The BLTS Archive- Warmth II: Scenes from a Mating
#4: Deliverance
by J. A. Toner (jamelia116@aol.com)

---

Archive:  Yes to ASC, BLTS, PTF, PTCollective. All others,
please ask.

Disclaimer: The Star Trek universe and the Voyager characters
are the property of Paramount/Viacom. No claim of ownership
is being made. I will make no money from this--my only 
payment is the feedback I hope to get from readers (hint, hint).

Many elements of this story, including some dialogue, were
borrowed from the script of "The Killing Game" by Brannon
Braga and Joe Menosky. In this story, I took the road they
chose not to travel. While some complain about TPTB not
writing Voyager the way they want them to, I'm certainly not
going to. I needed a certain situation to make this story work.
I sincerely thank them for writing "The Killing Game" and
creating the Hirogen. It's as if they wrote them just for me.

Author's Note: In the spring and early summer of 1997, I wrote
a novel-length story called "Warmth." It was actually a set of
three stories. The first told a tale of B'Elanna Torres and Tom
Paris' acknowledging their passion for each other while
stranded on a planet with a harsh climate. They may have done
what they had to do to stay warm, but that was really more or
less an excuse. What they really did was show how warmly
they felt towards each other. "Meanwhile, back on Voyager,"
Harry Kim and Kes discover their own feelings for one
another and marry.

In the second story, taking place several weeks later, B'Elanna
broke off her relationship with Tom. Only afterwards did she
find out that she was unexpectedly pregnant and was to proud,
at first, to let him know. Kes has her "transformation" and is
lost to Harry. When Tom found out about the baby, he asked
B'Elanna to marry him. The final story described the wedding
on a holographic beach. The last sentences describe the couple
walking up the beach, holding each other up as their feet slip
in the sands. A fitting image for marriage, I thought.

And the end of the story, I thought.

Silly me. I underestimated the fervor of those who wanted to
see Tom cuddling his newborn daughter. The ones longing to
see B'Elanna holding her baby were less vocal, but I did hear
from some of them, too. I thought I'd said all I had to say and
dragged my feet about a sequel.

But something else happened. Both Roxann Dawson and
Robbie McNeill announced they were adding to their families.
Roxann's pregancy was not written into the storyline. So,
when people begged me to write a sequel, I thought that
maybe I could write an AU of the rest of the 4th season, and
how it would look if Roxann's pregnancy had been written
into the storyline of the series.

As a result "Warmth 2: Scenes from a Mating" was conceived,
a series of self-contained stories which, when taken together,
tell how Tom and B'Elanna forged a marriage from a rocky
beginning, as well as how Harry adjusted to the loss of Kes. In
this AU, all of the episodes would happen as they had in the
televised series. Obviously, some details would differ, but I
would not assume that all the events of any show failed to
occur. Many episodes would not be mentioned at all or if they
were, only in passing. In others, a great deal from the episodes
might be shown.

I expect to post a total of nine stories altogether. The first four
are being posted now, and the remaining ones will be put up
when they're finished.

I'll get the rest of the stories done and posted as soon as I can.
Thanks, in advance, for any comments about these stories you
feel you can make.

Thanks: to PTFever, especially Terri, pjinnh, pjs, Julie, and Ann
for their assistance with these stories.

January, 2000

---

One minute, her head was buzzing like it was filled with a
thousand angry bees flying through the nerves of her neck and
traveling down into her shoulder. The next, she was standing in
the middle of the wrecked debris of a bar that looked amazingly
like Sandrines. She looked down to her fist and saw she was
holding an antique pistol. Tom was standing next to her,
holding some sort of rifle, as was Tuvok. The dazed expressions
on her companions' faces told her they were all in the same state
of confusion that fogged her own brain processes. Seven of
Nine seemed to be the only one who had her faculties intact.
The ex-Borg was mumbling something, or maybe she was
shouting something. At the moment, mumbling or shouting, it
was all the same to B'Elanna.

And then it really didn't matter at all, because a flood of people
in strange uniforms came up behind them and aimed primitive,
yet lethal-looking weapons at them. "Surrender!" one of them
ordered. That, B'Elanna could hear, and all too well. Seven
pointed her own pistol at them, then lowered it slowly. They
were outnumbered. Even a former Borg could tell that this was
not the time to resist.

Another voice ordered them to throw down their weapons and
sit down on the floor, against the wall. B'Elanna tried to
comply, but that was easier said than done. Her hugely
distended stomach was in the way.

As she heard Tom say, "Please, let me help her," in supplication
to the uniformed soldier figures, B'Elanna reasoned that they
must be on the holodeck, with holocharacters portraying the
military force. She recognized none of them as members of the
crew.

When the soldiers all deferred to the one who walked through
the doorway, what was really happening became absolutely
clear. The officer's rough, reptilian complexion marked him as
the member of an alien race she had had the misfortune to meet
before. The leader nodded permission to Tom to help B'Elanna
slide down to a seat on the floor next to him.

"How are you? Are you okay? Is the baby okay?" he whispered
to her as soon as they were settled.

"The baby is fine. She just gave me a swift kick under the
ribcage. But Tom, what's going on? I feel like I'm 20 kilos
heavier than I was the last time I . . . wait. I can't remember
anything for . . . I have no idea for how long!"

"Well, it's not all that hard to figure out what's happened. The
last thing I can remember, we were fighting off an attack on
Voyager by the Hirogen. That friend of ours over there strongly
suggests we lost. We're Prey."

B'Elanna nodded grimly. Intermixed with the uniformed
holocharacters were several Hirogen dressed in military garb.

One of the holographic soldiers, by his uniform an officer who
possessed an amazingly square jaw and prominent chin, stared
Tom into silence. Lesser soldiers herded Seven, Tuvok, and
Chakotay to sit on the floor to B'Elanna's left while the strong-
jawed officer conferred with the uniformed Hirogen. All of the
crew remained silent for a few minutes, uneasily awaiting their
fate, until Tuvok commented in a casual, conversational tone of
voice, "I do not recognize this program."

"I do." Jerking his head very slowly and cautiously in the
general direction of the Hirogen, Tom clarified, "He's wearing a
Nazi uniform. We're on Earth during the Second World War."

"Nazi." Seven rolled the word around in her mouth as if she
didn't quite care for the taste of it as it resonated off her tongue.

"Totalitarian fanatics bent on world conquest," Tom explained.
"The Borg of their day. No offense."

"None taken," Seven replied calmly.

A gruff voice ordered them to stop talking. B'Elanna looked
angrily in the direction of the one giving the order, but she kept
her mouth shut. For herself, she wouldn't mind taking some
risks, but her huge belly warned her to keep quiet as it tightened
into one of the Braxton-Hicks contractions that had been
plaguing her for weeks now. Months ago, the Doctor had
informed her that she could expect to feel them, especially in
the last months of pregnancy, as they prepared her body for
childbirth. "Just let them do their work, Lieutenant, so that your
uterus will be ready for the work it needs to do when the time
of delivery is at hand. Just think of it as another form of physical
training." She'd wanted to wipe the smug smile off his face at
his attitude when he'd said it. The EMH had always been a little
too interested in sexual matters, as far as she was concerned--
especially hers and Tom's.

She'd been even angrier with him when he'd instructed the
captain to remove her from duty when they'd become a little
troublesome, right around the time they'd first run into the
Hirogen. They weren't quite so annoying now, but they did
serve as a reminder: this was not a good time for her daughter
to be born.

As the minutes passed and the sounds of rifle fire outside slowly
fading away, B'Elanna became more and more irritated as Mr.
Strong Jaw's angry gaze returned to her again and again. "What
are you staring at?" she finally challenged, unable to ignore his
annoying attentions any longer.

The Nazi stalked over to her and snarled, "Get up."

Clumsily, B'Elanna complied, with the assistance of Tom, who
allowed her to lean on his shoulder and gave her a quick push
on the hip to help her scramble to her feet.

As she firmly jerked down the tunic top of her costume to hide
the tight ball of her stomach as much as possible, the Nazi
loomed over her. "You deceived me."

"Really," she drawled.

"I should have seen through your flirtations."

"If you say so," in a disinterested tone of voice. Since she had
no memory of having an affair with this Nazi hologram, it was
difficult to keep up her end of the argument.

"The thought of you carrying my child *disgusts* me."

"You're not the only one," she snapped.

The stinging of her cheek from the Nazi holocharacter's slap
stunned her, but before she could respond, Tom was standing at
her side with his arm held protectively around her shoulders,
saying resolutely, "Look, I don't know what went on between
the two of you, but it's obviously over now."

"I see you're acquainted," the Nazi said, addressing Tom. "Do
you find her as attractive as I once did?" Turning to B'Elanna,
he sneered, "I'll miss our nights together."

Tom's face flushed in sudden anger, his sense of humor nowhere
in evidence. She might have smiled at the irony of her husband
calling the Nazi a "Pig," B'Elanna's old nickname for Tom, if the
situation wasn't so desperate. Tugging at his arm, B'Elanna tried
to signal Tom to stand down as the Nazi officer coolly pointed
a blunt-nosed pistol up his nostrils.

//Kahless! I hope the safeties are on in here!// Yet B'Elanna
knew, as soon as the thought came to her, that it was too much
to hope for such clemency from this foe--not from all they'd
learned of the Hirogen. She felt icy fingers of pain shoot down
her back, washing away the anger that usually bloomed within
her at times such as these. Instead, she tried to pull Tom back
far enough so that the hologram would no longer feel
threatened.

Salvation came from a completely unexpected quarter. The
Hirogen dressed as a Nazi officer called out, "Leave off. The
Kommandant said they are hostages, not Prey." 

The Nazi hologram's arm did not waver. From the cruel grin on
his face, B'Elanna knew that he had every intention of killing
Tom, no matter what his orders might be. The growled
"Enough!" from the Hirogen in charge caused him to hesitate,
however. When he followed it with, "Hauptmann, they are
*not* to be harmed," the Nazi slowly lowered his pistol and
marched to his superior.

"Funny, he doesn't seem like your type," Tom said, a little of his
habitual, flippant attitude back in his voice. B'Elanna looked up
at him, ready to glare, but what she saw there stayed the angry
retort she had been about to throw into his face. His grin was
feeble, and worry glazed his brow.

At that same moment B'Elanna realized her hands, tightly
gripping Tom's arm, were shaking. Perhaps he felt it, too, for he
murmured, "I'll help you down," bracing her as she descended
back to the floor. She needed it. All her muscles were reacting
angrily at being forced to squat down again, but B'Elanna bore
it silently. She was not about to let either the Hirogen or this
ersatz-Nazi know just how uncomfortable they were making
her. Rubbing her tight stomach to comfort the child within, as
well as herself, B'Elanna breathed a silent promise to avenge all
the indignities being forced upon them. How dare they put her
through this now? With the birth of her child so close, this
should have been such a happy time. Instead . . .

B'Elanna leaned back against Tom's shoulder to rest, trying very
hard not to think of the most likely trophy the Hirogen would
take from her, if the fight for Voyager really had been lost.

---
---

"Enter."

Flanked by Hirogen hunters, Kathryn Janeway was ushered into
her own ready room, limping ignominiously. Her couch was
there before the viewport, where it always had been, but the
rest of the room was quite different. The changes did not
improve her mood, already soured by being faced with the
incontrovertible evidence that she had failed to keep her crew
safe. Every step through the corridors since her capture drove it
all home.

They were captives. All of them had been forced to fight
desperately for life for weeks now. Is this what the Hirogen did
with their Prey? This wasn't the impression the Hirogen Hunter
pursuing the lost member of Species 9472 had given them when
he'd stalked the abandoned creature on Voyager and captured
it, with Seven's unwelcome assistance. That hunter had implied
that there were rules to be followed--that Prey, to be a worthy
trophy, should have a chance to fight back. That wasn't the case
here. They were all being forced to act like rats in a maze,
performing for their Hirogen masters. Kathryn didn't like it for
herself. And she'd be damned if she'd simply stand by and allow
it to happen to her crew. Now, if she could only figure out how
to do something about it.

The Hirogen in possession of her ready room was dressed in the
uniform of a Klingon warrior. When he was not sitting in
comfort at her desk, he was obviously partaking in the
entertainments the holodeck provided to the captors. Kathryn
thought for a split second about asking if he was enjoying his
holodeck privileges before thinking better of it. She chose
instead to address another matter that bothered her more.

She nodded her head in the direction of netting slung against
her ready room wall, serving as a sort of hammock in which the
bones of the vanquished rested, gruesome relics of beings now
sleeping eternally. Shivering inwardly in spite of herself, she
casually chided, "I see you've done some redecorating."

The Hirogen arched the scales above his brow. Kathryn
wondered if it was his way of smiling. When he spoke, the
universal translator gave him a deep, pleasantly masculine voice,
in warm tones much at odds from the personality of the being
himself, if his choice of decor was any indication. He ignored
her comment and came to the point. "Your attempt to retake
this vessel was . . . inventive. From the day I seized Voyager
you put up a dauntless fight. But your fight is over now. You're
going to help me shut down these simulations and repair the
Holodecks."

"No," she replied firmly. "We'll destroy this ship before we
surrender it."

"Don't threaten me, Captain. I've faced far more intimidating
Prey than you. If this fight continues, I promise you I will hunt
down and kill every member of your crew."

She almost laughed in his face. As if he intended to allow any of
them to survive! She wanted to tell him that she knew their
bodies were already destined to join the others hanging on her
wall, gutted and reduced by the Hirogen to trophies. After a
brief hesitation, however, she chose a less hostile approach.
"Well, by then this ship will be damaged beyond repair--and
there won't be much of a Trophy left then, will there?"

