The fights were furious and passionate that night, as the threat of capture made the group anxious.  The last fight was between Harry Kim and Joe Carrey.  Joe sauntered around the circle in an open stance of arrogant assuredness.  Intimidation was one of his weapons and he obviously thought Harry would be no match.  Bare-chested, the younger fighter seemed soft in comparison to his opponent’s sinewy frame.  But Harry had a discipline of stance that was not about show or posturing, only concentration on the matter at hand.

“Come to wipe the smirk off my face, young Harry?” Joe asked, flashing his teeth.

“I’ve come to win.”

“Then let’s see what you’ve got.”

Carrey unleashed a gang of vicious punches, most of which Kim absorbed in the gut.  Winded, he stumbled back and tried to catch his breath, but without straying from his fighters’ pose.

“So you can take a couple punches,” Joe taunted.  “Let’s see what you do with a few more.”

Joe put his full weight behind his punch.  Harry calmly sidestepped it to the outside, grabbed the outstretched arm, and threw Joe to the ground.

A knee digging into his back, Joe spat out, “Don’t get cocky, now.  Just when you think you have the advantage…”

Suddenly he unleashed a scissor kick that torqued his upper body around.  Harry was thrown off him, landing on the ground and hitting his head.  Immediately Carrey was on him, pinning him to the cold floor and raising a fist high in the air to deliver the finishing blow right to Harry’s jaw. 

At that moment, the spectators froze in place, ending conversations and even cheers in mid-word.  In the audience, Tarran leaned into Chakotay and said, “I think Harry’s going to need more than a dermal regenerator.”

The moment of silence stretched until the rising fist finally began its descent.  The taut and gleaming skin showed the elastic tendons of Carrey’s arm tense and propel his rage forward.  It plunged, straight as a spear, sure of its target.

It was stopped short.

At the last instant, the dazed Ensign shot his arm up to meet the falling fist.  With precision, he grabbed it in his palm and held it fast.  Carrey tried with the other fist, but Harry grabbed that one too.  Seemingly at a stalemate, the two men tensed against each other for a moment, testing for a weaknesses.  Without warning, Harry let his wrists drop, drawing his opponent in, before firing his hands up behind Joe’s neck.  With all his strength, he pulled Carrey’s face down to meet the crown of his raised head.

With a yell, Carrey clutched his blood-smeared face and rolled away.  Harry stood, towering above his prone rival.

“Get up,” he ordered.

Joe tried to find his footing, but his wobbling arms and clumsy feet refused to obey.  Instead, when his hand slipped in the growing pool of blood, he slumped to the ground.

The fight was over.

In the hall, Chakotay demanded, “Why did you drag me out here?”

Tarran said, “We have to deal with the Tuvok situation.”

“What do you propose?”

“That we take care of our problem.”

Chakotay was annoyed by the roundabout tack Straker was taking, so he demanded, “Just tell me what you’re planning.  We used to be partners in this whole thing, you know.”

“What?” Tarran asked, innocently.

“I know about your midnight exercises with the men.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were planning a mutiny.”

Tarran appeared wounded by this comment.  He defended by saying, “If you only knew.  I am just as loyal to the Captain as you are, maybe more.  And you don’t even know what’s really going on, right under your nose.”

“I agree!  I don’t know what’s going on.  So tell me, what is the plan?  How will we deal with Tuvok?”

“We have to get rid of that pointy-eared bastard, permanently.”

Chakotay was shocked.  “You’ve got to be kidding me.  You may not, under any circumstances, harm Tuvok in any way.  Is that clear?”

“But you’ve never even liked Tuvok.  And he’s a danger to us…”

“Is that clear, Ensign?”

“Crystal, Sir.”

The two parted in opposite directions.

While strolling back to his quarters, Chakotay mulled the day’s events over in his mind.  He thought he had handled his problems with the increasingly powerful Ensign Straker very well.  He clearly defined a set of boundaries and asserted his place in the command structure.  And he averted a potentially deadly situation.

