Second Chances: Chapter 71
A/N: I wasn't sure I would be able to finish this chapter on time, given that I got distracted by my alternate version of Nothing Human, but it looks like we all lucked out.
Enjoy.
Stardate 53041
April 2376
San Francisco, Earth
Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu had deployed to a war zone and been wounded in battle. She had published half a dozen papers on transwarp technology and two comparing the physics of propulsion through natural and artificial singularities. And now Lt. B'Elanna Torres was amused by the fact that she was more nervous about giving a presentation than she had been before doing any of those things. "You've talked to him dozens of times," she reminded her young protégé. "You've been to his house. You've been to his daughter's house and played with his grandkids."
"This is different," Nu argued. "What if he asks a question I don't know the answer to?"
"He probably will," Torres replied, which was apparently not the answer Nu was looking for. "There's a lot about artificial singularities we don't know, and Admiral Paris asks hard questions. Just tell him you don't know the answer. His questions might point us in research directions we haven't considered." Nu frowned at that, and Torres had to struggle to keep from laughing. "Come on," she urged. "It's time for the meeting."
Cadet Chase Riley, Lt. Barclay's cadet, went first. He had always rubbed Torres the wrong way, probably because he was like so many of her engineering classmates when she was a cadet: privileged, human, male, so confident in the superiority of their knowledge that they never bothered to consider otherwise. Like Tom when he was a cadet, only without any of the charm.
"Good afternoon, sir," Riley said with that stupid shit-eating grin. "I would like to present you with Operation Watson." Of course his project had a name. "It's named after Thomas Watson, who assisted Alexander Graham Bell in the invention of the telephone," he explained. Completely unnecessary; the man married a historian and read books written in the 19th century to his children and grandchildren. He probably knew more about Watson than Riley would ever bother to learn.
Riley explained the project, which involved sending a signal through the MIDAS array in a way that would allow them to have a live connection. "It will be active for 26 minutes a day," he concluded.
"When can we go live with Operation Watson?" Owen asked.
"Later this afternoon," Riley replied. "1432, to be exact. That's when the MIDAS array will be in the right position."
"I look forward to it," he said. He turned to Torres. "B'Elanna, will you be joining us?"
She didn't see any reason why Tom would be involved in a test of a communication system, but she wouldn't miss any opportunity to see him in case he would. And there was a good chance Joe Carey would be there; it would be a lot quicker to talk directly about modifications and diagnostics than the usual letters back and forth. "Yes, sir," she said. Owen gave a nod.
"Thank you, Cadet Riley," he said. "Where are you heading in June?"
"The Sutherland, sir," he replied. "I was offered to go to Jupiter Station to do research on holographic communications, but a ship's posting would be more valuable at this point in my career." Torres barely resisted the impulse to roll her eyes.
"Very good, Cadet," Owen said. "Thank you. Cadet Nu. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have for us."
"Yes, Admiral," Nu said as she rose. She pressed a couple of commands on the table and her presentation appeared on the monitor. He had asked B'Elanna for a copy of Nu's presentation in advance, but she refused. The point of the exercise was to test the cadets' communication skills and ability to present complex engineering concepts and experiments in a clear manner to someone without an engineering background.
Nu presented the background of the artificial singularities before going into the set-up of their most recent experiments, where they successfully had sent a particle from one end of the containment field to the other. Owen did have questions, and Nu did a good job answering them. "When do you think we'll be ready for larger scale experiments?" he asked.
"Research and Development is working on a flight simulator using Voyager's parameters," she replied. "We're going to use that data to design the next set of experiments."
"Tom will have fun with that," Owen murmured. B'Elanna grinned; he would, but not as much fun as he was going to have flying the real Voyager through the singularity, if it came to that. "Where are you heading after graduation, Cadet?"
"The Marie Curie, Admiral," she replied. Owen nodded; that he knew already. B'Elanna had told him when the assignments had come out.
