Title: Words Mean Nothing 11/12

Author: quew

Please see previous sections for disclaimers, archiving info and classification.

Rating: R

Warnings: Violence and angst.

Notes: The home stretch...

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'Hands up! Drop your weapons!'

B'Elanna heard the words from her hiding place, and couldn't resist poking her head up and watching Michael drop his gun on the soft grass.

Several policemen started to converge on his position, guns raised, but he held up his hands to stop them. Everyone could clearly see the black box in his hands. 'Stop!' He ordered.

Slowly, all of the approaching men and women came to halt, eyeing him up and down.

Their plan was working; all of the officers in the area had their attention firmly focused on Michael and the box in his hands.

'If you're thinking of shooting me, please be aware I will press this button the second I hear a shot!' He called, his voice slightly bitter because he didn't like saying it any more than they liked hearing it.

'Why are you here?' A familiar voice called. Claudia had exited the armoury in time to hear Michael's words, and she came closer. 'What not run?'

'Would you run if any of your officers were being held captive?' He challenged. When she didn't answer, he continued. 'I know you think that we're a bunch of misguided savages, willing to kill and willing to abandon our men, but that's not right.'

Claudia shook her head, her words carefully chosen. 'I don't think that. I think you need…help. This isn't the way to change things.'

'This is the only way to change things!' Michael cried. 'Nothing else works!'

'And what if you'd won here today?' Claudia asked. 'What then? Would you have rode into town and told everyone you were in charge? Do you think they would have listened? Do you really think it matters?'

'Of course it matters!' Michael replied. 'We're doing this for every person who's ever been oppressed, for anyone who's ever been the victim of the dictatorship we call a government.'

'Really.' Claudia appeared to take the words in, mulling them over and coming closer still to Michael. 'I think you're doing it because you don't know any other way.'

'No other way works. Words, diplomacy, negotiation…it all becomes lost in red tape and back-stabbing.'

B'Elanna, entranced by the exchange, forgot she was supposed to be moving until Michael shot a desperate look her way. Shaking her head to clear it, she began to move toward the captives, using the trees as cover. She could still hear Michael and Claudia in the centre of the area, and hoped that they would continue for just a few more minutes…

The first captive she reached didn't make a sound as she unlocked the cuffs with the keys given to her by Michael. The other rebels noticed her working and made a conscious effort not to look in her direction as she worked as quickly as she could. Soon, five, then ten, then fifteen were away, snaking through the trees and to the relative safety of the buildings. The plan was for the rebels to use the sewers to escape, re-grouping at an emergency site six miles east.

She was just about to start unlocking the next row when one of the captives next to her hissed, 'Freeze!' out of the corner of her mouth. B'Elanna immediately dropped into a sitting position, clasping her hands behind her back as if she were cuffed herself.

'Anna?' She whispered, trying to talk without moving her mouth.

'Don't move…' The blonde replied. 'One of them is looking directly at us…just don't move…'

B'Elanna felt a knot of despair grow in her stomach, aware that there must be a sizeable and visible gap in the captives behind her.

Thankfully, Michael was keeping one eye on the proceedings, and he upped the ante on his performance. Before the policeman could figure out what was bothering him about the lines of captured rebels, his attention was once again grabbed by Michael's black box, now being waved around menacingly.

B'Elanna counted to fifteen and then slowly moved once more, unlocking Anna's handcuffs. The blonde stifled a groan of pain as she rubbed her wrists.

'Get out of here!' B'Elanna ordered.

'What about…?' Anna began, but then their eyes met. B'Elanna stared into that face, a face she knew so well and yet didn't know anything about the person behind the face, behind the mask. She was suddenly struck with the fact that that was exactly what Seven wore around Voyager…a cool, calm, collected mask. No-one knew the real Annika Hanson. This revelation was precipitated by the look on Anna's face - hard, strong and set. B'Elanna knew it was a mask, just as Seven's was.

'Just go!' She screeched once more. Anna held her eyes again, and then nodded. B'Elanna watched her crawl away toward the trees and then turned her attention back to the task at hand.

She had released five more captives when a voice rang out. 'Stop!'

She turned and saw a man pointing a gun at an escaping rebel as he ran for the cover of the buildings. The other officers turned and saw how many rebels were missing, immediately ignoring Michael's threats and heading after them.

The rebels not freed fought to stand, still handcuffed, and started milling around, hampering the policemen as best they could. B'Elanna hid in their midst, keeping to the middle of the group and slowly urging them to move toward the buildings.

'Sit back down!' Claudia ordered, rounding on the lot of them. They ignored her, and B'Elanna could see she was in two minds about what to do. She didn't want to use force on unarmed captives, that would be wrong, and yet if they were left unchecked she might have to, to keep them from escaping.

Just when B'Elanna had a plan begin to form in her mind, a scuffle broke out on the edge of the large group of handcuffed rebels. Two of them were fighting with policemen, struggling like snakes as the officers attempted to keep them down. That's when things really started to go wrong.

