I don't own Star Trek Voyager.
1 Year.
1 year.
They had been in the Delta Quadrant one measly year, and yet unless they found a wormhole or a faster way of getting home, they were destined to travel the endless void of the galaxy for the next 70-69 years. As she sat in her Ready Room, holding her favourite mug of coffee and drinking from it occasionally, smacking her lips at the luxuriously dark taste of the coffee, Captain Kathryn Janeway reflected on the last few months of Voyager's journey.
Many of the crew - Maquis and Starfleet, although she was still dubious and hesitant about that bunch of traitors being on her ship; Janeway knew if the Val-Jean had survived and the lives lost on the ship because of the Caretaker pulling them here hadn't happened, she would have gladly gone on her way and left the Maquis to fend for themselves, it was a great punishment for their betrayal of the Federation - were still reeling from the fact they would likely never see their families again, not unless they discovered a faster way home.
To this day, Janeway still cringed at how she had let the Sikarrian spatial trajector technology slip through their fingers; Janeway had been incandescent with rage when she discovered what some of her crew had done behind her back, setting up a secretive purchase of the trajector. Looking back though Janeway realised she was more angrier she had stood back and not tried the same thing.
Her job was to get her crew home, but Janeway knew she had been too well trained in Starfleet protocol, and she had been expected to be a Starfleet officer before she even put her uniform on for the first time. A part of her was tempted to go behind Garth's back and learn more about the technology, perhaps even develop a crude prototype, or secretly steal it on her crew's behalf. They could have discovered the issues with the antineutrinos and the added problems, but Janeway had been so drawn by her Starfleet programming she had ignored her good sense.
They could have jumped 40 or 30,000 light-years instead of being here.
Janeway sighed as she swallowed some of her surging self-loathing, ignoring everything else they had discovered so far.