Star Trek Voyager: Unworthy Read online

  Miral’s bottom lip poked out and she glared at B’Elanna defiantly. “Ganana,” she requested as the glare transitioned to pleading.

  “When you finish your string beans,” B’Elanna insisted.

  The little girl’s eyes flashed back and forth as she considered her mother’s proposal.

  Tom, who had hurried to their quarters to enjoy lunch with his two favorite women, winked at B’Elanna mischievously and picked up one of Miral’s unwanted beans. “Shuttlebay Miral , this is Shuttle String Bean One requesting clearance to dock.” Tom held the bean high between his thumb and forefinger, bringing it in on a wobbly trajectory toward Miral’s mouth. “Shuttle String Bean One,” he continued, altering his voice to a higher pitch and creating fake static to blur the transmission, “the shuttlebay doors are malfunctioning. Do not approach! Repeat, do not approach!”

  Miral’s face broke into a delighted smile but that smile left no room to insert the bean.

  “Shuttlebay Miral, we have taken heavy fire,” Tom went on, allowing the bean to sputter along on its course. “We must land now. Please, Shuttlebay Miral!”

  “Miral, open the bay doors!” B’Elanna encouraged her. “You don’t want that shuttle to crash.”

  Tom brought the bean to a stop just a few inches from Miral’s mouth. “Can’t … maintain … position … all hands will be … lost. Please, save us …” he said, taking the bean into a nosedive toward Miral’s chin.

  Fascinated, Miral watched the bean’s progress and just before it “crashed” opened her mouth wide to eat it. Once it was inside she chewed hungrily.

  “Whew, that was close,” Tom said. “Shuttle String Bean One is in your debt, Miral Paris.”

  Miral clapped her hands together and commanded, “Do it again, Daddy.”

  “Shuttle String Bean Two,” Tom began obligingly as the door to their quarters chimed. B’Elanna planted a quick, congratulatory kiss on his cheek before crossing to the door to greet their visitor. She was surprised to see Captain Eden waiting.

  “Good afternoon, Commander Torres,” she said congenially. “May I come in?”

  “Of course,” B’Elanna replied, stepping aside.

  Tom quickly came to his feet, saying, “Captain.”

  “Please, as you were,” Eden said with a smile. She hesitated only a moment before crossing a little closer to Miral and staring at her affectionately. “Our littlest crew member appears to be fully recovered.”

  “She’s doing very well. Thank you, Captain,” Tom said.

  “We were just finishing lunch, but if you’d care to join us,” B’Elanna offered.

  “Thank you, but no. I actually stopped by hoping to speak to you, Commander,” Eden said, addressing herself to B’Elanna.

  B’Elanna shot a curious glance in Tom’s direction. His eyes widened as his brows collected themselves near the bridge of his nose in obvious curiosity, suggesting this visit was as mysterious to him as it was to his wife.

  Pulling herself up and squaring her shoulders a bit, B’Elanna gestured for Eden to join her in their small living area. Eden selected the single chair and B’Elanna settled herself on the sofa as Tom announced that it was time to swab the shuttlebay decks and carried Miral toward their bedroom and the suite’s ’fresher.

  “What can I do for you, Captain?” B’Elanna asked.

  “It’s my understanding that several days ago, Admiral Batiste effectively restricted you from engineering.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m officially rescinding that order.”

  B’Elanna smiled with relief. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “As I’m sure you know by now, Admiral Batiste,” Eden said, clearly struggling a bit with her own troubling thoughts, “had his own agenda for this fleet which had nothing to do with our mission.”

  “Tom told me what happened,” B’Elanna admitted. “You and the admiral were married, weren’t you?”

  “We divorced almost five years ago.”

  “Still, it was probably quite a shock,” B’Elanna went on, treading carefully.

  “It was. A betrayal of this magnitude is difficult to comprehend and even harder to accept. However, that’s not what I came here to discuss,” Eden said, settling her face into firmer lines.

  “Of course not. I didn’t mean to …”

  “I appreciate your concern, B’Elanna,” Eden said kindly. “However, we have a lot of work to do,” she went on. “Conlon has provided me with a report on your designs for a benamite recrystallization matrix. We’ve just received a rather large supply from the Indign and I’d like to begin processing it as soon as possible.”

  “I’d be happy to report to Lieutenant Conlon and provide whatever assistance I can,” B’Elanna assured her, warming at the thought of once again having a meaningful task to perform for the ship’s benefit.

  “I’m glad to hear that. But I was actually thinking a little bigger.”

  “Bigger?”

  “You ran your own engine room for seven years. I think your expertise will be invaluable to Voyager but I don’t think we should define your role quite so narrowly.”

  “What did you have in mind, Captain?”

  “Just as the fleet is commanded by a single officer, I’d like to create a position of Fleet Chief Engineer for you.”

  B’Elanna’s jaw dropped.

  “The matrix you design should be installed on every fleet vessel. Our slipstream flights are also closely coordinated and adjustments will continually have to be made fleet-wide as we perfect this means of travel. The last few weeks have shown me in no uncertain terms that Lieutenant Conlon and all of her counterparts will no doubt have their hands full. Your job will be to think on a broader scope. And all of the fleet’s chief engineers would report to you in this position.”

