Title: Colony Author: Jemima Contact: jemimap@crosswinds.net Series: VOY Part: 17/20 Rating: PG Codes: crew, J/C Date: November 2000 Disclaimer: Copyright has expired on the works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson quoted herein. Certain of the names below have been trademarked by Paramount; be assured I am not conducting trade with them. ***** Section VI: Stars Part 17 ***** There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Janeway had moved back to her quarters on Voyager as soon as the ship was safely docked inside Toleighanomir. The location was convenient to her control center in the airlock, and she certainly had plenty of work to do. B'Elanna still needed certain elements to restart the space-folding drive, elements that the moon was designed to extract from interstellar dust, if necessary. But the drive would be on-line faster if Janeway and Seven could find larger deposits in nearby nebulae. Now that they were out of the war zone - that is, the Leigus Union - the Captain gave Carey permission to shut down Voyager completely in order to facilitate repairs. She, Seven and the handful of other crewmembers still living aboard ship gathered their belongings and transported to the inner surface. Ovin greeted them at the transporter pad. He dispatched several assistants to lead the junior officers to their new quarters in the city which had sprung up at the base of the mountain. A few more Leigi relieved Janeway and Seven of their burdens and followed at a respectful distance as Ovin led them up the mountainside from which they'd first seen the inner surface. It was getting on towards twilight, which put Janeway in mind of her first days on Toleighanomir. Chakotay had never moved out of the building they'd camped in back then. As they approached it, she and Seven were surprised to see a crowd of young Leigi women on the hillside near the doorway. The girls parted before Ovin like a sea of reeds, and closed again behind Seven's two porters, who were lagging behind under their load of Borg technology. Janeway quickly found herself alone in the room she'd left almost four months before. Nothing had changed - the emergency thermal blanket still covered the bed, and her environmental suit was folded up and gathering dust in a corner. Not in the mood to unpack, she left her possessions in the small cargo containers the porters had dropped off, and wandered out to the main room. Chakotay was there, sitting on a low bench against the wall - the closest thing to a couch in the ancient decor. Other buildings were being modernized, but he was attached to this one as it was. She sat down beside him. "What are all those girls doing outside?" "They want to get engaged," he answered wryly. "Have you taken up matchmaking now?" "No," he chuckled. "Tom says I've been voted the Leigus Union's 'most eligible bachelor'." "I thought we were engaged," she said huskily, leaning against him. "The girls don't know that." He wrapped an arm around her possessively. "You haven't been by much since Ken and Jenny's wedding." "Well, now that I've moved in, you can send them away." It was an order, not a suggestion. She never did get around to unpacking her room. ***** Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. It took another six months to get the space-folding drive running, but once it was up, the leap into the heart of the Alpha Quadrant was almost instantaneous. So they returned home without warning. A huge new asteroid appeared in the asteroid belt around Sol. Sensors overlooked it - B'Elanna had discovered Toleighanomir's stealth systems. Tom had also kept himself busy rebuilding his favorite toy. A door opened in the asteroid's side, and out it flew. Lieutenant Hildegaard of the Io Defense Station was still jumpy, years afterward, over the Borg invasions and the Dominion war. He was on duty when a small ship appeared on the Terran Defense Network sensor grid. "It has a Starfleet warp signature, but it's not any known vessel," he reported to his superiors. And it was just sitting there on the edge of the asteroid belt - like a Borg space-mine delivered by transwarp, the paranoid Lieutenant thought. Cannon-fodder duty was his next thought, as the order came through to man the Defiant-class ship stationed at Io and intercept the mystery vessel. How he hated the whole show-of-non-force policy Starfleet had adopted in Sector 001. He wished he were on patrol duty in the Neutral Zone instead, where you treated your enemies like the menace they were. Sighing, he followed Commander Kravitz onto the ship, and