CHAPTER 4 – Gilded Princesses

The next morning Naomi Wildman was tired. Really, really tired. Between the excitement of her late-night exchange in engineering and missing several extra hours of sleep due to said excitement she felt like she wouldn't be able to get out of bed at all. Then, she had to expend even more energy to convince her mother that she was in fact fine and sleeping in her clothes was a normal thing to do. By the time she had made it through the doctor's morning lesson on cell wall structure she was ready to drop.

But, she had now come upon the most crucial time of her day so she drank a big glass of apple juice from the replicator and went to see Seven.

"Naomi Wildman," Seven said, turning ever so slightly from the center console in astrometrics to see who had joined her.

"Hi Seven!" The girl replied. She hopped up to the former drone with newfound, juice-induced energy. "Whatcha up to?"

Seven regarded her. "There is a cluster of red giant stars in a rare formation roughly 22 light years off starboard. I am gathering data so that the captain can decide whether or not to make a detour for further study."

"Oh," Naomi's face fell. "So you're busy?"

"That is correct," Seven replied without looking up. Then she thought a moment and turned to the girl. "Was there something you required?"

"I wanted to see if you would come to the holodeck with me. I have an hour of Flodder time and it's not as much fun alone." In her mind she could think of nothing but 'please, please, please!'

"I will be occupied here for the rest of the day. Perhaps you should ask Neelix to join you," Seven suggested.

"He's busy too," she lied. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie. Neelix could be busy she just wasn't quite sure. "How about tomorrow? Would you come with me tomorrow?"

Seven searched her mental calendar. "Yes. Tomorrow would be acceptable."

Naomi grinned with excitement. Everything was coming together. "Oh thank you! That's great!" Then she paused, "uh….what time? You know, so I can reserve the slot?"

"1100 hours. I will meet you there," Seven replied.

"Perfect!"

Naomi decided now would be the time to take her leave before Seven changed her mind. But she stopped halfway across the room. "Uh, Seven? Will there be anyone else in astrometrics tomorrow, you know, when we're with Flodder?"

Seven turned to her with a puzzled expression on her face. "Unlikely. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason. Have fun with the red giants."

"Fun is irrelevant. However, this data is important to the captain so I will enjoy seeing the eventual outcome of my efforts."

"If you say so," Naomi replied with a shrug. And then she left, another trade firmly within reach.

Naomi was all too happy to leave a message for Crewman Henard to receive when he woke up. The next day, Astrometrics was his for an hour and, as an added bonus, she got to enjoy the holodeck. In fact, she enjoyed her time with Seven and Flodder so much that by the end of the hour she had almost forgotten that Henard would be meeting her to hand over his payment. He was waiting for her in the corridor outside her quarters when she returned for lunch. He had both hands behind his back.

"Mr. Henard," she said when she saw him, anticipation building in her belly. "Did you get what you wanted from astrometrics?"

He smiled brightly at her and showed her a hand full of a stack of PADD's. "I did, I got more data than I could have ever hoped for. You'll have to let me show you the images some time." Then he paused and stooped down a bit. "And it's Danny. Or Hey, my friends call me Hey."

"Okay, Hey," she giggled.

"I have something for you." Then he pulled the other hand out from behind his back. In it was a book; a very ornate one at that. "I bought this for my niece from a trader when Voyager was docked at Deep Space Nine, just before we left for the badlands," he explained. "I was saving it for her, but the truth is it was just collecting dust and by the time we get home she'll be too old to appreciate it anyway." He held the book out to her.

Naomi took it with both hands. It was large and heavy with a beautifully illustrated cover. There were pretty ladies with long blonde hair highlighted in gilded gold. One was on a large white horse. A sparkling castle was in the background. There were green grasses and opalescent flowers all over the ground. The back of the book was inlaid with dried petals and it smelled faintly of a sweet perfume.

"They're princess stories. Fairy tales," Henard told her. "Cinderella, Snow White and some others you've probably heard already. But there's also Bajoran ones and a few from some other cultures I don't know much about." Naomi felt like she couldn't possibly smile any larger. She flipped through the pages and the vivid pictures seemed to jump off the pages.

"Thank you," she said genuinely. This exchange, she realized, it was more than payment. It was a gift. There would be no way she could trade this for anything else.

"Thank you so much."