Chapter Text
2375, Voyager, Delta Quadrant
In the Ready Room, Commander Ro Laren, Lieutenant Commander Veronica Stadi, Lieutenants Alexander Honigsberg and Sahreen Lan, and Seven of Nine had all taken seats along the upper level between the various planters—even Seven was sitting—while Lan and Honigsberg went over what Ro believed was, in fact, their final checklist.
"And that leaves the phase variance?" Ro said. This had always been the sticking point. One of Stadi’s simulation runs of the QSD in action, had shown a point-four-two phase variance in the quantum slipstream’s tunnel threshold, which—once they added it to the rest of their simulations—ended in spectacular failure.
All hands, abandon ship-level failure.
Then Li-Paz had noticed an interesting interaction between an alien communication subspace lattice and the subspace geometry of Voyager, and when Seven of Nine and Atara Ram had looked at his data, they’d seen the solution.
More simulations followed—and…
"The Flyer’s wake compensates for the majority of the variance effect," Seven of Nine said. "Though it requires rapid adjustment of Voyager’s journey through the threshold, to compensate."
"The Flyer surfs ahead," Honigsberg said, nodding. "Creating the wake we need for Voyager to have a stable ride, but if we add in giving the heads up Voyager needs to make all the micro-adjustments—we compensate enough to keep the slipstream stable in the wake."
Ro nodded. The data checked out—not without risk, but…
We make our own future. A certainty that had been back in the core of her being for a week now, the restoration of that sincere belief they’d get home might be clouding her assessment somewhat, but she knew she could count on Roni to point it out if she thought it was doing so in a way that blinded her to reality.
The Betazoid woman shook her head slightly, though Ro thought only Seven noticed.
"Okay," Ro said, nodding once, making her decision. "Alex, you’ve put the most time in on the quantum threshold simulations—you’re on the Flyer. You can be the pipeline to Voyager—which, Seven, I’d like you to manage."
"Of course," Seven said.
"Absolutely," Honigsberg grinned, rubbing his goatee.
"Roni, it’s safe to say we need you on Voyager in the pilot’s seat," Ro said, and Stadi nodded, but before Ro could continue with a request for Roni’s thoughts on who should pilot the Flyer, her acting first officer interrupted.
"And you should pilot the Flyer," Stadi said.
Ro took a breath, about to argue.
"Commander Stadi is correct," Seven of Nine said. "Lieutenant Lan and I will be co-ordinating with Lieutenant Honigsberg, and Commander Stadi’s piloting skills are required on Voyager. The next most capable pilot on Voyager with the required experience at navigating substantial gravimetric anomalies is yourself."
Apparently, Seven had spent some time with the crew records. Why wasn’t Ro surprised? She leaned back in her chair. "I’m in command right now," she said, raising one hand, trying to hold fast to the regulations when in truth, she wanted to be at the controls of the Flyer. Stadi was a better pilot than her, but that’s why they needed her on Voyager; Ro was—as Seven noted—the best for the job on the Flyer, but it felt self-indulgent.
It also broke chain of command regs, given the situation.
Or, maybe it was more that it felt like she wouldn’t be doing what Captain Cavit had asked of her.
"This isn’t about pride or protocol," Stadi said, not remotely deterred. Her black eyes remained utterly serious. "In every way that matters, the Flyer will be issuing all the commands to Voyager—which means that’s where you should be. Cing’ta or Arkinson can sit in the big chair to handle any shipboard issues while we do the hard work."
"Are you really going to argue with Seven?" Lan said, pointing at Seven of Nine.
Seven of Nine raised her organic eyebrow in Ro’s direction. She’d taken to wearing her cadet uniform outside of her training sessions, Ro had noticed, and couldn’t help but think the grey and blue outfit added a certain level of authority to the already daunting presence.
"I surrender," Ro said, shaking her head, giving in to their opinions and a better mood both. She blew out a breath. "Tomorrow, oh eight hundred."
The delighted smiles from everyone—well, not Seven, though frankly even Seven dipped her chin in an approving way—made Ro’s own lips twitch in response. The crystals were synthesized—in fact, they’d already be starting to decay—the drive was installed, and a complex mix of Swei, Borg, Federation, and the technology of half a dozen other species on top of it all were ready to do something they’d dreamed of for nearly four years now.
Send them home.
They broke up, and Stadi lingered, as Ro imagined she might.
"There’s nothing self-indulgent about knowing you’re the best for the job," Stadi said, once they were all gone.
"I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed having you tell me I’m right," Ro said.
"Well, I only do it when you are," Stadi said, chuckling.
"Treat you to a mocha?" Ro said. "It could be our last one in the Delta Quadrant."
"Oh," Stadi said, pausing and putting a hand to the centre of her chest. "Four Gods, that’s true. I probably shouldn’t, given it’s going to be so hard to sleep tonight, but yes. Absolutely."
