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Stardate 54359.8 Personal Log Entry, Cadet Icheb
Something very strange happened today. Commander Chakotay ordered Lieutenant Torres to burn out Voyager's deflector dish. It should be operational by the beginning of Gamma shift, and Voyager will be able to go on its way again.
Naomi and I were in "Borg Central" this morning. I had fashioned a puzzle to help her learn more about genetic engineering. The puzzle was of a DNA chain. I was very pleased when she recognized the complementary base pair. I thought my teaching method was proving to be very successful - until Naomi told me she just found two pieces that fit together. This proved her recognition of spatial relationships is well developed, but she totally missed the point of the lesson in the structure of DNA chains.
She rolled her eyes at me and said, "I thought the 'point' was to finish the puzzle."
I replied that she was also supposed to be learning something about genetics.
Then she asked me to help her find a green piece that looks like Tuvok's ear. I was about ready to give up the lesson right there, but the cargo bay doors slid open, and Commander Chakotay entered. I leaped up and apologized for the condition of the Cargo Bay. When I added, "sir," Naomi began to giggle. I don't know why. I explained I had been busy tutoring Naomi. He complimented me on my "creative approach," but I had to confess I was supposed to be writing a paper on transwarp instability. Instead, I was pursuing my own interest in genetics.
The commander went over to a very ordinary-looking cargo container. He lifted a bottle out of it and said, "Don't worry, your secret's safe - as long as you keep mine."
Naomi was grinning, but I didn't "get it" until he said, "Antarean cider. Not the replicated stuff. There are only a few bottles left, and I don't want Neelix to get his hands on them."
I suggested he store them with the salvaged Borg components. "Neelix never inventories those containers. He says they 'give him the creeps.'"
The commander praised me, saying, "Officer-level thinking, Icheb. Would you mind?" I said I'd be happy to move the rest of the bottles into the Borg component containers for him. After he left, Naomi and I stowed them all away where Neelix would never find them.
Once we were done, Naomi informed me, "It's always a good idea to do a favor for the bosses. You never know. They might do you one in return someday." I must admit, Naomi is extremely perceptive for her age. She knows the politics of Voyager much better than I do.
Just then, we felt a huge jolt. The ship rocked, the lights flickered, and then went out for several seconds before the emergency systems kicked in. We abandoned the puzzle and contacted Naomi's mother in Sciences to find out what had just happened. Her lab monitors the bridge continuously, so they usually knew what's going on even when the rest of the crew is being kept in the dark. I guess that's a pun. I'll have to remember to tell Tom that one sometime. I forgot when I saw him at dinner. At any rate, Ensign Wildman told us Voyager had encountered some sort of space anomaly, which sent out a powerful tendril of energy towards the ship.
Fortunately, the deflector dish was set to the proper polarity frequency to repel it, although the dish was burnt out in the process. Ensign Wildman told Naomi to go to their quarters to work on her homework on PADDs until the power system stabilized. I accompanied Naomi to her quarters and went to Engineering to see if I could assist with the repairs. We had to fix the deflector dish only a few weeks ago, after Iden sent a feedback pulse at Voyager and stole Lieutenant Torres.
Lieutenant Torres told me she did need my help, which gave me an excellent excuse for my paper on transwarp instability to be late. Lieutenant Torres paired me with Ensign Bristow again. She said she was pleased to hear how well we'd worked together on deflector dish repairs when the lieutenant was abducted by Iden. "You're a good influence on each other," she said, but she was looking very sternly at Ensign Bristow when she said this. I don't believe she really meant the comment for me.
While we were working, I had a chance to ask him if he knew what had happened. Ensign Bristow did. Commander Chakotay came into Engineering and told Lieutenant Torres to reroute main power to the deflector, with the polarity set to a frequency he would input. "When she asked him why, he said, 'Ever hear of a lightning rod? In about three seconds, we're going to need one.' And it turns out, we did. Maybe we need to keep spare parts for an entire deflector array in storage, so we can fix it faster the next time it happens!"
I had time to think about it, and I was fairly sure I knew what happened. When I went to the mess hall to eat dinner, Tom was there, too. I sat at his table. For a while, all we did was eat. I'd missed a couple of my usual nutritional supplement snacks, and I was famished. From the way Tom was eating his sandwiches, it looked like he also must have missed a meal or two. After I'd eaten enough to feel like practicing my social relationship skills, I leaned over to him and said, "Let me guess. We can't talk about it, or the Federation Temporal Police will be after us."
Tom laughed. Without saying a word, he slowly drew his forefinger over his tightly-closed lips, then gave me the "thumbs up" sign. That was a good enough answer for me. We spent the rest of our meal chatting about the differences between evasive maneuvers when the ship is as big as Voyager, in comparison with shuttles the size of the Delta Flyer.
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