***

Darkness. She was alone in the darkness, surrounded by metal walls and the sound of others suffering. An odd smell permeated the K'lax prison, alien fear and her own failure.

Failure. She'd failed in everything: the negotiations, the first contact, her duty to her ship. Failed.

The torture began the next day. In the unending darkness she had little idea of the exact time, but her body told her it wanted breakfast. And coffee. Food, warmth, safety, peace.

When the inquisitors had finished their day's work, she was taken to a different cell. Disorientation, her mind whispered. No way to get her bearings, no way to know where she was ... for all she knew, she had been taken off the K'lax city-ship and left on a planet while she was unconscious.

When the guards had finished raping her, they left.

Kathryn curled herself up -- safety in the foetal position whispered a rational part of her mind -- and tried to pretend that the pitiful whimpering she could hear wasn't coming from her throat. With a conscious effort she remembered old Vulcan meditation techniques she had learnt at the Academy and applied them.

The whimpering stopped.

Over in a corner of the cell -- Kathryn's vision was too obscured by blood to see much but she could make out a shadowing humanoid form -- someone moved over towards her.

"It's dreadful, isn't it?" whispered a male voice.

Remembering the guards, Kathryn stayed silent.

"You've been tortured, too," continued the voice. "You must be important to be tortured." A cool hand touched her side and Kathryn bit back her scream. "This is the work of an inquisitor. "They must value you very highly. No one dies under an inquisitor."

"How flattering," Kathryn murmered. She was surprised at how raspy her voice was. Had she screamed? She must have.

"But the guards ... that's the worst isn't it?"

Kathryn nodded, wondering if he could see her in the darkness. Evidently he could, for he continued, "I'm told you can get used to it. Some women even seek them out, in return for extra food. It's not uncommon at all."

"I won't."

"I believe you. If you're strong enough to withstand an inquisitor -- and you must be, they'll kill you once they have the information they want -- you must be strong."

"I was. I thought I was."

"You are."

The cool hand found Kathryn's warm, bleeding hand and held it. She was already becoming numb to the pain; the pain evoked by the alien's touch was far outweighed by the relief she felt.

She was strong.

She had an ally.

She would survive.

***

His name was Joshual and he had been in the K'lax prison since he wrote an engineering book which suggested that Relora, a rival group, were more advanced in some areas. He hadn't been tortured, just removed from wider society. He didn't expect to see daylight again.

The guards raped them before handing over their daily rations, but Kathryn hadn't yet returned to the Inquisitors. They would probably wait for her wounds to heal before inflicting new ones. At first, anyway. He'd shared a cell with three other Inquisition victims and Kathryn was the first who'd withstood the preliminary session.

She could never make out his complete form in the darkness, but his hands, alien in their coolness, were comforting. She began to forget about her life before the K'lax. There was just the darkness, the guards and Joshual.

One day -- they had no way of judging the passing of time, but Joshual said there had been thirty ration deliveries since she had entered his cell -- one day, after the guards had left and Kathryn and Joshual were left shaking and afraid, one day he told her a story.

It was a children's story, he said, about an alien who takes a child to a mysterious planet at night, but always brings her back at day's beginning. Eventually she learns that he has come from the past, and the planet they have visited is Yilan, the long-lost home of the K'lax and Relora. She brings her family to the planet, and the K'lax are able to land their city-ship and build a home, and live in safety for the first time in millennia.

Kathryn liked that story. It reminded her of Voyager, of her own life. And it reminded her of the lesson taught in xeno-sociology at the Academy: no species or civilisation is all bad. She mentioned this to Joshual and, although she couldn't see, she knew he was smiling.

"You reminded me of Chakotay, too," she commented later.

"Chakotay?"

"He was my friend. He would tell me stories, stories that seem simple, but which usually help me see something I've missed."

"Tell me about him."

"What should I say?" A sob caught in Kathryn's throat. "I'll never see him again. I'll never see any of them again." With a sting of surprise as the tears touched her lacerated face, Kathryn realised she was crying.

