direction of Voyager's path at low warp. Echo had shut herself away with the scroll from Sancu while L'Naan shut Katye and I out completely and focused her time training on the Mental Plane.
"Why do I feel like we just re-entered Voyager after the fight against the Disciples?" I asked after Echo and L'Naan had rushed off once dinner was finished one night.
"Because," Katye sighed as she refilled our glasses with Spirit Wine, "we're in a similar position. Echo wanting to train something new and special is nothing new, but L'Naan is what's troubling you. We're 'here' because of you, she's alive because of you, and she's fully tied to us because of you... am I wrong?"
"I'm the Embodiment of Chaos, stop acting like you can read me so well," I retorted, picking up my drink.
Katye clinked her cup against mine, and we both swallowed the shot. "L'Naan's fear is that she is just a pawn."
"And she isn't?" I scoffed.
"She is, until she can become a knight, bishop, or rook," Katye, with Alkatyenia's voice overlapping, said.
"Great, are you here for a pep talk?" I mocked.
"I'm here to tell you how all of this goes. Like it or not, you and Katye are the reason why all of this is going on. Everyone that you meet, befriend, or kill is only there to train you both. For Istar to be going to these lengths, using his own Pantheon to watch over your growth, means that things are at the final level of what he can control. He will give you both whatever you need to grow, but setbacks are a part of it. We lost over a hundred lovers during our long lives because they could not keep up with our level and were used against us, if they were unlucky; several were just killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, by those who did not fear us," Alkatyenia said.
"Your point?" I growled, pouring another set of drinks.
"Raven isn't dead in your arms nor L'Naan. If she can't accept that she could be the bait to make you all work harder, then she might as well remain in this universe. Raven made her choice and is obviously fighting for it... Why keep a warrior who isn't willing to do the same? You can't escape what you are anymore than 'I' can."
Alkaytenia retreated as Katye clutched her head and a thin trickle of black blood dripped from her nose. I sighed and grabbed a napkin to clean her up though Katye took it from me.
"Thanks," Katye sighed, looking over to L'Naan on the couch.
"Even if L'Naan changes her mind and decides to stay in this universe, that's her choice and it won't affect our feelings towards her," I reminded.
"I know, but there must be a better way. If we keep sacrificing ourselves and our loved ones, eventually there will be nothing left but empty husks that are bound to our power."
"What if that is our future? Dystina crossed the threshold of the Chaos Storm that birthed her, becoming the Embodiment of Chaos, by completely surrendering everything that made her who she was into a final attack," I could not help but remark.
"If that was the case, she never would have sealed away her True Soul and ask to be reunited with 'me' when 'I' was strong enough. If she could do it then we can as well," she replied with a light smile as she placed a hand over mine.
I smiled back, picking up her hand, then gently kissed her knuckles and said something she had told me when we first started this journey, "We'll take this day by day, together. I won't give up on you if you don't give up on me."
She smirked and picked up her glass, so I copied her actions and clinked our glasses together before we finished them with a single gulp. After that, Katye stood up and headed downstairs, so that she could get back to work on a new magic device which would create a small temporal field. While she was still working on her first prototype, her projections predicted that it would be able to double the speed of Time within the field for an hour before it would need to be recharged. It was something that she had been working on since we returned to Voyager, and she was getting to the final stages before she tried to build it.
Being left alone, I decided to work on my holo-novels based off Dragon Age and Skyrim that I wanted to release to the crew of Voyager soon. Since we were heading into 'The Killing Game' episodes, it would finally be safe for me to add them into the databanks and get some feedback from Tom, Harry, and Neelix, who used my other programs the most. With the modified Holo-Deck Two, and after the changes that the Hirogen would make to the ship if they follow the episode, I knew that it would be far too easy for one of these to become the 'game' that we were facing; we would be fighting Dragons soon enough in our next lives after Voyager got home, so it could wait until then.
Despite L'Naan standoffishness, she still joined us at mealtimes and we had a few discussions about how things could play out when we returned to Voyager. Echo was harder to pry from her own study, but Katye could do it by leveraging helping her understand the runes that were the core to this new style of magic. Katye had even created a basic form of one of the spells during our time in Eden, so they both began learning different types of Trap spells which I knew would be a bane of mine in the coming years as Echo perfected the techniques.
We had a few guesses about how things would play out once we got back as we had made a significant change to one of the main characters, the Doctor. Before he was sent to the Alpha Quadrant, we had uploaded a number of programs that would help him in espionage and retaking the ship, but there was one or two... or more hidden subroutines that would only activate after a series of specific events to happen; basically, any episodes that starred the Doctor more. If any of our group was onboard Voyager, none of them could trigger, and most would have him send a signal through a backdoor in Voyager's computer bank that L'Naan had set up then delete the memory files of him doing it.
Four days before we could rendezvous with Voyager, Fae picked up one of such signals on subspace. Since Sancu had already pulled some bullshit with the 'favor', we decided to as well. While we did not contact Voyager, Echo set us on course for the ship at maximum warp which allowed us to catch up a day before we could act.
