Course Correction Studio

Tag: Will Riker

  • Edge of Heaven – Chapter 3. The Man and the Plan

    When Dani came to, she was in the dark.  Total darkness.  There wasn’t anything to immediately indicate where, or when, she was.  No engines hummed or vibrated beneath her.  She could be on a ship, but there was no way to know for sure without exploring.

    She sat up, then froze.  Her entire body ached, particularly her chest.  She looked down to investigate, out of pure instinct, before remembering the darkness, which had rendered her eyes temporarily useless.  She brought her hand up and ran her fingers over her uniformed torso.  When she felt the small, jagged hole in her uniform, the memory of her mission came back to her.  She, Will, and Captain Sisko had been cornered in the Suliban facility, and Sisko had ordered her into the temporal chamber.  She didn’t remember much after that, but from the condition of her uniform and her physical condition, she surmised that she’d been shot with a phaser.  Exactly who had shot her was still a mystery and would likely remain one until she was able to ask Will and Sisko what had happened.

    Dani sat still for a few moments, willing the pain away.  Finally, it subsided enough for her to get to her knees.  She began to focus less on the aches throughout her body and more on her mission.  She felt for the pouch she’d been wearing before being sent here.  Relieved, she found it right where it had been before she’d awakened, and the five samples she’d taken from the lab were still tucked safely inside.  It was a relief that she still had them, but she didn’t immediately know what her next course of action should be.  She knew that she had to get the samples to Starfleet, so the question now was how to do that.  The first step to answering that question was figuring out where in the universe she’d ended up.

    Lighting would be a good start.  She also needed a computer or something that would offer a hint for where she was currently located.

    Dani carefully stood, aware that in the darkness, she had no way of knowing how big her surroundings were.  She gained a little more confidence when she was able to stand to her full height without any problems.

    “Computer – lights,” she commanded.  Nothing happened in response, but it had been worth a try.  She stretched out her arms in front of her and slowly began to walk forward, like a blind person.  She didn’t have very far to walk.  Within a few steps, she reached a flat, smooth, vertically oriented surface.  She began walking again, sliding her hands along what she assumed was a wall until she reached something that felt like a control panel.  She was wondering how she was going to see the panel to know what she was doing, but then she decided to just take a chance.  She started pressing buttons randomly, and the lights in the room suddenly lit up.

    Dani looked around the room.  It was small, seemingly only a slightly larger than a walk-in closet.  Somehow, a set of bunked beds, a sink, and two desks were crammed in there.  She heard the nearly silent hum of engines and felt the vibrations beneath her feet and concluded that she must be on a ship.

    But what ship?  And when?

    A garment hanging from the corner of the top bunk caught her attention.  It looked like a uniform but not one that she recognized.  She took a step closer to get a better look at it.

    A gasp escaped her lips as she read the badge on the garment’s shoulder.

    “Enterprise, NX-01?” she read aloud.

    Xxx

    After Dani had disappeared from the temporal chamber, Chakotay had been able to beam Sisko and Will to the Rio Grande in time to prevent them from being taken prisoner by the Suliban.  Now, the three of them sat in the observation lounge on the Enterprise-E with the rest of the senior staff, Janeway, and Tuvok.

    “When we found the lab and the biomatter, we ran into a problem,” Will said.  “According to our intel, the storage equipment we had was supposed to accommodate all the samples of the disease.  Well, that wasn’t possible.”

    “There was much more biomatter than we anticipated,” Sisko said.

    “How much more?” Janeway asked.

    “Enough to fill a large freezer,” Will said.  “In response to this new information, we decided that if we couldn’t get the entire amount, we should at least get some samples back to Starfleet so that we can study it.  So, Dani took five samples with her.”

    “Where did she go?” Picard asked.

    “That’s a problem, also, sir,” Will answered.  “We don’t know.”

    “We weren’t able to read the display panels on the temporal chamber,” Sisko said.  “For some reason, the tricorder was unable to translate it.”

    “We’ve got to figure out a way to bring her back,” Will said.  He felt horrible.  It had been Sisko’s order that had knowingly sent Dani to some unknown time, but Will hadn’t objected.  He was just as responsible for Dani’s situation as Sisko.

    “I’m afraid there may not be much we can do about the situation,” Janeway said.  “As of now, Starfleet hasn’t developed the ability to willfully and purposefully travel through time.”

    “I had a feeling you might say that,” Will said, “and I’ve taken that into consideration.  Have you ever heard of the Guardian of Forever?”

    “I have,” Janeway responded.  “I believe Starfleet’s first encounter with it was during one of Kirk’s missions.”

    “That’s right,” Will said.  “He and Spock traveled back in time to Earth in the year 1930 to rescue Dr. McCoy.  McCoy had been suffering from paranoid delusions after receiving an overdose of cordrazine, and he beamed down to the planet and leaped through the Guardian’s portal.  Kirk and Spock were able to locate him and bring him back to the 23rd Century.”

    “You’re suggesting that we go to the Guardian and try to do the same for Dani,” Janeway said.

    “I am,” Will replied.

    Janeway looked at Chakotay, silently seeking his input.  Reading the unspoken request displayed in his wife’s features, he promptly complied.  “Unless you or anyone else has another plan, it’s better than sitting back and waiting for the temporal police to come riding to the rescue,” he said.

    Kathryn nodded.  In nearly any other situation, she might have made a quip about how often she’d encountered the temporal police in the Delta Quadrant.  But now wasn’t the time.  This was her daughter’s life they were talking about.  Now was not the time for light-hearted banter.

    “Do it,” she said.

    Xxx

    The Enterprise NCC-1701 E had been in orbit around the Guardian planet for nearly six hours.  Janeway, Chakotay, Picard, and Riker had gathered in transporter room 2 and were prepared to beam down.  Before they could even set foot on the transporter platform, someone unexpectedly began to shimmer into existence in the room.  Whoever it was didn’t need the transporter system, as they were materializing on the floor next to the transporter pad.  Janeway’s head whipped around to the transporter tech at the controls.  The technician shook her head, just as confused as the rest of the group was.  Janeway turned back to the figure solidifying before them and realized that it was multiple figures rather than a single person.

    When the sequence was complete, Janeway immediately recognized who they represented, even though the two agents now standing before her weren’t the two she’d dealt with before.

    “The Temporal Police,” Janeway greeted. “I was wondering how long it would take you to show up.”

    “Admiral Janeway,” one agent began.  “Though we’ve never met in person, your reputation precedes you.”

    “I assume that your presence here means that our plans for a rescue mission have changed,” Janeway said.

    “Not necessarily,” the agent said.  “We think your plan is sound, and we’d like to help you.”

    Xxx

    “I’d like you to meet the man who extracted your daughter from Cardassia Prime,” one of the agents said to Janeway.  The away team had reassembled around the table in the Enterprise’s observation lounge, along with the two visitors from the future.

    “I think it’d be a good idea if we got to know both of you,” Janeway said.  “You could start with your names.”

    “Fair enough,” the man said. “My name is Daniels.”

    “Just Daniels?” Riker asked. “You don’t have a first name?”

    “Just Daniels – for now,” he said. “I do have a first name, but I don’t find it relevant to the situation at hand.”  Daniels turned his attention back to Janeway.  “The gentleman sitting next to me is Lt. Kyle Hicks.”

