Disclaimer:

Disclaimer: I don't own it. If I did, I'd be a heckuva lot richer than I am now.
Summary: Sunday on Voyager is full of strange revelations, shoreleave excitement, and frightening prophecies that leave Megan wondering about her future-and the future of Earth itself.
Timeframe: Season 7, canon w/ everything before Human Error. My reasons for this are simple: J/C good, C/7 bad. Okay?
Rating: PG-13 for language. J/C references.

The Misadventures of Megan Quincy
Chapter 5: Revelation

by galadriel

There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
T. S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

There is a misery sweeping through our veins. An eternal and unconquerable anguish. Each morning is filled with the sounds of hollow laughter and stars rushing by. We plod through the day, weary, sick with the knowledge that we can never go home again. Our eyes are strained. Our muscles are atrophied. Any trace of ambition that we have retained is lost as soon as our minds return to the situation at hand, the darkness captured in our synapses, triggering pain each time we dare to let emotion flow. There are moments of light; brief air pockets that lift us above the deep, earthy expanse, but they are only shadows of illustrations of the life we thought we once knew. For the most part, there is the abyss, the everyday unending sorrow that becomes all-past, future, and present.

Then, one morning, it was gone. I woke up, walked to the bathroom, and was in the process of brushing my teeth before I noticed that something was different. Something was missing. I was-and there is no better way of putting it-happy like I had not felt in weeks. There had been the first few days of shock, in which I was too confused and in denial to realize the implications of what had happened. Then the deluge-a week of constant grief spent trying to come to terms with my misfortune. I had not been successful, and even at school with Naomi and Icheb and during cheerful conversations with Harry, Lotty, and the rest of their friends, I was thinking about home. What is Mom doing right now, I was supposed to go to the movies with Kate and Lucy tonight, Anna never gave back the necklace she borrowed from me, I promised Zach I'd help him study for the algebra test. I will never see any of them ever again.

That was still there, in part, but more prevalent were thoughts of my approaching day-the comparative humanoid physiology report that was due tomorrow, lunch at the Wildmans', and an invitation from Wendy Jenkins to go hiking on the holodeck. The pain was muted so that I could ignore it, or at least look at it more logically.

Now I was faced with a different kind of emptiness. I was happy again-but why? Had I learned to adjust to Voyager, to attune myself to her electric ambiance and light-speed pace? How could I bear to be happy after all that had passed, all that I'd left behind? I almost wanted to be miserable again, out of some kind of righteous indignation. But I wasn't, and I couldn't be. Although I felt like I was betraying everyone back home by not missing them every single second of the day, there was a point when I needed to start to let go. Not all at once, but little by little, until they were memories that could not hurt me unless I let them.

As I pulled my tee shirt over my head, I asked the computer what time it was; I hadn't put on my watch yet.

"9:56 hours," the computer replied in its crisp, mechanical voice. I groaned. It was my day off, and I'd figured that sleeping in wouldn't hurt, since my internal chronometer usually woke me up around eight o'clock. Unfortunately, today my internal chronometer wasn't working. I had a kadis-kot game with Naomi at ten. This didn't leave much time for breakfast. Well, I'd have to improvise. After slipping on my sneakers, I went to the replicator and replicated a granola bar. I hated to waste rations, especially after using up the majority of this month's rations on a few odds and ends to liven up my room, but I still had a few rations left, and a granola bar hardly took any energy.

I ate the granola bar in my room. It looked terribly childish to be eating in the hallways. Living on a ship with about 150 adults and only two children, I was trying to act as mature as possible in public. It was okay to kid around sometimes, but often it was not the time or place. No stupid jokes during serious conversations, even if they were bordering on the edge of ridiculous. A minimum of jesting during lessons. Don't get in the way of people on duty. Don't pretend to understand things that you have no clue about. Don't participate in conversations that are way over your head unless it's to ask a question. Ask questions sparingly. I had a plethora of rules that I more or less followed; they were my only hope to being respected on Voyager.

