“Absolutely not!” Kathryn Janeway’s voice was loud and clear as she responded to B’Elanna’s requests. “I will not have a child running around in Engineering.”
Around the table, various people girded themselves for an argument. Harry Kim, green as he was, still looked afraid to offer any opinions whatsoever. Tuvok’s expression wavered between thoughtful and pensive. Tom leaned forward on the table, B’Elanna looked offended. Neelix stroked his chin. Kes looked a little apprehensive as to her newfound Captain’s reaction.
“Captain, with all due respect, where are you going to put her?” Tom broke in.
“Isn’t there anywhere else?” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Kes – couldn’t you use her help in the airponics bay? Surely with all that you’ve started…”
“Captain,” Kes’s sweet, husky voice replied, “whatever is going on in the airponics bay doesn’t require Sara’s help in growing.”
“You never know – the plants might rub off on her,” Tom quipped before turning serious again. “I worked with her briefly on the Maquis ship.” He cast a dubious glance at Chakotay, whose face hardened. “And I can tell you that Sara learned more from B’Elanna than she could have learned in ten years at Starfleet. Captain, we’re talking about a girl who’s served aboard a Maquis vessel along with 25 other adults for the past two years of her life. She’s become integrated to the facts of duty schedules, catastrophes, improvising. You can’t just step in and relegate her to Cookie Tester #1 in the mess hall – no offense, Neelix.”
“None taken,” The Talaxian put in. He was glad no one else in the room could sense his own apprehension at having a telepath that close to him for extended amounts of time.
“Captain, I’ll tell you what I told the Commander last night.” B’Elanna leaned forward as well. “Her size isn’t a hinderance – it’s her greatest asset. I don’t have anyone else who’s capable of crawling through a Jeffries Tube in the time it takes her, which is less than nothing. Who else has hands the size of hers and can get their fingers up into a console right at the particular place? No one.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you.” Janeway looked around at everyone in amazement. Silence followed.
“It would seem,” Tuvok broke in to the discussion, “That it would be prudent to have her under Lt. Torres’ supervision, rather than leaving her to her own devices.”
“So I’m faced with the prospect of a child in engineering or a telepath running the ship all hours of the day and night.”
“Is that what bothers you?” Tom of all people was the only one that could challenge the Captain and get away with it. He had the least and the most to lose at the same time. “That she’s a child – or that she’s a telepath?”
“Doesn’t it bother you?” she retorted back.
“Not really,” he shrugged, leaning back thoughtfully. “I mean, once you get used to tools and other niceities floating around simultaneously, it’s not so bad.”
“I have to say, that’s another one of the runt’s advantages,” B’Elanna commented.
Janeway cut her off. “Runt?”
“Ah…a nickname,” Tom grinned sheepishly. “It stuck from the Maquis.”
“Let’s get it unstuck,” Janeway commanded, and then rubbed her eyes. “All right, Lt. You want her, she’s yours. But I’m warning you – you’re responsible. You are as well Commander. If she screws up, it’s on both of your heads. Understood?”
“Yes, Captain.” B’Elanna didn’t like it, but she’d gotten what she wanted. The meeting dispersed, Chakotay hanging back.
“Bring her to me,” Janeway issued a final command. “My ready room.”
“Aye Captain.”
*****************
Sara stood silently and politely facing Captain Janeway, who looked her over by walking around in a circle while Chakotay stood near the door, silent and removed from the conversation. Sara had indeed followed her instructions; her hair was shiny-clean and pulled back into two sleek braids, her white scalp running down the middle, dressed in a high-necked red shirt (most likely to hide what the doctor told her about her back) and looser black leggings than what she’d previously seen, but with the same low-heeled boots, nothing to add an inch or two to her height, which ranged somewhere in between four or five feet. Her azure-blue eyes stared hauntingly out of sockets pressed into a pale face. It would take more than a day to replace the fat and nutrients lost from three weeks of little more than ration bars, but Janeway decided not to comment on that.
“I see you follow instructions,” The Captain was quiet.
“Yes, Captain.” Sara responded politely.
“You did very well on your testing, the doctor tells me,” she picked up a padd and studied it casually, pursing her lips. Sara remained silent. “Apparently you have a photographic memory.”
“Yes, Captain.” Sara responded again. The girl sounded like a broken recording. Janeway wondered if she ever said anything else.
“Commander, that will be all,” she said, and Chakotay nodded once, leaving the room.
When the doors had shut behind him she motioned the girl to a chair, taking the other so as to be level with her, eye to eye. “We seem to have a problem on our hands, don’t we?” she asked softly, still tense in the presence of a young telepath.
Sara gazed at her, those blue eyes enough to make anyone nervous, though she relaxed slightly.
“You don’t remember anything about where you come from? Your family? Nothing?” Janeway was gentle.
Sara thought for a moment, taking in a deep breath, eyes widening slightly, then shook her head.
“You have a large amount of scar tissue. Do you know what caused it?”
“I know they’re there,” the young girl admitted. “I guess I’ve just tried not to think about it.”
“Do they hurt at all? The doctor can have them removed…”
“It’s all right.” Sara was calm.
“What do you remember? What are your interests, your likes, your dislikes?”
“Such as?”
“Do you play sports?”
Sara looked at her like she had lost her mind. “I can’t play sports.”
“Why…oh. Your telepathy.” Captain Janeway felt like kicking herself. “I suppose that would make things rather hard.”
