Roads Not Taken - A VOY Fanfiction

[Oddish]

The following story is set sometime between "Friendship One" and "Endgame", in the Prime timeline. The location is somewhere in deep space in the Delta Quadrant.


ROADS NOT TAKEN
By Oddish


* I *


Like a sparrow caught up in a hurricane, the Delta Flyer went spiraling through the lightless hole in space, warning lights flashing and alarms screaming and fire and smoke belching from half a dozen ruptured conduits and exploded consoles. Of the two Voyager crew that had been onboard, one of them clung to the controls and tried to wrestle the ship back to some semblance of an even keel. the other lay in a limp heap on the floor, his face and uniform both charred by the intense heat of the plasma jolt that had hit him.


Captain Kathryn Janeway was the wrestler, and although she did not have the sheer skill of the red-uniformed lieutenant who lay at her feet, she had been well trained in emergency pilotage, and had far more than the usual amount of determination. She continued to frantically yank levers and punch buttons, oblivious to the choking smoke and spark-spitting consoles, and finally managed to get the shuttle on a level and straight course as it emerged from the suffocating blackness of wherever it had been and sailed once again among the stars.


"Computer, all stop," Kathryn barked, and the shuttle ground itself to a halt and the violent shaking died down. She wasted no time in grabbing the medkit and pulling out the medical tricorder, then pointing the sensor at Lieutenant Tom Paris's face. The instrument indicated severe internal burns, presumably caused by electrical discharge or plasma, and alerted that he was going into shock, and that death was imminent unless the condition was addressed. Kathryn pulled a hypospray from the kit, primed it, and injected it into Tom's neck, then continued scanning. His heart rate slowed and strengthened, and his blood pressure began to rise. Kathryn heaved a sigh of relief as her subordinate continued to stabilize.


She covered him with a reflective blanket, then continued to monitor him with the tricorder. His shock didn't return, but he did not regain consciousness either. The possible reason lay in the hideous-looking plasma burn on his cheek; if the electrical discharge had penetrated his brain, it could have easily wiped it as easy as purging a memory chip. Everything that Tom Paris was could be irrevocably gone.


Once she was sure he wasn't going to sneak off the mortal coil while she called for help, she hurried over to the comm and fired it up. "Mayday! Mayday! This is Captain Janeway, calling Voyager! He have sustained damage, cause unknown. The Flyer has been disabled; Lieutenent Paris has been injured. Please respond at once and set a course for my position."


There was a response, and Kathryn assumed it was from Voyager, but there was no way to be sure, not when it was as hopelessly garbled as it was. It was a female voice, she was pretty sure, and the universal translator was not kicking in, suggesting that it was either in Standard or it was too messed up for the translator to make head or tail of it. She repeated her mayday, and got a similar response. She tried to scan for Voyager, but the Flyer only had short-range sensors and not much of those right now. Warp engines were out, weapons might have been good for a few shots in a pinch, and primary life support was gone. Of course, all Starfleet vessels had redundant life support systems, and the Flyer was no exception, but they were generally battery-powered, so that they would not be affected if main power went dead.To make matters worse, several of the batteries had taken hits as well. If help didn't come in short order, the two shuttle occupants would either freeze into ice cubes or asphyxiate.


The minutes dragged by, congealing into hours, and Kathryn wondered what the hell was up. This had been intended as a short term away mission, a ten-minute flight at warp four. At its top speed, Voyager should have been there in seconds, and it shouldn't have been out of comm range.


The viewscreen was damaged, but only lightly, and the Flyer's layout had included (at Lt. Torres's insistence) a well-stocked repair kit. Kathryn was soon able to have it in working order, not that it helped; all she could see in all directions was stars. She turned her attention to the engines, but the results were not encouraging. With a few hours work she could restore impulse power, but they were between stars, and the nearest system was eleven months away at full impulse (and it didn't even have a class M planet). The warp engines would need spare parts that only Voyager could provide.


She hoped that Paris would awaken, but he remained unresponsive. The medical tricorder indicated that he was stable, with some worrisome cranial swelling. She administered a hypospray to counteract the latter. A yellow warning light on the console went on, indicating that the redundant life support system's power cells were at 25 percent. She reduced cabin temperature to five degrees C and powered down the water recyclers in the shuttle's tiny head. If she had to go, she'd find a bucket or something.


Finally, a blip on short range sensors, and she turned to the viewscreen and heaved a sigh of relief. The familiar sight of Voyager's white hull and elongated saucer section filled the flickering viewscreen. Kathryn fired up the comm again. "Voyager, this is Janeway. Where the hell were you? You were supposed to be..."


She was well on her way to start in on a thorough chewing-out for whoever had been commanding the bridge. Probably not Chakotay or Tuvok, they wouldn't have flown Voyager off without letting her know. Maybe Chakotay was off on a holodeck date with Seven, and he'd left an underling in charge...


However, the figure that appeared on the viewscreen was not Chakotay, or Tuvok, nor was it any of their underlings. Kathryn recognized it instantly, because she saw it every day in the mirror, when she stopped to brush her hair and put on her make-up. Said figure had a few differences from her, most notably a uniform that wasn't covered with scorch marks and slightly longer hair, tied in a looser bun than Kathryn had normally worn... but in every way that mattered, it was her face.


"I don't know who you are," Captain Kathryn Janeway said to her. "But you have some explaining to do."

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Voyager is a bit of a walkabout series and the point of walkabout is to keep walking until you meet yourself.

Most accounts hold that meeting is very rarely a pleasant one...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

Sometimes, meeting yourself is where the journey begins, rather than where it ends.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many AU Trek stories use what I call the "durable timeline". An example is "Tapestry": Picard might have hand-selected Geordi and Riker as his crew. However, in the "Tapestry" timeline, even though Picard did not choose the crew, those officers are still there, as is the rest of the principal cast.

To an extent, "Roads Not Taken" features a durable timeline.

* II *

After staring at a doppelganger of herself, in command of her ship, Kathryn would not have believed that anything could cause her jaw to drop any further, but she now realized this to be a completely naive sentiment. Upon materializing in the ship's transporter room, she had been greeted by two people who she had truly not expected to see agian, not outside of archived footage or her own bad dreams. She still remembered the terrible moment when she had looked into the eyes of one of them, injected the hypospray that would effectively terminate his existence, and then watched him disappear as the transporter went active. And yet, when she had materialized alone on Voyager's transporter pad (Tom had of course been beamed directly to sickbay), Tuvix stood before her again.

As if that were not enough of a surprise, another resurrected ghost was standing next to him, wearing the same Starfleet gold uniform but not the same friendly expression. Kathryn had seen Seska in that uniform often enough in the first months of their long voyage, but she had been decidedly Bajoran at the time. Now, flanking Tuvix with a look of intense scrutiny on her face, she had the grayish complexion and vaguely reptilian features of her actual race. Seeing any Cardassian in a Starfleet uniform would have been shock enough for Kathryn, but her last view of Seska had been when the Doctor and a few selected crew were bundling her and a dozen or so dead Kazon into hastily replicated torpedo casings, to be ejected into space. Though Kathryn had insisted that the enemy dead be treated with some dignity, her focus at the time had been on Lon Suder, who had died at the same time.

Given the greeting party, it was almost an afterthought that one of the two silent security officers was Crewman Dalles, also mysteriously returned from the dead.
Tuvix spoke first. "Could you please come with us?"

Given the presence of the two guards, it was clearly not a request. However, Tuvix spoke it with the same friendly sincerity that Kathryn had remembered. "Of course," she replied.

