Chapter 1 – Small Fish
"You said what?"
"Ayala did laugh, Mom."
Kolopak Janeway had seen his mother angry before, having been at the end of her not-quite-deadly-but-close-enough glare many times in his life. Although the frequency had increased over the past few months, it had been nothing like what she was now directing at him.
"It was the last session before the break, and it's kind of boring with the younger ones around." He was beginning to think it might not have been such a good idea to tell his mom how his day had gone. With all the details.
"It's Commander Ayala to you when you are in his class, Kol. You are the oldest. You should be setting an example to the other kids."
Kol almost rolled his eyes. It was not just he was the oldest of the generation still at school. It was also that he was carrying the Janeway name, and on this ship, that name was law. He straightened his back, having learnt very early on that complaining did not get him very far with either of his parents. Instead, he looked at a point on the wall well above his mother's head. A growth spurt the year before meant he was now two inches taller than her. That did not mean her tone of voice broached no smart retort. Former Captain Janeway was pissed off. At him.
"So, next time Commander Ayala tells you to do twenty jumps at the end of the session, what are you going to ask him?"
Confused, Kol looked down into a pair of grey eyes which were not smiling. "What?"
His mother's lips narrowed. "You will ask how high you should jump, instead of discussing the effect of gravitational fields on the bounce of an animate object. Do I make myself clear?"
His shoulders sagged. "Yes, Mom."
What he would give to be on Earth. Preparing to enter the real Starfleet Academy. Where no cadet was ever taught by their own parents to start with. Of course, if he was on Earth, he would have to wait another year, the minimum entrance age being sixteen for humans, but that was beside the point. On Voyager, the rules were more flexible and he could sit the tests now if he wanted to. Since his birthday earlier in the year, he'd had his sights set on becoming the youngest cadet on the ship since Miral, beating the now first officer if he could complete all the entrance exams before Christmas.
If he didn't stuff up.
###
"Chakotay, remind me why we're doing those training evaluations?"
"Because Ayala is doing the ones for every single crew member, and I can still remember how enthralling it was to go through one hundred and forty-something files every six months."
"So, he gave us the kids' to do." Kathryn put her feet on the low table of her office and stared at the pile of PADDs.
"I took pity on him, and it makes some sense. We are the ones who helped him set up the training courses after all."
"True." Kathryn took a PADD from the top of the stack beside her. "I'll have to be careful not to use the word 'kid' around them. I had to bite my tongue when I was talking about Naomi to Icheb in the cargo bay. She's twenty-six this year, and a mother, but I still remember when she was stalking Seven in the corridors and pestering her with all kinds of questions."
"Well, she is not part of this pile anymore. But, they are the next generation; we can't let them down. I'll take half, you take the other half?"
Following a grateful nod from his wife, Chakotay pulled most of the pile of PADDs towards him. Kathryn was still prone to take on too much even after resigning from the captaincy. He did not want her to spend the entire evening going through the mid-year training evals of sixteen kids. That was not his goal.
An hour passed in silence. The lab was empty, the science staff happily ensconced back home with their families, except for the department head and her husband.
Kathryn dropped her PADD back on the table. "Finished." She stood, arching her back. "Cup of tea?"
"Thank you." Chakotay switched his PADD off. "I've finished too."
Kathryn returned from the replicator with two cups. "What do you think?"
"You first," Chakotay said, taking his cup from her hand. "You are the Head of Learning."
She sipped on her coffee. "Academically, I can't fault any of them. I completed their assessments for the semester last week. Some need a bit more help in their weaker subjects, but overall, they are two years ahead of the normal curriculum for their age. Did you know Naomi has applied to do a second doctorate? I don't know how she finds the time! I mean she knows she won't get it awarded until we reach Earth, but if it's like her first one, I don't think she'll have any trouble getting it magna cum laude."
Not willing to point out again that Naomi was hardly a kid anymore, Chakotay could not help a chuckle. The young woman, the first child to be born on Voyager, had always been a favourite of the captain. "It's a tribute to their main teacher. You've worked hard to stretch their minds, taking them on scientific away missions yourself, and overseeing their work over the past decade or so. Remember, you were doing all that while you were still captain for most of that time."
Leaning over the small table, she put her hand on his fingers and squeezed them lightly. "I couldn't have done it without you. Your idea to ask for volunteers among the crew did lighten my workload. I would never have imagined Lieutenant Harren would be one of the first to put his hand up. His knowledge of theoretical cosmology is second to none."
"Well, he owes you. If it hadn't been for you pulling him off Deck fifteen, kicking and screaming, he would never have talked to Ensign Jenkins and be the proud father of two kids now."
Chakotay relaxed in his chair, cradling his cup. Kathryn was dancing around what she really wanted to talk about, who she really wanted to talk about. He was fine with that. She would broach the subject of their son's future when she was ready, but he was glad Ayala had not taken too much convincing to leave the kids' reports to him.
"What about their training evals?" he asked.
"A few weaknesses here and there. Harry's twins are falling behind in swimming and there's a general lack of commitment for the daily morning run Ayala started last term. Nothing to be too concerned about," she said.
