Second Chances: Chapter 65

Stardate 52566
October 2375
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. Reg Barclay was continuing to argue with Commander Harkins, but Lt. Torres had long ago stopped listening.

The transwarp communication probes had failed. Again.

Barclay was trying to explain the 'one more thing' he could try to make it work, but Torres could tell from the look on Cadet Nu's face that that 'one more thing' would be no more successful than the last five 'one more thing's they had tried. The transwarp probes were her brain child, and no one was more disappointed than her that they had wasted six months on the project.

Well, maybe not 'no one.' Torres tried not to ever get her hopes up about being able to communicate with Voyager again, but she had gotten her hopes up with that one. Nu's research was solid. Theoretically, the transwarp should have worked.

Unfortunately, theory and practice were two very different things.

"That's it, Reg," Harkins said with a heavy sigh, the third or fourth time he had said those words in that meeting. "I'm sorry. It didn't work. We need to focus on other options. B'Elanna." She blinked at the sound of her name and returned her attention to the meeting. "Where are we on propulsion?"

The short answer was, the same place we were at for this meeting last week, but she kept her thoughts to herself and gave a brief summary of the various projects they had going on and the status of each. Transwarp, once the favored focus of research, had diminished somewhat with the repeated failures of the communications probe. If a former Borg couldn't turn Voyager's engines into a transwarp conduit, and the Pathfinder team couldn't figure out how to get a communications probe into a transwarp conduit, that didn't bode well for them figuring out how to get Voyager into transwarp conduit from Pathfinder. Especially if they couldn't figure out a way to talk to Voyager.

Surprisingly, the one that had taken the lead, at least in Torres' mind, was Ensign Swanwick's artificial wormholes. Except it wasn't a wormhole, per se, and he would be more than happy to explain the difference to you if you accidentally referred to it as such in his presence. As she had discovered once already, and vowed never to repeat.

Harkins wrapped up the Pathfinder senior leaders' meeting after Torres' update. "Just a reminder, Admiral Paris is joining our staff meeting next week," he said as the officers began to gather their PADDs to leave.

"B'Elanna, be sure to have Izzy have lunch with him before the meeting to put him a good mood," Lt. Cohen joked.

"Guess my secret for placating admirals is out," Torres joked dryly. She gestured to Nu to join her as they headed back to the propulsion section.

"Sir, why do you have me go to those meetings?" Nu asked as she caught up to her. "I'm certainly not a senior leader in Pathfinder."

"It's a good learning experience for you," Torres said mildly. Really, it was so she could zone out and have someone to fill her in later if she missed anything important. "Get started on the failure analysis on the latest transwarp probe," she ordered. Nu made a face. "What?"

"I hate that term, sir," she said. "Sorry."

"Failure analysis?" Torres asked. "We're engineers, Nu. Failure analysis is 90 percent of our jobs. We can't figure out how something works until we figure out what doesn't work. And there's no point in figuring out what doesn't work if we don't document and analyze the data."

"I know, sir. I just don't like the term."

Torres chuckled at that. "Call it whatever you want, but be ready to discuss it by next Friday."

*Sanders to Torres.* Torres blinked in surprise at the sound of Nicki's voice over the comm channel; she hadn't realized Nicki was back from the Veracruz. She did some quick arithmetic and realized that they were just over 90 days since they left for AR-558.

Well, that went by faster than she thought it would.

"Torres here," she said as she tapped her combadge. "Welcome back."

*Thanks. So, I'm obviously throwing a party. Denver, my house, in two hours. Give or take. Send Izzy over whenever you want. Oh! Bring Nu if she's available. I like her.*

Torres smirked over at Nu, who looked surprised to hear her name. "She's standing right here," Torres informed her sister-in-law. "Want to come to a party with too many people and too much synthehol?" she asked Nu.

*And real alcohol,* Nicki chimed in from the commlink. *Not exactly a selling point for a Xahean, I know. There will be cake and ice cream, though. And a lot of people. Well, as many people as I can find who will drop their Friday night plans to come hang out in Denver.*

"I'll be there," Nu replied.

*Great! Sanders out.* The commlink closed before either engineer could say anything further.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Torres informed Nu. "Don't construe any of that as an order. And Denver's really cold. I think there's snow on the ground."

Nu brightened. "I like snow! The first time I saw it was during survival training."

Torres rolled her eyes and resumed her walk to her office. "I don't even know what's going on anymore," she muttered. "Two hours," she called over her shoulder. "Get started on that failure analysis."

Two hours later, Torres stopped by Nu's desk. "I'm going to go get Izzy," she said. She frowned. "You should change. Nobody's going to be in uniform."

