B'Elanna Torres would rather have been anywhere but here.
Coming to grips with her Klingon side had been the journey of a lifetime, and she wasn't totally in tune with it and probably wouldn't be. Which she understood, because her lifetime wasn't over yet.
Here, in the Delta Quadrant, there had been some stirrings; some desire to reconnect with her Klingon heritage. She'd read. She'd designed holodeck programs with Tom and then gone into them herself. She had furtively started to study the Klingon language again – she could speak it passably, but she couldn't read Klingon anywhere near as good as she could read English.
Klingon culture was fine. Klingon culture didn't bother her. Klingon culture was part of her heritage. She could deal with it in little itty-bitty chunks, and then she could go and associate with people who didn't base their entire culture around smashing each other over the head. That had worked out most hunky-dory, as Tom sometimes said.
Still, the engineering section of a Klingon Bird of Prey was just a little more Klingon culture at one time than she liked. In fact, more than a little. A lot. If B'Elanna Torres had her way in life, the only time she would be on a Klingon ship would be in a situation where she could say 'Computer, end program', and then maybe Tom would make all the Klingons on it sing barbershop quartet, since he was a wiseacre that way. That would've been fine. But fate had other plans for her.
She materialized with her team in the middle of Engineering. It was dark; the only light overhead was reddish and muted. Smoke billowed from a few Jefferies tubes and overhead pipes; sparks spat from a console or two. A dull, foghorning siren puled overhead like a sick child.
The consoles themselves made her stare. A Federation LCARS panel stood chummily next to a Klingon panel of some kind. Overhead she could see standard EPS conduits just like those back on Voyager, running into Klingon and Federation machinery alike. There were heavy black cables she associated with Klingon engineering running next to them. The ship was a bizarre blend of Starfleet and Klingon equipment, as if someone had tried to put a ship together by raiding a scrapyard.
Yet it was neat, in its way. The Starfleet LCARS panels fit into the floor or walls, depending on where they were. Somebody had taken the time to make sure they fit properly. Part of her mind wanted to scream – 'Scuse me! My doctor has strictly limited my intake of Klingon things, and this is just waaaay too much for one day. But her engineer's mind was always on duty. Somebody had taken the time to custom-cut holes in the deck for the panels. No fresh welding marks nearby. Therefore, they'd been there for a while. This ship might look like it had been put together from spare parts, but it had clearly been going for quite some time.
The engineers on duty were equally baffling; they wore the same dirty Starfleet uniforms and equally dirty Klingon uniforms. They spoke to each other in Klingon and English. Interestingly, B'Elanna noted, the race of the speaker didn't determine the language; Klingons were speaking – well, shouting – English and Starfleeters were speaking Klingon with equal ease.
The ship had seen battle very recently; she knew what fresh battle scars looked like. She flagged down a Klingon who was scurrying by with a hyperspanner in his hands. He was about average height. For most races he would have been barrel-chested, but for a Klingon he was actually a little on the thin side.
"Hey!" she said. "B'Elanna Torres. USS Voyager. Who's your chief engineer?"
If there was one thing she had to give her maternal race, it was this: Klingons didn't chat about the weather when everything was falling apart around them. The Klingon pointed over to the warp core – or what she thought was the warp core; steam or smoke or something was jetting from a pipe and blocked her view.
"There," he roared. "Krow'lei."
It wasn't a Klingon word she recognized, so it was probably a name. She blinked, looked over at Vorik, and gestured for him to follow. The stuff didn't smell like plasma; probably smoke. It made a few of her engineers cough.
She saw a long-haired figure bending over a computer console, frantically typing away at it and yelling orders across the din of the hectic engine room. A few figures stood nearby, obeying those orders and shouting back responses. That would be the chief engineer; she'd done the same thing herself countless times.
As she approached, she stared. The figure wore a triangular Klingon vest that was several sizes too big. The hem hung down to mid-thigh. Tools hung from loops sewn onto it, and a Starfleet combadge sat incongruously atop the left breast. As B'Elanna drew closer, she saw the figure was female, and human. Her hair was either red or brown; B'Elanna couldn't tell in this light. It looked dirty. Her Klingon had a weird accent, and all B'Elanna could think was that she must have learned her Klingon from some colony planet somewhere.
"Are you the chief engineer?" B'Elanna yelled over the din.
"Yes!" the woman shouted back. She turned her head to one of her Klingon underlings. "Don't route through that bloody conduit, can't you see it's being repaired?" With that, she turned back to B'Elanna. "Do you know Klingon engineering, or just Starfleet?"
B'Elanna blinked. The woman's English was accented, too: she pronounced the final word Stahfleet and a few other words – conduit, repaired, engineering – were quite different from the way she was used to. She glanced over to the conduit in question, expecting to see it smeared with blood, which was hardly an unexpected situation on a Klingon ship that had just seen battle.
"Starfleet," she managed. "I'm....I'm not really a Klingon. Show me it and I can fix it."