"Captain Mancuso is lucky to have you," he said. "Thank you, Cadets." He checked his chronometer. "It looks like we have half an hour until the MIDAS array will be ready for Cadet Riley's experiment." He stood, and the rest of the room stood as well. "Gentlemen, I'll leave you to setting it up and I'll meet you there. Lt. Torres, would you care to join me for coffee?"
They went to the mess, where Owen replicated himself a coffee with sugar—those Paris men and their sugared beverages—and a raktajino for B'Elanna. "What do you think the chances are of Cadet Riley's experiment working?" he asked as he handed it over.
"I haven't looked over the research myself," she admitted as they headed back toward the lab. "From his presentation, the engineering seems sound. And you know how Reg is."
"That I do," he muttered. "Think Tom will be on the line?"
"If anyone can find an excuse for a pilot to be on a call with Starfleet Headquarters, it's Tom," she commented, but couldn't stop the smile on her face. "We'll see if he manages to keep his mouth closed."
"Let's not expect the impossible," Owen said dryly. She chuckled and nodded her agreement.
They entered Pathfinder's communication lab to see Lt. Barclay and Cadet Riley sending the program and coordinates to the MIDAS array. "Admiral," Barclay greeted, glancing over his shoulder. "If this works, we'll have video in two minutes."
"My fingers are crossed, Lieutenant."
As Barclay promised, the comm connected two minutes later. "It's good to finally talk to you in person, Captain," Owen said, nodding to Captain Janeway. Tom was standing near the back of the room—the astrometics lab?—and Owen and B'Elanna shared a smirk at the sight of him.
*It's good to see you, too, Admiral,* Captain Janeway replied. *How's the weather in San Francisco?*
"Cold and rainy, as usual," Owen replied. B'Elanna barely bit back a snort of agreement; there was a reason why she had moved to Hawaii all those years ago, after all. She looked over at Tom to see him smirking at her, probably guessing what she was thinking, and she couldn't help the smile on her face at his expression.
Captain Janeway was smiling widely, her eyes going from one member of the Pathfinder team to the next before returning to Barclay and settling there. *Lt. Barclay,* she greeted. *My congratulations on establishing the first trans-galactic comm link. You've earned a place in the history books.*
"I-I can't take all of the credit, Captain," Barclay replied. "It was Harry and Seven who suggested bouncing a tachyon beam off the quantum singularity, and Cadet Riley who ran the calculations to make it work."
Janeway's eyes went to the cadet. *I understand more congratulations are in order, Cadet,* she said. *I heard it was Pathfinder's cadet who earned this year's Scott Award.*
Riley's face went red, and B'Elanna wasn't able to stop her smirk. She knew it was petty to feel victorious at the embarrassment of a cadet, but she didn't care. "Actually, sir, it was Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu, the cadet in our propulsion division," she informed the captain. "She has an afternoon class on Fridays."
*I hope to get the opportunity to congratulate her during another meeting, then.* Torres had to admire Janeway's skills in diplomacy. *And since we're probably going to be talking on a frequent basis, Lieutenant, I prefer to be addressed as 'captain.'*
"Of course, Captain," Torres replied smoothly. Oh, she was going to be giving Tom a piece of her mind for this later, that was for sure. Especially because the barely contained mirth on his face told her that he had been setting her up for this.