    Riker’s head snapped to the handsome sandy-haired man beside Daniels.  He knew that name.  That name had been one of the reasons he and Dani had broken up around the time of her graduation from the Academy.  Will had thought that she’d seemed a little too close to Hicks at the time.

    Daniels continued. “Mr. Hicks was part of the extraction team sent to Cardassia to bring Commander Janeway home,” he said. “In fact, he personally escorted Dani to the transport that brought her back to the Enterprise.  Just before his graduation from the Academy, he was recruited into Starfleet special forces, where he has since served with distinction.  He’s among the best at what he does, which is why I recruited him for this mission.  As I said before, I think your idea to use the Guardian to go back in time is a good one, and I think Lt. Hicks should be the one to go back.”

    “I have extensive experience carrying out directives of a covert nature,” Hicks said.

    “And how many of those have been of a temporal nature?” Janeway asked.

    “I’d rather not elaborate on that, Admiral,” Hicks replied. “My missions have been classified, and, no offense, you don’t have high enough clearance to order me to divulge the details of my previous missions.”

    “Fair enough,” Janeway said.  But she had part of her answer.  The boy had obviously been involved in some serious missions, some of which likely involved time travel.

    She turned her attention back to the man who seemed to be the leader of the two.  “You said you think our plan to utilize the Guardian of Forever is sound,” she said. “But I’d be surprised if you didn’t already have a plan of your own in mind.”

    “You’re right, of course,” Daniels replied.  “You’re on the right track with the idea to travel back in time, but instead of one of you blindly hopping in and out of history using the Guardian portal, we’ll use technology from my time to send Mr. Hicks back in time to the exact period where Dani is located.”

    “You know where she is?” Chakotay asked.

    “It’s my job to know,” Daniels replied.  “She’s on the Enterprise.  Jonathan Archer’s Enterprise, to be precise.”

    There was silence as the 24th-Century Starfleet officers absorbed the information Daniels had given them.

    “The Suliban may have already had their temporal chamber programmed to that period because they’re planning to strike humanity in the 22nd Century,” Chakotay said.  “Perhaps as a way to go back and end things before they get out of hand.”

    “That does make sense,” Riker said.  “First contact with the Suliban was during Archer’s first mission.  It would be a logical place to try to change the balance of power in their favor.”

    “That’s precisely what our observers from your future have hypothesized,” Daniels chimed.

    Janeway, surprised, looked at Daniels with raised eyebrows.  “You mean you don’t know for certain?”

    “Under normal circumstances, we would be able to identify, to 99.9% certainty, what occurred,” Daniels replied. “But it seems the Suliban had to be aware of that fact because they’ve done something to disrupt our abilities to monitor the timeline.  Some things we’re still able to see, but other parts of the timeline have gone dark.”

    “Since you say you can send Mr. Hicks back to where Dani is, I assume that you can still ‘see’ that portion of the timeline,” Janeway said.

    “Correct,” Daniels said.

    “There’s just one more question,” Janeway said. “What do you get out of this endeavor?    Not to sound ungrateful for your intervention in this matter, but I’ve dealt with people from your department enough times to know that there’s something more at stake than just the welfare of my daughter.”

    “You’re right, Captain, you have had several encounters with Temporal Investigations, so I don’t have to tell you that I can’t reveal everything to you,” Daniels said.  “I will say that you’re right to imply that there’s a bigger issue here than just your daughter.  It involves those vials of biomatter that your away team recovered from the Suliban facility.  That’s about all I can say at the moment.  Regardless of what else is at stake, you should realize that we both benefit by bringing your daughter – and the biomatter – back to the 24th Century.”

    Janeway nodded.  “What are we waiting for, then?  Let’s get started.”

  • Edge of Heaven – Chapter 2. The Fire

    In preparation for the mission that had been assigned to her earlier in the day, Dani sat in her quarters, on her sofa, thinking about what she would be facing in only a few days.  She’d started preparing for it almost from the moment her mother had briefed her and rest of the team.  The mission instructions had assigned each team member a specific role in the mission:  Chakotay would be the mission pilot; Dr. Bashir would be there to essentially begin studying samples of the virus and to oversee the destruction of the remaining virus samples;  both would remain on the runabout for the duration of the mission.  Sisko, Dani, and Will would comprise the team on the ground.  Tuvok, who had been the strategic force behind the mission, would not join the team on the actual away mission.

    Dani had been devouring everything she could find concerning the Suliban.  Her readings led her to the first mission of the U.S.S Enterprise NX-01.  That mission had initially been just a transport to Kronos but had evolved into something much more complicated.  During this mission, Captain Jonathan Archer, Enterprise’s CO, made the first documented contact with the Suliban race in what could easily be termed a hostile encounter.  Using their amazing stealth abilities, Suliban agents had sneaked onboard Archer’s ship to retrieve a Klingon the Enterprise was transporting to Kronos.

    Dani was about to start reading about the outcome of that mission when her door chimed.  “Come in,” she called, reluctantly looking up from the PADD in her hands.  The door slid open, and Will Riker entered.  “Hi,” Dani greeted.

    “Hey,” Will said, approaching the coffee table.  He would’ve sat down beside Dani on the sofa, but the space was currently being occupied by about a dozen PADDs.  Instead, he opted for the chair next to the sofa.  “I just came to see how you were feeling,” he said.

    “Oh, I’m fine,” Dani said.  “I’m just doing a little research on our friends, the Suliban.”  She handed Will one of the PADDs that had been occupying what would have been his seat.

    He skimmed it briefly and then studied Dani.  “Are you nervous?” he asked.

    “Yes, but this has to be done,” Dani replied.  “Our whole existence probably depends on it.  And for reasons I still don’t fully understand, Admiral Nechayev feels that I am the best candidate for this mission.”

    “You won’t be alone, you know.”

    “I know.  Do you think I’d be sane right now if I didn’t know you were coming with me?”

    “Everything’s going to work out for the best,” Will said. “You’ll see.”

    Dani wanted to believe Will, but in her mind, she didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to missions of this nature.  There were so many things that could go wrong, but that was true of all missions.  The difference this time was the gravity of the consequences if they failed.

    Will sensed that his words of encouragement made little difference for her, and he understood why, considering her history.  “I know that going on another mission like this is one of the last things in the universe that you want to do, but this is a completely different situation than last time.  It’s a whole new mission.  You’ve got to keep that in mind.”

    “I know,” Dani said.  “It’s kind of silly that I’m still not completely over that.  It’s been over a year.”

    “There’s no time limit on how long it takes people to get over something like that,” Will said. “It was a traumatic experience for you.  If you think this new mission will be too much for you, I don’t think anyone would object if you decided you want to sit this one out.”

    “That’s taking the easy way out,” Dani said. “I won’t do that.  I’ve got to prove that I can do this.”

    “Dani, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

    “Yes, I do.  To myself, if not to anyone else.”

    “I think you may be putting a little too much pressure on yourself.”

    “It’s possible, but I don’t want people to treat me with kid gloves for the rest of my career.  That’s not why I went to the Academy.  Can you understand that?”

