It didn't seem like that much later when an insistent chirping woke her up. Allucia's first instinct was to grab her alarm clock and throw it across the room until she remembered where she was, and suddenly felt disoriented as it was still dark in her room. After cursing a few times in several Earth languages, she finally remembered she could ask the computer for what she needed.

"Computer, wha the hell is that damn noise?!" she cried.

"It is your door chime. You have a visitor."

"Let 'em in!"

The doors merely opened in response. All Allucia could see was a tall silhouette in the doorway with one arm propped up on the door frame, and for a brief moment, Allucia thought her older brother might have shown up to rescue her. Instead of her brother's voice, she heard, "Computer, lights."

The teenager jumped slightly, startled for a moment that the lights just came on with just two words. She then turned to the person who had just entered her room, a lanky blond man with blue eyes and a smirk. "Who the hell are you?!" she demanded.

"I'm Tom Paris, ship's pilot. Captain Janeway wants me to take you for a ride."

"Riiiiiight." Allucia replied skeptically. She figured this would be the easiest thing to prove fake. She eyed her smelly clothes on the floor from the previous day, then looked herself over from where she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, then thought about the clothes in the closet. "Uh, any chance I can get some clothes that don't make me look like a reject?"

A little while and one replicator lesson later (not that she believed that they appeared out of thin air, she was betting it was a trick of the light), Tom led a slightly better dressed Allucia to the shuttlebay. At least this time, she had opted for flared blue jeans and a cotton tank top instead of the synthetic outfit she had shown up in.

The shuttle bay doors were already open with atmospheric forcefields in place. Voyager was still in the planetary system they had picked the teenager up in. Even though she could see a swirling red and yellow gas planet with rings hanging outside, Allucia continued to bury herself in denial and seemingly logical ways they could deceive her.

As Tom and Allucia seated themselves in the Delta Flyer (the latter of which was trying to figure out where they were hiding the hydraulics anchored to the ground to make the shuttle move), the former quipped, "Well, I guess you don't get space sick, eh? Otherwise you'd probably be upchucking already."

Allucia scoffed. "Strong stomachs run in mah family. Mah Daddy was a pilot before he got promoted an' now my big bro is a fighter pilot. I'd probably be on mah way to being one too if I was smartah." She turned to glare at him. "And if you guys don't lemme go soon, I'm sure they'll come lookin' for me."

"Well, they're going to be flying for quite a while. Even going the speed of light it's going to take us about fifty years to get back to Earth, and I don't think they had quite discovered that by the time you came our way." She sure has an interesting accent, Tom thought.

"Yeah, sure."

Tom glanced at the teen askance as he went through the pre-flight checklist. For her part Allucia seemed to be looking around and visually absorbing everything around her even though she was trying to sink into her chair with her arms crossed, as if she didn't want to be seen. "Trying to figure out how it all works?" he asked.

"Yeah, pickin' apart special effects in old movies is a habit of mine. Almost every movie is CGI now 'cept for them inner-active background props." She nodded at his control panel. "I especially like how retro your controls are, really makes 'em realistic." There was no missing the sarcasm in her voice.

"I happen to have a fondness for old movies myself. Especially anything from the earlier half of the 20th century. I designed this ship from the ground up myself, and I thought they would be a nice touch."

"Man, my parents weren't even born then. Hell, even mah granddaddy was still in diapers."

Tom had to chuckle at that. He finished going through the checklist and turned to the teenager. "Ready for your first spaceflight?"

Allucia smirked at him. "Sure, why not. This is one of the nicest simulators I've eva seen."

Try as he might, the pilot could not get mad at her apparent attitude. She was actually kind of amusing, especially with her thick accent. It's no wonder she lost her temper so quickly with the Captain. I wonder if I was this bad when I was her age. Manipulating the controls, Allucia watched as they appeared to rise off the deck of the shuttlebay and enter the vacuum of space. Tom brought the Delta Flyer about so that the teenager could get a broad view of Voyager.

She didn't look too terribly impressed, though. She tapped on the window next to her, as she was seated diagonally behind Tom at the tactical station. "The plasma monitors behind this glass are pretty slick," she said. "I can't even pick out da pixels."