The calendar on the wall caught my glance. I had replicated it when I realized that there was no other way to keep track of the date without constantly asking the computer, "What is the date in standard Earth calendar form?" A calendar was much simpler than repeating this command every time I wanted to know the date. I could learn stardates, but from what I'd seen of them, they were way too complex. Even if I learned them, they would never really mean anything.

Today was Sunday. Sunday, April 15, 2377. It was January back home, but who could tell the difference? There was no sign of the seasons on Voyager, no sign of what hour it was for that matter. There were duty shifts around the clock, although only skeleton shifts at "night", and these placed so that the night shift-ers could have somewhat regular sleep patterns. I wished that there was some time reference other than the ship's chronometer-a budding tree, a moonlit sky. Time seemed so meaningless on Voyager.

I wondered at my free day being Sunday. Was it coincidence, or a vestige from the Christian dominated societies of the past? Probably the latter; and maybe vestige wasn't the right word-while researching for a history report, I'd discovered that nearly 40% of humans still professed a Judeo-Christian religion, that is, Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. There was even a new Judaic religious movement that was trying to unite the religions of different species. "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Klingons, Bajorans, and Vulcans," they proudly professed. They'd already written religious doctrine showing how Kahless, the Prophets, and the god of a prominent Vulcan monotheistic religion were one and the same. Next, they were tackling the Trill deities. I wasn't sure what to make of it, whether to commend the movement or condemn it. Sure, it would make sense that God would make himself known to other species, but how could we know which alien religion was the true one? It seemed like dangerous business to me. Still, it was fascinating, the religious ideas that had been built, accepted, and rejected in the past 400 years. You'd never guess it from watching Star Trek, where the majority of the main characters were agnostic at best. Sure, there was Kira and her Prophets, Worf and his Klingon-ness, but for the most part, religion wasn't a big thing here.

Another reason to feel alone, I thought, a wave of the old pain coming to the surface.

"Naomi to Megan." I jumped at the sudden noise. Then realized it was my commbadge. I pressed the badge.

"What is it, Naomi?"

"It's 10 hundred hours! You're late for our game!" Naomi sounded annoyed.

"I'll be there in a minute," I replied. "Quincy out." I insisted on using my last name over the comm. I wanted to be thought of as any other member of the crew, in spite of my age. But no one was catching on, certainly not Naomi.

***


"Pass the carrots, please," Icheb requested from across the table. He was always so polite. It annoyed me sometimes.

"No problem," I said, handing him the bowl of steamed carrots. The porcelain was cool to the touch. I supposed that the combination of replicator technology and improved dishware produced such an effect.

"How was your kadis-kot game?" Samantha Wildman asked us-Naomi, Icheb, and I being "us".

"Good," Naomi replied, in spite of her mouth being full of half-grinded meatloaf. She swallowed, and her next words were much more intelligible. "Megan beat me in the third round. Then all of us played a tournament. Icheb won, of course."

"What do you mean, of course?" Icheb's face was a mixture of embarrassment and attempted humility. He wasn't pulling it off very well. "I have been playing for several months. Once Megan has similar experience, she will no doubt beat us both."

I rolled my eyes. "Right. In addition, if I practice hard enough, someday I'll be able to solve quadratic equations as fast as a computer. It's not gonna happen."

"I am not a computer."

I saw the indignation in Icheb's eyes and realized my mistake. Who could blame him about being sensitive about his Borg roots? Being injected with nanoprobes and losing your individuality isn't exactly the most fun thing in the universe. Even worse, his enormously screwed-up parents had got him assimilated on purpose. "I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't mean it that way."

"I understand. Apology accepted." He took another bite of meatloaf, and then, in an attempt to change the subject, remarked, "Have you heard about the Lucira?"

Everyone nodded except for me. Why was I always the last to hear about anything? It had been happening all week. Talk about the error that caused the computer to recite Prospero's last speech in The Tempest repeatedly for nearly a half-hour before the glitch was fixed, the alleged appearance of leprechauns on the Fair Haven program, and an amusing but completely untrue rumor that the Captain and the Commander had finally gotten together and were going to announce their engagement at the next ship-wide party, had come to me days late. I had actually slept through a minor skirmish with a small raiding ship two nights before and was incredibly confused when Naomi started talking about it the next morning.