"Same here. However…" Chakotay took a sip of his tea. "Do I sense a 'but' in your tone?" He put his cup back down and waited. He had made sure their son's eval was part of her pile.
Kathryn frowned at him. "All right. It's Kol. I am worried about him. You know he really wants to sit the Academy entrance exams before the end of the year. A year ago, I would have said go for it, son, but now..." She contemplated her coffee cup. "I don't think he's ready, to be honest. His behaviour in the past few months has been less than stellar. Has not affected his marks, but I can read between the lines."
"Pretty typical adolescent stuff." Chakotay shrugged, non-committal. He did not disagree with his wife's assessment. The boy was not easy to live with at times, let alone teach. Respectful one day, throwing all deference out of the window the next. Going from happy and cheerful to surly in five minutes flat. Barricading himself in his bedroom, before coming out late at night and raiding the replicator rations. Solving the derivative of a quintic function in his head while asking his Mom where his socks were the following morning.
Still, his son's behaviour was pretty tame in comparison with what he could remember of his own fifteen-year-old self. He had mocked his culture and belittled his father before leaving his people for the lure of the stars.
"Take what he did last. What he said to Ayala was a flagrant lack of respect for the man's rank. I don't see that attitude of his changing once he's a cadet. In fact, I think he'll get even more cocky. Assuming he passes the exams of course," Kathryn added.
"He'll probably breeze through the academic tests, you know that. If he fails, he can resit them at any time. It's the practicals that can't be reorganised that easily. We need to wait for the right window of opportunity because they involved too many people."
Chakotay pulled at his earlobe. He had always thought Kathryn would be over the moon for their son to enter the Academy. Something other than a disagreement about the proper way to address Ayala was bothering her.
"Frankly, I don't think Kol meant to be disrespectful," he said. "I've talked to Ayala. He didn't seem to mind. After all, he's been training Kol since the kid was six."
Kathryn lifted her hands in the air. "But that's the problem, isn't it? On Earth, Kol would have another year under his belt to settle down. And if he was to become a cadet, it would mean leaving home and finding himself thrown into a totally different environment. He would be with people who don't know who he is, and brushing shoulders with five hundred very eager and very capable people his own age."
"A small fish in a very large pond," said Chakotay recalling his own reaction when he'd landed on Earth far from his planet of origin. What he remembered most of his first year at the Academy was that deep-seated feeling of homesickness permeating his heart. He also had had to work twice as hard as everybody else because he had to catch up with kids who had been privately tutored since the age of five for entry into Starfleet. Only by the end of his second year, had he started to make a few close friends who did not deride his background. Those friends and learning how to box had been his saviours.
"One small fish among hundreds. Exactly. While here, it's not quite the same thing. Remember Miral?"
Chakotay's shoulders drop. He preferred not to be reminded of Miral's first year as a cadet. He had spent most of it playing peacemaker between daughter and mother, while Tom had been pulling his hair out. They'd both been so glad when Miral had decided to move to the command track in her second year rather than persist with engineering. In fact, the whole crew had been very supportive of her decision. Even the ship seemed to run better afterwards. Amazing how one contrarian adolescent could throw an entire ship off balance. Thankfully, Kol did not have the same fiery temperament, and there was some hope he would not try to emulate his friend.
"What is Kol going to do during a red alert?" Kathryn was now pacing the small office, getting all worked up. "Discuss the latest in warp core theory with Naomi and make a pun when the ship is attacked?"
Chakotay sighed. Kathryn never treated Kol and Liz differently from the other kids in her classes, but she had higher expectations for their two children outside the classroom. He wondered, not for the first time, if she was not projecting her own childhood. Being the eldest and the daughter of an admiral had coloured her idea of what it meant to be a teenager.
"Tom threw quite a few of those jokes around when you were captain. You never came down on him as you did on Kol."
Kathryn had a look of indecision on her face. "Kol talked to you?"
"No, he knows I would have backed you up. He went to see Tom, who told me."
She frowned. "Tom always knew not to cross the line."
"That's true," Chakotay said with less conviction than his wife. Paris had known what line not to cross when it was about Captain Janeway. Something about both being Starfleet-born and bred, he'd always thought. But he could still remember a few times when the younger man had not been that respectful of his first officer's authority. Still, it had all happened a long time ago. "But Tom was not fifteen either when he came on board Voyager," he simply noted.
Kathryn pulled a grimace. "Nonetheless. I was thinking of asking Kol to assist me with monitoring that pair of white dwarf stars Icheb's been observing for the past few days. He thinks they'll be going supernova within the next week—the first one in the galaxy for the past eight hundred years. It means Kol won't have the time to take the exams, but this is an opportunity not to be missed. He can sit the practicals in another six months. With a bit more guidance, he'll be ready by then."
She looked at him, hand kneading the back of her neck. "What do you think?"