"Perhaps I should kill you and find someone who will
cooperate."

"Good luck. You'll get the same response from all of them."
She knew her crew. They would fight to the death; she was sure
of it. Kathryn was not sure what to expect from this Hirogen in
the face of her defiance, however. Would he stop toying with
her and kill her now in her own ready room?

His reply was not what she expected. "You don't realize what's
at stake," he said, an odd note in his voice, almost as if he were
begging her to understand, as if he were the victim here. That,
more than anything, enraged her.

"I know what's at stake: your sick little game!" she bit out.

"This is not a game!" he roared.

"Then what is it?"

"I'm trying to create a future for my people." The sincere,
matter-of-fact way he admitted this startled Kathryn. "I don't
expect you to understand," he said with resignation. "You are
Prey."

"You underestimate us," she replied, taking a seat in the chair
that faced her desk instead of her proper place behind it.

He looked at her strangely, as if no Prey had ever spoken to him
that way before--as well might be the case. "Yes, perhaps I do
underestimate you." Sagging into the captain's chair, he
confided, "My people are hunting themselves into extinction.
Your Holodeck technology might offer us an alternative, a new
way of life. Instead of scattering ourselves across the quadrant
in pursuit of Prey, we could simulate the Hunt and give
ourselves a chance to rebuild our civilization."

"And confine your killing to Holograms." she finished for him.

"With the safety protocols off-line, the pursuit is just as
challenging."

Kathryn considered his answer carefully. Clearly, this Hirogen,
unlike the other members of his species she'd had the misfortune
to meet, had the capacity for thinking on a large scale. He was
not interested primarily in mounting his most recent Trophy in a
manner calculated to best impress the females of his species.
Still, it didn't explain why he had to torture her crew to come to
this conclusion. "Then why have you thrown my crew into one
brutal simulation after another?"

"I've been studying your behavior as I do with all my Prey, but
your Holodecks allowed me to go further--to explore your
culture, your history. I must admit, I've learned a great deal.
Your people have faced extinction many times, but you've
always managed to avoid it. You seem to recognize the need
for change."

"Yes. You've got one of those moments running right now on
the Holodeck. We called it World War II."

"One of your most difficult eras," he agreed. "And yet you
survived." The Hirogen gazed at her measuringly, perhaps even
in admiration. He grudgingly admitted, "You are a resilient
species. I admire your cunning."

She revised her estimate of the person in front of her. Perhaps
the voice he'd been given by the Universal Translator was not
so inappropriate after all. Raising herself to her feet, Kathryn
began to circle the room. "Let's end this. I'll call a cease-fire and
we can try to contain the damage. I want my ship back, but in
return, I will give you what you need to recreate the Holodeck
technology." She turned on her most winning smile for him. "It
would be . . . cunning for you to agree."

The tall alien took to his own feet, towering over the human
captain. She may have had to crane her neck to look into his
face, but Kathryn Janeway would not concede any higher status
to him. Hobbled by a wounded leg, seemingly frail, she was
nonetheless just as formidable an opponent as he--and both of
them knew it. She had managed, while speaking, to return to
her own position of power, behind her own desk.

The significance of the switch in their relative positions did not
escape her adversary. Despite the tough, textured skin on his
face, she found he was capable of smiling. He could not
suppress his grin, any more than she could hers.

---

The Hirogen called Turanj raised a glass of wine retrieved from
the wine cellar of *Le Coeur de Lion* and held it up to the
light. Liberating fermented beverages from captured prey was
one of the rewards of the Hunt he most appreciated--generally.
This time, Turanj grimaced. "Synthetic . . . and undrinkable. I'm
tired of this simulation."

In truth, the wine was not the problem, as Turanj well knew.
This particular Hunt had gone on for far too long, in a setting
that was profoundly unsettling. No, that was not the right way
to think of it; the surroundings did not really bother him. Those
who inhabited this ship did. These Federation beings--even the
strongest of the males--were no match for the Hirogen
physically, yet their stubborn defiance was beyond anything he
had encountered in the years since he had matured sufficiently
to join the Hunt. That would have been challenge enough in
itself, but there was more to this battleground than the simple
hunting of the Prey.

In the past decade, Turanj had visited a multitude of planets and
had helped capture the ships of a great many species. On this
one, however, most of these beings, enemy or ally, were not
even living creatures. Mere images of life, their artificial bodies
did not possess a single internal part to take as a trophy. The
unnatural Ho-Lo-Deck simulacrums kept Turanj off-balance--
and Turanj hated feeling out of control.

"Mein Herr, a word with you?"

"These holograms are becoming annoying," he muttered, not
bothering to remain silent when the artificial being addressed
him. Had this one been true prey, Turanj would no doubt have
ripped the digestive system out of his body a long time ago. The
ego it possessed was aggravating in the extreme. "Hauptmann"
never took a hint, no matter how blatant it was.

"What are we waiting for? Why don't we execute these
prisoners?"

"Orders, from the Kommandant."

"If I may speak freely?" Hauptmann asked.

Turanj nodded his head slightly, giving the hologram leave to
speak, or more accurately, to harangue him. This hologram
seemed incapable of a simple conversation. Every sentence was
a lecture or a call to arms.

"The Kommandant has been acting strangely the past few days.
He's been questioning German superiority. Perhaps we shouldn't
follow his orders so . . . blindly."

"You will do as he says . . . as long as I tell you to," Turanj
ordered reluctantly, even though every instinct screamed at him
to follow the advice of this projection and kill the prisoners
without another second of delay.

Petulantly, the hologram whined, "I don't know how much
longer I can stand being trapped in here."

"Perhaps you would enjoy some entertainment." Turanj stalked
over to the tall, yellow-haired female, his favorite Prey, and
ordered her to stand. "Sing!" he commanded.

"I will not," she retorted icily, glaring back at him.

Again, she'd refused him publicly! Rage crested over the
Hirogen's facial scales at her rejection, a sudden, frigid wave of
anger, as if he had been dumped out into the space surrounding
this alien vessel without his protective armor. As she had in
every previous simulation, this female was refusing his
overtures to her. He longed to hold the wickedly curving blade,
so much like an evisceration knife, that he had used to hack into
her shoulder in one ancient historical recreation. He could still
remember the impact of that stroke, right through the metal
links of her chained armor, so satisfying because it had been
real. He longed to see the flow of genuine blood rather than
mere projections of the life-sustaining fluid which spurted from
the bodies of the holograms as they "died."

Still, the sound of her voice floating melodically in the air in this
simulation spoke to him in much the same way as the death of
worthy Prey always did. It was an experience to be savored. He
relished it much as he had her defiance when he had taken her
physically on the ramparts of the city called Troy. Succumbing
to the sudden urge to know what mating with her would be like,
he had taken her as if she were a female of his own species,
even as she lay mortally wounded. With that memory came
renewed hunger. He wanted to enjoy her again, if not through
the flesh, than through her voice.

Turanj pulled the cruelly efficient projectile-hurling weapon
appropriate to his current role from its holster and grunted from
between clenched lips, "Sing . . . or you will die."

"Then I'll die," she replied flatly.

The pointed-eared one seated next to her intervened. "Seven,
you are a valued member of this crew. The logical response
would be to grant his request."

"Logic is irrelevant," she stated emphatically. Turning towards
Turanj, she added contemptuously, "One day the Borg will
assimilate your species, despite your arrogance. When that
moment arrives . . . remember me."

That was enough. If not for the Kommandant's express order,
Turanj would have already throttled her by the throat and
choked the life out her body. He was on the verge of breaking
the Kommandant's order when the mellow voice of his leader
came over the comm system, interrupting his train of thought.

::::Bridge to Holodeck One. I've come to an agreement with
Captain Janeway. Call a cease-fire.::::

"What?" Turanj exchanged shocked glances with Hauptmann. It
could not be true! Yet a moment later, the human captain's
voice came over the speakers to inform her people.

"Captain?"

::::It's true, Tuvok. Our first order of business is to call off the
troops. I want you to find Chakotay and have him convince his
soldiers to pull out of the city.::::

"Aye, Captain." The one called Tuvok, with the dark skin and
pointed ears, acknowledged his captain's order.

::::Turanj, order our Hunters to end the fighting.::::

"This is madness! We're winning this battle!" the hologram
raged.

::::Our civilization depends on this agreement,::::
Kommandant Caahrr's order was plain.

Reluctantly, Turanj said, "Acknowledged." Turning to the other
Hirogen, he reluctantly ordered, "You heard him. Release the
captives. I'll tell the others."

The Prey quietly filed out of the room as Turanj ordered all
units to withdraw to positions they had held early on during the
battle. The irritating officer hologram shadowed him, nagging at
him to disobey his Alpha leader.

"I have always thought highly of you," said Hauptmann. "But
the Kommandant is a fool. He doesn't understand. He's never
embraced the Fuhrer--or his vision. One does not cooperate
with decadent forms of life. One hunts them down and
eliminates them . . ."

There were more words, spilling out of the artificial lips of
Hauptmann. Turanj was only half-listening as the hologram
prattled on about destiny, the purity of German blood, and the
symbolism of the Nazi banner. All that was so essential to the
well-being of this simulated soldier was of little consequence to
the Hirogen, but  one thing the hologram said echoed in
Turanj's mind. //Hunt them down. Eliminate them. Eliminate all
the weak ones. All of them.//

Caahrr had been his leader, the Alpha male of the Hirogen
hunters, but he no longer deserved his position. It should fall to
Turanj. Turanj understood reality. His mind was uncluttered by
Caahrr's pessimistic visions of the future. The Hirogen were
destined to hunt Prey throughout the galaxy, expanding their
hunting grounds for as long as the galaxy existed. Why worry
about the far distant future? That would take care of itself.

The Hauptmann figure's rantings suddenly penetrated Turanj's
consciousness: ". . . We must countermand the Kommandant's
orders. Stay and fight! We must be faithful to who we are!"

// Yes. That's it. We must be faithful to who we are. In this,
Hauptmann speaks the truth. All that matters, all that has ever
mattered, is the Hunt.//

"You two, come with me!" ordered Turanj his subordinates.
The time to finish the Hunt had come. If Caahrr was too
cowardly to end it, then Turanj would. It was Turanj's destiny.

---

"All units, clear the valley. Return to your previous positions.
We're calling a cease fire. Repeat, cease fire." Hanging up that
ancient precursor to their comm badges, the field telephone,
Chakotay added to his crew mates, "Well, the word is out."

"Whether it will be acted upon is another question," Tuvok
replied.

"I'm their commanding officer, remember? They'll follow my
orders. Tom, Seven, check out all of our units around the town.
Find out if any of the soldiers in our force are members of the
crew. If any of them are, bring them back here to stand watch."

"You do not believe the truce will hold, Commander?"

"It pays to be cautious, don't you agree, Tuvok?"

"I do, indeed, Commander. I will begin taking an inventory of
our weapons."

"I'll help you, Tuvok," B'Elanna said, pushing at a stitch in her
side as she stood up, preparing to follow Tuvok's orders.
"Gods," she mumbled under her breath as she rubbed, "how can
anyone stand to be pregnant more than once?"

Tom, of course, heard her. Leaning towards her with half a
crooked smile, he whispered in her ear, "Once it's over, I'll bet I
can talk you into it again."

She started to snort derisively, but then thought better of it
and shrugged, "When you have *that* twinkle in your eyes,
maybe--but only if *I* want to."

"You better believe you'll want to, Toots," Tom grinned.
Pulling himself up to his full height, he snapped off a crisp
salute to Chakotay, Tuvok, and then to B'Elanna herself.

B'Elanna rolled her eyes but smiled at his use of the ancient
nickname. He'd called her that a time or two before when he
was in a daredevil mood and willing to risk injury--or had a
hankering to initiate some sex play, Klingon-style. Since they
weren't exactly in a position for that at the moment, she filed it
away in her personal memory banks for another time, when
she'd have the opportunity to make him pay for the remark.

Seven stared coolly at Tom from beneath her ocular implant
and observed, "Such militaristic rituals are archaic, Lieutenant
Paris."

"Hey, we're in the Army now, Seven. Let's go before the
'captain' hands us our heads."

"My head is secured to my neck at the base of the skull,
Lieutenant Paris . . ." B'Elanna heard Tom's quick bark of
laughter at Seven's literal reaction to her his joke as the two
began their journey, picking their way over the shards of the
nightclub's front window, which had shattered during the
fighting earlier in the day.

"We'd better clean up this glass, Chakotay," B'Elanna said,
stooping awkwardly to pick up a fairly large piece.

"Leave that to the rest of us. Tuvok, put the weapons and
ammunition where B'Elanna can count them." Chakotay entered
the Coeur de Lion and exited with a chair. Placing it next to the
window, the first officer ordered her to sit near the window
ledge, where Tuvok had begun stacking boxes of ammunition.
Grabbing a nearby trash bucket, Chakotay bent down and began
to pick up chunks of glass from the steps.

"Chakotay, really, I can get the weapons myself, and I can help
clean up too," B'Elanna insisted. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Lieutenant Torres, are you aware of exactly how much time
we have spent in the confines of the holodeck as prisoners of
the Hirogen?" Tuvok inquired.

"No. How long?"

"I do not know. I do not believe the commander knows, either."

"Nope. No idea," Chakotay agreed cheerfully.

"Seven would know."