She didn't have to go all that far, proceeding only to a small storage unit that she remembered being used to store assorted supplies. It had since been outfitted with a desk, two chairs, and a console with some odd-looking equipment. Tuvix eased himself into one of the chairs and indicated the other. Seska went to the console, which lit up with a number of Cardassian symbols that Kathryn could not decipher from where she was sitting. Knowing the Cardassian penchant for torture, Kathryn wondered what she was about to be subjected to. Given the presence of a known Cardassian agent, and the fact that there appeared to be an imposter of some sort calling the shots, who knew if Starfleet principles were still in effect?

At length, Seska nodded curtly to Tuvix, and he broke the silence. "If you would, captain, please tell us exactly what happened to you."

Although she wasn't entirely sure, Kathryn explained at length what had occured, starting with the nature of the away mission, continuing with the readings the Flyer's sensors had picked up. At that point, Tuvix had paused the interview to communicate briefly with the other Janeway and Seven of Nine, telling them to check the Flyer's sensor log.
With the interruption complete, Tuvix instructed Kathryn to continue, periodically asking questions. It occured to Kathryn that another skill of Tuvok's that Tuvix had managed to improve on was interviewing skills. Tuvok often seemed cold to those who didn't know him well, and Neelix could be obnoxious in his sheer friendliness. After only a few weeks of existence, these polar opposites had sometimes coexisted uneasily within Tuvix's one mind, but after years of being... well, Tuvix, the two halves of his personality had long since melded into one smooth whole. Janeway could easily imagine a prisoner being soothed into giving up nearly any secret by this genial manner.

Once Kathryn had finished, Tuvix turned to the other person in the room. "Well?"

Seska nodded. "She's telling the truth. At least, she thinks she is."

Kathryn looked more closely at the device Seska had been using. In her time on the Al-Battani, she had been briefed on assorted Cardassian interrogation methods. While they did not hesitate to use drugs or even torture when they felt like it, they also had sophisticated non-invasive lie-detection devices that worked by continuously scanning a person's bio-signs and cerebral activity, very useful when the politics of a situation demanded that a prisoner remain unharmed. While Startfleet doctrine absolutely forbade torture and permitted drugs in only certain circumstances (and only by a trained physician), it offered no objection to using such technology.

"It doesn't make sense, though," Tuvix stated. "How could one captain be in two places at once?"

"Don't forget Mr. Paris," Seska commented. "If you like, we could summon the doctor. I'm sure he could prepare..."

"Why don't we see what the others think first?" Tuvix suggested quickly. "We'll see if the evidence corroborates her story."

Soon enough, Kathryn found her group making their way to the turbolift, and from there to the long table in her ready room. The captain's ready room, in any case... given the evidence that was piling up, she was no longer sure if this was indeed her ship, or if the woman in the uniform identical to hers was really an imposter. Also present were Seven of Nine and Joe Carey. Kathryn felt another nasty knock upon seeing the latter, having presided over his memorial service only a short time before. Paris and Chakotay were not present, but Harry Kim was there. He looked about the same as before, aside from the fact that the single gold pip that normally adorned his collar had gained an identical sibling. This meant, Kathryn noted, that he had either been promoted on two seperate occasions, or had been elevated past the junior grade rank entirely.

Captain Janeway (who will be called exclusively by her last name in this narrative, to differentiate the two) kicked things off by addressing Kathryn.
"Welcome to my ready room. Given the evidence we've uncovered so far, I expect you're as familiar with it as I am." To Tuvix, she added: "What did she have to say?"

Tuvix handed her a padd with a transcripted recording of their interview, and gave a condensed verbal description of it as well. "Lieutenant Seska monitored her throughout the interview, and we agree: our visitor appears to have been completely truthful." Seska nodded confirmation.

Captain Janeway scanned the padd, then turned to the former Borg, who looked about like she always had. "Seven?"

"I have scanned the shuttle," Seven of Nine responded with her usual equinimity. "It apears that your hypothesis was correct. The shuttle's quantum signature was not concordant with our own. Dr. Shmullus scanned the version of Lieutenant Paris in sickbay, and the results were identical. Based on the case study of Lieutenant Worf on Stardate 47391, I would hypothesize that the shuttle and its occupants come from an alternative reality, traveling through a phased quantum fissure."

Janeway addressed Seska. "Did you...?"

"No," Seska said. "My equipment is designed to determine if a person is lying, not to check them for quantum irregularities."

"If you like, I can perform that procedure now," Seven offered, reaching for the tricorder on her belt.

"Maybe later," Janeway responded. "Lieutenent Carey, have your people completed the examination of the shuttle?"

"Yes, captian," Carey responded. "But... well, it's definitely similar to the Delta Flyer, but it's not the Delta Flyer we built."

"How is it different?" Janeway queried.

"It's hard to explain. It's just... more advanced. There are some modifications, upgrades really, to the power and propulsion systems that we never even considered adding."

"And that's lucky for them," Harry Kim put in. "I don't think our Delta Flyer would have survived the pounding this ship's taken."

"I think I might have an explanation for the discrepancy," Janeway told the two men, then addressed Kathryn. "Captain... in your timeline, who's the chief engineer of Voyager?"

Kathryn answered the question. "Lieutenent B'Elanna Torres."

Subtle unspoken reactions from everyone in the room (except for Seven, who retained her trademark inscrutability) told Kathryn what had happened to B'Elanna on this Voyager. Janeway's ensuing question to Carey only confirmed this. "Extrapolate. If B'Elanna was still with us, and had aided in the design of the Delta Flyer, is this what it would look like?"

Joe Carey sighed. "I never had anything like her creativity, but my best guess is that yes, the Delta Flyer in our shuttlebay is the ship Lieutenent Torres would have given us."

Janeway nodded. "Very well. Based on the evidence, we will assume that our guests are who they appear to be, but simply from an alternate timeline. Seven, check the star charts and sensors, see if there's anything that might cause a phenomenon like this."

"Aye, captain."

Janeway turned to her operations chief. "Harry, reconfigure the sensors to detect quantum irregularities, then scan the vicinity of where the Flyer was found."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Lieutenent Carey, expedite repairs on their version of the Flyer. Whatever phenomenon brought them here, it may not last long."

"Yes, captain. Is it all right if I catalog the improvements?"

Janeway did not respond, but looked at Kathryn, who nodded. "Of course." Thankfully, the Prime Directive applied to pre-warp cultures and earlier times, not alternate versions of the present.

"Only if you can do it without delaying repairs, though," Janeway added.

"That won't be a problem, captain," Carey assured her.

"Very well. Dismissed, all of you." Janeway addressed Tuvok and Seska. "Ms. Seska, see if Dr. Shmullus needs assistance with his latest patient." The Cardassian nodded and departed along with the others. Having received no orders to the contrary, the two security guards stayed put. Kathryn mentally nodded at her counterpart's wisdom. Though the evidence was overwhelming that she was who she said she was, she wasn't quite ready to assume that all was well.

Kathryn wasn't sure what to say next. Janeway walked around to the replicatior in the corner. "Two black coffees," she ordered. Two stainless steel mugs full of steaming dark liquid appeared. Janeway handed one to her counterpart, and returned to her seat. Both drank. Neither spoke. Kathryn noted with some amusement that it was nice to finally meet someone who understood the almost sacred pleasure of that first swig of a fresh hot mug.

Finally, Kathryn spoke. "Dr. Shmullus?"

Janeway nodded. "Yes, according to Mr. Tuvix, the doctor adopted that name when he and Dr. Pel renewed acquaintances. I was off the ship at the time."

"New Earth?" Kathryn queried.

