FRIENDS
by ardavenport
- - - Part 2
Two Talaxians worried over a pile of parts at the open hatch of Neelix's ship. The greenish light colored their long, thin, reddish mohawk hair and the spots on their heads in unhealthy hues. Friendly, they smiled and welcomed the Starfleet officers and told them that Neelix had gone off to get more parts. They hugged Seepa. Chakotay repositioned his load again. Fortunately the chat didn't last longer than a few minutes, after which the Talaxian repair crew pointed them toward the empty landing areas.
The Voyager shuttle appeared from above, neatly descended and parked ahead of them. Seepa stopped walking, dragging Janeway to a halt.
"Is that yours?" she asked, obviously impressed. "It's adorable, but I thought you said your ship was bigger than that."
"No, no, no." Captain Janeway shook her head, her loose strands of hair waving with the motion. "That's not Voyager, that's the shuttle. It's going to take us to Voyager."
"Well." Seepa patted Janeway's shoulder. "I had no idea you were so rich." Seepa sauntered up to the shuttle. The hatch opened and a tousled head met her.
"Captain?" Tom Paris, his red and black uniform as off-color as his comrades' in the chlorotic sunlight, looked past the silver-green clad woman to the two Starfleet officers behind her. Chakotay frowned at seeing the young hotshot. Paris was the sort of person who would amuse himself over Janeway's current situation.
"It's all right Mister Paris. This is Seepa. She's coming back to Voyager with us," Janeway explained, her hand on Seepa's arm. Paris shrugged, stepped out of the shuttle and helped Seepa in. Seepa seized Paris's arm, patted him on the cheek and then complimented him on his youth as she passed him. Chakotay handed Paris his bags.
Janeway, hands on either side of the hatch, had trouble climbing up through. Chakotay caught her narrow hips when she started to fall back and shoved, and then went in after her. Paris, arms full and looking a bit stunned, got in last.
Paris dropped the bags behind Seepa's seat and took his seat in the pilot's chair. The captain had flopped into the co-pilot's seat, sighed heavily and, leaning her elbow on the controls, rubbed her forehead. Seepa sat behind Paris and admired the view through the wide forward and side ports, the tinting of the windows filtering out some of the green glare. Chakotay sat behind Janeway. After their long walk in green light, the inside of the shuttle seemed too red.
Paris stared at the captain, her eyes closed, her hair a mess, her elbow on the control panel.
"Uh, Captain, are you all right?"
Janeway's eyes snapped open. "What?"
"Uh, you look a little tired." Paris tapped the controls before him, initiating his pre-flight check.
"Oooooh!" Seepa exclaimed, surprising them.
"What is it?" Janeway asked.
"That is the smoothest gravity field I've ever felt." Seepa beamed and ran her hands up and down her silver jacket in a somewhat provocative fashion, her belts and bracelets tinkling with the movement. Tom Paris looked at her sideways.
"Glad you like it."
"You mean you can feel the difference between the internal and external gravity fields?" Janeway asked, fascinated.
"Oh, yes. Ordinary mass is just big lumps in space. But subspace mass...ooh!" She finally sighed, settling into the shuttle's artificial gravity. "I'm going to have a wonderful time on your ship."
"That's amazing." Obviously intrigued by Seepa's perception, Janeway leaned her arms on the back of her chair.
"Terrific," Paris replied. Then he sniffed. His head turned toward Janeway, and then to Seepa before he went back to his pre-flight.
"You can actually feel other energy fields. What are they like?" Janeway continued, oblivious to Paris's sarcasm.
"Oh, they just go right through you, dear." Seepa smiled blissfully, her rose-painted eyes glowing, her hands up, four fingers and four thumbs spread wide, the rings on them flashing. "You can just feel them washing over you, inside you. Building up and up." She inhaled, completely absorbed by her revelation. Then she sighed theatrically and dropped her hands. "Really dear, it's almost as good as sex."
"I'd have never guessed," Paris muttered. He clicked on the anti-grav thrusters to standby and turned a crooked smile toward the captain. Janeway still leaned on the back of her chair, her hands supported her chin, and still quite absorbed by Seepa's tale of force field ecstasy.
