Leaving You Dry

She focused on her breathing, slowing it, deepening it. They would sit here for hours probably; she'd have to conserve as much energy as possible. A dry, hot breeze feathered her face, absorbing the moisture that had already appeared there. She was glad her hair was finally long enough for a bun, to have it float around her neck and face in this heat would have been infinitely more uncomfortable. The doctor had injected her and the other members of the away team with extra minerals and vitamins, he'd made them drink a liter of water each. Which wasn't much, considering, but they would get more planet side. Their hosts, the Vilquary, were hospitable. In their own way.

All around them a plain of packed, hard, yellow sand stretched out into the horizon. The land was completely flat except for some manmade elevations, each in a hundred mile radius of one another. Wells. Sand structures not a foot high with small cylinders on top that would release water at a touch. Her crew had thoroughly studied the planet, its occupants and their culture before making contact.

The sun was tempered by the dense atmosphere of the planet, radiating orange tinted light for most of every twenty-three hour cycle. It was summer here. The heat was still stifling in spite of the dampening properties of the atmosphere. And they would have to sit in it, unsheltered, throughout the negotiations. There was not a single place to hide from the sun or the crushing gravity on the entire planet. The Vilquary were perfectly adapted to their environment, they didn't need shelter.

Their hosts were standing on the other side of a large, stone table, three high-backed chairs flanking both of its sides in silent invitation. The three aliens looked similar: thin, tall, bipedal creatures, dark faces holding seemingly pained expressions, wearing black habit-like flowing gowns. At first sight everything about this species reeked of doom but the impression didn't last, they'd discovered that with their first hail.

Five minutes had passed, standing without moving, looking without flinching. It was part of a ritual, the assessment, soon they would have passed it, very soon.

As if in silent agreement with her thoughts, one of the aliens raised an arm and gestured at the table. Slower than her body was screaming for, struggling to make her moves as natural as possible, she moved to the table and tried to sit down without simply giving into gravity and plopping into the chair. The Vilquari opposite her extended his hand, palm up, across the table. She laid hers, palm down, on top of it. The contact between her damp palm and the Vilquari's dry one felt intimate but not too intrusive. The others followed suit with the person in front of them. This was a silent greeting, a light physical introduction, meant to gauge sincerity. Words, the Vilquary believed, could be used to mean anything; with touches, this was more difficult. She had a few doubts about the truth of that belief. One could always act after all. She didn't see any reason not to go along with it though.

When the Vilquary talked it was factual and to the point, no pleasantries and nothing relating to emotions. This partly explained her choice for the away team. To her left sat Seven of Nine, former representative of the Borg Collective and now valued member of the eclectic Voyager crew. She always strived for perfection, preferably through efficiency and by focusing all her time and attention on the task at hand. Only slowly had she started to recognize her emotions and accept them. They were no longer deemed completely irrelevant.

To her right sat her Chief of Security, Lt. Commander Tuvok. As a Vulcan, he always controlled his emotions and preferred to stick to the facts of life. He was always straightforward in his approach although he'd proven that he could lie his way effectively through anything when he had successfully infiltrated the Maquis.

The other reason she'd chosen these two was their ability to adapt to the difficult physical circumstances of the planet. Neither Seven nor Tuvok, used to the high temperatures and strong gravity of Vulcan, had even a shimmer of sweat on their faces and they seemed to move with relative ease.

'Arack Se you call me.' The alien's voice sounded as dry and hard as the cracked earth surrounding them.

'Captain Kathryn Janeway you call me,' she answered.

'Ber-til Birda you call me.'

'Lieutenant Commander Tuvok you call me.'

'Klotsà Berqouin you call me.'

'Seven of Nine you call me.'

And so the negotiations for dilithium started, with dry statements and touching hands.


From the corner of her eye, Seven could see her Captain struggling to keep her back straight. They had been talking for two hours. The gravity and the heat were starting to take their toll on the petite human. She was not build for this. Her face was flushed, sweat poured in small rivulets down her forehead alongside her hairline and she was beginning to tremble. They should start to wrap this up or at least take a break to drink some water. A break would however not really be refreshing as long as they were on the planet without respite from the exhausting conditions.

