I decided to do a follow up. Let me know what you think.
Secrets and Spies II
Tom Paris knew he was in trouble. He knew the Captain would be calling him in to yell at him any moment now, still he sat there, smirking, and enjoying the moment. Harry and B'Elanna sat with him at the table eating their lunch. B'Elanna poked at her salad as she noticed his grin, "What are you smiling at?"
"Oh, nothing." He said innocently.
"Come on Tom, you've been sitting here ignoring us for ten minutes with that goofy smile on your face." Harry wasn't buying it either.
Tom leaned in conspiratorially and lowered his voice to a whisper, "You two remember what happened when we followed the Captain and the Commander in order to settle the betting pool, right?"
"Yes. Of course we do Tom what's this about?" B'Elanna wasn't in the mood for dramatics.
"Guess who, as the only person betting on the Captain learning to cook, won the entire pool?" Tom's asked.
"Who?" Harry was genuinely curious. Ever since the Captain started suspecting that Tom was running these betting pools safeguards had been put into place. Each crew member could place a bet anonymously, and the rations that they won would be placed into their account by a special program Tom and B'Elanna had designed. Of course, Tom and B'Elanna could use a special override to see the names of all the participants and Tom always informed the winner in person that they had won. That was, until this winner.
"Kathryn Janeway."
Harry and B'Elanna looked at each other in disbelief; they'd been had!
"Oh not to worry, part of my plan for retaliation is already underway."
"Tom whatever you're planning, I want no part of it. I like my privileges and my rations." B'Elanna wasn't going to go down that road again.
"You're not involved."
Their comm badged all went off at the same time and the voice of one angry captain Janeway came through. "Paris, Kim, Torres, my quarters now!"
"On our way" they responded quickly.
"What the hell did you do, Tom?" B'Elanna was fuming, but Tom just smiled a goofy smile unable to contain his amusement.
"Don't worry, no permanent damage was done." He said as they stood up and deposited their half-eaten lunches into the recycler.
"What's that supposed to mean?" It was Harry questioning him this time. Harry hated to be in any sort of trouble with the Captain.
"You'll see." He said as they headed for deck three.
Having arrived at the Captains quarters Harry just stared at the door chime. B'Elanna gave him and impatient look and rang in herself.
"Enter." The Captain's voice was not pleasant.
As they walked in the Captain stood in the doorway between her bedroom and her living area. They knew they were in trouble and all three immediately stood at attention. She looked considerably shorter than usual as she was missing her heeled boots. She was wearing grey academy sweatpants and a matching academy t-shirt. She was patting her wet hair with a towel, but what really caught the trio's attention however, was not the way she was dressed but the appearance of her skin. Her entire right side was stained with blotches splatters of blue. Her arm and face were especially affected. A crescent shaped blotch was positioned just to the right of the center of her forehead. Tom thought she looked like she had the moon painted on her forehead and had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
Commander Chakotay entered the room as the Captain spoke "Which one of you thought it would be funny for the velocity disk to explode into a slimy, sticky, blue dye?" By the tone of her voice they knew someone would be doing quite of bit of tedious labor in the very near future.
B'Elanna punched Tom's arm and gave him her own death glare.
As the Commander came around to stand next to the Captain they saw that he too had been affected by the exploding velocity disk, albeit to a much lesser extent than the Captain. He was affected only by small splatters on his left side.
"Well?" The Commander demanded.
"Captain, I'm shocked that you would think it was us!" Tom was really enjoying this. He figured they didn't have any proof and even if they knew it was him they wouldn't punish him without any evidence.
"Can it Paris! Tuvok already traced the changes in the program back to you. The only question is which one of your two accomplices here helped you do it?" Chakotay was just as angry as the Captain.
"Not me!" Both Harry and B'Elanna replied in unison.
"Wait a minute! What makes you think I had help?" Tom felt insulted.
"Come on Tom you rewrote a basic, locked, inaccessible program, you either had an engineer help you break into the program or someone in Ops gave you access. Which was it?" Kathryn Janeway took advantage of his injured ego.
"Neither!" Tom knew B'Elanna was going to kill him, and Harry probably wouldn't speak to him for weeks.
"Fine, you three will each alternate having double shifts. Your second shift of the day will be washing the carpets, deck by deck, until the entire ship is done. Tom, you can take the first double starting now, but start with getting the gunk cleaned out of the holodeck. B'Elanna, make sure the program is returned to normal and there aren't any more exploding items on any of the programs. Harry, get out of here before I think of something for you to do too." The Captains orders were clear.
"Wait! Captain, I worked alone! They didn't do anything. Don't punish them." Tom insisted.
"Are you saying you'll take the punishment on your own Mister Paris? That's a lot of carpet to clean on your own."
"Yes Captain." Tom sounded relieved, almost happy to be facing his punishment alone.
"Then go on and get started on the holodeck, Tom. You are dismissed. Harry, B'Elanna maybe we should discuss the company you two are keeping." Tom glanced back as he heard the Captain say those words to the two people he was closest to on Voyager. As he walked away he groaned; the Captain was taking this a lot harder then he'd thought she would, she was sure to strip him of his rank when she realized what he'd done to her replicator.
"Coffee anyone?" Kathryn asked the three people remaining in her ready room.
Even as she asked Chakotay had started to run a dermal regenerator over her skin, erasing the blue stains completely.
Harry and B'Elanna looked at each other hesitantly. "Uh… sure Captain. I'll take one." B'Elanna said.
"I'll have a tea, Kathryn." Said Chakotay.
"Uh… I'll take a tea." It sounded more like a question when Harry spoke.
Harry and B'Elanna were surprised when she ordered leola root stew and Talaxian cider from the replicator.
"Captain?" B'Elanna asked.
As the Captain handed B'Elanna her coffee she explained, "Asking for coffee will get you tomato soup, asking for tea will get you leola root stew. Tom reprogramed my replicator last night right after he made the changes to the velocity program. I spent a couple of hours reading his program last night memorizing the new orders for coffee, tea, and brownies, of course. I'm sure you can set it back to normal, right B'Elanna?"
"Of course, Captain. It'll shouldn't take more than twenty minutes or so to reset it to its original settings, but any non-standard recipes would have to be reprogramed individually." B'Elanna explained as Kathryn nodded.
"Wait, does that mean you knew about the velocity disk before it exploded on you?" Harry was trying to put it all together.
Kathryn shrugged. "I needed a volunteer to clean the carpets."