Chakotay knew she was worried about their son. Kol was at the difficult age where too much pressure could see him rebel. On such a small ship, bound for such a long journey, there were not many avenues for him to express his differences of opinion. He was no Miral who could exhaust some of her anger on the holodeck. If he chose to leave his home, as his father had done more than fifty years before, he would never be able to come back. Voyager was on a one-way track to Earth, unable to wait for a runaway boy. That was what Kathryn was afraid of, Chakotay thought. She was afraid of the possibility, as remote as it seemed for the moment, that their son might follow in his father's footsteps. But that was a discussion for another time.
Because on the other hand, not enough pressure on the boy and there was a chance Kol could fail at the first real test of his mettle, maybe even endanger the ship and crew in the process. There was not much room on Voyager for mistakes.
And in both cases, Kathryn would see Kol's failure as hers.
The situation on Voyager was unique. There had been kids on board Starfleet ships for decades. Dr Crusher's son, Wesley, came to his mind. He had met the young man a couple of times while teaching at the Academy and been impressed by his intelligence and his respect for duty. Obviously, Wesley's stint on the Enterprise had done him a lot of good. But on Voyager, ranks and responsibilities were intertwined with normal family life to an extreme degree. It was nigh impossible to separate one from the other. Kids had to grow up quickly, and Kol was growing fast indeed. A cadetship might be exactly what he needed, giving him space to spread his wings and the discipline to know when and how to use them.
"You've got a point," he said. "This supernova is a great opportunity."
"I sense a 'but' coming," Kathryn said, a half-crooked smile forming on her lips.
Chakotay grinned in response. They always had been able to navigate through their sometimes tumultuous relationship by being open with each other.
"But…," and he grew thoughtful again, "I think we should let him go through the exams. At his age, six months is a long time to wait. We we stop him now, and it's only going to make him chomp at the bit even more. If he fails this time, it won't be because we prevented him from pursuing his dreams. He will have learnt a lesson and he will apply himself much more diligently at the next opportunity."
Kathryn remained pensive. Chakotay took the cups and recycled them, leaving her to think his reasons over.
When he sat back down, she nodded, her mind made up. "His future is more important than a supernova. You are right once again," she said.
"Of course," he retorted with good humour. It had been a long day and it was time to introduce a bit of levity. "After all, you did marry me for my intellect and not for my handsome rugged looks."
Letting out a laugh, she smacked him lightly on the arm with a PADD. He stood and held his hand out. "Remember our resolution to have dinner at a sensible time? I suggest we go home and continue this conversation tomorrow morning. Whatever we decide for Kol will be good for the others too. In two years' time, there'll be a whole cohort starting to come through, with Liz following soon after."
"Miral, Naomi and Icheb were guinea pigs really," she said taking his hand and rising from her chair. "We should set a proper program to transition the new generation on to the next phase of their education and training."
"Agree. Look, you've got plenty on your hands for the next few days. Leave Kol's practical tests to me. I've got a couple of ideas I want to discuss with Ayala and Harry first."
Kathryn looked at him with a question on her face, but he simply weaved his arm through hers and smiled. "Trust me."
She leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked down the corridor. "Always," she said.
Chapter 2 - Mistakes
~Warp core breach imminent. Please evacuate Engineering.~ The lack of inflection in the computer voice did lower the urgency of its message, although the smoke made things more realistic, Kol thought.
"All right, everybody out now!" B'Elanna shouted over the noise.
The younger kids filed out, their engineering lesson cut short by one of those typical Delta quadrant interruptions. A warp core breach, though, was out of the ordinary and somewhat dangerous when the ship was so close to a pair of cantankerous stars.
B'Elanna turned to the main console. "Naomi, help me. We need to dump the core." A massive shower of sparks exploded behind her, but she did not flinch.
"I could manually set the magnetic coils from the upper level and save us the trouble of retrieving the core," Naomi said.
Kol gazed upwards. The mezzanine was almost invisible in the smoke.
"Too dangerous," he heard B'Elanna say. "We'll just have to bite the bullet."
"We can't afford to dump the core!"
"Kol, if I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it. Go outside with the other kids."
Kol ground his teeth. I am not a kid. This was the time for him to prove it. "There's a way to drop the coils in place by overriding the core safeguards."
"The safety protocols will take too long to bypass. Get out of here." B'Elanna pushed him towards the exit.
The boy easily evaded her. "Not if I reset the engineering computer mainframe. I'll show you." He slid his lanky frame behind the console B'Elanna had abandoned, his fingers flying over the screen.
"Computer, freeze program."
B'Elanna stiffened in mid-air.
"Dad?"
Chakotay did not answer. He was leaning against the wall near the holodeck door to the corridor.
Kol smiled, feeling smug. "You want to know what I've got in mind?" He waved at a string of numerics he had entered on the holographic console. "See, when the computer is rebooted, there is a half-second before the safety protocols kick back in. If you are quick enough, you can circumvent them, drop the magnetic coils and voilà: you've saved the core and the ship!"
Chakotay did not move.
Kol frowned. "I know I can do it, Dad. You know me and computers. Piece of cake."
