THE QUEEN'S IN THE HIVE

by Boz

Disclaimers - Paramount owns the characters - I’m just borrowing them, but this is just what they might decide to do to them!

Rating: PG

This was a response to a challenge to wrote the last scene of the last series. It is dedicated to a special pond-mate, Roses who told me that I couldn't be considered a ‘proper’ fanfic writer until I wrote angst - I hope this is the first and last time. I swear that I wrote this before I had heard any rumours about the end of Season 6 (and as I write this they are still rumours:-)

~*~

Voyager crouched behind the asteroid like a huge wounded animal, licking its wounds. It had been a battle of wits as much as a battle of weapons, and they knew that up until now they had been played with, had been bruised and battered, but soon would come time for the kill.

Chakotay stood in the middle of the bridge staring at the viewscreen, the vast cube hanging inviolate in the frigid black depths of space directly ahead. He could only hope that the short time they had managed to remain hidden had given the crew time to repair as many systems as possible and Harry and B’Elanna time to complete the project they had been working on so frenetically.

"Sir, we’re being hailed."

"On screen."

They were there, in the centre of the great cube, green lights flashing rhythmically around them like the beating of a gigantic malevolent heart. The queen, secure and confident in the centre of her hive, all powerful. Titanium hooks pulled the gray mottled exoskin tight, failing to completely hide the few wisps of red hair that clung tenaciously to the smooth scalp. Behind her stood a well-built drone, unfamiliar in the coils of wire and springs, yet familiar in silhouette.

Chakotay took a step towards the viewscreen, the four pips on his collar gleaming red in the pulsing bridge lights.

"Captain........" the purring voice didn’t quite hide a familiar husky timbre, "......Chakotay....you know why we’re here. You know I could have finished you off days ago. I know all the secrets of Voyager. I wont leave here until you are with me, as my consort. Transport across now and become one with us. You cannot know how insignificant humanity is when you can have the omnipotence of ultimate power. The assimilation process is the most potent sensation I have ever experienced. I want you to have this experience with me....come with me and together we will reign over the galaxy. It can all be ours, both of us."

The Captain stood impassively, his arms loose by his sides.

"Kathryn," he began, ".....excuse me.......your Majesty," he continued sarcastically. "Your words and actions ceased to have any effect on me many months ago. I knew when you took us all on that damn fool suicide mission to hitch a ride back to the Alpha Quadrant with a Borg convoy that that was the end. At last I could break free from you and see you for what you had become; a hardened, dark force, someone who had gone too far in her obsession to get this crew home. It was then that I realised that I would no longer support you. You lost the power to hurt me, to have any impact on me all that time ago. May the spirits save your soul."

He raised one hand, fingers bent at right angles, a gesture they all recognised and the transmission was cut. Once again the screen was filled with the menacing darkness of the immense cube.

He turned to B’Elanna at the engineering station.

"B’Elanna?"

"Captain, we’ve had no time for testing, for running final simulations."

"No time, it’s them or us."

He turned to Tuvok.

"Ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fire!"

For an instant, nothing. They all held their breath. This new weapon was a long shot. Integrating technology they had brought from a questionable dealer at an out of the way space station into their own systems had been a huge risk, but they were driven by desperation and if anyone could do it B’Elanna and Harry could.

Slowly a purple ray radiated from their bow, then, gathering speed and intensity, it spread across the face of the cube, the radioactive impulses causing an iridescent glow which snaked its way through the conduits, seeking the core of the massive vessel. The explosion when it came was sudden and fierce. Voyager rocked with the shock waves as fragments of debris shot past them, technology turned to space junk in an instant.

The Captain sat down in his chair, watching the spreading field of debris dispassionately.

"Mr. Paris, resume course for the Alpha Quadrant, Warp Six."

"Aye Sir."

No one would ever know that at the moment of that final explosion he had felt a knife twist deep in his guts and that his mind still reverberated with the faint echoes of a frantic voice, "Chakotay......"

~~~~~~~~finis~~~~~~~~~~~

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