"We will ask her to consult chronometric node when she returns
with Lieutenant Paris. Until then, caution on your part would be
advisable. Since you were considered to be close to full term at
the time of the Hirogen attack, it is reasonable to surmise that
you may have reached, or even passed, the date which the
Doctor had calculated would be your probable delivery date."

"I'm fine," B'Elanna repeated, "but if you two want to do all the
bending and the squatting, that's okay with me."

She saw the look that Tuvok and Chakotay exchanged with one
another as she backed down from the confrontation--self-
satisfaction on the first officer's part and Vulcan smugness on
Tuvok's, but she let it go. Her belly had just cramped up again
in another of those annoying Braxton-Hicks contractions.
B'Elanna held herself rigidly quiet for the minute or so it took
for the tight wave gripping her abdomen to pass.

This one lasted long enough for B'Elanna to have the
unwelcome thought that she might have trouble distinguishing
them from real labor pains. They were certainly strong enough
to catch her attention. Still, she'd had several since she'd
become conscious of who she was. None of them were
particularly difficult to bear, nor did they seem to be getting any
worse. They were just very annoying. This was nothing
compared to what labor must be like, she assured herself. The
Doctor had said she might not be able to walk or talk during
actual labor. Considering the stress they had all been under,
both mental and physical, it was no wonder she was having a
little discomfort now. That's all this was, just a little more of the
same old thing she'd been enduring for months.

Now, her engines--that was another matter entirely. She needed
to get down to engineering as soon as possible to check those
out. No telling what the Hirogen had done to them. They
needed her attention, as soon as she was free.

---

"Keep it moving! Keep it moving! Get the lead out of your
pants!" Paris yelled at the squad of holographyic GI's who
trotted down the street behind a jeep. Obligingly, the soldiers
picked up their pace, bringing a smile to Tom's face and an
expression of detached amusement to that of his companion.

"Mid-20th-century American slang," Seven observed.

"You got a problem with that, sister?" Paris agreed, grinning
back at her as he practiced his New Yawk accent.

"You're enjoying this simulation," she accused. "I find that
peculiar, given the circumstances."

"Loosen up, baby doll! The war's almost over." Tom snapped
his gum enthusiastically. His spirits were buoyant, and why not?
Despite all they'd been through (even though he couldn't
remember it), B'Elanna was doing well, the baby was fine, and
they were going to find a way to coexist with the Hirogen after
all--or at least, as long as it might take to get out of their space.
Getting out of there couldn't come too soon for Tom, but once
B'Elanna and her staff got the ship's engines back in shape,
everything was going to be fine. He just knew it. The war
*was* almost over.

Almost. A bullet, whistling by their heads, announced the
collapse of the cease fire. Pulling Seven down to lessen her
exposure to enemy fire, Tom swore under his breath as they
scurried back to the sandbagged section of street where
B'Elanna, Tuvok, and Chakotay were already ducking for
cover.

"So much for the cease-fire!" B'Elanna yelled at him as he ran in
her direction. Diving behind the barrier, he grabbed the rifle she
gave him and began to shoot back at the aggressors.

---

"These sensors show you've placed holo-emitters on decks five
through twelve? No wonder the system breached! You've
turned Voyager into one big Holodeck!" Kathryn fumed as she
and the Hirogen leader, who had identified himself as Caahrr on
the journey down to Deck Eleven, huddled over a console in
engineering.

"Can you shut it down?" he said, urgently.

"Yes, but I'm going to have to initiate an overload. We'll worry
about making repairs later. Right now we've got to put an end
to these simulations." Sending a comm signal to the bridge,
Kathryn said, "Harry, I'm going to need your help overloading
the holo-emitter network. I'm transferring optical processor
control to you now. Start charging the secondary power relays.
We'll use them to trigger the overload."

::::I'm on it,:::: Harry acknowledged.

As she broke off communication with Harry, she turned back to
the Caahrr. "This is going to take some time. There are over
800 emitters that we have to . . ."

"Move away from the controls!" Turanj, in full Nazi regalia and
carrying a German rifle pointed at them, entered engineering.
Even here, Kathryn thought in shock, the newly installed
holoemitters were working perfectly, allowing artificial
instruments of death into engineering--artificial, but just as
deadly if used.

"Why haven't you ordered the cease-fire?" Caahrr demanded.

Calmly, Turanj gave his superior his answer. He fired at him at
point-blank range, ordering, "Move away from the controls."

As he staggered back, weakened by his wound, the Hirogen
leader desperately tried to explain. "Turanj, listen to me!"

"No!" He shot his leader again. This time, Caahrr did not reply.
Kathryn crouched down next to the Hirogen but saw she could
do nothing. She didn't need to know his species physiology to
recognize death.

"What are you waiting for?" Kathryn asked, waiting for the
bullet he meant for her.

Grimly, Turanj replied, "I am a Hunter. You are my Prey."
Gesturing to the doorway, he ordered, "Run."

Hobbling as fast as her wounded leg would allow, Kathryn fled
into the corridor. After jamming another bullet into his antique
weapon. Turanj followed.

The Hunt was on, and Kathryn Janeway was the quarry.

---

The night sky above the quaint French town of Sainte-Claire
glittered with the deadly blooms of explosive devices. Tom and
B'Elanna fired their crude antique weapons, trying to stem the
tide of holographic Nazi soldiers. B'Elanna tried to stay as low
as possible as she fired to protect the child within her. Her back
ached every time she bent down. She didn't dare look at Tom;
the last time she had, she'd seen the set of his mouth. Tuvok,
Chakotay and Seven were all equally grim. They all knew.

Their holographic allies were losing ground. Enemy troops
surrounded the city. They had no better position to fall back to,
no place to regroup. Unless Seven's tinkering with their
weapons produced a miracle, it was only a matter of time before
the Hirogen would be victorious. B'Elanna itched to get her
own hands on the devices, primitive though they were, but this
time, it probably *was* better for Seven to do the work. She
had knowledge from the Borg that might update the weapons to
something modern enough to make a difference. B'Elanna was
needed to fire at the encroaching soldiers, to buy them enough
time to get out of this nightmare.

From behind her, she could hear Chakotay ask Seven about her
progress.

"I'm modifying this explosive device to emit a photonic burst. It
will be harmless to organic tissue, but it should disrupt all
holographic activity within 20 meters." B'Elanna stole a glance
back at the former Borg. The entire time she was mumbling her
response, Seven kept her eyes fastened on the grenade in her
hand, painstakingly picking away at it to adapt it to something
that would be effective.

Suddenly, B'Elanna heard Hauptmann barking out orders to the
squadron of Nazi soldiers rushing towards the Allied position.
Seven stood, pulling the pin from modified weapon in her hand,
and cocked her arm to heave it at the holographic attackers.
Mere seconds before the holographic bullet that wounded her
would have disappeared in a photonic explosion, Seven doubled
over. The grenade tumbled out of her hand. B'Elanna heard
Tom's shout of dismay and saw his lunge for it as it bounced
behind them.

He was too late. As promised, the grenade dissolved all of the
holographic projections within twenty meters. Unfortunately,
the holographic allied soldiers surrounding them were the ones
closest to the device, and they were the ones that disappeared.
The weapons the Voyager crew members were firing to defend
themselves against their attackers also vanished.

The Nazi holograms and their weapons were not within the
effective radius of the grenade. Their weapons were all still
intact, leveled at Chakotay, Tuvok, B'Elanna, Tom, and the
fallen Seven. A dazed B'Elanna endured another cramping of
her belly while scrambling to her feet as ordered by the enemy
soldiers. At a signal from Hauptmann, one of the holographic
Nazis grabbed B'Elanna by the arm and half-dragged her to him.

As if he were doing her a favor, the Nazi captain announced to
B'Elanna, "I will spare your life, but only because you are
carrying a German child." The rest of the captives were thrown
against the wall the hastily-formed firing squad. Tom struggled
against his two captors as he shared a long look with B'Elanna.
After all that had happened, the unlikely way they'd found each
other and come together, it would end like this. Death by
holographic bullets was just as permanent as the real thing when
the holodeck safeties were offline. Wordlessly, they said good-
bye with their eyes as Hauptmann shouted, "Your deaths will
serve the glory of the Reich."

But as Hauptmann uttered the fateful words, "Prepare to fire,"
fate intervened in the form of a horde of Klingons gleefully
brandishing bat'telh blades as they stormed into Sainte-Claire.
Improbably, they were led by the EMH and a Klingonized
Neelix.

Distracted by this unexpected attack, the German soldiers and
firing squad hesitated just long enough for Tom, Chakotay,
Tuvok and Seven fling themselves into the melee. As the others
fought hand-to-hand along side holographic Klingons, B'Elanna
slapped herself free of Hauptmann's grasp, hopeful that there
might still be a way to save themselves.

---

As she staggered painfully through the corridors of Voyager,
Kathryn struggled to keep her mind on the task of staying ahead
of the treacherous Turanj. The murder of the Hirogen leader
haunted her. He had been the one Hirogen she'd met who
displayed the degree of intelligence one would expect to find in
one descended from those who had harnessed the energy of a
quantum sinularity. She had borrowed their marvelous
communications array to send the Doctor to the Alpha
Quadrant--the array which had been destroyed after his return
through the blundering of other Hirogen who could not see
beyond their fanaticism for the Hunt. Caahrr had been the only
one who grasped the glory of their past, who had a vision of
what his stagnating race could again become.

Kathryn was so distracted by her anger at Caahrr's senseless
death she almost stumbled over a legless hologram whose
sparkling stumps extended outside the range of the
holoemitters. Her preoccupation ended as soon as she realized
the significance. Holoemitters had been installed by the Hirogen
throughout this corridor. She could tell that by seeing other
holographic projections further down the hallway. In this
section, the emitters must have been damaged by the explosion
on the holodeck.

Here, where the devices were malfunctioning, was the place she
could make a stand. After pulling the holographic soldier back
into the undamaged section to restore his legs and disguise
where the damaged area began, Kathryn found a place nearby
to hide and wait for her pursuer.

She didn't have long to wait. Once he appeared, rifle in hand,
she made a noise that drew him right where she wanted him, in
front of the holographic corpse. She could hear the faint sputter
of failing electronics marking the boundary between the
functional and nonfunctional holoemitters. He did not seem to
hear it.

From where she cowered in her hiding place, Kathryn begged,
"Please don't do this. I can be of use to you. I can help you
repair the ship! Don't kill me."

Turanj stared at her, smiling slightly as he leveled the rifle upon
her. The smile was wiped away as a sudden buzzing spray of
sparks erupted from the muzzle of his weapon as the front half
of it disappeared. Kathryn, tightly grasping the solid, genuine
piece of metal girder blown from the inner bulkhead, jumped up
and struck Turanj as hard as she could. Dropping the rifle he
thought useless, Turanj fled down the corridor.

Kathryn did not make the same mistake. Relenquishing her
impromptu weapon and grabbing the rifle, whole again as soon
as she moved it back to where the holoemitters functioned, she
limped resolutely in pursuit. She was Prey no longer. She was
the Hunter.

---

With the Doctor and Neelix exhorting the holographic Klingons
and living crew with rousing calls of "Qa'pla," the tide of battle
turned. Tom fought his way to Hauptmann, aching to get his
hands around the arrogant Nazi's neck and choke the artificial
life out of him. He would have, too, if the uneven bricks of the
street hadn't made Tom stumble. The hologram took advantage
of the distraction to stun Tom with a left cross to the jaw. Tom
fell down hard, the breath knocked out of him. Before
Hauptmann had the chance to pull out his pistol and finish Tom
off, however, a growling Klingon knocked the hologram to the
ground.

As Tom scrambled to his feet, he saw a warrior straddling the
Nazi officer. With one powerful downstroke of the bat'telh,
Hauptmann's shocked expression was split literally in two. The
Klingon extracted the blade from his victim, laughing
triumphantly, as he turned to his next holographic Nazi victim.

Tom turned away from the grisly scene and looked for
B'Elanna. She was crouched alone against the wall of a
building, a Luger taken from a dead Nazi soldier in her hands.
Their eyes caught each other's for the barest of seconds. Tom,
reassured that she could defend herself, returned to the battle.

---

During his three weeks on Voyager, Turanj had spent most of
his time on the holodeck. He did not know the ship the way
Kathryn did. Instead of an open corridor, he found himself
standing on a ledge, a gaping hole in the bulkhead behind him,
with Sainte-Claire spread out behind and below him. Blocking
his only escape route was a vengeful human Hunter, her rifle
pointed at Turanj.

"This Hunt is over. Tell your Hunters to stand down. I'll use
this . . . if you force me to." 

Though he was weaponless, Turanj knew only one way to live.
True to the ways his people had followed for centuries, Turanj
hesitated only a moment before charging at the human woman
in his path.

Kathryn Janeway fired her weapon. The antique projectile
hurled from its barrel had the power to tear through the Nazi
uniform, so flimsy in comparison to Hirogen armor. The bullet
twisted into his flesh, tearing a gaping hole within Turanj's
thorax and forcing him backwards from the concussive impact.
Backwards, where there was no floor upon which Turanj could
sprawl.

Perhaps at that last moment, as he was falling from the gaping
hole high up in the holodeck wall, Turanj may have glimpsed
what his leader had tried so desperately to convey to his people.
The Hunt would mean the death of the Hirogen. By adhering
rigidly and exclusively to the rituals of the Hunt, the Hirogen
had discarded common sense along with the rest of their
culture.

If he did glimpse this truth, Turanj had time for only a briefest
regret over the mistake he'd made by killing his leader. The air
streamed past Turanj's scaly head for a few meagre seconds
before his skull splintered on the hard pebbled street of Sainte-
Claire, bringing an end to all thought.

