Jaden weaved his way through Voyagers corridors like a seasoned officer. He even stopped and exchanged pleasantries with some of his older shipmates; they would inquire about his well-being and the well-being of the three year old toddler holding tightly to his right hand. "You're getting too big to be crying for your mommy, all the time, Tommy." He murmured to the boy once they were alone. "Sasha didn't even hit you that stuffed dog but I still had to take you to sickbay, just to be sure." To say that the five year old was ticked off at his young charge would have been an understatement. Since he was focused on the younger boy, he never noticed the white haired man appear in his path until he ran into him. He released Tommy's hand as he fell backward, landing on his bum. "I'm sorry..." He automatically started to apologize for his lack of attention but stopped when he caught sight of who he had run into. "Do I know you?" He asked and tilted his head to the side, trying to place the ancient looking man.
The white haired man looked around, dazed, before shaking his head and gathering his bearings. He took in the sight of the two children in front of him. "I don't believe we've met, my name is Owen, what's yours?" He asked as he reached down a hand to help the oldest of the two boys back onto his feet. Owen took a moment to survey his surroundings. After a second, he was pretty sure that he wasn't aboard the U.S.S. Hawkins anymore. But was also sure that he was onboard another Starship, which one, he didn't know.
Climbing to his feet, without Owen's help, Jaden quickly steered the younger boy behind him. Shielding him from the stranger. For a moment he considered telling the man his name but decided against it. Instead, he tapped his commbadge pinned to his chest. "Jaden to Tuvok."
"Tuvok here, what can I do for you, Ensign?" Came the disembodied voice of Voyagers Chief of Security.
Jaden tilted his head to the other side, sizing up stranger. "I've just discovered an intruder on deck five, near sickbay."
The commbadge was silent for a moment. "Understood. A security team is on their way. Do not do anything until they get there, Ensign."
"Thank you, Tuvok. Janeway out." Jaden took a step back, making sure that Tommy stayed behind him.
Owen forced his surprise at hearing the name Janeway, away, and studied the boy, more closely. "So you're a Janeway, aye?" He asked as nonchalantly as he could. "I knew a Janeway once, perhaps you've heard of Kathryn? Maybe you know her?" He was more than positive that Phoebe didn't have any children onboard a Starship, and besides that her two boys were twelve.
Jaden blinked. "Of course I know her. She's the Captain of this ship." He didn't elaborate.
"This ship?" Owen pointed towards the deck. At the nod, he breathed a sigh of relief. Now he was getting somewhere. "And what ship would this be?" It felt odd to be having such a serious conversation with such a small boy, an Ensign no less, who looked no older than five or six. A strange sense of dread filled his stomach.
"You're onboard the Federation Starship Voyager." Jaden was beginning to think that this man was crazy. "Where did you think you were?" He asked, curious as to what the older man would say.
Owen felt his breath leave him and he had to lean against a nearby bulkhead. "Voyager?" He managed to whisper. "That's impossible. Voyager was destroyed fifteen, almost sixteen, years ago. There was no survivors."
Jaden's brow furrowed. "Nu uh!" Now he was growing annoyed. "Voyager was brought here by a being known as the Caretaker. Everybody knows that."
"The Caretaker?" Owen had never heard of such a being. "And where, exactly, is here?" He asked.
"Well, we are orbiting Arteria right now." Jaden obviously forced himself not to say duh! at the end of his sentence.
Owen frowned, never having heard of a planet called Arteria. "What system are we currently in?" He asked as an edge of panic began to creep into his voice.
Jaden blinked in confusion. "System?" He really didn't know how to answer that since they weren't currently in a system. Arteria was a lone planet at the outer reaches of Alliance territory.
"Yes, system. What star system is...Arteria in?!" Owen forced himself to calm down. Yelling at the boy would get him nowhere.
"We aren't in a star system." Jaden answered. He was beginning to wonder what was taking the security team so long. "There aren't many star systems to speak of in the Delta Quadrant."
Owen felt himself falling and the last thing he remembered was several men, all wearing Starfleet gold, rush towards him.
"I have ran the scans twice, already, Captain." The Doctor huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "And both scans say the same thing." He uncrossed his arms and motioned towards the unconscious man on the biobed. "And according to both of them he is Admiral Owen Paris, age seventy-five."
Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager, moved away from the doctor and stopped beside Owen's, if that was indeed who he really was, bed. "How is that possible, Doctor?" She asked, quietly. "Owen Paris should be safely tucked away in the Alpha Quadrant right now, not lying unconscious on a biobed in the Delta Quadrant."
The Doctor took a moment to observe his patient before turning his attention back to the Captain. "I can't tell you that because I have no idea." He picked up his tricorder from a nearby tray and ran it over the man, a third time. "What I can tell you is that he has slightly elevated levels of iron and calcium in his blood, not uncommon for a man his age. And there is signs of a recent heart operation. From what I can tell, he received an artificial heart three or four years ago and the recent operation was routine. Other than that, he is in perfect health." He placed the, closed, tricorder back on the tray and moved away to treat a newly arrived crewman cradling her arm.
