DISCLAIMER: See prologue.

Teaser

Second Portal space, Day 5:

The Ready room, 1800 hours.

Captain Janeway sat at her desk in the ready room, comparing data on her monitor to sensor readings on a padd she held in her left hand. She was trying to get a handle on this new spatial dimension in which Voyager's crew now found itself, and wasn't making much progress. After absently reaching for her mug of coffee and taking a sip, Janeway wrinkled her nose in disgust and grimaced. Neelix's "Special Blend" was a little hard to take at the best of times, and she had been so focused on the sensor data that her "coffee" had long since grown cold. She decided to use one of her replicator rations as a reward for the long hours of analysis.

Janeway stood, taking the time to stretch out muscle cramps from having sat in one place for so long. She walked to the replicator on the upper level with her coffee mug in one hand, still mentally absorbed in working through the information on the padd in the other. She recycled the mug and its contents and ordered a fresh one of "real" coffee, continuing to study the padd while she waited for her treat to materialize.

Janeway picked up the mug and walked over to relax on the couch for a few minutes, tossing the padd in frustration onto the seat cushion next to her. She shifted her position to lean her left elbow on the back of the couch and rest her chin in her hand. She savored her coffee as she studied the unfamiliar stars outside the viewport while Voyager hung motionless in space. Janeway closed her eyes briefly as she felt one of her headaches coming on. After a few minutes, she heaved a resigned sigh and shifted forward again to lean over and set her coffee down on the low table in front of her. She massaged her temples to ease the throbbing and slouched down on the couch far enough to rest her head comfortably on top of the back cushions. She sat for a while with eyes closed, using one of Tuvok's meditative techniques to help relax herself further. The padd and its conflicting data would still be there when she finished the exercise, but perhaps the impending tension headache could be warded off with a brief period of rest.

At the same time, in Sickbay:

Dressed in a blue Sickbay gown, Chakotay sat on the surgical biobed while the Doctor was finishing up the last of several intensive scans. The EMH set his medical tricorder down on a nearby tray and said, "You're sufficiently recovered to return to light duty tomorrow, Commander, but you'll have to wear a cortical monitor for the next few days. I'm discharging you to your quarters."

"Understood. Thank you, Doctor."

After the Doctor attached the monitor to his neck, Chakotay slowly eased himself off the biobed. He silently followed the Doctor back to his office as he continued, "I took the liberty of recyling what little was left of the filthy uniform you wore in here and replicated you a new one." The Doctor walked behind his desk, and picked up Chakotay's communicator and Maquis rank pin to hand them over while continuing to speak. "It's hanging in the back of my private lab. I will inform the Captain of your condition while you get dressed." Chakotay nodded and walked through the lab to the back.

The Doctor sat at his desk and activated his monitor's comm channel to make his report to the Captain. Once finished, he called up his analysis of the insect venom which had infected Chakotay, and cross indexed it with the scans he had just completed. He studied the data on the screen until Chakotay reappeared, and then looked up to give some last minute instructions.

"I want you in your quarters this evening -- no whiling away the hours in Sandrine's for you," the Doctor said. "I'll be monitoring your condition from Sickbay, but judging by the results of these scans, you should be able to resume your full duty schedule in another two days. I'd like you in here tomorrow after your light duty shift ends, just to be certain."

"Of course, Doctor."

"Now, if you will excuse me..."

Chakotay acknowledged the end of the conversation with a nod, and quickly left Sickbay, relieved to finally be out of there. He waited until he was around the corner and had nearly reached the turbolift before he asked the computer for Janeway's location. The computer responded a few moments later, just as the turbolift doors began to open.

"You're working late," Chakotay said when he saw Torres already inside.

"Nice to see you too, Chakotay," Torres replied. She gestured with the padd and said, "Actually, I'm going off duty after I deliver this progress report to Janeway. Seven and I have been trying to make some kind of sense out of these readings."

"And?"

"Our Borg Queen has a lot of theories about how to bring her precious astrometric sensors back on line. That's. All. She. Wants. To talk about," Torres said, in that distinctive clipped manner that told Chakotay she had reached the end of her patience with the former drone.