Echo and L'Naan took the time to study the Hirogen formation while Katye worked on prepping a few consumable items to refill everyone's stock for whatever we might need. The cost of cloaking near the Hirogen ships was nearly five times the normal cost, and Echo and L'Naan were not going easy on the sensors, so I stayed on core duty while also meditating to keep myself at my peak.
"So... what's the plan?" I asked as we sat down at dinner; each of us with a plate of food.
"There are fifteen Hirogen ships around Voyager. While it's not a mana disruption field, their ships are deploying some kind of mana dampening field, weakening anything that uses mana while also increasing the mana cost, and that even includes our devices, like Fae. Despite what should be the case from the show, we've detected at least a hundred Hirogen on Voyager, and each ship is manned by at least two people. Fae's phasers can't deal significant damage to their ships while L'Naan and I should be able to keep up with the core cost if we were forced to run for a few days. A direct assault is out of the question, but we are more of a special ops crew than anything else, and Voyager is valuable to the Hirogen; our options are fairly clear," Echo explained.
"I set up numerous backdoors into Voyager's computer after we returned, so I should be able to reach out to Harry and the Doctor without too much difficulty. Fae can maintain the private connection at a percent per minute, so we must ration it carefully if we deploy our full group. Monitoring the channel only uses a percent over an hour, so it's possible though it would be better to keep someone back," L'Naan added.
I sighed and said, "Fine... I can stay back on the ship and keep the core topped off until you need me."
"I was planning that I would be the only one to go to Voyager first, so that I can survey the changes, and we could plan proper counter measures," Echo stated.
"That's solid enough for me; your skills fooled the Borg, so the Hirogan should not be that much different as the Borg have assimilated them before," Katye remarked.
"No complaints here," I replied with a shrug.
"Then I'll connect to Voyager and track down Harry in the morning," L'Naan said since we agreed. "I can connect to Voyager's sensors and communications array from the outside, but hiding a transporter beam from the internal sensors will be difficult. I'm going to need help if we want to smuggle her onboard without alerting anyone."
"Couldn't we sweep in close to Voyager and have her travel through the Yin Realm?" I asked.
"Raven adapted all sensors, including the internal ones, to detect mana. Brilliant, but that also means that we can't skirt around them like most sensor nets. Transporters are easier to mask than anything involving True Mana. My experience relates to this 'universe', not your own, so I'm limited with what I can pull off," L'Naan stated.
"I was just throwing the idea out there... We already know that I am the idiot who didn't think about using our Borg technology until it was needed," I sighed with defeat since it seemed L'Naan was determined to stay mad at me.
L'Naan snorted and turned her attention to the food in front of her. Echo and Katye both gave me looks, but I shook my head lightly and focused on my food. This was not the time to potentially start a fight with the battle for Voyager looming. L'Naan would not abandon the Voyager crew over our personal drama, so we would have to save our conversation for later.
After we finished meal, L'Naan hurried off to the Mental Plane while Katye and Echo headed downstairs to work on a few simple traps that Echo might need for her mission tomorrow. That left me alone again, with a bottle of Spirit Wine and concerns about L'Naan's future with us.
It was easy to understand where her anger was coming from as I had been toyed with by Tori's 'training' much longer than she had, and I started at a much worse disadvantage than she did. Katye and I were the reason why she was here, why she existed, so in a sense, we were the cause of everything bad that happened in her life. B'Elanna's backstory of the picked-on, abandoned half-breed was still her own as well as being an experiment created by the Vidiians to cure the Phage. Honestly, her backstory was worse than my own, before my first death anyways.
Her anger may have been a bit displaced, but I accepted it still. During my time in 'The 100' universe, there were countless times that I cursed Tori for throwing me into that twisted world. I knew what it felt like to be a toy, a pawn, in front of some 'higher power', and even worse, I had done similar things to people that I cared about during my time there. While I accepted the decisions that I made, I never forgot what I did, and the people that I hurt, so her anger was almost comforting.
"Fae... I want you to send an offer to L'Naan, no matter what she's doing. If she agrees, I want to share my memories with her. If she wants before the matter, that's fine, but what I want to give her is from the moment that I awoke from my first death, the original 'world of white' where I met Tori again, right before he threw me into 'The 100', to when Praimfaya scorched our Earth... If she wants more memories, I'll give them, but stress that I want this section shown to her."
:Understood.: Fae chimed, and then several minutes later, she stated. :L'Naan has chosen to 'watch' your memories from the beginning of your existence. At the current rate, it will take five years for her to assimilate all of the memories.:
I sighed with annoyance, and asked, "What will it take for her to have my first six months in 'The 100' in a few days' worth with your accelerated Time?"
:Two hundred and eighty-seven percent of the core, if you want it over two days' worth of your Time. Channeling two of your five 'minds' during that time, while using the other three to meditate, can cancel out the drain to my core.:
I huffed and poured myself another drink then instructed, "Ask her, if I give her all of my memories after things with Voyager are handled, no matter the cost to me, can she agree to a true sit-down conversation?"