Kathryn held onto the shredded wall of the corridor and peered
down at the lifeless body far below her. She did not rejoice in
Turanj's death; she was too tired and in too much pain from the
wound in her leg to rejoice. Besides, there had been other, far
more costly deaths, just as needless as Turanj's.

His body must still be there in engineering, lying where he'd
fallen, a martyr to the future. Kathryn felt keenly the pain of lost
opportunity. She had, for a few brief moments, thought that
instead of enemies, the Hirogen could become that rare thing:
allies to her and to the crew of Voyager. Yet, if there had been
one, perhaps there could be others. Maybe she could find
another of the Hirogen race who could understand who could
bring Caahrr's vision to fruition. She would try, or they would
probably all die, natives of the Alpha Quadrant and Hirogen
alike.

But first, the damned program had to be switched off.

---

Chaos reigned. Nazi soldiers grappled with GI Joes and Klingon
warriors in as wild a melee as those which were still held in high
esteem in the empire in song and story after centuries. And
then, suddenly, it was over. The Nazi soldier Tom had been
about to punch disappeared. Without a holographic jaw to
absorb the force of his swing, Tom stumbled on the brick
pavers before he could right himself. He looked around for
someone to fight, but there was no one left. Nazis and Klingon
warriors alike had been sucked back into the databanks where
holocharacters slept until their programs were activated. A
battered Sainte-Claire still stood, littered with as much
wreckage as the real town must have contained when World
War II swept through it centuries ago.

Tom immediately sought out B'Elanna, who stood in the middle
of the town square, her legs set widely apart to balance her on
the rubble-strewn street. "They must have shut down the
holodeck character matrix, but not the setting controls," she
murmured as he reached her side.

He did not answer her right away. Instead, he swept her into his
arms and kissed her,  deeply grateful that they had both come
through the battle safely.

Gesturing to the other members of the senior staff who were
standing around, bewildered by their sudden isolation, Chakotay
gathered them together, saying, "It's over. Let's go."

"Where's the Doctor?" asked Neelix, looking around suddenly.

"His program went off line with the rest of the holocharacters,"
Seven replied.

"Yes, we need to get him back inside his holoemitter,"
Chakotay said. "Since the captain never mentioned anything
about it, I'm guessing that Nanny was using it so she could take
care of Naomi in the hiding place off sickbay . . . Sickbay! That
was blown up! We need to get up there immediately to check
on Nanny and Naomi!"

"You, too, B'Elanna. We need to get you to sickbay to make
sure the baby is all right," Tom urged.

"I have to get to engineering to check on my engines."

"But the baby . . ."

"The baby is fine. She's been kicking up a storm, remember?
Get me to engineering first, then you can drag me to sickbay for
a check-up."

"But B'Elanna! We need to check you out! It could be
dangerous . . ."

"And if the warp core blows, it will be more dangerous! It will
be all over for her . . . for all of us! I need to see what they've
done to my engines!" 

There wasn't much any of them could say to rebut her
argument. A blown warp core was definitely at the top of the
list of unhealthy situations on board a starship. With a quick
shrug of his shoulders, Chakotay capitulated. "OK. Tom, go
with her. And be careful. There may still be fighting between
the crew and the Hirogen off the holodeck. Tuvok, Neelix,
Seven: you're with me."

Holding his arm out for B'Elanna to grab, Tom helped his wife
scramble over a pile of rubble that blocked their way out of the
arch. As they exited the holodeck, Tom pulled B'Elanna close
again and murmured into her ear, "You sure you're OK?"

"I'll be better when I know what's going on in engineering," she
answered tightly.

"Said like a true engineer, Chief. You want to stand here and
catch your breath a moment before we start climbing down
Jefferies tubes? You look pretty tired." He waited for the
expected explosion; B'Elanna never admitted weakness.

She surprised him by nodding agreement and leaning into his
hold. Her hand stroked her belly in a circular, occasionally
jerky, motion.

"How's our little one?"

"She'll be better when we know what's going on in engineering,
too!"

"Okay, okay. Just asking a simple question."

Her voice softened. "I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"It's all right, B'Elanna. I know we've got to check on
engineering--but that won't stop me from worrying about you.
So much exertion, so close to your time--it can't be good for
you or the baby. You know that."

For the next few minutes she remained at his side with her body
supported against his breathing in and out deeply to catch her
breath but otherwise silent. Every now and then faint sounds
like distant yelling or the far away zing of phaser fire reached
their ears. Whenever he heard them, Tom brushed his hands
over her hair, trying to hold fast to believing that it was all
going to be all right.

Finally, with one last breath that seemed to have a gasp buried
in it somewhere, B'Elanna took his hand and led him down the
corridor, towards the nearest Jefferies tube access port. It was
five floors down to engineering, and it promised to be a rough
trip.

---

They were appalled at the state of the ship. In the area nearest
the holodeck, the explosion had loosened equipment panels,
ladders and handrails, from the walls of the Jefferies tubes.
Further down, rough wiring jobs done to divert power to fit the
corridors with additional holoemitters and expand the area in
which holocharacters could function obstructed their path. They
were forced to pick their way with care to avoid getting their
legs caught and falling to grave injury--or worse. The condition
of all of the systems affected by the jerry rigging infuriated
B'Elanna.

The closer they got to engineering, the harder it was to keep
going. Frequently, they had to pause while Tom cleared away
debris. The pain in her back increased, although the cramping of
her belly didn't seem much worse that it had been all day. A
couple of times she thought about telling Tom about the pain
she felt in her shoulder and back, but she was sure it was from
falling and being pulled around by the Nazis on the holodeck.
Their awkward crawl through the Jefferies tubes to get to the
engines couldn't be helping her, either, but she knew if she did
say something, Tom would assume it was because of the baby.
She kept silent.

She took advantage of Tom's clearing their path to catch her
breath, whenever she could, sometimes surreptitiously rubbing
her back to relieve the ache. Whenever they were not making
much noise themselves, they could hear the unmistakable
sounds of fighting between the Hirogen and the crew. There
was no way to know how that was going without poking their
heads out of the Jefferies tubes. They weren't about to do that.
B'Elanna only hoped they were winning. A look at Tom's face
during one of their rest stops let her know, without needing to
ask, that he was just as worried about what they might find
when they reached engineering as she was.

When they reached their destination, Tom whispered, "Let me
go first." B'Elanna let him go without an argument, to his visible
surprise. She was too busy hiding her fight with her aching back
and contracting stomach to put up a fuss.

Although she knew it could only have been a few minutes, it
seemed as if hours passed while she waited for Tom to come
back. At any moment she expected to hear a shout from a
Hirogen throat or the bitter whine of a weapon, even though
they had left the sounds of fighting behind them by the time they
got to Deck Eleven. Thanks to Tom's stealth as he crawled
carefully into the corridor, she heard little until he knocked on
the access port behind which she was lurking and quietly called
out, "All clear."

With his help, B'Elanna stepped out of the port. They hurried as
fast as B'Elanna could move into the main chamber. The warp
core pulsed its usual blue, although from its sound, she knew it
was being forced to put out more power than it should be asked
to give. Even the most cursory of visual inspections showed
that either the Hirogen or her own staff, at the Hirogen's
insistence, had made modifications to increase the core's output
far beyond specs. Systems were already starting to fail. A tell-
tale charred electronic smell announced, even before her initial
inspection was completed, that much of the relay circuitry was
starting to decay, probably due to power surges from the out-
of-spec alterations to the system. If they didn't get things back
to where they should be soon, they could lose control of core
reactions. Propulsion could be damaged severely, possibly even
beyond repair, considering Voyager's isolation from Starfleet
here in the Delta Quadrant--or worse. Just as she'd feared,
losing the ship to an explosion was not outside the range of
possibility. B'Elanna had to get the core shut down right away--
and without her staff to help her. The chief engineer's domain
was deserted.

"We have to lock down the magnetic constrictors and get that
core off-line," she told her husband in a whisper, unwilling to
raise her voice to avoid attracting the attention of any lurking
Hirogen. When Tom didn't answer, she realized he was no
longer standing near her.

B'Elanna shivered as she began to circle the room, all senses
alert. Rounding the core as she headed towards the main
engineering console, she saw Tom kneeling down next to a
body. She steeled herself at first, thinking it must be one of her
engineering staff. Then she realized that the body was clad, not
in the black and gold of Starfleet engineers, but in a Klingon
warrior's uniform.

At her approach, Tom said, "He'd been a player on the
holodeck, from the way he's dressed, as a warrior of the highest
rank. Dead for a while, I think."

"You think this was the one who made the truce with the
captain?"

"I'd expect the highest ranking Hirogen to keep a similar
position in any simulation he participated in, wouldn't you? So
yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this is our Kommandant."

"If you're right, then I guess we could assume the cease fire
ended when he was killed. Do you think the captain killed him?"

"No. I don't think she'd have done that, even if he went back on
the cease fire. More likely, one of his friends didn't want to go
along with the program."

"The captain, do you think she could have been . . ." B'Elanna
was unable to finish her question.

"Somebody got those holodeck characters shut off, but if it was
her or someone else, it's hard to say . . ." An uncomfortable
silence fell between them as Tom's words trailed away.

Leaning heavily on the console, B'Elanna took a deep breath,
distracted as a new wave of pain gripped her. Tom was
examining the body at his feet and didn't seem to notice. That
was fine with her; she had things to do and she didn't need Tom
hovering over her because of a little discomfort--even though
she was beginning to become concerned about how well she
would be able to work if she was constantly having to stop to
get herself together. When the pain faded away enough so she
could speak without alarming Tom, she said, "We have to get
this core shut down, Tom. I'm sure it needs maintenance
desperately, and I have to check it out for damage."

"How can I help?"

"First, see if you can contact the captain. If you can, let her
know we could use some of my staff down here, immediately.
Then you can help me with the core."

Tom went to the console, but there was no call to the captain.
"B'Elanna, the comm system is down. From the smell in here, I
think some of the components of the main comm lines are
toast."

After a quick inspection, B'Elanna slammed the side of the
console. "*Hu'tegh* Hirogen! If they've screwed up the comm
system, God knows what else they've messed up," she fumed.
"Well, Tom, you said you wanted to help. My regular
engineering staff is unavailable at the moment, so you're
enlisted."

"Yes, ma'am. Point the way, Chief."

The two of them undertook the work of an entire shift of
engineers. Virtually every system was damaged. The
transporters, warp drive, and impulse drive were all down. The
communications network had burned out though the lower half
of the ship. Neither of them had a working comm badge, which
they could have used to signal other people wearing the
devices. The ship was moving, but on thrusters only. Even
those systems that were still working, such as life support and
structural integrity, were strained to the breaking point from
having to compete with the greedy holoemitters for power.
Whenever a choice had to be made, B'Elanna saw, the holodeck
area, now extending through almost half the ship, won. At one
time, the ship's holodeck power systems were separate from the
rest of the ship's, but thanks to the Hirogen's tampering, no
more.

During the quarter hour it took to shut down the engines to
check them for permanent damage. B'Elanna was hampered
only a few times by pain. It was never so bad she couldn't work
through them, as long as she concentrated hard on what she
was doing and wasn't moving around much when they struck.
She was pretty sure they were getting weaker now. Just another
false alarm. That's all it was.

By the time she cut the power to the holodeck, announcing,
"That should make the last remnants of Sainte-Claire flicker out
of existence," B'Elanna felt pretty good about all they'd
accomplished, despite being on their own. All the systems,
including the warp core and matter-antimatter chamber, were in
safe mode. Auxiliary power was running life support and other
critical systems. The threat of a cataclysmic event had been
averted. Now they just had to get everything repaired and back
in optimal condition. Simple, if she had her usual team of
engineers. A little more complicated as long as the two of them
comprised the entire engineering department. 

Turning to start in on the communication system repairs, she
grumbled, "Finding the parts to fix this won't be easy, with the
replicators down. If only we could get access to Cargo Bay . . .
ah!" B'Elanna grabbed at her stomach. A sudden stab of pain so
overwhelming she couldn't talk through it choked away the rest
of her sentence.

"B'Elanna!" Tom cried. "I told you you were overdoing it! Sit
down right here . . ."

B'Elanna shook her head. She didn't want to move. She didn't
think she could move. When he came within arm's reach, she
grabbed onto him desperately, grunting as she felt something
strange happening. A gush of warm, slimy liquid splashed on
the floor beneath her. Out of her.

"B'Elanna! Your water just broke! How long have you been in
labor?"

As she stared at the pool of amniotic fluid on the floor beneath
her feet, the stray thought that it was fortunate she hadn't been
standing on anything electronic crossed B'Elanna's mind. "B-
braxton-Hicks Contractions. That's all they are," she finally
answered.

"I don't think so! How long have you been in pain?" Tom
demanded, in a tone that brooked no equivocation.

"Most of the day . . ."

"You've been in pain all day and you didn't tell me?" His already
pale complexion went white.

"I was a little distracted, okay? How was I supposed to know?
I've never had a baby before!"

"B'Elanna! Of all the times to go stoic Klingon on me!"

"The pain was in my back most of the time, and it only came
now and then. I thought it was from that fall I had and . . . and
. . . oh, Tom, I'm getting another one." A  little bit of panic
came into her voice. "Not now! I can't afford to have this baby
now, not here in engineering! There's too much to do!"

"When it's time for a baby to come, it comes, B'Elanna. It
doesn't matter how busy you are."