Janeway nodded confirmation. "We scanned and read the Flyer's datebase. It had a copy of your Voyager's ship's log. We read that to check on your story." A beat. "You destroyed the array."

Kathryn nodded. "You didn't?"

"No, not that it helped," Janeway admitted. "I beamed a team aboard, hoping that we could access its technology. We found what appeared to be a control panel, but it was unresponsive. Our best guess is that when the Caretaker died, he fused all the circuits. Even if we could have repaired it, it would have taken months."

"Better than a seventy-year trip home," Kathryn remarked.

"Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones who wanted the array," Janeway replied. "The Kazon put a boarding party aboard, and began ripping out every piece of usable technology they could find. They shot at us, we shot back. One of the major power conduits was hit by weapons fire, and it triggered a cascade reaction. Next thing we knew, the whole array was blowing up around us. We beamed ourselves and the remaining Kazon to safety."

Kathryn started to ask why the Kazon hadn't beamed out their own parties, then remembered that they hadn't had transporters. "What happened then?"

"Well, both Voyager and the Valjean were fighting with the Kazon ship outside the array. Once the Kazon on Voyager commed their captain, the fighting stopped and we returned them to their ship. Their leader was grateful enough to grant us safe passage out of their space."

"The Valjean?"

"It was beyond salvage. Chakotay activated the destruct charges, and then the Maquis joined our crew, just like they did yours."

The conversation continued, as Janeway ciontinued to explain how things had unfolded on her journey. Much of it was surprisingly similar, aside from a near-total lack of conflict with the Kazon. "Given what we knew about them, it seemed very strange," Janeway confessed as she sipped her second mug. "Rescuing a handful of members from another faction shouldn't have made us anything like friends. But I wasn't exactly going to ask them why they weren't trying to kill us.

"Did you find out what happened?" Kathryn queried. Given what had happened on her side, she already had strong suspicions who was responsible.

"Eventually, by sheer luck," Janeway explained. "It actually concerned the..."

Whatever she had been about to say was interrupted by a beep from the console. Janeway activated it, revealing the winsome face of young Naomi Wildman, who appeared to be the same in this timeline. "What is it, Naomi?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, captain," Naomi said. "It's just that Cody's kind of upset, and we were wondering..." she trailed off.

"Of course, Naomi. I'll be right down," Janeway assured her. To Kathryn: "Will you excuse me?"

"Of course." Kathryn thought furiously as her counterpart hurried from the room. She knew the name, it was her great-grandfather's. And, it was one of the names she had regularly thought of, when she pondered what she might call...

The next revelation was, impossibly, even more mind-bending that any previous. She went to the comm panel and checked where the call had come from (Deck 8, Nursery). "Computer, can you show me the nursery on Deck 8?" she queried, and instantly a live feed came on the screen.

The "nursery" was a cozy and carpeted chamber with lots of soft-looking furniture and colorful accents in the decor. Both Samantha and Naomi Wildman were present, and an assortment of much younger children, all of them clearly small enough to have been born during Voyager's journey.

Kathryn watched in silent fascination as her counterpart entered the chamber and made a beeline for one of the older kids, a crying boy who looked to be about four years old. She zoomed in on the child's small face, and though the features were unmistakably similar, she didn't really need to look at them: she could tell from the look of content that suffused the boy that this was his mother scooping him up and holding him close. She wondered what she would have been expected to wonder, but did not do so for long. The child's mop of thick black hair and solemn dark brown eyes were a dead giveaway, and his probable age lined right up with Kathryn's (and presumably her counterpart's) time on New Earth. And there had been only one person there with her.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Mama Janeway... interesting. I'm wondering if this crew know about Seska's history with the Obsidian Order.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

Author's Note: You may notice that this story modifies the ending of a certain late episode. This is not because I feel that the episode ended wrong... like "The Outcast" before it, the episode would not have made its point without the cruelty and injustice of its canonical end. However, this is a fanfiction, and a fanfic can do what canon should not.

* III *

The security officers had left, but it was not long before another familiar face had shown up. Under normal circumstances, Kathryn would have been shocked yet again, given that she had recently surrendered this person to what was expected to be his state-sanctioned death. However, after finding out that she and Chakotay had a baby in this timeline, seeing Iko in a Starfleet crewman's uniform was almost an anticlimax. The new crewman still had the air of a person who could not believe his good fortune. "I, uh, was sent to escort you to your quarters," he said uncertainly.

"Could we go to sickbay first?" Kathryn queried. "I'd like to check on my crewman, if that's all right."

"Yes, ma'am," Iko said. "Captain Janeway says you have the run of the ship until we can get you back home."

"Back where I came from, anyway. How is that coming?" Kathryn queried as she fell into step beside him.

"Not sure. Seven's working on it, but I don't really understand the science much," Iko admitted.

"I understand," Kathryn said. The former prisoner had been a career criminal until the doctor had inadvertently corrected a brain defect that was responsible for his antisocial behavior, so he would need some time to catch up. She figured that in the meantime, he was probably assigned to the simple and thankless tasks that didn't require any technical skill; even a vessel as sophisticated as Voyager had scores of those. Including escorting a visitor around the ship.

They reached Sickbay, and she turned to Iko with a smile. "I may be here awhile. If you tell me where my quarters are, I'm sure I can find them. I know this ship pretty well."

"Yes, ma'am. Deck 6, Guest Quarters C. If you need anything else, just call. Ask for Crewman Iko."

"I'll do just that," Kathryn assured him. "Thank you, Crewman."

Sickbay was more or less as she remembered it. Tom was the sole patient, still motionless, with a scanning device of some sort attached his forehead. The Doctor was standing next to him with a medical tricorder in his hand. Although he had a name in this timeline, everything else about him appeared to be the same: unmarked blue uniform, mostly bald head, and a face that was expressive as his emerging personality. "Ah. I was wondering when you would show up," he said.

"How is he?"

"He would not have survived if you hadn't treated him as quickly and effectively as you did," Dr. Shmullus stated. "There's some light scorching of the meningal tissues, but the brain remains remarkably intact, suggesting that he is as thick-skulled as his counterpart. While I believe that he will make a full recovery, it may be a few hours before he regains consciousness."

"I understand," Kathryn said. "Please keep me informed on his condition."

"Of course. I can assume, given the circumstances, that you are a woman with additional questions," the EMH stated. "I would be happy to answer any that I can, limited as always by the parameters of medical confidentiality."

"Can you tell me about Cody?" Kathryn queried.

"Indeed I can," the doctor assured her. "Cody Ce Acatl Janeway. Born on Stardate 50741. Since his father didn't use a last name, you of course gave him yours."

"Makes sense."

"I perused your ship's log. He didn't exist on your Voyager," Shmullus said. "Pity. He's quite a charming child, if a little... wiggly. Not exactly the most cooperative patient I've ever treated, but given who his mother is, I suppose that's no surprise."

Kathryn smiled at the thought. It was good to know that some things about her transcended what timeline one was in. "How did it happen?"

A brief period of silence as Shmullus compared his version of history and the version he had read, and extrapolated the most likely cause of difference. "Well, remember that in your timeline, we did not have Mr. Tuvok to take command after you and the commander fell ill," he explained. "However, Ensign Kim was too young, Lieutenent Torres was too busy, Lieutenent Paris was distrusted by Starfleet and Maquis alike, and I had not even come up with the idea for the ECH. With no one else to handle the task, command fell on then-lieutenant Tuvix. Despite misgivings from the crew about a being who effectively had only existed for two months, he handled the task quite well."

"Somehow I'm not surprised," Kathryn noted. The man had been good at pretty much everything he tried.

