=/\=
Since the Mess Hall was not big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably, the captain allowed Neelix to set up in Holodeck One. All but the crew members serving on their duty stations were planning to attend. Icheb remembered the last time an event was held here. It was a much happier occasion: B'Elanna and Tom's wedding. Mezoti was still on board then. He would have liked her to be with him now.
They had experienced death together, on their cube, when they felt First die through their mental link. If she were still on Voyager, the fact they'd shared that experience would have helped both of them endure this new loss.
The crew of Voyager's links of friendship had grown into an extended family. Even without the mental link of the Borg, everyone had felt the painful jolt of losing one of their own. Icheb felt Lieutenant Joseph Carey's loss more acutely than he did when his fellow immature Borg expired. He'd never really liked First. Joe was a great engineer who'd submerged his natural disappointment at being passed over for the post of Chief Engineer to become B'Elanna's strong second in command of Engineering. Icheb knew this was so, because on one occasion, when Icheb was working late in Engineering with Joe, he'd asked why, since he was regular Starfleet, he wasn't named the chief.
"Ah," Joe had said, grimacing enough so that Icheb hurriedly apologized and told him to forget he'd asked the question. Joe shook his head and answered, "It's a valid question, Icheb. As a cadet, you need to understand how things work. Normally, the second officer, Tuvok, would have been promoted as acting First after Commander Cavit's death, and I would probably would have been named acting Chief Engineer to replace Lieutenant Commander Ziegler.
"But there was nothing normal about our situation. When we were thrown into the Delta Quadrant, we had to integrate the crew of the Val Jean with Voyager's. The captain had to find a way to make that work. It made sense for Chakotay, as the captain of the Maquis, to become first officer. He'd been through the Academy and had reached the rank of commander before he resigned from Starfleet to join the Maquis. He had the credentials for the position. He's the one who recommended B'Elanna to be chief engineer. In retrospect, having a second Maquis named as the head of a department was a smart thing for the captain to do."
"So you're saying Lieutenant Torres was named to the position for what amounts to political reasons?"
"Only partially. For such a young woman who didn't even graduate from the Academy, she's an amazingly skilled engineer. I've been in Starfleet for quite a few years, and I'm an expert in our systems. But B'Elanna - sometimes I can't believe what she comes up with, especially when we need to patch up the ship. You know what bad shape Voyager was in when we put down on that planet for maintenance a few months ago, right? I guess she got a lot of extra training in jury-rigging when she was in the Maquis. Even when we couldn't obtain all our materials to spec, she managed to work around what we didn't have and repair the ship with what we did. I wasn't sorry she was the one in charge during that ordeal."
"It bothered you she was promoted over you, though?"
Joe had stopped working on his task and had thought for at least a minute and a half before saying, "It bothered the hell out of me for the first year or so. I'm an excellent engineer, Icheb. If we were in the Alpha Quadrant, I'd be chief engineer on any ship I served on by now. But we're still thirty years out from the Alpha Quadrant. I began to realize, sometime in our second year - hard as it was for me to swallow - that the captain had made the right choice. Some engineers have a quality that is beyond knowledge. Maybe it's instinct. Whatever it is, she has it; and when I'm honest with myself, I know I don't, at least not to the degree she has. I'd be fine as chief on a vessel in Federation space. But out here? With no supports? B'Elanna has done it for seven years now, and I'm content that I get to support her. The only other person on Voyager as qualified as B'Elanna is the captain, and she can't command the ship and be chief engineer, too! So I've made peace with my place on this ship."
Then Joe said something that now haunted Icheb. "If B'Elanna's being the boss means I get home safe to my wife and boys, that's all that matters to me."
Joe Carey wasn't making it home. His body had been placed inside an empty photon torpedo casing and shot off into space this morning. This gathering was a celebration of his life, but although Joe was of Irish descent, it was far more subdued than Irish wakes Icheb had researched in the database, when Neelix asked for his help in planning it. Those wakes could sometimes be wild affairs. Not this one. Small knots of people were scattered around the hall, speaking in soft tones, sharing their memories of Joe. Occasionally, someone laughed a bit, but at this gathering, laughter wasn't contagious. Icheb deduced the crew was in shock over the manner of Joe's death. It had been so unnecessary, so senseless.
