The corridors of the Federation Starship Voyager were eerily silent as its captain, Kathryn Janeway, made her way toward Holodeck One. This mini-vacation had been in the works for quite some time now and, after some not so subtle prodding by their CMH, the holographic Doctor, Captain Janeway had reluctantly given in. Commander Chakotay would be the Acting Captain for the next week. They had reached a relatively quiet area of space in the war zone known as the Delta Quadrant, and Chakotay had unceremoniously kicked Kathryn off the bridge.
She smothered a smile at the thought of the looks Chakotay had been given by the others on the bridge. She almost wished she could have stayed to hear his explanation as to why he'd relieved her of command so abruptly. Then the program she was going to enter into the Holodeck database came back to mind and she forgot about Chakotay's dilemma altogether.
"Captain?" The cool tone of the ship's resident Borg echoed in the small room just off of Holodeck One.
"Seven. Thank you for meeting me here. Is everything set?" Kathryn asked, attempting to keep her breathing steady.
The lift of a silver brow, then Seven of Nine cocked her head slightly. "I've set the Borg encryption codes as you requested, although I don't understand why it is necessary." There was the vaguest hint of a question in the tall blonde's voice that her captain conveniently misunderstood.
Kathryn gripped the padd in her hands a little tighter and schooled her expression to calmness. "This is my first vacation in over five years, Seven. I don't want to risk it being interrupted accidentally. Chakotay knows how to reach me if there's an emergency."
"Indeed." Seven responded, giving the auburn-haired captain a small nod. The slight smile that so intrigued Captain Janeway appeared on the Borg's full lips again. "If you require...assistance...in the meanwhile, you will comm me, correct?"
"That I will, Seven. That I will." An answering smile graced Kathryn's mouth as she turned to enter the final parameters for her vacation program. At the last second, she leaned slightly away from the board, giving Seven a chance to take a peek at the data she was entering. It was done with a subtle move and the Borg had no hint that the captain was abetting her curiosity.
"All set," Kathryn murmured quietly, stepping to the door. "Give me five minutes, then begin the program and set your codes."
Seven nodded acquiescence and stood by to wait. Ice blue eyes watched the trim form of the captain enter the Holodeck and the Borg sighed involuntarily. It was going to be a long week.
The din was incredible: steel ringing against steel, men yelling back and forth, screams of pain from the wounded, and above all, the ululating war cry of their leader who thundered through the battlefield on an ebony stallion. Between the smoke and the clouds of dust rising from booted feet, it was difficult to see anything, but Kathryn was well-versed in the art of battle and it took her only a few minutes to spot her reason for being in this scenario.
Looking larger than life, the raven-haired woman sat tall and regal on the back of the stallion, her bronze armor dulled by the blood cascading over it. Kathryn felt a surge of unnatural fear before she realized the blood wasn't the warrior's. The starship captain struggled against the coarse hemp rope binding her hands and ankles, then subsided when the warrior turned her way.
Brilliant blue eyes danced with a maniacal gleam, white teeth flashing in an exultant grin. A careless sweep of her sword and a man was decapitated and another spitted on the sharp tip of the weapon. For the briefest second, their eyes met and then the warrior was off again, finishing off the battle and rounding up her troops to begin gruesome clean-up tasks.
Kathryn wasn't sure how long she lay huddled with the other peasant women, but it felt like hours. Her stomach was protesting its emptiness, and her mouth was drier than tinder. She was beginning to wonder if this program had been a good idea, after all.
Before she could give a command to the computer, a bloodstained soldier stopped in front of her. "You! Come with me," he ordered harshly. A dagger appeared in his hand and he slashed the bindings from her ankles. Stumbling against the returning sensations in her legs and feet, Kathryn was pushed and prodded to a large tent in the center of the camp.
Without warning, she was shoved through the flap of the tent and into another world. A huge pallet piled high with furs took up the entire right side of the tent, while the left held a makeshift table and a tub filled with steaming water. A lamp nailed high on the center pole sent flickers of light throughout the enclosed space.
A sudden presence behind her let her know she was no longer alone. "Get in the tub," came a fierce, low growl.
Kathryn shivered in response, slowly turning to hold out her bound hands. "Will you untie me first?" she questioned, with a proud tilt to her head.
"No." The cold voice reverberated through the tent. Captain Kathryn Janeway, who had led her disparate crew through untold horrors and disasters in their odyssey to return home with uncommon strength of will alone, looked into cruelly glittering azure eyes and felt her knees buckle in fear.