Seven herself didn't really suffer from the heat but her rising body temperature had reached the level were her nanoprobes were no longer capable of regulating it without using her body's natural methods and sweat shone on her face. The dampness on her skin and the occasional forming drop sliding down her neck were an unsettling sensation, she frequently had the desire to scratch, wipe and twitch though she didn't. Her admiration for the Captain's ability to stay composed and focused on the task at hand went up a notch.

She felt frustrated as well. The Captain wasn't winding down the negotiation or trying to appeal for some rest.


Kathryn could feel the heat shimmering through her skin, heating her flesh, her blood, and her bones down to the marrow contained within. The warmth escalated her heart rate, made her blood pulse faster, throbbing in all her extremities. She could feel the echo of her heartbeat in her fingers and toes. Her nipples seemed to have developed into sensitive spring buds ready to burst open. Her calves were swollen and extremely hot. Even the outer layers of her clothes, her uniform, were soaked. Her shirt and underwear were wetly sticking to her body, irritating the sensitive skin. That was the one thing they hadn't paid enough attention to: thinner clothing.

But the negotiations were going well. It looked like they were going to acquire quite a substantial amount of dilithium in exchange for a manageable amount of medical supplies. The main problem now lay in the time it would take the Vilquary to extract all the dilithium since their supplies didn't cover the full amount.

Because of the heat the Vilquary only performed physical labor from a little before sunset until a little after dawn, five hours a day this time of the year. She couldn't really blame them but at that rate they would still be here in a months time, time Kathryn felt she couldn't afford to wait. She'd offered the help of several of her crewmembers, the Vilquary's counteroffer was to just give them the already mined dilithium, in return for less medical supplies naturally. That meant half of what they had originally bartered for. It would be quite a loss; a reason to try again.

'Arack Se,' Janeway began, 'it would be no problem for our crewmembers to help you. I am sure-'

She was interrupted by the Vilquari when he held up his hand to silence her. Together with the rest of his body language, his stiffening back and the frown forming on his forehead, the gesture was very effective in silencing her. She wondered briefly if Seven was taking mental notes, and how much she would suffer if Seven would try these techniques out on her. She'd better prepare herself…

Arack Se extended his hand towards her, palm up in invitation. She placed her sweaty trembling hand on top of it, very aware that everyone could see how affected she was by the heat. Silently he laid his other hand on top of both of theirs and looked her straight in the eye.

'Captain Kathryn Janeway, do you need the extra dilithium?'

She considered his question carefully. When would they have the opportunity to stalk up again? With a friendly species at that? 'Arack Se, yes we do.'

It was quiet as he considered her answer.

'Arack Se,' she continued, 'we do not have the time to wait until you mine the dilithium.'

He pressed her hand between his own. On impulse she put her other hand on top of his, hoping it would help convince him of her sincerity.

His eyes continued to look straight into hers and she made an extra effort to look right back, unblinkingly.

He nodded. 'Conditions are:'

She nodded in acceptance.


Tuvok could tell that it was becoming an effort for his Captain to formulate every sentence according to Vilquary custom. Her body language, which their hosts valued highly as a source for information, radiated rock-solid willpower, but not much else. Thankfully the aliens had a patient and emphatic nature.

Of course everything the Captain had said was true, which helped in that both he and Seven would be backing her up with their body language. Although he noticed that Seven now seemed slightly affected by the heat as well. She looked irritated.

Maybe it was time to request a break. The Vilquary could do without water for a longer period of time then his Captain could. However she would know that his request for water would be mostly for her benefit and if there was one thing the Captain hated, it was appearing weak. The negotiation was coming close to its conclusion, he would wait a little longer.


By now, Kathryn was feeling like a bloated, boiled lobster. Unfortunately, a certain area between her thighs was feeling rather swollen as well. She'd uncrossed her legs a long time ago, to relieve some of the pressure there, but her arousal was rising. The slowly trickling sweat between her thighs wasn't exactly helping, turning it into one big itching, hot and wet area. It was more distracting than feeling her heartbeat forcefully in her hands and feet, the sweat running down her face, or the parched, sandpaper quality of her throat and mouth. Of course her overly sensitive chest didn't dampen her arousal either.