"Oh, yes," she patted Paris on the shoulder, "and do tell me if I'm interfering with anything. I really had no idea I was blocking that communication thing of yours, Janeway."
"That was you?" Paris nodded, his smug smile going back to the captain, who was looking just a little bit cross-eyed. "Uh, huh."
Chakotay cleared his throat, his dark eyes warning the lieutenant back to the controls. "I think we're ready to leave now, Captain."
Janeway looked at him, puzzled, and then suddenly realized that she was the one holding things up. She turned about, facing the forward ports of the shuttle and straightened the black front of her uniform.
"Proceed, Mister Paris."
Paris signaled Zabos Control and received permission to launch while Janeway leaned forward, noticing for the first time that the controls on her side of the shuttle were dark, while the lines and squares glowed active on Paris's side. Paris launched the shuttle, distracting her from asking about it. The spaceport disappeared below them and the bright, greenish sky turned to deep forest green and then black, an uneventful launch save for Seepa's 'ooohing' and 'aahing'.
"Seepa," Janeway finally complained.
"Oh, I'm sorry dear. I am making them uncomfortable, aren't I dear?" She rested a hand on Chakotay, who barely acknowledge it and Paris, who kept his back to her. Seepa turned to Chakotay.
"Oh, that is just lovely." She held a hand up to the lines of the tattoo on the Maquis commander's left temple, and though she didn't get within ten centimeters of touching him, he pulled his head back. "Is that permanent?"
"Yes," he answered. "It's a symbol of...my tribe." Janeway turned around in her seat, immediately curious.
"Would that there was something that would last like that on me, but I'd never be able to decide on what to get, or where to put it anyway," she rubbed a facial, and then a posterior cheek speculatively.
"What do you mean? You're wearing something." Janeway pointed at the rose colored outline of her eyes.
"Oh, they use this stuff to paint the hulls of ships, and it's damned difficult to get in small enough quantities. It's about all I can do." She sighed heavily, her bracelets jingling, her hand going to her unadorned, but perfectly smooth face, to her thin pinkish, but, unadorned lips. Now free of the planet's greens and yellows in the subdued shuttle light, Seepa proved to be all pink hair and silver clothes with her clinking jewelry silver or platinum. And her teeth matched her hair.
"Whatever you're wearing seems to work for you. We were wandering around out in the sun for ages before we got here, and you look just fine." Janeway touched her own face.
"Oh, the pigment has a molecular bond genetically designed to adhere to human hair and skin."
"Well, then how do you ever get it off, dear?"
"There is an un-bonding agent for it. But it would just wear off by itself in a week or so anyway, if I didn't touch it up."
Janeway leaned closer to Seepa to allow her a better look. In the normal shuttle lighting Seepa's towering hair was pinker than Chakotay had feared, like cotton candy.
"Oh that would be marvelous if anyone could do anything like that for me; if I have any DNA left that is." She patted Janeway's hand. "You would not believe what I've tried."
Trapped in the pilot's seat, Tom Paris felt a sneeze coming on. Whatever cheap perfume that permeated Seepa and the captain was building up in the confines of the shuttle. He checked the sensors and the orbital trajectory display. Black space above and the bright day side of the planet below them, they were still ten minutes away from docking with Voyager. Next to him, Janeway and Seepa conversed about the sub-quantum level phase shift effect on the adhesion properties of organic pigment and why even the addition of magnetic spin wouldn't make it stick to Seepa's complexion. Paris had lost track of the conversation at the first quantum level. He had, himself, occasionally had used Starfleet's standard issue cosmetics to cover up the odd, temporary blemish, but he'd never considered their quantum chemical properties. Nor did he care to hear about them. Nor did it look like Commander Chakotay cared for it either. He sat back away from the conversation, his dark eyes flitting back and forth between the two women like a spectator at a ping-pong match. Paris turned back to his controls when those eyes landed a warning in his direction.
