Be Careful What You Wish For Read online

  No more than five minutes passed before their sensors picked up the pre-programmed signs. "Paris to Neelix," Tom called out over the comm. "Looks like we'll be needed your services after all."

  ~*~*~*~*~

  The senior staff was gathered in the briefing room to hear the away team's report. The news was mixed at best. Harry was summarizing their geological findings. "We found no significant deposits of the key minerals needed to power the ship on any of the planetoids we surveyed. What we did find was unrefineable because of the levels of contaminants present."

  It was Neelix's turn. "We brought back some seeds from the tenth planet of the fourth system, but it seems to be winter on the only significant landmass, and there was no mature plant life. At least nothing edible." That was some admission, Tom thought, considering Neelix's broad definition of the word.

  "Gentlemen, I thought you said there were some positive findings to report," the captain challenged.

  Harry and Neelix looked to Tom, who couldn't help but catch Harry's eyes before he began. "Captain, we did find a Class M planet in the sixth system. It has crude mineral deposits that could easily be converted to energy, but it's incompatible with Voyager's technology. There's abundant fresh water, but most of the landmasses seem to have been scorched by seasonal wildfires recently. They destroyed most of the edible vegetation and animal life."

  Janeway couldn't avoid asking the next question. "And that's a positive finding...?"

  Tom took a deep breath. "The planet fits Federation guidelines for colonization for a group our size. The natural resources won't support a starship, but could easily maintain a permanent settlement. And the land could be terraformed rather easily."

  There it was. A viable option staring her in the face. She couldn't bring herself to look at Chakotay. "Opinions," she spat out. Her first officer was wise enough to keep his mouth shut, and she was grateful.

  "I think we should press on," Harry jumped in. We still have several months of reserves, and seven years of experience that tells us that we'll come across the materials we need somehow. We've had to ration before. It's always worked out in the end."

  Janeway knew his bias and eternal optimism and factored it in. "Seven?"

  Seven of Nine turned her chair slightly to face the captain. "I can't agree with Ensign Kim. Long-range astrometric scans show no significant civilizations within reach of this vessel under our current operating conditions. We have a responsibility to keep this crew safe that supercedes any personal desires to reach Earth. I believe we should send a comprehensive survey mission to confirm the away team's findings, and begin preparations for colonization." Two down, six to go.

  Tuvok was next. As always he was deliberate in his choice of words. "Your priority has been very clear, Captain. Reaching the Alpha Quadrant has always been our primary mission, and we have taken great risks in the past to achieve that goal. Either scenario presents problems. But I believe the logical course would be to continue on our journey until no other options remain."

  Kathryn knew her friend was guided by Vulcan logic, but she had to factor his bond to his family into his calculated answer, even if Tuvok would have argued dispassionately that he was incapable of falling victim to emotional influences. "Your turn, Mr. Paris."

  Tom's eyes moved to meet Harry's as he considered what he would say. He looked away before he began. "I'm with Seven, Captain. Based on what we saw today in the Flyer, there's not a lot out there we can use. The planet we found isn't the Garden of Eden, but we could make due. Our survival has to take priority." He turned back to look at his friend. "I'm sorry, Harry." The ensign forced himself to nod at Tom; he knew they didn't agree on this topic.

  The captain saw the looks that passed between the two friends and imagined that the conversation during their away mission must have been pretty tense. She wondered if Tom realized that, if they did have to set the ship down, he might never fly again. Could he live with that? Of course, these days her helmsman had other priorities besides piloting. "B'Elanna?"

  "Well, I guess if Tom's staying...," she'd picked up her husband's habit of lightening a tense moment with humor. "Captain, I have serious doubts that we can keep this ship going long enough to make it to a more hospitable area. We could be adrift long before we find what we need. I don't think we have a choice."

  Janeway now had the opinions of her bridge crew, but Neelix and the Doctor had earned the right to be heard. "Doctor, is there a medical consideration you would like to point out?"

  The EMH had an opinion on every topic, she knew. But his very existence was at stake, if their holographic technology lost its only source of power. "I'm a doctor, not a psychic. However, I have some serious concerns about our dwindling food reserves and the long-term nutritional requirements of this crew. Assuming you can preserve some of our key technology..." they all followed his less than subtle meaning, "it may be a wise precaution to look for a new place to 'put down roots.' Literally and figuratively."

  Janeway nodded. "Mr. Neelix, we have brought you very far from your own home on our quest to reach ours. How do you feel about the prospect of giving up our journey?"

  Their morale officer had been struggling to keep the crew in a positive frame of mind ever since the energy rationing was put into place, but--with even less variation in their meals, no way to blow off steam on the holodeck, and their fears about the gloomy prospects for the future, there was little he could really do to keep spirits up. Janeway actually thought she could see the strain on Neelix's own mood. Ever the diplomat, however, his gentle reply was what they all might have expected. "I've been looking forward to touring Earth, as the only ambassador from the Delta Quadrant. But I wouldn't want you to risk your lives on my account. I'm happy with my life here with this crew. I'll support whatever decision you feel you need to make." The Talaxian had become a source of strength for them all these past few years. His selflessness never ceased to amaze the captain, and she smiled at him warmly.