Tom eased her down on the deck, his large hands stroking her
abdomen as it balled up even more tightly than before. //This
must be what being in a vise feels like,// she thought.

"B'Elanna, remember your breathing. Come on, deep cleansing
breath . . . do what I'm doing, breathe!" With his touch soothing
her and her voice reminding her of the breathing patterns he'd
forced her to practice for months, the pain did seem easier to
bear than before, even though she could no longer delude
herself that it was a false alarm. Tom's blue eyes beneath his
crinkled brow were dark with concern, but as the pain began to
wind down, he smiled in encouragement.

Finally, it was over, and with Tom's help she sat up. As a little
more warm liquid leaked out of her, making her grimace in
disgust, she informed Tom, "Just so you know, I'm not going to
sickbay. You need me here to tell you what to do, even if I can't
do it myself."

"Take you to sickbay?" Tom laughed mirthlessly. "If only I
could! The captain blew it up, remember? And I couldn't get
you to Deck Five now without a site to site transport. We've
got a ways to go before we get that system up, if you recall. I
don't think I could carry you up six decks worth of Jefferies
tubes before our daughter insisted on being born. Assuming we
could get though the fighting. Damn it! I knew I should have set
up that pool about where you were going to deliver. I always
had a hunch you were going to find some way to have this baby
in engineering!"

"Well, I didn't personally invite the Hirogen onto Voyager just
so I could have her here." She quirked a smile at him and got
one back. "Tom, we don't have time to waste between my labor
pains. Communications . . . we need to get them up."

"Agreed," he said with reluctance. He helped her up, and they
worked together for the few minutes they had before her next
pain started. It came within five minutes, and while she hung
onto him, practicing her breathing exercises, he did what he
could.

---

Twenty minutes later, B'Elanna was having her fifth contraction
and they still didn't have communications back up. Tom did the
best he could to help her through her contractions, but they
were certainly coming regularly now, one every five minutes or
so. Each was stronger than the last. After the third contraction,
Tom retrieved the first aid kit stored in engineering, using the
medical tricorder to see how far along she was. He shook his
head at the readings.

"B'Elanna, you're fully effaced and dilated to eight centimeters
already. I don't think we're going to get much further with the
repairs."

"Tom, we have to keep going, even if it's just to get
communications up so we can call for help."

Tom looked at his wife. Her face was sweaty and flushed, but
her indomitable spirit still shone brightly from her eyes. Giving
birth had turned into a war. He knew she could handle it. As
much as she sometimes tried to deny it, she was Klingon. She
lived to do battle, whether it was against hostile aliens or a
finicky warp core.

He, on the other hand, wasn't sure how much help to her he
could be. Yes, he'd done well with his gynecological studies,
but B'Elanna was the one who was going to have to actually
give birth. Thankfully, he had squirreled away some supplies in
the storage alcove where the medical kit had been. Usually, the
emergency remedies it contained were primarily those used to
treat simple trauma, plasma burns, and radiation exposure, but
he'd had the foresight, two months ago, to stock the kit with the
bare minimum of medical supplies needed for an emergency
childbirth.

 //I must have known!// he thought to himself, stifling a moan.
//But why did I only keep one blanket here? Stupid! What am I
going to wrap the baby in? Why didn't I think of *that*
before?//

Tom quickly cast his eyes around for something to serve as
swaddling for a newborn. They had B'Elanna's clothing from the
World War II simulation, but its silky texture wasn't what he
was looking for. They wanted something soft, absorbent. His
own clothing was military wear. It wouldn't serve their purpose
. . . well, most of it wouldn't. Tom shrugged off his jacket and
unbuttoned his shirt. Both were too stiff to use as baby clothing,
but the T-shirt he wore underneath, though it might be
somewhat damp from perspiration, would be a reasonably good
choice. It was soft enough to put against a baby's skin. His army
jacket could serve as a blanket. That should work.

Slipping his T-shirt over his head to the accompaniment of
B'Elanna's demands that he get to work on the comm system
repairs before she got up and fixed it herself, Tom comforted
himself with the thought that they were going to get through
this somehow. //I know we'll get through it. I just wish to God it
was already over!//

And as he placed the soft cotton undershirt on top of his jacket,
Tom thought, //But damn it, I *knew* I should have run that
betting pool!//

---

Voyager's bridge was strewn with the detritus of battle. The
bodies of two Hirogen stretched across the raised platform
behind the command chairs. Another slumped against the helm
console, face turned towards the area in front of the command
chairs. When Kathryn limped out of her ready room, she tried
to ignore the sightless eyes that seemed to follow her as she
moved to take a seat in her chair. Phaser burned panels and
railings bore testimony to the fierce fighting that had ended only
minutes before came onto the bridge.

"Report."

"We have control of Decks One, Two, Three and Four,
Captain, and partial control of Deck Five. There is still a great
deal of fighting on Decks Six though Eight. As yet there has
been no word from other decks." Although he was still wearing
the clothing of a French Resistance partisan, Tuvok's delivery of
the facts was crisply professional.

"Casualties?"

"One confirmed dead from the fighting today, and one during
the holodeck simulation period over the past three weeks,
according to the Doctor. We have two crew members in critical
condition and several more with lesser injuries at the moment,
Captain. The Doctor is treating them in the temporary sickbay
he and Mr. Neelix have set up in the messhall. They have
retrieved supplies from sickbay."

"We control that area of Deck Five?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Naomi and Nanny came through all right?"

"Both are well. Once we freed Ensign Wildman from her
confinement in her own quarters  she went directly to the
schoolroom hiding place for Naomi; Nanny volunteered to go
off-line so that the Doctor's program could be transferred into
the holoemitter to treat his patients."

"And the Hirogen?"

"They have sustained heavy casualties. While they are still
fighting with tenacity, it is now as individuals seeking Prey.
Their organization as fighting units appears to have crumbled
with the death of the Alpha Hirogen and his lieutenant. A good
number of their people died in the initial explosion of the
Holodeck as well. Two of the four Hirogen ships that Mr. Kim
indicated were traveling with Voyager have pulled out of
formation. They apparently no longer feel the need to take
trophies from us. The remaining two vessels appear to be those
belonging to the dead Hirogen leaders. They may be continuing
to fight because there is no longer anyone to direct them
otherwise."

"Try to get word to them. Offer a cease fire. Let's end this."

"Yes, Captain."

"Any word from Tom and B'Elanna in engineering?"

"Nothing yet, Captain, Harry Kim replied. "Ever since we
instituted the overload to get rid of the holodeck characters,
communications have been down below Deck Five."

"Harry, go down to engineering to see what's going on. Help
B'Elanna and Tom stabilize the base power system, reestablish
communications, fix the turbolifts, and bring the warp core back
up to specs--those are our priorities." //Not asking for much,
am I?// Kathryn thought ruefully.

"Captain, I can accompany Ensign Kim."

"But you're wounded, Seven. You should go to the mess hall to
be treated."

"It is a minor injury. My nanoprobes have already healed most
of the damage. You need me to provide assistance to Ensign
Kim; your priority list is extensive."

Kathryn sighed, recognizing the steely resolve in Seven's eyes,
both human and Borg-enhanced, that stated more clearly than
her words did that she would be going to engineering with or
without the captain's permission. "All right. Go with Harry, but
stop off at the mess hall first so the Doctor can make sure you
don't need any additional treatments. Harry, make sure she does
it!"

"Yes, ma'am," Harry replied unable to completely stifle his
smile.

"And be careful, both of you."

---


---

" . . . And another deep cleansing breath. That's good, B'Elanna.
You're doing just great."

"Let me up! We have to fix . . . "

"No, you don't! You aren't fixing anything until you have this
baby. Then you can . . ."

Tom's admonishment was interrupted by the sound of a Jefferies
tube access port opening. Dropping B'Elanna's hand, Tom
reached for the weapon he'd retrieved from the dead Hirogen's
corpse and aimed it at the entrance to engineering. At the sight
of the two who entered, however, Tom was the one who took a
deep--and grateful--cleansing breath.

"Harry, Seven! Thank God you're here."

"The captain thought you could use a little help down here,"
Harry said.

"You got that right, buddy."

"Harry! We need to finish getting communications up. Seven,
get into the plasma conduits behind the auxiliary manifold and
see if there's any damage there. I was going to do that until I . . .
Tom! Another one!" B'Elanna's stream of directives was cut
short as her gasp announced her next contraction.

Although Harry had gotten his orders, he couldn't keep himself
from gazing at the tableau before him in fascination. He didn't
need to be told that B'Elanna was in labor. She huffed and
puffed and cursed her way through obvious pain, lying on a
blanket on the floor of her "office" with her clothing in disarray.
Tom leaned over her, encouraging her to "just breathe through
it."

Her eyes burned as she angrily demanded, "I need to push,
Tom! Now! This time, I really mean it!"

"Ensign Kim, would these items be of any assistance to
Lieutenant Torres during her delivery?" Seven interrupted,
brow upraised.

"Oh, right. Tom, can you use these? We brought a couple of
pillows and blankets down because we weren't sure how long
we were going to be here. Because of the fighting? You know
all about that?" Harry dropped the pillows he was carrying next
to the two blankets Seven had just deposited behind B'Elanna.

The subject of hand-to-hand combat apparently was not
uppermost on Tom's mind he totally ignored Harry's question.
"Great, B'Elanna. Just great," Tom said, massaging his wife's
back until her cursing died away at the end of her contraction.
Only then could he talk about anything else. "Thanks for the
blankets, Harry. We're definitely going to need them. Not long
now, I don't think." He turned his attention to the medical
tricorder and added, "B'Elanna, next time, it's okay to push.
You're fully dilated now . . ."

"That's what I've *been* telling you! You wouldn't listen to me,
*petaQ!* Amd it's your fault I'm in this fix, damn it! You did
this to me!" The sounds issuing from B'Elanna's vocal chords
were half screech and half growl, with each word spit out at a
greater volume than the last in a crescendo of invective.

To Harry's surprise, Tom didn't seem bothered at all by the
names B'Elanna was calling him. "Can't deny it, Chief, but now
that we've got some help here, you can leave the drudge work
to Harry and Seven. You just concentrate on having this baby."

"Ensign Kim, we have our assigned tasks. Do you wish
assistance reestablishing intraship communications?"

Seven's appearance at Harry's elbow startled him; he'd forgotten
she was even there.

"Ah, no. Let me see if I can get them back up, and then I'll help
you with the conduits."

The comm system repairs would have only taken a few minutes
to complete if Harry'd had the right parts. As Tom and B'Elanna
had found before him, without the parts, it was a lost cause.
Replicators needed to be brought online, since he doubted he
could get to Seven's cargo bay, where the parts were stored.
The fighting was still fierce around there.

Harry stole a glance towards Tom and B'Elanna as he moved to
help Seven. He wanted to ask B'Elanna about getting power
back to the replicators, but it was clear there was no point
asking them about what he should do now. The repairs to
engineering, as of now,  had ceased to be their priority.

At least B'Elanna was less belligerent now that Tom had given
her leave to push. She was hanging from one of the structural
supports, in a squatting position she must have assumed with
Tom's help. It looked to be a precarious position for a pregnant
woman to take, but from B'Elanna's determined grunting and
Tom's cadenced encouragement as he wiped her brow, it
seemed to be helping her to focus her concentration on
childbirth.

The intermittent commotion from the chief engineer's office
didn't make it easier to fix the plasma conduits, though. Once,
B'Elanna accused Tom of "knocking her up," which Harry
assumed was some sort of slang term for pregnancy. Most of
B'Elanna's curses, however, were aimed at the Hirogen for
trashing her engines, at Janeway for stranding them in the Delta
Quadrant, and at Seven for staring at B'Elanna when she should
have been doing her *ghay'cha'* repairs. Whenever Harry
looked in Seven's direction, she wasn't looking anywhere but
her tasks that he could see. Admittedly, Harry only looked at
Seven whenever B'Elanna's imprecations drew his attention that
way.

Finally, after one of B'Elanna's accusations, Seven remarked to
Harry, "Assimilation is a far more efficient process than single
cell fertilization."

"Maybe, but I prefer single cell fertilization myself," Harry
replied.

"You have experience with the process?"

"I, uh . . ."

"Tom! I can feel something! Something's happening to me!"
B'Elanna called out.

A relieved Harry didn't have to answer Seven's question, thanks
to the cry that diverted Seven's curiosity towards B'Elanna. He
peeked at Tom and almost laughed to see his friend practically
standing on his head to look underneath his wife. She was still
dangling from the support strut, hanging on for dear life as she
struggled through her labor.

"I can see her head! B'Elanna, her head is crowning! Let me lay
you down here so I can deliver her more easily."

As soon as Tom had lowered his wife to the floor, he undid her
skirt. Realizing he was about to intrude on a very private
moment, Harry looked away. Seconds later, he heard Tom say
excitedly, "There she is! Bear down, B'Elanna! Keep it going!
There, her head's free. Okay, hold on now, B'Elanna. Wait for
the next contraction.''

There was a pause as Tom murmured soft endearments Harry
couldn't hear and had no business listening to even if he could
hear them. After a long "Ah," from B'Elanna, Harry heard
Tom's encouraging voice again.

"Push, B'Elanna. Give it all you've got. Her shoulders are
coming. That's it! Here she comes! B'Elanna, look! She's here.
Our Linnis is here. B'Elanna, she's gorgeous. She looks just like
you!"

As the wail of the newborn reverberated through engineering,
Harry felt as if he'd been punched solidly in the stomach. It was
not the cry that staggered him. It was the name Tom had
uttered, a name that had the power to recall the most tragic
memories of Harry's life, washing every other thought out of his
consciousness.

