Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

ponce who had forgotten why decent people rose up and made starships, and why only a handful among them were chosen to command.
    “Maybe we should go back to sickbay,” she rasped.
    “Why? So you can have me sedated?”
    “So I can have the Doctor reconfirm your identity. I refuse to believe I'll ever become as cynical as you.”
    The admiral wasn't insulted. “Am I the only one experiencing déjà vu here?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Seven years ago, you had a chance to use the Caretaker's Array to get
Voyager
home. But instead, you destroyed it.”
    Janeway stood back a step. Did she really have to explain? Did she have to remind this shriveled soul that a captain's first duty is to the bigger picture, and that everybody on a starship signed up with the vow of giving his or her life to the betterment of those who had supplied them with this power and authority? That this ship wasn't a toy or a private plane?
    “I did what I knew was right,” she proclaimed.
    “You chose to put the lives of strangers ahead of the lives of your crew,” the admiral said caustically. “You can't make the same mistake again.”
    Janeway's stomach rolled to think this person was even related to her, never mind the reality. The lives of strangers? What was that supposed to mean? No ship exists
just
to protect the lives of those aboard!
    Her jaw set hard. She battled down the wish to fight. “You got
Voyager
home,” she said. “That means I will too. If it takes a few more years, then that's—”
    “Seven of Nine is going to die.”
    “What?”
    “Three years from now. She'll be injured on an away mission. She'll make it back to
Voyager,
and die in the arms of her husband.”
    “Husband?”
    “Chakotay.”
    Janeway felt her innards buckle. Was the admiral making this up just to get a rise out of her? The other woman was tricky— Janeway intimately knew just how tricky.
    Yet there was a hardness of truth in the admiral's eyes. “He'll never be the same after Seven's death. And neither will you.”
    Janeway tried to let this sink in. She was also obligated to cling to her oath—that the life of no single crewman would stand in the way of the ship's primary mission to protect life and peace and stability on a much grander scale than these decks.
    “If I know what's going to happen,” she attempted, “I can avoid it.”
    “Seven's not the only one,” the admiral shot again. “Between this day and the day I got
Voyager
home, I lost twenty-two crew members. And then, of course, there's Tuvok.”
    “What about him?” Janeway snapped.
    The admiral swaggered as she shifted her feet. “You're forgetting the Temporal Prime Directive, Captain—”
    “To hell with it!”
    “Fine. Tuvok has a degenerative neurological condition that he hasn't told you about.”
    How many punches could one rib cage take?
    “There's a cure in the Alpha Quadrant,” the admiral went on harshly. “Even if you alter
Voyager'
s route, limit your contact with alien species, you're going to lose people. But I'm offering you a chance to get them all home safe and sound—today! Are you really going to walk away from that?”



CHAPTER 15

    “Y OUR CONCERN IS APPRECIATED , C APTAIN , BUT PREMATURE . I T will be several years before the symptoms become serious. Until then, the Doctor can manage my condition with medication.”
    Kathryn Janeway listened to Tuvok's polite protestations and took everything with a grain of salt. Tuvok didn't incline toward deception, but even keeping his condition from her had been a kind of lie. She knew he was thinking more of her than himself—after all, she couldn't exactly dismiss him from the Service on a medical discharge, could she?
    “Is it true,” she asked, “what the admiral said? That there's a cure in the Alpha Quadrant?”
    Tuvok was obviously disturbed by her knowing this information and sagged a little. “It's called a
fal-tor-voh.
And it requires a mind-meld with another Vulcan.”
    “What about the other Vulcans on
Voyager?”
The question sounded flat just as she finished it. He would've thought of that possibility first off.
    “None of them is compatible,” he pointed out politely.
    “But members of your family are,” she inferred. “If you knew that returning to the Alpha Quadrant was your only chance for recovery, why didn't you object when I asked you to find a way to destroy the hub?”
    It was almost an insult to ask him that. Unlike Admiral Janeway, Tuvok