Chapter 22

Stepping into the Captain’s ready room, Paris wasn’t sure what to expect. To be keelhauled, maybe. Or at least dressed down for his sins.

The excitement of battle had swept over him with a frightening abandon.

It had never been like this with the Maquis—he had never been invaded with such a sense of duty and purpose that he had said things, done things, that only a member of a starship’s crew had any right to. And, greatest sin of all, he’d intentionally failed to inform Captain Janeway, “Hey, I’m a felon. Remember?” when she herself seemed to forget that fact in the thick of everything else. It had just felt so good to fit in again. So good to be useful.

Janeway turned away from the observation window as the door whispered shut behind Paris. He glimpsed a faint surprise in her eyes, as though she hadn’t expected him so soon; then she stepped smoothly to the monitor on the long table between them and switched it off without looking at it. A suggestion of loneliness—a man’s smiling face, and a blur of big, huggable dog—blinked out of existence before Paris even had a chance to blush at his intrusion.

“You asked to see me, Captain?” he prompted, just to break the moment.

She nodded, folding her hands. “Mr. Paris, you have a problem.”

It occurred to him that the first time a woman had told him that was probably in fifth grade.

“I’ve invited Chakotay and the other Maquis to become part of this crew,” Janeway went on. “It seemed the only reasonable thing to do, under the circumstances.”

Paris swallowed an insane urge to giggle. “Will you provide a bodyguard for me, Captain?” It seemed somehow so unfair to be murdered in his sleep after surviving everything else they’d been through.

Janeway smiled oddly. “It seems you already have one.”

“I do?”

“Mr. Chakotay said something about his life belonging to you?”

She shook her head, obviously at a loss about how to take the reference, while Paris allowed himself a thoroughly evil grin.

“He’ll be taking responsibility for your safety.”

“I think I’m going to enjoy this,” Paris admitted.

Janeway cocked her head in speculation. “Don’t be so sure. He’s also going to be my first officer. Everyone aboard this ship will report to him.” She captured Paris’s eyes with her own.

“Including the lieutenant assigned to the conn.”

At first, he was going to snort and ask what the hell this had to do with him. But something in his throat knotted before any sound came out, and his brain caught up an instant later. “Me?”

“I’ve entered into the ship’s log on this date that I’m granting a field commission of lieutenant to Thomas Eugene Paris.” She leaned across the table to offer him her hand and a welcoming smile.

“Congratulations.”

Paris wrapped her hand in both of his, shaking it with a gratefulness his heart didn’t feel ready to contain. “For the first time in my life … I don’t know what to say!”

He didn’t even mean to it to be funny, but Janeway still smiled as she rounded the table to walk him toward the door. “You’ve earned this, Tom. I’m only sorry your father won’t know.”

It was the first time she’d spoken with anything approaching doubt.

That subtle change in her demeanor startled Paris into an honesty he never could have mustered if he’d tried. “He’ll know,” he promised her. “When we get back.” Because if I can be standing here with your respect and a renewed commission, then I have to believe that anything is possible. Anything.

* Sometimes, it amazed Janeway how far a small amount of praise could go toward bolstering a young person’s confidence. She wondered if it maybe wasn’t so obvious to parents, who were often too entwined in their children’s lives to have any real objectivity about what was going on. All she knew was that in the last few days, Tom Paris had somehow grown from an irresponsible child to a young adult any father would have been proud to raise. And contrary to what everyone had always feared about Paris, the loading of additional trust on his young shoulders had only pushed him that one step closer to true manhood.

Janeway was looking forward to knowing him once he got there.

“Ah, Captain …” Neelix’s voice warbled through the still-open doors just ahead of his and Kes’s arrival. “We were just coming to see you.”

Janeway stood again, smiling as the alien couple gaped around the empty ready room as though it were filled with endless wonders.

Perhaps the sight of such clean, well-built technology was much the same thing to them. “We’ve supplied your ship with water, Neelix,” she told him. “It’s ready to go.” It had seemed the least they could do after his and Kes’s help in recovering their crew.

Neelix bobbed his bald head nervously, clinging to Kes’s hand.

“Well, you see … that’s what we wanted to discuss. …” He took a deep breath and plowed ahead. “We’d like to go with you.”

Janeway blinked at him. And here she thought the little alien had exhausted his ability to startle her. “I’m sorry—this isn’t a passenger ship—” “Of course not!” Kes jumped in. “We won’t be passengers—” “—we’ll be valuable colleagues,” Neelix added.