"Crew morale was naturally quite low," Shmullus went on, as he injected the motionless lieutenant with a hypospray. "Despite Mr. Tuvix's numerous efforts to cheer them up: an extended shore leave, on one occasion. He also promoted several ensigns who had distinguished themselves."

Kathryn remembered the twin pips on Harry's collar, and did not have to ask who one of those ensigns was. It made sense: Tuvok, despite his status as acting captain, had not made any effort to shift the ship's command structure to allow for the loss of the two most senior officers; he hadn't even changed into a red uniform. Tuvix, more understanding of the psychology of emotional beings, would have made the appropriate changes. "Did it help?"

"Perhaps, but not a lot," Shmullus admitted. "Finally, several months afterward, the ship encountered a Vidiian convoy. After a discussion with the crew, Captain Tuvix made the decision to disobey your, or rather your counterpart's orders and contact them."

My orders too, Kathryn thought. She considered asking if Kes had been involved in his decision, but was more concerned with the matter at hand. "But more time had passed."

"Yes. Our exchange with the Vidiians was quite amiable, though I am aware that yours was not. I was even able to renew my friendship with Dr. Pel. By the time we returned for the captain and first officer, over four months had passed. And when I brought her back..."

"She was pregnant," Kathryn finished.

The Doctor could not reveal the rest of the story, since it consisted of confidential information, but Kathryn could fill in the gaps herself based on her own experiences on New Earth. The doctor would have examined both of them to ensure that they were healthy, and even a routine bioscan would have revealed her condition. Of course, termination of the pregnancy would have been possible; the EMH's ethical subroutines did not prohibit it, and he would not have breathed a word about her condition to Chakotay or anyone else. The choice would have been Janeway's alone.

However, Kathryn knew what she herself would have chosen, so of course she wasn't surprised that her doppelganger had turned this option down. Which had undoubtedly opened a very big, very messy can of worms.

While Kathryn knew that the doctor would not have told her anything that wasn't common knowledge, it did not feel right to ask more questions, not about what would have been a very painful and personal decision for the other Janeway. Instead, she indicated Tom. "Is it all right if I sit with him?"

"Of course," Dr. Shmullus said. "I have business in the nursery anyway."

"Sick child?"

"Health lesson." The doctor beamed. "Someone has to teach the little nippers about the importance of washing their hands and brushing their teeth."

"I see." Kathryn smiled at the thought of the irascible EMH lecturing a bunch of wiggling youngsters about assorted health matters. "Thank you, Doctor."

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Really nice handling of the Doctor's unique voice. Probably the most critical part of writing canonical characters is not what happens to them, but getting the peculiarities of their behavior and especially their dialect and speaking patterns.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

* IV *


She did as said, remaining seated with Tom in silence, and reading the first part of the ship's log, which had been provided for her. She had just finished reading about Naomi's birth, which had actually occured with no significant difficulty: Voyager had diverted to a settlement on the outskirts of Kazon space to barter for some deuterium, and as a result had bypassed the spatial scisson phenomenon by over a light year, as well as the deadly encounter with the Vidiians that followed. That explained, Janeway realized, why there hadn't been a fight with said Vidiians, a few months later.


She was distracted from her reading by the hiss of the doors as a gold uniform entered Sickbay. Janeway looked up and stiffened as she beheld Seska. The Cardassian undoubtedly noticed her reaction, but appeared to take no note of it. She spoke to Dr. Shmullus, who instructed her to monitor the patient and to transfer him back to sickbay if anything changed, then disappeared. Kathryn surmised that there were holo-emitters in the nursery, to allow the doctor to attend to routine pediatric matters there. Her Voyager had never had enough primary-age children onboard to justify a special room for them, but if it had, it was what she would have done.


She tried not to pay attention to the Cardassian in the room (an elephant would have been easy by comparison, she thought wryly to herself), but must have done it just as poorly as she thought, because at length Seska turned to face her. "I can hear the questions bouncing around in your head from here, captain," she said. "Go ahead and ask them."


"All right," Kathryn said. "Just how did you wind up back on my ship?" Realizing her faux pas, she quickly amended: "This ship."


"In this timeline, I never left Voyager," Seska said breezily. "After the Kazon granted us passage out of the Ocampa system, I was able to discreetly make contact with them. The trade was simple: technologal assistance for continued safe passage. They had managed to secure a replicator from the Caretaker array, but weren't able to make it function. I think you found out how their first attempt went."


She spoke the last with the same hint of arrogance that had made many of the crew want to smack her, even back when everyone still thought she was a true-blue Bajoran Maquis. Kathryn nodded confirmation.


"Anyway, with my assistance, after a few months, they were able to make the gadget work. Then, a bit at a time, I fed them other things: transporters, photonic weapons, warp harmonics... all very quietly, of course. Not enough to make them a threat to us, of course, but enough to ensure that the Vidiians and the Trabe would think twice before bothering them." She shook her head ruefully. "Unfortunately, I didn't count on Voyager turning around and heading back into Kazon space to pick you and Chakotay up again."


"And you were found out."


"Well, your counterpart could hardly ignore the rumors of the Kazon factions slowly pulling together, or that their technology had advanced by nearly a century in only two years. Once the investigation began, there wasn't much I could do to stop it. And by the time I was found out, there was no Kazon ship for me to conveniently transport to."


Kathryn considered a snide remark but resisted the temptation; she wanted to hear more. "So what happened?"


"Well, despite the fact that I had kept the Kazon off her back for two years, the captain was not happy. She kept me in the brig until ship's discipline required that it be freed up, then she confined me to quarters for the next year and a half. I'd probably still be there if not for the Year of Hell."


"I've heard that term used before," Kathryn said, interested in spite of her distaste for Seska's blatent disregard for Starfleet's most basic principle. Kes had mentioned something of that nature shortly before leaving the ship, but nothing like it had ever come to pass.


"Be glad you've only heard of it, captain, as opposed to living through it. I really thought the Krenim were going to finish us once and for all."


"I don't understand," Kathryn objected. "When we met the Krenim, they were just a small polity, with limited technology. They were less than welcoming, but it only took us a week to go around their territory."


"I don't quite understand it either," Seska admitted, her usual arrogance softening a bit. "I just know that they weren't small or weak when we met them. We lost twenty-four people, and we're lucky it wasn't worse."


"So how did that affect you?" Kathryn queried.


"Well, among the ship's company were myself and Lon Suder," Seska explained. "He was confined to quarters as well, as I expect you know." At Janeway's nod of confirmation, she continued: "Anyway, your counterpart decided she couldn't have two people on the ship who did nothing but sit around in their cabins, not when everyone was working eighteen hours a day just to keep up with repairs. So, she gave us both a choice: assist the crew, or be dropped off on a class L planet we were passing."


"And you chose to stay, obviously."


"Yes," Seska said. "Since part of my training as a Cardassian operative was multispecies field medicine, the captain was very happy to have me in sickbay, especially after Dr. Shmullus's program went offline. Between myself and Paris, we probably saved the lives of half this crew, some more than once."


"And Suder?"


"One of the twenty-four we weren't able to save," Seska said simply. "But if it helps, Janeway's trust in him was not misplaced. He served bravely to the end." A beat, then Seska returned to the matter at hand. "Eventually, we escaped from the Krenim, but it took some time for Tom to restore the doctor's program, and with him busy with that, I was still needed to tend to the wounded. Quite a few of our people got electrical or plasma burns while they were rebuilding the power distribution network, plus we still had patients in need of long-term care. Your counterpart was one of them."


"But obviously, your Lieutenant Paris did get Dr. Shmullus up and running again."


"And even managed to make a few minor improvements," Seska said. "Most notably to his triage subroutines."