Images of glasses, no - whole bottles, buckets of water and what she could do with them floated through her mind. At this point she was almost afraid to ask for a water break, unsure what she would do if she saw actual water. She needed to wrap this up, just accept any conditions blindly, so she could escape to the sanctuary of her ship and her quarters. Her shower, bath, a rough towel to relieve the itching. Clean clothes. Oh God.

Seven looked hot by now as well. Hot and wet, slick skinned, sweaty, flushed… Lips not their usual pink, but a hot-blooded red, and full, so full. Kathryn realized she had begun to pant a little and tried to deepen and slow her breathing. She had to focus on something else, anything. Reluctantly she pulled her eyes away from her Astrometrics officer (something she should remember…) and turned back to the chief negotiator, Arack Se.


He noticed that every time Captain Janeway looked at Seven, her concentration seemed to lapse and her breathing became unsteady. Unobtrusively he tried to look at the young woman. He couldn't detect anything extraordinary, she seemed a little affected by the heat but not alarmingly so. Wondering what could cause this reaction in his Captain, he studied Janeway intently. She had trouble looking away from Seven and she looked even more flushed, her pupils had dilated, which was unusual in this light. She seemed… aroused… was the only word he could think of.

He never seized to be amazed at human responses. Captain Janeway must be exhausted, not only from the heat, but from the taxing negotiations as well. Yet her attraction to her Astrometrics officer appeared more pronounced than ever. Why waste energy on something so unproductive?


Another assessment had just finished. Both parties were satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations. Arack Se was exchanging a last greeting with the Captain. He put his hand against her cheek as a sign of respect, and the Captain reciprocated. Feeling the dry touch on her face, the skin underneath her hand made her aware of her desire to touch, to be touched. But not by Arack Se.

They stood there next to the first batch of neatly stacked gray containers filled with dilithium. The air was shimmering, the sun setting; tinting the sand in brilliant, warm colors. Orange, pink, purple, red and yellow all running into each other, creating a spectacular last view of the planet before they finally beamed back to Voyager.

It had been decided that the Voyager crewmembers who were going to help with the mining would report to Ber-til Birda in an hour on the planet, with half of the promised medical supplies. If everything went according to plan, Voyager would be able to break orbit in a week.


Deep in thought, Seven took in the changing colors surrounding them. Because the Captain had been her usual stubborn self, they hadn't had anything to drink in four hours. Seven was feeling light headed and she was sure the Captain was dehydrated and needed to visit Sickbay. She was equally sure that this probably wouldn't happen.

This visit had in many ways been a truly new experience. Every race was different, every planet unique but that wasn't what made this away mission memorable. Heat had effected her before to the extent that it had bothered her, but she had never before had to sit still in it and just endure it, feel its effects with hardly anything to distract her. Seven felt overly aware of every part of her body, her skin felt oversensitive and yearned to be touched to relieve some of the steadily building tension in her body…

She had managed to ignore it, discomfort was irrelevant, but that didn't mean that she wasn't aware of the unexpected effect the prolonged exposure to high temperature had had on her.

The Captain was standing next to her and she observed her covertly. Her lips were dry, white and had split in several places, her mouth was open to breath easier, but she was breathing quickly and shallowly. Her eyes seemed to have sunk and she wasn't trembling anymore, it was closer to shivering, but she still stood upright, head held high and with a mostly determined look in her eyes. She would call the Doctor herself, get him to do a check-up, prescribe rest and rehydrate her. Then again, that look in her eyes… It would probably just make the Captain angry with her, with the Doctor. She would see. Maybe she could employ some of the techniques she had seen the Vilquary representative use. An eyebrow went up speculatively. She had learned much today.

She should help Captain Janeway herself though, use a more oblique approach. Sometimes it seemed the most direct route to assist the Captain in something personal, was an indirect one. An image of assisting the weakened Captain with a bath flashed through her mind; auburn wet tresses slicked back, her hands supporting that fragile body. Seven's body temperature spiked unpleasantly, almost painfully. The heat temporarily pounding in her cheeks, in her extremities. Forcefully she focused her mind on the exchanged greeting.

Calmer and cooler, a small smile graced Seven's lips as she considered her Captain, her affection for the obstinate woman, her own condition at the moment. It was conceivable that in this instant her wish to help the Captain wasn't entirely driven by selflessness and a desire for efficiency…

Her smile broadened, perhaps she was becoming a bit delusional.

END OF STORY