Author's Note:

I don't typically make autobiographical notes in here, but for this particular story I'll confess that I live in a part of the U.S. often ravaged by tough storms. I feel lucky, time and again, when the lives of those I love are untouched by these weather events. But many near me aren't as lucky, and recovery, I've learned, is a process that has a clear beginning, something like a middle, yet often not an end.

This story was written sometime back. I'm glad to stay that I'm now able to let it go free.

Unbearable

In the manner of all tragedies, the enfolding of the storm on Lyris II contains no small measure of irony.

The crew of the Federation starship Voyager arrives in orbit in time to see the worst of the electromagnetic storm develop on the small southern continent, but too late to help the roughly two hundred colonists there.

Standing in the ruins of what was- only eighteen hours earlier- a bustling settlement, Kathryn Janeway looks up into a cloudless sky and squints her eyes in the unbearable, golden sunlight.

"Lieutenant Torres has recovered data from the remnants of a shelter one hundred meters to our north," Tuvok informs her. "It seems the inhabitants of this colony fled their own system in the hopes of escaping an increasingly violent war."

This would explain why there aren't any other settlements on the planet. So, too, why a group of people obviously possessing warp capability had such scarce technological protections to fall back on when the storm hit.

"They were. . . all alone," Janeway whispers absently, as she takes in the devastation and destruction. Watches, out of the corner of her eye, as B'Elanna Torres, now several yards away, folds her arms across her chest protectively, then abruptly turns on her heel and heads for the privacy of a group of trees. Harry Kim soon worriedly following behind her.

Slowly, the Captain begins to trace a path down the southern edge of the colony, taking in pile of rubble after pile of rubble.

The bodies that have been located have already been beamed to another location, but some of the scorch marks still remain.

It's only after ten minutes of walking that she realizes that Tuvok is silently trailing behind her, remaining at an unobtrusive distance. As she turns to call to him, she spots the blonde head of her chief helmsman off to her right, his long body bent over something as he kneels on the ground.

It's irrational, given all their tricorder readings, but she finds herself jogging to meet Paris. Her heart racing as she wonders if the pilot-turned-medic has found a survivor after all.

Tom's in the middle of what obviously used to be one of the settlement's larger buildings, and Janeway slows down when she gets to within a few meters of where he is- both because the chaos of the fallen structure requires care in navigation, and as she can now clearly see that Tom is studying an object, not a person.

When she finally arrives beside the younger man, he doesn't look up at her. Remains in the same spot, if now upright on his knees, staring at a flat, metallic object in his hands.

"Tom?" she prompts. And when his blue eyes finally meet hers, they're filled with an unfocused anger she doesn't understand.

He hands the object to her without comment, and immediately she's surprised by how light it is. Turns it over carefully, recognizing it as some kind of data device.

Her finger inadvertently grazes something, and the device comes to life; projects a hologram of some sort of furry animal, along with a simple melody that loops to the beginning as soon as it comes to the end.

"A child's toy," comes Tuvok's voice from behind her. And, immediately, Janeway understands the exact nature of her pilot's anger.

This toy- small, delicate, fragile- survived the storm. But no child did.

She closes her eyes, unwilling to let either of her companions see the despair there. Or else the dawning futility.

By silent agreement, the three officers leave the wreckage of the present location behind, looping around to follow the path the away team took to enter the settlement.

"It almost looks like weapons fire," Paris observes solemnly, nodding at some of the char marks on the ground.

His Captain only nods in response, preoccupied with her own thoughts. But later, sometime between watching the haunted expression that will cling to Chakotay for days, and hearing the usually stoic Mike Ayala empty his stomach contents behind a rock when she heads back to the transport site, she will realize this is all even harder on the Maquis.

Will understand, however belatedly, that are too many memories for them of other destroyed settlements filled with charred and battered bodies. The emotional shadows of a war, visible to their minds no matter how many thousands of light years away.

"We could bury them. . . All of them."

It's a thought Janeway hasn't let herself entertain. But hearing her world-weary pilot voice the possibility, she stops their slow trek, surveying the area around them.

"It would take at least three days," she observes, speaking to Tuvok now. "Probably more. . . We'd have to replicate equipment, too."

She expects a reminder from her tactical officer about the scarcity of Voyager's resources. Maybe even a gentle rebuke about the human propensity to attach significance to physical remains, no matter the degree of skepticism about anything that happens thereafter.

"Finding volunteers among the crew would not be difficult," the Vulcan replies instead.

And staring into two dark eyes and two blue, Janeway sees reflections of all her own thoughts and misgivings.

It's possible that someone will come for these people; that some member of the colonists' former society, perhaps even a distant loved one, will receive some measure of comfort that a passing stranger saw fit to honor the fallen in the manner that they deserved.

But more than likely, the crew of Voyager will be the last people to cast eyes on these bodies before they decay into oblivion. The lone testament to this storm and all who perished here will be whatever wreckage of the town that manages to endure, surviving time and future storms.

"They were all alone," Tom whispers, to no one in particular. And a chill goes down Janeway's spine as she realizes that he's likely having the same thought she did when Tuvok reported to her.

A second later she's reaching for her commbadge; issuing orders for supplies and ground crews that Chakotay seems more than happy to carry out.

It will take five full days and supplies they can't really afford to locate and bury all two hundred and six of the Lyris settlers. But they're five days in which the crew of Voyager is more than a group of people stranded far from home, desperate and doing anything they can just to get from point A to point B.

The day they finish, beaming up from the planet for the last time, the weather, inexplicably, is still as gorgeous as when they first arrived on the surface.

"Ready, Captain?" one of her officers asks.

Janeway nods her confirmation. Squinting into the sunshine that stills saddens her, but that she no longer finds unbearable.

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge,
and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."

- Bertrand Russell