Short but I'm working on the grand finale.

Rep

Taken Chapter 11

B'elanna and Tom finally put the crew of Voyager out of their collective misery and married. The wedding was held on the holodeck and combined Earth and Klingon elements and the reception that followed in the mess hall was an incredible morale booster for the crew.

"Sheldon, tell me about the marriage customs on Earth of your time. Why must the bride wear white and what is the significance of B'elanna Torres' assault on my person with a bouquet of flowers?"

"Um, well, the marriage ceremony is ages old and has its roots in antiquity. The woman leaves her family and joins the groom's. She takes his name and – "

"So it is a trade transaction as we witnessed on Talos 5?"

"No! Well, perhaps in your view but the idea of women as 'chattel' is long abandoned. The man and woman form a legal collective of sorts and live their lives with and for each other and their children. As for the bouquet you caught…superstition, nothing more, Seven."

She moved closer to him and leaned up and whispered, "Then you and I, beloved Two, are 'married'?"

"Um, er, ah, I suppose that's a possible descriptor for our unique relationship, One. Yes, I'd say that…[gulp]…one could say that…we're married."

"Then may I suggest, husband, that we follow what the databases say is a tradition and consummate our marriage?" She flicked her tongue against his ear and he shuddered and blushed deeply and she giggled, something she rarely did outside of their quarters.

"One, we consummated our marriage twice last night. Surely…" He was teasing her and she responded in typical Borg fashion.

"I want what I want when I want it, Two. Come, you know that resistance is futile…"

6 months later

Sheldon went to the mess hall and asked Neelix to make a clear broth for Seven. She'd been sick ever since returning from an away mission to a planet that was nothing more than swamp and a few raised hillocks where the indigenous people lived in absolute squalor.

"Something light and please, Neelix, none of your experimental cuisine. Perhaps the pleemok broth that Mr. Tuvok thinks so highly of?"

"For Seven, anything, Sheldon. I always skipped that planet. The food was inedible. Surely Seven didn't eat any of the local fare?"

The ship gave a sudden lurch sending everything in Neelix' kitchen flying. The two men picked themselves up and Neelix glanced out the porthole and muttered "We've dropped out of warp."

Sheldon's com badge bleeped and he answered, "Dr. Sheldon Cooper," and heard, "Get up to the bridge, pronto. There's something here we need your help with." It was Chakotay and he sounded excited.

Bridge

Sheldon stepped off the turbolift onto the bridge. It was the first time he'd been here without an escort that hustled him into and out of Janeway's ready room. He looked around and saw Chakotay motioning him over to where the Captain sat.

"Sheldon, what do you make of that?" She pointed to a giant view screen and Sheldon couldn't figure out just what she meant and said so. "It's a wormhole! But what is so unique about it? We've seen several – "

"Magnify and stabilize the image, please," she said to someone at one of the console's behind her.

An image filled the screen and Sheldon walked over to the view screen, drawn to what he saw tumbling around, seemingly out of control – and what loomed menacingly behind it.

"Oh, crap on a cracker! That's a space shuttle from my time. It looks a little different than the NASA series so it must be foreign. Can you focus on one spot and synchronize the image so that it's not twisting and turning?" Trying to focus on the tumbling spacecraft was making him sick.

Almost immediately the image quit rotating and Sheldon could make out Cyrillic characters along the upper fuselage. "It's Russian. From the Russian Federation. The US had abandoned the space program just before I…left. Has there been any contact? Radio, light, anything?"

"None. Our scans show very weak life signs aboard but there has been no communication of any kind. Radio?"

"The existence of sub-space had not yet been proven…oh, my, yes, another reason why my formulae must be published. They open the door to understanding sub-space and it's potentials. Have communications scan the band width from 90mhz up through 500mhz and listen carefully, please."

Janeway nodded and pointed to Harry Kim who was manning communications.

"Ma'am, I'm getting…something but…"

"On speaker, Mr. Kim." Terse and impatient as always.

There was a collective gasp as the wormhole rotated on some axis of it's own and there, through the vortex, the bridge crew saw – Earth. They were home.

"Can you transport the crew over to Voyager? You can't put a tractor beam on something that flimsy. The tidal forces might tear it apart and the crew compartment is probably not airtight. It's the only answer. There's no way one of Voyager's shuttlecraft could dock with that thing even if it was flying straight as an arrow."

Janeway looked up at Chakotay who smiled grimly and nodded. There was an unwritten rule in space travel just as there'd been on Earth's oceans long ago: render aid to vessels in distress.

"We'll beam the directly to sick bay. Alert – "

"Captain, if I might interject…" He looked toward the two senior officers and waited impatiently for an affirmative response. Janeway was very prissy about her authorities.

"Go ahead, Dr. Cooper, interject away."

"Beam them to cargo bay 2 and isolate them from any contact with crew or higher technology. Then, and only then, put a gentle tractor beam on their shuttle and bring it aboard cargo bay 3. That way there is no potential loss of life should the craft break up."

"Well, why cargo bay 2, Sheldon?" Chakotay couldn't see the reason for Cooper's suggestion. "Why not just beam them to cargo bay 3 to begin with?"

"Because I see the means by which I'll be returning to my own time, Commander Chakotay, just as we all know I must. You are required to minimize corruption of any other timelines and thus must isolate the crew of the shuttle. This opportunity is God-sent and if I ever see my mother again, I suppose I'll have to apologize although there still remains the issue of scientific proof that – "

"What makes you believe that the Earth we see through the wormhole is your Earth?"

"That strange wailing sound you hear on their frequency?" They all heard 'Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa' over the loudspeaker. "That is the sound of the Wolowitz calling for its mother."