Chapter 1 added on 21 Dec 2001
Disclaimers are in part 1.
Rating: NC17
"Report!" Barked Captain Kathryn Janeway from her command chair. Leaning forward, knuckles white from an angry grip, the tiny redhead radiated authority while glaring at the debris of a Hirogen ship on her view screen.
"Shields down to 50%, structural integrity falling at 45%, but our weapons systems are holding," the calm voice of Lt Commander Tuvok stated as sparks flew from the console behind him.
"Captain, the other ship appears to be getting ready to ram us. Their shields are down to 25% but their weapons are fully charged!" Harry Kim exclaimed, looking a little frantic behind his console at Ops just as Voyager was rocked by another set of volleys.
"Engineering, I need those shields. Tuvok, target their weapons and engines and take them offline." The Captain ordered with steel in her voice. "Tom, evasive maneuver gamma 5."
As Lt. Paris' hands flew over the helm, bringing Voyager into a tight dive down and away from the smaller warship, Tuvok sent a volley of phaser fire and photon torpedoes striking into their enemy. Unfortunately the Hirogen vessel's shields failed seconds before the photon torpedoes struck their unprotected warp core causing an immediate breach. Voyager was caught in the wake of the explosion and thrown away like a toy. Listing heavily to one side, she was straining to stay in one piece in the deadly force that had caught her.
On the bridge, Janeway and Chakotay were thrown from their seats, slamming into the chairs far in front of them. Chakotay heard a loud pop, as his shoulder was dislocated by the base of helm chair. Janeway slammed head first into the next console's base. Lt Paris slammed into the helm, effectively breaking his nose and giving him a mild concussion. It left him a bit dazed but he was able to regain concentration long enough to turn Voyager away from the concussion wave. He began to ride it like a surfer in a tsunami.
Those unfortunate to have standing stations on the rear of the bridge didn't fare as well. Consoles were exploding due to the internal pressure, and combined with the initial blast, everyone in the rear of the bridge was thrown clear over the railing landing haphazardly among the debris scattered about the deck. Even Tuvok found himself waking a few moments later face down in a puddle of his own blood, most of his lower body draped over the captain's chair.
Down in Engineering, Lt. B'Elanna Torres was cursing a string of Klingon and human epithets after hauling herself off the deck, vainly trying to wipe the lavender blood out of her eyes as it flowed down from a large gash in her forehead. Shaking her head to clear it a little, she did a quick visual of her domain and found it alarming. Her eyes settled on a nearby pile of twisted metal that, to her horror, was lying on top of Lt. Carey. She ran over to try to extract him from the mess and almost slid in a puddle of his blood. His right arm and shoulder were nearly severed from his body.
"Carey can you hear me?" Getting no response she reached under the debris pinning her deputy and hit his comm.. badge.
"Computer, on my mark, transport all debris within a 50 cm radius from Lt Carey's body with Lt Carey to Sickbay."
She stepped back quickly trying not to jostle of the debris then shouted, "Mark!"
In a flash of light and sparkles, Carey disappeared and the metal that was higher than 50 cm above him clattered to floor. Before the noise it made had even ceased Torres was once again prowling around in her engine room, trying to prioritize her tasks and direct those around her. 'At least we've stopped rolling' she thought grumpily.
She looked at the console nearest to her as her fingers flew over her own, to see the perfectly calm features of Ensign Vorik. The only indication he gave of the recent battle was the green blood oozing from a laceration on his cheek. Otherwise the Vulcan's features were as unperturbed as on any other moment she had seen him. She tried not to feel irritated at his composure, but after having her engine room nearly fall on their heads, the Klingon in her wanted to fly into a rage, preferably at the Hirogen who had caused this.
"I have restored inertial dampeners Lieutenant," Vorik stated with typical graciousness. "Now attempting to re-establish shields."
Torres just grunted an affirmation while working on the problem of failing structural integrity. She began barking orders at the crew around her. They were now looking less dazed and headed to what was left of their stations. Before long they had re-routed enough power to shore up any weak spots, but she knew it wouldn't last if they were attacked again. At that moment her comm. badge chirped and Janeway's husky voice clipped out "Janeway to Torres. Status report."
B'Elanna inhaled deeply and began, "Captain, we have dampeners back online and temporary patches on the hull, and the structural integrity fields re-established, but it will take us a while on shields, and the hull can't take any more direct hits without them. We have also suffered heavy casualties. I can't say how long it will take, because over half of my staff is in sickbay. Warp is off-line, but I know I can give you full impulse." She couldn't remember if she had ever had to give the Captain a more depressing report after such a short skirmish that didn't involve a Borg cube.
