Disclaimer:  Everything in this story belongs to Paramount except for the character 
of Jayia.  Copyright 1997 by JoAnna Walsvik.
Author’s Note:  Please feel free to send your comments to me at 
jowalsvi@sendit.sendit.nodak.edu.  Nourish the Feedback Monster! (second cousin of 
Cookie Monster! ;-) 

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Summary: The story of how B’Elanna Torres met Chakotay and joined the Maquis, told 
from B’Elanna’s POV.
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B’Elanna’s Story (pre-Voy, Torres, PG)
by JoAnna Walsvik     

     I’ve never had what you could call a normal life.  Normal has no meaning when 
you’re half-Klingon.
     I was born on a remote, mostly-human colony on a planet called Kessik IV.  That 
place was the armpit of the galaxy.  The only ships that ever came by were the 
occasional supply ships and, very infrequently, a passing transport ship. 
     On Kessik, you had one choice in life: you grew up, you got married, and you 
had children who grew up, got married, and had children who repeated the cycle over 
and over again.  Ambition was frowned upon.  The general rule on Kessik was: If 
you’re born here, you won’t amount to anything.
     I didn’t believe that.
     I believed I *could* amount to something.  I wanted to explore the galaxy, have 
adventures, make a difference.  I didn’t want to grow up to be a stogdy old 
housewife whose main purpose in life was to bear children.  I wanted something more.
     I was already very unpopular on Kessik for two reasons: one, I was half-Klingon 
at a time when Klingons were considered untrustworthy and bizarre, and two, my 
father had walked out on my mother and I when I was five.  Kessik was the kind of 
place that fully believed in punishing the child for the parent’s sins--and vice 
versa.
     My ambitiousness didn’t help matters.  Well, what was I supposed to do?  Find a 
nice boy and settle down?  There wasn’t a nice boy I could settle down *with*.  All 
mothers warned their sons to keep away from the over-sexed, temperamental Klingon 
girl.
     Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  On my eighteenth birthday, I managed to 
hitch a ride on a supply ship bound for Earth.  I had already been accepted to 
Starfleet Academy, and I was on my way.
     So, I left Kessik IV.  And, to this very day, I’ve never been back.  Soon after 
I left, my mother went to live on the Klingon homeworld.  I guess she just couldn’t 
live anymore with the stigma of my departure.
     I tried to fit in at the Academy, I really did.  But I wasn’t used to taking 
orders.  All my life I had been a rebellious, independent Klingon.  No one had ever 
taught me to control my temper.  It didn’t help that all my professors seemed to be 
arrogant, pompous jerks.  I later discovered they had been testing me, to see if I 
could take it.
     I couldn’t.
     A year later, only a few weeks after my nineteenth birthday, I dropped out of 
the Academy--and I’ve never been back.
     I spent the next year or so hitching rides on transport ships, just traveling 
across the galaxy.  In exchange for passage, I’d fix replicators, conduits, anything 
that needed repairing.  That was one good thing about going the Academy--I had 
discovered that I had a talnet for engineering.  I was never happier then when I was 
in front of a console with a problem to solve--and I could solve almost every 
problem set before me.  That made me invaluable to the captains of rickety transport 
or supply ships, so I had no difficulty finding passage to just about anywhere.
     All I was searching for was a place to fit in.  And one day, my life completely 
changed.
     A transport I was on had stopped at a seedy bar on an outpost near the 
Cardassian border.  As I sat at the bar, aimlessly sipping a drink, I wished I could 
leave.  The place was a cross between a Ferengi dabo club and a Nausicaan 
whorehouse.
     The only thing that caught my attention was a man down at the end of the bar, 
nursing a drink with an expression like my own.  I don’t know what made me so 
interested in him--he was just a human.  Dark hair and eyes, with a strange tattoo 
over his left eye.  Nothing overly special, yet--there was something that I couldn’t 
put my finger on.
     He seemed to notice me, too.  He kept staring at me, but whenever I turned my 
head, to try and catch him in the act, his head was always down and he was staring 
at his drink.  I could never catch him staring, but he was.  At the time, I thought 
it was my ridged forehead.  A full-blooded human or Klingon never attracted 
attention, but a half-breed was always an oddity.
