Chapter Six
Captain's Log: Stardate 63616.48
After landing in our hiding place on this comet, we have successfully managed to flash-freeze materials from one of its carbon dioxide jets to construct an ice wall that has now sealed us into this cave. Lieutenant Torres and her team successfully installed the sensor relay, and we are now receiving clear readings. So far, the Fen Domar appear to be behaving exactly as we predicted, and they are currently in orbit around the chthonian planet on which we faked our destruction. We are continuing to make repairs while we wait them out, but we have no idea how long we are going to be stuck here. And since running the ship in grey mode means no holodecks, it's very possible that morale could become an issue.
Kathryn sighed as she keyed in the report, then slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes. They'd been in the cave for three weeks now, and while everything seemed to be progressing smoothly, she couldn't shake the sense of foreboding that had been with her ever since they'd enclosed themselves here. She looked out through the viewports at the blue-grey ice around them, spattered with bits of black meteor throughout. It looked far darker than the ice she remembered on Tau Ceti, which had been endless white under the system's sun. She'd said morale as in the crew's, but really, it was starting to be her own. Three weeks, she thought to herself. If I'm like this after three weeks, how the hell am I going to last a couple of months?
Gritting her teeth, she got up and headed to the replicator for another coffee, absently humming to herself as she waited for it to materialize. Just as she picked it up, something moved in her peripheral vision, and she whirled around to face the windows again, but there was nothing there. Heart thudding in her chest, she had to force herself to slow her breathing, her fingertips rubbing at tired eyes. She still wasn't sleeping well, and now it seemed to be affecting her perception.
The door chime rang, making her jump, and sloshing some of her precious coffee over the sides of the mug. "Come in," she called rather tersely, switching the mug to the other hand and shaking the liquid off her fingers just as B'Elanna walked in.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" Torres asked.
"Was just lost in thought," her friend said, wiping the last remnants of coffee on her thigh as she moved back behind her desk. "It startled me."
"Sorry." B'Elanna smiled at her. "I came to invite you to dinner. Since Ensign Cavendish has been staying with us, he's been letting Miral help him when he cooks, and now she wants to make something for you, me and Tom."
Janeway frowned. "I already had my two meals today, Lanna." It was a lie. She'd had her one meal in the mess hall and was burning through her replicator rations to fill the gap, determined to set an example for the crew.
"Coffee doesn't count as a meal," Torres pointed out, her arms folding across her chest with a small glare. Seeing the look she got in return, she grinned. "It's just fruit that we already had anyway. Lionel gave her a little star-shaped cutter, and she's wanting to use it on pretty much everything in sight."
Kathryn couldn't help but chuckle. "I'll bet that makes for interesting mealtimes."
B'Elanna laughed. "I drew the line when she wanted to freeze soup so she could use it. So…dinner?"
Seeing that refusal was only going to get her more grief, Kathryn acquiesced. "Okay, fine. What time?"
"Nineteen hundred." Torres smiled the smile of the victorious, serving only to annoy her captain further. "And casual clothes only."
Now she received a funny look. "How come?"
"Because we're starting to go stir crazy, and need to shake things up a bit."
The captain couldn't argue with that logic, given her previous thoughts. "Alright. I guess I can dust off something in my closet."
"See you then."
Kathryn watched as B'Elanna turned on her heel and left, then turned back to her console. That gave her a little over two hours before she needed to be there, and with little else to do at the moment, it would be more than she needed. Maybe a nap, she thought, yawning heavily the moment the idea hit her. Since they'd been here, she found her energy had been waning, probably due to the restriction of her usual routine. She'd had certainly worked herself beyond exhaustion in the past, but sleep now seemed to be an escape from the ice outside her windows.
Her head snapped up when she thought she saw movement again at the viewports, and once again, nothing was there when she examined her surroundings. "Weird…" she muttered, shoving her chair back with her legs and standing up to leave. Exhaustion was one thing, but tired enough to be seeing things that weren't there was quite another. So she headed home, collapsing on her bed without taking off her uniform, and managed to drift away for a little while.
Miral Paris bounded over to the doors when the chime rang, knowing very well who was on the other side. "Who is it?" she called out loudly.
"The homework inspector!" came the muffled reply. "Is it done yet?"
"Yes!" the little girl called back, finally moving forward and pressing the button that opened the doors. Then she stepped back, fists on her hips as she glared at their new guest. "You're late."
Kathryn stood in the doorway in an exact mirror pose, looking down with a mock irritated expression. "Sorry. I was having a nap."