As he neared his quarters, his thoughts invariably turned to her.  His Kathryn would be sleeping by now, thankfully.  He didn’t want her to know about his late-night activities—though he would have given a limb to know hers.  When he reached their corridor, he slowed his pace and quieted his step.  Hearing nothing, and after assuring the hall was empty, he crept to her door and stealthily placed his ear against it.  There was a rustling sound within and he strained to discern what it was.  Could she still be up reading?  Maybe enjoying a late-night cup of black coffee.  Or she could even be…

Before he could finish that thought, the doors flew open and he nearly fell inside.  In surprise and fear, he stumbled back, before looking up to see… Tarran Straker.

“Oh, hi Chak,” he said, nonchalantly.

“Tarran, what are you doing here?” the bewildered commander asked.

“Shhhh.  Don’t want to wake the Captain.”

“Don’t want to wake…”  Chakotay did not finish the sentence, because the higher thought centres of his brain interrupted at that very moment to piece together the reason for Tarran’s suspicious exit and the identity of Kathryn’s lover.

His eyes each grew as wide as the main deflector, a look of the purest rage smothered his face, and his entire body became as tight as a piano string.  Through clenched teeth, Chakotay spit out, “You’re the one?  Tarran, my friend, is the one who’s fucking the captain?  You’re going to die!”

Tarran didn’t even wait for him to finish his sentence; he started to run before the last word fell.  Down the corridor and towards the Jeffries tubes, Straker sprinted with the hate-inspired Chakotay bearing down on his heels. 

With an agility only Tarran could have possessed, he swiftly slid into the Jeffries tube and shut the hatch behind him.  By the time Chakotay reached it, Tarran had overloaded the door controls, jamming it shut.  Chakotay could only bang his hands on the door and shout one last oath. 

“Tarran!  I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do!”

The cargo bay was filled with nearly every man who wasn’t currently on duty—and a few who were.  All but Ensign Straker.  No one would have noticed his absence, except that Chakotay had grilled nearly everyone in the crowd as to his location.  Despite the size of the crowd, everyone stayed quiet in anticipation of the next clash.  It was Vorik’s first night, which meant he had to fight, and so he had chosen Chakotay.  Though no longer a violent race, Vulcans still possessed superior strength and endurance, but Vorik himself was an inexperienced fighter.  No one was certain whether natural ability would win out or skill.  Though surrounded by the throng of energized men, the two took a moment to size each other up, circling and observing.  Suddenly Chakotay acquired the primal look in his eyes that he first got when he was forced to strangle a Cardassian to death on a mission with the Maquis.  No one had seen this in him before, at least not in many years.  It was so powerful that Vorik took a step back, which Chakotay exploited with a lunge that he had no room to dodge. 

Then the cargo bay door opened.

“Who…”

The crowd turned and they found Tuvok standing in the corridor with an all-female security detail pouring in, phasers at the ready.

Calmly, Tuvok said, “Stop what you are doing and form up.”

Confused the men just looked at each other, unsure if they should heed the Vulcan’s orders or attempt to fight back. 

“Mr. Tuvok, come to spoil our fun?” Tarran shouted.  The crowd parted to allow him to look directly at Tuvok.

“I have come to stop all illegal activities on this ship.  If you cooperate, the process can be peaceful and the punishment light.”

“Never!” screamed one man, who flung himself towards Tuvok, only to be shot down by three simultaneous phaser beams.  At that, anarchy erupted.  The men charged the security officers and tried to wrestle their weapons away.  Then one was flying through the air, tossed to Tarran, which he caught in one outstretched hand.

“Stop!” Tarran ordered.  Everyone froze in place.  Looking at him, everyone discovered he had his phaser trained on Tuvok.

“It’s set to kill!  If anyone tries anything, the Vulcan’s dead.”

Chakotay could only stare at him in disbelief.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Just taking care of our problem, Chakotay,” Straker replied.

“You can’t do this, it’s not right,” he said while moving closer.

“But it’s what you wanted.”

Chakotay was angered by this.  “No.  I never wanted anyone to die.  And no one has to; just put down the phaser.”  He inched a little closer.

