Star Voyager - Part 12

By Iejasu and Miklinar


Vader awoke. His sleep had been deep, dreamless, but
something in the back of his brain brought him boiling
up to wakefulness... "If this is a visit from that
'doctor', I am going to..."

But no one was in the room. The room was as he had
left it, dark, warm... Vader shivered. It wasn't a
physical chill but a mental one. How had Luke
persisted in describing it? Ah. "I have a bad feeling
about this." In a specific tone of voice that never
changed...

The large man stared up at the ceiling. Maybe he
_should_ talk to the EMH. This might be a new phase of
his healing, something to be endured... or a setback.
_That_ would certainly be an annoyance.

Vader flexed his hand. Flesh and blood, bone and
muscle, instead of servos and wires. This Federation
medical technology was certainly superior to the
Empire's. The doctor had been able to grow him a new
hand from his own cells, once the EMH had found some
that weren't radiation damaged.

Vader sighed and sat up, swinging his legs over the
side of his bed. A cup of hot chocolate would be
welcome right now, but he would have to go to the
dining hall to get it, and he didn't feel like company
-- Neelix was probably asleep, but some crewman would
be tending the replicator.

Then he had a thought. The pub in Fair Haven would
have something suitable. And the walk there would
relax him, too.

The corridors to the holodeck were nearly deserted.
Janeway didn't have enough crew to run full functions
all night. Vader had only a vague idea of how
_Voyager_ had come to be so far from home -- the
records available to him were vague at best,
nonsensical at worst -- but the catastrophe had
reduced her crew to a mere fraction of its full
complement, even with the Maquis crew integrated.

The holodeck with Fair Haven was in use for a private
party. Vader turned and found the holodeck with the
dojo open. He stepped inside. Maybe exercise would do
him some good.

Vader was in the middle of what the sensei called
"katas" when suddenly the room rippled. The white
paper walls darkened and roughened, and he could hear
the growls of unseen creatures. He whirled at a
footstep behind him.

"Computer, freeze program!" It was Torres, in an
unfamiliar suit of armor, carrying an arc of steel
that could only be a weapon. "Well," she snarled. "Did
you bother to check the schedule before suiting up?"

"No. I had no idea there would be competition for the
facility at this hour." Vader looked around, at the
engineer's armor, at the ferocious figures just now
coming into view. "You are here to fight?"

Torres snorted. "I've got three hours scheduled -- and
it isn't for a tea party. Now, if you'll just pack
yourself up and leave, I'll get on with it."

Vader could feel the anger rolling off of the woman
like heat off a Tatooine rock in mid-afternoon. Her
adrenalin flavored the very air. And while Vader knew
he could defend himself, the bo-ken seemed a feeble
instrument against that gleaming fang in Torres' hand.

Torres glared at Skywalker. This... intruder had been
the reason for half of her bad mood _before_ she had
walked in and found him, and to find him here, now...
Her hands shifted on the bat'leth.

Heh. Maybe she could take this man down a peg or two.
He was in armor, had some weapon experience...
"Computer. Duplicate my bat'leth." The other weapon
appeared in a shimmer on the holodeck floor. Torres
nudged it with the toe of her armored boot. "Let's see
if you can handle a real weapon, not just a fancy
stick."

Vader reached down and picked up the bat'leth. It had
a fair heft to it, but the balance was odd. He slid
the bo-ken into his sash and gripped the bat'leth
firmly. "Show me some of the standard forms."

That smile was not friendly. "You'll figure it out.
Program, continue!" Her grip tightened, and her eyes
flashed. For a moment, she reminded Vader of his
daughter -- or her mother.

The figures in the dark were all in a unfamiliar
uniform. They were all one species. "Cardassians."
Torres circled to keep her blade toward them.

Vader took a quick swing with the bat'leth, trying to
get its balance. Then a Cardassian charged him. Torres
beside him screamed in rage and attacked.

The weapon was clumsy in his hands, but he adapted.
And the opponents were as solid as the pig farmer had
been in Fair Haven. At first he just parried the
attacks of the "Cardassians," then one of the enemy
got past his guard. Vader administered a kick to the
assailant's gut, and then he swung the bat'leth. It
sliced through the middle of his opponent. To his
surprise, the hologram opened and spilled presumably
realistic guts onto the ground.

Torres turned toward him and grinned. He grinned back
and waded into the fray, a good deal more certain of
his capabilities.

Vader let the adrenalin take him, let himself slip
into a battle-rage. He felt himself fall back into
oneness with the Force. Ah. He had missed this....
Even against a hologram opponent, the Force could
guide him, warn him of an attack.

