B'Elanna Torres glanced around at her surroundings in disbelief. "What is this, some sort of barn-raising party?" she muttered angrily to herself as she scanned the area with her tricorder. One minute, she was on Chakotay's ship, trying to get the warp core started again after his little stunt with the Cardassians; the next, she was in some sort of idyllic Midwestern setting.
"I wasn't aware Klingons had barn-raising parties," Chakotay commented wryly, his own tricorder out and active.
Torres glared at him, which he returned with a mischievous glint in his eye. Ever since they met six months before, he made it a habit to tease the half-Klingon engineer about her heritage, knowing it would never fail to get a rise out her.
"I grew up on a Federation colony," she replied stiffly. "And I spent two years—"
"At Starfleet Academy. Yes, yes, we know," Chakotay interrupted. "What we don't know is why you left. Why don't you enlighten us?"
Unwarranted and unwanted, a sudden image of a tall blue-eyed pilot with sandy blond hair popped into Torres' mind, his hair slightly longer than regulation, his boots slightly scuffed, a quirky half-grin on his face, an irreverent attitude that didn't keep him from representing anything and everything Starfleet to her. Torres frowned; where had that come from? Ever since that damned spirit quest or whatever it was called that she had thought would be a good idea, her thoughts had been all over the place and made no sense to her. As quickly as it had appeared, Torres shoved the memory to the back of her mind where it belonged, and strengthened her glare on the Maquis captain. "We're Kahless-knows-where, and you expect me to tell you a story?" she asked incredulously.
He shrugged. "Well, you can always join the square dance," he said, gesturing toward the circle of holographic "neighbors" and Maquis crewmen in front of them. Not surprisingly, it was Mariah Henley and Jennifer Jackson who appeared to be leading the rest. Torres rolled her eyes. Those two were so irreverent about everything, they had been known to sing and tell jokes in the middle of fighting Cardassians.
"I don't dance," she shot back. She sighed heavily. "This is all some sort of holographic projection. If we can find the projector—"
"That would not be advisable, Lieutenant," Tuvok said sternly, appearing out of nowhere at her elbow. She stiffened. The Vulcan never failed to get on her nerves—he had a tendency to sneak up on people, listen in on other people's conversations, and always called her "Lieutenant", the only one who did so. "We do not appear to be in danger at the moment. The logical course of action would be—"
"I don't care about the logical course of action!" she fired back at him, all the tension of the recent battle, the strange tachyon beam, and the sudden transportation to the alien array coming out at once. "I am not going to just stand here and wait for them to figure out what they want with us!"
Tuvok raised an eyebrow at her outburst. "Then what do you suggest, Lieutenant?"
"Doing something!" she replied. "And stop calling me 'Lieutenant'!"
"Okay, Torres, that's enough," Chakotay finally said in that damned calm voice of his, still sounding amused at the easy flares of temper from his engineer. Torres turned her glare toward him. She would think that after six months, the novelty had worn off, but apparently not. He met her glare with a leveled gaze. "Just sit tight. Someone will come by soon enough and tell us what they want. In the meantime, maybe we should hit up those cookies and lemonade the woman offered. They can't taste worse than the Cardassian rations we've been eating for the past two weeks."
"I don't take orders from you," she retorted. It was a stupid statement and she knew it; they both knew that while she might question his orders, she would eventually follow them.
He raised his eyebrows. "Oh, I know. You're just a member of my crew as a gift from the Klingon Defense Forces. Well, I don't see any Klingon commanders around here, so in their absence, I'm in charge."
She glared at him and spun on her heel, moving stiffly away, in part due to her anger and in part from the thigh-high leather boots of her Maquis fatigues. Not for the first time, she wondered why she had allowed Jackson to replicate those instead of the more practical pair that only rose to her knees, but they were actually more comfortable than Klingon armor, so she supposed it wasn't too bad.
"Hey, B'Elanna," Seska said, moving quickly up alongside the angry half-Klingon. "I heard what Tuvok said to you. What's with him, anyway?"
"Same thing that's with every other Vulcan I've ever met," Torres replied bitingly. "It's all logic and reasoning and that damned flat affect. Drives me crazy."
The Bajoran engineer grinned. "Yeah, I know the feeling. Hey, I know Chakotay said to sit tight, but let's see what we can learn about this place. Maybe there's a transporter station or something around, and we can get the crew back to the ship. Wouldn't that just make the Vulcan look silly?"
Torres grunted. She didn't want to admit it, but it would feel good to prove Chakotay's right-hand man wrong. Why Chakotay chose the stoic Vulcan as his closest confident—well, closest work confident, as she was sure Seska would slyly point out—was beyond her. Must be the advanced Starfleet tactical training they had in common. "Let's start by looking for the control panel to this place. It must be some sort of holosuite or something. If we can shut down the program, maybe we can find a way out."
An almost feral glint came to Seska's eyes as she pulled out her tricorder. "Let's do it."
Torres nodded, studying her tricorder for a second. "There seems to be something in the direction of the barn. Let's go check it out."
They were about halfway toward the old-looking red barn when an older man appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. "Now where are you two girls heading?" he asked, his voice light. "You look hungry. I know there's corn on the cob back by the house."
"I'm fine," Torres replied shortly.
"What's in the barn?" Seska asked the man.
"The barn?" he asked, frowning slightly. "Not much. Some old tools, some hay. We used to have horses there, but we moved them to the stables on the other side of the house." He brightened slightly. "Do you want to go horseback riding? I'm sure I can arrange that."
The two women looked at each other and tried not to burst out laughing at the suggestion; people living on Bajor during the occupation and half-Klingons from Federation colonies didn't typically go horseback riding. "I think we'll pass," Torres said dryly. "I really want to see that barn."
"It's really dirty," he protested, even as they continued walking. "Two lovely ladies such as yourselves shouldn't be mucking around in the dirt like that."
This time, Seska did start laughing. "If you only knew," she said wryly. She paused at the door to the barn and frowned, tapping her ancient tricorder. "There's definitely something here. Come on, Torres."
"I wouldn't recommend it," the older man said in a warning tone.
"I make a habit out of doing things people don't recommend," Torres said, shoving past him. He grabbed her arm as she slid by, which would have been the worst thing he could have done. Years of Klingon combative training came to Torres in a fraction of a second, and the hand that had grabbed her arm was quickly behind his back, twisted in such a position that would have resulted in a dislocated shoulder had he been a true flesh-and-blood human.
"You leave me no choice," he said, his voice suddenly cold as he twisted away from her grasp with more force than even a full Klingon would have been able to muster. "We did want to give you some time to relax before we began, but if you're so eager, we'll just go ahead and get started." A minute later, the doors to the barn slid open, revealing the rest of the Maquis crew being led by a small army of holographic farmers with pitchforks. Chakotay saw who was already waiting for them in the barn and sighed heavily, disappointment in his eyes. Torres flushed slightly under that gaze, but before she had a chance to say anything, the back wall to the barn fell away, revealing a large room of some sort, its sharp angles and sterile lines contrasting with the Midwest farm projection. She stared into it for a moment before she felt a nudge at her back. She quickly turned to glare at the holographic man prodding her before turning and heading into the room.