The Next Morning
Chapter 2
In her quarters, Kathryn Janeway put away her last PADD and finished cleaning off her desk. "Time for 'The Captain' to make an appearance," she told herself. She made a quick check of her uniform, and then exited her quarters on her way to the bridge. It was still quiet, the closing minutes of Gamma shift.
When Captain Janeway stepped onto the bridge the Gamma crew straightened to attention. She nodded her greetings to Lieutenant Rollins and acknowledged the rest of the crew on the bridge. "I'll be in my ready room, Lieutenant," she informed Mr. Rollins.
"Aye, Captain."
The Gamma crew still maintained a sense of formality in the Captain's presence. Out of the corner of her eye she could see them relax from their at-attention posture as soon as she left the bridge. She had a very different relationship with the Alpha shift bridge crew. She valued them as friends as well as colleagues. She depended on them and they responded by carrying more responsibility than most Starfleet officers ever had to bear.
Maybe she asked too much of them. Her senior staff had come alarmingly close to crossing the line between initiative and insubordination several months ago when they refused to implement her plan to stop the Malons from dumping poisonous garbage into a void that Voyager had been crossing. She circumvented the danger that time by amending her original plan. But then, Tom did cross the line when he intervened on Monea against her orders. This time there had been nothing she could do to get around it.
Kathryn rubbed her forehead. She cared deeply for this crew. For their sake, she was more than willing to accept the burden of being the only Starfleet Captain in the Delta Quadrant. She never wanted them to know exactly how heavy that burden of responsibility could be. At the beginning of their journey she had thought that she would have Tuvok to confide in when dealing with issues like this. Back then, she thought of him as her 'moral compass'. But then he had assisted B'Elanna with the dubious exchange of Voyager data for alien technology and Kathryn had lost the comfort of having him as her safety valve. "Enough of this," she scolded herself. "All Starfleet Captains in the Delta Quadrant should get to work."
Elsewhere on the ship, after a quick stop in the mess hall, Tom Paris headed down to Astrometrics to meet up with Commander Chakotay. Tom had intended to escape from the mess hall with only a cup of coffee. But, there had been no awkward questions thrown at him by the crewmembers there, no cold shoulders either. He had let Neelix talk him into trying something that looked blue and tasted red.
Tom was more off balance today than he had been in a long time. Before Caldik Prime, he had thought that he understood everything about how the world worked. After Caldik Prime he hadn't been sure of anything any more. He had learned to protect himself by using his talent for observing people to keep them at arm's length. He read their body language and their facial expressions so that he had enough warning to back away from them before they could back away from him, or worse. It turned out to be a very useful skill to have in prison. Knowing who was dangerous, who was not, who was planning something, who was just making conversation, it was a survival skill.
These past few years he had come to know Voyager's crew well. He understood his place in the daily life of the ship. Now he wasn't quite sure what to expect anymore. There was this gap. Life on the ship had gone on and he hadn't been a part of it. He had prepared himself for some unpleasant surprises today and so far there had been none. That itself was throwing him off balance. He was beginning to hope that there would be no unpleasant surprises in his meeting with the Captain either. He was beginning to hope that he hadn't sacrificed everything that he had worked so hard for here on Voyager.
When Tom reached Astrometrics, Chakotay was already there, waiting for him. "Commander," Tom said in greeting.
"Tom," Chakotay replied. "Ready to get to work?"
"Yes, Sir."
The doors to Astrometrics slid open and Tom followed Chakotay into the lab. Tom felt his stomach clench when he heard the doors close behind him. "Easy," he told himself under his breath. "This isn't a trap."
"Commander Chakotay, Ensign Paris." Seven's cool voice greeted the two officers.
"Seven," Chakotay responded. "I'd like you to show Mr. Paris the current course projections and let him look over last month's flight logs. He's going to check out the helm this afternoon. Something is not quite right with the controls. If he has a clearer picture of what this ship has been through, he should be able to help us figure out what's wrong."
"I thought all necessary repairs had been completed. Lt. Torres spent enough time working on the engines this month," Seven stated bluntly.
It was at times like this that Chakotay wished that Seven would learn the difference between honesty and tactlessness.
As was often the case in the past, Tom Paris stepped in to smooth things over. "B'Elanna is a great engineer. But it takes more than an engineer to keep Voyager flying at her best."
"Do you intend to complete the repairs yourself, Ensign?"
Tom noticed that neither Seven nor Tuvok had any hesitation about using his new title. Not that he minded too much. He had known what he was getting into when he started this. He wasn't about to complain now. Neelix, Seven, Doc, they all had to do their jobs without any formal rank at all. He certainly wasn't going to bend Harry's ear about how tough it was to be an Ensign. Besides, B'Elanna had very effectively taken care of any sting he might have felt from the title. He tried to keep the color from rising on his face when he recalled what else she had said when she called him 'Ensign' earlier today in her quarters.
"Ensign?" prompted Seven.
His thoughts must have wandered off longer than he realized. He pulled his attention back to the matter at hand. "It takes a top pilot to feel the movement of the ship through the controls and to fine tune the helm. That's where I come in," he explained with his old assurance.
A skeptical, "Indeed?" was her only comment.
"Well," Chakotay said, breaking into this professional face-off. "You both seem to have things under control here. I'll let you two experts get down to work. Tom, when you're finished in Astrometrics I've set up some simulations for you on Holodeck Two. I want you to try out some of the maneuvers that the ship was put through last month. See if you can find any connection to those glitches we've noticed. And don't forget you have a meeting with the Captain at 11:00 hours."