Janeway glanced over her shoulder to see Seven of Nine, her Astrometrics Officer and former Borg drone standing at her station, rapidly running calculations. Even after most of the crew had been thrown around so wildly, Seven looked collected, strong, and only slightly mussed. In fact, only a few strands of hair had fallen from the severe bun in which she always wore her hair. Seven's beauty and grace in all circumstances never failed to amaze Janeway. "Lieutenant, I'm sending Seven down to assist. My top priority is the shields. I don't want to chance another encounter with a Hirogen hunting party without them."
B'Elanna had to quickly clamp down a growl of rage. "Aye, Captain," she replied succinctly.
She had no desire to have to deal with the Captain's Borg pet contradicting her every move and second-guessing her while she put her engine room back together. 'I can always send her out into the Jeffries tubes to do the grunt work if she starts to bug me I guess' she thought ruefully.
~~~
Some time later, Voyager had moved into the shadows of a nearby moon and the senior officers were meeting in the conference room to review the day's events. B'Elanna was sure she would be the last to arrive, even Seven had completed the tough assignments that she'd been given and apparently even had time to clean up before coming to the meeting.
'Kahless, does she ever look bad?' the Lieutenant wondered when she looked over at the Borg jealously before looking down at her own uniform, covered in streaks of conduit fluids and other grime. 'Damned Borg perfection.'
She then noticed that the Doctor wasn't there even though the rest of the staff was ready and conferring among themselves. The Captain looked up at her as she took her seat and nodded. Then she hit a button on the console in front of her hailing the Doctor.
"Doctor if you are ready to begin we are waiting for you," Janeway stated calmly into the air.
"I'm afraid I cannot leave my patients at this time, so I would prefer to join you through this link." He stated impatiently as his face appeared on the view screen.
"Very well Doctor. If things are that serious I think we should let you begin," She replied, raising her eyebrow at the EMH.
The Doctor cleared his throat, totally unnecessary since he was a hologram but one of his favorite mannerisms nonetheless, before beginning any discussion which called upon his expertise.
"Well, you gave me quite a heavy casualty list, but I pulled everyone through with my usual remarkable talents. Almost all of them have been released, but I'm holding Ensign Tal Celes and Lt. Joe Carey for a while. Ensign Tal suffered from temporary blindness and deafness when her console exploded directly in her face. I have her sedated until her body has had enough time to recover from its shock. She will recover her hearing by morning, but I will not know about her eyesight until then. I expect it will not be long after that that she will be able to regain her sight as well, but I want to hold her until I am sure."
At this point he took a deep breath and looked a little grim. "As for Mr. Carey, well his case is a little more troublesome. If it had not been for someone's insight to transport him with the material that had inflicted his wounds, as well as my brilliant skills as a surgeon, he would not have survived…"
B'Elanna looked up at the Doctor with a stunned looked on her face. She had known it was serious but everyone in engineering had suffered at one point in time from broken bones and many times from burns and cuts. It was always shocking when one of her people had a life threatening injury, and she always found a way to blame herself. She believed that she should be the one to take the hardest hits.
"How is he Doc?" she blurted out, interrupting his diatribe on his formidable skills, which everyone present had heard many times.
"I was just getting to that Lieutenant. His right arm was severed above the shoulder, directly through his clavicle and scapula as well as his pectoral and lateral series of musculature. I wasn't sure I'd be able to reattach it, but the insight of whoever transported him gave me the best chance. Also, if he hadn't had metal still attached when he transported in, I believe his blood loss would have been too great for his body to recover from. As it was he lost around 50% of his blood before I was able to stabilize the blood flow in surgery. What I'm worried about now is risk of infection. I'm going to keep him in sickbay in a restricted area for at least the next two weeks. At the moment, I cannot say whether or not he will be able to use his arm effectively again."
Chakotay cut in at this point, the edge of his tribal tattoo crinkled by his raised eyebrow, "I thought you said you were able the save his arm?"
He felt very bad for the man knowing that an engineer of his quality would have a problem with any lack of mobility. To potentially lose an entire arm might be emotionally debilitating. Also, Carey was second in command in engineering, and in charge of Gamma shift. He was not looking forward to trying to find a replacement, even temporarily.