"Tell you what, B'Elanna. I was on my way to the Ready room to pay the Captain a visit, so why don't I drop it off for you?" Torres handed him the padd, and Chakotay began to scroll through it as he asked, "How's Tom doing?"

"Well, you know those Starfleet flyboys," Torres said. "He's pretty annoyed that the EMH hasn't cleared him for full duty yet. He'd never admit this to anyone but me or the Doc, but he's still getting lightheaded every so often. If you ask me, it'll be at least another day or two before he can manage the helm for an entire shift." She paused for a moment as a thought occurred to her. "Neither one of you had much chance to recover from our run-in with the Magol before Janeway sent your team off on that last away mission. How are you doing, old man?"

"Much better. The Doctor tells me I can probably return to full duty in another two days," said Chakotay. "Maybe by the time both Tom and I are ready to stand full shifts, we'll actually know where we are."

"It keeps coming back to some kind of alternate space, Chakotay," said B'Elanna. "Higher than normal ambient chroniton and antineutrino levels, which aren't helping the sensors or warp core any, as you already know. We're about where we were when the four of you flew off to Natra."

Chakotay winced and scrolled the padd a little further. "Ouch. How's the Captain taking it?"

"She's been pulling longer duty shifts, trying to help us out. We got enough deep level scan data to begin floating a few theories before the astrometrics sensors quit, but nothing Seven's come up with has worked yet. Janeway could really use a break about now."

The turbolift reached its destination as Torres finished speaking. Chakotay said, "You'll figure it out, B'Elanna -- you always do." Gesturing with the padd, he said, "Forget about everything until your next duty shift, and go see to it that Voyager's best pilot gets back on his feet. We'll need him at the helm when we're ready to get underway." Torres gave him a grateful smile, which Chakotay returned before he turned and stepped out onto the bridge.

The Ready room, 1823 hours:

The door chime rang for a second time, finally startling Janeway out of her meditation. She quickly straightened her rumpled uniform and posture on the couch and responded with a slightly disoriented, "Come in."

Chakotay entered with an expression of obvious concern on his face. "Kathryn, are you all right?"

"Cancel red alert. I was in the middle of one of Tuvok's meditation exercises when you rang the chime. I was hoping to stop a headache."

"Did it work?" he asked.

"For the most part." Her eyes were drawn to the padd in his left hand. She said, "The Doctor advised me a little while ago that he'd discharged you to your quarters to rest."

"It's an unofficial visit, Kathryn. I ran into B'Elanna on the turbolift. She looked pretty beat, so I told her I'd bring the progress report to you, since I was planning to stop by anyway."

"Oh?"

Chakotay sat down on the couch to Janeway's right and handed her the padd. "Harry hasn't come by Sickbay at all, so I don't have all the latest news," he said, with a chuckle. "Between the away mission and my stay with the Doctor, I'm now totally out of the loop." Janeway smiled at the reference to Voyager's biggest gossip. Chakotay's mood sobered as he said, "B'Elanna tells me not much has changed."

Janeway's expression became serious at the mention of their current status. "She's right about that. We finally solved the problem with the chronometers by surrounding them with a localized tachyon field. That's dispersing enough of the temporal distortions to make a difference, but the navigation sensors are pretty much useless. B'Elanna and Seven have been pulling double shifts between Astrometrics and Engineering. I'm trying to be a fresh pair of eyes for whatever they come up with."

Chakotay acknowledged her words with a nod. "I didn't see Tuvok on the Bridge just now," he said.

"Still meditating over the First Portal map. Ayala and the other bridge officers are covering his shifts. I was hoping to minimize the bickering in Engineering by assigning Tuvok to work with B'Elanna and Seven, but then decided it would be more productive for him to find a way to reactivate the map. There might be a clue in it somewhere about what's affecting our systems."

"Good idea," Chakotay said. "B'Elanna tells me we're in some kind of alternate space."

"Right again," Janeway said, "and I've assumed that the Magol and those other two ships with them have been affected by it as well. All of us came from normal space, but there's no taking anything for granted. Magol technology is more advanced than ours, Chakotay. Maybe they weren't disabled as badly – I just don't know. Even if they were, they could easily get everything working before we do. Then there's those other two ships to consider as well. We don't know a thing about them, other than some very sketchy data from a few quick scans Harry was able to get in before we left. The sooner we're underway again, the less I'll feel like Voyager's a sitting duck."