    Will nodded.  “Yeah,” he said. “I can.”  He understood why she felt the way that she did, but he still didn’t think it was the best attitude for her to have, especially at this stage in her life, coming off of an exceedingly difficult experience.  True, it had been a year since Dani had returned from Cardassia, but Will wasn’t convinced that she’d completely recovered from it, not enough to embark on another difficult covert mission.

    xxx

    The team was a day into its mission and still a day away from its destination.  Thus far, Dani had been successful at keeping her nerves calm.  She didn’t know if she would still feel that way in 24 hours.  Sitting alone at the table in the runabout’s living quarters, she’d tried to do it by keeping her mind occupied with the mission logs of the Enterprise NX-01.  But her mind kept wandering. Despite having had one file open for at least an hour, Dani hadn’t scrolled past the first two paragraphs.  She was preoccupied not with the catastrophic what-ifs of her current mission but with the memories of one night and two lifetimes:  the night that Q2 had surprised her by showing up in her bedroom at her parents’ house in Indiana.

    Will ventured to the runabout’s living quarters and found Dani alone, staring blankly at the table.  “Dani?” he said.

    “Hey, Will,” Dani said, looking up at him from the spot on the table.

    “I just came to check on you, see how you’re doing,” he said.  “You’ve been back here by yourself for nearly the entire trip.”

    “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

    “About the mission?”

    “Some,” Dani said.  “But I’ve mostly been thinking about something that happened after I came back from Cardassia.”

    Will joined Dani at the table, taking the seat to her right.  “Was it something serious?”

    “Yes,” Dani said.  A small nervous laugh escaped her lips.  “Um, Q showed up at my parents’ house in Indiana while I was staying there.”  When Dani saw Will roll his eyes, she quickly added, “It was Q’s son, and it wasn’t what you think.  He didn’t cause any trouble while he was there.  He actually helped me out – a lot.”

    “Q?” Will asked skeptically.

    “Yeah.  I haven’t told this to anyone, except Counselor Troi, but after Cardassia, I was considering leaving Starfleet.”

    “You’re serious?”

    “It seemed like my career was getting off to an unusually bumpy start, and I was doubting whether this whole thing was for me.  I thought that maybe some of the decisions I’d made were wrong, that I was supposed to go right instead of left at some points.  Q showed me how wrong I was.”

    “You’re talking about us?”

    “Partially,” Dani said with a shrug.

    “You said he showed you.  How?”

    “He gave me a chance to experience what life would have been like for me if things had been different for us, if we’d stayed together.”

    “What was the result?”

    “Not good.  Painful, actually, on several levels.”

    “I get the feeling it’s not something I want to hear about.”

    “Trust me, it isn’t.  Just believe me when I say that I don’t think it was meant to be between us.”

    Will nodded.  Then, a thought occurred to him.  “How do you know Q was showing you the truth, and not just some warped version of reality?  He could have been showing you what you he wanted you to see.”

    “I thought about that possibility, but I can’t figure out a good explanation for why he would want to do that.  What would be the point?  I like to think that he was sincere in what he was showing me…He also showed me what my life would have been like if Dukat had lived.”

    “Was it any better than what happened with us?”

    Dani shook her head. “No.”

    “So, he allows you to experience two different scenarios, both devastating.  How does that convince you to remain in Starfleet?”

    “By showing me that even though things don’t always work out like we want, they happen because they’re supposed to, and any other way wouldn’t be right.  That doesn’t mean that you’re doing anything wrong, necessarily.  It’s just the way things are supposed to be.  He also told me that I can’t leave yet because I’m going to be part of something important that will have a bearing on the survival of the Federation.  Of course, he couldn’t tell me what that something was, but the prospect was intriguing.  And the way he said it – there was something about it that I can’t explain.  He was dead serious, and I knew I couldn’t leave, that I had to stay.”

    Dani sighed.  “I’m tired of talking about me, though,” she said. “How’s the wedding planning coming along?”

    “Well, I have to say this is one time I’m glad that Lwaxana is the kind of person who loves to take charge of things,” Will said.  “It’s been a lot less stressful than when you and I were planning our wedding.  I think she’s practicing for her next wedding.”

    xxx

    Traveling at warp 4, it had taken the team a total of two days to reach Tandar Prime.  Landing on the surface would be too risky, so the runabout was to remain in orbit, hidden behind one of the planet’s two satellite moons.

    “I know I don’t have to tell you to be careful down there,” Chakotay said, “but I will anyway.  And watch your back.”

    “You know I will,” Dani said.

    Chakotay turned to Will and said, “Good luck.”  There was more behind those words than what had been spoken.  Of course the surface meaning was genuine, but Will knew that he had just been charged with ensuring that Chakotay’s daughter made it back from this mission.

    Will responded with a quick nod before turning and stepping onto the transporter pad.  Dani and her father shared a final look before she turned and joined Will.  Sisko stepped onto the pad with them, rounding out the group.

    “Energize,” Sisko said.  The trio dematerialized on the Rio Grande’s transporter pad and rematerialized inside the basement of the Suliban facility, just as planned.  They’d beamed in prepared for an immediate fight, so they were surprised to find that there was no one else in sight.

    The room was dim.  Each of the away team members had done their homework on the Suliban.  They were well aware of the race’s advanced stealth abilities and were wary that the Suliban might have been expecting a visit from Starfleet and were waiting in the shadows for the team.  They didn’t have time to dwell too much on it, though.  There was a mission to complete.  The three of them took out their modified tricorders and started scanning.  The clock had begun.

    Almost immediately, Will’s tricorder began beeping wildly.  “I think I’ve found it,” he said.

    “Where?” Sisko asked.

    “It’s directly above us,” Will said.

    “Above?” Dani asked. “I thought it was supposed to be in the basement?”

    “Either our intel was wrong, or they’ve moved it,” Will said. “Either way, up is where we need to go.”

    The three of them drew their phasers, as they prepared to leave the facility’s basement via a narrow staircase.  Everyone’s head was turning, and their phasers were drawn, as they emerged from the staircase and stepped into a corridor on the main floor of the building.  Dani, leading the way, was constantly scanning for Suliban biosignatures.  Of course, if they were cloaked, scanning would do no good.  This part of the mission was starting off on the wrong note, in her opinion.  Maybe the incorrect location really was a simple case of bad intel.  But what if it was more than that?  It could be that the Suliban knew of the plan to infiltrate the facility, and the away team was walking right into a trap.

    Once they cleared the top stair in the flight and approached the first of many intersections in the corridor, Dani’s tricorder indicated that they would need to turn right at the second intersection to get to the lab where the samples were housed.

    “It’s this way,” Dani said, her eyes on the schematic displayed on her tricorder.  “To the right.”

    Dani stopped short of rounding the corner.  “What is it?” Will asked.

    “Two Suliban,” Dani whispered.  “About 20 meters down this corridor.”

    “Where are we in relation to the samples?” Sisko asked.

    “According to this, it’s at the end of this corridor, in a room just past our two Suliban friends here,” Dani replied.

    “I’m willing to bet they have all kinds of sensors in this place.  We risk alerting everyone else here to our presence the moment we fire our first shot,” Will said.

    “They’re going to know we’re here anyway the moment we try to leave with those samples,” Sisko countered.  He crouched and peered around the corner, then took careful aim at one of the Suliban on the other end of the corridor.

