Kathryn
ooo
AN: A tip of the hat to Curator, whose excellent stories inspired my take on Kirsten Clancy.
ooo
It seems August has been designated as the month that all hell breaks loose.
For starters, B'Elanna asked if she could have Miral a week early. She's now running engine tests on the Intrepid and won't be back until early October.
She also wants to amend the custody agreement. Miral starts kindergarten next month, and B'Elanna wants her full time, with Tom getting her for the week or two between B'Elanna's ship changes. Tom, to put it diplomatically, hit the roof. Though I did persuade him that it's best to let his lawyer handle this — going off on B'Elanna would make things worse.
"I can see Tom's point," I tell Mom. "Starfleet and Fed schools use the same curriculum, and the school here also runs a kindergarten, so she'll have the same friends. It's certainly more stable than hauling her from ship to ship." I shake my head. "His lawyer suggested asking for mediation. If that doesn't work, they'll fight it in court."
Mom shakes her head. "It's hard to decide these things in a marriage. Your dad and I couldn't agree on where you'd start elementary school. He wanted us in San Francisco; I wanted to stay in Indiana, especially since Phoebe was a toddler. We were about to go to a counselor."
"What happened?"
"You might say Starfleet won. Ed was expecting a promotion and a posting at the San Francisco design center. Well, he got the promotion, but they sent him to the University of Copernicus with no guarantee of where he'd go next. Neither of us wanted to drag you and Phoebe around the galaxy until he got a long-term posting. So, Indiana it was."
ooo
As for work, the Romulans' plea didn't immediately translate into a flood of data. It did bring me some extra attention: Appearing on a global broadcast reminded folks about Voyager, and the interview requests started to arrive.
Now, I'm not expecting the circus that surrounded Voyager; I just have a small part in this. But I don't feel like rehashing those years, and I sure as hell don't want my family life adorning the gossip columns.
"We're not doing anything wrong," Tom reminds me as I grouse about the news that a reporter was trying to talk to the neighbors.
"Of course not," I say. "But I remember the constant speculation about whether Chakotay and I were involved on Voyager. Can you imagine the reaction in certain quarters if the gossip columns decided that you and I were involved on Voyager? Or that I broke up your marriage?" Though part of me darkly wonders if B'Elanna already believes the latter.
"I do see your point," he says, then gives me that mischievous smile.
"What?"
"Oh, just wondering if you'd ever considered, or would have considered getting involved with me on Voyager. If circumstances were right, of course," he finishes hurriedly at my raised eyebrow.
This makes me chuckle; he knows damn well that I couldn't get involved with a crew member. But I decide to tell him the truth. "Theoretically speaking, not for the first couple of years. There was someone waiting for me, you know. And you, my dear, were still a mess."
He shrugs with a "Tell me something I don't know" attitude. "Now, I will admit I was tempted." And not just by you, I silently add. And had I decided to give into temptation, I might have invited you to dinner, or the holodeck, or found a nice away mission for two."
He leans in to kiss me. "I don't regret the way things turned out. I certainly could never regret Miral," he whispers. "But truthfully, part of me always wished you'd do something like that."
ooo
I came home from work one evening to find Tom in his holodeck staring at a neighborhood map.
"Safe routes," he said with a grin. "See, we can use the alleys and the side streets to get around. That way, we can take Molly for a walk, or take Miri to dayschool without being bothered."
"What? You have us skulking around alleys?" I teased.
"Well, either that or you can talk to your friends in Tech about disguises," he teased back. "Maybe they could make us look like Nausicans. That should discourage anyone from bothering us."
Things seemed to quiet down, so I took a chance one afternoon and slipped through the alleys to Damon's coffee shop. I figured I'd sit in a corner; he insisted I sit in the kitchen. I teased him about being overprotective, but a half-hour later, a reporter and a photographer came into the shop.
Damon hustled out and took their orders, and then I overheard. "Say, you don't happen to know where Admiral Janeway lives, do you?"
"Sorry, can't help you. I heard she'd moved, but I don't know where," he said cheerfully as he collected their credits. I breathed my thanks that Marie "accidentally" forgot to include our address in the housing database.
"This happen often?" I ask after they'd left.
"Well, it's eased off a lot, but it was three or four times a week for a while."
"Damn, I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he laughed. "You've been good for business."
ooo
Then, the Federation agreed to help with evacuations. Admiral Bordson pulled Jean-Luc Picard off the Enterprise, promoted him to admiral, and put him in charge of evacuating 900 million Romulans.
The blowback was instantaneous. The Romulans have few friends in the Alpha Quadrant, or their own quadrant, for that matter. And given that most of the galaxy is still recovering from the war, the idea of spending resources on Romulans — never mind that they'd been our allies — was the last straw.
While I'm personally happy to be shoved out of the news loop, professionally, the situation is distressing. Fourteen worlds, among them some of the Federation's oldest members, are threatening to leave. If the calls I'm getting from fellow scientists are accurate, even more worlds are considering it.
ooo
Tom, bless him, has a light dinner waiting when I finally emerge from my home office this evening. We partitioned two-thirds of the top floor into an office and a holodeck. The remaining space, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, functions as our family room — a perfect place to have dinner and watch the sunset.
"So, anything interesting today that you can talk about?" he teases.
