Disclaimer: Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager, and all thus related characters, places, and names, and ideas belong to Paramount.

Rating/Warnings: Teen/TV-14 (at least for the time being); mild violence and injury, language
(Rating may rise in later chapters, due to dark themes and violence. Basically I know where the story is going, but I'm not entirely sure how dark it's going to get. Probably not all the way to necessitating an M rating, but probably a much stronger T than it is now.)

Time Frame: Shortly after Macrocosm (3.12)

Notes: About a month and a half ago, lodessa made a post on tumblr about Chakotay putting a feverish Kathryn to bed (and then her getting handsy, lol). Me, being me - aka the desperate pleaser who is simultaneously always up for writing hurt/comfort - was like "Hey, I can probably write a fic for that.

It initially started out just as a oneshot, but as I wrote, the story grew. As of right now it's a couple dozen words short of 5k, and is probably less than halfway done - which I decided was going to be a bit too long for a oneshot. Thus, I decided to break it up into chapters. That's also why the chapters are so short, however; I used the natural breaks, which I had already incorporated, as chapter breaks. Because of their shorter length, I intend to upload a new chapter ever other day.

Lastly, I hope you enjoy!

Solis Febris

Part I: Procella

Chakotay jerked awake to the throat-clawing wail of the red alert.

He stumbled out of bed and groggily fumbled for his pants, fighting through the cobwebs of exhaustion which clung to his mind and body, making thinking and standing straight alike a test of will. He had stayed up late reading through personnel reviews and formulating a report for Captain Janeway, and had only gotten to bed in time for the gamma shift change; now, as he struggled to slide his feet into his boots and fasten the back of his jacket with sleep-numbed fingers, he thought that perhaps he should have waited to finish the report.

The corridor outside his quarters was dark, in turns swathed in shadow and painted a macabre red by the flashing alarm lights. The wail of the alert made listening for the sharp, concussive sounds of weapons' fire difficult, but as Chakotay hurried towards the nearest turbolift, he could not help but think that the way the deck shivered beneath his feet—small and weak tremors, like chills from a fever—was nowhere close to the violent bucking of Voyager's hull when she was under attack. Crewmembers hurried close the walls, eyes and faces pale in the dancing light, and their nods and salutes as Chakotay passed were sharp and terse with anxiety.

"Deck One," Chakotay ordered after pushing his way through the half-open turbolift doors, which had shuddered to a groaning halt only just wide enough for him to squeeze past. For two long seconds Chakotay thought that the computer must have gone offline, and he faced the thought of crawling through the jeffries tubes with a sense of pained dismay—but then, with another groan and a shiver of the turbolift floor, the doors slid shut.

When Chakotay stepped out onto the bridge thirty seconds later, it was to a scene of bleached white chaos.

The viewscreen was awash with white-orange fire, long tongues of blue-hued flame swallowing the sight of the green-and-blue planet over which they had been orbiting. Yellow sparks like lightning flashed, adding yellow to blue and white and orange as the shields buckled, held, then buckled again. Shadows seemed to follow the handful of gamma shift crew that stumbled across the deck, their outlines hazed by the blinding blanket of light pouring in. The viewscreen was tinted dark with the radiation failsafes; at that moment, Chakotay thought, as his skin began to burn from the light, it was all that stood between the crew and a quick yet agonizing death.

"Shields at twelve percent." The announcement was enough to send a thrill of cold through Chakotay's chest, even as the white, white light began to burn his skin.

He was nearly to his chair by the time he was able to see more through the brightness than black spots and indistinct shapes, shielded though his eyes were by one upheld arm. His feet carried him down the steps and across the deck without his eyes' understanding. His ears rang with the shouts of the crew as they struggled to stand at their stations, to keep Voyager afloat in the raging sea of white fire, and with the shearing groan of the ship's hull as the shields flickered, held, flickered again beneath the waves of flame. His head began to ache, a sharp, tense thorn of pain lodged at the back of his skull between his ears, making listening and looking and thinking all the harder.

Chakotay glanced to his right. Even through the film of tears seeping onto his lashes, the emptiness of the chair was painfully clear.

Damn, Chakotay thought—a thought that was quickly chased by a worm of fear. It was rare that Kathryn Janeway did not beat him to the bridge during a red alert, if she did not arrive alongside him.

He pushed the fear away; now was not the time.

"Shields at five percent."

Chakotay turned towards the helm. An ensign sat at the con, her shadow quivering as hands burning from the white light flew over the controls. Damn, Chakotay thought again, and slapped the combadge on his chest.

"Commander Chakotay to Lieutenant Paris," he snapped, ignoring the prickling pain of burning flesh rasping against rough cloth, against smooth, heating metal.

"Paris here, Commander," came an almost instantaneous reply.

"Where are you?"

"Stuck in a turbolift, sir."

For the third time, Chakotay cursed silently. "Understood," he said, then turned to OPS. "See if you can't get those turbolifts running," he ordered.

