Chapter 3! I'm on a roll!

Thanks to all my reviewers and your suggestions. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up this writing pace and not disappoint you all!

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Life went on like it always did on board the Voyager, but now there was a definite undercurrent of tension and excitement. With the end of their journey so close and yet so uncertain, most of the crew was walking on eggshells, hoping for the best.

Captain Janeway paced the floor of her ready room, growling with barely contained frustration. They had been in the Alpha Quadrant now for nearly three days, and still there was no indication that anyone had gotten their message, Starfleet or otherwise. It was starting to get downright disheartening.

Janeway sank into her desk chair, sighing a bit into her ever-present mug of coffee. If they hadn't gotten an answer by now, it was unlikely that they were going to get one at all. She was tempted to just order Tom to turn the ship around and return to their point of materialization, but she knew that if the crew didn't get a view of Earth while they were so close, she was likely to have a mutiny on her hands.

She set her coffee down and rose, stretching to relieve the tension from her neck and shoulders. The last three days hadn't been easy on her, and the immediate future didn't look too relaxing, either.

Janeway strode through her ready room doors, donning the impenetrable Captain's mask as she did so. If the crew saw that she was anxious, they would know there was a reason to be worried, and an uneasy crew right now.

She crossed the bridge and seated herself in the Captain's chair. Turning to Chakotay, she opened her mouth to ask for a report but she was interrupted by a crackle of static and a blinding flash of light.

She whipped her head around and her eyes widened a fraction before she slapped the Captain's mask back down. Before her was a hologram of a grey haired man, wearing a white shirt and some sort of rough fabric pants. Any details beyond that were obscured by the hazy quality of the hologram.

The man glared at someone through the staticky light. "Hey Thor, is it working yet? I didn't know it was going to take this long to set up…" the man trailed off abruptly, noticing that he had an audience. "Oh, hey! You must be Captain Janeway, right?"

"Yes, I am. I assume that you got my message then, Mr. …?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill. My buddy Thor here," he said, jerking his thumb in the same direction he had been glaring earlier. "picked up your message a couple of days ago and brought me up here to see it. So, what do you guys need help with?"

"Well, Colonel O'Neill, as I said in my transmission, we have been stranded in the Delta Quadrant for nearly seven years now. We started our journey on a planet called Earth about a light-year from here – "

"Whoa, whoa. Stop. Did you say Earth? You mean blue and green, seven continents, two polar ice caps Earth?"

Janeway was a little taken aback by O'Neill's knowledge of Earth, but she collected herself enough to answer, "Yes, actually. Voyager is a ship in the Federation's fleet, stationed out of San Francisco."

"Well, Captain, I think that's going to be a problem, considering I'm a Colonel in the US Air Force, stationed out of Colorado Springs., and I've never heard of the Federation or Voyager."

Janeway exchanged shocked looks with her commander before asking, "So, you're from Earth? What year is it there?"

"It's 2001, why do you ask…..Oh. It's time travel again, isn't it?"

Janeway only had a moment to register the fact that he said again, like it had happened to him once already, before all hell broke loose on the bridge.