    “Hold on,” Dani said quickly.  Sisko held his fire but didn’t take his eyes off his targets.  “There’s another way in,” she said.

    xxx

    Crawling through a ventilation conduit hadn’t been part of the plans, but when an opportunity presented itself as a solution to an immediate problem, you had to be prepared to take advantage. A scan had revealed that there was no one in the lab.  This fact, coupled with being able to access the room via an underground ventilation system, meant that they were extraordinarily lucky.  Or they were walking into a trap.  There was no way to tell which applied to their situation, and they didn’t have any option but to take the opportunities as they came, but that didn’t mean that Dani felt any more at ease with all of it.

    Will pushed up against a vent in the floor of the lab and poked his head through, quickly looking around the room.  Just as the tricorders had indicated, the lab was seemingly devoid of humanoid life.  He quickly pulled himself out of the environmental conduit he and the others had used to gain access to the laboratory.  Kneeling, he helped Dani pull herself out next.  Finally, Sisko emerged.

    Immediately, Dani started scanning for the samples.  She fought to focus, constantly blocking out thoughts of whether they were being watched by surveillance cameras, or whether they’d tripped a silent alarm, or whether there were cloaked Suliban in the room with them right now.

    “Here it is,” she said, eyes on her tricorder.  A flashing indicator on the device represented its proximity to the samples.  That indicator was no longer blinking but was now a continuous light, which meant the tricorder was within ten feet of the samples.  Dani looked up from her tricorder. “It’s in this cabinet.”

    That cabinet was a freezer, and when Will walked over and tried to open it, he quickly found that it was locked.  He took a few steps back, leveled his phaser at the door of the freezer, and fired a quick burst.  The door flew open.

    Sisko, Will, and Dani stared at the open freezer and their mouths hung open.

    “I thought there were only supposed to be a few vials?” Will asked.

    “The intel must have been wrong, again,” Sisko said, scowling.

    In front of the away team was a freezer full of vials, each containing an identical amount of the same blue liquid.

    “There must be hundreds of vials in there,” Dani said.  She stepped up to the open freezer and passed her tricorder back and forth past the vials.  The signal never wavered.  According to the tricorder, all the vials contained a sample of the disease.  They wouldn’t be able to take all of them.  They hadn’t come prepared to take this many.  Even if they took as many as they could, the Suliban would still have plenty of samples that could be used to synthesize more of the disease.  Dani reached out and took one vial from each row in the freezer.  She wasn’t going to walk away from this mission empty-handed.  They might not be able to destroy the disease, but they could at least get some samples back to Starfleet so that they could analyze it.

    A phaser blast landed on the wall immediately beside Riker’s head.  Riker whipped around and returned fire, while Sisko and Dani ran across the room and took cover behind a counter.  Will took refuge behind a counter on the opposite side of the room.

    “Away team to Rio Grande!” Sisko shouted.  “We’re under fire!  Get us out of here!”

    Dani unholstered her phaser and began to shoot at the two Suliban who’d attacked.  Now that she was in a position of relative safety, she recognized them as the two Suliban they’d seen outside the lab earlier.

    “Standby, away team,” Chakotay said through the comm. “I’m bringing you up now.”

    The next thing Dani should have felt was the tingling sensation of the transporter.  Instead, she felt the heat of a phaser blast as it zipped past her head.

    “Rio Grande, what’s going on up there?” Sisko asked, understandably impatient.

    “There’s shielding around the room you’re in,” Chakotay responded.  “If you can’t disable the field, you’ll need to get clear before I can bring you up.”

    Sisko fired across the room at the Suliban before answering.  “Understood,” he said. “Riker, did you hear that?”

    “Loud and clear,” Will said, holding his own in the firefight with the Suliban.

    The Suliban guards were blocking the only two exits that the away team was already aware of, the door and the floor vent.  Dani sunk down behind the counter and pulled out her tricorder.  She pulled up the schematic of the facility, hoping to find another way out of the room.  According to the map she was looking at there should be a corridor behind the wall on the right side of her and Sisko.  She looked at it but didn’t see any sign of a door.  She set her phaser to the maximum setting, pointed it at the section of the wall where the tricorder indicated a door should be, and fired.  The wall shimmered before dissolving upon contact with the phaser beam.  The holographic wall had completely dematerialized, revealing the previously concealed access point.

    “Janeway to Riker,” Dani said.

    “Riker here.”

    “Did you see that?” Dani asked.

    “I sure did,” Riker said.  “Looks like we’ve found our way out.”

    “We’ll cover you,” Sisko told him.

    Sisko and Dani looked across the room at Will, who nodded his assent.  Dani and Sisko concentrated their fire on the guards, drawing their attention from Will.  Will sprinted across the room and slipped through the doors as they slid open for him.  The doors closed behind him momentarily before sliding open again.  Will stuck his hand out and started firing his phaser at the Suliban.  This gave Dani her opportunity to join Will in the corridor they’d just discovered.  Once she was outside, both she and Will continued firing at the Suliban as Sisko made it over to the door and temporary safety.  Sisko fired a few final shots at the Suliban before retreating with Dani and Will into the darkness of the corridor.  The door slid shut behind Sisko, and he promptly fired his phaser at the control panel, hopefully disabling it, even if only temporarily.

    Sisko tapped his comm badge.  “Sisko to Rio Grande.”

    The door that Sisko had just closed slid open following the muffled sound of a small explosion.  Three Suliban ran into the corridor, sending the away team on the run again.  Where they were running to, they had no idea.  For the moment, they only knew that they needed to get away from the Suliban chasing them.  They ran straight ahead, through a set of double doors and into a new room.  As soon as they’d entered, they’d expected to find the Suliban right on their heels.

    But they weren’t.  And there weren’t any waiting for them inside the room, either.

    xxx

    The Suliban stopped short of following the intruders into the room.  Only those with the highest level of clearance were allowed to enter that particular room.  It was off-limits to everyone else.  That it had even been unlocked in the first place came as a shock to them.  The three looked at each other, knowing that they should go after the intruders.  They also knew that if one valued his life, he didn’t dare enter without clearance.

    xxx

    Sisko refused to believe that the away team had escaped the Suliban that easily.

    “It couldn’t have been that easy,” Will said aloud, putting into words what everyone was feeling. “The door wasn’t even locked.”

    Sisko moved his hand to tap his comm badge.  “Sisko to Rio Grande,” he said.  When there was no response, he tried to raise them again.  “Sisko to Rio Grande,” he said. “Rio Grande come in.”

    Still, there was no response.  “There must be a field around this room, too,” Dani said. “Why didn’t they come in after us?”

    “I don’t know,” Will said. “But I’m sure as hell not complaining.  Right now, we’ve got to find a way to get you and that biomatter out of here.”  He looked around the room.  There were no windows or doors other than the one they’d used to get in.  There weren’t even any vents.

    The only thing in the room was some kind of giant archway in the center of the floor.  Dani opened her tricorder and began to scan the device, slowly circling it.  As she stepped closer to it, the indicators and panels on it lit up.  Dani froze, looking up from her tricorder at the device.

    “What happened?” Sisko asked.

    Dani referred to her tricorder.  “Whatever this is just powered up,” she responded.