"Who are the Lucira?" I asked, wondering what sort of evil gremlins Voyager had run into this time.

Sam explained. "This morning, we made contact with them. They control several solar systems in this sector, and their home planet is Lucira in the Merat system. Captain Janeway spoke with their ambassador, and they're interested in working with us to improve our warp systems. They haven't developed the technology that allows Voyager to go past warp five without polluting the space-time continuum, so we'll help them integrate it into their systems. In exchange, they'll share methods that will help us maintain high warp factors for extended periods of time."

"I see." I'd completely forgotten about the warp-induced space-time pollution that showed up in some episode of Next Generation, and wondered how they'd managed to compensate for it.

"How long will we be working with them?" asked Icheb.

Sam shrugged. "At least two weeks, maybe more, depending on how compatible our systems are. For that time, anyone who's not involved in the project will have shoreleave on the planet."

I grinned. Shoreleave! The prospect of getting away from Voyager cheered me. Not that I hated Voyager, but the gray decor and artificial light left something to be desired. "That's terrific. I can't wait to walk on a planet again. I didn't realize how much I loved sunlight until I came here."

Sam smiled, but she didn't look particularly enthused. "Yes, I suppose it will be nice to get off of Voyager for a while, even if I will be working nonstop for the next two weeks. That reminds me, could you watch Naomi while we're down there?" Naomi made a face; she was at the age that she felt far too mature for a babysitter. "Neelix is going to be busy obtaining supplies," Sam continued, "so I didn't want to bother him. If you mind, I could ask someone else."

"No, that's be fine," I assured her. "I'd love to." Naomi was a breeze to watch. Having grown up on a starship, she knew to stay out of trouble.

"Thank you, Megan. Computer, what time is it?"

"Twelve thirty-five," the computer reported.

Sam sighed and collected our empty dishes, putting them in the replicator to be reabsorbed. "Back to engineering for me. Naomi, where will you be this afternoon?"

"Neelix and I are going to the holodeck. He found a new program in the ship's database. It's based on some old novel... Ala in, something that ends with "land".

I smiled. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?" I suggested.

"Yeah, that's it. Is it good? Have you read it?"

I nodded. "It's really good. I used to love that book when I was a kid." Alice in Wonderland... and I was Alice, trapped in a topsy-turvy world. It was an interesting metaphor and certainly accurate.

"Thank you for lunch, Ensign Wildman," Icheb said as he handed her his plate to be reabsorbed by the replicator.

"Yeah, thanks," I chimed in.

"No problem. You both are welcome any time." She put the last of the dishware into the replicator and grabbed a couple PADDs off a nearby table. "I've got to get to engineering. Goodbye for now." She exited the room.

"What are you guys doing this afternoon?" asked Naomi as we left the Wildmans' quarters.

"I will be assisting Seven in astrometrics," Icheb informed her.

"What about you, Megan?"

I shrugged. "Wendy Jenkins invited me to go hiking with her and a few other people, but I think I'd rather curl up in my quarters with a good book."

"Sounds fun," Naomi laughed.

I stopped at my quarters. "Here's my quarters. Bye."

Naomi said a cheerful goodbye and raced off to the turbolift, but Icheb paused at my door. "Megan, I must ask you something." He had an unusually grave look on his face.

"What?" I asked, worried that he had some bad news.

"I will not be involved with the project in Lucira. I wanted to know if I could accompany Naomi and you on the planet."

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. "Of course you can! Don't be so serious about things; you scared me."

Icheb managed to smile slightly. "I will remember that. Thank you. I should be going to astrometrics."

"See you, Icheb," I shouted after him as he walked down the hallway.