"Oh, I am just parched after that long walk," Seepa announced. She turned and began digging into one of the bags behind her seat, her numerous bracelets clinking all the way down to her wrists as she rearranged things. "Oh, Janeway, have one." She came up with a couple of small bottles and clicked the tabs, opening them.
"I think I'll have one, too," Chakotay smoothly intercepted the bottle between them.
"Oh, of course dear; there's plenty." Seepa went down again for another drink while the commander tested the drink. Fruity, flowery, watery, but not alcoholic, so far as he could tell. Janeway accepted another bottle from Seepa.
"Will you have one, too?"
"Uh," Paris peered down at Seepa's pale hand lying on the red shoulder of his uniform. The unnatural heat and prickly sensation of her penetrated down to his bare skin, "no thank you."
Seepa then produced packets of crackers and cookies and rubbery things that smelled like sweet cabbage. By the time they came within sight of Voyager, crumbs and discarded packets and bottles littered the shuttle though not a speck clung to Seepa.
The rear of the ship grew large. Paris exchanged landing protocols with Ensign Kim over the open com. Janeway sat alert in her chair, and Chakotay, sitting forward in his seat behind her, could just see the rapt expression on her face, something like Seepa's infatuation with the artificial gravity, but more dignified. The shuttle thumped to the deck and the hangar bay pressurized. Paris popped the hatch and Janeway let Seepa exit first. She followed, then Chakotay and finally Paris stepped out into the brightly lit, and well ventilated, un-perfumed hangar bay. Janeway had told Voyager of who she was bringing—and Paris fully intended to get a copy of the comm log that would show Janeway leaning over the controls as she talked to the bridge_so a suitable reception awaited them.
"Captain?" Lieutenant Torres stared. She had never seen Janeway as anything less than the perfectly groomed Starfleet officer. Now, she was a mess. Little, frizzy wisps of hair, escaped from her bun, floated about her head. There were specks on the black front of her rumpled uniform. And the pink horror with her in the silverized pantsuit...
Ensign Harry Kim, standing next to Torres, gaped at what he saw. The he remembered to close his mouth. Commander Chakotay stood very close behind Janeway, as if she might need steadying.
"Captain." Lieutenant Tuvok solemnly stepped forward.
"Tuvok." Janeway put her arm around the all pink and silver woman next to her. "This is Seepa."
Seepa presented both her hands to the tall, dark, perfectly tidy Tuvok, who politely inclined his head toward her in return. Torres and Kim did the same when Janeway presented her friend to them. Then Seepa squirmed in place, flexing her fingers and thumbs, wiggling her hips, her bracelets and belts jingling.
"Oh, this is even better than the shuttle, dear." She inhaled deeply the recycled air of the open bay. "I can't wait to see the rest of this ship of yours. Where's this warp thing of yours?"
"Engineering. B'Elanna—"
"Uh, Captain." Commander Chakotay slid his large body between Janeway and Seepa and laid a hand on Janeway's upper arm. "I think we need to go to Sickbay first."
"Sickbay? Why? Is something wrong with the doctor?"
"No. There's nothing wrong with the doctor."
He continued to stand over her, intimately close, looking down at her. Then she recognized that look. It was the same look he'd given her in the bar when he'd all but accused her of having too much to drink. But now his expression was not amused, nor was he smiling.
Her temper flared. How dare he. Here. And in front of her officers.
"Commander, we can discuss this later—"
"No, I think we need to do something about it now," he answered back quietly, serene as a wise man.
After following her all over the spaceport, carrying her bags, Chakotay had no intention of letting Janeway wander the ship as she was. Right now, it was a mild joke that she'd turned up harmlessly inebriated on the planet after the initial panic of finding her missing. But the commander was not going to suffer the embarrassment, for himself or for her, of having her make a fool of herself in front of the crew. If necessary, he intended to separate her from Seepa and have her beamed to Sickbay directly.
"Captain." Lieutenant Tuvok stepped forward, standing next to the first officer. Behind them, Seepa had actually stopped talking. Torres and Kim reluctantly witnessed the confrontation while Tom Paris watched with interest. "I believe that Commander Chakotay is correct, and that you should go to Sickbay."
