Story Notes: This is a "Janeway's inner life" story from m.c. moose. In it, reference is made to events described in Jeri Taylor's 'Mosaic', but it should be possible to understand this story without having read the book.
LIES OUR FATHERS TOLD US
by m.c. moose copyright, 1998
Disclaimer: Paramount/Viacom holds all copyright, trademark, and patent rights to Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and all original characters of those series. No infringement of those rights is intended or implied by their use in this story.
Time Frame: A Month After "The Killing Game"
She had forgotten all about the "mystery message." Hell, given the events of the last several months, she was amazed that anyone remembered it. Yet there it was on the PADD before her, along with Seven's terse request that the Captain inform her of the priority that should be assigned to decrypting the file.
B'Elanna had first brought the file to Kathryn over two months ago. It was one of the last fragments recovered from their aborted communications with the Federation, the Alpha quadrant, home. The header was missing, and the file was encrypted. Torres had assumed the message must be for Janeway. It was the logical assumption; who else would be allowed to receive an encrypted message? Surely Starfleet had insisted on screening all transmissions. In fact, the message probably was from Starfleet, eyes-only for Captain Kathryn Janeway. But none of her Starfleet codes, past or present (well, long past or recent past), keyed the message.
So the file became a literary sword-in-the-stone: "whosoever shall key in the proper encryption code shall receive a message from home." It became a game. Paris started a betting pool. Kathryn's own hunch was that one of the Maquis managed to sneak it into the communication stream. But that theory proved wrong, and seemed sadly laughable once they learned the fate of the Maquis movement.
The message made the rounds, but people began to lose interest. None of the more interesting theories panned out, so the gossip and bets died out. As for the draw of the prize itself, well, the allure of a message from home became less enticing as people started to deal with the harsh realities that many of their letters contained, and the harsher reality that these were one-way missives with no opportunity to reply or hear back again. The prize became less and less attractive. It reminded Kathryn of the teenage joke she and Phoebe shared: "First Prize: a one-week summer vacation in Indiana; Second Prize: a two-week summer vacation in Indiana."
Phoebe: now there was an interesting thought. Funny that she had not gotten a letter from her sister. It was possible, of course, that her letter had been one that had gotten lost. It was also possible, of course, that Starfleet had limited all the families, even the captain's, to a single letter. But if that were the case, would Phoebe have relinquished the privilege to Mark? Not bloody likely, especially when she essentially knew what Mark would write: "puppies are fine, glad you're not dead, I've moved on-you'd like her." No, Phoebe would not have stood still for that. She'd insist on being there to soften the blow; at the very least, she'd need to write that Mark had gotten fat, bald, and boring, even if these were categorical lies.
Kathryn sat back in her chair, eyeing the PADD. It was late. She had a thousand things to do. The last month had been a nightmare of unending work, trying to rebuild her ship (again!) without a proper spacedock, without proper parts and supplies, without proper Starfleet support. Well, at least she could take a perverse pleasure in the fact that some of the damage she had inflicted herself. She wasn't even sure why that thought amused her; clearly the stress was getting to her. She should get back to work. She should go to bed.
She keyed in the code she and Phoebe used since they were children, passing messages they didn't want parents, then teachers, then roommates, then lovers, to"accidentally" read.
The words cascaded over the screen, seemingly glad to be freed from their encryption prison. She caught her sister's closing signature as it streamed by, followed by what looked to be a number of pages from Starfleet files. Curiouser and curiouser, she thought. Well, no more work or sleep tonight. She scrolled to the top of the message.
Dear Kathryn,
Words cannot describe the relief we felt when word came. Mother dropped ten years from her face in that instant. She had taken the news of your loss very hard. Strangely, she had somehow accepted that marrying a Starfleet officer meant possibly dealing with his loss, but not that having a child in Starfleet might result in the same. Plus, you've always had that unique talent for cheating death--I guess she never considered, never really accepted, that she might someday lose you. I'm beyond joy that you've proven her right.I'm assuming that encrypted letters will be the last ones distributed. If I'm wrong, if you haven't read the letter from Mark, STOP RIGHT NOW. READ NO FURTHER. REALLY. I MEAN IT, KATHRYN.
Still reading? Okay. I'm sorry about Mark. I'm very sorry. But really, he's gotten bald and fat and boring anyway. Well, no, he hasn't. Mark is still Mark, as he always was and always will be. And he suffered terribly when he thought you'd been killed. Like Mom, I don't think he ever really believed that you could die. You always seemed so indestructible to him (at least physically). He once told me how, even when we were kids, he was amazed how you could stand in the middle of harm's way and come out completely unscathed (while he would end up battered and bruised just sitting on the sidelines watching). The first couple of years were extremely hard for him. So try to be happy for him. He deserves to be happy.