  She didn't bother to ask Chakotay in front of the rest of her staff. She not only knew his position, she knew he could make a compelling and eloquent argument for it. She'd let him do that, but privately. Janeway told the group she would take their opinions into consideration and notify them of her decision as soon as she had made it. She watched her officers--her friends--file out of the briefing room and she was sorry for the burden of this secret conversation she couldn't allow them to share with their staffs.

  Her first officer followed her quietly across the bridge and into her ready room. Neither spoke until they were inside and seated on the couch. Even then, it was a few minutes before the right words came. "Tell me why we shouldn't do this," she said to him, taking Chakotay slightly off-guard.

  "Wouldn't I be arguing your case, Captain?" he asked.

  "Yes. But I need to know that you understand why I'm loathe to consider it." Fair enough.

  "We've made a promise to this crew," he began, "that we wouldn't give up until we got them home to their families and friends. Giving up now, when they've finally made regular contact with those they've left behind might be too painful for many of them to accept." Good. He was taking her challenge seriously. "We also have some small chance of finding what we need before our options are exhausted. How would we live with the possibility that, had we had only continued a little further, we might have come across the supplies, or assistance, or the uncharted wormhole we needed to make it all the way home." He was seeing the value of her exercise. These were compelling reasons to push on. "Finally, settling here would be accepting defeat. And Janeways never accept defeat."

  Her head jerked up at that last comment. "Speaking from your long personal experience as a Janeway, I suppose?" She smarted at the truth he spoke.

  He smiled gently back at her. "Only from my long personal experience of following a Janeway into one unwinnable battle after another only to come out victorious against all the odds. Kathryn, you've flown with deliberation into the heart of Borg territory, stealing Seve
n right out from under their noses. You fought and defeated species 8472, only to turn them into allies when you realized their true nature. You incited a Borg civil war, and turned a young Hirogen into a budding pacifist. I can't imagine you finding it easy to surrender to a few microfractures and an empty airponics bay." God, he knew her so well. She was determined not to let her stubborn pride make this decision, however. For the first time, more than half of her senior staff members were making a well-considered argument for giving up their journey. She had to take them seriously.

  "You could see yourself," she asked him sincerely, "making a life on that burned planet, with no chance of seeing your home, your friends, or your colony ever again?"

  This question was almost too easy for him to answer. "Most of my family was killed in the war with Cardassia. My career I surrendered to take up their fight. All my friends who aren't dead or in prison are on this ship. I've already made a new life for myself in the Delta Quadrant, Kathryn. It doesn't matter so much to me whether that life is aboard this ship or on a new colony in a remote part of space." He looked deeply into her eyes before he spoke again. "And I can imagine an even better future, free from the protocols and proprieties of the chain of command. Where we're men and women first and officers second. Our new lives could start now." She was blushing, and could feel the pained look in her eyes as he continued. "All sorts of possibilities exist on that 'burned planet.' My people have always respected fire as a source of renewal. Maybe this is our sign to start anew on that scorched land."

  She reached out her hand to touch his face, and he moved his up to meet it. She gently pulled away from him, and stood and walked to her desk. "I'll let you know my decision in the morning." She had her back turned to him now. "Goodnight."

  He only hesitated a moment before he moved out the door. Kathryn Janeway put her hands firmly on her desk and closed her eyes. How could she ever bear to make this decision? Yet she knew it was hers alone. "Computer, lights to 30% illumination." She had to think. She wouldn't be going back to her quarters this evening.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  B'Elanna's day hadn't started off too badly. This morning, when her dreams led her to pat the other side of her bed, she found the warm body of her sleeping husband right where it was supposed to be. She had woken up anyway and rolled her less-than-agile body on to her side so she could study his sleeping face. People had always described Tom as "boyish," an observation lent great credibility by his often-infantile behavior. But in these moments, as she watched him peacefully asleep, her feelings for him were almost maternal. He looked all of five years old, his face free from worry and his breathing soft and deep. She could have kept up her motherly fantasies if she didn't ultimately find herself staring at those lips. There was nothing maternal about her feelings about them. Even though he needed his sleep, she couldn't stop herself from placing a small kiss on them. She knew this might wake him up, but there was only so sorry she could be about that.

  "I'm having this wonderful dream," he mumbled without opening his eyes, "...that I'm being kissed by a beautiful woman who doesn't know when to let sleeping dogs lie."

  Where does he get these expressions, B'Elanna wondered. "I guess that puts you in the role of the sleeping dog," she whispered back at him before kissing him a little less gently this time.