Strangely enough, the sight of this warrior in the midst of battle had only served to send adrenaline and excitement through Kathryn's veins. But the woman who stood tall before her now exuded pure, raw sexuality. Water still dripped down the lean form from the bath the woman had taken in an icy stream nearby, rivulets cascading down her ink black leathers. The candlelight highlighted the sharply chiseled planes of her face, and Kathryn thought she had never seen anyone quite as beautiful...or deadly.
Where Seven's beauty shimmered with cool ice and inspired Kathryn to thoughts of melting the Borg's reserve, this warrior was filled with a burning fire that threatened to consume the captain. And, oh, how she wanted to be consumed by the warrior's heat.
Powerful hands caught her as she fell and long, even strides brought her to the edge of the wooden tub, where she was stripped quickly and efficiently, then dumped in. She sat back up sputtering and coughing, spitting the nasty taste of soap out of her mouth. "Hey! What the hell..."
Her head was pushed under the water and held there for a frightening moment, before her captor brought her back up again. Kathryn choked a bit more, but wisely learned to keep her mouth shut. She kept as still as possible while calloused hands scrubbed the filth from her body, barely suppressing a shudder as a rough cloth was fondled between her legs. Forced to stand again, a bucket of clean water was poured over her head, rinsing her off and leaving her clean once again.
As abruptly as she had been bathed, she found herself sprawled on the thick furs of the pallet with a bowl of some sort of stew being thrust into her hands. Giving up on trying to identify the bits of meat floating in it, Kathryn set to finishing her meager dinner off. She had a feeling she'd need to keep her strength up.
The raven-haired warrior hadn't seen fit to return her clothing to her, so Kathryn got as comfortable as she could upon the bed. Her bare skin tingled as the fur tickled her in her most private areas. For long moments, the silence was only broken by the rhythmic rasping of a whetstone against metal as the warrior sharpened her sword.
Then she held her breath as the warrior frowned darkly, her gaze intently piercing the shadows in the corner of the tent. "What's this?" A long, slender box was dragged out of its hiding place.
"I'll tell you, if you tell me your name," Kathryn bargained. She was pretty sure who she was dealing with, but the computer had been known to screw up from time to time. For all their advanced technology, the Federation still couldn't manage to build a bug-proof Holodeck. Starships and their captains had found that out the hard way.
The warrior studied the small, auburn-haired woman suspiciously. "Everyone knows who I am," she growled. "I'm the Conqueror...Destroyer of Nations...Empress." She smiled coldly. "Just to name a few of my titles."
"Xena," Kathryn breathed out softly.
Another glare was tossed her way. "Only a very few call me Xena, slave. And you're not one of them." The Conqueror paused until those gray-blue eyes dropped to study the ground between them. "Now what's in this box?"
"A gift...for you," Kathryn told her, fighting to keep her tone as servile as possible. No mean feat, for as proud a woman as she was.
Xena refused to admit how intrigued she was with this small woman. Something about her called to her, even in the midst of battle. She'd sent Malakus for the redhead even before she had seen to her own needs. It had calmed her as she bathed to know this strange woman was waiting in her tent. Seemingly frail, yet Xena could sense the strength and iron will the small woman possessed. The woman...she couldn't keep calling her that.
"Who is it that dares to give me a gift in the midst of battle?"
"My name is Kathryn."
The huskiest murmur...Xena felt a sharp flare of desire skitter along her spine. "An unusual name," she responded easily, watching Kathryn's eyes dart to the box in her hands.
There were many more questions poised on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason they simply drifted away before gaining purchase. Xena thought nothing of it. Her interest was in the contents of the box and the way the candlelight glistened in Kathryn's flaming hair. Everything else could wait.
A blunt thumbnail flicked the small clasp and she carefully opened the lid. "Good gods!" In spite of herself, Xena's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She gathered herself together, then shot Kathryn a purely amused look. "Ares been trying to boost his reputation again?"
Kathryn grinned back in reflex and chuckled. "That was the story I was told when I came across this little item," she allowed. For safety, Kathryn had programmed certain responses and leaps in logic into the program. Some things just couldn't be explained in Ancient Greek terminology, so she'd had to get creative. Fun was fun, but this was a vicious warlord she was dealing with.
Xena cautiously lifted the phallus out of its casing. The surface felt curiously flesh-like, yet its metallic gray coloring belied that. Kathryn cleared her throat and Xena arched a dark brow at her.
The smaller woman wiggled her bound hands. "I can show you how it works, if you like."
Deciding Kathryn didn't stand a chance of hurting her, Xena stretched out a long arm and cut away the rope. Kathryn merely blinked, not having seen the dagger until it was slicing close to her tender skin. Shaking her head slightly, she crossed over to the other woman and knelt at her feet. "Here...like this." She pressed a hidden button at its base and showed the Conqueror the various settings, watching with some amusement as the sky blue eyes glittered with excitement.
