Ch.1

Harry Kim's stride was full of energy as he made his way down the boardwalk. The salt air was invigorating as he breathed in and it whipped at his short black hair. Every step took him closer to his very first assignment aboard Voyager. Newly commissioned and rumored to be the fastest in the Fleet, it was going to be his home for the next three weeks. He'd spent three days in the town so far, being admired for his exotic, Eastern appearance (or so the women who approached him had said) and while it was fun being the center of attention, he was growing impatient for his ship to come in. Finally that morning, he heard someone say a Seafleet ship was on its way into port. He had his belongings packed within minutes and started for the docks. The canvas pack on his shoulder didn't weigh a thing and he felt himself speeding up again. Harry had been waiting for his chance to go to sea his whole life. Oh sure, he'd been on boats before, but only in the protected harbor – most certainly never out in the open sea. He'd learned as much as he could during his time at the academy, but training could only bring one so far. The sound of the boards ringing under his feet brought him back as he realized he was actually jogging. With effort, he got himself under control, but didn't bother to fight the grin on his youthful face. And then, he saw it.

The Seafleet flag fluttered in a merry breeze and Harry knew he had found it at last. Voyager was the only Seafleet ship docked at this port, he had been told. The port, called Terok Nor by the locals, had been code named Deep Base 9 by the Federation because of its strategic position near disputed territories. It wasn't much more than a collection of five or six inns and taverns, but it was important all the same. He remembered all this from his academy history. He let himself reflect on his good fortune. Not many academy graduates were so quickly posted right out of graduation – was that really only two months ago? – and rarely as a member of the ship's senior staff. His parents might have been talking about more than just their family when they call him a golden child.

He passed a cargo vessel and there it was – Voyager, in all her splendor. Painted in Federation blue and silver, with gold accents for the Fleet she sailed with, everything seemed to shine. She was a newly built carrack, built for speed and long trips. Even as he stood watching, he could imagine her straining against her lines, ready to get out to sea and really fly. Finally, he could stand there no longer.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Voyager, ahoy!"

"Ahoy!" called another voice above him. "What can I do for you?"

"Permission to come aboard!"

A man with silvery hair peered over the railing. "Ah, you're one of the last group to arrive. Permission granted!"

He couldn't help it. Harry sprinted up the gangplank, nearly giddy with excitement. The silver haired man shook his hand as soon as he was aboard. The man was looking at his baldric, trying to see his rank.

"I'm Commander Cavit. Good to see some youthful excitement, Ensign…"

"Kim. Harry Kim. Good to meet you, sir."

"Same to you. I'll show you to your cabin."

Once Harry had finished unpacking, he made his way topside to find five more crewmen had boarded. He recognized one of them, much to his surprise.

"Tom Paris? You've been assigned to Voyager, too?"

"Harry? I never thought I'd see you again." He sounded as surprised as Harry felt.

Three days earlier, the day Harry had come into town, he'd had lunch in a tavern. He had been wildly excited, which might have been what made a merchant single him out over everyone else in sight. A quick talking merchant wasn't usually a threat to anyone, but Harry might have lost all his money in one shot if it hadn't been for Tom.

Harry had sat alone at a table that day, eating lunch, when a merchant spotted him and came over.

"You sir," the merchant had said, "look like you're heading out on the biggest adventure of your life. I'll bet you're excited."

"I sure am!" Harry said, taking in the man's face. He didn't have any hair and his ears were larger than usual. Harry scolded himself. The Federation unified hundreds of countries and the tribes that lived in them. They were different, not wrong.

"And I'll bet your parents would be thrilled to have a souvenir of this momentous occasion of their son." A case of gemstones appeared on the table. Now he knew what the man was up to. The Ferengi tribe loved to sell things and make money any way they could. His parents would have appreciated such a gift, but he had better things to spend his money on.

"Let me guess," Harry said, "You just happen to have something they'd like. But I'm not interested."

"Not interested?"

"You were going to sell me something, weren't you? They warned us about the Ferengi at the Academy."

"Warned?" The man looked genuinely shocked. "Slurs… about my people?"

Harry suddenly realized the situation was about to spin out of control.

"You know, I think my folks would love a souvenir."