Vader paused, suddenly aware that he had no enemies in
his sight. He turned. Torres was standing beside him,
blood-splattered, breathing heavily. "So," breath,
"Skywalker." Breath. "Not bad," breath, "for a
beginner."

Vader mock-scowled at Torres. "An apprentice's fight.
Don't you have anything more challenging?"

Torres glared at Skywalker. He wanted a challenge?
Well, she was warmed up, now. "Computer. Torres
exercise program, most recent modification. Begin."

The corpses on the floor disappeared. The walls
rippled again -- now they stood on a boulder-strewn
plain, under a yellow sky. Vader could hear hidden
enemies, although his Force-perceptions couldn't pick
up any life-forms here.

A scream behind him, and the rush of feet. Vader
whirled, and battle was engaged. at one point he
turned to see his companion. Her face was distorted in
an all-too-familiar rage. Others in the crew had
mentioned Klingons to Vader -- that blood was the
source of Torres's temper.

The battle was much longer, and Vader had cuts and
bruises by the end, with a dull ache along one side of
his leg. That had been his own fault -- dodging a
Cardassian, he had slammed into one of the large
boulders.

Deep breaths, while he scanned the terrain. The woman
beside him was scarcely winded! "So, Skywalker. Better
than kendo class?"

Vader dropped his head as a single nod. "Much better."
A deep breath. Good -- the aches were going away as
the Force healed him. But if the doctor paid a visit
to him, he would still have some explaining to do.
"Your program. Can anyone access it?"

"Anyone I let, yes." She waited. Vader ducked his head
once. Torres grinned and added "Skywalker" to the
access list.

"You have some vicious tactics there, Skywalker. Are
you sure you aren't part Klingon?"

Vader smiled briefly, leaning down to remove the heads
of the injured Cardassians. Suddenly the bodies
sparkled, and the walls became the familiar yellow
grid on black walls. "Not to my knowledge,
Lieutenant."

"I'm not so sure about that, chal yIt'a'...." (chal =
sky, yIt = walk; 'a' =superlative noun suffix )

He looked at his comrade-in-arms. "You look like I
feel -- battered. If the doctor finds out about this,
he'll lock me in sickbay for a month."

Torres grinned. "That's why I brought this little gem
along. Tom says you test out as a human, medically,
so..." Torres showed Vader how to use the dermal
regenerator she had brought with her. Vader sighed as
the barely-held-back aches vanished.

He flexed his hand. "It is healing, not just
pain-killing. This is much more than our science can
do."

Torres snorted amicably. "Planning to take one with
you when you head out?"

"I don't understand."

Torres turned to look at the large man. She could see
how Tom could get attached to Skywalker -- she had
never met anyone who behaved more like an admiral in
her life, and with Tom, "admiral" always had the tinge
of "father" to it: respect and rebellion in equal
measure, in a mad whirl.

"I thought that was why you were concentrating on the
Delta Flyer. So you could take one of our shuttles and
find your way home."

"Perhaps I shall, some day. I think I should like to
heal fully, first, though. If I have to make another
wormhole trip, I want to arrive on the other end in
better shape than I arrived here."

"I don't blame you there."

Vader could feel that her anger was gone --both her
battle-rage and the bitter resentment against him for
taking so much of her mate's time. After all, they
were fellow warriors, were they not?

"The exercise was more interesting as a pair, was it
not?"

Torres nodded, starting to strip off her armor. "It
was a change. Let me know if you need another workout,
and I'll look at my schedule."

"I look forward to it." He swung up the bat'leth in a
salute. "An interesting weapon. We shall have to
discuss its history, some day."

============

Vader returned to his quarters and spent a long while
in the 'fresher, letting the spray pummel his muscles.
The medical machine had done a fine job on the cuts
and bruises, but muscle strain was a different thing.

The computer voice issued its wake-up call. Ah. He was
ahead of schedule. There was an invitation, time
stamped last night, from the Captain to dine with her,
two days hence, featuring a pot roast. Vader told the
computer to answer with an acceptance.

Food. Vader decided to dress and make his way to the
dining hall, waiting for Paris there. Somehow the
prospect of strangers gaping at him wasn't nauseating
today. Amazing what the feel of a real weapon in hand
could do for one, even a weapon as primitive as forged
steel.

Vader let Neelix choose a selection for him -- a basic
like French toast, and some new things to try. A large
glass of orange juice and a large cup of coffee shared
the tray.

