Hey. It's been a while, but here is another chapter. And there's more where that came from. I swear I will get this story to the end. I aim for a chapter every two or three weeks from now on and, unless another crazy project takes hold of me, I should be able to hold up, all my other writing projects being completed and in the "revision" phase.
So I hope somebody's still hanging on to this, and I'd greatly appreciate a few reviews!
Chapter 14. Zeta's first warp flight
When Merrrshika woke up the next morning after a good and very long night of sleep (even by Mirrresh standards), she could hardly believe she had felt like rolling on the shuttle's floor in pain a mere fifteen hours earlier. After a mandatory visit to the sickbay, where the Doctor confirmed she was perfectly fine, she called the bridge and asked to meet the captain, who invited her to her ready room.
Just when she arrived to the top deck and stepped out of the turbolift, Harry came in. They exchanged an enthusiastic and breathless smile, but merely wished each other good morning and continued their separate directions. Tuvok gave Merrrshika an inquisitive glance with an arched eyebrow when she passed by his console.
"Keep yourr mind off mine, Vulcan!" she exclaimed good-naturedly.
"I assure you, Merrrshika, I did not intend to read your mind," he denied stonily.
Merrrshika did not attempt to strike up an argument, but merely shot him a crooked smile. Then she turned to Kathryn.
"Captain, we have to name the shuttles, now that they've taken theirr firrsht warrp flight."
"Alright," Kathryn agreed with a smile, "but is it that urgent?"
"Fairrly," Merrrshika assured. "They hesitate to define theirr identity and it'sh not good forr theirr link with a futurre crrew."
"Alright then!" Janeway exclaimed. "Do what is necessary. Do you want some suggestions?"
"In fact, I alrready have an idea, but shinche you'rre the captain I thought I'd ashk yourr opinion."
"May we participate in the debate?" Tom chimed in.
"Of courrshe," Merrrshika agreed. "I thought of Epshilon forr the male and Zeta forr the female. I know yourr otherr shuttle is called the Delta Flyerr, sho Epshilon and Zeta fit in well. And Grreeksh werre among the firrsht schientishtsh on yourr planet. A grreek letterr would be a good name forr the two firrsht mirrresh shuttles of the alpha quadrrant."
"Sounds like a good idea and nice names," Tom approved with his characteristic smile.
"I agree," Janeway concurred.
"These names neither constitute a systematic system nor are they innovative," Tuvok protested.
"Well, Alpha, Beta and Gamma could be theirr firrsht childrren, if you want a shyshtematic shyshtem, Lieutenant-Commander Tuvok," Merrrshika countered slyly with a wink, invisible behind her sunglasses.
"Voted?" the Captain asked around.
"Approved!" Paris exclaimed.
"Perfect," B'Elanna declared.
"Agreed," the ops operator concurred.
"Tuvok's outnumbered," Tom observed gleefully.
"Well then, agreed, the names of the two new Voyager's shuttles are now officially Epsilon and Zeta," Kathryn declared theatrically.
Merrrshika begged to be given permission for another warp test flight even though Kathryn insisted that she was in no condition, recuperating from a surgery as she was. Merrrshika insisted until the Captain sent her to the Doctor and let him try and convince her to stay put a few days. Merrrshika sighed, knowing the Doctor much harder to sway than the Captain, and found him signing opera in the sickbay. He went straight from Monteverdi's Orfeo to asking what the medical emergency was with a disconcerting absence of transition.
"Therre's no emerrgency, Doctorr, don't worry," Merrrshika explained. "It'sh jusht that Captain Janeway ashked me to come to shee you to make surre I'm okay forr anotherr warrp flight."
"You mean, with one of your shuttles?" the Doctor worried.
"Yesh, why not? Zeta – that'sh the female's new name – Zeta didn't get to trry the warrp yet. She'll prrobably be a lot easierr on me than the male."
"In any case, it's out of the question," the Doctor stated decisively.
Merrrshika instinctively took on her most menacing stance and advanced with all her feline vigour on the Doctor, who stepped back automatically before he remembered he was a hologram and she was his crewmate.
"Why would that be?" she hissed. "I am perrfectly fine; I'm not even shtiff! Why should I washte my time doing nothing when thish is my only chanche in weeksh – Mirrresh weeksh! – to trrain the shuttles?"
"Well, you just recovered from a major surgery," the Doctor reminded, "so you should be resting for a while."
"It'sh alrready been fifteen hourrs." She took a breath and her stance changed from that of a prowling panther to that of a pleading kitten. "Doctorr, thish is rreally imporrtant. I don't have much time to trrain the shuttles and they'rre alrready a little old forr theirr firrsht warrp flight. Delaying theirr trraining again could sherrioushly comprromise theirr fighting shkills. I'm not planning on doing any fantasy manoeuvrres! I jusht need yourr authorrisation forr a shimple warrp flight."
The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes, but nevertheless took a datapad and entered his authorisation in it. He kept an eye on Merrrshika with an air at the same time severe and mocking, and finally handed her the electronic device.
"Alright, since this seems a life-threatening matter, you can go. But just a nice quiet warp flight, nothing more. I also order you to come here after your flight for a check-in."
"Thank you, Doctorr," she said, enthusiastically snatching the datapad from his hands.
She went back to the bridge and proudly produced the authorisation the Captain required.
"Of Harry, Tuvok, Murrphy and Robinshon, who could be joining me forr the next warrp trry?" Merrrshika asked when Kathryn handed her back the datapad.
"It's Harry but Murphy?" Janeway remarked with a subtle smile.