     Just then, a half-clothed, bruised and bleeding young Bajoran girl rushed 
inside the bar.  Both the man and I jumped up, but I was the first to reach her.
     “What’s wrong?”  I asked. 
     Before she could reply, a tall, ugly-looking Cardassian stormed through the 
door.  “Come back here!” he was shouting.
     I shoved the girl, who was trembling in terror, behind me and confronted the 
Cardassian.  “I believe you have something that belongs to me,” he sneered, trying 
to reach behind me to grab the girl.
     I wouldn’t let him.  I knew what this was about.  Cardassians liked to kidnap 
girls from their homes and villages, then use them as personal slaves.  The whole 
business made me sick, but then again, so did all Cardassians.
     “She’s mine, now.”  The Cardassian’s eyes narrowed at my firm retort, and he 
began to reach for the disruptor in his pocket.
     Before he knew what was happening, my leg had kicked out and caught him in the 
chest.  A half-Klingon’s kick is a very powerful blow, and he went down, moaning. I 
reached down and grabbed him by his collar.  
     “Leave,” I ordered in my best Klingon warrior voice.   “Or I’ll make sure you 
won’t make it back to Cardassia alive.”   I reached into my pocket, and shoved a 
bunch of latinum slips into his hand.  “For the girl.  Consider it a payment.”
     The Cardassian glared at me as he stood up, his dignity more hurt then his 
chest.  I could have crushed his breastbone, if I had wanted to, but instead I had 
merely knocked the wind out of him.  “She’s yours, Klingon.”  Without further ado, 
he left the bar, the latinum slips in his hand.
     “Oh, thank you,” the girl behind me whispered.  “I don’t know how I can ever 
repay you.”
     “Don’t worry about it,” I replied.  “What’s your name? Where’s your home?”
     “My name is Jayia.  I lived on Bajor, with my mother,” she said, her eyes 
filling up with tears.  Oh, great.  An emotional one.  “But then he--he took me.”
     I thought fast and hard.  The transport I was on wasn’t going anywhere near 
Bajor, and I didn’t know of any other ships in the area that were, either.  Just 
then, someone tapped me on the shoulder.
     “Excuse me.”  It was the man at the bar, the one with the strange tattoo on his 
face that had been watching me.  “I couldn’t help but overhear--I’ll be going to 
Bajor soon.  I’d be happy to accompany the young lady.”
     “Oh, could you, sir?”  Jayia breathed.  “I’d be so grateful.”
     “No problem,” the man said easily.  “Glad to help such a beautiful young lady.”  
I had to admit, he was smooth.  He surprised me even further when he handed the girl 
a few latinum slips and said, “Go and get yourself some decent clothes.  Meet me 
back here in an hour, okay?”
     “Thank you, sir,” Jayia said gratefully, looking at him with big brown eyes 
filled with hero worship.  “I will, I promise.”  Then she turned to me.  “Thank you 
again, um....”
     “B’Elanna,” I answered.  “B’Elanna Torres.”
     “Thank you, B’Elanna,” she said, then dashed off, the latinum strips the man 
had given her clutched tightly in her hands.   I guess after living in rags for so 
long, the prospect of new clothes was too good to be true.
     I turned to the man, to thank him for showing such kindness to Jayia, and he 
stuck out his hand.  “I’m Chakotay.  It’s nice to meet you.”
     “B’Elanna Torres.”  I shook his hand.
     “I know,” he said with a grin.  “I heard.  That was a brave thing you did.  Not 
many have the courage to stand up to a Cardassian.”
     “Cardassians are wimps.  Threaten them with a little violence and they’ll leave 
you alone.”
     Chakotay laughed, smiling at me.  I felt kind of embarrassed, yet pleased at 
the same time.  No one had ever taken time to be nice to me ever since I left the 
Academy.  The Klingon blood in me tended to intimidate people and, going from ship 
to ship, I never really had time to make friends.  “So, you’re Klingon?”
     “Half-Klingon,” I replied.  Usually I was annoyed when people would question me 
about my species, but this Chakotay had such a winning grin I didn’t feel irritated 
at all.  “My father was human.”