Tom could only shake his head, thinking of anything he could to gain her trust and get through her thick skull that she was actually in space. Then he suddenly grinned. He had just the thing. Taking the ship a safe enough distance from Voyager so that it only appeared about the size of a model ship, he stood up and gestured at his seat. "Would you like a go?"

Her face momentarily lit up before she pretended to not like the idea. "Sure. I always kicked ass when I played these video games wid mah big bro."

After she sat down, Tom briefly explained the controls to her. She did have a genuine idea of the basics of flight, and he figured that her family members must have had to be pretty decent pilots to rub off on her like they did. He was a little apprehensive about letting her take the controls, and even more nervous about what would happen when his commanding officers found out, but he could take control from another station he if absolutely had to.

As he sat down at one of the stations behind her, he could see by the reflection in the front window that she was grinning. She tweaked a control here and there. Then, without warning, she took the two joystick controls and took off. He was surprised to be pushed back in his seat, the inertial dampeners lagging for a split-second but the teenager didn't even appear to notice it.

Allucia cackled and then pulled the ship into an upside down loop; of course, nothing changed for the occupants of the shuttlecraft since it had its own gravity. From there she did a lazy eight and then a corkscrew.

The corkscrew was a little wobbly but Tom was surprised she'd even pulled off the figure eight. This girl is a natural! But he had a feeling if she knew it was real, she probably would be afraid to even touch the controls.

Unbeknown to either of them, they were being observed on the main viewscreen on Voyager's Bridge.

"Does he have to show off every time he's not on an official mission in that thing?" B'Elanna quipped from the Engineering station.

Sitting in her command chair, Kathryn propped her elbow on one of the arm rests and rested her chin in her hand. "Of course he does. He's a pilot." She heard Chakotay chuckle next to her.

Little did they know that Tom wasn't even in the pilot's seat.

She finished the corkscrew and was about to start another when Tom stopped her. "Not bad, not bad," he said. "Want to see what I can do?"

"But this is actually fun! Besides, that las' one was wobbly and I gots to do it again." Allucia dove into the next corkscrew, not only improving on it, but going counter-clockwise this time; the first one she had done clockwise.

"Awwww, c'mon. You might pick up a thing or two."

She thought about it, and nodded. If she could pick up anything new, she could always use it against her brother the next time they played together. She moved back to one of the aft stations.

Tom grinned widely. She might be good at video games but he was the real deal. Tweaking the controls back to his preferences, he quickly ran through a tighter corkscrew than she had, followed it up with a double split 'S' reversal, a perfect figure eight, and a Cuban eight. He moved them gradually closer back to Voyager as he wove himself through each maneuver. And for his grand finale, he did a loop around the ship close enough for them to wave at the Bridge crew through their upper windows.

Allucia got a little dizzy at the end, and only because seeing the Bridge crew upside down but also seated gave her a little bit of vertigo. Tom brought the ship about to face the shuttlebay, but didn't dock it quite yet.

"Dude, you'd probably give mah bruddah a run for his money," Allucia commented.

"Thanks, glad to know I'm as good as a fighter pilot." Tom said as he swiveled his chair around and clasped his hands behind his head. "So what's your brother's name?" he asked. For all he knew, her brother could have been one of his childhood idols.

"Oh no youz don't. I ain't givin' out any names. For all I know, youz guys kidnapped me to get to mah dad. He's a very important man."

"You know, we're going to have to do something about that paranoia of yours."

"Just 'cause I'm paranoid don't mean youz ain't out ta get me. There is no way we could be airborne. Everythin' we both pulled off would be pullin' at least a few G's in real life an' I didn't feel a damn thing. So excuuuuse me if I can see through everything you throw at me."

Tom smirked. "Computer, gravity off." He stayed in his reclined position as they floated out of their seats, though he did stretch out.

Allucia didn't seemed phased at all. "Yeah, I can explain dis one too. Parabolic flight. Youz guys musta moved me when I was sleepin' from the bunka to a plane." The smirk never left her face. She pushed off the wall and did a quick somersault. "I got to do this once visitin' my old man on base. I know you can't keep this up for more than a minute."

"We'll see."

Five minutes later, they were still floating.

"So how long does a minute last in this private little world of yours?" Tom asked. For the past minute or two, she'd pulled herself into a quasi-fetal position and slowly rotated under the inertia of pulling herself into that position. He had a feeling it was starting to sink in. She turned her head to glare at him, but didn't say anything.