    “Must be motion activated,” Will surmised.

    Cautiously, Dani stepped closer to the device to get a closer look at the control panels.  Will and Sisko, equally cautious, followed suit.

    “I can’t make out the language on any of these panels,” Will said.

    Dani studied her tricorder, attempting to analyze the language.  Under the circumstances, she surmised that it was a Suliban language, but it appeared to be a variety that the tricorder couldn’t translate.  “The tricorder can’t make heads or tails of it, either,” she said.  “But I am picking up strong temporal signals from the device.”

    “Temporal,” Will repeated.  He and the others knew that the Suliban Cabal had been using time-travel for at least a century.  The fact that the Suliban had the ability to travel through time wasn’t a surprise, but actually finding the device they used to accomplish it certainly was.  He looked at Sisko and Dani, and he knew that they’d each reached the same conclusion he had.

    “This is how they travel through time,” Sisko said.

    *Thump, thump, thump, thump*  Someone was running down the hall towards the room to join their Suliban comrades out in the corridor.

    Sisko looked at Dani.  “Get in,” he said.

    Dani looked at Sisko as if he were crazy.  “Sir?”

    “That’s an order, Commander,” Sisko said.

    Dani looked to Will, but he didn’t appear to disagree with the order that Sisko had given.

    “You have to get away with those samples,” Will said.  “If you don’t, this mission was a wasted cause.  If you get away with the samples, we can get them to back to Starfleet so that they can analyze them.  Getting in and going somewhere else is the only option right now.”

    “How will I get back?  We don’t even know where – or when – it’s set to.”

    A low-yield phaser blast hit Dani squarely in the chest, and she collapsed to the ground.  Will whipped around to see Sisko pointing a hand phaser directly at Dani.  “In a matter of seconds, who knows how many Suliban are going to come through that door, Commander,” he explained.  “We don’t have time for arguments.  Now, help me get her inside.”

    Will and Sisko picked up Dani and gently placed her on the floor of the chamber.  Will looked at the controls and, using what little he knew about Suliban control panel layouts, took his best guess.  He pressed a short sequence of buttons on the panel and watched Dani shimmer out of existence in a red haze.  As soon as the haze had completely disappeared, Sisko raised his rifle and aimed at the time travel device.

    “What the hell are you doing?” Will asked.

    Sisko didn’t bother providing an answer.  He trained the rifle at the control panel on the time portal and fired.  The instrument panel sparked and smoked until it exploded into bits just as a team of Suliban stormed into the room, weapons drawn.

  • Deliberation – Chapter 5. A Brand New Day

    Dani opened her eyes to find that she was still in her bedroom in Indiana, but it was daylight out. She was confused for a moment because that change appeared to be the only difference, at first glance. She realized there were more when she felt the familiar nuzzle of a warm, fuzzy face on her neck.

    “Goodmorning, gorgeous,” the hairy individual whispered into her ear.

    Dani looked over her shoulder, up into the blue eyes of Will Riker. He kissed her before she had a chance to say anything. He parted from her, rising from the bed and walking across the bedroom and into the bathroom.

    Dani sat up in the bed, trying to gather her thoughts. Her head spun momentarily as if she’d sat up too fast. A flash caught the corner of her eye. She looked, and Q was beside her on the bed.

    “I know you probably have a lot of questions,” he began. “So, I’m going to give you a brief run-down of your life. You and Captain Riker are married. You’ve been married for ten years. Riker is in command of a ship called the Titan.”

    “The Titan?” Dani repeated. “What about the Enterprise?”

    “Didn’t work out that way,” Q said. “But nevermind that. What’s important is that you aren’t in Starfleet anymore.”

    “What? Why not?”

    “You left shortly after your daughter was born,” Q informed her. Even as the words left his mouth, Dani was inundated with a flood of memories she’d never had before. She suddenly had memories of a life that she didn’t know she’d lived.

    Q continued on. “You didn’t want your daughter to grow up like you did, with your parents always being away and you being passed around from ship to ship. You wanted her to have a stable family so you resigned your commission to take care of your daughter seven years ago, after she was born. You never rose above the rank of Lieutenant Commander.”

    Dani drew her legs, obscured by the bedsheets, up to her chest. “Since you’re telling me all this, what’s the point of my being here?”

    “To see just how happy you’d truly be if you married Will Riker,” Q told her.

    “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” The calls were accompanied by the sound of little feet running toward the bedroom.

    Dani looked to Q for guidance, but he offered none. “Mommy … ” he mocked in a sing-song voice before disappearing.

    “Q – wait!” Dani whispered desperately.

    Will called from the bathroom, “Is that my little Kris running like that?”

    Suddenly, the little footfalls stopped, and the bedroom door creaked open. A head of brown, disheveled hair appeared in the crack between the door and the wall. Big blue eyes peered out from behind dark, overgrown bangs.

    “Kristiana.” Riker appeared in the bathroom doorway, his bathrobe wrapped about him. He looked down at his daughter with a firm expression “What have we told you about running in the house?”

    “Sorry,” the little girl said sullenly.

    “We just don’t want you to fall and hurt yourself, sweetheart,” Riker said. The sterness of his face softened as he walked over and sat on the bed beside Dani. He patted the space in front of them on the bed, inviting Kris over. She bounced into the room and hopped up onto the bed in front of her parents.

    Kristianna Riker was a seven-year old little angel with long, dark hair and big, expressive eyes.

    “How did you sleep last night, sweetheart?” Will asked her. “Did you have good dreams?” Kris nodded enthusiastically. “Are you ready for a fun day at school?”

    “Yeah!” Kris cheered. She crawled into her father’s lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him on the cheek. Then she migrated over to Dani, delivering a hug and a kiss to her mother as well.

    Dani held the little girl and smiled at her. This didn’t seem like such a bad life. How could it be? She was married to Will, and they had a beautiful young daughter together. She looked at Will and smiled. She wasn’t in Starfleet, but was that really such a devastating thing?

    xxx

    “Kris, make sure you replicate something healthy for lunch today,” Will instructed, placing the last of his PADDs into his slim briefcase. “That means no ice cream sundaes, brownies, or cakes.”

    “What about candy?” Kris asked hopefully.

    Riker looked down at his daughter and shook his head, indicating that candy wasn’t allowed on the menu, either. “But if you’re good at school today, we’ll go out for ice cream when I get home from work.”

    Kris’s face lit up. “Ooh, can we, can we, can we?”

    “Only if you’re good,” Will reminded her.

    “I will be, I promise!” Kris vowed.

    “We’ll see,” Will said. “Say goodbye to your mother.”

    Dani crouched so that Kris could hug her. They kissed each other on the cheek. “You have a good day at school today, okay?” Dani said. “I’ll be there to pick you up at the end of the day.”

    “Okay, Mommy,” Kris said. “I love you.”

    Dani gazed at Kris, still amazed that the girl was actually hers. “I love you, too, my little girl. Be good so we can go get ice cream.” Kris nodded enthusiastically.

    Dani stood and looked up at Will. “And you be good, too,” she told him.

    “Yes, ma’am,” Will said, a smile coming to his face. He wrapped his arms around Dani, pulled her to him, and planted a kiss firmly on her lips. “I’ll see you tonight,” he told her.