"Well Commander, when his arm was severed, so were all the nerves throughout the entire area. Compared to nerves, bone and muscle I can re-attach fairly easily. Most times, the nerves will reestablish themselves, but not in any predictable fashion and not necessarily completely. He may regain full mobility, but lose feeling. Or he may regain it all."
At this point he sighed and lowered his voice, "Or he may not regain feeling or mobility. It is far too early to tell. In any case, don't expect him back on the duty roster for at least six weeks. But consider him lucky. If the metal had traveled five more centimeters down it would have severed a large portion of his lung too. That, on top of his other injuries, would have been more than even I could have done anything about."
"Thank you Doctor," Janeway stated tensely from her position at the end of the table. She would always feel responsible for injuries and death upon her ship, and this one had come too close on too many fronts. But this wasn't the time for self-recrimination. She turned to her Vulcan tactical officer, "Tuvok?"
Lt. Commander Tuvok had known Janeway longer than anyone else on Voyager and could read her emotions even if he, as a Vulcan, had no use for them. He knew that she needed positive information to lead her crew out of their recent troubles.
"Captain, it would appear that the two ships we encountered were random hunters out on a mission of conquest. Further study of our encounter showed no messages being broadcast in any way but to each other. I believe that we were an opportunistic target and their leaders were over-zealous in their belief that they could together capture us. It would appear that we are safe from any reprisal, as long range scans show no other movement in this sector, and indeed this is far beyond their normal range."
Janeway nodded, "Alright. That gives us a little breathing room."
She looked across the table at her Chief Engineer, "Lieutenant? Can you give us an idea of what shape we're in?"
B'Elanna inhaled deeply before beginning. "Well we have our basic necessities back up and running. Life support is up to 100% on all decks, and the shields are stabilized. Our engines are capable of giving you up to warp 3.5, but I wouldn't recommend it except in an emergency. Our biggest problem right now is our hull, seeing as we now have several glaring holes, gashes and dents. If we were to lose the structural integrity field over one of these areas while in warp, I can't guarantee I could keep her from flying apart."
She focused this last part on Tom Paris to make sure he knew he couldn't hot-dog it like he sometimes did at the helm.
"Also replicators are at a minimum, and we're focusing on getting the engineering replicators up first. I'm afraid though that we wont have enough raw materials to replicate all the necessary parts for the hull repairs. We really need to find a planet to mine some duranium and tritanium, or at least some very healthy doses of their component elements. Actually Captain, if we could find a planet to set down on with the necessary minerals it would make handling the external repairs a lot easier and quicker." She threw this last bit in on a whim, knowing that Janeway wouldn't want to ground Voyager unless necessary, but hoping for a reprieve anyway.
"I'll take that into consideration, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Seven, what can we expect in the next area of space?" Janeway cued the willowy blonde at the opposite end of the table.
"Captain, the next two systems are uninhabited. The first system we will travel through contains a neutron star, one class D, one class E, one class M, and a class B planet. There is a companion G-class star in orbit in this system, making it a binary system. The class G star's orbit is on the outside of the class B planets within the system, so This system is well shielded from extra-system phenomena. The next system is based on a magnetar star. However scans show that the star is currently in a decline period out of its emissions. As you know a magnetar is an unstable neutron star with an incredibly powerful magnetic field which can emit large amounts of radiation. I would not recommend that system as gamma and x-ray emissions are still quite high." Seven stated with her usual clinical Borg detachment.
Inside she was beaming for being able to anticipate the needs of her Captain one more time. Only those who knew her really well would see the pride in her eyes. Of those in the conference room, only Kathryn and Tuvok had ever bothered to know her facial expressions, or to get to know her very well at all.
Kathryn looked closely at her, and recognized the little twinkle in her eyes. That little twinkle said there was more there, that Seven was happy about something and she herself felt a little happier just from taking in the emotion her friend was putting off. So she decided to dig a little deeper.
"Can you tell us more about the class M planet in the next system?" She queried with a smirk and a rising of her eyebrow.
"Indeed Captain. I anticipated that there might be a need for Voyager to land," she replied with her own version of a smirk. It was barely visible, just the corner of her mouth rising the barest of millimeters. Her eyebrow with the Borg implants rose just slightly also, but Kathryn saw it. Seven stood and walked over to the view screen on the wall and input a series of commands. The data she had collected appeared on the screen.