took up his usual position at Ops. The space-mine responded to all hails with "We know who you are. We know where we are. Please put us through to Admiral Paris." "Identify yourselves," Hildegaard demanded for the fourth time. Nice design on that ship, he thought, now that they were in visual range. Though undoubtedly of Starfleet design, it reminded him of a few ships he'd seen back in the demilitarized zone during the Dominion war - slick little things the Maquis used to buy from the Ferengi with stolen Cardassian latinum. The thought of the Maquis and the Federation on the same side nudged a memory in the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite pin it down. "Delta Flyer III," Hildegaard read aloud off the mystery ship's bow. "What sort of name is that?" "I take it there is no such ship in the Starfleet registry," Kravitz said, thinking it was probably cobbled together by a band of renegades who'd stolen a Starfleet warp core and come to make demands of the Admiral. But why Paris, of all people? "No, sir; she's not listed in any registry." But then, Starfleet didn't really put much effort into keeping its own ship registry updated - and we set the tone for the quadrant, Hildegaard reflected. Too many wars lately, too many subtractions from the rolls and not enough additions-- "Could it be a prank by the guys at Utopia Planetia?" the helmsman asked. "No, Matos. That ship is built of spare parts - look at the hull plating, for instance. Hildegaard, hail them again," the Commander ordered. "We regret to inform you," a sardonic voice answered them, "that you are still not Admiral Paris." Hildegaard snapped the commlink shut in irritation. "Incoming message from Starfleet Command, sir. Admiral Paris wants to know who they are." "Is he willing to talk to them?" Hildegaard sent the query, and waited for a response from the Admiral's secretary. Instead, the Admiral's voice came over the link. "What is going on out there? Who are they?" "The ship is marked Delta Flyer III," Kravitz replied. "It has a Starfleet--" "Did you just say Delta Flyer?" the Admiral's voice interrupted. "Yes, sir." "Maintain radio silence until I arrive. Paris out." Hildegaard figured the Admiral wasn't as out of the loop as the Registry. Something big was going down, probably involving Section 31 and whatever new cloaking device had brought this ship to the very doorstep of Earth undetected. Who else would have the nerve to summon an Admiral like a stray dog? Someone did; he felt a name on the tip of his tongue, but the memory eluded him again. ***** Tom smiled at Harry. First Contact was going pretty well. Captain Janeway had sent them 'because you have a history of resisting interrogation.' Chakotay wouldn't let the Triumvirate off Toleighanomir - Janeway because she was overdue for a court martial, and himself and Torres because they were Maquis renegades still wanted at this end of the galaxy. Tom and Harry had instructions not to leave the Delta Flyer, just to retrieve Tom's father if they could. ***** The Admiral arrived in a shuttlecraft and beamed aboard Kravitz' ship. From their bridge, he hailed the Delta Flyer. "This is Admiral Paris. What can I do for you?" "It's good to hear your voice, sir." The unidentified voice sounded more choked up than sarcastic this time, and Hildegaard could see a tear form in the Admiral's eye. Suddenly he, too, realized where the Delta Flyer had come from, who had cobbled it together, and what woman dared summon Admiral Paris (through his son) like the hoary old spacedog he was. They had been the talk of Starfleet for years, though official news was scanty. 'Kathryn Tiberias Janeway,' people called her, saying with awe, 'she couldn't tell the Prime Directive from a hole in the wall.' That ship must have come from the Delta Quadrant, and, the Lieutenant concluded, they meant to show off the new drive by taking the Admiral for a transgalactic ride. It was the chance of a lifetime, and Hildegaard wasn't going to let it slip away. Over these rapid thoughts he had heard the Admiral arranging to beam over to the Delta Flyer and ordering the other ships to stand down. "Permission to speak, Admiral, sir," the Lieutenant said. "Granted," he replied impatiently. "It is against regulations for an officer of your rank to board an unidentified vessel unaccompanied." "That's the Delta Flyer, Mister." "They have not identified themselves as such, sir." "What's your security clearance, Lieutenant..." - the Admiral paused as though searching his memory - "Hildegaard?" "Two-alpha, sir." "Fine, come along." *****