“But don’t you see?  To solve your problem, someone has to die.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You do, Chakotay.  The answers have been inside your head the whole time.  Tuvok, I believe you came to tell Chakotay who blew up his quarters.”

Tuvok said, “Indeed.  Chakotay, I uncovered evidence that you created the plasma leak that caused the explosion in your quarters.  I also found your secret distillery in the recycling lab.  And I determined you were the one who raided Neelix’s supplies of leeola root.”

Chakotay said, “But it was…”

Tarran cut him off.  “It was me, which means it was you.  Don’t you understand, Chakotay, we’re two sides of the same coin.  Think back to our first fight.”

Chakotay tried to remember, but something seemed wrong.  It was not as he remembered it.  He was there, walking through the hallway.  He saw the two crewmen, but where was Tarran?  Why were they fighting?  Then he understood.  He remembered it all; in the hallway he was alone—he was fighting himself.  He was also alone for the midnight raid.  He set up the distillery.  In fact there was no ensign assigned to recycling on the ship.

Chakotay asked, “So, I was alone on the shuttle mission?”

“Completely.”

“Then why are you pointing a phaser at Tuvok?  If you’re me, then why can’t I make you stop?”

Before he could get his answer, the bay doors opened again.  Kathryn Janeway entered.

Tuvok, appearing genuinely distressed, said, “Captain, you shouldn’t be here.”

“I’ll be fine.  This is my crew, after all.”  She surveyed the room, looked at Chakotay with a confused expression, and said, “Commander, why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

He laughed.  He didn’t want to, but the situation was so absurd he could not help it.  Here he stood, topless and barefooted, trying to convince his alter ego, a man two days ago he would have killed, to put down the phaser.  What happened to him on that away mission?

Wait a minute.  He wanted to kill Tarran because he discovered he was sleeping with Kathryn.  But if he and Tarran are the same person…

Then everything was clear.  That night, after drinking his first batch of moonshine, he staggered to her quarters.  She let him in, replicated him some coffee.  She wanted him to go to sickbay, but he refused, said the doctor would never let him live it down.  Instead of a sickbay cot, she tucked him into her own bed, then stood to leave.  He begged her to stay, said he wanted to talk to her and that they never really got to talk anymore.  Then he told her, he told her everything he wanted to say, good and bad.  In the end, he was lying in her bed crying and she curled up next to him and held him until he stopped.  Then he decided to kiss her and the floodgates were opened, on both sides.

“Hey, Space Cadet, hostage situation here,” Tarran said.

“Oh, yeah.  Um, just put the phaser down.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Chakotay asked.

“Because you have to take it from me.”

“You’re kidding, Tarran.”

“I’m not.  In fact, you have until the count of three.”

“What are we supposed to fight?”

“One.”

“Am I supposed to charge at you or something?”

“Two.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.  Cut it out, Straker.”

“Three.”

Straker raised his weapon to fire.  Without thinking, Chakotay ran towards him, but he wasn’t going to be in time to stop him from hitting that button.  And if he tackled Tarran in this crowded room, the phaser beam could hit anyone.  Even her.  Straining every muscle, he drove forward and did the only thing he could: he lunged in the path of the weapon.  Straker fired.

Chakotay did not think his death would hurt so much.  It felt like he had been kicked in the chest by a horse and he gasped for his last few breaths.  Looking up from the deck, he saw Tuvok.  Oddly, this annoyed him greatly, and he said, “Why the hell… Tuvok… I don’t even like you.”

Then she was by him, holding his head and crying.  “Is he gone?  Is Tarran gone?” she asked.

Chakotay tilted his head and said, “I don’t see him anywhere.  I think he’s gone.”

Then Tuvok pronounced, “Captain, the phaser was set on stun, but we should still get the commander to sickbay.”

“Stun?” Chakotay asked.

Kathryn, who was still holding his head, leaned in and said, “What happened to you Chakotay?  You’ve been acting so strangely and you look like you haven’t slept in days.”  Then she whispered in his ear, “In fact, I think I can vouch that you haven’t.”

Groggily, he said, “It all started when I went on that shuttle mission…”

He would have explained further, but at that point he was fast asleep.

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