Only a few months ago, Harry Kim expected to be the one who
would help his wife give birth. Kes wouldn't have been lying
down. She would have been hanging onto a bar, much as
B'Elanna had been a few minutes before. Harry would have
stood in back of Kes and caught their baby--or babies, since Kes
had said she would have borne him twins--as they slipped out of
the sac perched on Kes' upper back. In the traditional way of
Ocampan birth, he would have been the one to present his
progeny to his wife's view. Smeared with birth fluids, they
would be crying at the new, dry environment they would be
experiencing for the first time. Not so different from the birth of
human twins, really, except for the place where they emerged
from their mother's body when they were born.

Andrew and Linnis, they would have called them. A daughter
and a son, whose chance to live had been destroyed when Kes'
expected lifespan of nine years was cut to little more than three,
thanks to a strange phenomenon related to a race which knew
how to manipulate time, the Krenim. Somehow, their temporal
weapons had caused Kes to live an entire life, and then move
backwards again through her life, from death to before her
birth. The captain and B'Elanna had saved Kes by treating the
radiation poisoning which had unstuck her in time, but the
damage to Kes' future could not be totally undone.

When the Voyager crew first met the Krenim commander who
warned them away from the area of space the race claimed,
Captain Janeway immediately ordered a change of course to
keep the ship far away from Krenim borders. Kes had warned
Janeway of the danger the Krenim represented to Voyager; that
they should avoid them, at all costs. By doing so, the captain
had saved the life of herself, and of B'Elanna Torres.

By that time, however, it was already too late to save Kes.
Instead of B'Elanna and the captain dying in an attack by the
Krenim, Kes was the one lost, transformed into a non-corporeal
being in the manner of her people, the Ocampa, long before her
time. Her spiritual essence, her *katra,* as Vulcans called it,
had lived more than its allotted time because of Kes' backward
journey through her life.

While Kes may not have actually died, her loss though
transformation to a non-corporeal being living on another plane
of existence had been as devastatingly final, as far as Harry was
concerned. Her spirit might live on, but Harry would never see
her, hold her, or speak with her again. Only a few short weeks
after they'd found each other, Harry had lost Kes and the
children they would have had together.

For a long time, Harry had managed not to think of how the
babies Kes would have borne him might have looked.
Confronted by the birth of Tom and B'Elanna's child, he found
he could not stop thinking about it. Tom and B'Elanna could
see their child, hold her, watch her grow. Harry Kim, the
widower of Kes of Ocampa, would never know what his
children would have been like. Would they have resembled
Harry more, or Kes? Perhaps the girl would look like her
mother and the boy favor his father--or vice versa. Would they
have inherited his eyes? Her coloring? Rounded human ears, or
pointed Ocampan ones?

He'd always known he would have to raise their children alone,
since Kes' lifespan had been so short, but he had not even been
granted the comfort of raising his children after the loss of Kes.
They never had the chance to be born.

It was a cruel happenstance that he should be here now while
his best friends brought their baby into life. He knew he would
have to see her sometime, but he always thought he'd have a
chance to prepare himself first. He didn't think he'd be seeing
her immediately after her birth.

Harry Kim held the tricorder he was using in midair in front of
him, but he was unable to see the numbers appearing on the
screen. All he could process was that one impossible word, a
name he couldn't possibly have heard Tom use. His reverie was
interrupted by Seven, inquiring whether he needed assistance.
She did not seem to believe him when he assured her, "No, it's
okay, Seven. I'm all right." He glanced towards Tom, who had
lain his child over his wife's body so that he could care for both
of them. "Are they okay, too?"

"All appear to be in satisfactory condition, except for you. Are
you unwell?"

"No. I just . . . I just thought I heard Tom call out something
I . . .  What name did he call the baby, again?"

Before Seven could answer, B'Elanna answered the question
herself, murmuring "Oh, Linnis. I'm so glad you're here, too."

"Her parents have apparently bestowed the designation of
Linnis upon the child," Seven replied. "I have not been informed
of any secondary terms of identification."

Harry felt himself unable to draw a breath for a second as an
overpowering heartache came over him. He closed his eyes,
trying to regain his equilibrium. Part of him wanted to
disappear, to flee engineering, to avoid seeing the happiness of
his friends that had been denied to him. Another part longed to
look at the newborn child and satisfy a strange curiosity. It
wasn't as if history would really be changed. This little girl
would never be his own child with Kes; nor was it likely that
she would become his wife, as had happened in another
alternate future according to Kes, the timestream that was
destroyed when the Krenim did not kill B'Elanna and the
captain. In that other future, Harry Kim would have become the
husband of Linnis Paris, the daughter of Kes and Tom Paris;
Andrew Kim would have been the child of Linnis and Harry
Kim.

The might-have-beens with all of those Linnises and Andrews
was making it difficult to for Harry to think, yet what mattered
was that this Linnis was no more the child of Tom and Kes than
she was of Harry and Kes. B'Elanna had borne her. This child's
expected lifespan was long, like that of a human or a Klingon.
Harry would have to wait a very long time for this
human/Klingon Linnis Paris to grow up if marriage to her
would his destiny. A very long, lonely time. Harry didn't think
he'd be able to wait that long to find happiness again. Kes
wouldn't have wanted that for him.

Yet, somehow, it didn't matter. Harry sensed the stream of time,
split into fragments by the Krenim, healing itself, as Kes once
had conjectured. He could not know what sort of life this Linnis
was fated to have, but as the close friend of Tom and B'Elanna,
he knew he would have some part in that life. Perhaps, just as
Neelix had become "Uncle Neelix" to Naomi, as he would have
been to the children of Harry and Kes, so he could become
"Uncle Harry" to this Linnis. And that wasn't so terrible a thing
to be.

Harry smiled to himself. Opening his eyes, he poked his head
out from behind the panel upon which he was working to see
what Tom and B'Elanna's newborn Linnis looked like.

---

Tom knelt next to his wife, carefully clamping the baby's
umbilical cord in two places as he prepared to cut her free from
her mother. B'Elanna, naked below the waist and totally
unconcerned by that fact, was cooing--cooing!--to the baby
lying on her bare belly. Tom really tried to stay all business as
he cut the cord, but he couldn't wipe the grin off his face. Once
the baby was free,, Tom wiped Linnis off the best he could with
B'Elanna's World War II costume skirt while listening to his
half-Klingon wife talking to his new daughter as the words,
//I'm a father! Damn! We really did it!// revolved over and over
in his head.

When he'd wiped Linnis off somewhat, Tom asked his wife,
"Let me hold her a minute, will you?" At B'Elanna's smiling
agreement, Tom carefully gathered the baby up in his arms,
supporting the back of the her head with one hand, and rested
her body against his bare chest. It felt so sood to hold her close
that way. Thanks to B'Elanna's vigorous labor, he'd never
bothered to throw on his Army shirt after he'd removed the
undershirt. In truth, he'd never missed his shirts while he was
delivering the baby. It all seemed to have happened so fast, even
though such a great effort had been expended; somehow time
had been compressed into confusion during the actual birth.
Tom didn't think he'd ever remember every step exactly as it
had occurred along the way--he'd been too involved with
helping B'Elanna through the process for that--only the glorious
result.

As Tom held Linnis in his arms, her tender skin against his, he
decided he was glad he'd never had the chance to put his shirt
back on. Her cheek was laying on fuzzy-smooth flesh instead of
stiff fabric. It seemed right, as if that was the way it had been
for the entire chain of ancestors going back to the dawn of
prehistory on two planets. Good enough for all of those who
had gone before Linnis in the past, good enough for her now.

He couldn't hold her that way for long, though. He needed to
finish cleaning her. She had to be dressed and kept warm and
cozy now that she was out of the hospitable environs of her
mother's womb. Reluctantly, Tom lowered her down to rest
against B'Elanna's abdomen. When he had cleaned her off the
best he could with the limited supplies available to him in
engineering, Tom carefully wrapped his GI-issue undershirt
around the infant. It wasn't good enough for her--not for his
daughter!--but it would have to do until they could get to the
baby clothes stored in their quarters. Once the makeshift baby
gown was secured around her small but sturdy form, Tom had a
second to slip on his Army shirt before picking up his daughter
and looking into her face for the first time.

Tom Paris lost track of where he was and what he was
supposed to be doing as he fell instantly, totally, and purely in
love with the perfect being in his arms. His daughter. His and
B'Elanna's passionate and loving act had transformed energy
into matter and embodied it in independent, feisty, squirming
flesh. He held the most beautiful child that had ever been born.
Her little face was lovely, despite being streaked with vernix
and blood. Her brow, faintly marked with Klingon ridges, was
so like her mother's that he wanted to kiss each point in thanks.
Her tiny fingers, clenching tightly together into fists, waved in
the air at him, beckoning him. His vision blurred as he
succumbed to impulse and carefully placed three kisses on his
baby's brow.

His daughter. Now he was Thomas Eugene Paris, husband and
father. He couldn't believe how good that sounded. He would
never have believed he could feel this way only a few short
years ago, when all happiness had been leached from his life
because of his own mistakes. Now, every strange and terrible
thing that ever happened to him seemed to have happened for a
purpose--so that he could be here in the Delta Quadrant,
married to the most fascinating woman imaginable, and the
father of this precious little girl.

His musings came to an end when he remembered that in the
here, now, and still-must-be-done, B'Elanna needed his
attention, too.

Cradling the baby's head against him, Tom spread out his Army
jacket so that he could wrap the baby in it, sort of a blanket or a
. . . bunting . . . that was what Samantha had called her gift for
the baby. The bunting was sitting in a drawer in their quarters.
Too bad he hadn't thought to put that in the medical kit alcove,
along with the other things. He'd have to remember that, for
next time.

As he put her down, the baby caught the open front flap of his
shirt and grasped it tightly. He chuckled, "Don't want to let go
of your Daddy, huh, Linnis? Well, I don't want to let go of you,
either."

He glanced at his wife. The loving expression on her face
warmed his heart even more than holding Linnis did. B'Elanna
gingerly rolled onto her side, propping herself up by the elbow,
and carefully removed Linnis' fingers from the edge of the shirt.
"We're going to have to get something straight, Linnis. I'm the
one who gets to take off Daddy's shirt, understand?"

Tom laughed and bent over to kiss B'Elanna on the brow, in
just the same way as he had Linnis moments before. Then,
carefully, Tom picked up the Army jacket with his daughter
enclosed within its folds and eased the bundle into his wife's
arms. As the new mother leaned back against the pillows Tom
had placed behind her and hugged Linnis, Tom checked on
B'Elanna's condition. The afterbirth was still to be delivered, but
there was no sign it was imminent.

He started to tell B'Elanna to just relax if she had another
contraction, but the sentence stuck in his throat at the sight of
her. Forehead shining with sweat, hair flying every which way,
B'Elanna looked even more Klingon than usual. She held her
child protectively, her face glowing with such joy that his eyes
misted over, just for a second. He hid his sudden wave of
emotion by looking down at his shirt, deliberately slipping each
button into its matching hole.

A gasping sound brought his attention back to his family. A
quick glance at B'Elanna's abdomen told him he was right about
the cause of her gasp even before B'Elanna moaned, "Oh. I'm
getting another contraction, Tom."

"Supposed to. The placenta needs to be delivered. You can hold
onto Linnis, that's it. Just curl up again. Okay, one push should
do it." As his methodical, calm voice directed her in the final
stage, a bloody mass of biological matter was expelled from
B'Elanna's birth canal. "There it is; we've got it." Easing her
down on her back, the baby still in her arms, Tom pulled the
blanket folded underneath B'Elanna so that the cleanest spot
was beneath her and rolled the afterbirth inside the messiest part
of the blanket. Quickly grabbing one of the two clean blankets
that Harry and Seven had brought, Tom covered B'Elanna's
nakedness, although modesty still didn't seem much of a
priority. Kneeling next to her, Tom kneaded B'Elanna's stomach
to staunch the bleeding.

Remembering that getting a new mother to nurse her baby
helped the mother's uterus contract, Tom assisted B'Elanna in
putting Linnis to the breast. The baby seemed to take to it well
enough, although Tom thought a little practice would be in
order before she became an expert. He was gratified, however,
when B'Elanna sighed,  "Linnis, you've got a pretty hard suck
for somebody who was just born."

"She must take after her mother. All business."

B'Elanna flashed an ironic smile in his direction. "Maybe she
takes after her Daddy. He likes to suck on breasts, too."

Tom laughed at that--he wasn't about to deny the accusation--
and returned to the mundane business of cleaning up, as the
Doctor had taught him. "Tidying up after providing medical
treatment is an essential part of the process, Lieutenant Paris."
After checking to make sure that B'Elanna's bleeding was under
control, Tom carefully rolled her from side to side and replaced
the fouled blanket with a clean one. Once he'd covered her
again with the other clean blanket, Tom could finally throw his
head back and take a breather. Baby was here. Mother was
okay. Father had managed not to screw up. All was right with
the universe.

And then he heard a sob.

---

B'Elanna reached out to stroke her baby's little body, holding
her still a moment so that she could study Linnis' face. Yes, her
Klingon heritage was plain to see on her forehead, but it was
even softer than B'Elanna's own ridges had been when she had
born, to judge from the holos her mother had shown B'Elanna
of herself as a newborn. Hopefully, Linnis' personality was also
softer! From the sounds of her cries, she had something of her
mother's Klingon temperment. Well, a crying baby was a good
sign, right? The lungs certainly seemed to be in good working
order; that boded well for the rest of her. Still, it must be hard
on her little throat to be wailing so lustily.