"Well, let's see. I spent the afternoon in a conference call with Captain Clancy and a rep from the Fed's Diplomatic Corps," I say, and he raises an eyebrow. "I take it this is about the secession talk."
I nod. "Just giving them another card to play. Several of the worlds talking secession are contributors to my project; their scientists fear that they'll have to withdraw. And this supernova is a shared threat; most Fed worlds have a presence along the Neutral Zone."
"Think it will help?"
"Well, Clancy was happy to have another argument to use. If nothing else, maybe they can persuade those governments to allow formal scientific communications. If not, well, my folks have some creative solutions for informal communications."
ooo
Good fortune finally arrives in a flood. The Romulans send us their data, then the Vulcans surprise us with an early transmission from their scanning mission. I call in all hands, including Harry and Lumina's captain, Naito Simnashi, to integrate the Vulcans' data and run a comparison of our data against the Romulans' offerings.
Almost immediately, our fortunes turn. Scott, Reseil, and Naito show up in my office with a startling announcement.
"The data doesn't match," Scott says bluntly.
"I beg your pardon?" It was all I could manage.
"None of our data points match, Kathryn," Reseil says. "Neither do the scans. We just compared Lumina's scans and the Vulcans' scans to the Romulans'. And while we expected some discrepancies, these are definitely off. Far off, to be blunt about it."
We adjourn to the lab and go over the major data points again, then look at the scans. They're right: nothing matches.
"Has the distance thrown off our scans?" I muse, though my stomach clenches at the possibility we've based our calculations on incorrect data — data that I announced to the world.
"It would be almost impossible for ours and the Vulcans' scans to be that inaccurate," Harry speaks up. "Look," he continues as he points to the three large screens. "This is from the Hermes' patrol in November. This is a scan from the Lumina in February. This was transmitted by the Vulcans three days ago."
"While the distance is always a factor, the Romulan scans should be showing more particle emissions from the sun," Naito points out. "What they've sent is more consistent with data from a couple of years ago."
"Oh, hell," Scott breathes. Oh, hell indeed.
ooo
We investigate further and check and recheck. Then I call an emergency meeting. This audience is a great deal tougher than any press corps I could face. Besides Owen and Neychaev. Admirals Bordson and Picard, and Captain Clancy have joined us, along with a representative of the Fed Science Agency, who is standing in for the president.
"I regret to tell you that we won't get much use from the Romulans' data," I open bluntly. "It's woefully outdated."
I lead them through the comparisons of the data points and scans. They ask the same questions we posed during our investigations. Time to show them the evidence.
"As part of our investigation, we ran the Romulans' data against any Starfleet or Federation data with the same results. It came up with this: " I call for the image, and my audience starts to murmur: they see the similarities. "This particular scan was taken during the Enterprise mission. In 2379," I explain. Picard lets out a long sigh.
"Is it possible the Romulans have copied the images and data?" Picard asks. Scott shakes his head. "No, Admiral. There are some discrepancies in the data between the two scans. And they were produced with different scanners."
"Could this be a mistake on the Romulans' part?" Bordson asks.
"No," Reseil replies. "We've sent inquiries to the Romulan Science Directorate. There's been no response. However, we do have some friends in the science community. One of them told us, off the record, that this is what the Directorate chose to send out."
"So the Romulans deliberately sent us fu - outdated material," Clancy mutters.
"This makes no logical sense. They don't stand to gain anything by this," Picard asserts.
"Logic? Sure there is, if you're a Romulan," Nechayev says, and I can hear the disgust in her voice. "We're talking about a people who like to keep secrets."
"And I can think of what they have to gain," Clancy adds. "Tell me, Admiral Picard, have the Romulans shared their evacuation plans with you? Specifically, have they shared their plans for evacuating the system beyond Romulus?"
"We've discussed their evacuation plans, but not for the rest of the system," Picard admits. "While it isn't a condition of extending aid, it is something I've tried to press them on."
"Well, Admiral, I suggest you press harder. I'd be willing to bet a case of Romulan ale that the empire is using that old data to tell Remus and the outlying worlds that there's nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, they're evacuating their leaders, top scientists, and politicians to set up a new empire elsewhere. The rest of the system, well, too fu- bad for them."
"You think they don't want us to tip off the other worlds, then?" Picard asks. "It's a possibility."
"It is," I chime in. "But there may be another reason too. It's possible that the Romulans know the planet is closer to destruction than they want to publicly admit. Perhaps they're trying to avoid a panic."
Picard smiles, and Clancy quits glaring at him long enough to smile, too. "Excellent hypothesis, Admiral," Picard says. "Do you have any proof?"
"Not conclusively," I admit. "and a lot of it assumes that the Romulans still control what the population hears from outside sources. However, the Vulcans have brought us new information." I call up an image and point toward a sport near Theta Centauri. "The Vulcans' scans show a new point of emissions ... about here," I say. "We'll see what the rest of the scans show, but Dr. Chelak at Vulcan Science agrees that the star could be burning fuel more quickly than we expected."
My audience looks alarmed. "Admiral, does this change the expected date range?" the Fed Science rep asks.
"A bit. The current computer predictions move the range up about six months, to mid-'87," I tell him. "Again, we'll know more when we get the rest of the Vulcans' data. It may change again when the Inventio goes out."
Picard has clamped down his command mask, not that I blame him. "Then we'd best hurry things along."
Indeed …