"I bet you're going to have a lot of questions when you wake up." Kathryn whispered as she drunk in the familiar face of her former mentor and friend. The years had been kind to him, she noted, since he didn't look a day over sixty. With one last look, she turned and headed for the doors. She stopped as they swished open and turned back towards the Doctor. "I want to know the minute he wakes up, Doctor." She informed him then turned, nodded to the security guard stationed at the doors and exited.
Licking his dry lips, Owen cracked one, blue, eye open. Nothing about his surroundings seemed familiar. "Where...where am I?" He startled when a face appeared very close to his own, blocking his line of sight.
"Well, I'm glad to see that my patient finally decided to join us in the land of the living." The Doctor's very chipper voice told him. He leaned back and tilted his head to the side. "Doctor to Captain Janeway."
"Janeway here. What can I do for you, Doctor?" Came the voice through the sickbay comm-link.
The Doctor smiled down as two curious blue eyes stared at him. "You wished to be informed when my patient had regained consciousness. Well, he's been awake for four point three seconds."
The comm-link was silent for a moment. "Thank you, Doctor. I'm on my way. Janeway out."
"How are you feeling, Admiral?" The Doctor asked as he grabbed his tricorder off the tray, again, and scanned the man.
"I...you're an EMH, aren't you?" Owen asked after a moment of silent observation. He couldn't put his finger on it but there was something different about this emergency medical hologram.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow but said nothing to his inquiry. "I can find nothing wrong with you, Admiral. As soon as the Captain clears it, you are free to leave." He closed the tricorder and laid it back on the tray, which he pushed out of the way. He looked towards the sickbay doors as they swished opened to reveal the Captain. "Ah, just on time. I was just telling my patient that as soon as you give the go ahead, he may leave." He said with a genuine smile.
Kathryn smiled in return then moved over to Owen's bedside. "How are you feeling?" She asked, quietly.
Owen blinked and focused on the new arrival. "My God, Katie?" He asked in a voice equal to her own. "Am I dead?"
"I should say not." The Doctor huffed but didn't lose his smile. "You are perfectly alive, I can assure you. You fainted in the corridor not far from here, I had you brought here for observation and a DNA scan." His smile turned apologetic. "We had to make sure you were who you appeared to be. It's not everyday we have...visitors. Especially ones from seventy-thousand light-years away."
"Thank you, Doctor." Kathryn smiled. "Could you excuse us? I'm sure Owen has many questions he would like answers to. And I'm sure you'd like to attend George's party?"
The Doctor blinked then his eyes widened. "Why...I completely forgot!" He entered his office quickly then emerged with a brightly wrapped package."What kind of Godfather am I?! Forgetting my own Godsons birthday! I was there, you'd think I'd remember?!" He mumbled as he quickly left sickbay, heading for holodeck two.
"He..." Owen stared at the door where the EMH, or what he had been sure was an EMH, just disappeared out. "He can't leave sickbay!" He finally managed to say.
Kathryn turned back to Owen. "Why can't he? I wouldn't dream of keeping him here while his Godson is celebrating his fourth birthday. He would never forgive me."
Owen laid his head back down. "I'm must admit that I'm confused. If I'm not dead then where am I?"
"As the Doctor just said, you're not dead. Though, you're not that far away from death, I'm afraid." Kathryn's smile turned sad for a moment. "You're on board Voyager currently heading home."
"Home? You mean Earth?" Owen asked, hope filling him. "We're close to Earth?"
Kathryn shook her head and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Home for us is Free Haven. A small, M-class, planet located in the center of the Altrein Alliance."
Owen suddenly felt empty. "Free Haven? But Earth is your home!" He protested. "I don't understand."
"Five years ago we gave up our journey to Earth and settled on Free Haven." Kathryn crossed her arms over her chest. "For the first five years of our journey we thought about nothing else except getting back to the Alpha Quadrant and seeing our families again. Letting them know that we were alive and well. But each year after that it got harder and harder. We lost a lot of good people during our journey. And we came to realize that we weren't the same people that left all those years ago to find and capture a group of Maquis. Relationships were forged, families created. One day we all just decided that enough was enough. We picked an uninhabited planet that could sustain life and started a colony, a thieving one I might add. In the end we just couldn't bring ourselves to continue the endless journey. If we had changed so much over the years then what about our families and friend back in the Alpha Quadrant? Would we really have families to go back to?"
"So you just gave up?" Owen asked in disbelief. "That doesn't sound like you, Katie. It doesn't sound like you at all."
