Chakotay to Paris.
Tom Paris rolled over and snatched up the offending badge. In one smooth motion he turned and tossed it into the waste reclamation alcove, which dematerialized it neatly. Grinning, Tom bounced out of bed. Today was the day he took Harry Kim's advice. Today was the day he got crazy!
Tom had made a list of everything he wanted to do. He entered it into the Earhart's chroniton-laced computer so he wouldn't have to recreate it every time the day turned over. After all, as Harry said, no one would remember, so he could feasibly get away with murder. Hmmm... He briefly fantasized about shoving Chakotay's curfew letter down his throat, but decided quickly that that was taking things a little too far. He had time to kill, though, and he would use it to the best of his ability. Tom checked over the list and smiled broadly. "This is going to be fun," he said to himself.
One: Date every single girl on the ship at least once.
"Not tonight, Tom, I've got to work," pleaded Kes half-heartedly. Tom turned on his puppy eyes and boyish charm and coaxed, "Come on, just a couple hours?"
The Ocampa looked up and smiled. "Neelix." Tom scoffed. "What about Neelix? He'll never-" A voice from behind him froze Tom in his tracks.
"Step away from my darling, Mr. Paris. I have a frying pan and I'm not afraid to use it."
"Paris, I already told you no, so get out before I throw you out!" growled B'Elanna. Tom took two steps back from the frustrated Klingon. He didn't doubt that she could physically throw him out of her domain. "I will return for you, my sweet, never fear!" he said heroically before beating a hasty retreat. He heard rather than saw the hyperspanner that hit the wall where his head had been.
"Lieutenant, you're out of line!" said Janeway. She had her hands planted firmly on her hips with her best stern face directed squarely at Tom. But a smile was tugging at the corner of her mouth, Tom just knew it. "Your lips say no, but your eyes say yes," he said smoothly. Kathryn leaned toward him and let the smile cover her mouth now.
"My lips say to the brig if you ever so much as hint at dating me again. Is that clear?"
Tom Paris sighed, looking at his list of prospective dates. The senior staff needed work. A lot of work. But hey, he had a lot of time to practice and to find out just which buttons to push. But in the meantime...
"Hi Tom, am I late?"
He looked up and smiled into the beautiful face of Tal Celes. "No, of course not. I'd've waited for you forever." Tal blushed prettily and giggled before taking a seat. Tom pocketed his list for later. Time for some practice.
Two: Prank War!
"Now, there'll be three teams, organized by color. Blue against red against gold. Nothing violent, mind you, just a harmless prank war." Tom looked out over the assembled crew, who were taking to the idea rather well and already starting to sidle toward their own color. As well they should, he thought proudly. It'd taken him more loops than he cared to admit to find just the right approach to get everyone to agree. "The war starts now. Go!" The crew swarmed like ants to congregate with their colors and Tom smiled evilly. Perfect.
Over the next few hours, things on Voyager got very crazy very fast. Someone not only reprogrammed the EMH to wear a gold uniform, but also turned him bright purple. Yet another anonymous someone reprogrammed the replicators so that everything they produced was a nice shade of science blue. Some brilliant person translated the computer core briefly into High Vulcan. Aside from reprogramming systems, more traditional pranks such as saran wrapping the mess hall doors and short-sheeting Commander Chakotay's bed were performed. All in all, it was great fun.
Finally some bright spark replicated a water pistol and started an ambush squad. In no time everyone on board was armed with their own newly replicated (bright blue) water guns and an all-out war started. Tom paired up with Captain Janeway and they stole down the halls together on cat-feet, preying on unsuspecting blue and gold team members. The captain had been reluctant to start this, but Tom had divined just the right technique to use on her and now the professional lady captain was giggling like a little girl as she and her helmsman got the drop on Neelix and Harry as they came out of a turbolift.
The war was ultimately a draw, of course, as there was no real way to determine a winner. But throughout the night whispers of the victories of one team or another could be heard floating around the ship. Tom smiled as he listened, wishing that the crew didn't have to forget all the fun they'd had.
Three: Shuttle Race.
"On your mark..." Tom paused dramatically. "Get set..." He stopped again and Harry's frustrated voice snapped at him from the comm. "Get on with it!"
"Go!"
The shuttles shot forward from the starting buoy and began their race. The track was relatively simple: Start at the buoy, race to Voyager, then go around Voyager and make it back to the buoy first. There may have been a slight asteroid field to go through, but that was incidental. Tom was piloting the Earhart, but the rules stated the use of impulse engines only to be fairer on the other racers: Harry Kim, flying the Sacajawea, Neelix in his Baxial, Chakotay aboard the Cochrane, B'Elanna Torres in the O'Donnell, and Sue Nicoletti piloting the Tersehkova.