    “Alright.” Dani and Will parted.

    “Come on, Kris,” Will said. “We don’t want to be late.” He and Kris left the house for the transport that was waiting in front of the house. Dani waved goodbye to them as they took off and left the area.

    xxx

    “Dani – I’m home!”

    Will Riker stepped through the front door after returning home from San Francisco. He’d spent part of the day on the Titan, now in orbit around Earth, and the other part in San Francisco. Now, it was fifteen minutes before 1800 hours, and he was finally home.

    At the sound of her father’s arrival, Kris came running excitedly from the kitchen, her hair flying behind her. “Daddy!”

    Will reached down and scooped Kris up into his arms, showering her with kisses. “My little girl! Were you good today?”

    “Yes, I was.”

    Dani appeared in the kitchen doorway, a dishtowel in her hands. Will looked to her for the final verdict. “What about it, Mom – did you get a good report from Mrs. Winters today?”

    “Yes. A very good one, as a matter of fact,” Dani replied. She walked over and joined her little family by the front door. She reached up and smoothed Kris’s wild hair. “Our little angel was very well-behaved today. Mrs. Winters says she didn’t hear one peep out of her.”

    Kris looked from her mother to her father. “See? I was on my best behavior.”

    “I see. A vast improvement over last week,” Will praised. “Looks like we’ll be going out for ice cream later.”

    “Yay!” Kris cheered as she was lowered to the floor.

    “Go wash up for dinner,” Dani instructed. She and Will watched Kris practically skip into the kitchen. Then they turned to each other and wrapped themselves around one another as Will’s lips gratefully found Dani’s . “How was your day?” she asked him.

    “It certainly wasn’t the easiest day on record,” Will told her.

    “How are the upgrades coming?” Dani asked.

    “My people keep running into all kinds of problems,” Will answered. “It’s just one headache after another.”

    “Maybe I can help those headaches go away … “

    “I do hope so,” Will said, pushing the worries of the day out of his mind.

    xxx

    Will hoisted Kris into the air and onto his shoulders. They walked with Dani along San Francisco’s bustling Fisherman’s Wharf district.

    “Did you enjoy your ice cream, Kris?” Will asked

    “Yes, I enjoyed it very much, Daddy,” Kris said politely.

    “Anything for my girls,” Will said, smiling at Dani. “My job is to keep you and your mother happy. Are you happy?”

    “Yes,” Kris answered.

    “Are you happy?” Will asked Dani.

    “Very,” Dani replied.

    The family came to a couple of ensigns who promptly greeted Riker. “Goodevening, Captain,” they said, almost simultaneously.

    “Goodevening,” Will replied. He continued to walk with Kris on his shoulders and Dani at his side.

    “Daddy?” Kris said.

    “Yes, sweetheart?”

    “When I grow up, I want to join Starfleet,” Kris proclaimed. “And I want to be a captain one day, just like you.”

    “Well, sweetheart, you can grow up to be anything you want,” Will espoused. “As long as you put your mind to it, and work hard, you can do whatever you want.”

    Dani watched the interaction with a smile. Kris reminded her so much of herself at that age. She remembered having a similar interaction with her own father when she was a little girl. Chakotay had told her that she could be what she wanted, too, and she’d been on her way. But she’d made a choice, hadn’t she? She looked up at Kris and smiled.

  • Homecoming – Chapter 7

    Deanna Troi, the Enterprise’s resident counselor, sat in a chair in the temporary office provided to her by Starfleet. “I must say, I was thoroughly surprised when I saw your name in my appointment log,” she said. “You know you don’t need an appointment to talk to me.”

    Will Riker sat on the sofa across from the counselor. “I know,” he said. “I just…” his voice trailed. As Deanna observed him, she saw that he was fidgeting, rubbing his hands together and such. Deanna also noticed how he was leaning forward, sitting on the edge of the sofa.

    “Well, what seems to be bothering you, Will?” Deanna asked.

    “I..I think I’m in love, Deanna,” Will said.

    Deanna’s face lit up. “Will – that’s wonderful!”

    “Is it?” Will asked cynically.

    “Of course it is. Who’s the lucky woman?”

    Will looked Deanna squarely in the eye. “It’s Dani.”

    Deanna’s smile didn’t exactly fall, but no one would say that she was beaming exactly. “Dani? Dani Janeway?”

    Will nodded. “Yeah.”

    “Will, I get the feeling that you don’t think that’s a good thing.”

    “Well, yes and no.” Will stood and began to pace the area beside the sofa.

    “What do you mean, ‘yes and no’?”

    “I don’t know what I mean. I don’t know what any of this means. I just know what I’ve been feeling since Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant.”

    “And what’s that?”

    Will reclaimed his seat on the couch. “I don’t know how to explain it. I guess part of it was seeing her after so long. And I definitely did not expect her to look the way she does. Another part of it is that my hormones kicked in. But that wasn’t all. I don’t know. I’ve always felt that she was special. But I always felt more like a friend or a close uncle, maybe. Then she came back, and everything was different.”

    “You saw her as a woman, and you were attracted to her,” Deanna surmised.

    “Yes. That’s it. That’s it exactly. But I think it might be more than just attraction. That’s why it scares me.”

    “Why would it scare you?”

    “Because it seems wrong somehow.”

    “How? Tell me why it would be wrong for you to be in love with Dani.”

    “It’s just that she’s so young, and-“

    “And? You’re telling me that something so insignificant as an age difference is a good reason not to pursue a relationship?”

    “It could be.” Will knew that wasn’t true. “It wouldn’t be right.”

    “Why?” Will didn’t have an answer for Deanna. “It sounds to me as if you’re trying to convince yourself that any kind of romantic relationship with Dani would be wrong,” Deanna said. “I don’t think you’re buying it.”

    “You’re right; I’m not.”

    “Why are you fighting this?”

    “I don’t know,” Will said with a sigh.

    “How do you feel?”

    “What?”

    “When you look at Dani, when you spend time with her, how do you feel?”

    Will sat back for the first time in his meeting with Deanna. “I love being with her. When I’m with Dani, I feel like I don’t ever want our time together to end.”

    “That’s a very strong sentiment,” Deanna said. “How does she feel?”

    “I don’t know,” Will admitted. “That’s a problem, as well. I kissed her the other night at the party.”

    “You mean on the cheek.”

    “No. I mean on the lips. The funny thing is I didn’t even plan it. It just happened.”

    “What was her reaction?”

    “I don’t know. We were both kind of shocked. And before either one of us could say anything, Tom Paris called her back into the party.”

    “Unless she makes it absolutely clear that she doesn’t want a relationship with you-“

    “Like you did when we first met?” Will asked, smiling for the first time that afternoon.

    “Like I did when we first met,” Deanna agreed, remembering when she’d first met the young lieutenant named Will Riker on Betazed all those years ago.

    “We couldn’t have been very much older than Dani is now,” Will reminisced.

    An idea suddenly presented itself as a possible reason for Will’s reluctance to enter into a relationship with Dani. “Will, your reasons for not becoming involved with Dani wouldn’t happen to stem from the fact that we’re Imzadi, would they?”

    “I won’t lie to you, I have thought about it. I’m not going to say that us being Imzadi would ever keep me from pursuing a serious relationship, but I don’t think I’ll ever enter into a relationship without thinking about what we had.”