"I'm sure. Why not one for each of them?"

"Yeah! They'd love one."

"They're not for sale." He snapped the case shut and went to put it away, but Harry grabbed it before he could move. "Now, who's your commanding officer, son?"

Desperate, Harry blurted out, "How much for the whole case?"

"How much do you have?"

"Beautiful, aren't they?" said a third voice. Harry looked up to see a man with unruly sandy brown hair, inspecting a gem with a practiced eye. "I've seen them in every store in this town, shined up as pretty as can be. You know, you can get a dozen of these for half a crown in a store across the way. How much are you selling them for?"

The merchant snapped the case shut. "We were just about to negotiate the price."

"I think he might get a better deal across the street. Come on." The man grabbed Harry by the shoulder and pulled him out of the tavern.

"Didn't they warn you about Ferengi?" the other man asked.

Harry had learned the man's name at some point between thanking him profusely and finding another tavern: Tom Paris. Paris held himself with a rough-and-ready disposition, coupled with a no-holds-barred 'I don't care' attitude. Harry bought Paris a drink as thanks and was trying to learn all he could from this man who acted much older than he looked.

"Why did you bail me out back there?" Harry had asked.

"I hate seeing anyone get swindled. Especially an unsuspecting chump."

"I'm not a chump!"

"Not anymore. Word of advice: never say 'interested' to a Ferengi."

Harry mentioned he was getting ready for his first real ocean voyage. He had hoped to find out more about Tom, who had been especially quiet about himself. It worked.

"I'm just in town to take care of one last debt," Paris had said, "then I'm cut loose. I'll be on easy street from there on out. I don't like being tied down for any reason."

Well, sort of.

"So, will you go home after you finish?"

"I'm a drifter, Harry. Like I said, I don't need anything holding me down. Home is just a place."

Paris left after he finished his drink, bidding Harry good fortune. Harry had been sorry to see him go. Here was a man unlike anyone he'd ever met and he'd flickered in and out his life in less than an hour.

Until he found himself on the same ship with him.

"You're Tom Paris?" said Commander Cavit, bringing Harry back to the present. His eyes weren't exactly friendly as he regarded Paris. Harry felt a little uneasy.

"That's right," said Paris.

"So… You're the one the captain hired to find the renegades." It was an innocent enough statement, but now the air was almost humming with tension.

"Right again." Paris's voice was stiff, but his face was as pleasant as ever.

"Somehow, you're not what I expected." It was a remark that would have gotten under Harry's skin, but all Paris did was raise an eyebrow. "I think Captain Janeway could've done better than someone who-"

"I'm sure if it were up to you, sir, I'd still be ashore." The tension between the two was now so stiff and thick that Harry could have cut with a knife. He couldn't take it.

"We should pay our respects to the captain," Harry said, trying to get Paris to understand the tension was stifling him. The drifter gave the commander a sardonic grin and walked away with him.

"What was that about?" Harry asked.

"Oh, it's a long story and I'm tired of telling it," said Paris as he clapped Harry on the shoulder. "Sooner or later, someone's bound to tell you."

This strange comment didn't sit entirely well with Harry. He tried to shrug it off, but he knew this wasn't the last he'd hear about it.

The captain's office was full of exotic artifacts, arranged on shelves around the room. There seemed to be something from every country in here. All of it was properly secured; on shelves with high lips to keep anything from sliding, mounted on the bulkheads or hanging from chains. Like the one artifact directly over the desk. The gold lantern burned brightly, even in the daylight. There was a deep richness to the flame that Harry had only ever seen once before.

Dragon's Fire, he thought. That stuff's dead useful, especially aboard a ship. Not easy to come by either. Only a powerful mage could capture the flame of a dragon. How did the captain come across it? Is she a caster?

He looked around the room, trying to spot a spell book, without luck. Of course not. Heavy things like books would be stowed where they wouldn't slide around. He made no effort to slow his gaze. A closet on the portside bulkhead was open a crack. He could just make out the wet-looking gleam of –

The captain shut the door as she passed it, then stopped before the two men. Women in Seafleet were by no means unusual, even as captains, but if Harry were completely honest with himself, she wasn't exactly what he had been anticipating. When Admiral Moore had given Harry his assignment, he had been excited for him. "You should consider yourself lucky, Harry," Moore had said. "Serving on a ship right out of graduation – and under Kathryn Janeway no less! Working with someone with her reputation is the experience of a lifetime."