The red-faced ensign, whose features were too bleached and blurred for Chakotay to be certain who it was, nodded. "Yes, sir," they—he, Chakotay thought, the voice was masculine, meaning it was probably Ensign Cardelle—said.

Voyager's deck groaned, the complaint growing from a low rumble to a crescendoing squeal. The floor lurched, and the shields' yellow lightning flared in a glorious riot of dying sparks—then vanished.

Where is she? Chakotay thought, falling into his chair and gripping the armrests to keep himself from tumbling face-first to the deck as the ship rolled. A few more seconds and I'll have to—

As if she had heard his silent plea, the door to the captain's ready room opened, and Kathryn Janeway walked out onto the bridge.

"Report," she snapped. Her voice was strained, her uniform creased, her hair tangled and soaked with sweat.

She was as beautiful as ever, Chakotay thought—and then almost laughed at the absurdity of the thought, in the light of Voyager's dying shrieks.

"It's a solar storm, ma'am," Ensign Cardelle said. He sounded panicked, and in pain.

"Ensign Marcile," Captain Janeway said, sitting down in her chair and turning toward the girl at the helm, "can you get us out of here?"

"I'm trying, ma'am," Ensign Marcile said. Her blistering hands flew over the con, her actions punctuated by thin, choked gasps of pain. "The gravity of the planet and the sun are making it nearly impossible to navigate…"

"Tuvok," Captain Janeway said, turning in her chair towards Tactical, "what can you give me?"

Chakotay looked over at Tactical, and saw the unflappable Vulcan standing at his customary station. The first signs of blisters were rising on his high cheekbones and nose, coloring the dark tenor of his skin an ugly, boiling red. Vaguely, Chakotay wondered how he had not realized that Tuvok was already on the bridge.

"The heat and the radiation have fused all but one of our torpedo shafts shut," Tuvok replied. "The last one will be sealed in a matter of minutes—and the probability of getting more than one missile out before it is sealed is highly unlikely. Nothing else is operational, either due to the radiation or the heat."

Janeway nodded curtly. "Ensign Marci—"

She was cut off by the squeal of the turbolift doors being forced open. Chakotay turned, feeling his captain do the same, and saw Lieutenant Paris and Ensign Kim crawl out from between the warped halves of the turbolift door.

They stumbled, the sudden, blinding light and the roll and shudder of the deck—which Chakotay realized he had begun to grow accustomed to, the shriek and wail of Voyager's throes fading into the background of the pounding in his skull—enough to make them falter. Before he or the captain could say anything—could even react—both were back on their feet, and staggering toward their posts. Ensign Cardelle backed away instantly, yielding his place to Ensign Kim, before all but collapsing against the wall behind the console, disappearing from sight.

In the two seconds it took for Ensign Marcile to rise from the con and for Tom to take her seat, Voyager titled and slid into a spin. Chakotay could feel the grind of her hull against the gravity trying to tear her apart, against the ravages of flame licking at her belly, and he imagined, for half a second, that she screamed with a voice as real as Kathryn's, as B'Elanna's, as Tom's, as his. Ensign Marcile pitched to the side, falling to the floor with the sound of a subtle crack, and out of the corner of his eye, Chakotay saw his captain grimace in pain as she was thrown against the armrest of her chair.

Then Tom righted the ship, turning her into the spin and sliding her out from between the shearing waves of gravity, bringing her nose up to ride the billow of heat and fire that lashed out before them.

"Hull integrity at forty-seven percent," Harry announced. "All decks reporting damaged systems."

Captain Janeway turned toward the viewscreen. Her eyes were slits, her knuckles reddening with blisters as she gripped the edges of her armrests. "Tom," she said after one, two, three seconds. "How close are we to the edge of this storm?"

"Not sure, ma'am. But if I can get us out of the planet's orbit, I should be able to get us free."

"Tuvok, how long until the last torpedo shaft is inoperable."

"Less than thirty seconds."

"Hull integrity at thirty-two percent."

"Time a torpedo to detonate in the planet's thermosphere," Captain Janeway ordered. "Tom?"

"Yes ma'am," Tom said, "I read you loud and clear."

"Torpedo armed."

"On my mark."

Voyager trembled, and turned with lurching grace under Tom's deft guidance.

"Hull integrity at twenty percent."

"Mark."

Voyager jumped, the concussive force of the torpedo's explosion less than four hundred kilometers away wracking her already failing bones. The entire ship moaned, long and low, and her pain echoed into Chakotay's bones. She shuddered, shivered, and as she rose higher, higher, higher, twisting and rolling under Tom's flying hands, buffeted by heat and wind, her bones cracked and buckled as she fought to protect the lives she bore. Fire lashed, light scorched, and Chakotay held onto the edge of his chair with the grip of a dying man.

And then, with the suddenness of waking from a nightmare, they were free.

The blackness of empty space yawned wide and cold before them, embracing Voyager with empty arms. Pinpricks of stars danced across the viewscreen as she drifted free and suddenly silent from the ravaging hands of the storm.

"Hull integrity at eighteen percent and holding."

A long breath slid from between Chakotay's lips. They were still alive.