Second Chances: Chapter 30

Stardate 51027
January 2374
En route to Starbase 375
Federation Space

Lt. B'Elanna Torres exhaled as she shifted her weight from her right foot to her left, her arms following. She closed her eyes, trying to get in the rhythm of the motion and trying to clear her mind from everything but the motions of the mok'bara.

So accustomed to multi-tasking, it took a lot to focus on only one thing. And she didn't care what Dr. Bayrote claimed, it didn't make her mind any clearer.

She opened her eyes at the sound of the door sliding open, trying not to let the distraction disturb the motions of the Klingon martial art. "Oh, sorry, sir," Ensign Strzelcyzk said, stepping about half a meter into the small room before stopping. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Torres sighed, but didn't stop. "What do you need?" she asked.

"What're you doing?"

Torres rolled her eyes but refrained from pointing out that that didn't answer her question. "Mok'bara," she replied. "It's a Klingon martial art." She needed to do something to get her body moving, and it wasn't as if there was any room on the ship to go for a run. Klingon bodies didn't do well in cramped quarters; the last thing she needed was for her legs to start cramping up, which they had a tendency to do if she went too long without moving around. It had always been a problem, but had gotten worse after her coma. Commander Mileham, her physical therapist, had her start doing mok'bara during her recovery; he and Dr. Zalun believed that the motions would help stimulate the connections between her nerves and muscles. She's not sure if the mok'bara accelerated her recovery or not, but she tried to stick with it. Especially when there were no other options. "Did you come in here for a reason, or just to ask questions?" She was short with her officers, but didn't care. They expected her to get down to the point; considering they were all engineers, she was sure they appreciated the lack of small talk.

"Oh!" Strzelcyzk said, as if having forgotten that she just entered the room a few minutes before. "Chief Bamber asked me to ask you if you were ready for our sync meeting."

Torres sighed and finally stopped her exercises. She got almost forty minutes in; that was a new record in the few days since they had boarded the Jem'Hadar ship and began their trip toward Starbase 375, where they would meet up with the Defiant's crew. "Let's do it," she said with another sigh. She was in her tank top, shorts, and training flats, but they weren't exactly being formal on this trip.

She had brought her whole team on the mission, even though she knew most would be staying on 375 while the ship itself headed into Cardassian space. For her ensigns and most of her junior mechanics, it was their first space mission, but more importantly than giving them time in space, she needed them to help train the Defiant's crew on the operation of the ship. The junior mechanics were practicing their training on each other, and on the short walk from the room they had turned into an all-purpose room—gathering space, exercise room, mess hall minus replicators, which Torres swore she would someday figure out how to make compatible with the ship's systems—toward the bridge, they passed three pairs of mechanics conducting said training sessions, and another two pairs on the bridge itself.

"Take off for the night," Torres said to them.

"Yes, Captain," the four mechanics said in unison. Torres gave Chief Bamber a dark look, and he smirked in reply. It was he who suggested to the mechanics that until Captain Sisko came on board, she was in command of the ship and therefore should be addressed as 'Captain.' She didn't quite agree with that; she was no longer in a command position back at UP, and the captain of the Elkins, one of the two Starfleet ships escorting them to Starbase 375, had command and control of the mission.

The lieutenant, two ensigns, and three chiefs gathered in the front of the room, around Lt. Jedha, the R&D test pilot at the helm station. "ETA?" Torres asked Jedha.

"Two and a half more days to 375," he replied. "Still on schedule."

"Glad to hear it," she said. "Strzelcyzk?"

"Weapons systems still clear on diagnostics," the ensign replied. Torres nodded.

"Rox?"

"Communication systems are functioning at 100%," the other ensign said. "We received confirmation from the Elkins that they are receiving our friendly signal."

"Always nice to have a field test. Chiefs?"

"Warp core is functioning perfectly," Kiyashko said.

"All auxiliary systems are at 100%," Xsto added.

"Crew morale is high," Bamber said. "The kids are working through their training plans."

"Stop calling them kids," Torres said automatically, the same response she gave every time he did it. Which was probably why he did it. "Anything else?" They all shook their heads to the negative. Torres nodded. "Get some rest while we can," she said. "We have two and a half days until we're at 375, and then we'll be spending the next two weeks trying to teach the Defiant crew everything we spent ten months learning. We're going to have some long days." They nodded their understanding. "Have a good night."

The five filed out, leaving Torres still standing by the helm station with Jedha. "Ten months and you couldn't even figure out how to install a chair," he commented once they were alone on the bridge. She gave a snort.

"Bridge officers," she scoffed. "The rest of us spend our duty days on our feet and we don't give you shit about it. You pilots are too soft."