The way Admiral Moore had spoken about her gave Harry the impression that she was some kind of brave and formidable commander, someone who had carved a reputation for herself so incredible that Harry could only dream about. Of course, this was mostly conjecture, but honestly, he had expected her to be taller. In fact, Captain Janeway was shorter than him. She was slender as well; he could have called her 'tiny' and no one would have doubted him, were it not for the way she carried herself. Every movement was strong and confident, as if she was carrying some kind of important weight on her shoulders and was proud to do so. Like her cabin, Captain Janeway appeared neat and tidy. Her uniform was clean and trim and her auburn hair sat in a braided crown on her head. She turned and nodded at him and Tom. Her brilliant blue eyes surprised him with their intensity and something about them seemed to radiate energy. Harry came to his senses and chastised himself. A woman like this had to have done some pretty incredible things to earn the reputation she had. What right did he have to judge her as small?

"Gentlemen. Welcome aboard Voyager." Her voice was rough, which he hadn't expected, but full of warmth, which almost surprised him more as he reflected on all those taciturn admirals he knew at the academy. He snapped to attention, suddenly intimidated by her. "Thank you, sir!" he said, relieved that the shake he felt in his gut didn't come through his voice.

"Mr. Kim-" now she was smiling at him – "at ease, before you sprain something."

She turned to look at Paris, but without the hostile tension of the commander. He gave a well-meaning grin that seemed more sarcastic than it should have been and she spoke again.

"Despite what they told you at the academy, Mr. Kim, I don't like being called 'sir.'"

"I'm sorry – ma'am?"

"Ma'am is acceptable in a crunch, but I prefer Captain. I assume you have been shown to the navigational equipment locker?"

"Yes, ma'am – Captain," he corrected and she nodded at him.

"Very good. Gentlemen, would you join me on deck? We're about to cast off."

They followed her out of her office, past the adjoining room that held the lockers for deck equipment and out into the bright sunlight. She stomped up the ladder to the helm and threw another nod to Commander Cavit.

"Prepare to cast off!" he yelled and the crew sprang into action. "Clear the mooring lines and weigh anchors!"

The deck below crawled with activity as each crewman sprang to action. A brilliant clanking rang out from the capstans mixed with the shouts of the crew.

"Moorings clear!" shouted one voice.

"Anchors aweigh!" called another.

"Prepare to hoist main sail!" Janeway commanded, voice carrying clearly over the whole ship. This time, Harry joined the fray, grabbing one of the halyards with the others. Hoisting a sail was not easy work, but not immensely difficult either. They had the rope belayed in less time than it took to tell about it and finally, finally they were moving.

Rattling canvas, hissing wind through the rigging, the steady splash of the water against the hull as it skimmed the waves; this was the song of a sailing ship. The creak of the beams and the undercurrent of deck chatter was the harmony to this song and Janeway thrived in it. Breathing deep the scent of wind and seawater, a childhood memory flickered through her mind. In her mind's eye, she saw herself, eight years old, standing next to her father on the bow of a mighty vessel that dashed over the waves. It was her first journey on the open waters of the Federation. She had felt something strange and new out there – a thrill to know she was going somewhere she had never been, to see and learn things that hadn't been known before and, yes, perhaps even encounter some danger along the way, but she had been excited about even that. That trip had been her first taste of adventure and she now realized she'd been chasing that feeling her whole life.

Janeway reflected now on the vessel she'd been given, the crew she'd hand picked. Maybe out here, she'd be able to capture the thrill of adventure again.

Her stiff waist length coat was becoming far too hot, even with the breeze, and she pulled it off, her introspective thoughts leaving with it. Federation blue and silver it was, with gold accents for Seafleet, just like her ship. The multiple layers of the shirts underneath weren't as stiff, but just as stuffy. Admirals designed these uniforms to be intimidating and recognizable, not for comfort. Three weeks was a long time to be at sea. Perhaps she could loosen the rules regarding uniforms aboard her ship. It was an idea worth mulling over.