Fae was silent for a few moments, then replied. :L'Naan agrees, with the condition that you establish a full Mental connection, verified by Echo, for the conversation.:
"Happily; I'm not wanting to hide anything from her," I said instantly.
:L'Naan suggests that you focus on the core and keep the Fae Dragon ready to fight or run.:
"I will... after all, I'm on core duty until we retake Voyager," I replied with a smile.
The next day, L'Naan hacked into Voyager's computer system at eight hundred hours on the dot. She used the sensors to scan for Harry, but unfortunately, he was near several Hirogen, so she could not contact him directly yet. While she continued to monitor him and his surroundings, she also scanned through the holo-deck data to figure out what 'games' were going on, which looked to mirror the episode as the World War Two scenario had just been activated. At four in the morning, Harry was finally released to his quarters, so L'Naan paged Katye, as Rebecca was working on keeping the core filled, to speak to him.
"Hey, Harry, how are you holding up?" Katye asked through the comm system.
"Katye?!? How did you... Where are... The Hirogen have the ship! They will pick up this transmission!" Harry exclaimed softly in his bedroom, finally alone after working twenty hours under the watchful eye of his Hirogen guard.
"Do you really think that we're stupid enough to reach out to you directly if we weren't confident that the fifteen Hirogen ships around Voyager wouldn't notice us?" she retorted.
Harry let out a hollow laugh of relief and said, "It's about time that you all returned. They captured the ship nearly a month ago and have been torturing the majority of the crew in some kind of... killing games, throwing them into one holo-deck simulation after another. We've lost several people despite the Doctor's best efforts. Those of us who aren't in the holo-decks are working on turning the entire ship into a massive one."
"That's along what we have uncovered. We don't have a solid plan yet, but we want to send Echo over first because she should be able to move around undetected and get us a 'lay of the land' so to speak," she explained.
"And you need my help hiding the transporter activation from the Hirogen?" he asked, instantly understanding what she needed.
"Exactly. L'Naan has tapped into the ship's sensors, but altering anything from this side would likely be detected."
He sighed, "It will be difficult, but I think I can pull it off... but, how will I alert you that I'm ready? We'll only have a few seconds."
"I'm monitoring your comm badge. Double tap it when you are ready, and I'll beam Echo to Deck Fifteen," L'Naan replied.
"Deck Twelve has already been joined to Holo-Deck Two, so she would be beaming in the middle of the Klingon Clan Wars," Harry said with concern.
"She'll be fine," Katye said with a smirk. "Echo navigated bloody battlefields long before she had her powers, or even met me. She is going to give you a bracelet which will allow you to contact us telepathically, either in person or by leaving it in your room. All you need to do is touch the crystal embedded in it and 'speak' in your mind, kind of like a comm badge, and you turn it off the same way. It will only last for half an hour of total use, so ration it carefully; we can still talk like this when you are alone, if you need us."
"Alright, I'll see what I can do, but I need some sleep before they drag me out again."
"Of course; just signal us when you are ready for us to beam Echo over."
"I will. Harry out," he said then tapped his comm badge.
L'Naan was actually the one to cut the connection, as she had 'hardwired' the link to his badge. She sighed and leaned back in her chair at the Conn Station, looking out into the starry window with the different ships glowing in certain places. The entire time that they had been waiting to reach out to Harry, L'Naan had made a point of not speaking, or even replying to Katye unless it was about the Fae Dragon's functions.
Katye was saddened by her coldness and could not help but ask, "Do you hate us for drawing you into the mess that is our lives?"
"I do, and yet, I don't... Istar told me that neither of you had a choice in 'what' you are but... We had her, and she was yanked away because she had more to gain as a Borg. What do you think that will do to Raven? Living with everything that is done to her and what she will be forced to do? 'They' don't give a crap about any of that and then you both just brush it off like 'well, that's how shit goes'... it makes me sick, especially when I know it could happen to me," she spat.
"Go float yourself," Katye responded. "You think we don't care? If Becca didn't smother her anger, she likely would have lost control of her power, destroying the mine, likely killing you and Echo, or worse, and probably the entire planet if she had hurt you two... and for what? Raven would still be in the hands of the Borg, and even if I could have gotten her back under control, we would probably have no chance of getting Raven back if the Borg could study our true powers."
With a huff, Katye left room before L'Naan could respond. Fearing and hating the fact that she could be used as bait to force Katye and Rebecca into a more dangerous situation was something that Katye could understand and accept, but to accuse her and Becca of not caring about Raven was crossing a major line. If it was not for the fact that they were about to start this mission to save Voyager, she would have kicked L'Naan off the ship or left herself if Rebecca defended her, though it was doubtful if she knew what L'Naan had said. She was not going to tell Rebecca since she knew that it was L'Naan's insecurity speaking, but she was not about to let that comment, or thought, slide. Staying a part of their group meant that she needed to put her life in their hands because a time would come when they would need to do the same.