“I don’t remember whether I played sports before the Maquis. In the Maquis, I couldn’t play cards or things like chess. But I like to run.”
“You like to run.” The older woman repeated, a small smile on her face.
“I like to run.” Sara shrugged. “I swam sometimes, on the colonies.”
“I see...Sara," Kathryn paused, then went on, "I searched the Federation database records, trying to learn what I could. I have to confess that I didn’t take Tuvok seriously in his reports that there was a child on board that Maquis vessel, or I would have done something sooner. We have Federation records on everyone except you.”
Sara remained silent, a silence that stretched uncomfortably. She in truth didn’t know what she was supposed to say.
"Your records are sealed," the Captain of Voyager was quiet. "Everything about you is sealed. I managed to find your birth record, but that's about it. Everything relating to anything else -- parents, relatives, even birthmarks and school history -- it's classified. Is there anything that you can tell me about why Starfleet would choose to seal a family's worth of records?"
The teenager's blue eyes shone with haunted shadows, a slight bit of bewilderment creeping into them, and then she almost smiled. Almost. "You don't believe me when I tell you that I don't remember," her voice was soft.
It was said without apology. A simple statement of fact. "I believe you," Janeway told her, "the doctor has even confirmed it -- you're telling the truth. It would just make things...easier...if we knew...more."
Sara nodded wordlessly. An agreement. An agreement saying that she would like to know more as well, only the means of doing that just happened to be a distant galaxy's trip away. Not exactly within reach of calling Starfleet HQ and demanding an explaination.
“Well,” Janeway got back to the matter at hand. “I realize that you’re rather young to be on board a starship, but I’m afraid there’s no starbase to drop you off at. It looks like you’ll be going home the same way as the rest of us.
“The problem of where to put you has been solved,” the captain continued. “Lt. Torres has requested your…assistance…in engineering.” Sara remained silent. “Engineering is a secured area. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yes, Captain. I understand.” Good grief, another broken-recording response.
“I can’t commission you.” Janeway was blunt. “Frankly, I’m at a loss as to exactly what to do with you. You’re too young to hold actual, commissioned rank. But…” she continued, putting the padd down on the desk, “there may be a compromise. I can give you the rank of Acting Ensign, which means in essence you would be an officer, but you wouldn’t.”
Silence again. Nothing moving from the lips of the girl-child telepath in front of her. The Captain of the USS Voyager wondered what was going on inside her head; she could almost hear gears turning. Nevertheless, she didn’t have time to dissect it.
“Since you have no objections, I’ll assume that you agree.What’s your full name?”
“Sara Elizabeth Ann Thompson.” Came the automatic response.
“Age?”
“Fourteen, Captain.”
“Very well.” Janeway turned her monitor towards her and punched a few keys, then slapped it off and leaned towards the small girl again. “I’m entering into the ship’s log on this that you will now be known as an Acting Ensign. I want you to understand what this means, Sara. It means that you’re being asked to work in a secured area of a starship with people that have worked all their lives to earn something that you just so brazenly received. You’re going to be working with people that have ten, twenty, and even thirty years of space duty and knowledge behind them. You’ll also be under Lt. Torres’ direct supervision. Any complaints, questions, requests or problems, taken them to her, or to Commander Chakotay. However…” her voice softened a bit as she slipped a comm badge into Sara’s hand, “…if you need anything, you can contact us, myself included. Do you understand the responsibilities you’re being asked to undertake, the responsibilities that go along with this?”
Sara nodded wordlessly.
“I’m extending to you the same priveleges as anyone else on this ship. You have use of the holodecks if you like, you’re not confined in any way. Step out of line, and you will be. There will be no fighting, and no dishonesty. I’m an honest person. I’ve never believed in hiding the truth from anyone. Therefore I’m going to tell you that I’m not fond of this idea. I wish that I could allow you to have a childhood here, aboard Voyager, but I don’t have the time. Our mission is to get home – to Earth, to Federation space.
Were we in the Alpha Quadrant or even remotely close, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Sara understood that and infinitely more, what was said and what was left unsaid. In other words, I’m giving you this rank because I don’t think you can keep it. She swallowed before replying. “I understand, Captain.”
“Another thing – this…telepathy of yours. On this ship, we speak aloud. You are not to use your abilities in any way to harm those of others. If Lt. Torres chooses to take advantage of your…talents, that’s up to her. I don’t need to hear endless complaints about tools flying around Engineering that could land others in sickbay. I don’t want to wake up at night with the ship suddenly put at red alert because you armed the photon torpedo banks. If you are asked a question, you will respond by moving your lips and speaking the way others do, not by having your voice floating through their head. No doubt you’re inundated with more thought processes than I or any other human could imagine. The emotions of others that are projected on to you isn’t something that I’ll even pretend to understand. I feel for you, but there’s no way that I can make an allowance for you because of it. Are we in agreement?”
Sara nodded again.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, Captain.” She licked dry lips.
“Very well then.” Sara found a padd thrust into her hands. “You’re to report to engineering. This is a list of protocols, as well as the ships’ manual. No doubt Lt. Torres has others she’ll expect you to learn. I expect nothing but the best from you, as I do from the rest of my crew. You’re a part of that crew now, we’ll see what happens.”
“Aye, Captain.” Sara was standing as tall as she possibly could.
“Dismissed.”
Sara got herself out of there as briskly as possible.