"Aye, Sir," Tom replied.
Chakotay gave both of them a final appraising look. Then he left. Tom felt his stomach tighten again when the doors closed behind Chakotay. Tom closed his eyes briefly and then opened them again.
"Ensign Paris, are you well?" Seven inquired with some concern.
"I'm fine, Seven." Tom found that it helped if he could focus on the giant star chart projected across most of one whole wall of the lab. He knew that it was only a matter of time until his reactions returned to a more normal level. He took a deep breath and smiled reassuringly at Seven before walking over to one of the panels to access the data on the course projections.
Meanwhile, Chakotay made a short detour to Engineering to see how B'Elanna was doing, and then continued on to the bridge. He found the Captain in her ready room buried in work. "Good morning, Kathryn. I see you were up early again today."
"Good morning. How's our wayward crewmember?" she asked, ignoring the dig at her lack of sleep.
"I left him with Seven in Astrometrics. He was a bit unsteady, but definitely holding his own. I've set up some flight simulations for him on Holodeck Two. He should find the rest of the morning a little less abrasive."
Kathryn smiled ruefully at her First Officer. "At least part of the rest of the morning."
Chakotay sat down across from her. He considered her a moment before speaking. "There's a betting pool running on the lower decks about what's going to happen in your meeting with Tom. The odds-on favorite has you taking him off the helm and restricting him to duties in Sickbay. There is also a long shot that's gaining in popularity. That one has him 'losing his cool' and decking you. You end up in Sickbay with a broken nose."
"Does anyone take this stuff seriously?" she asked in disbelief.
"Personally, I think the whole pool is a ploy by the Doctor to get people interested in going down to Sickbay."
"Now that I can believe! I think that I'd better have another talk with the Doctor," she remarked, half seriously.
"How do you think the meeting with Tom will go, Kathryn?" he asked, steering the conversation back to the topic on both their minds.
"Well, anyone wanting to listen in might be disappointed. I hope we can cover some of the issues still between us, but that isn't just up to me. If Tom has his defenses up and doesn't want to talk, we may only be able to deal with superficial matters. I want to try to push a bit, though, to see if I can get him to open up."
"How are you planning to do that?"
"I'm not exactly sure. I'm a Captain, not a counselor." She smiled wryly at making use of one of the Doctor's lines. "Maybe by being honest about my own feelings about all of this?" She shook her head doubtfully.
"Sounds to me like you'd make a pretty good counselor." Chakotay said gently.
Kathryn smiled her thanks. But inside, she felt again how limited their resources were in the Delta quadrant. She regretted once again that there was no counselor on board. On a personal note, she longed to have another Starfleet Captain around to talk to, someone to compare notes with so that she could be sure that she was doing everything she possibly could for her crew.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Kathryn," Chakotay said, interrupting her thoughts. "Everyone knows that you're doing the best you can for this crew."
"Everyone? Is that why the betting pool thinks that Tom will try to punch me in the nose?" she asked. Her sense of humor was well and truly tickled by the absurdity.
"Don't pay attention to the betting pool, Kathryn. No one else does. I think they're calling it 'Worst Case Scenario'. I may be wrong, though. It might actually be wildest case scenario."
She shot him an exasperated look when she realized that he had been pulling her leg about the betting pool all along.
In the corridor outside Holodeck Two, Harry Kim checked to see which program was running. He knew that Tom was inside one of the holodecks, working on some kind of flight simulation. Harry opened the doors and walked into a holodeck version of Voyager's bridge. The bridge was empty except for a single figure at the conn. The holodeck's view screen was in full operation.
Harry made his way down to the conn where Tom was sitting with his ear close to one of the panels. Tom was entering a series of commands and then pausing to listen to something. Or maybe he was trying to feel something through his fingers. Tom finally noticed that he was no longer alone. "Hey, Harry! How long have you been standing there?" he called over his shoulder.
"Not long," Harry answered. "I'm taking a break and I thought maybe you could use one too."
Tom swung around and sat back in his chair. "Thanks, Harry, but I think I'll pass on the offer this time. I'm trying to track down a glitch in the impulse controls." Tom gestured toward one of the panels. "I know what it feels like and how to compensate for it. I need to figure out what kind of maneuver triggers it and how much of a problem it will be if we can't fix it right away. How about meeting for lunch instead?"
"Aren't you having lunch with B'Elanna?"
"No, she commed a little while ago. She's working through lunch so she can finish up early and get ready for tonight. She's planning a special dinner for us."
"A special dinner! That sounds good! Maybe I should drop by and join you two." Harry suggested with mock seriousness.
"Harry," Tom said with an exaggerated tone of his own. "Don't take this the wrong way. You are my best friend. But, I definitely do not want to see you at dinner tonight." Then he smiled.
"Right. Lunch it is then," said Harry, smiling back.
"Harry?" Tom began again. "I wanted to thank you for coming to visit me in the brig. It meant a lot to me. I'm sorry I was such a jerk about it at the time."
Harry held back his own regrets. He would have liked to apologize for not being more tactful that day. But, he knew that if he did that, Tom would only try to make him feel better. Tom had enough to deal with today. Harry didn't want to add to Tom's concerns. Harry clapped his hand on Tom's shoulder and confided conspiratorially. "That's okay. I'm your best friend remember? That means I'm still your friend even when you're being a jerk."
He was rewarded when Tom beamed him that delighted smile he had whenever Harry stood up for himself.
Author's Notes: no notes for chapter two