A 3-dimensional representation of the space comprising the next system appeared on the screen. She had programmed a view that let the senior officers see the entire system at once with lines representing their orbits.
"As you can see the system is particularly stable considering the nearby magnetar and the nebula we have recently passed through. All orbits appear to have been stable for a long period geologically. Indeed, the class M planet in question appears to have been in the system's habitable zone for millions of years."
At this point the view screen focused on that planet. "It has a stable climate, with a large amount of water present. Actually, its water content was only 2% away from classifying this as a class N planet. However the land masses present are large and settled mostly in equatorial alignments. Geologically, only one continent seems to have any major activity." She focused on one continent as seen from space.
"As you can see, there appears to be a line of volcanic activity ranging from a singular point. But I would hypothesize from their configuration and ages that they are a direct result of 'hot spot' activity, an intriguing example considering it is under a major land mass. I am sure our Geologists would agree." She faced the group, head tilted slightly, and eyebrow raised higher as if expecting someone to argue. When nobody commented she turned back to the screen. "The size of this particular land mass would be ideal for Voyager's needs. There is a large area that is geologically stable near the equatorial zone which would provide an ideal landing zone. Near that area within 200 Km there appears to be a large amount of wildlife. I believe it might provide our bioscience department some intriguing research, and perhaps even some food for Mr. Neelix's stores. Finally the mountain range 300 Km to the north that I mentioned earlier would appear to be full of the heavier metals from the planets core."
She finished her presentation and the view screen focused back on the overall representation of the system. She turned around, standing at attention with her hands linked behind her back, and looked at the Captain, waiting to see if she had any more questions.
"What about life-forms Seven?" Chakotay asked pointedly.
"Commander, there does not appear to be any higher life-forms present. Nor does it appear that there have ever been any as there are no signs of civilization or ruins. I cannot tell you about the extent of fauna, as we are still to far away to run a more thorough scan. But it would appear that this planet has never evolved a higher life-form. None of the other planets in the system are stable enough to have begun that evolution." Seven responded evenly.
The Captain held up her hand. "I've heard enough. Lt. Paris, plot a course based on Seven's readings that will bring us in orbit of the plant in question. Maintain position above the continent that Seven just showed us. We will investigate the possibilities the planet can offer us from orbit. Chakotay, you and Tuvok prepare away teams to investigate the surface. After we've gathered enough information, I will make a decision as to whether or not we can ground my ship," she said as she looked at each person she was addressing.
She looked back at Seven of Nine and smiled, "Excellent job Seven."
Lt. Torres was happy the Captain was looking at the Borg at that point because she couldn't control the urge to roll her eyes. 'Honestly! I bust my ass to keep the ship in one piece, and Barbie Borg makes a few scans. Then, the captain seems leery of me grounding her ship until Miss Perfection says she's found the perfect place! Well, I guess I should just be happy that she bothered investigating a landing zone since she would normally be pushing us harder to go investigate that fascinating little star in the next system!' She thought, trying hard to avoid growling and sneering at the Borg.
"Alright, everyone has their orders. Dismissed." The Captain said as she herself got up to leave the room.
~~~~~
After the meeting, everyone left to handle his or her respective tasks. Seven of Nine was currently in Astrometrics handling the scans of the upcoming planet. As a former Borg drone, Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct to the Unimatrix 01 was quite comfortable in the task. While her hands flew over the console in front of her and her eyes scanned the giga-quads of data pouring in, she let her eidetic memory store the information. Meanwhile her mind wandered over the day's events and all the uncomfortable emotions she had felt. The stunning blonde was quite new to all the feelings that the crew around her processed easily on an every day basis.
Many of the crew considered her to be quite beautiful. At six foot tall, she always wore a bio-suit that hugged her entire body like a second skin, revealing every shapely curve. She was the epitome of feminine perfection, with voluptuous breasts, a tiny waist and the perfect curvaceous hips. She was strong and muscular, as well as soft and feminine, and she carried herself with the grace of a swan.
Despite how those around her felt, she saw herself as ugly and set apart from everyone around her. She recognized the fact that most of the crew were uncomfortable around her and truly believed it would always be that way because they were afraid of her Borg appearance. No matter how far she would go into her 'discovery of her humanity' as the Captain called it, she would always have reminders of the Borg on display. The implant over her left eye would never be removed; in fact her left eye was not even her own. The Doctor had created a replica of her right eye when replacing the Borg optical scanner. That and her left hand would always be visible reminders. Her left hand and arm below the elbow had been removed when she was removed from the Borg maturation chamber, replaced with a bio-cybernetic arm designed to handle everything from assimilation to bending and shaping heavy metals, to delicate, complex tasks on circuitry with the cube.