She looked across at Michael, who was looking horrified as policemen and rebels fought amongst themselves. She felt eyes on her and turned her head slightly. Claudia was staring right at her, having spotted her in the heart of the group. The diminutive woman started forward, pushing through the handcuffed ranks and raising her gun.

B'Elanna turned and ran, pushing through the rebels as she fought to get away from the vengeful woman. Suddenly, someone opened fire wildly, and screaming echoed off the tall buildings. She turned, expecting it to be one of the officers, but it was one of the rebels she'd freed who'd wrested a weapon from one of the assorted policemen.

'Stop!' Someone else shouted. B'Elanna changed tacked, running for the rebel. She broke out of the main group and launched herself forward, landing on the gunner with an impact that drove the air from her lungs.

'What are you doing?!' The man cried, holding onto the gun tightly as she tried to pull it from him.

'There are too many of us here! You might hit one of them!' She cried as they tussled. She was aware of policemen converging on their position, their guns raised. They were unsure of whether to fire on her or not as she'd stopped him firing on them.

Just as she pulled the gun out of her grip and stood, someone in the crowd shouted, 'get to the armoury!'

She leapt upright and opened her mouth, only to find a snub-nosed pistol levelled at her.

'Put down the rifle,' Claudia growled.

Over the red-heads shoulder, she could see Michael shouting at the rebels to stay put, but the tide was slowly heading for the small squat building at the edge of the trees. The policemen were trying to hold them back, and shots started to ring out in the floodlit darkness.

'Please!' Michael cried, his authoritative tones trying to carry across the whole crowd. 'Think about this! Carnage isn't the answer for either side!' He became aware that no-one was listening to him, too caught up in the urge to fight their way out. He knew he couldn't allow it to escalate to a bloodbath…that wasn't what the rebels were about…

Time slowed as he locked eyes with the half-Klingon, and without thinking she leapt forward, her instinct making her try and protect a Janeway before she'd thought about the consequences.

The policemen surrounding Claudia and B'Elanna mistook her actions as an attack on their superior, and opened fire just as the world shook.

B'Elanna screamed as the bullets tore into her, the bullet-proof vest she wore protecting her from as many as it could, but still others found their mark, ripping through the flesh of her limbs. She screamed again, but it was swallowed by the deafening explosion that came from the armoury. The building itself appeared to jump, the roof and walls breaking into pieces which were carried into the air by the huge fireball that mushroomed upward. Concrete and glass flew horizontally away from the building and toward the crowds.

Strangely, after a few seconds, B'Elanna didn't feel any pain any more. She felt like she was surrounded by cotton wool, making everything around her seem unreal and far away. She was aware someone had turned her over, and hands roamed her body, trying to stop her lifeblood from staining the grass beneath her.

A familiar face swam into view, twisted in worry. 'Captain?' She whispered.

Claudia nodded, tears streaking down her face. 'Don't you dare die!' She whispered harshly.

Around them, the fall out from the explosion was becoming an issue, shrapnel decimating the tightly packed ranks of policemen and rebels while concrete and molten metal rained down. Regardless of what side they were on, people helped each other try and escape, desperately moving away from the raging inferno that had been the armoury. Smaller explosions sounded inside the shell of the building as the assorted weapons within succumbed to the heat.

B'Elanna stared up at Claudia's face, wishing it was the real captain, wishing she could say goodbye to her ship and her crew one last time. Her vision started to slide from side to side as loss of blood made her head spin, and she found her breathing was becoming laboured. She was aware in some detached part of herself that she was dying; that this was it, and that she would never get to see anyone on board Voyager again. She wanted to weep for all the things she would never get to say or do again, and for all the things she'd never given thought to doing. It all seemed so clear now…if she just kept her eyes closed, it all made sense.

'Dammit Charlotte!' Someone screamed, shaking her. She managed to open her eyes and Claudia's face, out of focus and discoloured, swam into view.

'I'm…' She had to stop, blood forcing it's way into her throat and choking her. She turned her head and spat, feeling it dribble out of the side of her mouth.

'Stay with me, please,' Claudia said. B'Elanna stared at the grass by her face, watching in swim in and out of focus. She closed her eyes as dizziness made the world spin, and she would have vomited had she the strength. The world had become quiet, the sounds of battle fading away and then disappearing altogether. She felt someone take her in their arms and groaned.

'Please! Wake up!' Someone called.

Opening her eyes, Claudia's face swam into view…only, she looked different. B'Elanna didn't know if it was her eyes playing tricks on her, or if…she couldn't finish that thought, her eyes rolling back in her head and her body going limp.

'Janeway to sick-bay!' The horrified captain shouted in Voyagers transporter room as B'Elanna's pulse stopped under her fingers and she locked eyes with a white-faced Chakotay. 'Medical emergency!'

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