Kathryn remembered that her Voyager's EMH had almost decompiled himself because of an issue there, on two seperate occasions. "Seems reasonable."


"Once things calmed down in sickbay, the captain and senior officers debated returning me to confinement, but the decision was made to let me remain free. Under supervision, of course."


"I'm surprised the captain did that," Kathryn said. "It's not what I would have done."


"You didn't experience the Year of Hell," Seska responded. When you face death every day with someone, even an enemy, things have a way of changing.


Kathryn conceded the point. "So what exactly do you do around here?" she queried.


Seska shrugged. "With the doctor repaired, I wasn't as essential in sickbay," she said. "But I was good at other things: espionage, misdirection, sabotage if necessary. Sometimes, cunning will solve a problem that diplomacy can't and firepower won't. And to be honest, after the Krenim were done with us, we didn't have much firepower left."


"Even so..."


"Ask the fellow who escorted you here how he feels about that," Seska said testily. "I'm sure he was much happier to be the victim of a 'transporter accident' than the alternative."


Kathryn said nothing. She had understood that Iko's death sentence had been no more morally justifiable than a killing by a lynch mob. Her only rationale for allowing it was the Prime Directive, and Seska had already established that she had no allegience to it.


Seska continued. "In any case, about a year and a half ago, the Pathfinder project was completed. Contact was made with Starfleet, who were kind enough to make what was left of the Cardassian government aware of my status, as well as the remaining members of my family." A hint of sadness in her voice, and Kathryn could understand why. The horrific slaughter on Cardassia during the closing hours of the Dominion War had left gaping holes in nearly all of the extended multigenerational clans their culture valued so greatly.


"What happened then?"


Seska shrugged. "The new head of the Cardassian intelligence department sent me a communique, commending me for my excellent service. However, the Maquis no longer existed and the Cardassian Union and the Federation had not only formally ended hostilities, but the Federation had begun the largest relief effort in history for my people. Obviously, the circumstances of my assignment had changed. In light of that, he ordered me to put myself fully under your counterpart's command until Voyager returned home. At his request, Starfleet granted me a field commission. And, I expect you know the rest."


"I can fill in the gaps," Kathryn said.


As she spoke that last, Dr. Shmullus flickered into existence. "Well, that's done. Any changes in the patient's status while I was gone?"


"No, doctor," Seska said.


Kathryn watched the Cardassian as she exited Sickbay. It had never occured to her what she would have done if Seska had not abandoned ship the way she did. Probably the same as Janeway had, she decided.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Quite liking the alt-Seska backstory. It probably would have screened much more interestingly than the storyline the franchise put forward.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

I really wanted to reveal that Seska's new boss, the one who told her to put herself under Janeway's command, was Elim Garak (who returned to Cardassia at the end of the war). However, I couldn't see why Seska would reveal that, especially to someone who hadn't served on DS9 and had no idea who Garak was.

Chapter V should be up soon.

 

[Oddish]

OK, Next chapter. May have to wait awhile for VI, though. Ironic as it may seem, I wrote this story because I wanted to write the encounter that takes place in that chapter... but it's proving to be surprisingly difficult to write.

A bit of technical data for those who are curious: the nominal yield of a Class 9 photon torpedo is 18.5 isotons

* V *

A few hours later, following a nap and a sonic shower and a lot of reading, Kathryn was started from her padd by a muted chime. She remembered that she had been invited to join Captain Janeway in the mess hall for dinner. That was fine, she decided. As fascinating as the logs were, they were certainly not light reading, especially the part during and after the Year of Hell.

The Year of Hell was supposed to have started right after Seven's astrometrics lab was completed, with an encounter with a belligerent and powerful Krenim warship. From Kathryn's perspective, not only had the Krenim been a second-rate power at best, but their neighbors and chief competitors had been the Zahl. the Zahl were everything the Krenim were not: a widespread confederation of worlds that was technologically advanced and very friendly. They were also among the few species in the quadrant who used matter-antimatter weapons, and in exchange for some tactical information about the Borg and other species in Voyager's line of travel, they had provided their new friends with several pallets of photonic warheads that could be adapted to fit in standard casings and fire from Voyager's tubes. And just in time, too: Tuvok's latest inventory had put the ship's torpedo supply in single digits.

But that was what had happened on Kathryn's Voyager. Things over here had been... different. There was no indication of contact with the Zahl, despite the fact that Voyager has passed through what should have been the heart of their territory; it was as if they had never existed in this timeline. Instead, they had been faced with wave upon wave of Krenim ships of every description. The long months of brutal combat and hasty repairs had left the ship's torpedo supply completely exhausted and three of her eight phaser emitters fused to slag. They weren't totally defenseless; they could still fire their phasers in most directions, and had reconfigured the launchers to fire spatial torpedoes. With a rated yield of 4.7 isotons and a sublight guidance system, spatials were vastly inferior to photons, but the ship's replicators could produce the components. More to the point, their engines had taken a nasty beating, and without B'Elanna's genuis for jury-rigging, repairs had proceeded slowly. When they had met up with the Equinox, the smaller ship had managed to leave them in the dust, presumably continuing to mass-murder its way back home.


Pondering the Equinox in the years after that incident, Kathryn had often wondered if she herself would have been capable of similar choices, under the wrong circumstances. The Year of Hell had certainly provided the circumstances, she thought as she mentally reviewed the long litany of death and destruction listed in the ship's log, including a dozen hasty memorial services. Most of the latter had been for multiple crew members, but B'Elanna's was still the worst, even though she had been the only one killed that day. And then, there was the week of entries made by a very worried first officer Chakotay, because Janeway had been clinging to life in sickbay.


The answer to the question had been, as such answers often are, a mixture of yes and no. Kathryn was pleased to see that her counterpart had not committed anything close to the series of atrocities Ransom had been guilty of, but she had bent the rules a lot father than Kathryn remembered doing. The fact that Voyager now had less than half of its original tactical capacity might have had something to do with that, as well as the presence of an asset with Seska's particular genius for underhanded tactics. When you had a hammer in your possession, lots of things began to resemble nails.


The "transporter accident" that gave Voyager its latest crew member was a classic example of her work. Kathryn was not overly surprised to find out that not only had Janeway been fully onboard with the incident, but Seska had arranged the event at her request. Seven, who had been friendly with Iko, had rigged the transporter, and the harm-averse Dr. Shmullus had been happy to provide the necessary biomatter to create the necessary "remains". Kathryn had made the mistake of asking to watch the footage of the event. It had been a convincing affair to say the least. Kathryn supposed that the victim's family had probably taken a certain satisfaction in seeing their loved one's killer being violently disintegrated and splattered around the room like a bucket of chunk salsa. The real Iko had been hidden in the pattern buffer until the prison transport departed.


Kathryn forced the grim thoughts from her head as she reached the door to the mess hall and made her way in. Almost against her will, a smile split her face as she wended her way through the couples and families who had sprouted on board in the last half decade. Apparently, when the captain had decided that Voyager was going to be a generational ship from this point on, other crew had decided to jump on the bandwagon. On her own Voyager, Kathryn had performed a handful of weddings in the past seven years, but her counterpart had presided over at least ten. And, most of those marriages had sent new arrivals to the nursery soon after.


And a lot of said arrivals were there, dining with their parents in Voyager's social space. Ensign Hogan, spared being an eel snack because the crew was never marooned, was gently reminding his son not to play with his food. Lieutenant Kim, a few tables away, was patiently spooning something luridly bright pink into the mouth of his daughter, who would be celebrating her first birthday in a few days. And over at the end of the mess hall were the people Kathryn was looking for: the ship's captain, first officer Chakotay, and in a booster chair, the little one who had unwittingly kicked off this scene of genial juvenile chaos just by getting conceived.