"Murrphy, Harry, Mike or Kim, what'sh the differrenche?" Merrrshika inquired uncomprehendingly.
There were a few exchanged glances of incredulity around the bridge.
"What?" Merrrshika insisted in the growing silence.
"Using the first name of a person is more familiar than using their last name," Kathryn explained.
"Oh… Sho I should not be using theirr firrsht names at all, rright?"
"Well, it depends on how close you feel to these people," Tom remarked with his usual double-meaning.
Merrrshika played the one too naïve to understand what the innuendo had been about.
"Sho, who can come with me?" she insisted.
Chakotay consulted the display in his seat's armrest.
"Kim is sleeping, Tuvok and Murphy are right here and Robinson is off duty, but he seems to be hanging around in the mess hall. So I guess you have at least Tuvok and Murphy and maybe Robinson if he agrees."
So Merrrshika left the bridge in the company of Tuvok and Murphy, and when they talked to Robinson, he followed them enthusiastically. When they arrived in the docking bay, Epsilon backed against the far wall, the ram above his cabin lifted in a defensive stance.
"He's afrraid," Merrrshika remarked sadly. "He needs anotherr flight."
The three training pilots looked at her incredulously and Tuvok spoke for them, exposing with his trademark Vulcan restraint what they all thought.
"It is unadvisable to fly with him again, since you have not fully recovered from your surgery."
Merrrshika lifted her hands and rolled her eyes.
"I thought I hearrd the Doctorr therre forr a minute!" she exclaimed. "It'sh even lessh advisable to let thish poorr little shuttle be shcarred to death wonderring if I'm angrry at him! Nexsht time he won't even let me in the shaddle if I don't rride him now."
Tuvok lifted an eyebrow, weighing the logic of that statement, and finally nodded his head and bowed to her wisdom. Merrrshika stepped onboard Epsilon first, and waited a moment in the pilot cabin, while the pilot apprentices strapped themselves down in their seats. After Epsilon had calmed slightly, Merrrshika settled down in the saddle and put her head in the pilot's helm.
"I could use a little of that vulcan immunity to fearr rright about now," she muttered to herself.
She took a breath and took her hands towards the reins. Already a dozen alarms in violet and ultraviolet flashed in the helm; the cardiac rhythm and energy consumption of the shuttle were abnormally high due to stress, which compromised life support.
Zeta, feeling Epsilon's fear, sided with him and kept position slightly ahead of him to reassure him. Merrrshika spoke to Epsilon through the pilot's helm until he calmed down enough to stabilise life support. She then led him outside and let him relax by guiding him through a few orbits at half impulse. Then, she directed him through a series of straight lines, going back and forth, until he stopped trying to slant on one side or the other, which rendered the transition to warp speed impossible. The apprentice pilots, seated in the back, were bored to tears long before Epsilon stopped resisting warp speed.
In the middle of one of the straight lines, Merrrshika asked suddenly, and a little brusquely, the transition to warp speed. She held onto the saddle with knees and arms; Epsilon did not expect her sudden request in the least. She took him by surprise well enough that he jumped to warp immediately, before he even realized what he had done. When he did, however, he frenetically tried to slow down to impulse, but Merrrshika pushed him and pushed him until he stabilized his speed to warp two. She let him relax there a few minutes, then slowed down to impulse and proceeded to make the transition from impulse to warp and back again until her pilots were again bored to tears, but Epsilon now changed speed willingly. After that nearly three-hours flight, Merrrshika docked Epsilon, shaking with exhaustion, back within Voyager next to Zeta.
At odds with Epsilon's, Zeta's first warp flight went extremely well. As soon as the shuttle found herself out of orbit and far from its bustling mechanical activity, she relaxed. As a consequence, Merrrshika slid down a fair ten centimetres in the hollow that just appeared between the two previously cramped vertebrae forming the pilot's saddle, and blood could now circulate freely all the way down to her hands and back up. After a few circles and spirals at full impulse to warm her engines correctly, Merrrshika pressed her hands to the warp controls, and Zeta slid into warp propulsion seamlessly. However, she had completely forgotten the internal environmental systems in the meanwhile and everyone onboard felt a numbing shock when they sped to warp. Zeta regained control of life support quickly enough, and displayed on command the astrometric map and flight plan. She willingly adjusted her speed to Merrrshika's commands, and even sprinted to an astonishing warp 9.99997. Merrrshika displayed the information available to her in the pilot's helmet on the main viewscreen, so that the pilots could follow her manoeuvres and have something to watch. When they saw the speed the shuttle could muster, they clapped and exclaimed excitedly among themselves, which filled Zeta with jubilation.
They went back to Voyager in the same easy fashion and, apart from a few nervous shivers when ships passed close by, Zeta behaved with exemplary reliability. Merrrshika scratched her spine affectionately a long while and the shuttle purred happily. Janeway learned from three excited – right, two excited and one logically optimistic – officers the maximum speed Zeta had reached. Kathryn declared it was very interesting information, and that the shuttles would prove extremely useful for survey missions, because they could speed past Voyager and survey the coming space without the need for the ship to slow down.
However, once Merrrshika had finished caring for the shuttles, entered her reports, taken a shower, changed clothes and passed by sickbay so the doctor could confirm she was recovering correctly, there were still thirty hours left before her date with Harry, and it was the middle of the night for every other crew onboard. Kathryn would be sleeping soundly, Neelix must have just gotten into bed after cleaning up the mess hall after supper, Harry must be in the middle of a usually boring night shift, Seven's conscious mind must be deeply immersed in its regeneration cycles, and so there was no one to kill boredom with.