He did not like to blow his own trumpet, but he was the best computer programmer on board, with the exception of B'Elanna and his mother. And probably Seven, if she had lived. Her reputation was legendary among the crew.
Chakotay remained silent.
"It's all by the book, Dad. I found out about this shortcut when I was reading an old log. I'm just adapting it. Can't afford to spend hours searching for the core with a supernova ready to explode nearby."
"Computer, resume program ten seconds before it last paused," Chakotay said, not taking his eyes off his son. Kol gave him a big smile.
The smoke billowed again, and B'Elanna's hologram echoed her previous words, ~The safety protocols will take too long to bypass.~
Kol avoided her once again and sat at the console, ignoring the moaning noises from the equipment around him. "Resetting the computer…now," he said, punching in a last command with a flourish of his fingers.
Engineering plunged into darkness, the only light coming from the various explosions bourgeoning on the walls.
~Warp core breach in five seconds,~ the computer unhurriedly commented.
"That's not possible," Kol clamoured, his eyes darting over the console.
"Computer, freeze program." Chakotay's voice had not changed markedly in its tone, but Kol knew his father was far from impressed.
"I don't get it, Dad. That trick should have worked." He noticed the flesh and blood Chief Engineer entering the holodeck. "B'Elanna," he pleaded, "tell him. You used the same method before. It should have worked," he repeated. A very bad feeling spread through his stomach.
B'Elanna crossed her arms. "You misread the warp core conditions. The magnetic coils wouldn't have been sufficient in this case to constrain the reaction. Instead, you put the ship in danger by ignoring my orders and resetting the computer. You're in good company. Miral failed the test too."
She turned to Chakotay. "He hasn't realised…?"
Chakotay shook his head. "Not yet."
Miral's expertise was not computer programming. His was not engineering. So, the test was about...what?
"Good luck," B'Elanna added over her shoulder as she left the holodeck. Kol did not think she was talking to him.
"I don't understand, Dad. I mean, okay, I made a mistake, but—"
"Computer, resume program, starting thirty seconds before last pause."
~ I could manually set the magnetic coils from the upper level and save us the trouble of retrieving the core,~ said the holographic Naomi. She jumped on the small elevator to reach the mezzanine, disappearing into the thick smoke.
Kol felt the blood leave his face. He'd been too busy showing off to B'Elanna to realise what Naomi had done. "Computer, freeze program," he said in a trembling voice.
Fire was now licking the platform where Naomi was standing. All he could see were her lower legs.
"Computer, end program," he shouted.
The top walkway buckled, sending debris down onto the ground floor.
"Naomi!" he screamed.
The upper floor erupted in flames and soon the whole section was on fire. The heat drove him back into the arms of his father.
"Computer, end program Academy Beta Prime," Chakotay said, his voice holding much disappointment.
Kol found himself alone with his father on the empty holodeck grid. He looked around at the vacant space, almost expecting to see a charred body in the corner. There was no trace of the damaged engineering room, no smoke, no fires. The simulation was over, his first practical test at its end.
Chakotay's face was sombre and tired. "Naomi Wildman died while engaging the magnetic coils. What do you have to say about that?"
"She disobeyed B'Elanna's orders. She shouldn't have gone up there."
"It was the Assistant Chief Engineer's fault," Chakotay said in a neutral tone, pursing his lips. "That is your expert judgement of her actions, is it?"
"B'Elanna should have checked to make sure Naomi was safe."
"So now, you are saying it was Lieutenant Commander Torres's mistake."
"Both. Either," Kol shuffled on his feet. "I thought it was an engineering test, Dad. I never imagined it would become something like…this. I wasn't prepared. If I had known what it was about—"
The look Chakotay threw at him was not kind. "We never know what's going to happen when there is red alert, Kol. That is the point of the test." He breathed in deeply. "I want a report on my desk in one hour highlighting which protocols you breached and the reasons why Starfleet has a chain of command."
Chakotay opened the holodeck door and stepped outside.
"She forgot about Naomi," Kol argued to his father's back in a tone which sounded much too plaintive to his own ears.
His father turned on his heels, his jaw tense. "Lieutenant Commander Torres would never, ever leave somebody behind. That is not who she is. That is not who we are. But she had to make a choice between saving you or saving Naomi. Remember that the next time you flout a direct order in the middle of an emergency."
Kol stared at the holodeck door closing behind Chakotay. He had never seen his father that furious with him before.
His legs gave out, and he sat down on the hard floor, head bowed in his hands. His dream of entering the Academy had turned into a nightmare. Even if he managed to squeeze in by the barest of margins, no way was he going to survive four years as a full-time cadet.
Chapter 3 – A New Trial
Kol was not sure how long he had been sitting on the hard floor, contemplating his future. His leg had gone to sleep and he stood up, hobbling about as he gingerly put some weight on it.
"Computer, what time is it?"
~The time is fourteen hundred thirty-two hours~
Blast. He had less than forty minutes left to write his report and put it on his dad's desk.