  B’Elanna’s mind began to spin as she contemplated the possibilities.

  “I realize it’s a lot to ask,” Eden went on. “Obviously your daughter will also require your attention and your husband’s responsibilities are also very demanding.”

  B’Elanna nodded slowly. She had enjoyed her time with Conlon, and yet she spent the last few days focused completely on her daughter. She had resigned herself to a quiet life. She had begun to replicate early child development materials and planned to request the Doctor’s input in developing a curriculum. She had also gone through the fleet’s crew manifest and found two other officers—one on board the Quirinal and one on the Demeter —who also had young children. When the fleet regrouped, B’Elanna planned to contact them to see if play dates might be arranged to begin to broaden her daughter’s social horizons. Adding a fulltime fleet position to these tasks was daunting, but also filled B’Elanna with an inordinate sense of purpose and pride.

  The truth was, she had decided when she was pregnant with Miral that she would do whatever she must to balance her personal and professional life. She would sacrifice professionally what she must, but also knew there were creative ways to arrange Miral’s schedule, and Tom’s, that might make accepting this proposal possible.

  “I’d like to discuss it with my husband,” B’Elanna finally said.

  “Of course,” Eden replied. “I’ll await your answer.”

  “Thank you so much, Captain,” B’Elanna said sincerely. “The idea that you would consider this is gratifying.”

  “I didn’t know Kathryn Janeway as well as you did,” Eden said. “But I have studied her logs. I believe that journey’s success was due to her ability to find unconventional solutions to complicated problems. The people she chose to fill her critical staff positions were an integral part of that success. I feel lucky to have so many of her officers serving under me now. I think it would be wrong not to take advantage of them.”

  “She was an extraordinary person,” B’Elanna agreed. “She taught me so much. Under her command I became someone I never knew I could be. I think the only way I can ever repay her faith and generosity would be to pass those lessons along.”


  The captain rose and extended her hand. “As I said, talk to Tom and let me know what you decide.”

  B’Elanna took Eden’s hand and shook it firmly. “I will,” she said, but she already knew what her answer had to be.

  As soon as she’d seen the captain to the door, she turned to see Tom standing in the bedroom doorway holding Miral’s hand as she teetered forward. His huge smile indicated clearly that he’d overheard their exchange.

  “Fleet Chief, huh?” He grinned.

  “Maybe,” B’Elanna said, bending her knees and opening her arms to Miral. “What do you think?”

  “I think I might just be the luckiest man who has ever lived,” Tom said gleefully.

  “It’s going to be a lot of work, and a lot of schedule juggling. You’re first officer. That’s not something you can drop for a scraped knee or a runny nose.”

  “You’re right,” Tom said. “But I don’t think that’s the question on the table.”

  “What is?”

  “What do you want?” Tom asked. “Whatever it is, we’ll make it happen.”

  B’Elanna felt a chill of delight course up her spine.

  “I want to do it,” B’Elanna whispered.

  Tom crossed to take his wife and daughter into a warm embrace.

  “Then let’s do it,” he said.

  Chakotay was still sweating when he entered his quarters to find Counselor Cambridge standing before his replicator.

  “Hello, Hugh,” Chakotay greeted him cheerily. An hour of hoverball had left him feeling pleasantly refreshed. He hadn’t taken the time in the last several weeks to take care of himself. But Seven seemed to be managing and the ship’s current crisis had passed. The time had come to begin thinking about his future. He’d agreed to meet Hugh for lunch to discuss it, but hadn’t expected to find the counselor waiting in his quarters. “Am I late?” Chakotay asked.

  “No, I’m early,” Cambridge replied. “I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. The medical override of security systems is such a handy little tool.”

  Chakotay no longer found the counselor’s abrupt and condescending style as unnerving as he once had. And he still wasn’t sure he knew Cambridge well enough to trust what he was sensing. Nonetheless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Hugh was a tad more surly than usual.

  “I was going to grab a shower before lunch. I can meet you in the mess hall in fifteen minutes,” Chakotay offered.

  “Go ahead,” Hugh replied as he instructed the replicator to produce a glass of synthehol scotch.

  “It’s a little early in the day, isn’t it, Counselor?”

  “It’s cocktail hour somewhere,” he replied as he took a generous sip.

  “Something bothering you?” Chakotay asked.

  “Of course not,” Cambridge replied. “I’m generally unpleasant.”

  Chakotay couldn’t argue with that, but he also no longer believed it to be true.

  “I understand Seven’s report went well this morning,” Chakotay said, deciding to do a little fishing.

  “Oh, yes,” Cambridge agreed, taking a seat at Chakotay’s desk and continuing to nurse his drink.

  “She seems greatly improved.”

  “She is.”

  “Are you concerned about her progress? Are you worried that she’s taking too much on, or maybe putting too much faith in her ability to control her catoms?”

  “At the moment, I’m more worried about you,” Cambridge said.

  Chakotay sensed deflection more than consideration on the counselor’s part but decided to play along. “I’m fine,” he said sincerely.