Kathryn eyed Captain Janeway as she approached the small corner table. The latter maintained the same trim figure and crisp uniform as Kathryn herself was known for. The only notable differences were the slightly mussed hair and a few very faint scars, from when she had received severe burns in an explosion in a fierce phaser battle with two Krenim ships. According to medical records, a lot of the dermal regeneration had been handled by Seska, which might have explained why she and Janeway were on good terms, despite a difficult beginning. It was hard to hate someone who had reassembled your face from scratch.


Chakotay looked more or less the same, aside from his hair being a little longer. Maybe that was because things aboard this Voyager were just a little less polished, easy to understand with so many working parents. Or maybe, Kathryn thought wryly, it was simply because he had a wife who enjoyed running her hands through said hair. She knew that the two had married soon after returning to Voyager, but had not seen any footage of the nupitals.


That left the third member of the little family, who was watching her approach with considerable confusion. Kathryn remembered that this was likely his first experience with people who looked alike, given that Megan, one of the identical Delaney sisters, had been lost to the Krenim early on. Sure enough, the boy turned to his mother, then back, then to Janeway again. "Mommy, why's that lady look like you?" he wanted to know.


"Shh, it's all right," Janeway assured her son gently. "This is your Aunt Kate. I know she looks like me, but we're two different people."


"And it's nice to meet you, Cody," Kathryn said kindly. "I've heard a lot about you." She sat down at the empty seat, next to Chakotay; Janeway having co-opted the spot next to her son. "So, what's good?"


"Well, anything by Tuvix is almost guaranteed to be," Chakotay replied. "For a man who's half Vulcan and half Talaxian, he has a surprising knowledge of the human palette."


Janeway looked to the kitchen and watched as Tuvix worked his customary magic with skillets and saucepans. Due to his schedule as head of security, he couldn't always cook for the crew, but he did when he could, and it was always appreciated. So, Kathryn had heard, were his occasional visits to the nursery; he had clearly retained Neelix's gift with kids. She felt another pang of guilt at having denied this magnificently talented individual the opportunity to grow and flourish.


Despite her guilt and her worries about Tom in sickbay, Tuvix's offering was exquisite enough that Kathryn had no problem cleaning her plate, and watching Janeway at work was a treat in its own way. She had always wondered what she would have been like, had she been a mother, and it was gratifying (if a bit sad) to know that she would have been a good one. And Cody, as talkative and inquisitive as any four-year-old, was amusing to watch and listen to.


She found herself joining the family group on their way back to the their shared quarters. The youngest member of the party was only too happy to order the turbolift to "Deck 1, captain's quarters" and have it actually respond to his commands; according to his father, he had once slipped out of the nursery and tried to hijack the turbolift, but it was programmed not to move unless there was an adult or older child with him.


The day's activities had left Cody with food on his hands, paint on his arms, and dirt in quite a few places, so it was so surprise that his (and his mother's) next destination was the captain's bathroom, which conveniently had included the one custom feature both Janeways had insisted on: a bathtub. As splashes and giggles began to emerge from under the door, Kathryn and Chakotay settled themselves on couches.


Chakotay broke the silence. "I have to say, Ka... I mean captain, you seem a little overwhelmed."


Kathryn would have preferred to be called by name, but knew better than to ask. Chakotay would be wanting to maintain distance between himself and this woman who looked and sounded like his wife, but was not. "Maybe. I've been reading the logs. So much has happened to this ship, things that didn't happen to mine."


"There were some dark moments, it's true," Chakotay affirmed. "But logs will only tell you so much. Look at this." He took a holo-album from a table and handed it to her.


Kathryn activated the album, and laughed with delight in spite of herself at how it began: with Janeway and Chakotay, both in their dress uniforms, standing together aboard Neelix's ship. Of course, it was now Tuvix's, and he was standing facing them like the officiator at a wedding should be, also in his dress uniform. Though the Baxial was too small for actual wedding parties, Kes and B'Elanna were present as bridesmaids and Lieutenent Ayala was there as best man. Naomi was also present as their flower girl, and she and Kes were decked out in frilly white dresses.


"Since you were the captain, we weren't sure about how to go about it when you were the one getting married," Chakotay explained. "But Tuvix was the captain of the Baxial, so we simply moved the ceremony there."


"Very clever," Kathryn said. Though marriage was primarily a legal matter in the 24th century, wedding ceremonies were still valued and cherished events. It would have mattered to the crew to have it done properly. And, Kathryn amended, to her counterpart as well.


The story went on from there. Cody's birth came soon after, with plenty of pictures of the newest member of the ship's company being held by various individuals. Paris looked nervous, as though he might drop his 3.27 kilograms of precious cargo. Harry, contrastingly, looked completely at ease: though an only child, he had cared for many cousins and neighbor's children in his younger years. He had been in demand in the nursery even before becoming a dad himself. Dr. Shmullus was in only a few of the shots, but Chakotay explained that it was because he was usually the one behind the holo-imager.


As the family history passed through Cody's crawling, toddling, and walking years, things got difficult in places, especially during the long fight with the Krenim. The nursery had been in a central location and heavily shielded, so none of the children onboard had been among the fatalities, but things had gotten scary for them more than once. For Cody, there was the added trauma of seeing his mother injured as badly as she had been. Even after things settled down, it had taken some doing to coax the boy out of his parents' bed and back to sleeping by himself. Maybe that was why he didn't have any siblings yet, Kathryn thought wryly.


Happier scenes soon followed: assorted events in the nursery, family game nights in their quarters, and more than a few trips to the holodeck. Kathryn's favorite was a series of images taken in Fair Haven, in the weeks when the program was running constantly. The program appeared to be essentially the same over here, aside from the continued existence of Frannie Sullivan (spared the indignity of deletion for obvious reasons).


Kathryn eyed an image of Cody and a few other Voyager toddlers playing tag in the hills outside of the holo-village. "Looks like someone was having a good time," she said.


"Yes," Chakotay affirmed. "He definitely has his mother's flair for exploration."


"And his father's love of the outdoors, I think."


"Good point," Chakotay admitted. "But he seems to take after his aunt as well. Whenever we come home from an adventure, he always wants to make a picture of it."


"I saw that," Kathryn said. Indeed, a sizable amount of wall space had been set aside for assorted artistic afforts. His work was surprisingly similar in nature to the early efforts of Phoebe, Kathryn's younger sister on Earth, despite the fact that the two had never met.


She read on through the album, and had just reached the first marriage after the Year of Hell ended. The main celebrants were Harry Kim and Jenny Delaney, but all three members of the captain's family were in the wedding party: Janeway in the captain's traditional role, Chakotay walking the bride down the aisle, and Cody (almost three) looking suitably dapper as he carried the ring box, and it was at that point when the latter scampered out of the bathroom, damp-haired and dressed in a pair of luridly bright blue sleepers with Flotter on them. At that point, his father tended to the duty of giving him his bedtime story.


As she sat and watched the three of them, seated on the couch together, Kathryn tried to imagine what it had been like for her counterpart, having to reconcile her role as ship's captain with a relationship with her subordinate, with all the horrible headaches that would have ensued. Kathryn had been spared that nightmare, and her counterpart had had to endure it along with everything else. And yet, seeing the three together, two loving parents and a happy and emotionally secure youngster between them... she knew who the luckier of the two was.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

More sedate scenes like this are always harder to write. Very interesting trick with Iko - and interesting backstory with Seska. She certainly could have been very handy to Voyager's crew.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

Especially with Voyager not able to win as many fights. When you've got eight phaser arrays and 111 isotons of torpedoes (2 tubes, 3 torpedoes in a full spread) in your tubes, you can rattle your saber. With five working phaser emitters and 28.2 isotons of torpedoes, you might need to rely on a little more cloak and dagger.