The sudden red alert startled him and he rushed into the corridor. Nothing seemed to be amiss. The lights were on, and the slight rocking he had felt while leaving the holodeck had not recurred.
He smiled to himself. It had to be another test. He'd heard enough from Miral, Naomi, and Icheb to know tests did not stop when the holodeck simulation ended. He still had a chance to make it through the practicals if he did not blow this one too.
He tapped his combadge, then hesitated. This was not the time to call on the captain or his first officer. They would be busy dealing with the mock red alert. He had to find out what he was supposed to do.
"Kol to Commander Ayala. What's happening?"
The badge hissed with static. "Kol to Tom Paris."
The hissing only grew louder. The comms system was down, obviously. Nice touch, he thought, while a small shiver ran down his back. He'd never heard the ship so silent before. Apart from the wails of the red alert, nothing else seemed to be moving within earshot.
He walked down the corridor towards the turbolift before stopping dead at the sight of an unconscious crew member propped awkwardly against the wall. Another body lay a few metres beyond. Quickly checking for danger and finding none, Kol trotted towards them, heart pounding.
To his relief, the pulse of the first crewman, Ensign Celes, was steady under his fingers, her breathing normal. He liked Tal, having sat by her side through Lt Harren's soooo fascinating cosmology lessons. The man was arrogant, bad-tempered and keen to put down anybody who could not follow his train of thoughts. Tal had been appreciative when Kol had offered to help with the advanced maths needed to keep up with the class. She always had a smile for him when she saw him in the mess hall or in the corridor. He liked her a lot.
Today, her smile was gone. She just would not wake up despite a few tentative shakes. He put her in the recovery position before moving to check on the other prone figure.
Crewman Dell. Oh, joy. His personal nemesis for the past month, smirking and calling him 'kiddo' even when he'd tried to correct the guy a couple of weeks back on some science stuff the man had no knowledge of. It hadn't helped matters that Tal had been at the same table witnessing Kol's humiliation.
He wondered why he'd even bothered. In twenty-seven years on board Voyager, Dell hadn't even made it past third class crewman. That was telling. The man had no other goal than to make Kol's life miserable every time he set eyes on him, obviously. There were some people on this crew that the ship could do well without, in Kol's humble opinion.
Kol slapped Dell forcefully but to no avail. The two crew members refused to stir, and his attempt to raise the doctor went unanswered. He shoved the large man in the recovery position too, then stood, pensive.
In case of a red alert, he was supposed to go straight to the nearest designated safe area if no adult was around to order him otherwise. But it was rather boring to wait there. often with his sister, trying his best to distract her while everybody else was valiantly fighting whatever the alarm was about. He was almost a cadet, not a childminder. Besides, if the crew was in danger, he might be the only person around to do something about it. And if this was a test, he was hardly going to pass with flying colours by hiding.
Unsurprisingly, the wall computer refused to talk to him. Throwing a couple of Bolian insults at it until he remembered he could be watched, he pulled out the access door underneath. He spent a few minutes re-routing the bio-fibres whichever way he could think of, but the wall screen remained silent. The problem had to be in the main computer core on Deck ten.
He hesitated. A dead computer system. No comms. Maybe the whole crew unconscious. This whole scenario was getting a little creepy. Shaking off his uneasiness, he tried to think logically. The best place to find out what was happening was the bridge. There had to be somebody in charge there. That what he would do: access the bridge and make himself useful.
After a last check on the insentient crewmen, he walked to the nearest turbolift. It was not working either. He opened the door to the Jefferies tube nearby and slid inside. Years of playing hide-and-seek within the entrails of the ship meant few adults could match his intimate knowledge of the ship's internal maintenance conduits. He could find his way blindfolded if need—
The lights went out at the same time as the red alert wailed down to nothingness. His hands stopped moving all by themselves, and he pitched face first into the floor grid. This time, he slurred out a few chosen words as he sat up, wiping his mouth. The taste made him wrinkle his nose. First blood. He shook his head. It's only a split lip, idiot, not a phaser wound. Get going.
That's when he realised, to his dismay, that he had lost track of which direction he'd been going before falling over; a rookie error which did not bode well for his chances of success. He took some deep and slow breaths, listening to the silence surrounding him like an overheated blanket. After a few seconds retracing his last movements in his head, he decided to go to the left, eager to get going. By his own reckoning, he was still four decks short of the bridge.
Where once he would have been skidding down the tube and running up the ladder, he took his time, making sure his grip was secure before moving the other hand and his feet. The constant darkness was unnerving, highlighting the slightest groan in the ship's impulse engines. Voyager had dropped out of warp speed. Why? Had the bridge crew sensed something was wrong and gone into safe mode? Was he the only one awake? A shudder travelled down his spine and he had to stop a few times to shake off the feeling he was alone on a dead ship.
On reaching the next platform, his fingers traced the tactile sign on the wall which confirmed he was on Deck three. He ought to check on Liz. Make sure she was all right. After all, it was rather unlikely the captain had gone to the effort of putting the ship on impulse and mute the entire computer system just to provide his godson with an opportunity to redeem his first failure. If there was one motto he had learnt while still in his mother's womb, it was that Voyager was on a course for home, and the quicker they got there, the better. That, and observing rare spatial anomalies like the supernova-in-the making which had got the whole crew all giddy. Nothing much else counted, and certainly not a practical test for one lone cadetship applicant.