Speaking of the first couple of years, I think both Mark and I became a bit obsessed by our need to find out what really happened to you. Maybe we just needed some closure on your disappearance; we both found it hard to accept what Starfleet kept telling us. No sign of battle, no sign of accident, just gone. So we started digging and hounding. We probably used up every ounce of influence and pull either one of us every had or will have. In fact, we probably have used up all of yours as well. We got access to every 'Fleet file possible. I guess being part of the Quester group carries some weight, and being the daughter of a 'Fleet admiral and sister of a captain is not without advantage either.
Kathryn, I am very disturbed by some of the things I have learned. I feel that Starfleet has lied to you and used you throughout your career. I am also disturbed by how relatively nonplused Mark seems by all this. Maybe you knew, or suspected, some of the things I found and had discussed them with him. Maybe his experiences consulting with Starfleet have made him more jaded than me. Perhaps I still hold an idealized vision of Starfleet; I just don't know. I haven't shared any of this with Mother. I worry that it would put the ten years back on her face; I worry that it would kill her. I debated whether or not to share this information with you. At some level, it seemed very unfair to burden you further, and I'm not sure what, if anything, you can do with information anyway. On the other hand, I know how you hate it when someone keeps the truth from you. And that's what Starfleet has been doing for over twenty years now. I know the captain is always supposed to be told the condition of her ship, no matter how bad it is. So that's what I'm doing; you're the captain.
Remember that there are people here who love you; know that we will continue to wait for you. I love you. I will maintain the watch.
Always,
Phoebe
Kathryn took a deep breath and put down the PADD. This was not the time to read what Phoebe had found. She was exhausted. There wasn't anything she could do about anything anyway; with the loss of the communication array, sixty thousand light-years was once again a very long way from home. What was the point? Phoebe was probably being overly dramatic. Mark hadn't said anything about this in his letter. Was it because he didn't think it worth mentioning, or did he think it was better if he and Phoebe staggered the body blows? Kathryn sighed and picked up the PADD--Phoebe was right: she was the captain.
The first report Phoebe had enclosed was the classified file on the mission Kathryn had flown with Admiral Owen Paris to the moon of Urtea II. That was during her first tour out of the Academy; she had been a junior science officer onboard the Icarus. The purported mission was scientific, and Kathryn was thrilled that a major focus of study was massive compact halo objects. She had done her junior thesis on the subject under Paris' direction, and knew he had hand-picked her for the mission. She couldn't imagine a more exciting (and fast-tracked) start to her Starfleet career. Enroute, there had been a rather disturbing briefing: yes, they were going to study halo objects on this expedition, but there was a covert aspect to the mission. It was critical that Starfleet gather fleet movement data on the Cardassians. Kathryn was surprised, but not shocked; it was not uncommon for Starfleet to include reconnaissance operations in "normal" missions. Given the volatile situation with Cardassia, she would have almost been surprised if they weren't checking up on things, especially considering the proximity of their operations to the Cardassian border.
Most of the file was familiar to Kathryn. Familiar, and painful. She and Paris were in a shuttle in transit to the moon when they were caught by the tractor beam of a Cardassian warbird. Yes, they were going to retrieve scientific data from a sensor array on the moon, and yes, there probably were other sensors collecting less benign data as the Cardassians suspected. But Kathryn didn't know any of the details of the covert operation, and Gul Camet quickly surmised her relative state of ignorance. So it was Owen Paris who had undergone the excruciating Cardassian torture while Kathryn huddled in her cramped cell: cold, bleeding, and more frightened than she thought a proper Starfleet officer should ever be. If only he would stop screaming.... They had been rescued, and everyone made a full physical recovery. But that haunted look in Owen Paris' eyes remained. It was still there the last time Kathryn had seen him, when she went to talk with him about having his son Tom join her mission to the Badlands.