He looked back at me and smiled. "See you, Megan." The colloquial phrase sounded funny contrasted to his usual formality. I smiled and rolled my eyes. That boy is strange, I thought. Still, he was good company. My older friends-Harry, Lotty, Wendy, and the rest-were likable, but I always felt out of place, being younger. It was nice to have someone my own age to spend time with.

***

I was behind in my journal. I've always made a point of writing in it every night, but I'd been so busy this past week that I hadn't kept it up. This was a first time occurrence, and now I was trying to catch up to the events of today. Until now, journal entries had often been dull and served little purpose besides taking out my anger on paper and leaving records for posterity. Suddenly, my journal had become very, very interesting. They reminded me distinctly of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court-make that "A New Jersey Teenager on Janeway's Ship", or something along those lines.

I had just gotten to the funnier details of my first dinner with Sam, Naomi, and Icheb, involving grated carrots, bad jokes, and a song I'd made up last year to memorize the cranial nerves of the body-Olive Oil Or Tossed Turnips, Angel Found A Violent April Hurricane!-when the door chime sounded unexpectedly.

I closed the journal, a small pastel blue book with "Megan" embossed in gold, and placed it on the table by my bed. "Who is it?" I called.

"It's Lotty Emmanuel," a voice shouted hoarsely. "Can I come in?"

"Sure. It's open."

The doors swished open and Lotty entered my quarters. She looked like she had woken about five minutes ago. Her eyes were half-open and bloodshot, her mouth twisted into a queasy frown. Her dark hair was sticking up erratically. She wore a wrinkled uniform minus jacket that looked like it had been thrown on in a hurry. Of course, I didn't look much better-I was wearing my ridiculous turtle pajamas, my toenails painted various colors, hair twisted into tiny and unsightly braids designed to crimp it during the night.

"Nice place you've got here," she commented in an unsteady voice. "We lowly crewmen have quarters the size of storage lockers." Admittedly, my quarters had improved over the last week. I'd replicated a huge painting of a lily by Georgia O'Keeffe, as well as the aforementioned calendar, which featured photographs of the Maine coastline. A purple chenille blanket folded on top of the sofa lent some color to the gray decor, as did a vase of yellow flowers that Neelix had brought from airponics a couple days ago.

"Thanks. What are you doing here? It has to be at least midnight."

Lotty bit her lip. "Well, first of all, I was wondering why you didn't come on the hike this afternoon. We had a lot of fun. Clement almost fell of the mountain."

I gave her a doubtful look. "I wasn't in a hiking mood. Sorry I didn't let you guys know. But it's kind of late to be wondering where I was. Is that all?"

She sighed. "It's complicated. This is going to take a while, can I sit down?"

"Sure," I replied, motioning to the couch. She sat down, and I curled up in a nearby armchair.

"This is going to sound crazy," she began, "but I swear that I'm telling the truth. Remember dinner yesterday, when Harry and Isaac were complaining about the food as always, and Harry said that I should have predicted how bad Neelix's soup was?"

I nodded. Their comment had seemed more than a little odd to me, but I hadn't said anything.

"There was a reason that they said that." She paused, took a deep breath, and blurted out, "Megan, I see things. In dreams."

I stared at her, having major Sixth Sense flashbacks. "What?"

"I have a gift, okay? I know things about people and past events. It's very erratic, but when it does come, it's usually in the form of dreams, or visions."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're psychic." I wanted to laugh. I had a very strong opinion about that sort of thing, and it was this-it was all completely fake, an excuse for people to make money off of other people's stupidity and superstition.

Lotty could see I was skeptical. "I know this sounds completely impossible, but bear with me. Please."

The look on Lotty's face was quite serious, so I tried to push all my preconceptions away and breathed, "Fine, go on."

"Tonight, I had a dream about your Earth. I didn't want to tell you, but I talked to Wendy about it and she thought that you should know."

That was it. "How do you know it was my Earth?" I exclaimed.

"I just knew! That's the way it works! If you'd listen, you'd believe me."

"Okay, okay." I pulled my knees up to my chin and rested my head on them.

