DISCLAIMER: It's Paramount's galaxy.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: C/7. Chakotay piloting a shuttle with Seven and their daughter to a vacation spot. What could go wrong? Fits into my post-Endgame universe after "Dear Alixia". Pure fluff.

#

SHUTTLE RIDE

Ixchell typed furiously on her PADD. She was sitting in the back seat of a Class 6 shuttle while her parents sat up front. She was midway through the ice-field maze of Kalamazam when a Gorban jumped out from behind a giant ice stalagmite. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "You pahtak!"

Seven turned back to look at her daughter sharply. "What did you just say young lady?"

"Pa-…"

"I know what you said," Seven interrupted. "I would appreciate it if you don't say it again." She turned to Chakotay with a frown. "It's not hard to figure out who she heard that word from?"

Chaktoay shrugged. "Miral is a few years older."

Seven gave Chakotay a look, and then turned back to her daughter who was again working at the PADD. "Now put that away, we're almost there."

"But I'm in the middle of a Flotter mini-adventure!" Ixchell protested. "You can't save the game until you're through it. If I turn it off now, I'll have to start all over again."

"Oh, if I had a nickel-pressed molybdenum piece for every time I heard that," Chakotay mused.

Seven got up and cinched in Ixchell's safety straps. "We're almost to Risa. There's some turbulence in the atmosphere, so it might get a little rough when we start our approach. I want your PADD secured."

Ixchell's eyes opened a little wider. She turned the power to hibernate and placed the PADD into her mother's outstretched hand. When her mother sat back down, Ixchell stretched her neck to see over the top of the seat. The planet they were headed to for their family vacation loomed in front of them. All she could see was the blue of the ocean and swirls of white clouds. Lots of swirls… turbulence in the atmosphere? "Can Papa come back here and hold my hand?"

Chakotay turned and looked lovingly at his daughter. "Oh sweetie, you'll be alright."

Ixchell moved her legs back and forth. She scratched a section of the bulkhead beside her seat that appeared stained. What exactly did Mama mean by 'a little rough'? "Um," she started, but then reconsidered and twisted her hair around a finger. Perhaps she should just say it. "Could Mama fly us in?"

Seven turned and looked at Ixchell quizzically. "Whatever for?"

"I mean. I… well. Is it true that Papa crashed the shuttle when you visited the Ventu?"

Chakotay turned to Seven. "You told her I crashed the shuttle?"

Seven smiled despite herself, but shook her head. "I have told her about our visit with the Ventu many times, it's one of her favorites, but I never told her how we ended up there."

"Uncle Tom told me," Ixchell said with a smile.

"There was an energy barrier we weren't warned about," Chakotay said defensively.

"He also said you got shot down in a shuttle by someone not much older than I am," Ixchell added.

"Well, we were in hostile region of space at the time," Chakotay replied. "Remember when I described those aliens in the Delta Quadrant with the really bad hair. Besides, that boy was several years older than you."

"But there was also the time you got caught up in some sort of war and lost another shuttle."

"That would be the war between the Kradin and Vori," Seven said soberly. "That was very unpleasant for your father."

"And the time you landed on the planet with the Borg Cooperative and they cannabubilized… cannaba…"

"Cannibalized," Seven prompted.

"Yes! Cannibalized the shuttle," Ixchell finished.

"I think Uncle Tom has been telling you just one side of the story," Chakotay said, a little distressed. "All of those instances had nothing to do with my piloting skills. Some shuttles were destroyed on his watch as well. We lost seventeen shuttles during Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant."

"Seventeen!?" Seven remarked in surprise. "I didn't realize there were so many."

"You know how we kept having to build replacements. Harry lost one in a temporal inversion fold in the space-time matrix, Tom and Neelix crashed one on a planet with a poisonous atmosphere, Tom lost another in that forming nebula when it got caught in the gravimetric sheer and lost engines, and another in a subspace sinkhole…"

Ixchell's eyes were even wider now, and Seven tapped Chakotay on the shoulder. "I think you've made your point älskling." She gestured back to Ixchell.

Chakotay shook his head. "All I'm saying is I'm more than capable of landing this shuttle safely through a little turbulence in the atmosphere."

Seven's hand was still on Chakotay's shoulder and she patted it reassuringly.

Ixchell frowned. The last thing she wanted was to make Papa upset. She swung her legs again and slumped down into her seat. She twisted a bit of her long black hair around her finger and then closed her eyes and tried not to think about turbulence. She didn't hear it when Papa must have unbuckled his safety straps and came down to sit next to her until he slipped his big hand under hers. Ixchell looked up sheepishly. "I'm sorry Papa."

Chakotay shrugged and squeezed his daughter's hand. "Don't worry about it. Mama needs some piloting practice anyway."

"Ha!" Seven exclaimed from the pilot's seat.

Ixchell stretched again and looked over the seat. The blue and white planet filled the front windows now. And were those tan patches sandy beaches? She smiled and looked up at her father. Soon they would be on the planet and swimming in the ocean, and Papa promised to teach her how to body surf, and they were all going to go snorkeling. The three of them were going to have so much fun together. The three of them… "Papa, am I ever going to get a brother or sister?"

"You have a brother and a sister," Chakotay replied. "Icheb and Mezoti."

"I mean one that you put inside Mama. Like Uncle Tom put inside Aunt B'Elanna."

Chakotay's eyes opened a little wider. "Ah… Seven…?"

#

THE END