AN: For those who have never seen it, in Star Trek: Voyager, the USS Voyager was transported most of the way across the Galaxy from Earth and is on its way home. In the episode "Counterpoint," which premiered 25 years ago today, Voyager is travelling through an area of space ruled by the unpleasant Devore Imperium who deport all telepaths in their territory to "detention colonies" based on the rationale that one cannot gradually build trust with a telepath. The issue is that Voyager has three telepathic officers and is also smuggling a group of telepathic refugees. The main plot is between Captain Janeway and the Devore Inspector Kashyk, who somehow knew about the refugees and pretends to defect to Starfleet to acquire to refugees escape route-a wormhole whose terminus keeps shifting. It's a ploy, but Janeway sees that possibility and plans for it. Kashyk doesn't want his defeat to become known in the Imperium, so he allows Voyager to continue on its way after the refugees escape through the wormhole. Due to a comment Kelso made about Mr. Spock and Dr. Spock (the famous pediatrician) during Brooke's pregnancy, we know that Star Trek exists in the T7S-verse. This occurs in the epilogue era of an unpublished story I'm working on in a separate timeline from Christmas '77, but it can be read as a stand-alone.

12/16/1998 about 10PM

Eric

Wow! What a good episode! "Counterpoint." Kate takes after me in things sci-fi, so I was able to persuade Jackie to be okay with Kate staying up 'til 10 to see Voyager. Her younger brother, half-brother, really, if you're being technical, is still too young to really understand it. It didn't stop him from trying though. My favorite six-year-old is currently sleeping across my lap. Hope Jackie doesn't get pissed! Tim's bedtime is 8:30 after all. It's worked out though, some good Daddy-Daughter bonding time. We had a laugh a year ago-the villain Annorax, who had a nasty habit of erasing entire species from history due to his megalomaniacal grudge with time itself, looked eerily like Red. It was uncanny! But he and Mom are doing fine, puttering around the old house in Point Place. Jackie is still out, working on a deadline. In Seattle, even the fashion journalists keep long hours.

I looked over at my daughter, dark curly hair (that she desperately wants to straighten) and, at times, viciously sarcastic like her biological father. Fortunately, otherwise, she looks like her mother. "How did you like this one?" I asked.

"Not bad, Dad. The alien with the nose was cool!"

Voyager had encountered an alien astrophysicist who had given them the previous locations of a shifting wormhole. They did an excellent job on the makeup-the character's nose intermittently inflated when he became upset, when happened when he was questioned by Captain Janeway and the bad guy-Inspector Kashyk of the Devore Imperium.

I should clarify-while having Daddy-Daughter time once a week is good, there's a second reason. While Jackie and I aren't raging feminists like Donna, we still want to give Kate positive feminine role-models, and Captain Kathryn Janeway certainly fits the bill. There was an…adjustment period last year when the Seven of Nine character was introduced, in a metallic catsuit that left very little to the imagination. "Of course, you're prettier than Jeri Ryan, Jackie," I'd said, which seemed to calm her down. On the plus side, it got Kelso and Fez to watch a few episodes, though they thought Harry Kim was a complete dumbass for turning Seven down.

"Hang on a sec," I told Kate as I put Tim on my shoulder. I got up and put Tim to bed. After I tucked him in, I came back to the living room and sat back down on the couch next to Kate.

I said, "That guy was cool…So Janeway versus Kashyk…"

"She won."

"She outsmarted a man. The Man." Hyde would have laughed at that.

"Yes, he was. Notice how she always called him 'Inspector'."

At her quizzical expression, I continued, "It showed that she was still being professional"

"But she kissed him."

"And he betrayed her. That wasn't so much a relationship as two people lying to each other. And, don't forget-she's been single for a year-her second fiance gave her up for dead and married someone else." Pausing, not particularly wanting to have the sex talk with my daughter "She's also a woman with needs…"

"Like Uncle Fez?" Kate asked, grossed out.

"No one has 'needs' like Uncle Fez, but yes. That being said, ask your Mom about this stuff."

Yeah, I'm not gonna have that talk about boys and the female reproductive system with my daughter. Have fun Jackie! Kate's not dating until she's 30 anyway. Hmmm...then there's the cautionary tale of Aunt Laurie. We'll have to have that conversation at some point. Joy.

"And the music was different too…"

While I doubted I'd ever hear Zeppelin or Styx on on a Star Trek show, I'd been surprised to hear lengthy pieces of classical music.

Not knowing which pieces they were, I replied, "We can look it up on Ask Jeeves tomorrow if you want."

"Sure, Dad," Kate replied.

We then heard a car pull into the garage. I met Kate's eyes and we both knew what to do. Not wanting to risk my wife's wrath, I whispered with an urging tone, "Okay, Kate, time for bed."

"Okay, Dad. Thanks for letting watch. It was fun, said

"Night," said Kate, who got up and walked to her bedroom.

"Good night, Kate," I responded as I hugged her before she ran off to bed.

I got up to greet Jackie and have a nice quiet night at home.

AN: Kurtwood Smith guest starred on Voyager in the season 4 two-part episode "Year of Hell" as the villain Annorax. The actress Jeri Ryan plays the Seven of Nine character. In "Counterpoint," the pieces of music were the second movement of Gustav Mahler's First Symphony and the second movement of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. Both are beautiful pieces of music if you ever get a chance to listen to them. With regard to Captain Janeway's backstory, the books indicate that her first fiance died in the same spacecraft accident that killed Janeway's father, Vice Admiral Edward Janeway, despite Kathryn Janeway's best efforts to save them. Kathryn, eventually had a second fiance, and, according to the relaunch novels, a third, who she actually married.