Kathryn let out a frustrated sigh. Why was Phoebe rehashing all this? Yes, Starfleet had been less than forthright about the nature of their mission. But would she have refused the mission had she known about the covert component? She doubted it. This was clearly a career-advancing mission. And being in Starfleet, even in the Science track, meant that you contributed to the defense of the Federation. Cardassia was a clear threat to the Federation at that point. Hell, Cardassia was a threat again. The paper-thin accord that had ceded so many border planets, that had been the genesis of the Maquis when it was clear the Federation had abandoned the residents of those planets? This treaty had quickly been abandoned by the Cardassians once they felt they were in a position of strength: another delightful piece of information the crew of Voyager had gleaned from their Alpha quadrant missives. No, the Urtea II mission was tactically sound; it was just bad luck that she and Paris had been captured. And 'Fleet took care of their own; Justin and the other Rangers had come screaming in like the cavalry. Owen had said it best: the mission was highly successful; the commendations they received were well deserved.
But looking at the PADD once again, Kathryn realized there was more to the report, a part of the file she had never seen before. She read it carefully, then re-read it to make sure she fully understood its import. The capture of the shuttlecraft had been planned, fully orchestrated by Paris and the Rangers.
Starfleet knew the Cardassians possessed advanced interrogation technology and needed to get hold of this technology. Then, Starfleet engineers could reverse-engineer the hardware and work with 'Fleet scientists and physicians to develop effective countermeasures. If Starfleet couldn't defeat this technology, Federation security was severely compromised; any captured officers would pour forth their full knowledge of 'Fleet operations and strategies.
It was clearly worth the risk of two officers to procure this technology, even if one was a line admiral. And if Paris were made to talk, he really didn't know that much that would compromise 'Fleet security. Paris had spent most of the past few years teaching at the Academy. Much of his expertise was in theoretical science (of little interest to Cardassia), and most of his knowledge of fleet technology concerned "mature" technologies that the Cardassians had fully studied and cataloged. As for information concerning the Icarus' current mission, well, did anyone not realize that they would be gathering intelligence information? And as for Ensign Janeway? She knew even less. Yes, it was a reasonable risk, Paris had agreed. That the Cardassians thought they had snagged an admiral? That would make the ruse quite compelling. That a green ensign, mouthing an obvious party-line of "we were only collecting scientific data" was also caught in the net? More compelling still. Yes, Starfleet had created a very believable trap, and it was sprung flawlessly.
But Starfleet intelligence didn't quite agree with Paris' assessment that the mission was a complete success. There was one major disappointment concerning the mission's outcome, and Janeway suppressed a shudder when she read it: Starfleet had hoped to recover two of the subdermal torture devices. Damn the luck; they had to settle for one.
Kathryn took a deep breath and considered what she had read. It really wasn't that surprising. In retrospect, she knew that the Federation needed to learn a great deal more about the Cardassians than the movement of their fleet. The Cardassians were new and dangerous enemies. They were aggressive. They did not subscribe to the same rules of war as the Federation. Torture was an accepted (hell, admired) form of interrogation. Starfleet was desperate to understand the technology Cardassians used to extract information from their prisoners. It was imperative that Starfleet develop effective countermeasures to these methods. Otherwise, entire campaigns would be compromised by the capture of a single officer. Kathryn understood the necessity. Wars could only be won if your side's technology was as good as the enemy's, preferably better. If the enemy used a technology you found morally untenable, it was critical to find a way to render it useless. This battle for technological superiority was as vicious as any space skirmish, and it was never-ending. It was largely fought it the world of covert operations. The prices paid here were as high as in any "hot" war, and sometimes the participants were far less aware of the dangers.
As for the possibility that Owen Paris had used her, had lied to her? Well, she had started to notice Owen's feet of clay long ago. And Owen wouldn't have had so far to fall if she hadn't put him so high on a pedestal to begin with. She couldn't help it; she was far to prone to hero-worship. And it didn't help that she had met Owen when she was only a junior at the Academy. Nor did it help that he was an expert in her particular area of scientific study, and looked to be the paradigm of a Starfleet officer, like her father. And was willing and able to spend time with her, unlike her father. Okay. Let's not go there.
But with time, she recognized that Owen Paris was not without faults. Oh, he was still one of the most admirable Starfleet officers she had ever met. But the way he handled the affair with Tom's accident and court-martial, well, Kathryn found that pretty unforgivable. So did Owen's wife, and his daughters. Yes, the picture of a perfect, happy, Starfleet family Owen displayed on his desk was a lie. And it was, to Kathryn's mind, a clearly worse lie than any he told her to ensure a successful mission for the Federation.
************
Kathryn glanced at the next file, and realized its contents might prove a bit more of an emotional challenge. It contained the classified debriefing that was held after the crash of the Terra Nova, the crash that had killed her father and Justin. Well, leave it to Phoebe to keep raising the bar. Okay, Kathryn thought, I can handle this. The nightmares have stopped. I can live with my mistake, the cost of my inability to decide. Bring on the dragons; how bad can they be?