B'Elanna impulsively began to talk to her baby. "Oh, my. Look
at you! Such a sweet baby! Shhh. Don't cry so hard, Sweetie.
I'm sorry it's all so crazy. I thought you were going to be born
in the same bed that Daddy and I sleep in, with the Doctor here
to help us so that Daddy could be talking to us right now, but
he's so busy now he can't talk. Those nasty bad Hirogen had
other ideas. So, Linnis, I'm afraid you're visiting engineering a
lot sooner than I even thought you would. You'll be helping out
here before you know it, but you've got to grow up a little more
before you can help Mommy here. There, that's it. You just
listen to me, now. You don't have to cry any more. I don't know
many baby songs, but maybe I can hum a little . . ."

Her humming lasted for only a few seconds before Tom
interrupted them. "Let me hold her a minute, will you?"

"Sure," B'Elanna said, smiling as he picked the baby up to lean
her gingerly against his bare chest. Linnis seemed so tiny nestled
in his big hands. At the sight, B'Elanna felt so grateful that they
had chosen to make a life together with their baby. Tom Paris
might possess a flippant attitude, a cutting sense of humor, and
a shaky self-image upon occasion, but when he let his guard
down and allowed his sensitive true nature show, she couldn't
think of anyone with more love in his heart. As she watched him
cuddle the baby before putting her down to gently wipe her off,
B'Elanna couldn't keep herself from smiling. At that moment,
she wouldn't have minded if she were naked and dancing with a
naked Bolian, as he'd joked on the day he found her so
engrossed in Tuvok's "Insurrection Alpha" program, she'd
missed their lunch date--although she had to admit she was
feeling pretty uncomfortable from lying half-naked on the cold
floor of engineering.

She cared even less when Tom, having wrapped the baby in
makeshift baby clothing, picked Linnis up again and looked into
her face. As awe and love spread over her husband's face,
B'Elanna felt her own heart expand with intense feelings that
she couldn't formulate into words, or even coherent thoughts.
Incredibly moved, she watched Tom kiss little Linnis on her
Klingon forehead and hug her close. His eyes met B'Elanna's,
and they shared a moment that she would remember for the rest
of her life, she was sure. Their beginnings as a family may have
been rocky and unplanned, haphazard in the extreme, yet now,
B'Elanna could not imagine a time she didn't know Tom and
love him and their daughter. She knew it had not always been
like this. Intellectually, she could remember the time before she
met him and knew their family existed, but her soul refused to
recognize it.

Somehow, incredibly, it was as if it was all meant to be.

Her warm thoughts were disrupted when she became more
aware of her discomfort. She didn't feel the cramping that
would accompany the final part of her delivery that she knew
would be coming, but there was some soreness where the baby
had emerged from her. //Is it really possible I was able to pass
something as large as Linnis out of my body without being torn
to shreds?// she marveled.

She didn't know if she'd made some sort of sign, but Tom chose
that moment to lower the baby to his Army jacket, which he'd
left laid open on the floor. Linnis seemed to prefer being held by
her father, though. She had caught the open front flap of his
shirt and didn't seem to want to let go.

"We're going to have to get something straight, Linnis. I'm the
one who gets to take off Daddy's shirt, understand?" B'Elanna
admonished gently as she awkwardly rolled towards her
daughter, trying to minimize the pressure on her aching bottom.
Tom, to her delight, laughed and kissed B'Elanna on the
forehead in the same way as he had their daughter a few
minutes before. After helping him free himself from the tight
grasp of their little girl so that he could wrap her up in the
jacket, B'Elanna accepted the precious burden he handed her
and leaned back to rest.

In no time at all, Tom had helped her deliver the afterbirth,
covered her with a blanket, and was massaging her stomach to
stop the bleeding, suggesting, "Try to nurse the baby. It will
help control the bleeding--it will make your uterus contract."

Now she remembered. She had questioned the need for the
Doctor's "childbirth preparation class" when it had seemed to be
an annoying interruption of her busy schedule, but now that
she'd given birth, she no longer felt the time had been wasted.
Maybe it was a natural process, but she felt that Tom and she
had worked well together, thanks to being ready for everything
that was going to happen--even if she hadn't realized it while
she was going through it.

Although he never stopped kneading her abdomen, Tom was
able to steady the baby with his free hand while B'Elanna
fumbled with her dress top. After finally managing to uncover
her breast, B'Elanna tried to coax the baby to turn her face
towards the bared nipple. She was unsuccessful until she
remembered another bit of the Doctor's advice: "Brush the
nipple against the baby's cheek, and voila! She will know
exactly what to do, Lieutenant. You'll see."

Just as the EMH had predicted, the minuscule mouth opened
and closed around what had been offered, prompted by instinct.
The baby tugged experimentally with the nipple for a few
seconds before latching on fairly well and pulling it in,
establishing a rough and unsteady rhythm that, nonetheless,
seemed well able to get the job done.

Relieved, B'Elanna sighed, "Linnis, you've got a pretty hard
suck for somebody who was just born."

"She must take after her mother. All business," remarked Tom.

B'Elanna glanced at him, flashing a smile at his smirk. He could
still be such a smart-aleck, although she'd found how much she
loved to see that side of him. B'Elanna riposted that the baby's
talent for sucking on B'Elanna's breasts might have come from
the Paris side of the family, too--which made Tom chuckle.
B'Elanna lay back, content, losing herself in the sensation of the
baby sucking her nipple and Tom's tender loving care of her,
too. The baby didn't nurse too long, falling asleep with her
mouth still on her mother's breast, but B'Elanna didn't mind.
Feeling at peace for one of the few times in her life, B'Elanna
enjoyed the feel of Tom's hands on her body as he did what he
had to do of her, allowing her mind to wander.

Since she went on a simple away mission with Tom, her life had
evolved to a staggering degree. All they were supposed to do
was spend a few hours digging dilithium crystals out of a cliff.
Instead, when they'd been stranded, her entire life had been
turned upside down, not that she hadn't welcomed finding
something she'd striven to find for as long as she could
remember. She'd found someone who could look past her
forehead and love the person within--or both people warring
within her, to be precise.

But then, Tom Paris was uniquely qualified to love B'Elanna
Torres. Who better than he? This man had seen both her human
and Klingon selves after a Vidiian scientist on a prison planet
had separated her into two entities. He had comforted the
human part of her when her courage wavered by telling her that
fear was not something to be ashamed of, but to overcome.
After he'd flirted with her for months, to nothing but derision
from B'Elanna, an assault by a Vulcan crazed by the *pon farr*
on B'Elanna made her throw herself at Tom in the caves of a
lost mining colony. Despite his own desire to make love to her,
he'd shown only compassion for what was best for her. And
later, when she'd denied the truth she'd revealed to Tom about
her desire for him under the influence of her Klingon blood
fever had cooled, Tom had let her know that he was not afraid
of her Klingon passions but rather looked forward to seeing
them again someday, "When she really meant it."

Then came Tantrum, and learning what love with him was like .
. . and then running away from it, fearing the loss of her
independence so much that she pushed him away, almost
destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to her.

A shiver went down her spine as B'Elanna remembered the
aftermath. Breaking off the romance, and then finding out that
she was pregnant, and then . . .

Tears ran down her face and a sob ripped out of her throat as
she recalled the ghastly thing she'd almost done.

Tom pulled her into his arms, checking to make sure that the
still-sleeping Linnis wasn't crushed between them. His voice
was reassuring, but he was totally ignorant of the true source of
his wife's distress. "B'Elanna, everything seems fine. Are you in
a lot pain? There might have been a little tearing, but the Doc
can fix that, or maybe I can if we're here much . . ."

"No, no, that's not it," B'Elanna wept. "Oh, Tom! I came so
close to not having her--to getting rid of her! I can't believe I
even thought of doing such a thing! How could I?"

He rocked her gently. "It's okay," he soothed. "Don't be upset.
You *didn't* go through with it. You have your daughter in
your arms, and she's healthy and beautiful, just as beautiful as
you are. And tough! Even the Hirogen couldn't stop her from
getting here! Don't worry about the past, B'Elanna, especially
about something you never did!"

B'Elanna shook her head from side to side and cried, unable to
answer. She hugged Linnis close. It was true; she hadn't aborted
her; but it had been such a close, close thing! Looking back
now, B'Elanna could see how she had let herself be diverted
from having the "procedure" because in her secret heart of
hearts, she had always wanted to give birth to this baby and
love her--and her baby's father. She just hadn't been able to
admit it to herself, any more than she'd been able to admit her
love for Tom before the blood fever forced it out of her. All her
life, she'd been pursuing love and pushing it away at the same
time. This was just another example . . . almost the most tragic
example of all.

If the Doctor had not followed policy, if he had acquiesced to
her demand for an abortion when she'd first found out about her
pregnancy, would she have lived to regret it as bitterly as she
now regretted the fact she'd even asked for it?

Whether or not to end a pregnancy was a choice that each
woman must make for herself, B'Elanna knew that. She also
accepted that for some pregnancies, there might be very good
reasons for making a different decision than the one that
B'Elanna had ultimately made. As she felt her emotions
churning within her, however, B'Elanna realized that yes, in all
probability, she would have regretted ending this pregnancy.
She knew that for the rest of her life she would have lived
through times like this, times when she would have recognized
what she'd done and been tortured by overwhelming guilt and
grief that she had not given her child the opportunity to be born.
Thank God, thank Kahless, thank infinite eternity for the way
she'd dragged her feet about having the abortion until Tom had
had the time to discover the truth--until he could let her know
just how much he loved her and wanted to create a family with
her--the family that they now had established.

B'Elanna's slight body shook while Tom comforted her by
holding her close, murmuring, "Everything's going to be all
right, B'Elanna, I promise. I'm here. You know how I feel about
you, don't you? About both of you? I love you. It'll be okay,
B'Elanna. It's all going to be okay."

Gradually, as Tom kissed away her tears and rubbed her body
with his hands, the bitterness of the memory and the intensity of
her emotions ebbed. Lifting her face to him, she kissed him on
the lips. His gentle kiss in return eased her mind and helped her
relax into his embrace.

"Are you okay now, Be'? I want both of my 'women' to be
feeling fine when we introduce our newest member of the crew
to her adoring public," Tom said, softly touching the baby's face
as he straightened B'Elanna's top, covering her bare breast now
that the baby was no longer attached to it.

Feeling too exhausted to say much, B'Elanna nodded her head
to let Tom know she agreed. Adjusting the bundle of her flesh
and blood she held in her arms so she could see better, B'Elanna
gazed upon her sleeping baby's face. Tom was right. Linnis was
beautiful, the most beautiful baby B'Elanna had ever seen.
Relieved and grateful she'd been saved from making a terrible
mistake by accepting Tom's love, B'Elanna hugged her child
gently so as not to wake her. With a sigh, B'Elanna rested her
head against Tom's shoulder as he invited Harry and Seven to
come meet baby Linnis.

---

The graphic demonstration of the human reproductive process
which had been proceeding for some time now was coming to a
climax, Seven concluded, if she was interpreting the sounds
issuing from out of the area of engineering designated the
"Chief Engineer's Office" correctly. Lieutenant Torres was
responding to Lieutenant Paris' admonishments to "Bear down,
B'Elanna! Keep it going!" with rolling grunting/growling sounds
that sounded like they would be irritating in the extreme to the
throat.

Then Lieutenant Paris called out, "Here she comes! B'Elanna,
look! She's here. Our Linnis is here. B'Elanna, she's gorgeous.
She looks just like you!"

At the sound of an infant crying, Seven looked up--again--from
her examination of the plasma conduits. During her perusal of
the texts describing human sexuality, Seven had naturally
included the process of birth, the end product of single-cell
reproduction, as a subject worthy of study. Having the process
occur right in front of her had distracted her for a surprising
amount of time from the efficient performance of her assigned
tasks. She had underestimated the intensity of the experience on
both the participants themselves as well as those who, like
Ensign Kim and herself, were merely bystanders.

From the look of Lieutenant Paris and the chief engineer, a
great deal of blood must be shed during the birthing process. It
was comparable to the amount lost during the removal of an
arm from a newly assimilated drone who was getting a
functional limb, or when a biological eye was replaced with an
ocular implant. Once Lt. Paris had removed the bloody blanket
that had been beneath his wife's legs along with the placental
tissues, Seven could finally pay full attention to the repairs she
should have be doing instead of watching the birth. Ensign Kim,
who had been standing quietly beside her and observing the
event as well, presumably had also returned to working at their
task, unless he was still staring at the newly-arrived child.

Curious to see what he was doing, Seven looked to her left.
Ensign Kim was doing neither; rather, he was leaning against
the wall, his unfocused eyes staring at a metal panel directly in
front of him.

"Ensign Kim, do you require assistance?"

Slowly, as if awakening from a regeneration cycle, Harry swung
his eyes towards Seven. She noted Harry's visual reception
change from something seen very far away, or perhaps totally
unseen and internal, to the sharp look of an aware being, several
seconds after his gaze fastened upon hers. His expression was
difficult to interpret, but that was not an unusual occurrence.
She was unable to read the expressions of many on board
Voyager.

"No, it's okay, Seven. I'm all right. Are they okay, too?"

"All appear to be in satisfactory condition, except for yourself.
Are you unwell?"

"No. I just . . . I just thought I heard Tom call out something
I . . .  What name did he call the baby?"