The woman clearly seemed puzzled, but the situation was too pressing to ask the questions she had. "Our warp core is offline. We need those EPS conduits repaired, and the Bussard collectors are damaged. Those are Starfleet, you should be able to deal with them."
She swallowed and nodded. It had been a while since she had taken orders in Engineering, but this wasn't her shop. She turned to the engineers she'd brought over with her and began smoothly giving orders, directing her crew to repair what they could, which would free up the Vor'moch engineers to fix up the Klingon stuff.
"I'll be coordinating everything with...," she turned to the human woman.
"Crowley. Lieutenant Megan Crowley," the woman supplied, and stuck out a hand. Her uniform bore the mark of a working engineer: electrical burns and stains up and down the sleeves. It didn't bother B'Elanna – plenty of times, her uniforms looked like hell at the end of a long day. Still, the uniform the woman wore looked like she'd been wearing it for a while; the yellow shoulders had gotten pretty grubby. B'Elanna took her hand and shook it.
"Lieutenant Crowley," B'Elanna finished. "Let's go, people!"
With the extra hands from Voyager, and the occasional replicated part beamed over, it didn't take too long to get the Vor'moch in reasonable shape. In perhaps an hour and a half, the warp core was back online, power was getting where it needed to, and shields and weapons were available if needed. The ruptures had been repaired. Having something concrete to do was good: she could focus on fixing things and making them work right. The comm buzzed overhead.
"Bridge to Engineering."
"jonta'pa' here," Crowley answered, not looking up. The casual mixture of English and Klingon spooked B'Elanna out. She had dealt with her mixed heritage all her life; seeing an entire starship that was mixed human and Klingon was making her skin crawl.
"qaStaH nuq?"
"Impulse engines online, warp core coming online, currently thirty-six percent. Warp capability in three minutes. Disruptors charging, phaser bank online, torpedoes ready." She paused. "Weapons capability is more than sufficient, captain."
"Good. Bridge out."
Crowley turned to Torres then, holding out her hand. "Well, your staff is good," she said, more at ease now that the situation was under control. "On behalf of my people, thanks for your help, mate."
"Glad to help," B'Elanna said, and smiled. "So how does a Starfleet crew end up on a Klingon vessel? Especially a Klingon vessel with so much Starfleet equipment?"
The other woman shrugged. "It's a long story. Commander Kinsey or Captain Koth ought to be the one to tell that tale."
Her combadge buzzed before B'Elanna could say anything. Captain Janeway's voice cut in sharply. "Voyager to Torres."
So many questions, so little time, and such a weird atmosphere. "Go ahead," B'Elanna said uncertainly.
"What's your status?"
"We've repaired everything we can."
"Good. I'll be speaking with the captain. If the Vor'moch engineers need anything, find out what it is and we'll get it to them. When you're finished, beam back to the ship. I want a full report on their current status. Janeway out."
Crowley raised an eyebrow, although she said nothing.
Back on Voyager, Kathryn Janeway gestured to Kim. "Harry, hail the Vor'moch."
A computer bleep acknowledged the order. "Hailing them now," Kim said stoutly. A moment later, the bridge of the Klingon ship appeared. Koth hulked in his chair. Kinsey stood beside him.
"Yes?" Koth asked.
"Captain Koth," Janeway began. "We have much to discuss. This is the first Alpha Quadrant ship we've seen in a long time." She strove for words. "I'd like to invite you and your officers to Voyager. There we are expected to follow for Starfleet personnel who have been lost and recovered. I'd like to follow them. I'm very interested in hearing your story, too." She smiled pleasantly. "Shall we say eighteen hundred hours?"
Koth shifted in his chair. His human first officer traded a glance with him Janeway knew the deal: a captain and first officer with a good working relationship could pack a lot of eloquence into a single look.
"Agreed," he said. "Eighteen hundred hours. We...thank you for your help. Koth out."
Janeway knew that Klingons were often curt, so she didn't feel offended when the connection was cut. There was plenty to do. Neelix would have to be informed that they'd have guests. She would need a list of the Starfleet officers on the Vor'moch. They'd need physicals. Their families would want to know they were alive. All that was just regulation.
On the human element, this was just plain exciting. It had been so long since she'd seen a Starfleet uniform on anyone who wasn't part of her crew. How had they gotten to be on a Klingon ship? Obviously those salvaged Federation components had to come from a Federation ship, but which one? What did the Klingons think about having former enemies as their crew? Had they had a rougher time of it than the Maquis integration on Voyager? It all boiled down to one thing, really: what story did they have to tell? She was eager to hear it.
Their tactical status was green across the board. There were no ships in sight that could possibly be enemies, only a few Latarran freighters barely within sensor range. She stared at the chronometer: three more hours. Neelix would complain that it wasn't enough time, but for her it was an eternity. She was a scientist and a Starfleet officer, and both of those had this in common: the urge to learn and know.
She tapped her foot irritably. The next three hours would pass interminably.
And they did.