Kathryn frowned. "You have no right to judge us until you've walked a mile in our shoes. If you had been up against what we had been, you would have decided to settle down too. We don't regret our choice, Owen. The day we were brought here, we all knew that it was hopeless. Seventy-five years to get home at top warp, isn't a very positive thing to look forward to."
Owen sighed. "The boy..." He began. "The boy, Jaden, said that Voyager was brought here by something called the Caretaker?" He asked.
"Yes." Kathryn smiled at the mention of her youngest son. She was very proud at how he handled the situation. "When we entered the badlands in search of the Maquis ship, Voyager was scanned by a coherent tetryon beam, and seconds later hit by a massive displacement wave. We later discovered that the Caretaker was responsible for bringing us here. He took us aboard his array and for three days performed tests on us."
"That's some story." Owen's head was reeling. "And this Caretaker, where is he now?"
Kathryn looked away. "Dead." She was silent a moment trying to decide the best way of telling Owen the rest of the story. "He was dying to begin with, that's why he brought us here. He needed another to continue his duties as Caretaker of the Ocampa, a race he owed a great debt to. Let's just say that things went from bad to worse after that. We were attacked by a race called the Kazon, a people very similar to early Klingons. Needless to say, I was forced to destroy the array so that the Kazon couldn't salvage the advanced technology and conquer the Ocampa and who knows how many others."
Owen blinked and blew out a breath. "Next you'll be telling me that you and the Maquis live in perfect harmony." He said in disbelief.
"Walk with me." Kathryn ground out at the mention of the former Maquis. She helped him off the biobed and to his feet then lead him out into the corridor, waving off the security guard in the process. "I'm sure I can handle Owen, Lieutenant Stauder. I bet Trenton wouldn't mind seeing his father, do you?" She smiled at him in subtle dismissal.
"Aye, Captain." Lieutenant Erik Stauder watched the Captain lead the older man out of sickbay and couldn't help but feel a pang of pity for him. No one talked badly about the former Maquis and got away with it. That's why he, like so many of his Maquis colleagues, respected the Captain so much. Shaking his head, he left sickbay to return to his quarters and his family within.
"She still looks the same." Owen mumbled as they walked through the corridors. "What's this?" He steered them towards a bulkhead that looked different from the others.
Kathryn left him look. "Just something we picked up along the way." She shrugged and gently moved him away so they could continue their walk.
Owen eyed her for a moment. "Tell me that doesn't look like something straight out of a Borg cube, Katie?"
"Alright, I won't." Kathryn answered then stopped when they came upon a group waiting for the turbolift. "Good evening." She said with a smile.
"Good evening, Captain." Came from Lieutenant Franklin Rothson. "Who's your friend, Kathryn?" Was the greeting from Ensign Gregory Jeffries. "How are you today, Captain?" Lieutenant Thomas Berton asked with a smile. "Jacob enjoyed your lecture last week, Kathryn." Lieutenant Elisabeth Breaksdale said with a small smile."Did we get the supplies we needed, Captain?" Ensign Dion Dreson inquired.
Blinking, Owen looked towards his companion, inquiringly.
Kathryn's smile grew. She nodded towards Franklin in acknowledgment. "This is Owen and he'll be staying with us for awhile." She answered Gregory. "I'm well, thank you for asking Thomas. And I'm glad he enjoyed the lecture Elisabeth, I was afraid I had bored them all into wanting to be freighter engineers instead of Voyager engineers." She laughed along with the Lieutenant. "And yes, we got all the supplies we needed, Dion. I suspect that B'Elanna could use some help in Engineering..." She tailed off knowing how eager the young Ensign was when it came to helping in Engineering. "I'm sure she'd be happy for some help." She finished her greetings just as the turbolift arrived. "You go ahead, we'll wait for the next one." She turned to Owen once they were alone again. "Tell me something, Owen. Did any of them seem...different to you?"
Owen shook his head and furrowed his eyebrows. "Different? I don't think so, why?"
"Can you tell me which of them used to be Maquis?" Kathryn asked, her smile gone.
"Maquis? For the love of...I was joking, Katie!" Owen couldn't believe his ears but considered her question. "The ones who called you Kathryn were Maquis." He answered, sure of himself.
Kathryn turned to face the turbolift doors. "Lieutenant Stauder, Rothson, and Breaksdale used to be Maquis. Lieutenant Bertonand EnsignsDreson and Jeffries are apart of the original Starfleet crew. There is no difference between the former Maquis and the Starfleet crew. We became one crew along time ago and I won't tolerate anybody talking bad about them, are we clear Owen?"
Owen nodded. "I'm sorry, Katie. I should have known you'd be able to do the impossible. How'd you do it? How'd you get the Maquis to join you, willingly?"
"Simple, I made Chakotay, their commander, my first officer." Kathryn said with a grin as they stepped into the empty turbolift. "And then I married him." Her grin grew as Owen's mouth dropped open. Her laughter echoed down the corridor as the doors swished shut.