  “You’re a man without a country and a job,” Cambridge retorted. “Surely you’ve realized that by now and no amount of exercise-induced endorphins changes that fact.”

  “It’s true that my original purpose in accompanying Seven to Voyager appears to have run its course,” Chakotay allowed, “but I’d hardly consider that cause for concern.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Cambridge asked.

  Chakotay shrugged. “We’ll be regrouping with the fleet in a couple of days. Depending on their status, I imagine Captain Eden will dispatch a vessel back to the Alpha quadrant for wounded and personnel transfers. I’ll go with them and from there … I really don’t know.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Cambridge said testily.

  “I made my choice, Hugh,” Chakotay reminded him.

  “Every single person in the universe you care about is a member of this fleet.”

  “Not true. My sister is still in the Alpha quadrant along with a number of old friends.”

  Hugh gave him a withering glance.

  Chakotay offered, “I have to find my own path now. It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m optimistic about the possibilities.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “What is your sage advice?” Chakotay demanded.

  “If I had an answer, do you think I’d be drinking this early in the day?” Cambridge quipped. “I assumed it would be years before we’d be having this conversation.”

  “Captain Eden to Chakotay,” Eden’s voice rang out over the comm.

  “Chakotay here, Captain.”

  “Please report to my ready room.”

  Chakotay hated to do so without sprucing up, but saw little choice.

  “I’m on my way,” he replied. Settling a firm gaze on the counselor, he went on, “I’ll meet you in the mess hall when I’m done, but only if you promise to stop trying to cheer me up.”

  “No worries there,” Cambridge assured him.

  Eden stood in her ready room, staring out at the vast starscape. When she was a child and had trouble sleeping, her uncle Jobin had told her to count the stars visible from the portal over her cot on their exploratory vessel. Though she never told him, she had changed the game a little after her first few years of failing to drift off even as her count reached the mid two hundreds. Instead of counting them, she had begun to name them. By forcing herself to repeat the list over from the beginning as each new star was added, the vast list had impressed itself indelibly upon her memory. Once this task had been completed, she had begun to imagine the planets surrounding those stars and populated them with a wide variety of species pulled from Jobin’s and Tallar’s stories and databases, as well as a number of which she created from whole cloth. Over time this game had become less the soothing and relaxing exercise Jobin had intended to lull her to sleep, and more an endlessly fascinating mental landscape where an entire universe was ordered according to Eden’s childish whims.

  Instead of creating a fantasy version of her home star with loving parents and fascinating friends, she had always believed that her home lay just beyond the visible stars. It comforted her to think it was out there, and one day she would return to it. Eden hesitated to speculate about its inhabitants. Even as a child she understood disappointment. Lately, however, a tense knot of anxiety formed in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought even briefly of that unnamed place.

  She was no longer a child. As her eyes drifted over the countless stars, Eden found herself wondering if it was possible that right now, she was staring at the star that warmed the planet of her birth. The thought filled her with a longing she had never before known. She had grown complacent during years of believing that she would probably never find the place where she had come from. But now that there was actually a chance, the need she had buried and assumed long-dead reasserted itself.

  The captain decided that this feeling was not something she could casually indulge. As much as she had once shied away from naming her home, she now feared wanting it too much. She’d seen the lengths to which Willem had gone and absolutely refused to acknowledge any similar tendency in herself.

  Should she dedicate herself, as Willem had, to the selfish desire to recover her lost past? Could she abandon all that she had become as a citizen of the Federation and a Starfleet officer? Circumstances might yet prove her to be as frail and despicable as her husba
nd had been. But Eden had to believe that was her choice and not a foregone conclusion. And she would, from this day forward, sift her intentions carefully for any sign that she was treading too close to the dark path he had forged before her.

  The chime at her door sounded, pulling her from these troubling waters. Straightening her shoulders, she turned and called, “Enter.”

  Chakotay ambled in. The gray tank top he wore beneath a loose-fitting black jacket clung to his chest, damp with perspiration, and his cheeks were still flushed with recent exertion.

  “Were you in the middle of a workout?” Eden asked as she descended the two steps which led to the seating area and moved toward her desk.

  “I just finished,” he said with a smile.

  The most puzzling about Chakotay was the ease with which he seemed to put the recent past behind him. He had offered his assistance to her and her crew at every turn, despite being met with Eden’s caution and suspicion. He seemed disinclined to hold a grudge, but the captain didn’t believe that if their situations were reversed, she would have found within her the ability to do the same.

  Eden considered taking the seat behind her desk to put a little professional distance between them but in an instant realized that this was part of her problem. She had been intentionally keeping him at arm’s length, concerned that he had come to regain his command and if she were completely honest, worried that he was right to do so. But if there was any chance that they would be able to move beyond these last few weeks, she needed to lower her shields.

  She knew it was the right course and casually settled herself in one of the two chairs which faced her desk while gesturing for Chakotay to join her in the other.

  As he did so, she said, “I owe you my thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For speaking to Species 8472 on Willem’s behalf.”

  Chakotay’s eyes clouded over as if the memory was somehow unpleasant. This surprised Eden as at the time he had appeared to act with casual ease.

  “Was it difficult for you to do so?” she asked.