“I’ll make you a deal. Come home with me. See what Starfleet can offer us, and if you hate it, as soon as Voyager gets back, we’ll join them again.”
“But…”
“Okay. I’ve never done this before, not in the entire history of our marriage. But I’m doing it now.”
“Tom…”
“I need this. I need our lives to be just a little safer. I need a few less nights of worrying if we’re going to live to see another day. I need to know that our jobs aren’t putting our children’s future at significant risk every moment of every day. We brought them into this universe and we owe it to them to be here as long as possible to help them grow.
“I need to give them what I never had.”
Her eyes softened. “I wonder if that’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I never had that life either. I don’t even know what it would feel like.”
“Then can we please find out together?”
“It’s not fair,” Hugh Cambridge said miserably.
“You look fine,” Seven assured him.
“I look like a prat and I can’t breathe in this thing.”
“Shall I tell the admiral and the captain you were unable to attend the ceremony because your collar was too tight?”
“Would you? I’d be ever so grateful.”
Seven, who found the full-dress version of the mission specialist’s uniform equally uncomfortable, had no pity for the counselor.
“You’ll live.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way to get out of this, is there?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t actually talking about the day’s festivities.”
Seven paused, but before the word explain fell from her lips, she understood. “Voyager is going to lead the Edrehmaia beyond this galaxy. I will be with her. What you decide to do when she departs is entirely up to you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
She didn’t.
Seven lifted a single eyebrow.
Cambridge countered by slipping gracefully into her personal space and placing his hands on her hips.
“You would be lost without me. Every damn one of you. There has never in the history of Starfleet been a vessel whose need of a full-time counselor eclipsed Voyager’s.”
“I believe the Vesta’s Counselor Bayi has expressed interest in a transfer,” Seven noted.
“Bayi’s a hack.”
“Not true.”
“No, it isn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that…” Cambridge trailed off. “Oh, damn it all, Seven, would it kill you, just once, to acknowledge that this, what we share and will continue to share as long as you’ll have me, is by far the most compelling, frustrating, yet worthwhile relationship you have ever known?”
Seven leaned in and kissed him lightly.
“So stipulated,” she said. “But I do not believe anyone should join this mission who is not committed to it for their own reasons.”
“I just told you my reasons.”
“Our need of you is not your need.”
“I’m not sure I see an appreciable difference anymore.”
She did.
But she didn’t care.
“Then I will see you shortly. I’ll be the one up front, right next to the bride.”
“Do what you can not to overshadow her. You will fail miserably, but make the effort anyway.”
“You are horrible.”
“Fine. Have it your way. Shine as brightly as the star we’ll be dragging across the galactic barrier in a few days.”
“The moment the admiral enters the room, no one will pay the slightest bit of attention to anyone other than her. Which is as it should be. This is her day, and the captain’s. You will be on time, dressed appropriately, and you will engage with abandon in the festivities that follow the ceremony.”
“I can’t remember the last time I did anything with abandon.”
“I can.”
Captain Regina Farkas was about to depart Vesta to report to Voyager when she finally received the transmission she had been awaiting from Admiral James Akaar, commander-in-chief of Starfleet.
“Admiral,” she greeted his stern visage as soon as it appeared on her viewscreen.
“I understand congratulations are in order for Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay,” he said without preamble.
“I was just on my way to make it official,” Farkas said.
“Give them my best, won’t you?”
“Gladly, sir. Voyager will be departing tomorrow morning, first thing. I had planned to stick around, not that I think anything will go wrong, but…”
“A wise precaution. I will expect your report as soon as they successfully breach the barrier.”
“We don’t expect our long-range sensors to be of much use after that.”
“No, they wouldn’t be.”
“We have dropped sufficient communications relays to ensure that when they return, Starfleet will be aware immediately.”
“Have you received the new orders I issued?”
Farkas nodded. “I have.”
“Excellent. Agent Lucsly will be in touch to—”
“Admiral, with all due respect, I am going to have to refuse your orders to return to Krenim space at the behest of the DTI.”
It was clear from Akaar’s face that he was unprepared and unaccustomed to hearing refusals. “Captain Farkas?”
“I have no doubt, Admiral, that this fleet’s last encounter with the Krenim raised concerns among the Department of Temporal Investigations. And I have no way of knowing how they determine which concerns merit risking the provocation of the kinds of actions they are duty bound to prevent. But I do know that the Krenim, as of our last communication with them, perceive Starfleet as an existential threat. And I know that the last thing Admiral Janeway promised was that as long as we didn’t detect further alterations to the timeline, which our temporal shielding would have alerted us to, we would not darken their door again.”
“Would it change your calculations if you learned that despite your temporal shielding, evidence exists suggesting just that?” Akaar asked.
“No,” Farkas replied.
“I see.”
“My understanding is that the DTI prefers surgical strikes in their attempts to correct temporal incursions. I know they must have ships of their own, and qualified officers staffing them. Joint missions with Starfleet usually only involve the ships responsible for or directly connected to the anomalies in question.”
“That is true.”
“But I have seen firsthand what the Krenim are capable of and I am here to tell you that if they have decided to begin manipulating time again in order to expand their empire, one ship—hell, three ships—won’t make