With a jolt Tom realized that he was actually running third to Neelix and Nicoletti. "No way," he grunted, gunning the engines and swerving around Sue to take second, then lead. He whooped triumphantly as the ships weaved through the small field of scattered space rocks and swung around their mothership.
"Watch where you're flying, Starfleet," B'Elanna shouted. "That was my port nacelle you almost hit!" Paris almost apologized to her before he realized that she was actually cursing at Harry, who was bringing the Sacajawea around her to take third behind Nicoletti. He grinned ferally and muttered, "I don't think so," before kicking up the engines once again.
Places changed once or twice more, but Nicoletti was a pretty steady second. Chakotay was in third by the time they were in shouting distance of the finish line. Mentally, Tom was already taking a victory spin in the Earhart. Without warning, the engines died. He immediately lost his lead. He glared at his panel in disbelief: Overheated plasma? He yelped in dismay as Nicoletti neatly took the win. The Earhart was able to coast to second, but still, outdone by overheated plasma? His frustration was not at all helped by Chakotay's offer.
"Hey, best two out of three?"
Four: Trade places for a day.
This took even longer to orchestrate than the prank war had. Getting everyone on the ship, especially the senior staff, to trade places with each other for one hour, much less one day, was like pulling teeth from a drunk and angry Klingon warrior. Bad news all around. Tom considered the day that he pulled it off to be the most productive thing he'd done since this stupid loop started. And that included all the loops he'd spent with Janeway and B'Elanna trying to figure a way out.
Kes and Janeway. An interesting swap, but nothing too drastic. It irked Kathryn to be in sickbay playing nurse with the Doctor, who kept up a constant stream of complaints about the unfairness of the fact that he couldn't participate in the game because of his unfortunate captivity in his domain. Kes got a kick out of playing captain though, and it was worth it to see her giggling in delight when Tuvok called her captain.
Chakotay and Tuvok. One of the most boring swaps of the entire ship. All the two of them had to do was stand in a different place. Tuvok had been Janeway's right hand for a long time, and sitting second chair to Kes was no big deal to him. In truth, the Vulcan was silently grateful he didn't get anything really crazy. Chakotay was mildly annoyed that he didn't score a more exciting swap, but hey, he got to fire the weapons, so that raised his spirits considerably.
Kim and Neelix. Possibly the most fun trade of the day. Harry tackled the galley with a certain amount of demented glee and got very inventive with leola root and talaxian tomatoes, among other things. Not many people could tell what they were eating, but everyone agreed that it tasted great. Neelix took over Harry's post at Ops with the same eagerness, only to find that when everything was peaceful and as it should be, manning the bridge could get really boring really fast. His attempts at a bridge-wide singalong didn't help either.
Paris and Torres. Tom was highly amused by the trade between himself and B'Elanna. She initially flat refused to have him running amuck in her engine room, but after much pleading and coaxing and promises of not touching a single thing, she agreed. Granted, she left him with a book of instructions and ordered Vorik and Carey to shoot him if he so much as flicked over a dilithium crystal, but what was that in the scheme of things. Tom was much more concerned about that madwoman flying his ship!
Five: Scavenger Hunt!
Since Tom Paris had organized the ship-wide scavenger hunt, he couldn't really take part, which was disappointing. He did take the liberty of wandering around and checking up on everyone else's status. Everyone had paired into teams and most seemed to be making good headway. He caught a couple of ensigns trying to cheat by replicating some of the required items and quickly put a hold on any attempts to replicate any of the things on his list.
He ran into Kes and Neelix, who had their heads bent together in deep conference about something. Tom craned his neck to see over their shoulders. Neelix shot him a look. "What were you thinking with this list?" the Talaxian asked in exasperation. "Where are we supposed to find enough paper for a paper airplane? No one keeps paper anymore?" Paris shrugged at him just as Kes' head snapped up with an idea. "We could use the back pages of some of Crewman Grimes' old books. Come on!"
Tom caught up with Chakotay and B'Elanna next. They were in the middle of harvesting a blossom from one of Kes' Ocampan poppies. The unfortunate plant looked pretty rough: both it and its sister plants had been all but stripped of their flowers. Tom winced, grateful for the loop for once. If Kes ever saw this, she'd have a first class fit. B'Elanna turned around with their prize and caught sight of him watching. She looked hopeful, then saw the playful look in his eyes and scowled. "If you're not going to help us, go bother somebody else!"