She found her answer to her question in the first sentence of the report: "The crash was orchestrated so to have been survivable by all flight crew members." Orchestrated? How can the crash of a prototype spacecraft be orchestrated? The answer was simple: by Starfleet Intelligence.
The atmosphere in Admiral Janeway's office was bleak. Design images of the Terra Nova had been leaked, stolen; it didn't matter: the Cardassians had them. Two and a half years of intensive design and development invested in the new Starfleet attack ship, and now everything could be fully compromised. If the Cardassians could get the information they already had about the ship, chances were good that they could get more. The tide of the technology battle would turn in Cardassia's favor. Again.
Hours of discussion. How to salvage the project? How to locate and stop the leak? How to throw the Cardassians off the trail? A solution was suggested, ridiculed, but then reconsidered. What if the ship was made to appear a complete failure? What if it crashed during its preliminary flighttest? They could trace the leak of the test results to its source and stop the information flow. The last intelligence the Cardassians obtained would indicate that Starfleet had an unstable vehicle, unable to fly even in a benign test environment, much less under battle conditions. The Cardassians would direct their attention elsewhere, and Starfleet could complete their newest weapon, their technological edge. Advantage: Starfleet.
But the flighttest and the crash had to be completely convincing. The Cardassians must not suspect a staging. To this end, Edward Janeway insisted he be part of the flighttest crew. He was the ship's principal designer and was known for a hands-on approach. His presence would lend credence to flight. Admiral Janeway then suggested Justin Tighe, a Starfleet Ranger, serve as test pilot. Cardassia knew that the Rangers would be among the first users of the new vehicle, so it made sense that the test pilot would be drawn from the Rangers' ranks. The few people at the table who knew Edward well enough to have heard that Justin was engaged to Kathryn looked vaguely uncomfortable. Boy, what kind of weird father-in-law, son-in-law dynamics were developing here? Discomfort turned to shock at Edward's next suggestion: "I think my daughter Kathryn needs to be part of the flight crew as well. I've included her on every one of my 'first flights' since she turned thirteen. We sort of considered it her rite of passage, much to her mother's dismay." Owen smiled at the memory of battles fought in the Janeway household over this quaint family tradition. "If Kathryn were excluded from this flight, it might raise suspicions." The silence in the room was deafening. Edward looked around the table and continued. "So, I hope all of you are as motivated as I am to ensure the entire flight crew survives this crash."
The design team was motivated. Highly motivated. The vehicle was already designed to maximize crash survivability. This ship was going to be used in atmospheric dogfight battles as well as in space. Given this near-planet mission, some were certain to crash onto planet surfaces. Crew loss needed to be minimized. Even so, additional steps were taken to ruggedized Terra Nova's flight deck. The rest of the ship would be totally destroyed; it would be sacrificed to save the crew.
Of course, some concessions had to be made for security reasons. None of the reports from Starfleet Intelligence suggested that the Cardassians would be bold enough to attempt to recover the wreckage, but then again, sometimes the reports were wrong. So it was decided that only the flight-critical components of the ship's advanced technology would be operational. All advanced technology systems would be onboard, but they wouldn't be functional. For the most part, this didn't concern the design team. There were only a few components that met the advanced technology criteria: technology not yet familiar to the Cardassian. The augmented aft shields fell in this category, as did some of the weaponry, but the former weren't needed and the latter wouldn't be mounted for the initial flighttest anyway.
The only issue that raised real concern was the transporter. This ship was designed with the latest generation transporter. Why would Cardassia care about acquiring Federation transporter technology? Well, because this generation of the hardware possessed enhanced bio/chemical filtering capabilities to prevent possible shipwide contamination when crews exposed to bio/chemical hazards were beamed onboard. Clearly, it would be to the Cardassians' advantage to find ways to defeat these filters. Nothing would please the Cardassians more than to know that evacuation of victims of their bio/chemical weapons would compromise the health and safety of an entire starship crew.
So, no. The transporter could not be operational. Brief consideration was given to replacing the transporter with an older model. But the Cardassians knew the ships specifications; if the transporter found in the wreckage didn't match what was indicated on the drawings, suspicions would be raised. Besides, who the hell would need to use Terra Nova's transporter? The one on the Search and Rescue ship would be used to recover the crew.
Who the hell, indeed.
