It had been three weeks since Sara had been integrated (she still thought the proper term should have been assimilated) into the Starfleet crew that was on board the USS Voyager.
Her quarters had been moved. She was actually only across the hall from Commander Chakotay, next door to him was the Captain – that shouldn’t have happened, but in the interests of handing out assignments, no one had thought about it. After she had been forgotten about for the previous three weeks on board Voyager, it was thought Sara needed more…supervision…and no one slept lighter than them. They should have been the quarters for the Chief Medical Officer, but he of course was a hologram that did not require them, and could not even move outside of sickbay.
So there she was. She was quite mindful that she was in senior officers’ territory, and as such took great care to move about in the corridors only when she knew there weren’t a myriad of people around for various reasons. Usually the only time she was seen was entering or leaving her quarters; the rest of the time she was inside of them. Being a telepath didn’t make things easier; she knew what everyone thought about – if she did site-to-site transports to move herself around the ship.
She had been given a uniform, as if that was supposed to make things better. It only served, in her mind, to make her stick out more. The uniform of an “acting ensign” was somewhat under scrutiny and disbelief, since only one other in the database had held such rank – Wesley Crusher of the Enterprise-D. All of Sara’s clothing had to replicated to fit, as most others did, though in her case almost exact measurements had to be taken. Chakotay had apparently researched the subject and found her a suitable uniform to wear: a pullover turtleneck that was dark gray, almost black, across her shoulders and the high neck, with red, yellow and blue stripes running one atop the other across her slim chest, before breaking to a lighter gray that would compose the rest, including the sleeves. It came to a tight band that encircled her waist, worn over slacks that were the same shade as her shoulders, and only served to emphasize how tiny she was in that area. Captain Janeway winced when she saw her, although neither she nor anyone else could say too much; it was, after all, regulation according to past records. The shale, toneless color highlighted the blue of her eyes if nothing else, though it also brought out the pale porcelain of her skin. The pants were split in an upside-down V at the ankles, just as normal uniform trousers were, to flare over standard issue black boots. When clad in it, Sara pulled her hair up, the double feather-tipped braids that hung to her waist wound around her head somewhat in crown fashion.
True to her word, B’Elanna Torres needed her “Tommy” in Engineering. However, Sara had little doubt of the want that had been in her request. She served only one, maybe two scheduled duty shifts a week, though somehow it made no difference to B’Elanna, who took every available opportunity – when she needed her – to drag her from her quarters or whatever activity she might have been pursuing. If not in the conduits that ran throughout the ship, though still on “scheduled” duty, Sara found herself relegated to Deck 15, down in the deepest reaches of the ship where every hum and vibration reverberated from the titanium hull, causing the most awful low-pitched whine. At least there was some benefit to it – there weren’t that many people down there, so her telepathy wasn’t that shattered. Her other duty hours – numbering from 12 to 16 total, per week – were spent crawling through Jefferies tubes, usually alone, accompanied by a tool pack and in search of some obscure system, either because it was malfunctioning or because it was working perfectly and everyone wanted it to stay that way. Or, if worse came to worse, a snarling B'Elanna sent her straight back to her quarters.
Sara often thought that for someone who wanted her so badly, B’Elanna sure had a funny way of showing it.
Chakotay was almost no better. She understood that he was far busier now than he had ever been during their time in the Maquis, but it didn’t help that every time she tried to talk to him he seemed to be just that – busy. He spent his duty shifts on the bridge, 14 decks above her. His evenings were occupied either relearning protocols he’d forgotten, writing reports or logs, conjuring up duty shifts, or on the holodeck playing various forms of sports, usually with either B’Elanna or Harry Kim. She was virtually not permitted on the bridge by a standing and not-so-kindly unwritten order of the Captain, since she made her nervous as hell.
And it wasn’t just the Captain, it was everyone on board. The trait that made them nervous denied her a life of lies, a life of peace and delusion that maybe it was just something she thought wrong – she had access to everyone’s true feelings.