"If you get back into your seat, I'll turn the gravity back on." She wordlessly complied, but pushed off the ceiling so that she was hovering upright just above the floor. Sighing, Tom also returned to his seat, and a moment later they had weight again.

Allucia suddenly stood up. "I wanna go home now. I don't know how you pulled that gravity stunt, but there ain't no way youz are gonna brainwash me." She sighed and crossed her arms. "For all I knows, maybe my own father kidnapped me to see if I'd be level enough ta even be inna military."

Tom was about to reply when he thought the better of it as another idea came upon him. "You know what, you're right. I'm tired of this too. They don't pay me enough for this." He moved from the pilot's seat to one of the aft stations Allucia was standing next to and started punching in commands. "Give me a sec, I'll shut down the simulation, and I'll arrange for you to be taken to your father."

Allucia's eyes widened. "What made you change your mind?"

"My father's an admiral, and he did this to me once too, and I wasn't too pleased about it either. I just hope my superiors don't get too angry at me for this."

The teenager suddenly felt terrible. While she didn't live with her father anymore, she'd still grown up in a military family. She had a feeling Tom would get more shit from his father than his superiors.

Tom noticed she genuinely felt bad. Despite this, he activated the site-to-site transport and transported her directly into the shuttlebay.

As her molecules disassembled, Allucia suddenly felt paralyzed; as if her whole body had fallen asleep from leaning on it too long. She thought she was beginning to faint as the Delta Flyer seemed to fade away. But as quickly as the pins and needles sensation had started, it was over, and she found herself in the middle of the room Tom had called the shuttlebay earlier.

Frozen in place, she tried to process what had just happened. But she couldn't come up with a logical explanation. As she was facing the open shuttle bay doors, she saw the Delta Flyer approach, and began to back in. It was actually a pretty large vessel and she could tell it didn't have enough space to turn around in the bay. As she realized it was coming closer, she forced her feet to move, and moved off to the side. She never took her eyes off the Flyer the whole time, only stopping when she bumped into the railing on the starboard side of the bay.

As the runabout began to enter the open bay doors, Allucia heard a buzzing and noticed a blue halo surround the ship where it seemed to pass through an invisible barrier. My God...is that really space out there? she thought.

The Delta Flyer finally finished backing in, but didn't land yet. She heard a hiss come from the back of the ship. Immediately drawn to the sound, she looked that way and saw what must have been a hatch lowering down to turn into a ramp. The vessel was still hovering about five feet off the ground.

A moment later, Tom appeared, and jumped off the back of the ship and approached her. "Do you have any more conspiracy theories or are you ready to face reality now?" he asked nonchalantly.

For a moment, she could only blink slowly at him. Then she looked at the still-hovering craft. "Can... can I touch it?"

Tom gestured at it with an upward palm. "Be my guest."

Allucia tentatively reached out to touch the Flyer. As she made contact, she could feel the power thrumming throughout it, she almost jerked her hand back in disbelief, but at the same time, it seemed more real to her. She looked back at Tom with big round eyes.

He could only smile at her.

Feeling encouraged, Allucia decided to see if those hydraulics she couldn't find earlier were there. Crouching down, she went a little under the ship; Tom right behind her though he had to bend over a lot further due to his height. She never took her hand off the ship. Once they reached the middle, she sat down hard on her rear, legs splayed out. She had a slightly vacant expression on her face.

The pilot sat down across from her. "Are you okay?"

Allucia tore her gaze from the ship hovering above them to look at Tom. "I'm really in outer space, aren't I?" He nodded. "And how many years in the future?"

"A little over three hundred and thirty." Is it just me, or did she start speaking normal English?

"But we're not near Earth?"

So she was paying attention... "No... we were pulled clear across the galaxy by a powerful alien life form. We've been making a bee line for home ever since."

Her eyes widened again and Tom had to wonder if her eyelids were starting to get tired with all exercise they were getting. She looked around a little more. "I'm hungry."

Tom reached over and gave her shoulder a little friendly squeeze and a pat. "Let's get out from under the ship and I'll find you something to eat."

From her console in her ready room, Kathryn smiled as the duo crawled back out from underneath the Delta Flyer. Tom finished landing the runabout with the autopilot, and he and Allucia left the shuttlebay soon afterwards. I can't believe it... she thought.