"Oh," Nu said, glancing down at her gray and gold uniform. "Good idea, sir. And I read that it's customary to bring the host a gift, such as a bottle of wine?"

"You don't have to bring anything," Torres informed her. She was amused by the thought of Nu researching human customs for parties, and then slightly less amused when she realized that that was probably what Nu had been doing for the last two hours instead of starting on the failure analysis of the transwarp probe experiment. "And I thought you don't drink?"

"I don't, sir," Nu said. "Xaheans can't metabolize alcohol. Or synthehol."

"There's going to be plenty of alcohol and synthehol there for the people who can drink it," Torres assured her. She frowned. "Would you bring anything to a party back home?"

Nu brightened and blinked excitedly. "It's customary to bring the host a flower," she explained. "At the end of the party, the hosts consume the bouquet as a sign of gratitude to the guests."

Torres blinked, but considering the food her mother had served while she was growing up, knew she had no room to talk when it came to what people ate. "I think Nicki would like flowers," she finally said. "Just don't expect her to eat any of them." Nu snickered and nodded.

Nicki did like the flowers, a small bouquet of Xahean flowers Nu had replicated, and was fascinated to learn about the Xahean custom of eating them at the end of the night. Well, she seemed fascinated, but it was hard to tell, given how much she had obviously already had to drink. "Let me introduce you to my husband," she said. She glanced around to find Jason standing right behind her. "Jason, Nu. Nu, Jason."

"It's nice to meet you, sir," Nu said. Jason laughed and shook his head.

"I'm not in Starfleet," he reminded her. "It's Jason, or if that's too much, Dr. Sanders, but that tends to get a little confusing around here. Welcome to Denver. Nicki says you like sweets. Let me show you where the cake and ice cream are."

"And we're getting more champagne," Nicki declared as she took B'Elanna's arm and directed her toward the drinks. "Because I'm home!" B'Elanna could only smile at her sister-in-law's excitement, but didn't fault her for it. Three months was a long time to be away from normal life, and she was sure that she would be just as excited about the prospect of seeing Izzy again if she had been gone for three months. "Nice try, Navi," Nicki said, smoothly intercepting Navi's attempts at pouring real champagne into flutes, Kajsa giggling beside her. "That one's the synth. This one's for us."

Navi gave her an innocent expression that nobody believed. "Oops," she said, her dark eyes wide. Kajsa was trying to look anywhere but at the adults.

"Uh-huh," Nicki said. Her eyes narrowed. "Normally I'd think my daughter's behind this, but—"

"Do you have the champagne yet?" Ainsley's voice asked from the doorway.

"And there it is," Nicki said with a sigh. She tried but failed to keep a smile off her face. "You, my dear, are incorrigible."

"And you wouldn't have it any other way," Ainsley said cheerfully. She kissed her mother on the cheek, and for the first time, B'Elanna realized that Ainsley was taller than Nicki. Not for the first time, she wondered at where the time had gone.

"Be good," Nicki admonished her, thrusting the bottle of synthehol sparkling wine in her daughter's hands. "Go to town with that if you're going to go to town with something." Nicki and B'Elanna watched as the three teenagers took off with the bottle as if afraid someone was to stop them. "Gods help us all," Nicki muttered as she grabbed two flutes and poured from the bottle of champagne.

"You're really making me look forward to having a teenaged daughter," B'Elanna commented as she accepted the flute of champagne.

"I wasn't lying when I said I was going to get more rest on the Veracruz than staying here," Nicki replied.

She did look better rested—albeit slightly drunk—and B'Elanna knew first-hand how hard Nicki had been working during her deployment, which spoke volumes for how hectic her day-to-day life was. "To coming home safely," she said to Nicki as they clinked their glasses.

"Here, here," Nicki said dryly. She took a long swallow of her champagne. "It wasn't bad," she conceded a second later. "It was a little intimidating trying to remember my trauma training at the beginning, and a little intimidating trying to remember how to take care of adults, but it came back to me real quick. I'm glad I got the experience, but I'm also glad it was only 90 days and not any longer."

"Are you taking any time off?"

Nicki nodded. "Two weeks," she said. "I have to go into the office Monday to check back in and have them confirm that Captain Meijer returned me in one piece, but then it'll be two weeks of thinking about nothing but how much I'm going to drive my kids crazy by being a super clingy mom. It's going to be so much fun." Her eyes shown with excitement, and B'Elanna couldn't help but laugh. "I think the war is winding down," she said a second later. "I think we've hit a turning point. Things are going to get better soon. I can feel it."