    “That’s true for me also. We’re Imzadi, Will. We’ll always share a special connection. What I’ve come to learn over the years is that I’m capable of loving people besides you. Do you believe that you are? That’s the question you’ve got to answer before you enter into this relationship or any other.”

    xxx

    Dani sat in her bedroom working her way through the last of her missed magazines. It had been nearly a week since she finished her final entrance exam and interview, and she needed something to take her mind off the Academy exams she’d just completed. ‘And also off of Will Riker,’ she thought.

    The door chimed. “Just a minute,” Dani called. She left her desk and walked into the living room to answer the door. When it slid open, Will was standing in the hallway. “Hi,” he said.

    “Hey,” Dani said. The atmosphere was somehow tempted to become awkward, but Dani wouldn’t let it. “Come in.”

    Will stepped into the apartment, and the doors closed behind him. “I think we’re overdue for a talk,” he said.

    “Me, too,” Dani agreed. She walked into her room, and Will followed. “We’ve…got to talk.” She reclaimed her seat at her desk.

    “Yes.” Will remained standing. “We would’ve talked sooner, but I knew that you had the exam, and I didn’t want you to be distracted. But that’s over, so now we have to talk about what happened that night at your party.”

    “I know,” Dani said. Will may not have wanted to distract her before the Academy exam, but that’s sure what happened. During the actual testing, she was able to concentrate on the material, but during the lunch break, Dani’s mind had drifted to thoughts of Will. “It’s been on my mind quite a bit.” Will was standing in front of Dani. “What were you thinking?” It sounded more like an admonishment than a genuine question. Will wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction from her. He sat down on the nearest thing that would have him, which happened to be Dani’s bed.

    Dani stood. “I mean, you said you didn’t want to distract me before the test. Well what the hell did you think kissing me would accomplish?”

    “I don’t know,” Will replied. He felt like a little like a child being scolded by his mother. “It was just a spontaneous thing.”

    “So, what did it mean?” Dani asked.

    “I don’t know.”

    Dani sat down beside Will on the bed. “Will, what is going on?”

    Will looked into Dani’s big brown eyes. “I’m falling in love with you,” he said quietly.

    Dani just stared at Will blankly. She wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly. When she didn’t respond for a few moments, Will became concerned. “Dani?”

    “I’m sorry,” Dani apologized. “It sounded like you said you were falling in love with me. Did you?”

    “Yes.”

    Dani nodded. “Oh. I see.”

    “How do you feel?” Will asked.

    “It’s funny you ask that,” Dani said. She told him earnestly, “I don’t even know. I’ve been trying to sort out my feelings for you since before we arrived on Earth. And I still don’t know.”

    “I understand,” Will began. “I don’t-” He was interrupted by the soft lips that were suddenly brushing against his.

    Neither Will nor Dani heard the apartment doors slide open, nor did they hear Chakotay as he called out for Dani. They didn’t even hear when Dani’s bedroom door opened, and Chakotay entered.

    “What the hell?” Chakotay exclaimed. That got Dani and Will’s attention. They immediately parted and stood. “Dani – what is going on here?”

    Dani honestly didn’t know what to say because she honestly didn’t know what was going on. Will had come over to talk, and Dani had ended up kissing him – on her bed. She looked at Will. “We’ll finish our talk later, Will,” she told him.

    Will nodded to her. He and Chakotay stared each other down as Will made his way to the door.

    After Will was gone, Dani braced herself. She knew one rough discussion with her father was in store.

    xxx

    “Kathryn, she was kissing him –

    on her bed!” Chakotay exclaimed. He and Kathryn were in their bedroom discussing what had taken place that day in their daughter’s bedroom. Kathryn was sitting on the bed, and Chakotay was pacing heatedly in front of her.

    “She’s an adult, Chakotay,” Kathryn said. “She has the right to kiss whomever she wants, sleep with whomever she wants, date, marry, whatever. She can do it.”

    At the utterance of the word ‘sleep’, Chakotay had stared at Kathryn in disbelief. “Not in my house,” he said.

    “Pardon, but this isn’t even your house,” Kathryn reminded him. “As far as Starfleet is concerned, this apartment belongs to them.”

    “Well, not in my house in Indiana, at least,” Chakotay said.

    “May I also remind you that we co-own that house,” Kathryn said.

    “You know what I mean,” Chakotay shot.

    Kathryn stood. “Chakotay, she’s just exploring her options.”

    Meanwhile, Dani, who’d been listening to her parents discuss the issue at hand, had been trying, unsuccessfully, to raise Will via the comm system. When she got the automated message that relayed for the third time in an hour that Will wasn’t home, decided that a trip over to his place might be in order.

    xxx

    Dani pressed Will’s door chime. A few moments later, the apartment doors slid open, and Will appeared in the doorway. Dani’s presence had obviously taken Will by surprise.

    “Dani?” he said. It came out as a question.

    “Hi,” Dani said. “Can I come in?”

    “Sure,” Will said. He stood to the side, allowing Dani access to the apartment. Dani stepped in, and the doors slid shut behind her. “What are you doing here? Your father-“

    “I don’t care what my father wants,” Dani said. “I know he thinks that this is a really bad idea. He’s all but forbidden me from seeing you anymore.”

    “I can’t say I blame him,” Will said. “I probably wouldn’t want my daughter seeing me, either. How’d you get away?”

    “He and my mother were in their bedroom talking.”

    “About us, no doubt,” Will surmised.

    Dani nodded. “They probably don’t even know I’m gone, yet. I just walked out.” Will nodded. Dani continued. “Will, I think we should try this. I mean, I really, really like you; and I think I’d regret it if I passed this up.”

    “Dani, I don’t want to create a rift between you and your parents. I grew up without a mother and without a father, in essence. We weren’t very close. Are you sure this is really what you want to do?”

    “My parents love me, and if they respect me, then they’ll respect my first real decision as an adult.”

    “It doesn’t always work out that way, Dani.”

    “I can’t let them dictate my life.”

    Will looked down at Dani and realized that she was right. She’d never get anything out of life if she lived only to fulfill her parents’ wishes.

    xxx

    When Dani and Will entered the Janeways’ apartment, they found that Kathryn and Chakotay had abandoned their bedroom for the living room. They stood immediately when Dani and Will entered.

    “What the hell is he going here?” Chakotay asked. He looked at Will.

    “I brought him here so we could all talk,” Dani said.

    “There’s nothing to talk about,” Chakotay insisted.

    “There’s plenty,” Kathryn said. Chakotay looked at her.

    “Thanks, Mom,” Dani said. “Now, everyone, please have a seat.” She looked at Will, indicating that he should sit, as well. He walked over and took the chair beside the couch that Kathryn and Chakotay were occupying. Dani remained standing in front of the three of them. “Now,” she began. “There seems to be some kind of question as to my decision-making capacity around here.”

    “Dani – why would you think that?” Chakotay asked.

    “It seems that way to me,” Dani replied. “Every decision that I make about my future is questioned by everyone. It’s like you don’t think I know what I’m doing.”

    “Dani-” Chakotay began, but didn’t finish.