The most terrible part was, she agreed with them. It was invasive. There were times, times she didn’t choose to acknowledge because there was no way to get around it, that she wanted to stand on a table in the mess hall and scream at all of them that it wasn’t her fault, she’d been born that way, couldn’t they understand that?
It would have made no difference. If anything it would have alienated her more.
She knew she was supposed to be receiving schooling. It would be arranged soon, or so Chakotay had said. Right now everyone was getting used to their new situation, coping with the fact that they had a very, very long journey ahead of them and that they would never see friends or loved ones again.
She knew it was the truth, but not the whole truth. Chakotay was never a very good liar, and it was useless in any case. The fact that he could have forgotten that was almost comforting. But it didn’t help the cold hard facts – everyone was afraid of her.
Almost everyone. The one bright spot was that being on Voyager brought her face-to-face with Tom Paris, thought lost or killed during their Maquis days. While Chakotay scowled at him and B’Elanna verbally sparred with him, Sara gave an inward smile. He was almost the closest thing she had to a friend. He brought her padds that were filled with games and puzzles, patted her on the head, tossed her to the ceiling, and sometimes stopped by her quarters after his duty shifts to replicate her a meal. Shamelessly he carried her around the corridors garnering looks from everyone including the Captain, usually to the holodeck, where for the first time in her life Sara found someone willing to play sports with her.
Not surprisingly, Sara loved the holodeck. A place of fantasy, projections of photons and forcefields that were not in any way real, and therefore had no minds to read. Also quite unsurprisingly, though it did cause some in the beginning, she liked the company of the Emergency Medical Hologram that, like the holodecks, was a simple projection, a uniform-clad, balding, walking database of information, but still not real and therefore without a mind to read. She spent hours in sickbay pestering him with questions, not simply chattering away but actual intellegent questions, until he found he couldn’t keep up with the speed of them and planted her firmly on a biobed with a padd and instructions not to move.
The only people on board who could perhaps understand her predicament were Tuvok, Vorik, Kes, and Gerrot, a betazoid who by distinction turned out to be a throwback of his own, and not a full telepath. Chakotay remarked that he was as close to the actual thing without being so, and had an uncanny knack to know what one was going to say without the title disctinction, but still wasn’t.
Kes sympathized with Sara, and found she herself preffered the environment of sickbay, a place where she could work somewhat in peace wtihout the empathic projections of the crew invading her consciousness. Tuvok and Vorik, being Vulcan, were nice enough in an unemotional way, as was their nature. Vorik sought her company on occasion, being younger than Tuvok and not considered fully an adult (he had not yet reached the Pon Farr), conducting a general conversation if she happened to be priveleged enough to work at a console in engineering, which was usually only until B’Elanna caught sight of her, and sent her somewhere else.
Tuvok’s efforts were possibly the most widely known, though perhaps also the most futile. His initial thoughts had been to ‘instruct’ her as he instructed Kes, in disciplining and training her telepathic abilities, honing them, but soon found that he was somewhat out of his league. She was as polite as, if not more so, than his own Vulcan children. She exhibited an interest in kal-toh, but shunned dak’lir, the usual rowdy game of such people. Her telepathy made it impossible for her to enjoy games of cards or chess with any other opponent than a holographic one (usually the doctor, and then under severe protests that he did not play games).
Sara wouldn’t admit that she missed Chakotay, missed his friendship, missed the quirky way his grin and dimples would light up at certain times. They weren’t particularly close, but she knew that she intrigued him, as he did her, and knew that he had a soft spot in his heart for children, especially the ‘lost sheep’ type of child, a classification that Sara fell into. She spent hours wondering what had happened – gone was the gentle, kind man that had been her advocate, the one that while he hadn’t necessarily protected her, was at least her friend. The same held true with B’Elanna. Whatever had been inside her for Sara in the Maquis was simply gone.
Sara wondered sometimes what had happened, and if the people that were her friends were gone forever. Her telepathy wasn’t infallible, it did have its faults, but even the deepest of empathic searches – and they were possible – brought no trace of compassion or friendship from anyone except Kes and Tom Paris.