Still not sure what an isoton is, but I know that 111 > 28.2

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

An isoton is approximately 2.56 megatons.

It was probably intended to mean more like 1,000 megatons, but some physicists calculated it out based on the amount of anti-matter in a photon torpedo with a yield of 25 isotons (1.5 kilograms - no clue where they dug that up), which would yield an explosion of 270 petajoules of energy (equivalent to 64 megatons of TNT.)

Assuming TNT is still the measure of yield in the 24th Century, 64/25 = 2.56. Considering the most powerful hydrogen bombs yet tested yielded about 25 megatons, a photon torpedo with a yield of 25 isotons would be about 2.56 times as powerful as our most powerful hydrogen bomb.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

Well... sorry it took awhile, but this chapter took more thought than I expected.

* VI *

With no duties to attend to and Tom obviously in capable hands, Kathryn enjoyed the rare luxury of sleeping in the next morning. Once Cody was down for the night, Janeway had gone to the replicator and illustrated two more of Chef Tuvix's culinary talents, in the form of unhealthy finger foods and synthehol mocktails. The three of them had eaten and drunk and laughed and told each other stories of their respective journeys. It had been great fun, even if some of the stories had been less happy than others.


Though her guest quarters had a replicator, Kathryn was aware that the mess hall had an actual coffeemaker in it, so she headed there. It was deserted, most of the crew having had their breakfasts and started the day shift. Kathryn figured that Tuvix had departed as well, to start his shift on the bridge. She filled one of the mugs left for the purpose from the pot of strong, bubbling-hot java that was indeed there, then went to the replicator. "One plate of Chef Tuvix's cheesy mushroom puffs," she ordered. Not the healthiest breakfast, she thought as they materialized, but she wouldn't get another chance to enjoy them. Because Tuvix did not exist in her universe, neither did his culinary creations. Kathryn had not even thought to program his recipes into the replicator files. Before the Doctor has come up with his "cure", it hadn't seemed necessary.


As she ate and drank, she watched the feed from the nursery on her padd. She had learned that most of the parents (including Chakotay and herself) took turns serving there, as did quite a few of the other crew, assisted by Naomi and Icheb. This morning, it was Lieutenant Chamberlin and Crewman Porter. Janeway had married the two women two years ago, and courtesy of Dr. Shmullus's assistance and a "contribution" from two cherished male friends, both had become pregnant the same day. Their respective kids had been born only three days apart, and were usually refered to as the "Porterlin Twins".


As she sat and ate, she heard the doors quietly swish open. She assumed it was another late riser, but instead it was the mess hall's de facto head honcho. She had instinctively steered clear of him since her initial interview, not out of dislike (he was very likable), but because of what had happened to him on her Voyager, and who had been responsible. How, she had wondered, did you tell a man that you had looked him square in the eyes and effectively executed him?


"Am I disturbing you, captain?" Tuvix queried.


"Of course not," Kathryn assured him, politely but maybe not completely honestly. "By all means, tend to your duties."


"Mr. Ayala's on the bridge, so I'm off-duty for the moment," Tuvix assured her. "The captain just wanted to let you know that your Lieutenant Paris is awake and lucid. He will need some routine care upon returning home, but your EMH back on Voyager should be more than capable of handling it. Dr. Shmullus says he can release him whenever you're ready."


"Thank you, Mr. Tuvix," Kathryn replied. "Is there anything else?"


"Yes. Mr. Carey said to tell you that he has your shuttlecraft ready to go. He wasn't able to do the quality of work you're used to; time was after all of the essence. But he has assured me that it will hold together. Also, with the modifications he's made, the plasma surges from the quantum fissure will not be an issue on your return trip."


"Sounds like I'd better get ready to go," Kathryn said, starting to rise.


Tuvix motioned for her to sit. "Soon. Seven has charted a course back through the anomaly that should return you to the timeline you left, but she wants to recheck her work. You're only going to get one chance at this, so we don't want any mistakes."


"Agreed," Kathryn said, popping another of the sinfully rich puffs into her mouth. She wondered how her counterpart managed to retain her figure with the things readily available.


Tuvix smiled as he saw what she was eating. "Yes, these are the captain's favorite as well."


"I wanted to..." Kathryn said, and quickly squelched herself as she realized what her explanation would reveal.


Tuvix raised his hand. "It's all right, captain. You didn't mention your decision in your ship's log, but Tuvok and Neelix were regularly featured in subsequent entries."


"Of course," Kathryn said, feeling herself flush.


"I know that I had a close call in this timeline as well," Tuvix said seriously.


"What happened?" Kathryn queried, curiosity overpowering her discomfort.


"Well..." Tuvix sat, collecting his thoughts. "I was in limbo for several days, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't terrified. And then, the captain called me to her quarters. It was the longest turbolift ride of my life, let me tell you."


"I can imagine."


"When I arrived, the captain told me that after a long discussion with Dr. Shmullus, she had made the decision to spare my life. I could tell from the look in her eyes that it had been... an agonizing decision."


Kathryn nodded understanding. The decision for her, despite her having made the opposite choice, had been no less difficult.


"I didn't know what to say. I thanked her, of course, but..." he trailed off.


"I know," Kathryn assured him gently. Kes had come to her quarters and thanked her for restoring Neelix to her, and the scene had been no less awkward.


"Captain," Tuvix said gently. "Forgive me if I'm out of line, but... Tuvix, your Tuvix, he would not have wanted you to blame yourself the way you have. You faced an impossible decision."


"I know," Kathryn affirmed. "I remember it like it was yesterday, how upset he was, how afraid... but with his last words, he said that he still believed that we were good people, and assured us that he forgave us." She mentally winced at the memory. Tuvix (that Tuvix anyway) had never spoken again after that, aside from silently pleading with his eyes.


"And I can assure you that if he hadn't meant it, he would not have said it," Tuvix said. "I never told anyone of this, not even your counterpart, but I suspect she already knew because she's had the same misgivings. But... I often wonder if I did the right thing, asserting my right to live at the expense of two others. Men who didn't deserve to give up their lives any more than I did."


Kathryn considered this latest statement. It had not really occured to her that she might have had the same misgivings about sparing Tuvix as she had had about splitting him... but she supposed she would have, and that her counterpart did. It had truly been a decision with no right choice.


"To say nothing of Kes, or T'Pel, or the rest of the crew," Tuvix went on. "At the time, of course, I resented the captain for reminding me of them, for trying to convince me... but she was doing exactly what she needed to do: reminding me that this wasn't just about me."


"But it was also about you," Janeway acknowledged.


"Captain, your Tuvix is gone, so we can't ask what he would think. But... I think that if there is anyone who can try to speak for him, it's me. And I think that if he were here, there is one thing that he would want you to do more than anything else." A beat. "He would want you to forgive yourself."


Kathryn nodded. "I'll try."


"You know, it's strange," Tuvix added. "It actually makes me feel better, knowing that Tuvok and Neelix weren't truly lost. Somewhere, they're still living their lives. Maybe the same knowledge about me will bring you some comfort as well."


Kathryn considered. "I think it will."


She started to continue, but the comm interrupted her. "This is Seven of Nine, calling the alternate Captain Janeway."


Kathryn hastily collected herself. "Go ahead, Seven."


"I have completed the calculations for your return trip. Lieutenent Carey is programming them into your ship's navigational computer. It would be prudent for you to initiate your return trip as soon as possible."