Admiral Hendricks, one of Captain Janeway's Academy professors, gave her a mission: to retrieve Friendship One, a probe that had been sent out into the galaxy three hundred years ago. Its purpose was to greet any other races it might encounter, to tell them the people of Earth wished to be their friends. Starfleet had projected that its path had taken it to an area of space near Voyager's current position. It was the first actual assignment they'd received since Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant, and the captain was eager to complete it successfully.
Icheb assisted the team in Astrometrics that tracked the probe to its current location: a world ravaged by a nuclear winter. Radiation poisoned the atmosphere. Ironically, the radiation came about when the people of this planet experimented with the antimatter powering the technology they obtained from Friendship One, which had landed virtually intact. The people of the planet didn't know how to control antimatter, lost containment, and destroyed the environment of their world. A remnant of the population was still clinging to life in caverns below ground, but radiation was on the verge of finally exterminating them.
The away team, consisting of Chakotay, Harry, Tom, Neelix, and Joe Carey, had been assigned the task of finding the probe. They did, but the latter three were taken hostage by a group of the inhabitants. When the captain offered to trade food and medicine for one of the hostages, the leader, a violent man, shot Joe just before he was transported up to Voyager.
While the other inhabitants had no reason to trust the remaining hostages, even they were stunned by Verin's brutal act. Eventually, the crew of Voyager found a way to treat the people's radiation sickness, as well as their atmosphere, clearing their skies for the first time in many years. The people of the planet now could hope to survive and rebuild their world.
But Joe was dead.
=/\=
"How are you doing, Icheb?" Neelix asked softly. Icheb was startled; he hadn't noticed the Talaxian's approach.
"As well as anyone, I guess. It's so unbelievable. We tried so hard to save him, the way Seven saved you once with her modified nanoprobes. It was no use."
"I wondered if that technique she used on me had been tried. He'd been shot in the chest, not the head. Seven told me once that if the neural passageways weren't damaged, it would work."
"But they were damaged. The head injury he suffered when you were taken hostage was more serious than it appeared. The radiation in the environment accelerated the deterioration of the tissues of his brain. And with the catastrophic blood loss he suffered from the shot that ruptured his heart, his injuries were too grave for our nanoprobes to repair."
Neelix shook his head. "It's just terrible. I feel so badly for his family. If I had known what that Verin was going to do, I'd have insisted I be the one traded for the food and medicine."
"Neelix! You would be dead!"
"Oh, I've been dead before! Seriously, I didn't have a head injury. Seven's therapy might have worked on me again." He looked away then, focusing on something from memory, Icheb thought, and added, "And even if it didn't, I don't have family anywhere waiting for me to come home. I don't want to die, Icheb. I was suicidal for a time after Seven brought me back to life, but I'm over that now. I'd love to see the Alpha Quadrant; but sometimes I wonder what will happen to me when we get there. I'll be the only Talaxian in the Alpha Quadrant."
"I'll be the only Brunali," Icheb reminded him.
"Oh, but you're young! You're an Academy cadet, and you're doing so well in your studies. Everyone talks about the bright future you have ahead of you. I'm quite a bit older than you, and sometimes . . . well, I do miss my own people. Maybe if Kes was still here, I'd feel differently; but it's just me."
"Neelix . . ." Icheb murmured sympathetically, "I never knew you felt that way."
"Oh, don't mind me. I'm usually a very positive person, you know that. Being down on the planet, and seeing Joe being executed by that madman Verin - it's gotten to me, I guess. I'll shake myself out of it and land on my feet. I always do." Neelix looked around and sighed. "I see B'Elanna and the captain aren't here. I hope they don't isolate themselves and dwell on what happened again."
"I know B'Elanna feels terrible about it because Joe took her place on the away team."
"That's true, Icheb, but with all the radiation and her pregnancy, it would have been so bad for the baby even if we'd only been on the surface for a very short time to retrieve the probe."
The full import of what Neelix had said earlier registered in Icheb's consciousness. "Neelix, what did you mean by 'again'?"