He used the manual override and forced the tube's access door open. The secondary emergency lighting cast a faint glow down the corridor. Although he welcomed the illumination after having spent the past ten minutes in total darkness, the reddish ambience did nothing to lift his spirits.
The door of his quarters was stuck into a continuous open/close loop. He jumped through when the opening was at its widest, then checked the rooms—nobody was around. Liz must have been down the lower decks with the other kids when the ship had gone silent.
There was one way to find out. He sat at his mother's desk, feeling a tad self-conscious. When he was ten, he had hacked into the captain's computer on a dare. Full of remorse and crying his eyes out, he had confessed the following morning while his parents were still in bed. To his surprise, and relief, his mother had just lifted an eyebrow. After breakfast, she had taught him about Borg algorithms, and they had spent the rest of the morning reconfiguring the computer encryption codes.
He smiled at the memory. Spending more than a few hours together before the next emergency called the captain back to the bridge had been a rare event during much of his childhood.
Cracking his digits, he set out to hack into his mother's computer for the second time in five years. It was all for a good cause, he told himself, turning the keyboard on as he found it quicker to type than to talk to the AI behind the machine. Three minutes top, and he would be in and out.
Five minutes later, he pushed himself against the back of the chair, his hand going through his cropped hair in frustration. The sensors could detect nobody above Engineering except for him and the two unconscious crewmen. Below Deck ten, the sensors refused to work, but he had to believe everybody else had taken refuge there, away from the conflagration that had ignited above the ship.
While he'd been discussing warp core malfunction in a holographic engineering room, the binary white dwarfs had gone supernova, flooding space with deadly gamma rays and an avalanche of heavy particles and flesh-penetrating radiation. The explosion must have come much earlier than expected, and the captain had turned the ship, so the radiation load was slowed by the upper decks while everybody had been evacuated down below. Why the shields were fluctuating and the warp engines were not working, he had no idea. He just hoped the crew had managed to escape to safety.
Why had Dad not come back for him? He had managed to push that question in the back of his mind since finding himself alone outside the holodeck. Now, sitting in the familiar setting of home, Kol could not help feeling he had been forgotten.
He wiped his cheek. That was not possible. Not his dad. There must have been casualties forcing the former commander to make a choice between saving his son or the lives of crew members, thinking he had time to come back for Kol later. More likely, the captain had called on Chakotay to help with protecting the ship from the nova searing the hull. His parents had assumed their son would find a safe place. Without the comms working, they had no idea where he was.
He checked the personal radiation dosimeter the Doctor had issued to each crew member in anticipation of the stars' explosion. The readings had already turned yellow and were creeping towards the dark orange band above. Unless he got moving, he would soon suffer a lethal dose.
Well, he was not going to just sit down and feel sorry for himself. He had a job to do. There was nothing he could do to help the ship, but he could still save Celes and Dell if he hurried back and got them to Deck ten.
Chapter 4 – More Tribulations
Maybe, Kol thought as he descended the sixth, or was it the seventh ladder because he had lost count at the half-hour mark, just maybe, he should have listened to Ayala and persisted with that early morning run. Tal was not heavy, far from it, but lugging part of her weight with one arm while climbing down five decks was taking its toll on his body. Still, he was grateful she had woken up by the time he had returned to the two stranded crew members. He would never have been able to carry her the whole way down.
The woman collapsed on the platform, her dosimeter stuck on dark orange. "I'll be okay, Kol. Just leave me here," she whispered in a rasping voice.
"Come on, just twenty metres left," he huffed, pulling her along the last of the Jefferies tubes. The hatch opened on his command, and they fell onto the floor of the corridor.
"Somebody come and help," Kol shouted.
Ayala and Miral came racing down the passageway. "Where have you been?" Miral asked, crouching down. "We were worried sick."
Ayala checked their radiation meters. "You are borderline but okay, Kol. Ensign Celes, you need to see the doctor now. Come with me." He put his arm around her waist and helped her down the corridor.
Kol slid against the wall, his muscles protesting any further exercise for the next month.
"Well, don't dawdle," Miral added, looking down at him. "We could use some help to monitor the dilithium exchange chambers."
"I'm going back up," Kol said, catching his breath. "Dell is still there. I managed to help him down to Deck six, but he was not doing well."
He raised himself, but in his state of exhaustion Miral had no difficulty pushing him back down. "You aren't going anywhere. You've done a good job saving Ensign Celes, but I'm sorry, Kol, Dell is already dead. Our calculations show that gamma radiation has reached lethal levels above Deck seven."
Kol made a faint protest. He didn't like the man, but dying of radiation poisoning was a nasty way to go.
"Get to Engineering and monitor those chambers while Captain Janeway and my mom try to get the engines back online. That's an order."
