Chapter four

Deep Space

Stardate 58949.2

We are in our third month of our deep space exploration mission of the Alpha Quadrant. The crew of the Appalachia has worked well together. Many off the former Voyager crewmembers have embraced the new people aboard and are working to help explore this region of space far beyond the Bajoran system.

The sleek starship flew though space with ease. It's history although relatively short, was unique. It fought in the battle with the Borg when the Enterprise went back into time. It is one of the few remaining Steam runner class ships left since the Dominion war. And its crew is mostly remainders of Voyager. The commanding officer Chakotay, was Janeway's right hand man for the seven years in the Delta quadrant. The chief engineer is B'Ellana Torres-Paris who tries to run Appalachia as well as she ran Voyager. The first officer is her husband Thomas Eugene Paris, the former pilot and now family man. The operations officer is the most unique. She was the last to join this crew after all the de-briefing at Starfleet headquarters. She once was known as Seven of Nine, but goes by her given human name of Anika Hansen. She was given a rank of Lieutenant and assignment of operations to better help the assignment of finding out what is beyond the Bajoran and Cardassian systems. Starfleet had meant for years to search this area between DS9 and the far reaches of the Gamma quadrant but until now had no experienced crews or commanders to endure such a long term mission.

Captain Chakotay looked at his pad and tried to come up with so whimsical saying that could encourage his crew to become better motivated. But his mind was blank. There was nothing that could make this mission seem all the more pleasurable. It was as if Starfleet gave them the worst possible assignment after their journey to return to the Alpha quadrant.

"Captain we are receiving a priority message from Starfleet Command. It's encoded and it will take time to decipher." The conn officer informed.

"Send down to astrometrics. Lt. Hansen will be able to retrieve it." He answers.

"Are you sure?" Tom Paris broke in. "The last time we got a message, she took over a week to decipher it. She isn't as efficient with out the Borg technology, that they insisted to remove."

"I know she can do it, Tom. Besides what happened to all the excitement of a new mission and a new job."

"I left on Earth with the rest of the crew. Come on, you know this is their way of saying that they don't trust us with larger responsibilities."

"I don't believe that's true. If they didn't want us doing anything we would have all stood trial for crimes against the Federation and against Cardassia. After all we were Maquis." Chakotay says not believing it himself.

Just then the comm. comes on and the person says, "Torres to Paris. Report to engineering immediately."

"Duty calls." Paris says to Chakotay as he makes his way to the turbo lift.

"Both ways, right Tom." Chakotay jokingly responds.

As the first officer enters main engineering, most of the crew is circled around a person who looks to have been caught stealing things.

"What's going on?" Paris asks.

"This little thief was trying to take our isoliner chips." Torres responds angrily.

"Why was that? They don't have enough on his home world."

"It's bad enough we took him in when we stopped at their world and helped them out, but when they start taking things out and stealing things, that's the last straw."

"He did help out our stellar cartography staff to find a way through this place."

Torres is becoming angrier by the second. He gets right in his face and asks, "Are you taking some strangers side of are you going to take your wife's side on this."

"I'm just trying to be fair as first officer. We'll put him in the brig until we come back this way. And then we'll let the authorities on his homeworld deal with it."

"Sometimes I don't know where the uniform ends and the person begins."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You seem to use that excuse every time something like this comes up. Maybe you should check-"

"Wearing this uniform, being first officer is important. You have to realize that sometimes I have to make difficult choices. I can't go with my personal feelings, all of the time."

Just then Tom and B'Ellana realize that they are air their 'dirty laundry' in front of the entire engineering staff. They both look at each other and say,

"I've gotta get back to work. Carry on."

B'Ellana looks at her staff and they all applaud. She is totally embarrassed. But then she says, "Enough with the drama, get back to work."

In the astrometrics lab, Anika is working on the encrypted message from Starfleet. Chakotay walks in to check on her progress. When she sees him she gets nervous, probably because of their history together. She never has been comfortable with him in situations when she's alone with him. On the other hand, he is as nervous as she is."

"Report, Lieutenant."

"I have nearly completed the message. There are just a couple more blocks to clear."

"Everyone's anxious what it will say. Could it be new orders, or do we keep going father into this abyss we've entered."

"I don't know how to answer that." She responds.

Chakotay can see she is bothered by his presence. Then he takes her hand and says, "It will take time. You and I can try to work together but there will be feeling of being uncomfortable, every time we do. We have to get over what we may have or may not have felt."

"Being human is far more difficult than I realized. I just don't know if I can be here anymore."

"Well-let's see what the message is and go from there."

Anika hits a couple of buttons and the message comes up on the main screen. It is an admiral who says the following:

Greetings from Earth and Starfleet Command. We have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you have a new assignment. You'll get your orders when you return to Deep Space Nine. The bad news is that you'll be put on another deep space assignment. We hope to hear from you soon. Starfleet out.

"It looks like we're going home." Chakotay gleefully says. Then he hits his communicator and commands, "Set course for DS9. Warp 8.5."

"Acknowledged." The helm officer says.

And Appalachia warps back toward where their short journey started. But another is just begging.