Intervening Years

It had been three years since Naomi and her friends had brought the USS Voyager batter, but victorious, to a heroes' welcome. Utopia Planetia had brought the ship back to full operational status, and the ship had spent time doing runs around the solar system and the nearer systems on goodwill tours. She also did a number of trips with children aboard as part of Starfleet's mission to connect with children better. The project leader was a young woman by the name of Marissa Flores. She had been on the Enterprise-D when she was a young girl, and had been trapped in a lift with two other school pupils and Captain Picard. She had refused to abandon him after he had broken his leg, even though he had ordered the children to do so.

After appearing on many subspace talk shows, Naomi and her friends had settled into life on Earth. Icheb had entered the Academy two months after they had arrived on the planet. He was due to graduate with the rank of Lieutenant on the grounds he had served a full year as Naomi's Executive Officer for over a year, so he already had service time. The twins, Azan and Rebi, had gained entry to the greatly revered Vulcan Science Academy, and had graduated with high honours. Mezoti had taken correspondence courses for several Universities around the Federation, and was now a well respected planetary specialist. Naomi, on the other hand, had opted to remain in Starfleet, and this gave her some fun moments when newly minted Captains had to obey her orders by the simple rule she outranked them on service time as a Captain. Once a year, she took the bridge of Voyager and went to Vulcan, picked up the twins and then headed to Bajor for a holiday with Saghi, with whom they had remained good friends after rescuing her from the wrecked ship that had been attacked by a lone Dominion ship towards the end of Voyager's journey home. All six of the group, Naomi, Mezoti, Icheb, the twins and the Doctor had received medals from the Klingon Empire the year after the Dominion War had been won – the advanced Borg weapons they had brought back from the Delta Quadrant (along with other weapons and technologies and advancements of Seven of Nine's) had turned the tide of war. It had ended when the allied peoples of the Alpha Quadrant had disabled each and every Dominion warship and then proceeded to blast the living hell out of them. When the medals had been awarded to the group, Martok, now Klingon Chancellor, had travelled to pick them up personally aboard Kronos One – known to them as the Rotarran. With the exception of this, life was pretty normal for all involved.

It was the end of the third year back in the Alpha Quadrant that things took place that brought a crew back together again.

# # # # #

"Is there ever a more beautiful sight?" asked Naomi.

"I would say Voyager is a more beautiful one" the Doctor said. The pair were talking on the comm from the Doctor's office at Starfleet Medical. He had got the job of heading the teams going over all of the medical data brought back from the ship's six year trip home. He had spent some time at Jupiter Station with his creator, Dr Zimmerman, for a detailed examination of his programming. He had some changes made to his appearance as his uniform was not the correct style as opposed to the previous version. Whilst there, he had discovered the Mark Two from the Prometheus in the computer files. As the only other EMH to have seen combat, it had been decided to keep the hologram intact when they upgraded to a Mark Three. The Mark Two now worked under the Doctor as his assistant. During the past three years, the Federation had determined that holograms which knew they were holograms, knew their limits and could think and say things not programmed into them were clearly sentient. This led to Dr Zimmerman proposing to loyal and faithful assistant Haley. They had married the previous year, and rumour had it that Zimmerman was now a much happier person.

"Will you be coming over for dinner?" asked Naomi.

"Assuming I can get this work done before then" the Doctor said. "I don't like to start something without finishing it" and Naomi shook her head with a smile.

"You know the Mark Two will take care of it for you" she told him. "That guy would do anything for you after you saved him from the depths of the computer core" the girl added.

"I will try to" the Doctor promised her.

"I could make it an order" Naomi teased him, fingering her collar to show the four pips denoting a Captain's rank.

"Aye, Ma'am" the Doctor said with a smile. They talked for a few minutes more before terminating the call.

"How many am I cooking for?" asked Greskrendtregk from the kitchen.

"The normal number" said Naomi. "The twins are getting here in a few hours on a high warp shuttle, and Icheb is beaming over in twenty minutes" and father and daughter started the task of cooking for their extended family. The meal went very well, and everybody caught up with everybody else's latest news. Icheb had only arrived back at the Academy the previous day after being on a training cruise aboard the Eagle – a Constitution class starship of the same type as the Enterprise-A. Their sister ship, the Republic had been destroyed at Wolf 359 when the entire senior year of cadets had broke it out of the museum and joined the massacre.

Chirp Chirp

"I wonder who that could be" Greskrendtregk said, excusing himself from the table and going to the comm screen in the study. He came back a few minutes later with a message for the Doctor. The Mark Two had accidentally been deactivated by Starfleet Medical's computer, and could he come over and explain what had happened. The Mark Two could get a little grumpy when this happened, and the Doctor was the only one capable of keeping him calmed.

A/N:

Yes, a little short, but it is for an entirely good purpose. A short first chapter allows for a longer chapter 2! At least I have provided some backstory for this fic, and what has happened between the final chapter of CIC2 and the first chapter of CIC3 to the group. Expect a nice Chapter 2 a lot sooner then you think... maybe Saturday or Sunday

I know I said there would be a gap of about a week, but I got a phone call from the tour company saying that it was put back by a week because one of the engines had suffered a main generator flashover. Anybody working with diesel engines in cars or ships will understand that. So at least it is only back a week and not cancelled, plus you get a nice new story to keep you going. I thought I'd do a little bit to start off, but when I looked up discovered I had written over 20,000 words! I've split it up to make five chapters at the moment, with a sixth underway.

Next Harry Potter update shall be on the 19th, with a little entry into the One Shots collection – and I'm sure it'll be a popular one…

Until Then…

Robert