    “-I’m not finished, yet,” Dani said, demanding the attention of the others in the room. “I know that you all are trying to look out for my best interests, but, damn it, I’ve got to live my own life. If that means I want to go to the Academy -” She looked at Kathryn before continuing. “-or that I want to date Will -” She looked at Chakotay, “-then so be it. You guys don’t want me to make any mistakes, but I will, no matter what you do or what you say. Just let me make them and learn from them. Like you did.”

    Will, Chakotay, and Kathryn all looked at each other, as what Dani was saying finally sunk in. Dani’s birthday had been days ago, but it was tonight that these individuals, especially Chakotay, were seeing just how much Dani had grown. He felt like an idiot for not having more faith in his daughter. He looked up at his daughter, 20 years old, standing there, all grown up. He looked at her for the first time, not as the little girl she had once been, but as the adult she had become.

  • Homecoming – Chapter 2

    The next night, Dani was in her room (at the apartment provided by Headquarters, of course) reading a magazine when her computer beeped and announced, “Incoming Transmission.”

    “If this is another long lost relative…” Dani said, rolling off of her bed and walking over to her desk. She sat down and read the transmission information. She was surprised to find that the transmission was from Will Riker. Almost immediately, she accessed it. Will’s image instantly appeared on the screen.

    “Hello,” Dani greeted.

    “Hey,” Will said.

    “Well, this certainly is a surprise,” Dani said.

    “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

    “No,” Dani assured. “I was just trying to catch up on all the magazines I missed while I was gone. It seems that even after all these years, they never terminated my subscription.”

    Will chuckled. “I guess they don’t lie when they say ‘guaranteed delivery.’”

    Dani smiled. “I guess not. Anyway, I’ve got about 50 issues left.”

    “Oh, well, if you’re busy-“

    “No – I need a break anyway. So, what sparks this transmission?”

    “Well, I was thinking about the party last night, and how we were talking about how I hoped it wouldn’t be the last time we would be able to do something together,” Will said.

    “Mm-hmm…”

    “And I was wondering when we could make good on that,” Will concluded.

    ‘He was asking me out,’ Dani thought, recalling the conversation she’d had with Will the previous night. ‘Oh, my-‘

    “Were you serious about that, or just being cordial?” Will asked, interrupting Dani’s thoughts.

    “I could ask you the same thing,” Dani said, “except I already know your answer since you’re the one who brought it up.” ‘I hope I do,’ Dani silently added.

    “What’s your answer?” Will asked, again interrupting Dani’s thought processes.

    “I was serious,” Dani revealed. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Will breathe a small sigh of relief. “Am I wrong in assuming that you’re glad to hear that?”

    “No. In fact, glad is an understatement. I’m damn near giddy.”

    “Good,” Dani said.

    “Okay.”

    This unbearable silence followed. Dani was grateful when Will finally broke it.

    “So, I was thinking that maybe we could have lunch,” he said.

    “Lunch?” Dani repeated

    “Yeah.”

    “Um…okay.”

    Will eyed her cautiously. “Is something wrong?”

    “No,” Dani assured him. “No. I just wasn’t expecting-“

    “It won’t be anything formal, if that’s what you’re worried about. It just be a little…sit-down-get-reacquainted kind of thing.”

    Something suddenly dawned on Dani – the media. If she went out in public, during the day, especially, the media would eat her alive. She, along with every member of the Voyagercrew, had become instant celebrities since their return to Earth. And if they realized that she was on a date? With a famous Starfleet commander, such as Will – they would have field day.

    Dani’s feelings must’ve been apparent to Will.

    “I’ll make sure no one bothers us,” he said. “I can have security positioned throughout and around the restaurant. No reporters, no cameras. It could just be the two of us. If that’s what you want.”

    Her answer told him all he needed to know. “Of course we can have lunch. I’d love to. When and where?”

    “Well, I wanted to let you be the one to make that decision. I didn’t know what the schedule for the briefings was.”

    “The sooner the better.”

    “Would tomorrow be okay?” Will asked.

    “Sure,” Dani agreed.

    “Around one?”

    “Okay.”

    “Your parents won’t have any problem with this, will they?” Will inquired.

    “Why would they? They never had any problem with it before.”

    Will inclined his head and laughed nervously. “I think this is a little different.”

    “I know,” Dani acquiesced. “But if they don’t make an issue out of it, I certainly won’t.”

    “That’ll work for me.” That big smile that Dani had been dying to see for seven years spread across Will’s bearded face. It made her smile as well. “I’ll see you then,” Will added.

    “Bye,” Dani bid the charming commander.

    “Riker out,” Will said, terminating the transmission.

    Dani deactivated her terminal. She couldn’t believe it. She actually had a date with Will Riker.

    “Oh, my…” Dani said standing. She started walking around her room. “I’ve got so much to do. I’ve got to get a dress, I-” She stopped mid- pace. “Wait a minute – no I don’t. Nothing formal. This is just a casual dinner. It’s not even dinner; it’s lunch. I don’t need to dress up. But I don’t need to dress down, either. Ohhh!”

    “Dani?”

    Dani turned to see that her mother had appeared in her open doorway.

    “What’s the matter?” Kathryn asked her daughter as she walked into the room.

    “I can’t decide what to wear for my date tomorrow,” Dani revealed. She walked over to the replicator and started searching the terminal for possible outfits.

    “Date?” This piqued Kathryn’s interest. Voyager hadn’t even been back a week, and her daughter already had a date? With who, she wondered.

    “Yeah,” Dani said. “Will and I are having lunch tomorrow.” A blue blouse and black slacks appeared on the console. She cleared it and moved to the next outfit.

    “You and Will?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Any special occasion?”

    “No,” Dani replied casually. “Just a casual thing. You know, to get reacquainted.”

    “Oh.”

    Dani turned off the replicator console in frustration. “I can’t do this tonight. I’ll just throw something on. It won’t matter.” She turned to her mother. “Was there something you wanted to talk about it?”

    “Uh, no. Not really. I just wanted to let you know that your father and I would be in briefing all tomorrow.”

    “No,” Dani protested. “I was hoping we could all spend the day in the city.”

    “I know, Sweetheart, and I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

    “We’ve been here for three days, and I haven’t even had one meal with you guys.”

    “Dani, I’m so sorry.”

    “Will you be here for dinner?” Dani asked hopefully.

    Kathryn looked at Dani and painfully said, “I can’t make any guarantees.” Dani looked at the ground. “Look, after all this is over, and we get back to Indiana, we’ll do anything you want. But right now, this comes first.”

    “I understand, Mom,” Dani said. “I was just hoping that we would get to spend a little time together.”

    “I know,” Kathryn said. “And maybe we will. We just have to get this taken care of first.”

    “Of course.”

    Kathryn walked over to her daughter. “Look at you. I can’t believe it.”

    “What?”

    “When this whole mess started, you were only twelve, and now look at you. You’ll be twenty in a few weeks. I’m so proud of you.” It looked as if she were going to cry.

    “Oh, Mom,” Dani said, hugging Kathryn. “Don’t cry.”

    “I love you so much,” Kathryn said.

    “I love you, too, Mom.”

    “I’m so sorry you had to spend your teenage years stuck on a starship.”

    “I wouldn’t change it for the world.” She and Kathryn looked at each other and embraced again.