  "Ouch," he groaned, his eyes opening. "I guess I did that one to myself." He was awake enough now and rolled her gently onto her back before making his own claim to her lips. "But you're certainly well cast in the role of the beautiful woman." His interest soon outstripped his energy, however, and he found himself draped over her shoulder, unable to do more than fantasize about advancing their play. "I need another half hour," he murmured, and was back asleep before she could even respond. They ended up sleeping right through the alarm, and had scrambled to get dressed and out of their quarters in enough time to grab breakfast before their shifts.

  Three hours later, and her day was decidedly less enjoyable. B'Elanna was crawling through a Jeffries tube on deck ten, her belly practically scraping bottom, as she and Seven headed to check out a confounding mystery surrounding some damaged power couplings. There was a time, she remembered, when working with Seven in such cramped quarters would have been enough to ruin her whole day. Things had changed between them recently, though, and the women--the two best engineering minds on the ship--had reached a comfortable truce.

  In a way, B'Elanna considered, Seven might have even saved her relationship with Tom. When he had cancelled their vacation plans ten months ago to race the Delta Flyer, B'Elanna had taken it as a final omen that she and Tom were a bad match. Without even knowing it, Seven had given her one final inspiration, to replace Harry as Tom's copilot in the trans-stellar rally. As it turned out, that race that had become the impetus for their impromptu wedding, and the source of B'Elanna's favorite recurring dream.

  Luxuries like racing for sport and a weekend on the holodeck seemed almost unimaginable to her now. She dragged her engineering kit with one hand, as she and Seven finally reached the damaged coupling. She heard herself grunt as she turned over onto her bottom and pulled her legs beneath her. Seven couldn't help but hear her, too.

  "You are experiencing discomfort from the pressure of the fetus on your major organ systems?" Always one to ask the personal questions, that Seven.

  "More on my musculature than my organs, if you must know," B'Elanna answered a little stiffly. Seven was sensitive enough now to know that the observation made the lieutenant uncomfortable, but she had never known a pregnant female and she had some questions. She moderated her tone, slightly, out of consideration for B'Elanna's feelings, and because she knew it would increase the probabilities of receiving a response.

  "I am familiar with the overall anatomical impact of a pregnancy on the female body. I am curious about the sensations, however. Are you connected to the fetus's nervous system?" she asked.

  "Seven, I'll make you a deal," B'Elanna replied. "As long as you keep working on rerouting that coupling, I'll answer the questions I can. But I want to get out of this Jeffries tube as soon as possible before my back seizes up, agreed?"

  Seven considered this a fair trade, as she could easily concentrate on her repairs and the lieutenant's answers at the same time. "Agreed," she replied.

  "First of all, I'm far enough along in the pregnancy that I would prefer you refer to it as a baby or a child rather than a fetus, if you don't mind."

  Seven picked up the hyperspanner. "Agreed, though you are technically inaccurate in your description." Borg precision, B'Elanna thought.

  "And no, my body feels sensations caused by the baby, but I am not directly connected to her nervous system." Those sensations had begun at a remarkably early seven weeks, with a flutter the EMH had identified as kicking. "That's why the Doctor needs to monitor my pregnancy; something could go wrong with the baby and I might not be aware of it." Seven hadn't considered this. As a Borg, she had been linked to other drones even with no physical contact. The idea that one could maintain such total individuality from a creature growing inside your body seemed curious. The thought made B'Elanna seem more fragile in her mind, though she wasn't sure why.

  "The sensations you experience," Seven pressed on, "are they painful?"

  "Sometimes," B'Elanna answered, moving her tricorder over Seven's work. "When she starts to kick vigorously. I'm pretty sure this baby is going to share her father's love of sports." An odd assumption, Seven thought, though she didn't pursue it.

  "You mean your body has been kicked from the inside?" Gee, she really didn't know anything about this, B'Elanna realized.

  "Kicked, punched, rolled over, and--if I didn't know it was impossible--I'd swear bitten. It comes and goes depending on whether the baby's awake or asleep and how active she's feeling. But she's given me a few painful moments in our last few months together." They were almost ready to seal up the compartment and move on.

  "Childbirth has been described in the medical texts as the most p
ain a humanoid body can endure," Seven offered. "If this is the case, I wonder why so many would volunteer to experience it."

  B'Elanna wasn't sure how to respond. "Well, I guess you just don't think about the pain until you're already committed." Sort of like love, she thought to herself. "And let's just say that the circumstances surrounding conception are pleasant enough to make one occasionally forget about the potential consequences." Wow, this was more than she expected to share with her Borg crewmate.

  "You are referring to copulation, I assume." Typically clinical, B'Elanna thought.

  "Yes, however I am designating that topic off limits for the purpose of our agreement, since I think you have collected more than enough information about Tom's and my sex life." The memories of Seven's 'research project' were making the engineer sorry she had ever allowed this line of questioning. Surprisingly, Seven didn't push it.

  "Anyway," B'Elanna regrouped, getting back to the original question. "Childbirth is only painful without the assistance of medical intervention. I have every expectation that the Doctor will see to it that I am as comfortable as possible while the baby is being delivered."