     “I see.  Look, could I talk to you?  Privately?”  The question was posed 
casually, but I detected a hidden agenda beneath Chakotay’s easygoing demeanor.
     “I guess,” I said cautiously.  “Where at?”
     “Why don’t we just go outside,” he suggested.  I walked with him to the bar’s 
exit.  Strangely enough, I felt at ease with him, like I had known him my whole 
life.  Usually, when I exchanged more then two words with a stranger, the inside of 
me was screaming to beware.  This time, I felt comfortable and secure.  It was a 
strange feeling, but one I could get used to.
     We walked in silence for a while, and then Chakotay said, very indifferently, 
“Have you ever heard of a group called the Maquis?”
     The Maquis.  They were a resistance group against the Cardassian-Federation 
treaty that had given Federation lands and colonies to the Cardassians.  A group of 
angry colonists had formed the group and recruited just about everyone who either 
didn’t like the treaty or who just wanted a fight.  Starfleet officers resigned 
their commissions to join the battle; Bajorans, Vulcans, members of almost every 
race joined the fight.  They had started out small, but were growing to a point 
where they were a major problem to the Federation.  “I’ve heard of them,” I said 
carefully.  “Why?”
     “I’m a recruiter for the Maquis,”  Chakotay said, avoiding my eyes and sounding 
just as careless as you please.  “You look like someone who’d be interested in 
joining.  Are you?”
     “Am I what?”  I was deliberately stringing him along, and he knew it.
     “Interested in joining the Maquis.  You’re a good fighter, and you’re not 
afraid of Cardassians.  Those are two qualities we need.  Do you have any more?  Can 
you pilot a ship or heal wounds?”
     “Actually, I’m an engineer.”
     “An engineer?”  He actually seemed to get excited at this.  “We really need 
engineers.  Are you any good?”
     This question would have sounded insulting from anyone else, but from Chakotay 
it was merely an inquiry of my skills.  “I think so, yes.  If I hadn’t been kicked 
out of Starfleet Academy I might have made chief engineer on a starship.”
     At this I saw a smile quirk on Chakotay’s face.  “Kicked out of the Academy, 
huh?  I resigned, myself.  Actually made Lieutenant Commander before that damned 
Federation treaty handed over my home to those bloody Cardassians.”
     “You were in Starfleet?”  Somehow, it wasn’t hard to believe.  He seemed the 
type that would have been a damn good officer--full of leadership.
     “Yeah.  Not anymore, though.  Now, I’m an outlaw. They want my head.”  He was 
grinning, and he threw a sideways glance towards me.  “So, what do you think?  Do 
you want to give it a try?  I can’t lie to you; it’s not an easy life.  We never 
have enough supplies, our ships are secondhand and constantly breaking down, and you 
could be killed or sent to a Federation Penal Colony if you’re caught.  I had that 
happen to one of my best pilots just a month ago.  He’d only been with us a few 
weeks.”  He scowled at this, but soon resumed his cheeful demeanor.
     “I’m not afraid of getting caught.  My life isn’t a bed of roses right now, and 
the Maquis can’t be much worse.  I’d be glad to join.”   I didn’t feel as confident 
as I sounded, but, somehow, I knew I was making the right choice.
     “Great!”  Chakotay’s eyes lit up and he smiled at me.  “Welcome aboard, 
B’Elanna Torres.”  He shook my hand, and I shook his.  That seemed to seal the 
bargain, for we headed back to the bar and picked up Jayia.   A few hours later we 
were on our way to Bajor.
     After delivering Jayia to her mother, and witnessing a joyful reunion that 
would have melted the heart of the fiercest Klingon warrior, Chakotay delivered me 
to a nearby Maquis base and introduced me to everyone.
     In just a few weeks, I knew I had found somewhere to fit in.  The Maquis became 
like a family to me.  Chakotay introduced me to a Bajoran named Seska, apparently 
someone *very* special to him, and she became my best friend--something I’d never 
had before.  No one was as shocked as me, except for Chakotay, when we later learned 
she was a Cardassian spy.  
     But that’s another story.

THE END