*I understand we can expect this video link to last for 26 minutes a day,* Captain Janeway continued, her eyes again on Barclay. *I will leave the scheduling to you, Admiral, but I was hoping we could dedicate one day a week to communications with Starfleet Headquarters and another day each week for conferences between your engineers and mine, as we continue to work together to find a way to get us home and to keep lines of communication open. The remaining five days a week we'll divide up for the crew to talk to their families.*
"That sounds like an excellent plan, Captain," Owen said. He was still looking pleased, probably just at the fact that they had what seemed like a permanent way to communicate with Voyager and visual proof that his son was still doing well. "I think Thursdays are usually the best for our engineers, in terms of freedom from other meetings and teaching requirements at the Academy, at least for this term." He turned to B'Elanna at that, as Barclay didn't teach at the Academy. She gave a nod in agreement; she taught Dominion Tech on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but she didn't know yet when they would schedule her for Comparative Systems in the fall term. Both Nu and Riley were in Pathfinder all day on Thursdays as well, but as both were graduating and they hadn't event begun going through applicants for new cadets yet, nobody knew what their schedules would look like. "We can always evaluate later if another day would be better," Owen continued. "As far as regular briefings with Headquarters, I agree that that would be worthwhile, especially with all we have to learn about the things you've seen over the years. As far as the timing, I'll have to discuss that with Admiral Minns and Admiral Huang."
*How do Thursdays work with you, Joe?* Captain Janeway asked Lt. Carey, who looked like he was barely awake, despite the midafternoon hour.
*That will work just fine, Captain,* he replied. *While we're here, Lt. Torres, let me send you our latest diagnostics.* He moved over to a console and sent the reports; B'Elanna nodded when she received them on her end.
"Thanks, Lieutenant," she replied. "It'll be good to get to discuss things in real-time for once." It was definitely not easy to do any sort of engineering project when you had to wait a day to receive responses from queries and another day before you could send the next round of queries in reply. "Just so you know, I'll be on Qo'noS for almost six weeks, from the end of the term through the end of June, but between Lt. Barclay and my deputy, there shouldn't be any interruption in our progress."
*Qo'noS?* That was Tom; she was a little impressed he had managed to keep himself quiet for that long.
"The Klingon Empire was hit pretty hard during the Dominion War," she explained. "They've requested Starfleet's assistance in rebuilding, and Starfleet is apparently short on engineers who speak and read Klingon and have any sort of tolerance for bloodwine."
He smiled at that. *Is Izzy going with you?* He seemed genuinely curious, not upset at the thought of his daughter spending time on the Klingon homeworld, and she chuckled.
"She has more fun on Qo'noS than I do," she informed him. "And speaks better Klingon than I do. We've been going pretty regularly for the last two years."
*By the time we get home, she'll be able to beat me with a bat'leth,* he joked.
"I'm sure she already can," B'Elanna shot back. She doubted Izzy had ever so much as seen a bat'leth, but that was beside the point.
*Why are you here, Mr. Paris?* Captain Janeway asked, seeming somewhere between amused and exasperated.
*I wanted to see my wife,* he replied simply, with so much sincerity and without his usual joking overtones that it almost made B'Elanna blush. Even though she was on the comm for the same reason.
*As you can see, Admiral, I run a very tight ship,* Janeway said dryly, making Owen chuckle.
"Since I raised him, I don't think I can lay the blame entirely on you," he said in reply.
The rest of the time was spent on official matters, Tom actually managing to keep his mouth shut. Since Captain Janeway didn't want to get the crew's hopes up about the video communication until they knew it would work, they didn't yet have a list of who needed to be contacted for a call at what time, but she promised them that she would get them the list the next day. B'Elanna made a note to herself to reach out to the network of Voyager family members and explain the situation, so they knew to be on the look out for an official communication from Pathfinder giving them their designated time.
A chime announced that they had a minute left of the comm. "It was good talking to you, Captain," Owen said. "I'm looking forward to many discussions in the future."
*As am I, Admiral,* Captain Janeway replied. *Lt. Torres, I assume we'll be seeing you on Thursday?*
"Yes, Captain," she replied. "I'll have Cadet Nu with me as well."
*I look forward to meeting her and congratulating her,* Janeway said. *Thank you, all of you. You've made it a little bit brighter here in the Delta quadrant today.* She turned to Tom, an amused look on her face. *You can speak again, Mr. Paris.*
He gave her a relieved grin before turning to the screen. *It's good to see you,* he said, talking directly to B'Elanna. *Give Izzy a kiss for me.*
"I will," she promised. "Stay safe, Tom. I'll see you soon."