Nonplussed, Miral stared back up at her. "I had a nap, and I'm on time."
"Miral…" a warning voice came from across the room, "that's enough."
Before she could start laughing, Kathryn knelt down before her accuser and waggled a finger for her to come closer. "Tell you what," she said softly. "Next time I'm late, you can come and get me, okay?"
Miral broke into a wide grin. "Kay!" She then grabbed Kathryn's hand and led her into the room toward the table.
"You're just in time," B'Elanna told her as she set plates out on the table. "Tom and I had both been saving some rations for a rainy day, so we're having spaghetti and meatballs and, of course, zaga fruit."
Kathryn smiled, unable to remember the last time she'd had dinner with the Parises. "Sounds wonderful."
"I'm making the fruit!" Miral announced happily.
Janeway reached down and rested a hand on her shoulder. "So I hear."
"Hi Kathryn," Tom greeted as he walked out of the bedroom, towel drying his hair.
She shook her head. "You didn't have to get all fancy just for me."
Her pilot laughed as he gathered the towel up in his hands. "Well I had time to squeeze in a workout, so I figured it probably wouldn't be a good idea to come to the table smelling like that." Spotting his daughter nearby, he opened the towel and tossed it at her, grinning when it flopped down over her head and shoulders.
"Dad! Ew!" It took her a moment, but Miral fought her way out of the fabric, and then shot her father a foul look. "That's gross!"
"Hey, it's clean!" he protested. Bending down and kissing her hair, he asked her, "Go hang it up for me please." She tromped off to the bathroom, but not before rolling her eyes behind his back.
"We've really got to get her to stop doing that," B'Elanna grumbled.
Their daughter returned just as her mother and father set bowls of pasta and salad down at the table. They all dug in, chatting amiably about a number of different topics over the next little while. At one point, Kathryn caught herself gazing around the able at them, remarking about how close she had become to them over the last few years. When they had first arrived in the Delta Quadrant, she had forced herself to maintain distance from her crew, thinking that it was the best way to maintain the chain of command. But after she and Chakotay stopped speaking to one another, Kathryn suddenly found herself without a friend on board, and realized that her policy had only served to hurt herself. Now, she really did embrace them, having finally learned that she could be both leader and friend, and knowing now that she had what was very close to a family here on Voyager.
When the time came for dessert, Miral proudly demonstrated her new fruit-cutting skills, stabbing slice after slice of zaga with her little cutter, then pressing a button and having a handful of star-shaped fruit tumble down onto four plates. B'Elanna grinned as she watched Tom helping their daughter when the release button got stuck. The honor of the first bite went to the captain, who was well aware of being closely watched as she picked up a piece and put it in her mouth. She hadn't had a chance to sample one of the most recent fruits that their last gathering stop had produced, and was fully prepared to fake enthusiasm over its taste for Miral's sake. But to her surprise, it filled her mouth with a heavenly sweet juice, something similar to watermelon crossed with apples. "Wow," she told Miral after she swallowed it. "This is really good."
"Really?" Miral practically bounced in her chair.
Kathryn nodded. "The best star fruit I've ever had." Miral giggled, then happily settled down and started on her own dessert.
They were interrupted by the doors opening on their own, admitting a lanky, dark-haired man who was genuinely surprised to find anyone there. "Oh, I'm sorry," Lionel Cavendish told them, stopping suddenly. "I'm interrupting."
"It's okay," B'Elanna assured him. "I thought you were on the late shift tonight."
"Originally, yes. But Maloney asked me to trade so he could go on a breakfast date tomorrow, so I have tonight off instead. And I completely forgot you were having dinner with…" He caught himself before he could speak about Janeway like she wasn't there, turned to her and nodded. "Good evening, Captain."
She smiled. "Good evening, Ensign."
"Why don't you join us?" Tom invited.
Their temporary roommate shook his head. "I don't want to impose."
Kathryn was feeling particularly friendly this evening, so she waved him over. "It's not an imposition. Please, join us." She missed Tom and B'Elanna's surprised exchange of glances, distracted when Lionel came up behind Miral and stole a piece of fruit off her plate.
"Hey!" Miral looked up at him with a glare that could melt steel.
"Tastes good, kid," he said absently, making a show of trying to get past her hands to snatch another piece, while she tried to cover her plate with both arms. Managing to grab one more piece, he leaned down and conspiratorially asked her, "Did they like it?"