When Kathryn was twelve, she read a twentieth century novel called "Sophie's Choice." One of her teachers recommended it to her; he said it would give her something to think about. Boy, did it ever. The story was about a young German woman who, through a series of tragic circumstances, is arrested with her children and sent to a concentration camp. At the train station to the camp, she is confronted by a German soldier who informs her that, since she is a German, she will be granted a "luxury." She will be allowed to save one of her two children, but only one. That is her choice: Sophie's choice. Sophie protests that she cannot possibly make such a choice; she should not be asked to make such a choice. The soldier shrugs and responds that if she doesn't choose, both children will be killed: her choice. The woman is frantic; she doesn't know what to do. Finally, in a panic, she chooses to save her son; his younger sister will die. Much of the rest of the book dealt with the curse of her choice. Her decision continues to haunt her. After the war, she moves to America, but she can never escape her remorse. Ultimately, Sophie kills herself. Her choice has destroyed her.
Kathryn developed an obsession with this story as only an early adolescent can. She dug up a viddisc with the movie that was made from the book. She read about the author. Where did he come up with this idea? Was it a true story? But what really intrigued Kathryn was that, for the first time in her young life, she encountered the idea that they may be situations for which there is no correct answer, no acceptable choice. Throughout her childhood, Kathryn had been rewarded for being "the bright child." It had seemed that every problem had a solution; given enough thought, every puzzle could be solved. But that wasn't the case here. Kathryn repeatedly considered all the possible options. What could Sophie have done? She could choose one of her children. Perhaps she could find a good reason to choose one: the girl was healthier, the boy was older and better able to fend for himself. Something, anything to make the decision livable. But Sophie couldn't find that comfort; no mother could. Or she could refuse to decide, and both children would die. No, there was no correct choice. All paths let to loss.
Fifteen years later, after the crash of the Terra Nova, Kathryn Janeway found herself on a frozen planet, confronting Sophie's choice. Her father and Justin were trapped in the flightdeck of the ship, and the ship was sinking into the water. She had enough energy to transport one of them. Not both. She had to choose. Sophie's choice.
But Kathryn was a Starfleet officer. And James T. Kirk had taught Starfleet officers what should be done with a no-win situation. Kirk had figured it out when he was still a cadet at the Academy: if you can't win the game, change the rules. He reprogrammed a no-win mission simulation so that he could win: rescue the stranded, escape unharmed. The Starfleet solution.
The Academy no longer used the simulation. At some point the instructors realized that you could use simulations to quicken response times and improve battle skills, but it was much harder to create a compelling moral dilemma; the simulation just wasn't real and the students knew it. But Kirk's lesson was real, and the cadets remembered it. Don't accept defeat; change the rules.
So Kathryn stood at the transporter console in this frozen wasteland, desperately rerouting power through the phaser couplings to gain enough energy to transport both men to safety. She raced against the rising water and her failing body to get the power reading up to 800 megawatts. The instant the unit had adequate energy, she initiated the transporter sequence...and nothing happened. Nor did anything happen on her subsequent tries. The fuselage sank into the water. She hadn't changed the rules; she still was in a no-win situation. She had tried to avoid Sophie's choice, and in the process lost both her father and Justin.
By the time Starfleet's Search & Rescue team arrived, there was only one living crewman to recover. She was taken to a Starfleet medical facility to heal her broken body. And, it was decided, to also relieve her mind of those final memories of the failed transport. Already Kathryn Janeway had a reputation throughout Starfleet as a tenacious problem solver. If she awoke with the memory of a malfunctioning transporter, she would damn sure find out why the transporter had failed. She would know she had the routed the necessary power; it should have worked. If Kathryn pursued her investigation, she would discover that the transporters had been intentionally disabled, and, well, it was easy to see where all this could lead. No, better to work with her already willing defense mechanisms to suppress those memories. Her failure; her inability to make Sophie's choice. So mental barriers were carefully constructed; an alternate scenario took root in her memory, and flourished there. For fifteen years, through multiple retellings and silent, grieving recollection, the artificial memory served as her reality.
Until one day in the Delta quadrant, tens of thousands of light years away from Starfleet support, when the barriers started to crumble. Without the help of Starfleet counselors, without the support of her family, with only the help of an Emergency Medical Hologram whose programming did not include counseling or psychiatric subroutines, Kathryn Janeway had to cope with the guilt and anguish of what had happened on that ice planet: she had failed, and because of her failure Justin and her father had died. She hadn't managed to change the rules; she hadn't managed to make Sophie's choice.