Naomi Wildman walked past his table... past and back
to it. She had French toast, too. Vader nodded and she
put her tray down. "Yesterday I found out where real
maple syrup comes from -- the non-replicated kind.
It's the boiled-down sap of maple trees."

Vader let the child chatter. Sugar-producing trees
seemed unlikely, but _Voyager_ seemed fairly good
about telling their offspring when something was
fiction -- at other meals, Vader had heard Naomi
talking about this story or that, acted out on the
holodecks. "And if the sap gets really thick, they
make it into candy. Stay here!" she said, putting her
hand on his arm for a second before sprinting over to
Neelix.

She returned with two small tan shapes wrapped in
plastic flimsies. She opened one and broke it into
pieces. She put one piece into Vader's hand. "Here!
Try it!"

Vader lifted his hand to his mouth. The taste was, of
course, familiar, but the intensity of it washed over
him in a rush. Naomi waited for a response. "Very
nice, Miss Wildman."

Naomi grinned and put the unopened candy on Vader's
tray. "You can eat the other piece later." She broke
up the remainder of the first piece and scattered it
over her breakfast.

The glass of white liquid on her tray stirred a
fragment of memory. He had had replicated cow's milk
here. This memory bit was of home... blue milk? From a
far different animal than a cow, certainly.

Vader finished his French toast and gingerly tasted
the other samples Neelix had provided. Most of them
were tolerable variations of breakfast, one was quite
good, and one was ... Vader sincerely hoped that one
of his shipmates actually _liked_ something that
tasted like that. The alternative explanation was a
replicator malfunction that could poison them all.

==============

Tom walked into the dining hall to see Skywalker in a
conversation with Naomi Wildman. The kid was okay, but
just had too much enthusiasm for early morning, at
least before coffee. But it looked like the admiral
had his breakfast well under his belt already.

Paris filled a tray and got himself a cup of coffee.
B'Lanna had been in a good mood when she had returned
from her exercise this morning - she had even
forgotten to snarl at him about his assistant.

He sat close to the admiral, but not close enough to
suppress the girl, who had sprinkled something grainy
on her French toast.

Skywalker finished his meal, and was toying with a
piece of candy wrapped in plastic. He turned and saw
Paris. Skywalker smiled at Naomi and said something,
then rose and took his tray to the counter. The older
man spoke to Neelix, then collected the candy from the
tray before it could be whisked away.

Skywalker stood next to Paris. "Should I wait for you
at the hangar?"

Skywalker was just _too_ cheerful this morning. "Just
a minute." Paris gulped one last bite of food, and
stood up. He turned his tray in, and kept the coffee
cup. "Ready to go."

Skywalker's stride was different this morning, less
stiff, more liquid. "Been exercising?" Tom asked.

"I had a nice workout this morning," Vader agreed.
"Your wife has interesting tastes in exercise
regimens."

Paris's jaw dropped. "You ran into her on the
holodeck?"

"Yes." The older man turned to look at him. "An
unusual woman. Quite a temper."

Hm. Tom hadn't seen any scorch marks on B'Lanna, or
great bleeding wounds on Skywalker, so the fight must
not have been between them. "You're going to have to
tell me what happened."

===================

"Admiral, I have to head for the bridge. Tell you what
-- you can head back to your quarters, or hang out in
the gym until lunch."

Vader didn't blame him for not wanting to leave him
here unsupervised. Back to his room was not at all
appealing, though. "What other holodeck programs are
running?

"Classes, right now. Fair Haven's down for routine
maintenance. Only the gym's free."

Vader stretched. Even after his workout this morning,
more limbering would do him good -- he had to crouch
in some awkward positions while working on the Delta
Flyer. "Sounds good. Then lunch... the doctor wants to
poke at me this afternoon."

Tom grimaced, "Lucky you. He did a good job on your
injuries, though, didn't he."

Vader flexed his re-grown hand. "Indeed he did, Mister
Paris."

=============

Naomi Wildman finished her class, and asked the
computer to find Seven of Nine for her. "Seven of Nine
is in Engineering," came the answer.

Naomi fumed. She wasn't allowed in Engineering without
an escort, and if Seven was busy, the little girl
didn't want to interrupt. "Where is Neelix?"

"Neelix is in the hangar bay."

Worse. Naomi had enough sense to keep her hands to
herself on a ship, but in the hangar, suddenly the
_air_ could be gone.

She could go play in the holodeck, or with one of the
other kids, but... "Where is Mister Skywalker?"

"Anakin Skywalker is in holodeck four."

Naomi skipped along the passageways, ducking around
groups of adults. Holodeck four was usually a gym.
Maybe Mister Skywalker would play a game with her.

========================