They played with the controls for quite a few minutes, altering the length and the width, and the various angles it could be adjusted to. Xena seemed to be fascinated with one particular painful looking shape, but it sent Kathryn into fits of giggles. "No, no, no!" she laughed. "You're not putting that thing in me like that!"
The tent was suddenly deathly quiet as Kathryn realized what she'd said. Full red lips curled in a feral smile and Xena chuckled. With a touch of a finger, she changed the phallus to better suit her physique. "How's that?" she asked in a velvety smooth voice.
"P–perfect," Kathryn replied hoarsely. With trembling hands, she set the broad base of the contraption against the juncture of Xena's thighs, feeling the tight muscles jump when the device fit itself to her snugly.
Xena gasped at the sensation. The base was vibrating gently against her clitoris and rapidly robbing her of coherency. "Gods..."
"Too high," Kathryn muttered, adjusting the settings yet again. "How's that?" she asked finally. She lifted her gaze and felt all the moisture leave her mouth at the sight of the powerful length of woman sprawled in front of her, firm breasts aching to be touched, and nine inches of manhood jutting proudly from between her thighs. "Oh my...."
The heat in the tent rose to almost unbearable heights. Kathryn was captured by a smoky blue regard, and swallowed hard. Xena sat up and crawled toward her captive, stalking her with a primitive desire. Without hesitation, she lunged forward and ravaged soft, pink lips with her own, tongue snaking out to delve and plunder the moist interior. Kathryn moaned; Xena growled.
Hands groped and prodded, now lightly, now roughly, but always touching, smoothing, caressing. Xena left the honeyed delights of Kathryn's mouth and trailed kisses of fire down her chest. Strong hands cupped the small breasts in her palms and she lathed first one and then the other with her tongue. One hand dropped to slide across the trembling muscles of Kathryn's belly while the other pinched and twisted a rock-hard nipple, and all the while, her hips thrust with an insistent rhythm against Kathryn's thigh.
Kathryn was burning up with need. The feeling of power and danger towering over her sent her mind reeling and she fought to catch her breath. Head tossing from side to side, she gripped Xena's broad shoulders with her nails, clawing bloody paths down her back and arching mindlessly into her. "Please," she sobbed harshly. "Please..."
The Conqueror reared back and snarled, "Please what, slave?"
Kathryn gritted her teeth in frustration. Why couldn't this be easy? Why couldn't things go right just once? Then she suddenly realized she didn't want it to be easy. If she wanted easy, she could have dragged Chakotay off to her cabin. God knew, the man was too sensitive by half. She didn't want to be wooed carefully and cautiously. She didn't want to wonder if the other person was with her because they were in love with her rank. She wanted to be taken, to be ravished without regard for who or what she was. And this woman—program or no program—was taking her exactly the way she wanted.
Slender fingers curled into black tresses and tugged. Bare centimeters separated their mouths as she breathed out her answer. "Take me. Make me yours, Xena."
The phallus plunged into her with savage intensity and she screamed with overwhelming pleasure. Kathryn wrapped her legs around her conqueror's waist and held on tightly as the dark woman undulated against her, each thrust taking her deeper and deeper into Kathryn's depths...further than any man had ever been.
Ragged sobs beat against her ear as Xena buried herself as deeply as she could into the small woman. Moisture and heat seemed to surround her and she was lost in the sensations of the slave's passion. She'd never felt so close to a lover before, even when she'd been in the reverse position. It had always been a question of power...top, bottom, it didn't matter...Xena was always in control and always held part of her mind away from the easing of her lust. But this...this was something altogether new and she reveled in the sensation.
Sweat poured off her, dripping down and landing on the flushed skin of the woman beneath her. Her hands came up and gripped Kathryn's face, holding her still and staring into those eyes that rivaled her own, even as her hips kept rocking steadily against her.
Kathryn closed her eyes against the unguarded lust that beat into her, gasping and panting for each breath. Just as she was reaching the pinnacle, tremors flaring through her body and ready to spin her into nothingness, the tall form above her stopped its movements. "No!" she cried in dismay. "Don't stop...you can't stop!"
"You're mine! Say it, damn you! Say it!"
With a start, Kathryn opened her heavy lids and stared into azure eyes glittering with tears. A heartrending sob escaped from her as she complied. "I'm yours! Oh gods yes, I'm yours," she answered with a desperate, aching need. Then she tangled her fingers into the flowing blonde hair that surrounded her and thrust forward into heaven.
Seven of Nine leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the Holodeck doors and hoped she'd done the right thing by altering Captain Janeway's program. She just couldn't think of any other way to tell her.