Remember next time you flout a direct order in the middle of an emergency.
~Kim to Commander Miral.~
Miral touched her combadge. Kol was too tired to wonder why they were working. "Miral here, Captain."
"We need all hands on deck here. What's the status of the shields?"
"Fifty per cent and failing, Captain. We can't save the upper decks."
"Understood. I want you to monitor the antimatter tank. Let me know when you are there. And Kol?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Good job. I've let your parents know you are safe."
"What about T—, sorry, Ensign Celes?"
Kol could hear voices in the background but could not make out any words. The Engineering room must be bustling with activity.
"The Doctor has put her under sedation for treatment, but she'll be fine. You got to her on time. Kim out."
You had to make a choice.
"The main deflector," said Kol.
"What about it?"
"If you could turn it towards the supernova, it would act as a shield and give us some reprieve."
Miral looked at him with a measure of respect in her eyes. "That's what Celes and Dell were trying to do. The deflector controls down on Deck eleven got fried when the stars exploded. They were on their way to reset them from the bridge Ops console."
"Well, maybe they succeeded, and I met them on their way back."
"So?"
We don't leave anybody behind.
"That means that your radiation exposure calculations could be way off, and Dell isn't dead yet."
Miral shook her head. "Too dangerous," she said, and he heard B'Elanna's voice and saw the flames raging on the upper level of the Engineering holodeck. No way he was going to make that fatal mistake twice.
That is not who we are.
He stood and re-opened the access hatch behind him.
"Kol, do you want me to call the captain to order you to stay here?" Miral asked, her forehead creasing.
"No need. I'll be gone before you even tap your combadge." He gave her a wink and disappeared back into the Jefferies tube.
###
Full illumination had come back, a small blessing in his opinion. He hurried as fast as he could but had to let his trembling leg muscles recover every two platforms. He wondered how the crew, many of them into their fifties, managed to go up and down those damn conduits day in, day out.
After what felt like an hour, but was probably closer to ten minutes, he reached Deck six and let himself out to find nobody around. Where was that crewman? He was not keen to search hundreds of square metres. Tapping his combadge gave him back the familiar hiss. Had to be the high radiation levels on the top decks playing up with internal comms. One small mystery solved.
Maybe Dell was trying to modify the auxiliary deflector while he was there. Corridor 6-R, section… What was the blasted section?
He bit his lips. With the computer systems still off, he would have to recollect one of Torres' lessons from three months ago—
Section Blue, to his right. Blowing a sigh of relief, he ran down the corridor.
"Dell," he shouted while forcing the door to the room open. The man was sitting on the floor, his back against a console. His skin was grey, sweat like pearls on his face, his eyes unfocused and blinking slowly.
Kol skidded beside him. "Let's go, Dell."
"It's Crewman Third Class Dell for you," the man said in a hoarse voice. "But don't bother, kiddo. I've had it."
Kol checked the man's dosimeter. The readings were in the lower red.
"You still got ten minutes before a lethal dose." More like five really, but this was not the time to get all academic about it.
"Is that your expert conclusion, mister-knows-it-all?" The man doubled over, his breathing making a horrible grating noise.
"Well, you can insult me all you want, but you are coming with me."
"Oh, yeah? And how are you going to do that, pipsqueak? Carry me?"
Kol swallowed his anger. "If I must," he said. He put his arm around the man's waist and hauled him up. "But it would be easier on the both of us if you could get moving. You are not exactly a feather weight."
They slowly hobbled toward the door. "Look, son, we'll never make it. Thanks for the company, but go and save yourself. Just do me a favour. Tell Tal to take care and that I'm sorry I won't make it to dinner."
"You and Tal are together?" Kol almost dropped his hold on the man. That explained Dell's animosity after he had been put down in front of his partner by a bragging fifteen-year-old.
Wincing at his own stupidity, Kol strengthened his grip on the man's waist, half carrying him through the doorway.
"For the best part of six months now." It took a couple of seconds for Kol to react to Dell's tone of voice: clear and strong again. He let him go, watching the man stand up and brush himself, looking none the worse for wear except for a grey tinge to his skin. "But you can be excused for not knowing everything, Kol." The man winked before slapping him hard on the shoulder.
Cheers erupted behind Kol. When he turned around, his parents were clapping, a wide smile on their face, and Tal, and Captain Kim, and Miral and what looked like half of the crew were giving him a round of applause.
He must have looked like a dork, with his mouth open and tears running down his cheeks.
Chapter 5 - Reward
Kol came out of the refresher towelling his hair. He was glad to have gotten rid of the rather pungent mix of sweat and Jefferies tubes' stale air, not to mention the grey substance Dell had used to mimic radiation-induced skin lesions.
"Mom. What's next?" he asked, putting the towel around his shoulders.
His mother was setting the table for the evening meal, Chakotay and Liz still on an errand somewhere. "Dinner, then bed for you. You must be exhausted."
"No, I mean, what's going to happen now? Do I get to sit the rest of the exams?"
"You've got two more practicals to go through before the academic entrance tests start next week."
