Thanks to everyone for your reviews, they have inspired me. I apologise in advance if I take a while to update anything, my block exams are this week.

Disclaimer: No matter how much we kick, scream, cry or throw temper tantrums, Voyager still belongs to Paramount, as do all the characters, except for the ones I invented, whom you will meet later. In other words, Paramount is too lazy to make a movie, so l think it is out duty as fans to play with them, manipulate them and speculate what should happen after Endgame.

Have fun, remember, reviews make me write faster, if I don't have any exams.

The Official Mission Chapter 2 - Breaking the News

Kathryn walked onto the Bridge from the Briefing Room to break the news to her senior staff, the only officers, other than a skeleton crew, who were actually on duty and residing on the ship.

As she crossed the Bridge to her command chair in the centre, the First Officer's on her right of the deck behind Helm and Ops, she was taking in the new layout of the command centre of the ship. It almost resembled the Bridge of her previous ship. Almost. But on her new Bridge, Ops and Helm stations were just about the same console in front of the viewscreen and the Engineering and Science stations lined the back wall of the Bridge. Stellar Cartography and Tactical/Security was on the deck directly above the command chairs. The Counsellor had a small stationto the left of the door to her Ready Room, directly opposite the Briefing Room, in the same place it was on the previous Voyager.

"Everyone, I have something to tell you..." she started, looking around at her staff with a sad and depressed look on her face.

"What, Kathryn?" Chakotay asked her. "Does it have something to do with the call that came through for you?"

"Yeah, Captain. Who did call you anyway?" Tom Paris asked her from his seat at the conn.

"OK, you all know that I may be restricted to quarters during the final weeks of my pregnancy, right?" She asked.

B'Elanna nodded and everyone else agreed. "I would have been confined when I was pregnant with Miral, but she was stubborn and I was forced to walk around on duty to, let me say, encourage her to enter the world. I think if I was bed-ridden, Tom would have killed either me or himself out of frustration and anger." The staff in the room laughed at the last sentence. "Sorry, Tom," B'Elanna said to her husband between giggles.

"Well, anyway," Kathryn said as she was chuckling, "The Doctor has said I most probably will be out of action for around a month, atleast two weeks on either side of my child's birth." A nod of agreement went around the Bridge, all who knew her closely agreeing with her. "OK, so the call that was sent to me, it was from Admiral Paris, Tom's father, at Starfleet Command. He had some bad news for us."

The crew watched as their Commanding Officer squirmed where she was standing. She was obviously uncomfortable with the news she was about to break to them, Abigail thought. As the new ship's counsellor, even to a crew that was so used to not having a counsellor, she had to evaluate and interpret the body language of all the officers, including their beloved Captain.

"Come on, spill the beans!" Tom Paris exclaimed, and the crew laughed again, this time at his expense.

"OK, OK then, since you insist Mr Paris," Kathryn Janeway said, chuckles still present in her voice. "The news is depressing," her tone immediately sobered. "The SCE have managed to create a completely functional prototype transwarp engine. They have expressed their interest, or should I say, they have had HQ order the installation of the engine on our ship, since it was made especially for use on Voyager-A. So, Admiral Paris has told me we will not be leaving drydock tomorrow morning, but the ship will be staying here for atleast another month. We have been asked to return to Earth until she is ready to leave. It also means another month I will spend out of the command chair when our mission does take flight. We don't have any say in this, so, Mr Paris, don't go appealing to your father abouth this, because we all know you want to, but we will be planetside for another month, whether we like it or not."

The room immediately sobered, all traces of laughter, happiness and family togetherness dissapearing in an instant.

"Owen has implied that Commander Torres have atleast her main Engineering team stay back here at Utopia Planetia to assist with the installation of the new engine and, if Tom can hack it, have her stay here to supervise it. Everyone else has been asked to stay in an appartment building purposely vacated for our entire crew if they have no where on Earth they currently reside at." Her tone was glum as she told her family their predicament.

"But!" "What?" "How can they..?"