Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Kathryn Janeway

It is established in the very first episode of Voyager that Kathryn Janeway is in a relationship with Mark Johnson. Mark is mentioned at various points throughout the seven seasons, at first serving as Janeway’s drive to return home and later delivering the catalyst for the captain to accept that her life will forever be changed as a result of the Delta Quadrant.

It isn’t until a line of dialogue in season 4’s Hunters that we learn the extent of Mark and Kathryn’s relationship when it is revealed that they were, in fact, engaged when Voyager disappeared. 

Viewers assumed, then, that when Janeway mentions losing the “man [she] was engaged to marry” in season 5’s The Disease, she must have been referring to Mark. But when we delve into the beta canon, this might not be the fiancé she was talking about.

Jeri Taylor’s 1996 Voyager novel, Mosaic, establishes an earlier relationship for Kathryn Janeway with Lieutenant Justin Tighe. The pair met while serving aboard the USS Icarus where, then, Ensign Janeway initially found the Lieutenant to be infuriating to work with. This changed when Kathryn and Captain Paris were captured by the Cardassians and it was Justin who led the Rangers team that rescued them.

From there, the Ensign and Lieutenant formed a bond which blossomed into a budding romance and engagement. But before the wedding bells could chime, tragedy struck and changed Kathryn Janeway’s life forever…