Letters
Concept by Rick
Edited and compiled by Cybermum
Written by: Voyager Season 7.5 writing staff
From: EMH/ECH U.S.S.
Voyager NCC-74656
Router Heading: Starfleet Command; Earth; Luna; Tycho City
Data Facility CEO RealityVisions
HoloProductions Earthview
Office Park P.O. Box 70094 Tycho City, Luna 658-T81
Dear Mr. CEO,
In response to your recent advertisement in the cyberzine "Holographic Adventurer," I wish to offer your company the opportunity to purchase a work of stunning creativity and importance. In my travels as the Chief Medical Officer for the Starship Voyager, I have been able to research this story in my downtime hours. It is very close to my heart (so to speak), as you can well imagine.
This holoprogram is designed to educate, edify, and enrich the spirit of humanoid and holographic beings throughout the Alpha Quadrant. It cannot fail to please you and your program users.
If you are interested in obtaining more information about this program prior to making an offer, feel free to contact me in care of U.S.S. Voyager, c/o Pathfinder Project, Starfleet Command, San Francisco, California, 94103-4774-5437, Terra. Thank you for your consideration.
Very truly yours,
Mr. EMH Emergency Medical Hologram
U.S.S. Voyager-NCC-74656
Engineering was quiet. For the moment, anyhow. B'Elanna had been working non-stop since the beginning of her shift. There had been a problem with one of the warp nacelles and although she had assigned one of her top teams to work on the problem, she had spent more time than she anticipated overseeing the repairs. One of the subspace field coils had had to be removed from the assembly, thoroughly cleaned and replaced in exactly the same position within a very short time or it could have been rendered useless by exposure to possible containments. She had followed all the correct protocols for sterilization of the area, she and the team had been dressed in the appropriate antiseptic garb, but, as she constantly reminded them, "You never knew in the damn D.Q."
She did a quick survey of her domain. The shift had finally ended twenty minutes ago. The few crewmen who remained, and the members of the much smaller gamma shift were working quietly and efficiently at their stations.
B'Elanna scooped up a pile of PADDS that were sitting precariously on the corner of Vorik's console and headed towards her own station. She sat down and began to sort through them carefully. She divided them into two piles and set one stack aside. She activated the first PADD in the second stack and began to read, nodding several times as she did.
"Yes," she muttered to herself. "It just might work."
B'Elanna took a fresh PADD from the shelf beside her and activated it.
To: Lt. Reginald Barclay, SFC,
Pathfinder project
From: Lt. j.g. B'Elanna Torres, U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656
Router heading: Sector 001; Earth; San Francisco. 127984723
Stardate 54382.4
Hello, Reg,
Thanks for the latest warp core specs you sent in the last transmission. And thank you for your letter. No, it wasn't too personal. We've traded engineering data and theories several times now, so I consider you a close colleague, and hopefully a friend. I don't have a lot of those back in the Alpha quadrant anymore, so I welcome any I can get. Guess you already know that, since the only person who's written me directly besides you is my uncle on Qon'oS, to tell me about my mother...
Anyway, this woman you mentioned who left a message at Pathfinder headquarters saying she was my cousin-well, I have a few cousins, but none I'm close to at all. Since the message was on an intra-Earth transferal line, she might be someone from my father's side. I have a cousin named Elizabeth. We played together on occasion when I was a child, though I don't know why she'd want to write me. I can't imagine anyone in my father's family wanting to write me. I haven't seen or heard from any of them in well over twenty years. Truthfully, I consider Tom and everyone on Voyager my family now.
Don't be too bothered because the message was deleted. I don't really see any reason to start up a correspondence at this late date, though Tom thinks I should consider it. He needled me about it in fact, even after I shoved him off the couch. I know he was trying to be helpful in his own way, but he just doesn't understand that my family and his are nothing alike.
Okay, I also know he might have a point. And you're probably reading this thinking I should give her a chance too, aren't you? Fine, have it your way. If she contacts Pathfinder headquarters again, I suppose you can put her on the authorized list you mentioned. Sorry about my lack of enthusiasm, but I don't know what we could possibly say to each other after all this time. Besides, she probably contacted Pathfinder on a whim and won't call back anyway, or maybe she had the wrong person altogether.
I hope you don't mind if I change the subject now. I wanted to thank you for something else, Reg-what you wrote about working with Admiral Paris. I know you were just recounting the project's progress, but it was an eye-opener seeing the Admiral from your perspective (that's what Tom calls him most of the time, only partly in jest, "The Admiral"). He's written to Tom of course, but I'm sure you know Tom and his father have a...complicated history. Their letters to each other have tended to be polite and superficial, unlike the ones Tom has exchanged with his mother or his sisters. I can understand it, since the issues between Tom and his father aren't the kind that can be resolved in letters. They're the kind that won't be put completely to rest until the two of them are able to meet face to face again.
Your account of working with Admiral Paris, and the way his stoic, no-nonsense exterior doesn't hide his fierce dedication to the project and to getting Voyager home-well, let's just say Tom read those particular paragraphs a dozen times. You and I both know- and deep down Tom knows-that Admiral Paris hasn't given up his other Command postings and duties, and devoted nearly every waking hour to the Pathfinder project, all to get one small ship among the many hundreds of ships in the fleet back to Earth. No matter what he may say in public, and despite the fact that getting the rest of us home will be gratifying for him, he's put his heart and soul into this for one reason-to get his son back.
Your words helped me see Admiral Paris a little more clearly too. In his letters he's tacitly welcomed me into his family-as has everyone in Tom's family-but I have to admit I still felt a little doubtful about his response. Now I feel more certain that he does care about Tom's welfare and happiness, deeply. I hope that means he really does accept me, like you said. I don't know many Starfleet admirals who would welcome a half-Klingon ex-Maquis Academy dropout with a quick temper as a daughter-in-law.
Space is more limited than usual for this transmission, so I have to end this letter soon. I do have two favors to ask of you. Can you please tell Admiral Paris that Tom will send a letter to his family next month? This month he felt it important to answer a letter from an old acquaintance.
My other favor has to do with Voyager. I have an idea how we might be able to get the ship home faster. It's in the germinal stage right now, and I don't want to get anyone's hopes raised too much, so please keep this between us for the moment. With the captain's permission I'm sending you some raw data. When you see it I think you'll understand where I'm going.
To go any further though, I need your help. Can you send me whatever research you can find on the latest warp field generation material bonding techniques? I'd be grateful if you could send the information in the next transmission. Also, it would be helpful if you could commandeer the Lunar Very Large Array and search for any Type 4 neutron stars in Voyager's expected flight path-preferably ahead of us by about a thousand light years, and within a cylindrical segment of our flight path by a hundred light years. I know it's a lot to ask, but it could make a difference of fifteen or twenty years in our journey home, or maybe more.
Thanks again, Reg, for everything. Good luck with that patent application and with your new apartment. Feel free to write me again, or Tom, or anyone on Voyager. Even the captain. She can't say enough good things about you. Believe me, you're everyone's hero here, and the first person whose hand we all want to shake when we get home.
Take care,
B'Elanna Torres