"Agreed," said Chakotay. "B'Elanna told me that Seven hasn't come up with anything useful from her astrometrics scan data yet."

"We've looked at every known stellar model in the database, Chakotay. Seven even contributed several from her days in the Collective that neither B'Elanna nor I had ever seen. A few of them almost work, but I can't quite put a finger yet on what we all keep missing."

"Then maybe what the three of you need is a good theorist. Have you shown any of your work to Mortimer Harren? There are those five advanced degrees of his in theoretical cosmology." Janeway sighed quietly and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Seriously, Kathryn. You'd be killing two birds with one stone," said Chakotay with amusement in his voice. "Harren would feel he was making a vital contribution to Voyager, and B'Elanna would appreciate not being cited for 'failure to utilize expertise' at Seven's next efficiency evaluation."

Janeway laughed and reached over to briefly rest her hand on Chakotay's arm. She gracefully conceded the point, saying, "It's actually a good suggestion, Chakotay." Withdrawing her hand, she continued. "Harren's attitude has improved recently, but I'm not sure I want to deal with that faint aroma of condescension that lingers in the air after any conversation with him. I'll need either a really good night's sleep or to run into a solid duranium wall first before I'll even consider it. There's several possibilities I haven't investigated yet. Admiral Paris thought I was a pretty good quantum cosmologist when I served as his science officer on the Al-Batani, you know."

"I'm not saying that you aren't, Kathryn, but right now you could use a break. Tuvok would be the first to tell you that the crew won't benefit from the leadership of an exhausted captain... or a frustrated one, either, for that matter. Talking to someone for a few hours might clear your head enough to spark some fresh insights," said Chakotay.

"Dinner in the mess hall?"

"Actually, I had Chez Chakotay in mind, oh, say... about 1930 hours? The chef highly recommends the complimentary shoulder rub. It's guaranteed to get rid of any lingering tension headaches," Chakotay said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Janeway shot him a glare.

"Whoa -- hold your fire, Kathryn," said Chakotay. "It's my turn to host our weekly dinner. We postponed it during all the excitement over the map and First Portal, and then postponed it again when the away mission to Natra came up. All I meant to suggest was that we keep it informal. We've just finished discussing official ship's business."

Janeway looked away for a moment and massaged her temples, saying, "Damned headache." She sighed, and then met his eyes, saying, "The frustration must really be getting to me if I can't handle a little teasing." She hesitated and then said, "All right. I hate to admit it, Chakotay, but I probably do need a break. What else is on the menu?"

"How do my mother's vegetarian lasagna and a bottle of Antarian cider sound?"

Janeway laughed and said, "Wonderful, but I won't get much done after dinner if the cider's started to ferment like the last bottle we shared."

"I'll find one that hasn't – I promise. And for dessert, there's Mari waterplum strudel with paracream glaze." At Janeway's surprised look, Chakotay explained. "Neelix paid me a 'morale visit' in Sickbay this morning and mentioned he'd be serving it for tonight's dessert. He told me it was part of his official three-day celebration of our safe passage through the First Portal and the away team's surviving the Natran maze. He promised to save me an extra piece."

Janeway said, "Neelix has made it generally known since he returned to the Mess hall that he has a lot of 'celebrating' planned. So far today, there's been some dish that's a crew favorite at every meal, and I've heard he's taking special requests for the rest of his celebration. He must be feeling insecure after he found out how much everyone enjoyed Chell's cooking and bad puns while he was away -- not that I'm regretting having anything with paracream on it, mind you."

"I'm sure that's probably part of it, Kathryn, but believe me when I say there's more to it than just Neelix's insecurity. This last away mission affected him more deeply than the rest of us. We can talk about it over dessert, once you've caught me up on what our crew's been doing while the four of us were away."

"Your quarters, 1930 hours?"

"Yes."

"I'll pass on the shoulder rub, but definitely hold you to that paracream," she said with a wry smile. "1930 hours it is."

Chakotay returned the smile and left the Ready room to begin his preparations for dinner. Janeway turned her attention to the padd Chakotay had just brought her, hoping to find even the smallest hint of a solution to the ship's problems before dinner.