"Oh, I guess you don't know. You weren't on board then, that time we went through the first Void." When Icheb shook his head, Neelix continued, "When we went through that awful blackness for weeks, and we thought it was going to be for years, B'Elanna and the captain both became seriously depressed. We found out later that B'Elanna was . . . well, I'm not going to say all that happened. It's not my place. But she was very depressed for a while about the destruction of the Maquis. For quite a while she hid her depressed feelings from everyone, even Tom. When Chakotay found out about it, he confronted her with the evidence, and something could be done about it. B'Elanna got over it. During the same time, the captain locked herself away and wasn't seen by anyone other than Chakotay for weeks. She brooded about the choice she made which stranded Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. Then we encountered a Maalon garbage man who was dumping radioactive waste into the Void and poisoning a race of people who lived in that dark place. She finally came around then, when we really needed her, to deal with that crisis. She functions more normally now; but honestly, in some ways, I'm not sure she's completely over that depression. She isn't the same Captain Jameway I first met."
"Thank you for telling me, Neelix. If there's anything I can do to help either of them, I will."
"I'm sure you will, Icheb. Well, I've got to go mingle. I am the morale officer, you know."
As Icheb said goodbye to Neelix, he thought the morale officer could use his own spirits raised. Once Neelix moved off to speak with Lieutenant Rollins and Ensign Mulcahey, Icheb glanced around the room to see if there was anyone else at the gathering he'd like to speak with. Tom and B'Elanna had left early. They'd only made a token appearance, preferring to grieve by themselves in their quarters. The captain and Chakotay were gone, too. Tuvok and Harry also left early, as they were on bridge duty. Seven was in Astrometrics. He couldn't see Naomi or Ensign Wildman, either. In fact, the crowd was rapidly thinning. Icheb didn't have any actual responsibilities now, and he didn't feel like standing around any longer. He stepped into the corridor outside of the holodeck and activated his communication badge. "Naomi, are you doing anything right now?"
"I'm at Marla's, playing with Aimee. If you're not busy, why don't you come by and keep us company? Mom had to go on duty, and it was too sad for me to stay on the Holodeck or alone in our quarters without her. "
"If Marla wouldn't mind, I'd like to come."
Marla didn't mind. After spending a pleasant hour playing with Aimee and conversing with Naomi, Icheb felt better. Later, before he stepped onto the platform and began the very short regeneration cycle he still needed to keep his remaining implants functioning properly, he spent an hour contemplating his existence. He was now on a par with a wholly organic person such as Naomi, since he could not expect to live a life much longer than that ordained by his species. It could be much shorter, since injury or illness beyond the ability of nanoprobes to heal could end his life at any time. Photonics like the Doctor would enjoy their existence only as long as their programs were maintained to prevent them from degrading. The cybernetic immortality of the Collective would last as long as the Borg as a whole did, but even that powerful race of drones could be destroyed, as their ill-fated invasion of Fluidic Space indicated.
One way to overcome his ephemeral nature was the keeping of a personal log. As long as his log existed, the thoughts he recorded within would be available to those who came after him. Like the Doctor or the Borg, this cybernetic immortality had limits. If Starfleet ceased to exist and all of its cyber records were destroyed, his log would disappear. There was no escaping his own mortality. Even the universe itself was expected to expire someday.
There was only one thing to do: to live life to the fullest, every day. No one really knew when the end would come.
He was sorry life Joe's had ended before he'd returned to his family, but it was comforting to know Joe had visited with them again through Project Watson only a couple of weeks ago. Icheb was certain Joe's wife and boys would cherish that memory. Because they lost Joe so soon after they saw him, it might be bittersweet, but at least they'd have it. The Voyager crew who had perished in the early years of the journey had never had that opportunity.
If nothing else, this experience proved to Icheb that even three minutes of time could be of great value. When Seven again spoke to her Aunt Irene through Project Watson, Icheb would make sure he to be there to meet his future great aunt, too. He didn't know how many chances he'd actually get. Life in the Delta Quadrant was precarious, and all the more precious because of it.
=/\=