They headed to the Mess Hall together.
*
Aaron Cavit lifted his husband’s hand, and—after glancing at the PADD even though he was sure he knew every step of this routine by now given he’d been doing it for days—started manipulating the fingers one by one.
"Okay, where was I?" Cavit said, offering a fond smile down at the man in the support frame bed in the centre of their quarters. "Right. The Baxter boys and their latest caper."
Fitzgerald, nearing the end of a week-long induced coma intended to bring him back from the brink of death, didn’t reply of course, but Cavit easily imagined the man’s soft smile. Jeff thought Walter Baxter and Gara’s three energetic boys were a delight.
"Tommy and Paul got themselves into Engineering—pretty sure Paul was the one who overrode the locks, Tommy’s far more likely to follow rules than to break them—and managed to get to the upper level without being seen." Cavit rotated Fitzgerald’s palm, rubbed at his the base of his thumb before stretching and rotating it next. "Apparently, they both wanted to see the benamite crystals before they we installed. Viru, it should be noted, wanted nothing to do with this, but he didn’t turn them in, either."
Cavit shook his head, smiling. "Alex being Alex, he told them to leave—after he showed them the crystal." Cavit lowered his husband’s left hand, then shifted his stool around to the other side of the bed, starting on his right. "I honestly think Alex is looking forward to them coming of age—between those two and James, I think we’ve got some budding engineers on deck, though I’m pretty sure Zandra and Abol are still leaning into the whole 'at least try finding a branch of science you might enjoy' with James."
He worked finger by finger. "Also, on the topic of the Baxter boys—Viru is almost as tall as Walter already—and Nen and James are shooting up—I bumped into Zandra and the kids in the Mess Hall and they were both in new clothes. Again." Onward to the thumb and palm. "Nothing quite like Ocampa kids to make you notice the passage of time, is there?"
Cavit smiled, placing Jeff’s right hand back on the bed, and—once again, even though he knew what was next—checked the PADD before moving on to his husband’s feet.
"Part of me wanted to ask Ro to delay crystallizing the benamite until after it was time to wake you up," Cavit said, pausing his massage of Fitzgerald’s left food to glance up at his face. With his eyes closed and lying so still, sometimes Cavit could almost fool himself into think his husband was merely asleep, but this wasn’t one of those times. "But both Emmett and Kes pointed out if this works as effectively as Alex, Sahreen, and Seven project it will, we could be waking you up at a fully functional Starfleet Medical facility instead of Sickbay, and I’m not going to argue with them."
Moving on to the other foot, Cavit took a shakier breath than he’d intended, and had to stop for a moment. "You will wake up. And I know that’s not the end of it—Emmett needs to talk to you about your kidneys, and your liver, but your blood toxicity levels are much better, so the current treatments are doing what they were intended to do—at least one of your kidneys is doing some of its job." He cleared his throat, and worked on rotating his husband’s ankle. "And listen to me, I almost sound like you, knowing medical jargon."
Cavit worked through the rest of the stretches designed to minimize atrophy in Fitzgerald’s musculature. Li-Nis and Sullivan would be by before the end of the day with neurostimulant bands. The technology functioned somewhat like the bands Fitzgerald normally wore on his bad hand to make it function, but instead were designed to create micro-spasms in the muscle tissue to further arrest atrophy and muscle weakness. It wasn’t perfect, nothing could replace actual motion, but their intent was to ensure Fitzgerald had as short a journey back to full motion as they could prepare for him, once they woke him back up.
Especially since they were unsure just how able-bodied he’d be once he did.
The damage to his nervous system, repaired piece by piece through multiple surgeries with both Emmet and Kes working side-by-side, were finished now at least. The damage the non-humanoid alien lifeform had inflicted when it used Fitzgerald to try and heal itself had been extreme.
He’s alive. We’ll wake him up soon. He will wake up.
Cavit smoothed his shirt. He’d passed command to his executive officer, and while Commander Ro Laren sent him a daily précis of what was going on on Voyager, and he did step out of his quarters—to visit the gym or the Mess Hall, or to accompany Jeff when he needed to be taken back to Sickbay for a more detailed scan or procedure—Ro had done exactly as he’d asked, allowing him to put all his attention where it needed to be.
When Sahreen and Seven had announced they might have cracked the quantum slipstream problem—strangely enough, thanks to the same non-humanoid lifeform that had left his husband in a coma and Crewman Cir on a recovery journey of his own—Cavit had felt a moment’s urge to join in the project. He’d been an engineer before he’d been a command officer.
But no. He knew his mind would never focus on the remaining problems they still needed to solve—the phase variance, the positioning of the Flyer to create the wake—not with Jeff sleeping like this.
"We’re getting ready to fly home," Cavit said. "And you and I get to sit back and watch. In fact," Cavit gestured to the five large windows their quarters afforded them of the view ahead of Voyager. "We’ll have the best view in the house."