Joshual reached for her, but she pushed him away and retreated further into the shadows. He listened to the sound of her sobbing without comment.

When she calmed down, Kathryn found him sitting beside her. "Tell me about your ship," he whispered.

"Why?"

"Because you're alone. Because you should have someone to share yourself with." There was a long pause. "We'll probably spend the rest of our lives together, you know."

"I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

"That I'll lose my identity. That I'll walk out of this place and find that I'm nothing, because I've lost everything that I am." She took a deep breath and whispered, "I'm afraid of losing you."

His cool, otherworldly fingers touched her face and she felt no pain. "Tell me everything," he murmered in her ear, "tell me about your world."

The sound of other prisoners sobbing, calling out in the darkness, dying, had become white noise, a loud silence, a lifetime ago. Kathryn filled it with her voice, soft and husky in the darkness.

Joshual listened.

***

The guards recognised the bond between the prisoners and delighted in defiling it. Paradoxically, this only brought the two closer.

As time passed, Kathryn realised that she no longer feared the threat of the Inquisitors. They could do what they wanted.

She was strong.

She had an ally.

She would survive.

***

The possibility of a rescue had been dissmissed aeons ago, but they came anyway. Her crew, strong, brave, loyal.

She looked up from her customary foetal position as Tuvok burst into the cell. "Captain," he greeted her, as if she weren't ragged, messy and broken.

"Tuvok," she rasped in reply. Her security chief helped her to her feet and supported her as she swayed in place. "Tuvok ... there are so many people here ... we have to get them all out."

"That remains to be seen, Captain," he said. He drew his tricorder out and scanned Joshual. "It is as we had surmised."

"Tuvok?"

If he had been a human she would have said the look in his eye was pity. "Captain," he said softly, "this prison is an extremely realistic holographic projection. Everything you have been subjected to, everything you have experienced, was an illusion."

"No..." she gestured at Joshual, who seemed completely oblivious to the situation. Like a non-sentient hologram confronted with something outside its programming. "Tuvok, please..."

Tuvok's communicator chirped. "Tuvok here," he responded.

"Tuvok, we've captured the central control bay," came Chakotay's voice. "We'll be able to shut down the shields and projection in a moment. Have you got the captain?"

"Yes, Commander. However, she is in an extremely emotional state. I recommend that you join us as soon as possible; your presence may prove calming."

"We'll be able to beam you out in a moment. I'll meet you in sickbay."

It was at that point that Kathryn lost consciousness.

***

She woke up in sickbay, warm, comfortable and free of pain.

She felt like hell.

"It was all an illusion?" she asked. Chakotay, who had ignored the Doctor's protests and seated himself beside her on the biobed, took her hand.

"You're still allowed to feel pain. It was real to you."

Kathryn's eyes filled up with tears. "Everything ... nothing ... please, Chakotay, surely the people...?"

"I'm sorry. But everything, and everyone, was--"

"--Fake."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"In the contol center we found a record of everything you told the 'man' in your cell. They wanted information."

"If the holographic Inquisitors didn't work, go for a more subtle approach?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And I thought I was so strong in surviving the Inquisitors."

"No one faults you, Kathryn."

"I was weak."

"You were strong. And you survived."

"Did I?"

"You're alive. And you'll heal."

"And the K'lax? What will they do with all the information I gave them?"

"Nothing. Seven created a virus which completely destroyed any information associated with the prison."

"Thanks." She was exhausted. And empty. "I think I want to go to sleep now."

"I understand." Chakotay wrapped the blanket -- and gift from Neelix and Naomi -- aroound her and kissed her on the forehead. As she was drifting off, he added, "And Kathryn?"

"Hmm?"

"That story he told you ... I looked in the K'lax database. It was real. It seemed to mean a lot to you, so I thought you should know."

"Chakotay?"

"Yes?"

"Thankyou."

He sat with her until she was asleep. Before she lost consciousness all together, she had one final thought:

She was strong.

She had allies.

She would survive.

END

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Copyright © Elizabeth Barr 1999

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