Harry and Vorik ran him down on the way to the turbolift to ask him about finding 'hair of a dog'. Tom quirked an eyebrow and checked their list. That wasn't what he'd put on there. He smiled when he saw that they'd misunderstood. "Hair of the dog, Harry." Kim gave him a bewildered look and Tom turned to Vorik. "Come on, you know the answer. Hair of the dog that-" "Bit me!" yelled Harry triumphantly, dashing off for the mess hall. Vorik followed at a slightly more sedate pace, still trying to get his head around the answer.
When Tom got back to the hangar deck, where he'd set up the judging table, he was surprised (although he thought he shouldn't have been) to find two teams already back and waiting on him. Janeway and Tuvok and Tal and Telfer. Kathryn had a confident smile on her face, but Billy and Celes were still rifling through their stack of booty, making absolutely sure they had everything. When the four saw Tom, they descended on him in a swarm. Laughing at the assault, Tom walked over to assess their catch.
Six: Food fight!
Tom Paris sat and thought about his work that day. It hadn't turned out like he'd thought it would. He had always, always, wanted to start a food fight in the mess hall of a starship. And what better opportunity than a time loop? Tom had been occupied with other goals and never really made time for the food fight. But today the perfect opportunity had presented itself and Tom seized the day.
B'Elanna had been holding forth at lunch about some sensor modifications that she was doing to help diagnose the loop (this was one of Tom's now very few loops in which he told everyone what was up) and it was boring Tom to tears. Mostly because he'd already heard it all. He twirled his pasta around his fork and muttered, "Every loop is the same, B'Elanna, no matter what you do, it never changes!" She opened her mouth to snap just as he picked up his fork.
Tom looked at the fork, then at B'Elanna, and flicked the forkful of pasta onto her face. Torres gaped at him, tomato sauce running down her cheek. Tom smirked at her. "Should've tried that ages ago," he remarked. B'Elanna gave him a mutinous glare and forked her own load of pasta. She threw it at Tom, but as the helmsman ducked, the payload sailed straight into the back of Harry Kim's head. The ops ensign turned slowly and revealed the spoonful of pudding in his hand. Tom grinned. "Oh, it is so on."
By the time Tuvok and Chakotay and Janeway got there, the mess hall was an all-out war zone of food. Chakotay got as far as entering the room and opening his mouth before being hit in the face by flying pudding. Tuvok got slightly farther, managing to make it at least into the galley before being laid out with a cake. Janeway finally put a stop to it with a furious shout of "WHAT IS GOING ON DOWN HERE?" Everyone froze. The captain stood there like an avenging angel, hair dripping with tomato sauce and face smudged with alfredo, waiting for some explanation. Without a word every eye went to Tom Paris. The helmsman, with a pie in one hand and a tomato in the other, had no excuse other than: "Parley?"
Tom sighed and looked up at the ceiling of the brig. Who knew food fighting was a punishable crime on the good ship Voyager? He checked the chronometer. Seven more hours of this until he looped again, he saw with a groan. Nope, this day had not turned out like he'd thought at all.
Seven: Day off for everybody.
This was something Tom saved for the very last. After all of his fun, after all the loops in which he tormented, teased, and played around with the crew, he wanted to give them a single day in which nobody had to do anything. Convincing the captain hadn't been very hard: she agreed that they were all under stress and could use an off day. No one had any duties or any obligations. Just goof off and have fun.
Tom wandered, trying to find someone with which to relax. Unfortunately, everybody else was preoccupied with their own plans. He spotted Captain Janeway on the way to the holodeck with her hair done up nicely wearing a period gown, so he guessed that she was off for some fun. It only mildly shocked him to see Chakotay in a matching suit follow her inside a few moments later. Lots of people had taken time for dates; Kes and Neelix being not the least of these. Neelix had taken her out for some apparently long overdue privacy in the Baxial.
Not everyone paired off, though. Tom found the EMH doing some painting in sickbay and Tuvok hadn't been seen since that morning, when he'd declared that he would be spending the day meditating. Harry Kim was Tom's best hope, but the young ensign had been roped into the Voyager chess team's impromptu tournament. Tom was invited to join, but he made some excuse and got out of there. He was starting to think the whole 'day off' thing hadn't been one of his best ideas.
Bored for the first time in who knew how long, Tom found his feet taking him to the hangar deck where the Earhart sat. Maybe he'd take her for a spin. To his surprise, B'Elanna Torres was already there. She looked up when he entered. "It's about time," she greeted him. "Come on, let's go." Tom shook his head in disbelief, but got into the aeroshuttle. "I thought we'd get out of this crazy house for a little while," Torres explained as she punched out of the bay. Tom looked over at her and they shared a smile. Okay, maybe not such an awful idea after all.