Kol collapsed on the couch and groaned, his wrist on his forehead. "Don't tell me. Next time, I save the ship with a hyperspanner in one hand and the Starfleet rulebook in the other. And bare-chested while I am at it."
"Very Captain Kirk of you," said Kathryn, fighting a grin. "But I doubt it will be anything like that."
"Then, do you know what Dad has got in store for me? I hope it's not a variation on the Kobayashi Maruscenario."
If he had not been looking at his mom at that precise moment, he would have missed the cloud coming over her eyes. "Tell me it isn't," he said, suddenly all serious. What kind of horrible scenarios had his father concocted for him, each more elaborate and scary than the previous one?
"Don't worry. Only command-track cadets take that test, not applicants to the Academy," she said.
He had forgotten about that. "Did you go through it, Mom?" Kol had always been fascinated by his parents' recollections of their time at the Academy. It sounded so exotic and so different, when all he had to look forward to was spending the next four years of his cadetship zipping around the other side of the galaxy.
"I switched to the command division after I'd graduated. But, yes, I asked if I could take it."
"You asked for it?" Kol's eyes widened with awe. Nobody ever passed that test. It was a trial of character in the face of overwhelming danger, doom, and unwinnable odds. That much he knew.
"I did. I couldn't…"
Kol saw a shift in her. She was looking at him as if he could understand because he had, in a small way, gone through a gruelling experience himself. It made him feel all grown up suddenly.
"I had to know. I had to know if I could face the destruction of my ship, the death of my crew. I got a lot out of it at the time, although no test can compare to what happens in real combat situations of course."
"What did you learn, Mom?" Kol stood and took the plates off her hands. What kind of trials had his mother faced during her life time that would make the Kobayashi Maru scenario look like a picnic?
She busied herself with the knives and forks, while he followed, placing four plates on the table and straightening the chairs.
"First of all, that it gets very noisy on the bridge when your ship's under attacked. Second, that you don't have much time to think. Once you've made your decision, you've got to stick to it. Third…"
She stopped what she was doing, the last cutlery set in her hand. "Third is that you will lose people whatever you do. That is what the Kobayashi Maru test is really about. It is not about being clever, or fearless. It is about facing death, accepting it, and enduring regardless."
Kol had rarely seen such raw emotions playing on his mother's face before. Since she had resigned from the captaincy, it was as if she had also been able to let go of whoever she'd had to be before. Maybe that was another lesson he would need to remember. "If I get into the Academy, do you want me to take the command track?"
"If that is what you want to do, I will support you. But there's plenty of other avenues for you to choose from, especially on Voyager. This ship draws from everybody's abilities and skills, not just those of the command team."
"Like Dell?" Kol asked. Despite the man's assurances they were now even, Kol still felt bad about how he had treated him in the mess hall. And he'd slapped the guy. Hard. "Were him and Tal really unconscious when I'd find them on Deck five?"
"The Doctor gave them a short-acting sedative, strong enough to knock them out for half an hour. They both volunteered, you know."
"Dell volunteered?"
"Oh, yes." His mom nodded. "He's a man of many talents even though he's never wanted to go up the ranks. You'll soon find out more about his capabilities, by the way."
"What?"
"Oh, you didn't know? As you hadn't made up your mind about where to do your work experience over the break, we asked around on your behalf, and Dell insisted," his mom answered, an innocent look in her eyes. "He said he'll be pleased to show you the ropes. You start as soon as you finish the entrance exams."
Kol groaned.
Loudly.
###
SN 2397VY was the brightest object in the night, lighting their path home. It was a reminder of Voyager's long journey ahead that its glow would not reach the Alpha quadrant for tens of thousands of years.
Kolopak glanced down at the faint reflection which had caught his eye. The small silver bar felt heavy in his hand. He hoped it would be the first of a long line of rank insignia to come, but, right now, it was the most magnificent thing he had ever seen, easily outshining the supernova.
His mother put her hand on his shoulder. "Consider it your Christmas present, Kol. You've earned it."
"Would you mind…." He swallowed hard. When he lifted his gaze, his mother was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "Would you mind being the one to put it on my collar?"
"Starfleet rule dictates it should be the highest ranked officer on active duty," she demurred.
Kim turned around, a glass in his hand. "I am quite happy to let you do the honour, Captain Janeway. It won't be the first rule we've broken on this ship."
Eyes misty, Kathryn Janeway affixed the bar on her son's collar. "Welcome among Voyager's crew, First-year Cadet Kolopak Janeway."
He saluted, a wide smile on his face. All crew members present lifted their glasses to the newest addition to their ranks. "To Cadet Janeway," they said in unison.
And thus ended the twenty-seventh year of Voyager's journey.
My most sincere thanks to Devovere for her beta skills on this story.
The 27th Year is a multi-chapter story on FFN, so I posted this fic as one story, but kept the chapter headings because it helps with the change of scenes.
Inspired by 'Proving Ground', a Stargate SG-1 episode from Season 5.
And, fear not, there will be more stories in that series. When the muse comes.