"Uh huh." Then she cupped a hand to his ear and whispered loudly, "Kathryn said it was the best star fruit she ever had."
His eyes flicked up at the captain, who was watching with amused interested from across the table. "See, I told you she'd like it." He stood up straight again when Tom brought over another chair for him to sit in, then helped himself to the dinner that was still left on the table.
The five of them finished dinner, and the adults continued to visit long after Miral had been put to bed. Kathryn learned more about Lionel Cavendish in those few hours than she had the entire thirteen years they'd spent together on the same ship. He was a theoretical astrophysicist by training; the only reason he'd been on Voyager when they left Deep Space Nine was for the opportunity to observe conditions in the badlands, which were rumoured to mimic the theory he'd been working on at the time, and the chance to even just race past the phenomenon he was researching was an opportunity he'd jumped at. After Voyager was displaced, there was not enough work for him to keep busy, so he'd doubled working in Engineering with B'Elanna. Once the Astrometrics lab was constructed, he'd been prodded into becoming Seven's backup by Torres. He hadn't particularly liked the ex-drone, but found that serving as her second meant he worked opposite shifts, and didn't actually have to see her all that often. After she died, he took over the department, and it was now his regular haunt. And being a night owl, he regularly took the evening shift, which explained why he really had experienced very little interaction with the captain until now.
Kathryn was grateful for the distraction, and hadn't realized how fast time had flown until a yawn grabbed hold of her. "Well," she said, putting her wine glass down on the coffee table, "I think I'm going to call it a night."
Cavendish glanced at a nearby chronometer. "I'd better get going too. Maloney is going to have kittens if I make him late for his date." Getting to his feet, he added, "Thanks for dinner."
"Any time," Tom replied, also standing to say goodbye to his guests.
"We're still on for breakfast tomorrow?" B'Elanna asked Kathryn.
"Oh six hundred, right?" A nod was her answer, and she instantly calculated that if she went to bed right away, she'd manage about five hours of sleep before she had to get up. "Goodnight everyone." She turned to leave, surprised to see Lionel standing in the doorway, holding it open for her to pass through. Her eyebrow lifted briefly, a twitch of a smile on her lips as she acknowledged him on her way through.
Once out in the corridor, they both headed in the direction of the turbolift. "I really hope I wasn't interrupting tonight, Captain," he said quietly.
Glancing over at him, she could see that he was genuine in his concern. "I wouldn't have asked you to stay if it had been."
They reached the lift doors, which opened almost immediately. Each stated their deck, and the hum around them got louder as they started to move. "So what are you working on tonight?" she asked. "I can't imagine that there will be much in the way of astrological phenomena to scan right now."
He shrugged. "Part of tonight will be monitoring the sensor relay network. But I'm also collecting as much data as possible on the comet itself. So much of our information on comets is based on remote observation with probes, or very short close-range trips alongside them as they move. Starfleet will have a ton of data to sift through when we're finally back in space."
She thought about that for a moment. "Which might not be for a couple of months."
"That's okay – it will give me more time to polish it up first."
Kathryn looked at him, and was about to say something when she felt the lift slowing to her deck. "Well, I'm glad I got to know you a little better this evening, Ensign."
"Me too," he said with a pleasant smile. "It was far overdue."
The lift stopped and the doors opened, waiting for her to disembark. "Have a good night."
"Goodnight Captain."
Kathryn turned and headed off down the corridor toward her quarters. Once inside, she quickly got ready for bed, hoping to catch her current tiredness and turn it into a good night's sleep. But as soon as her head hit the pillow, her eyes popped open and her brain shifted into overdrive. She thought about many things, but a lot of the time, her mind strayed back to Lionel Cavendish. There was something about him that she found intriguing, but she couldn't quite figure out what. He was about fifteen years younger than her, which meant he wasn't much older than Harry when they landed out here. It made her cringe the same way she did when she thought about how young Ensign Kim had been robbed of his youth while in her service. His work was interesting to her, but because of her own knowledge, it didn't make it remarkable to her. So that wasn't it.
Then it struck her. He was new. Not new as in somebody who she'd never met before, but new in that he was somebody that she rarely spent time with. It had been a long, long time since Kathryn Janeway had been given the opportunity to get to know somebody from the beginning, and as that thought sank in, she found that it excited her. And though she'd deny it if B'Elanna asked, there had been a very subtle flirting going on between them. She fell asleep and dreamed of friends from her past, and of what it might be like to spend time with new ones.