Lotty suddenly sniffed, her eyes watering up. "Listen, I don't have to tell you this, not if you don't want to know. It's... really serious."

I rolled my eyes. "Just tell me, okay?"

"My dream involved a man named Ivan Micheltsikof. Do you know who he is?"

I did, and so did everybody else in the US in my time. Micheltsikof, the commander of the Russian armed forces. Micheltsikof, the great Communist leader. Micheltsikof, the hero of the Russian people. Micheltsikof, quite possibly the devil himself.

"Yes," I murmured. "He's a Russian commander... or was. When I left, he was organizing an alliance with China. Well, technically the president of Russia was, but Micheltsikof's the one actually in control. They're sharing nuclear technology. He's only involved in the armed forces now, but he's running for president next election. He has enormous public support; it will be a miracle if he doesn't win." I paused. The next words that came out of my mouth were shaky. "He wants Russia to revert to Communism and unite with China, possibly even under one political leadership. The current Chinese leaders are under his thumb; they'd join him in a heartbeat. The UN will probably forbid an actual merger of the two countries, but that doesn't mean Micheltsikof won't do it anyway. It would completely screw up the balance of power, especially if the Russian economy improves. God knows what would happen then."

Lotty closed her eyes as if praying. After a few moments, she opened them again and spoke. "Meg," she said, "a few months after you left, there was a revolt led by Micheltsikof and his followers. They overthrew the Russian government and killed the president and his supporters in legislature. Russia was officially declared a Communist state, with Micheltsikof as its leader. A week later, they attacked the US."

I stared at her in utter disbelief. "That's ridiculous!"

"I promise you," Lotty said slowly but sternly, "I am not lying. Please believe me."

"Why should I?" I shouted, throwing my hands up into the air. My head was spinning with fury. "This is nuts."

Lotty's pale blue eyes gleamed as she softly said, "So, you watched us on TV, right?"

I nodded. "What does that have to do with anything."

"Then you'll recognize this phrase. The Year of Hell."

I rolled my eyes. "I am a fan, you know. Kes witnessed part of the Year of Hell and told you guys. What's your point?"

She shook her head. "Kes witnessed an alternate version of the Year of Hell, and a small portion of it at that. But I remember the real version, and I remember all of it." Her voice was strained. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek. She made no effort to wipe it from her face. "The Krenim attacks, the ship going to hell, Commander Tuvok's blindness... hell, I remember the Captain and the Commander fighting over some watch he'd replicated for her birthday, and I wasn't even there." Her voice went down to a whisper. "I died," she said, softly, weakly, honestly. "In one of the attacks. And yet, when it was all over and things were set back to normal, all of the memories came rushing towards me. Memories that weren't even mine. And there's a hell of a lot more where that came from. It's never very useful information, just irrelevant and frightening."

As she spoke, my eyes widened, and my hands returned to my sides. There was a long silence, which I broke with the shaky words, "Where did they attack?"

Lotty frowned. "The sick bastards bombed Pearl Harbor."

I stared at her in horror. "You're kidding. That's disgusting."

"It was Micheltsikof's way of proving his power, although it also proved how twisted he is. There was no tactical advantage, but it sure pissed the American people off. The Japanese, who were with the US and Europe this time, were also angry as hell. It's like saying, you're going to have to nuke us before we back down. Except, in this case, everyone's worrying that he'll nuke them first." I noticed that she was lapsing into the present tense, as if the event had just happened. "He's not stupid, and he's not going to do it unless he thinks he has to, but we're talking about a genuine power-hungry madman here. He'll do anything to stay in power. The journalists are already calling it World War Three." She shook her head. "Spirits, it's like the Cold War again, but this time there's going to be combat. It's unavoidable. I must say, I'm afraid for your Earth."

I remembered to exhale, then heard myself say, "I guess I'm glad you told me." I questioned the validity of this statement immediately after I said it.

She shrugged. "I didn't want to, but Wendy thought I should. She was right. I would be protecting you like a little kid if I didn't tell you the truth. That wouldn't be fair." She stood up. "Good night, Megan. Gods bless."