Although Lieutenant Torres had just addressed her child by
name, Seven could not be sure, because of Ensign Kim's
apparent confusion, that he had heard her. Seven felt it was
appropriate that she answer his question. "Her parents have
apparently bestowed the designation of Linnis upon the child. I
have not been informed of any secondary terms of
identification."

Seven observed Ensign Kim as he closed his eyes and looked
away from the infant and her parents. He appeared to be in a
deep meditative state, standing in one spot without moving for
an extended period. Seven returned to her tasks, but she looked
up several times to see if Ensign Kim had returned to his own
duties. He had not.

She was about to inquire again if he required her assistance
when a slow smile began to spread over his face. He opened his
eyes and moved to where he could view the proceedings more
easily. Seven found this incomprehensible, considering his
previous behavior, but before she could discuss this, Lieutenant
Paris addressed them both. "Harry? Seven? How would you like
to meet Linnis Kathryn Paris?"

Seven was about to refuse, saying that being introduced to the
child during this stage of the procedure Ensign Kim and she
were completing would not be advisable--particularly since they
had barely accomplished anything for the past hour--but Harry
said, "Give us a minute to finish up here." A quick check into
the open plasma conduit cover confirmed that their task was
closer to completion than she had anticipated. Chagrined that
she had been so distracted she had not even realized that, Seven
moved closer to Harry, working in tandem to effect the
remaining steps of the repair in very short order. Although
Seven continued to get the impression that Ensign Kim was also
not totally attentive to the task at hand, they worked well
enough together that Seven was able to complete the
assignment within the allotted time period of sixty standard
seconds, as the ensign had predicted. Closing the cover, Seven
turned and found Ensign Kim to be standing very close to her.
Or, perhaps, it was she who was standing very close to him,
close enough for their bodies to brush against one another. The
sensation was not unpleasant.

The operations officer followed this contact by performing a
much more deliberate action, moving his hand upon Seven's
spine and directing her to step around the support strut. They
approached the chief engineer where she was lying with her
child in her arms. Lieutenant Paris hovered over both of them.
The helmsman was dressed only in his Army shirt. His
undershirt  was wrapped around the child. Now that the birth
was over, Lt. Torres appeared ready to slip into sleep. Her
eyelids closed several times while Seven of Nine looked at the
expanded Collective of three.

"Assimilation appears to be a much more efficient process for
reproduction of a species than single cell reproduction," Seven
stated, suddenly realizing that Ensign Kim had never responded
to her previous question about the subject.

"That may be, Seven, but believe me, this is a lot more fun."
Lieutenant Paris' face had assumed the expression designated as
a 'smirk,' according to Captain Janeway lessons concerning
human behavior.

"Fun is . . ."

". . . irrelevant. Yes, I know," Tom finished for her.

Lt. Torres shook her head and opened her eyes. She looked at
Ensign Kim and said, "Harry, you don't mind, do you? We
wanted to honor her. If it bothers you for us to use the name
you and Kes would have used, though, we can change it."

"No, that's fine, B'Elanna. Really. I admit, I was a little
surprised when I heard it just now. I thought I'd only mentioned
it once."

"I think it was only once, but it's such a pretty name; it stuck in
my memory. It suits her, don't you think?" asks Tom.

"Yes, it does," Harry replied wistfully.

Any further comment was halted by a shout from Joe Carey.
"Lieutenant Torres? Harry? Are you there?"

"Over here, Joe," called out Harry. "We've got somebody here
for you to meet."

Carey, Sue Nicoletti, and five other engineers from Lieutenant
Torres' staff entered the chief engineer's office, to be introduced
to the newest crew member--and to receive their marching
orders from the chief engineer. "We need to get
communications back, Joe, and the whole power system needs a
thorough Level One Diagnostic, and we've got to get the
replicators . . ."

". . . back on line. I know. That's what the captain said to us
when she sent us down here. She was pretty worried about not
hearing from any of the people who were sent down to
engineering. She thought the Hirogen had taken over," Carey
confided.

"No, nothing like that. We just didn't have enough hands to do
the work. That shouldn't be a problem now. Harry? Seven?
You're going to stay and help, right? We need to get somebody
up to Cargo Bay Two to get parts . . ."

Nicoletti laughed. "Having a baby doesn't seem to have slowed
you down any, Lieutenant. We can't get up to Cargo Bay Two
now. That's one of the places the Hirogen are entrenched. We
managed to hook a portable power supply and replicator from
what's left of sickbay, though."

"Parts for the comm system. We need to replicate some parts,"
Ensign Kim quickly said.

"Can do. Just give me a few seconds to set things up," Carey
said, adding, "but are you sure you don't want to replicate a
little champagne first, to celebrate?"

"Get the comm system up, then you can do champagne,"
Lieutenant Torres yawned. Seven observed that her eyes were
closing again.

"You got it, Chief," Carey laughed, nodding to Nicoletti, who
was already connecting the replicator to the power source.

"And get moving on the main power system, too," Lieutenant
Torres mumbled. Lieutenant Paris lay down next to his wife, his
arms wrapped around her and the infant she was holding. Seven
went back to work, tagging three of the engineers to help her
check the bioneural gelpacks in the engineering section. She did
not expect the chief engineer to countermand her change of
priorities; from Seven's observations, she predicted that the
chief engineer had entered a sleep cycle.

Seven was not mistaken.

---

Harry shook Tom by the shoulders. "Tom, we've got the
transporters back up and running. You want us to transport the
three of you to the mess hall?"

"Already?" Tom said, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Already! You've been asleep for over four hours! Even without
B'Elanna cracking the whip we were able to get a few things
done in that amount of time."

"I guess so, but don't let the chief engineer here you say that."

"Not a word," Harry smiled.

Tom tightened his arms around his family. Neither B'Elanna nor
the baby had moved a muscle throughout the verbal exchange.
"Thanks for bringing the blankets and pillows, Harry. Give
Seven our thanks, too. I guess this is it for now. You'd better
get back to taking care of B'Elanna's engines. Don't mess them
up, or she'll come after you. New baby or not."

Harry chuckled, but before he could respond to Tom's remark,
Lieutenant Carey announced, "Three to be transported to sick
. . . I mean, the mess hall." The familiar sparkling light of the
transporter beam appeared and carried the small family away
from sight. "Do you think the Doctor will be mad at Tom for
delivering the baby instead of him?" Carey asked as he strolled
towards Harry.

"Joe, you can count on it," Harry replied with a chuckle. After
Carey had returned to his repair tasks, however, Harry found
himself staring at the place where the Paris family had been
lying marked by a pile of wet and bloodied clothing and
blankets, which needed to go in the recycler. The only other
sign they had been there was the medical kit propped against
the support strut where B'Elanna had hung just a short time
ago. There had certainly been a lot of excitement during the
past few weeks, culminating in the miracle that he had just
witnessed. So much excitement, but so much still to do. His
melancholy mood had not totally left him, but standing here
pondering it wasn't going to make that go away. Work might,
however.

Harry started to turn around on his heel to go find another
engineering task now that the transporters were again
functional. He almost stumbled over Seven of Nine, who was
standing so closely behind him that he had to take a step back to
avoid stomping on one of her feet.

"Ensign Kim, will you be able to pay attention to task now that
Lieutenants Paris and Torres are gone?"

"Sure," Harry grunted defensively, interpreting her comment as
a criticism.

Seven stared at him intently. "Ensign Kim, are you certain? You
have been distracted most of the day. Are you sure I cannot
render assistance to you?"

Harry wondered if this conversation was going where the last
one had, since he wasn't prepared to deflect another question
about his experience in single cell reproductive techniques. He
started to change the subject before realizing he actually wanted
to talk about his feelings with someone. Anyone. Even Seven.
"No, that's okay. I just . . . I just got a chance to look at my
future. One that never was and never will be, but maybe another
that can. It threw me a little. I'll be fine."

"I do not comprehend."

"I'm not sure I do either, Seven. Let's get back to work, before
B'Elanna hustles down here again with her baby on her back to
whip us both back into shape."

Seven raised an eyebrow. "I do not require whippings to
perform my assigned tasks. Nor to get 'back' into shape. If
anything, Lieutenant Torres will need to 'whip herself into
shape' now that she has achieved parturition."

Harry cleared his throat awkwardly. "I think you'd better not let
B'Elanna hear you say that. She might take it the wrong way.
Or maybe she'd take it the right way. Either way, I don't thing
she'd take it too well."

"I defer to your judgment, but we must return to our duties. It
is counterproductive to waste time over personal
disagreements. We need to run diagnostics on the nacelles and
repair them of any damage they may have sustained from the
Hirogen's adaptations--unless you wish to recalibrate the
containment fields in the matter-antimatter chamber. There are
many tasks that need to be done."

"You're right, Seven. It's time to get on with it."

At the sight of Seven's raised eyebrow, Harry realized that his
answer may not have been specific enough. He'd said what he
had to, however; there was a double meaning to his words that
he would no longer ignore. That was exactly what he needed to
do. Get on with life, something he'd only been pretending to do
for much too long. 

As they walked towards the matter-antimatter chamber to work
on adjustments to the containment field, Harry had left enough
space between himself and his companion in front of him to
notice just how trim the posterior of Seven of Nine looked in
the snugly fitting black outfit she'd worn in the holodeck
simulation. For the first time in a very long time, Harry blushed
as thoughts of a tactile nature passed through his mind. //Me
and Seven of Nine??? Wherever did that thought come from?//

---

::::Captain's log, Stardate 51715.2. The damage to Voyager
has been extreme. Both sides have taken heavy casualties, and
it's clear that no one is going to win this conflict. The fighting
has reached a standstill and the remaining Hirogen have
agreed to negotiate a truce.::::

"It is time, Captain."

Kathryn Janeway nodded her assent as Tuvok picked up the
device resting on her desk. It was an essential component of all
holodeck technology. As they exited her ready room, Chakotay
nodded his head at Harry Kim to cover the bridge and strode
into the turbolift after Tuvok. As they rode in silence down to
Deck Eight, where a team of Tuvok's security forces awaited
them. They could not see around the curving corridor or into
Cargo Bay Two, but she knew who would be meeting them
there.

"You sure about this, Kathryn?" Chakotay asked softly. "There
will be some who will complain that this is a Prime Directive
violation when we get home."

She smiled crookedly, with little humor evident despite her
expression. "If the race that built the communication array and
hunted hundreds of warp-capable species throughout this
quadrant in their own warp drive ships doesn't qualify for a little
trade for Federation technology, then no one does."

"A trade, Captain?" Tuvok's right eyebrow was raised
quizzically. "And what are the Hirogen trading to us?"

She smoothed away an errant lock of hair from in front of her
eye as she grimly replied, "Our lives, Tuvok. Our lives, in return
for a little fantasy that might save a civilization--if they're lucky.
We're alone in this quadrant. The Hirogen are not. If they are
willing to grant us safe passage through their space for
holodeck technology, the trade is fair. More than fair."

They all stood at attention as they heard the clump of heavy
boots in the corridor outside of Cargo Bay Two. At Kathryn's
signal, the Voyager representatives marched through the Cargo
Bay entrance. A group of Hirogen, dressed in the traditional
armor of the Hunter, approached from the other direction.

The leader of the Hirogen looked down at the device the
Voyager crew offered. "What is this?"

"You can use this to create simulations on your own vessels like
the ones you experienced here, where you hunted us. I made a
promise with your leader . . . before he died . . . that I would
give this knowledge to the Hirogen. Take it."

The new Hirogen leader, hesitating, said gruffly, "His ideas
were unconventional. I do not share them."

Kathryn smiled. "Was he any more unconventional than you
are? Calling a cease-fire with your Prey? Only a few days ago
the thought of speaking with us on equal terms would've been
inconceivable, but here we are. Accept this . . .trophy. You can
use it to create a new future for your people. At the very least,
you can hang it on your bulkhead."

Dipping his head respectfully, the new leader of the Hirogen
accepted the device, shifting it from side to side as if visualizing
where this trophy could best be displayed on his ship.

"And someday," Kathryn said, "you may discover that you no
longer find his ideas so unconventional and will learn to use this
device. Caahrr was a worthy and honorable foe, and very wise.
He wanted your people to flourish. He sacrificed his life to
purse that goal. There are worse examples to follow."

The Hirogen turned the object over again before looking at
Janeway. Their eyes met. It was hard to tell, from the
intelligence which shone from both sets of eyes, which might be
the hunters, and which, the pursued. He nodded again in
respect. "And you are such cunning Prey that perhaps, instead,
you are also Hunters."

Kathryn smiled wistfully, wishing that another voice had been
able to deliver that message. "It is an honor to hear you say so.
I consider it a compliment."

---

Somewhere, not far away, a melancholy, non-corporeal smile
marked the spirit of a watcher. The watcher was pleased, for
the people of Voyager had survived again, although not without
experiencing tragedy and pain.

The watcher was sorrowful that the life of a being of vision and
intelligence had been sacrificed to save his people from their
own excesses; but by his death, he had salvaged their future. His
race ruthlessly hunted others, yet they themselves were on the
verge of extinction. The martyr had found a way for them to
live without destroying others or giving up the Hunt which they
loved so much. Someday, she knew, he would find honor from
his own. She was pleased that this was so.

Even more, the watcher was pleased by the subtle change in the
relationship between two of the inhabitants of Voyager. A
promise made at what amounted to the point of death might
someday be fulfilled, even though it would be in a radically
different manner than the spirit had expected when she still had
corporeal form.

There was so much for this watcher to do before a safe harbor
for Voyager and her people could be reached, but she was
working on it. And that definitely pleased her.

---

The End