Janeway stared up at the Vulcan, shocked, her anger forgotten. She looked from one pair of dark eyes to the other. Both Chakotay and Tuvok stood so their bodies almost touched her and that was very unusual for the reticent Tuvok. They blocked her, hiding her with their bodies; from Torres and Kim, who'd found other places to be looking anyway, from the few other crew who serviced the hangar bay, where they loitered away from the group of senior officers.
Icy cold formed in Janeway's stomach. They were doing exactly what they were supposed to; she was the one who'd screwed up. She suddenly felt aware of every little noise and echo in the hangar, the subliminal rumble of the ship. The warm green and yellow glows of her visit to the planet didn't seem nearly so fun now back aboard Voyager. And it had started out as such a nice afternoon...
The captain squared her narrow shoulders. What was done was done. There wasn't anything to do about it but go on. Commander Chakotay saw the stricken look in her eyes disappear; her body straightened.
"All right, let's get it over with then," she announced, determined, though Chakotay thought her expression comically belligerent with the little wisps of hair about her face and her chin jutting out. Chakotay and Tuvok stepped back.
"Y'know, dear, it's been ages since anyone's ever done that for me." They all turned to Seepa, all pink and silver, her noisy jewelry silent. Chakotay realized that this was the longest he'd ever heard her not talking. Her rose-painted eyes half closed, her expression was very similar to that moment of seriousness he'd witnessed on the spaceport field on Zabos. She stepped forward and, leaning close, whispered loud enough for everyone else to hear. "I wouldn't say no."
Janeway lowered her head.
"Lieutenant Torres," Chakotay broke in; heads turned toward him. "Ensign Kim, the captain wanted Seepa to see Engineering. Would you and Mister Tuvok and Lieutenant Torres do the honors?"
Surprised, the two junior officers looked at each other before coming forward.
Tuvok's arched brows lowered. "Commander—"
"She is the captain's guest, Mister Tuvok," Chakotay cut him off. After listening to almost an hour of subspace field chatter from Seepa and Janeway, he knew that Seepa could at least be useful to Voyager.
"Are you sure, dear? It wouldn't be the first time I was asked to leave a party." Seepa folded her arms before her in a way quite similar to the captain.
Janeway had finished looking guilty and now cast her eyes up at her security chief as if to ask him whatever was the problem. Tuvok narrowed his eyes toward Seepa.
"Very well, Commander, Captain." Straight as a soldier, Tuvok stepped aside, nodding to Seepa to precede him. Seepa seized the Vulcan's arm as she went past and dragged him with her, Torres and Kim with her as they left.
Chakotay got a satisfying look at Tuvok's blank, wide-eyed stare, the most expression of shock that would ever get past the Vulcan's rigid emotional control, before the door closed behind them.
"Well, Tuvok should be able to handle her. I hope." Tom Paris sauntered up to the two senior officers, having also enjoyed the glimpse of shock on Tuvok's face. Chakotay, had to agree. Between them, Janeway smiled.
"Captain?" Chakotay extended his arm to the door. Janeway sighed heavily, her arms dropping to her sides.
"I don't suppose, Commander, that you'd mind if I just went to my quarters?"
Chakotay studied the air above him for a moment, his dark eyes thoughtful. "I suppose not," he finally concluded.
Janeway frowned her disapproval at this conclusion.
Behind her, Tom Paris speculated. "Don't I remember something about Starfleet regulations," he said over Janeway's head to Chakotay, "about when a starship captain is -"
"You don't need to quote regulations to me, Mister Paris," Janeway cut him off. Elsewhere in the bay, the faceless hangar bay crew rumbled some anonymous equipment moving noises.
"Don't we?"
The captain faced her first officer again. Older than Tom Paris, a touch of gray to his closely cut, thick black hair, he gracefully offered his escort. She ignored the mocking gallantry and marched past him to the door. Paris followed, a little disappointed. He'd wondered what would have happened if Janeway had been stubborn enough to need to be carried to Sickbay.
- - - End Part 2
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