“Colleagues?” She probably shouldn’t have spoken—the encouragement just seemed to fill him with more energy.

“Whatever you need,”Neelix announced with Faginesque charm, “is what I have to offer. You need a guide? I’m your guide. You need supplies?

I know where to procure them—I have friends among races you don’t even know exist. You need a cook? You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted my angla’bosque.” Janeway wasn’t sure if it would even be possible to add something so exotic to the replicators, but decided not to mention that. “It will be my job to anticipate your needs before you know you have them,” Neelix persisted. A puckish twinkle lit in his eye.

“And I anticipate your first need will be—me!”

He was good. Janeway had to give him that.

“And where I go—” Neelix pulled Kes into a possessive embrace.

“—she goes.”

“In my own way,” Kes said, as though wanting to make sure Janeway understood that this was her decision, too, “I’m an explorer, Captain.

On my world, exploration meant defying the Caretaker just to walk on the surface. I took that chance because I had to. My father taught me that the greatest thing an Ocampa can do is to open her mind to all the experiences and challenges that life has to offer.” She looked around the room that Janeway found so familiar and unromantic, and the look of naked wonder on the Ocampa’s face was heartbreaking. “I can’t begin to imagine where this ship might take us! I know I’ll never see my homeworld again. But I want very much to be part of your journey.”

Janeway studied her in gentle amazement. How could anyone say no to someone who instinctively understood the heart of Starfleet so well?

She nodded acceptance, and knew right away it was the right thing to do.

Sighing, Neelix hugged Kes to him ever tighter and smiled up at Janeway in sincerest bliss. “Isn’t she remarkable?”

Yes, Janeway thought in wonder. Aren’t we all?

The bridge was still crowded, but in a calmer, less claustrophobic way.

Most of the debris had been removed since the Kazon battle, and at least half the panels were functioning again. The rest were patched closed. Janeway hadn’t even begun to think about where they would get replacement parts, or even enough repair crews, and being faced with the hint that it would all have to be dealt with soon made her head hurt.

What have I gotten us into?

Chakotay waited at the first officer’s station, wearing his new Starfleet uniform as though he’d never taken it off. At engineering, Torres only looked a little uncomfortable in her corresponding gold-and-black, but Janeway still thought it best to encourage crew unity in every way possible, especially at the beginning. If that meant squeezing Maquis into uniforms they didn’t wear easily, then it was just one of many adjustments they were all going to have to make.

She stepped down to her command chair, and tried to touch each expectant look with a reassuring nod. On the viewscreen, Kes’s homeworld drifted lazily, an unchanging marble of dusty amber.

“We’re alone in an uncharted part of the galaxy.” It seemed best to start with the things they all knew—the obvious things that were already half-digested. “We’ve already made some friends here,” she went on, nodding toward Kes and Neelix near the turbolifts, “and some enemies.” The destruction still plaguing most levels of the ship spoke eloquently enough about that. “We have no idea of the dangers we’re going to face. But one thing is clear—both crews are going to have to work together if we’re to survive. That’s why Commander Chakotay and I have agreed that this should be one crew. A Starfleet crew.”

She saw Torres tug at the front of her uniform in evident distaste, but pretended not to notice. There would be time to iron out all the crew’s behavioral wrinkles later.

“And as the only Starfleet vessel `assigned’ to the Delta Quadrant, we’ll continue to follow our directive to seek out new worlds and explore space.”

She moved toward the front of the bridge, so she could face them all without turning. Did she have any real reason to hope that this disparate bunch could ever bond and become a real working unit? And what could she do about it if they didn’t? Their future together was likely to be longer than any of them wanted.

Janeway shook such thoughts away for the time being and focused instead on their more immediate situation. “Our primary goal is clear. Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy-five years to reach the federation.” She shook her head at their looks of dismay. “I’m not willing to settle for that. There’s another entity like the Caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster.

We’ll be looking for her. And we’ll be looking for wormholes, spatial rifts, or new technologies to help us. Somewhere along this journey,” she promised with everything that was in her, “we’ll find a way back.”

Turning, she rested her hands on the back of Paris’s chair, and looked beyond his head at the eternal possibilities waiting for them behind every planet, every star. “Mr. Paris, set a course …” She tried to say it with enough conviction and faith for all of them. “… for home.”

It was likely to be a very long trip. But if heart and hope and bravery could lead them, she knew they would make it. All they would need was time.