What was troubling her now was the vast and complex reactions of the senior staff in the latest meeting. She had been certain that anticipating Lt. Torres needs for a planetary set-down and presenting it to the Captain in a logical way, one which the Captain could accept would have pleased the Klingon. It would be a good step to indicate her desire to have a less adversarial relationship. Indeed, she had tried to make it clear that the planet would even be acceptable for leave, so that the others in the room, like Tom Paris and Harry Kim, would know she understood their desire for time off.
But the only person in the room, other than Tuvok who was always pleased with a thorough and logical presentation, who seemed to appreciate her information was the Captain. This of course thrilled her because she loved to be the reason to make the small woman smile. However she was dismayed at the lack of appreciation on Lt. Torres part. She had even caught the Lieutenant rolling her eyes after the Captain complimented her. She couldn't begin to understand why, and found that it actually troubled her deeply.
Another thing that was troubling her lately was her fascination with some of the female crewmembers. She found herself spending an inordinate amount of time contemplating irrelevant information in the presence of certain women. During the last Velocity match between her and the Captain, she had missed an easy shot because she was distracted by the sight of auburn hair falling onto flexed shoulder muscles and Janeway's deep breathing.
Also, this morning when she was assisting Lt. Torres in engineering she was mortified when she dropped a hypospanner after looking up and finding Torres body leaning over her own, checking out the repairs she was making to a conduit. It took her 2.4 seconds to collect herself and stop inhaling the deep rich musk the Klingon was emitting. She couldn't begin to understand why her stomach had clenched and her respiration had increased by 30% at that particular moment, but she knew it was unacceptable to her productivity. Therefore she needed time to research these reactions so that she could rectify whatever was causing her behavior.
A data-stream running over her screen caught her eye and she decided that her self-investigation and musings would have to wait until after her duty shift.
~~~~~
On the bridge, Chakotay had handed over command of the bridge to Tuvok. He was standing outside the Captain's ready room and had just hit the chime. He heard Janeway say "enter" and the door opened for him. He strode into Captain Kathryn Janeway's private domain, finding her hunched over her console with several data pads scattered about in front of her.
She looked up from her work, "What can I do for you Chakotay?" she asked pleasantly as she reached out to grab her lucky cup filled with coffee.
"Well, I was going over scheduling after the Doctor's report and thought there were a couple of things we had better discuss… like engineering." He added the last part rather sheepishly because he knew no matter how or who addressed the issue, there would be a fallout involving the personalities.
Kathryn just raised her eyebrow and smirked at Chakotay. She knew what he wanted to discuss. In fact, she had a good idea that he wanted it to be her decision. That way when Lt. Torres came up to the bridge to give someone a piece of her mind he could direct her to the Captain. She had already come to the same conclusions, but decided to torment her first officer a bit before letting him off the hook.
"What seems to be the problem in engineering?" She asked rather innocently.
Stunned, he looked at her wondering if that hit to the head that morning had left her less than in her top form. "Well," he began carefully still not sure how much to say "with Carey out B'Elanna will be shouldering more than one person should handle. Not to mention he ran Gamma shift three days a week. I'm afraid that she will start overworking herself quickly trying to get things back up to par." He tried leaving it there to see if she could pick up the ball and run.
The Captain did an inner smirk and decided to tweak him further. "Oh! So you want me to give her an order to take it easy? That seems easy enough Chakotay." At this point she flashed one of her brilliant smiles and shrugged, leaning back in her chair.
He looked up at her like she had just grown another head, a Cardassian one at that. It wasn't until this moment that he noticed the twinkle in her eye and knew he was being teased. He grinned and rubbed his tribal tattoo with his thumb and looked up at her sheepishly. "Are you through tormenting me?"
She let out a rich laugh and nodded. "Of course! You always know how to brighten my day and relieve my stress don't you Chakotay?" She smiled once more at him then turned serious.