Lt. Jedha laughed. "I guess I should be thanking you for the nice mat to keep my feet from getting too tired," he joked. "But seriously. Chair or no chair. This ship is a dream to fly." She smiled at that and the unspoken compliment. "Good thing I didn't have to fight Tom over who got to fly it. I would have lost."

She smiled again, this time sadly. Lt. Jedha and his husband had moved to Mars a week after Tom and B'Elanna returned from their honeymoon; they were their first married couple friends after becoming a married couple, had become two of their closest friends on the station in the short time before Voyager disappeared. She or Tom or both would meet up with at least one of them for lunch or dinner or drinks or coffee or one of Tom's holoprograms more days than not. It had been almost two years since her return to Mars, and she felt guilty that she hadn't really reconnected with them in that time. Tom had been the sociable one in their relationship; she knew that, and she was pretty sure all of their friends knew that, too. "He would have had to stay home with Izzy," she pointed out. "But I would have given him the first flight once it was space-worthy again."

"Fair enough," he acknowledged. "How is Izzy?"

"She's a holy terror," Torres said with a smile. "I would feel sorry for my in-laws, but I miss her too much for that. I think Alicia must have taken her to the aquarium, because when I commed her this afternoon, she insisted that she's a penguin now."

Jedha laughed. "I love that age," he said. "Massika was about that age when we adopted the girls. She was such a ham. It was a different animal each day, and she really got into it. Noises and diet and everything. She always has been a bit of a method actor."

Torres smiled, thinking of the youngest Jedha-Jin daughter. Massika was ten now, and Torres felt that pang of guilt again at the fact that she could count the number of times she had seen the girl since she got back on one hand. "How's Azadeh?" she asked. Their elder daughter had been older when their biological parents were killed on their colony near the Cardassian border and had had problems dealing with their deaths and adjusting to adoption and moving to Earth, and then Mars.

"She's doing really well," Jedha said, a mixture of pride and astonishment in his voice. She remembered their concerns about her attitude, her school performance, her lack of friends. "She was seeing a counselor every week for a couple of years. She's down to once a month now. Still shy, but she has a group of friends she's really close with. She's talking about volunteering at the daycare and thinks she might want to be a teacher when she grows up. Qiao hasn't stopped gloating over that one." Qiao Jin was a history teacher at the Federation School on Mars Station; he taught Mars History, Federation History, and Human History, and served as an adviser for any student who wanted to do an independent study on any other history-related topic. He and Tom had that history thing in common, and more than once, Jedha or B'Elanna had cut them off from their arguments over who were the best actors or musicians or something of the twentieth century. Jedha sighed. "Aza's starting to get into genealogy and wants to learn about her people and her culture, and I have no idea how to answer those questions."

"I worry about that when Izzy gets old enough to realize she doesn't look like everyone else," Torres admitted. "I'm not exactly well-versed on Klingon history and culture."

"At least you know where to start," he replied. "I was born and raised on starships and Qiao grew up on the Moon. I have no idea what my cultural history is, and Qiao's never even been to China. How are two people who don't know their own people supposed to help a teenager find out about hers? I don't even know what part of Earth their ancestors are from, much less when they left or why."

"Fortunately, you're going through this years before I have to, so when you figure that out, let me know."

"Ha," he said dryly. He checked the chronometer. "I have about another hour here before I beam back to the Elkins for some rest. Sure you don't want to come and sleep in some real quarters?"

"I'm sure," she replied. The captain of the Elkins had offered her team guest quarters, but they opted to stay on the ship in case anything unexpected happened. There were only three actual quarters on the Jem'Hadar ship; Torres guessed one had belonged to the Vorta, but since the Jem'Hadar didn't sleep, she had no idea what the other two had been used for. She didn't take any of those, opting to sleep in one of the bays with the ensigns. They had invited the chiefs to join them, but they had declined in favor of sharing the other bay with the mechanics, stating that they needed to supervise the younger crewmen. Despite the fact that chiefs had the same status as junior officers in Starfleet hierarchy, enlisted personnel tended to be closer to each other than they were to officers, and Torres suspected that they were more comfortable being the authority figures in a room of crewmen than the opposite in a room of officers. "I'd appreciate breakfast when you come back in the morning, though. I'm getting tired of field rations."

Jedha chuckled. "Already? You're in for a rough few weeks," he teased. "What do you want?"

"Raktijino, extra strong, and banana pancakes. And bacon."

"I think I can do that."

She smiled. "Thanks, Jedha. I'll see you in the morning." She was halfway off the bridge before she turned back. "You should probably rest your feet to get them ready for your next shift of standing in one place while flying a ship in a straight line."

"It's a rough life, being a pilot," he dead-panned. He jerked his head up quickly, looking sheepish. "Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."

She smiled sadly. "Tom used to say the same thing," she said. "Have a good night, Jedha."