I tried to smile. It didn't work. "Night," I said. Thought about her words. "Do you believe in God?"

"Many. I practice Shinto." At first I thought she was joking, but her voice was serious.

"But isn't Shinto Japanese?"

She shrugged. "Details. I come from a long line of Vietnamese Buddhists. They were refugees in Japan during the Vietnam War, where they picked up Shinto and dropped the Buddhism. They proceeded to go to Europe and intermarry with a horde of Orthodox Christian Russians and atheist Italians, some of them with Jewish ancestry, until the Vietnamese bloodline wore thin. Lucky me, I got a mixture of Italian and Russian features, a Hebrew last name that has a bizarre story of its own, and a Japanese religion. Go figure." She grinned. "Go to sleep. Talk in the morning, right?"

"Okay," I replied. "Good night."

After she left, I went to bed. I was in no mood to finish my journal. I couldn't stop thinking about what Lotty had told me, of the implications of her message. They'll be okay, I justified. The war will be fought in Asia mostly, if there is a war at all. You don't know yet. Dad's in industry, so even if he is drafted it won't be as a soldier. Don't worry.

I took a deep breath. I was tired and craved sleep, departure from all this. Here I was again, a week later, searching for a peace of mind. Funny, that as soon as I was feeling less fragile, there was one more crisis to bring me to my knees. That was the way it always went, right? Problems came and went, empires rose and fell, and peace was a word reserved for the minutes and hours in between.

In the midst of all of this, I thought of Zach Hudson. Could the human mind be any more random? Zach Hudson at a time like this? It made sense, in a convoluted sort of way. Zach always cheered me up during times like these-although, back home, "times likes these" indicated no worse than a failed history test or an argument with my parents. Little things that had seemed so impossible, and Zach had been with me through them all. He was perpetually kind and understanding, and we'd been friends for years.

And, yes, I liked him. For the past two months, I'd been secretly harboring a large and unwieldy crush. While he was well aware that practically everyone at school wanted us to get together-our chemistry teacher made jokes about it, for God's sake-he was blind to the fact that all of it was rooted in me. I didn't tell him, of course. We were friends. It would be weird.

My God, why hadn't I told him? For all I knew, he did like me back, and I had missed out on a wonderful relationship with a great guy. I certainly hadn't gained from doing nothing and letting it play out like a bad episode of Dawson's Creek. With the clarity of hindsight, I saw so many regrets. I could have done so much more-told my family that I loved them, finished the letter I had been meaning to send to my old elementary school friend who'd moved to Seattle, gone to the movies with my best friends on Sunday instead of finishing some goddamned French project that I would never get a grade for. I would never see any of them again. For God's sake, there was going to be a war. I shivered as I thought, who knows what might happen then.

If I ever see Zach again, I'll tell him. It was a stupid promise, but I meant it. I am going to tell him. Maybe we'll go out, maybe we won't. And if we do, we'll probably break up within months, because we're normal teenagers. I bet we'll have some stupid fight over nothing, and the next day I'll tell him that we should probably end it now, before it gets bad. I'll pretend to believe this is the right choice, and he'll pretend to agree. That night, all my friends will come over for a sleepover; we'll mope and paint our toenails and eat ice cream out of the container and talk about what pigs men are. We will laugh and cry and graduate from high school and go out into the world, and we will live. And I will have my life back.

But it wasn't that simple; there were still the seconds and minutes, the unending revelation of reality, cutting each second of bliss a half-second short. I was still on Voyager, there was still no way for me to get home, and I still liked Zach and missed my family and friends like crazy.

Maybe, I thought, I could deal with that. The story of Pandora's Box came to mind. All the evils of the world escaped when she opened the Box, but Pandora closed it soon enough to entrap hope. I possessed this hope, an absurd, beautiful state of mind that believed, prayed, knew that the state of things must improve. Now, the box was shut. No one, not Roschland or Lotty or Micheltsikof himself, could take that from me.

Review, please!