And then she heard all the confirmation she needed. Creeping around the corner in Engineering to the console where B’Elanna worked, going up the stairs to hear hers and Chakotay’s voices from around the bulkhead. Not that she needed to, that was, but she still couldn’t help what she heard.
“You wanted her,” She heard Chakotay remind B’Elanna.
“I wanted her skills. I didn’t want…this. And I seem to remember a certain Maquis fellow who wanted her around too.”
“I kept her because of her telepathy.” Chakotay was defensive. “She was too young, we all knew it.”
“Same could be said for Jerron.”
“Jerron’s different. He’s Bajoran, wanted to be with us. Sara just sort of…turned up.”
“You could have taken her back and you know it.” B’Elanna sounded normal, which meant she wasn’t about to be stuck with blame she didn’t feel she deserved.
“Oh, like that would have worked. No thank you, I’m not getting caught for taking someone back to Earth.”
“Are you going to talk to her?”
“No, why should I? She’s yours now. You deal with her.”
“She’s yours too. She listens to you more than she does me.”
“B’Elanna you don’t have to talk about it. Just stand there and think about it, her telepathy will pick it up.”
“Telepaths.” B’Elanna spat. “Never liked them. Not ever in my life. Hell, Betazoids make me nervous, let alone an abnormal runt…”
“B’Elanna…” Chakotay’s voice held warning tones. She sighed. “Besides, that little ‘abnormal runt’ is saving us tons of time with the way she can crawl through the Jeffries tubes.”
“You think that’s a good thing? She’s there because no one wants her around in here! If she’s not picking up their thought waves, she’s getting stepped on!”
“Well, at least she’s good for something. Now, about this schedule…if you take the core offline at 0700…”
Sara ran.
She ran through Engineering, down the corridors, into the turbolift and up to deck five, where she uncerimoniously plowed straight into sickbay – and the doctor.
“And what brings you here today?” He reached down and picked her up from the floor where she had landed, gripping her under the arms and setting her firmly on a bed. “What’s going on?”
“Can you make me not a telepath?” Sara was breathlessly desperate.
“What?” he was sure his auditory subroutines weren’t working correctly.
“I asked if you could take away my telepathy.”
He looked thoughtful for a minute, mostly for show since they both knew he had no mind to read, and took out a medical tricorder, scanning her head and neck. Punching one or two buttons he gazed at it, then back at Sara and shook his head. “It’s impossible.”
“Im…possible?”
“There’s no medical technology that can remove, or even block your telepathic abilities, I’m afraid,” he was ruefully quiet.
“Why would you want to change the way you are?” Kes had come up beside him, and was staring at Sara.
She stared at the gray carpeting of sickbay. “Because then…they’d like me.”
“Who’s they?” Kes was quietly compassionate.
“I heard B’Elanna and Chakotay talking,” Sara explained to the floor, without lifting her head. “They said that they only reason they kept me in the Maquis was that I was a telepath. And the only reason I’m here now is because I’m so small. Because I can work in the tubes and do things that no one else can.”
“It’s certainly true that you are unique,” Kes was trying to make Sara feel better.
“I don’t want to be…” Sara raised tired blue eyes and finally, sadly, voiced what seemed to both empath and hologram as her fondest wish. “I wish I wasn’t what I am. No one understands that. It’s hard to be this way, especially on a ship that has this many people. I’d never survive in Starfleet. If they didn’t dissect my head I’d just be accused of cheating on every one of my tests.”
“You mean because of the telepathy, or your size?” the doctor received an annoyed look from Kes for his question, but Sara answered it.
“Both.”
“Your height and weight I may be able to do something about. The telepathy…unfortunately, as I told you, it’s impossible. You are what you are. It can’t be changed.”
“Even if it could,” Kes put in, “you wouldn’t be you. Even if the doctor manages to find a way to make you three meters tall, you wouldn’t be the Sara that everyone knows now.”
There was nothing Sara could do – except agree. She left sickbay perhaps more dejected than she had come in.