"Thank you, Seven. I'm on my way," Kathryn said, then returned her attention to Tuvix, taking his faintly spotted brown hand with both of hers and holding it tightly. "Thank you," she whispered.


Tuvix smiled gently at her. "Any time, captain."


One chapter to go...

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Nice emotional wrap for the Tux character. Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

Ok, final chapter! Special thanks to Robert Bruce Scott for the kind words of encouragement.

* VII *

Tom was sitting up on the biobed with Kathryn reached sickbay, and he was accompanied by... well, Lieutenant Paris. As she moved closer, she heard a little more of their conversation.

"Thirty days of solitary confinement?!" Paris's eyes were wide. "Seriously?"

"And busted to ensign," Tom told him. "I only got promoted back a year ago."

Paris shook his head in disbelief. "What'd you do? Take the captain's kid joy-riding without permission?"

"She doesn't have kids," Tom said.

"Not in your timeline," Shmullus said, sounding a bit smug. He hit a few buttons on a console, and a recent holo-shot of the captain and her family appeared on the screen.

A beat as Tom digested this revelation. "Wow."

"Imagine how your captain felt, finding out," the doctor put in. Kathryn suppresed a laugh at the memory.

Tom turned to his counterpart. "Well, it wasn't anything like that. It started when we found this... this ocean floating through space," Tom explained.

"The Monean ocean?" Paris perked up. "Oh, no... you did it, didn't you?"

"Did it?"

"You blew up the oxygen refineries." Paris clarified.

Tom shook his head. "I tried to, but my Captain Janeway had other ideas."

"Well, don't feel too bad," Paris said to him. "I was going to do the same."

"Why didn't you?"

"Well... someone figured out what I was up to. And... they suggested a different course of action," Paris explained.

Janeway noted the tiniest hint of a smile from Seska, who was also present, and listening in on the conversation.

Paris continued: "And wouldn't you know it, just as we were leaving orbit, the computers in three of their refineries experienced fatal errors in their operating systems."

"Kaboom?" Tom guessed.

"Kaboom," Paris confirmed, and both laughed.

"Can't imagine how that could have happened," Tom quipped.

Kathryn remembered reading of that encounter in Janeway's log as well. She had suspected that Paris had had something to do with the incident. He had been motivated, and he and Seska periodically worked together on Sickbay. His Monean friend, Riga, would have been in a perfect position to quietly deliver something nasty and electronic to the refinery computers.

Unfortunately, Janeway's report had also stated that there was no evidence to speak of. Of course, when Seska was involved, there rarely was.

After the failure of their refineries, the Moneans had had little choice but to ask Voyager to stay and take them up on their offer to teach safer methods of oxygen extraction. Janeway had assigned both Paris and Seska to thankless and boring support roles in that process. Not much of a punishment, but the best she could do.

Kathryn approached the two men. "I'm sorry to interrupt your reunion, but we should probably get back to the Flyer," she said.

"Yeah, bummer," Tom quipped. "Finally I meet someone likes to talk about the same things as me."

"But we both know the same things about it anyway," Paris reminded him, helping his new friend hop off the biobed.

"Good point."

"Co'mon, I'll walk you to the shuttlebay," Paris said, and both Tom Parises left sickbay together.

Kathryn turned to Dr. Shmullus. "Thank you for taking care of him," she said. Then, to Seska, she added: "To both of you."

"It's what I'm here for, captain," the doctor assured her.

"Be careful out there, captain," Seska said. Kathryn nodded acknowledgement.

In the shuttlebay, there were a number of people waiting to pay their respects. Harry was the first one. "Good luck, captain," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Kim," Janeway said. Was it her imagination, or did he seem a little more mature, more confident? Very likely, marriage and fatherhood were at least partly responsible for that, but maybe his added rank and greater responsibilities had affected that as well. Kathryn had often wondered if preserving her own Voyager's command structure (whatever the hell it really was) justified keeping his counterpart at ensign for so long. She supposed she would continue to do so until she finally just decided to leave a little box on his chair and be done with it.

"Goodbye, captain," Tuvix said with a smile. Kathryn smiled back and returned the farewell. Nothing more was said; nothing more needed to be.

Chakotay was also there, and he had little Cody in his arms. "Say goodbye to Aunt Kate," Chakotay said.

"Bye Aunt Kate," Cody said obediently, and consented to give "Aunt Kate" a hug. Feeling those small arms around her neck, Kathryn was not surprised to once again feel a strange longing for the road she hadn't taken. Or maybe, she thought, it wasn't strange at all.

Chakotay must have sensed her thoughts, because he reminded her: "It may not be too late. My counterpart's still there, isn't he?"

Thinking about Seven of Nine, Kathryn was fairly sure that that ship had sailed, but she simply responded, "I'll keep that in mind. Take care of them, Chakotay."

"Of him, I will," Chakotay jiggled the boy in his arms. "Of Kathryn... well, I do my best." Kathryn nodded knowingly.

And finally, the two Janeways were all that was left, vis a vis. "So, what's ahead for you," Kathryn queried as they strolled toward the Flyer together.

"Well, Joe's come up with a new slow-burst variant on the quantum slipstream drive," Janeway said. "We've been able to maintain warp 9.96 with it, and 9.992 in short bursts. If all goes well, we should be back on Earth in eight years or so."

Kathryn did some calculations. thirty thousand light years at 4200c... "Seven, maybe?"

"No, there's heavy Borg activity ahead of us. I've plotted a course that takes us around it."

Kathryn nodded understanding. Her planned course for Voyager went straight ahead, of course, but she reminded herself that she had a starship with eight phaser emitters and 38 photon torpedoes in its magazines (and a few spare cores). This ship had five phaser emitters, and a magazine of replicated spatial torpedoes that were 200 years obsolete. They would be more effective against an enemy ship than throwing soft boiled eggs at it... but not by that much.

Still, warp 9.992 was over nine thousand times the speed of light, and not many things in the galaxy could catch a ship that was playing that kind of games with the laws of warp mechanics. By Kathryn's estimate, this Voyager would meet up with the deep space vessels sent to her aid in four years or so, and receive supplies, ordnance, and some much needed upgrades. At that point she would be fast, strong, and in the company of friends. With any luck, when Cody celebrated his twelfth or thirteenth birthday, he would be blowing out the candles surrounded by family, at the Janeway farmhouse in Bloomington.

"We'll remain on standby until you're entered the fissure, then we'll start up the drive for real," Janeway assured her counterpart.

"Well, good luck to you, captain," Kathryn said, and by common consent, the two Janeways exchanged a warm hug.

Tom had completed the preflight procedures, and was firing up the engines. He said nothing aside as he flipped switches and activated controls. Kathryn wondered with amusement if the two Parises had secretly exchanged places, just for a giggle. Given that they had the same uniform and more or less the same hair, it would have just been a matter of swapping their second rank pips. Of course, she did not seriously believe it. Her Tom would never consent to live in a place where B'Elanna wasn't with him.

"Take us out, Tom," Kathryn said, and the Flyer sailed smoothly out of the shuttlebay and back toward the place where it belonged, so it could continue its journey home.

* THE END *

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Nice wrap - quite a well-written little story.

They would be more effective against an enemy ship than throwing soft boiled eggs at it... but not by that much.

excellent metaphor...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Oddish]

excellent metaphor...

I borrowed it from David Weber, who wrote the Honor Harrington stories.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

I borrowed it from David Weber, who wrote the Honor Harrington stories.

I borrowed lots of tropes and movie moments for the STH series. I consider them to be Easter eggs for the readers who catch them.