To Be Free

* Captain, how does it feel, to be free? *

Kathryn Janeway had no idea what Chakotay meant when he said those words the day they became a crew. She had always been free, at least as free as any human got. She was a Captain, for God sake. She had her own ship. She had a home to go to, she had food to eat. She even had a man waiting for her, when she got back. If that wasn't freedom, then what was?

Yes, it was true that she was Captain of a human ship, but even that had honor to it. The Klingons she worked for respected her. They respected her ability and her adeptness in battle. That's why they had given her the mission to apprehend the human traitors who were starting a needless war with the Klingon Empire.

That's the mission that landed her on the wrong side of the galaxy. It was the mission that forced her to work with the same traitors that she had been sworn to find. Kathryn didn't mind though. She actually liked most of them. She just wasn't sure what she would do when they got home.

They were a strange bunch. Chakotay was a human who talked about freedom. He used phrases like 'in charge of your own destiny' and 'slavery in any form is wrong.' Phrases that Kathryn just didn't understand.

Kathryn wasn't a stupid woman. If she were she wouldn't have been given the responsibilities she had been. Yeah most humans hated her, the same way they hated her father, but someone had to feed her family. After her father had been killed in a rebellion, it was up to Kathryn to care for he mother and younger sister. She did well doing it. They never wanted for anything. They had a nice place to live and food to eat. They were as free as any human got.

Then there was B'Ellanna. B'Ellanna was half-human and half-Klingon. Her mother was a Klingon warrior who fell in love with one of her servants and then got pregnant with B'Ellanna. This was one of the things that were never supposed to happen. It was OK if a Klingon male got a human female pregnant but not the other way around. B'Elanna's father was executed and her mother went deep underground to protect her daughter.

B'Elanna used words like 'honor' and 'revenge.' These were words that Kathryn understood. She had just never heard them used against the Klingons before. The Starship Voyager had been lost in space for nearly a year before they heard from home. It was a secret transmission by the rebellion. It was good to hear from home, even though Kathryn was a little nervous about talking with the 'enemy'.

That's when she had heard that the rebellion was in full strike. It had turned into a full-blown war with none other then Captain Juan-Luc Picard leading it. The same Captain Picard, who after being turned by the Borg and then saved by his crew, insisted that humans could and deserved to be free.

Kathryn hadn't understood that at the time. Captain Picard was free. At least as free as any human got. He had real power and he had respect. What more could he have wanted?

Then on a fluke they had captured a Borg drone. A drone who called herself Seven of Nine. It had been an insane moment of insight, taking her as a crewmember but she had worked out well.

Then the most unexpected of things happened.

Captain Janeway turned over in bed and saw the sleeping Seven of Nine next to her and smiled. She watched her lover sleep for hours with the same voice running through her head. Over and over it asked the same question.

*** Captain, how does it feel, to be free? ***

Finally Kathryn understood.