They certainly are a good crew, she thought, looking out over the foredeck. No line was out of place, no loose articles on deck. Except her coat, of course. She grabbed it and took it to her cabin. There weren't any loose articles in here, either, and she took a seat behind her desk.

Paris had set them on course to the Broken Islands, where the renegades had a base, almost an hour ago. According to reports, the base had been Warded against Scrying and Farsight spells, making anything but visual surveillance impossible. Not for the first time, she wondered if she should have gone out her way to get a professional caster on board. There was no telling what kind of firepower the renegades might have. No telling how dangerous they might be. She could almost hear Mark's protests: You shouldn't be putting yourself in that kind of danger, Kath.

And she'd always reassure him the same way: I can take care of myself. Seafleet is a dangerous profession. You knew what you were getting into when you proposed to me.

Not that her words would ever stop him from fretting over her. He'd always worry and she'd always reassure him and the moment they saw each other again, all the protective tension and mutual yearning would melt away behind the warm glow of love and affection. That was something she always looked forward to – to come home from a mission and know he'd missed her every second she was gone. And he was always happy to hear that she'd missed him just as much. She ran her fingers through the chain of the locket he'd given her the day before she left. She saw him, standing on the dock, waving at her with one hand, the other holding Molly, her dog, by the leash. Molly had recently doubled in size, with almost no explanation and Janeway just couldn't bear the thought of her pining away in a kennel while she was gone. It had taken a little playful cajoling, but Mark had finally agreed to watch the dog. He had offered an explanation to this strange new development and, if he was right, she'd come home to yipping litter of new puppies. One more thing to look forward to.

Three weeks, she thought to herself. Just three weeks.

She propped her feet on her desk and leaned back in her chair to relax, if only for a moment.

Harry Kim heard the boots come up behind him before he heard a voice speak, but he didn't let either distract him. Taking a sight was precise work and he didn't want to have to triple check his work again. Kim held up his hand to warn whoever it was that he was still concentrating. Whoever it was waited patiently while he entered the sight into the log. He clapped the book shut and stowed the sextant in its case, then turned to see a slender, dark-skinned young woman – Human, by the shape of her face – holding out her hand.

"I'm Crewman Jesse Foster," she said as he shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Ensign Harry Kim."

"I'm trying to get to know everyone on the crew," she said. "The mission might only be three weeks long, but I think it's good to know everyone's name anyway."

A door closed somewhere and they both watched as the captain strode out toward the bowsprit.

"I don't suppose you've met the captain yet," said Kim.

"Actually, she greeted me personally when I came aboard. I'm really excited to serve under her."

"Me too."

"Especially after all I've heard."

Kim looked at her. "What do you mean?"

Foster returned his gaze, a little surprised. "Don't tell me you haven't heard the stories."

"I haven't, but I'm sure she's a fine officer."

"You're kidding!" Foster laughed in disbelief. "You've never heard of Steely Kate? Fearless Jane? The bravest and boldest warrior the Seventh Legion ever saw?"

He stared at her in utter disbelief. "Captain Janeway? You're serious?"

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you don't see or feel anything courageous about her."

Kim thought back to the aura of energy the captain seemed to project in her office and Admiral Moore's comment. He looked out at the figure with her hands on her hips at the bow.

"Well, maybe something." He remembered the Dragon's Fire in the lantern and it dawned on him that, if nothing else, she had an eventful past and knew things he did not. He nearly opened his mouth to mention the lantern, then thought better of it.

Instead, he asked, "Do you think any of the crew are casters?"

She nodded. "Sure. I'm one of them."

"Really?"

"You bet. I even have a few spells memorized. Just some simple ones, really, like Accuracy, Stoneskin and Hawk's Eye. Most of the archers know Accuracy and Hawk's Eye. In fact, most of the people I talked to know two or three spells. What about you?"

"I don't know any spells. But the crew – most of them know some? I thought most people didn't use magic anymore. At least, most people where I'm from."

"Wow, what did they teach you at the academy? Human magic isn't anywhere near as powerful as Vulcan magic, but it's useful if you know what you're doing. You should learn some. Might come in handy."

"I'll think about it," he said, meaning it.