"I really don't see any other choice but to put Seven in Carey's place. She is the most qualified. But I want Vorik to take over Beta and to be on call for Gamma. I think we will still need her abilities during Alpha shift in Astrometrics occasionally, but I don't want to over-tax her. She's just as bad as B'Elanna about not knowing when to take a break, and left to her own devices she wouldn't stop except to regenerate. Ensign Jennifer Delaney can take her post temporarily in Astrometrics, but she'll need to keep Seven abreast. Of course if this planet turns out to be everything Seven indicated it was, I'm thinking of grounding Voyager for three weeks of extended leave as well as repairs and restocking."
Chakotay lifted his eyebrows high onto his head showing his shock. "Not that I disagree Captain, but you didn't mention this at the meeting…"
Janeway grinned. "Well, I have to keep you on your toes now don't I? Seriously, I know that it's high time we gave the crew a break, but I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up during the meeting. I don't think B'Elanna believed I'd even give her idea of grounding Voyager a thought. That right there tells me how hard everyone has been pushed lately." She leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her coffee. "So yes, if this planet is what we can use, I want you to have a rotating schedule for leave. The first week will be work related; repairs, reconnaissance, food collection and so on. Anything we need I want taken care of before leave begins. After that everyone will have to take at least 7 days of leave. No exceptions."
He smiled at that. "Yes Captain." Then his face turned serious one more time. "About assigning Seven to engineering… Do you want to tell B'Elanna or should I?"
She just rolled her eyes and tapped her comm. badge. "Janeway to Torres."
"Torres here. Yes Captain?"
"Please report to my ready room"
"On my way Captain."
"Janeway out."
Chakotay started to rise, hoping to get out before B'Elanna showed up, but Janeway interrupted him.
"And where do you think you're going Commander?" She asked gleefully. "I only invited her up here so you would be able to tell her out of range of her tools." The twinkle was back her eyes, which in her state of amusement were a deep shade of blue.
He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest as he sat down again. "Thanks a lot Captain."
She barked a short laugh out. "Anytime Commander! Anytime!"
~~~~~
B'Elanna stomped into her quarters letting out a string of curse words and epithets. She was trying to vent some of the frustration over her day. Her shift in engineering had royally pissed her off, with so many little things failing that she never seemed to get a break. No matter how many times she thought she might be catching up, something else would happen. One time she was sure she had finally caught up with the power fluctuation problems, and shortly thereafter an EPS relay shorted out leaving all of biosciences and the holodecks without power. Once her team had replaced the errant relay and got power restored, the engineering replicators shut themselves off.
She had to leave while she was in the middle of that crisis to report to the Captain's ready room. Once there Chakotay had actually made her day worse, explaining that Seven of Nine, Miss Borg Perfection, would now be her second in command until it could be determined if Carey would be coming back.
'Damned nuch (coward) had to hide in the Captain's presence to tell me too!' She was so angry that she wanted to rip something apart with her bare hands, but she settled for punting one of Tom's Captain Proton boots across the room.
Which brought her back to the other thing that was making her mad at the moment. How come every time she needs to talk, Tom was always off playing with Harry? When she was on her way back to their quarters, she had passed him in the corridor, with Harry, as usual.
"Hey Lana, we're about to go upgrade the Delta Flyer. Wanna come tell us where we can stick things?" He said wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
"No Tom. I've had a rough day and don't want to play with any damned toy."
"Fine sweetheart. Suit yourself. Why don't you take a hot bath and we can have dinner later?"
Some sappy part of her had hoped he would call off his plans and spend time with her. But he had given up courting her shortly after he had moved into her quarters. Now it seemed like all he wanted was sex when the mood struck him, and dinner when he was done playing every night. She had thought better of him. She had at one time believed he would be the love of her life.
Now all she saw was his dirty clothes strung all over her quarters, dishes he was too lazy to take the recycler, and an empty room. Before she knew what she was doing, she had grabbed her bat'leth from its wall mount and screamed "petaQ!" at the top of her lungs. Then she felt a little better, but the TV she had spent so much time making was now sitting in two major pieces, crackling and popping on the floor.
She dislodged her bat'leth from where it was wedged into in the deck plating and replaced it up to its mount with a deep rich laugh.
"Why didn't I think of that earlier?" She asked the empty room still giggling. Although she knew she shouldn't have done it, and both Chakotay and Tuvok had been counseling her about her temper, this one little display she had released had made her feel 100% better. In fact she decided she was now up to facing the world again, maybe not Tom, but the rest of the crew no longer had to fear her wrath.
So with that, she got up and left for the mess hall to brave one of Neelix's creations. She'd just have to figure out how to deal with Tom's TV later.
Continued in next part ....