Chapter Text
Fortunately, Jenny had the hang of the Va Jean's simplistic navigational system by now. But she still needed constant instructions from Megan to talk her through activating the comm link to the Bridge, and how to alert Chakotay and Torres of an incoming threat. Jenny had trained for battles at the Academy, and her various sports kept her multitasking skills sharp. But it was a frantic job, to keep tabs on the Kazon vessels, Voyager, and the Array, and keep scans opened for flying debris or stray asteroids.
Jenny had never been on such a bumpy ride in her adult life. These Maquis raiders didn't have the structural reinforcements that Starfleet code required. She felt her long hair tumbling out its bun, and feared being found out. But no one seemed to notice—understandably.
Another hard blast sent Jenny tumbling backwards. Someone behind her stopped her with hands on her back, and pushed her forward, back into her console. Steadying herself, she looked to see a tall Bolian woman behind her.
"Thanks!"
"Any time!" the Bolian replied cheerfully.
As they both turned back to their work, Jenny remembered Zhul, and wondered if that wasn't the Bolian friend he'd died trying to find.
B'Elanna Torres burst back into engineering. "Everyone, prepare to evacuate to Voyager!"
"That Federation ship?" Seska spun from her station at the warp core to stare at Torres.
"No," the half-Klingon snapped, "The Ferengi one. Yes the Federation ship!"
Seska began, "What the hell fo—?"
"Because Chakotay said so! Let's move!"
The engineers spread to clear a path for Torres, as she hurried over to a console on the wall to initiate the mass transport.
Jenny realized what was probably about to happen, and recalled Megan's belongings back in her bunk. There probably wasn't time to fetch anything. Hell, she didn't even know where Megan's bunk was. Her thoughts were cut short by the bule shimmer of the transporter.
They rematerialized in a large dark room lined with crates.
Seska shot Torres a look. "Did Chakotay tell you to beam us into a cargo bay?"
"I just took us to the biggest empty space I could find," Torres panted.
The doors of the cargo bay opened, to reveal a cluster of gold-uniformed security guards, brandishing phasers. Jenny recognized Lt. Walter Baxter.
"Maquis crew," a Baxter said sternly, "You're to remain in this area, until further notice—"
"Let us help you!" Torres interrupted. "Our captain's over there risking his life for you, he's going to sacrifice our ship to help yours!"
Baxter hit his combadge, his eyes locked on Torres. "Baxter to Bridge: the Maquis request to help us against the Kazon."
"It's me, Starfleet!" Torres shouted at Baxter's badge (and, inadvertently, right in poor Baxter's face). "It's B'Elanna Torres!"
Harry Kim's voice came from Baxter's badge. "Let Torres up here, I trust her."
"What about the others?" Baxter asked.
There was a quick discussion on the other end. Then the young Ops. officer relayed, "If any of them wanna help, they're welcome."
"I do." Jenny stepped forward. Turning back to the others she added, "This is what you became Maquis for, isn't it? To help people?" Realizing her blunder, Jenny added, "It's what I joined the Maquis for!"
The Bolian who'd helped stopped Jenny's fall during the battle joined them. "I had a friend on this ship." She met Jenny's eyes. "I only found out a few hours ago, in the Sickbay here. I owe it to him to help his friends."
So it was Golwat, and someone had told her about Zhul, probably Lang.
B'Elanna clapped her hands. "Let's get moving!"
The Maquis began to migrate out of the cargo bay, Jenny running to the front.
Megan's blood was firing. Her console had alerted her that all of the Maquis were beaming aboard, which was a godsend; but there was still the chance that Jenny had been killed just moments before the beam-off.
And then, the Val Jean crashed into the Kazon ship.
Megan had assumed they were abandoning ship due to a warp core breach, but now realized Chakotay had kamikazed their old freighter. Had he been beamed out too?
She activated the small viewscreen on her console. The Val Jean was gone, and the Kazon ship was drifting away in flames.
"All that work for noting."
Megan whirled around to find Jenny wearing her clothes, covered in grime. Megan seized her sister in a tight embrace, and said fiercely, "We are never playing Switcheroo again!"
"No way in Hell!" Jenny agreed.
Breaking apart, Jenny gazed at the destruction on the screen. "Your captain is bad-ass."
The ship-wide anger over Janeway's decision to destroy the Array was softened by the fact that the thing had already killed nearly half of both crews on the first trip, when it was presumably working properly. The mass funeral service in Voyager's Mess Hall served as a reminder of this. After the service, a quiet crowd of Starfleet officers, and a few brown-clad Maquis, remained among the coffins in quiet morning.
Each casket was labeled with the deceased's name and rank. The coffins contained Starfleet bodies only; the Maquis who'd died on arrival to the Delta Quadrant had been inadvertently been cremated, when the Val Jean was destroyed. A ways away, Golwat stood over Zhul's casket, dipping her blue head silently. The Langs were also present, walking together quietly for once.
"I wish you could've met Th'lor," Megan said to Jenny softly. "We called him the Grinch, or Oscar, because he was green and he was aways pissed off, in the best of ways. He was so great..."
"Sounds like he'd get along with that EMH program," Jenny said. "I wish you could've met Stadi. She was so cool. And Lt. Vo'los…"
Jenny imagined the boisterous Bolian or the sassy Betazoid surviving, being a part of this adventure, meeting the Maquis. The injustice of their senseless deaths was maddening. Her guilt surged as they came to Aro Eemz's coffin. Would his family ever find out it was her fault he'd died before even getting into the running for a symbiont?
Over at Stadi's coffin, Jenny heard Tom Paris say quietly to Harry Kim, "It should've been me."
In all that had been happening, Jenny had forgotten about Tom almost completely.
"Thank you, Paris."
Paris, startled, looked in a couple directions before realizing the speaker was Jenny. He stared at her, clearly baffled.
"For getting me back to my sister." She smiled at Harry. "And bringing us Ensign Kim back."
Harry stammered, "It was nothing."
"She's talking to me," Tom muttered from the corner of his mouth. "Lie down before you hurt yourself."
Megan finally jumped in. "You've redeemed yourself in my eyes, Tom."
"Janeway to Delaney."
Jenny tapped her combadge. "Delaney here, captain."
"I'd like you and your sister to meet me in my Ready Room, as soon as it's convenient for you."
Megan and Jenny exchanged a glance. They'd been caught.
Jenny replied numbly, "On our way."
Jenny and Megan entered the Ready Room expecting a stern reprimand.
Instead, the captain and Chakotay were in the sitting area, apparently enjoying coffee. Chakotay's Maquis uniform looked out of place in the professional Starfleet sitting room. But he and Janeway were laughing like old work colleagues. They both rose when the twins entered.
"Delaney," Janeway caught herself. "Jennifer Delaney. I understand that you showed some ingenuity in fixing up Stellar Cartography while we were down on Ocampa. And Mr. Carrey says you were very gun-ho helping out with repairs in Engineering. You demonstrated an impressive amount of energy and creativity for such a new recruit."
Jenny stared blankly. Then she remembered her and Megan's game of "Switcheroo." Megan was averting her gaze.
The captain turned to the other sister. "And Megan. Lt. Baxter tells me you went above and beyond in diplomacy, when you and the other Maquis beamed aboard. You didn't hesitate to cooperate with him, and convinced the rest of your crew to do likewise. We're going to need people like you on Voyager."
Megan's brown eyes found Jenny's. Both remained stiff, their lips tightly sealed.
"You're going to be two of the first people to hear this," Janeway said. "Under the circumstances, Commander Chakotay and I have decided it would make the most sense to integrate his crew into Voyager's. Chakotay will serve as my first officer. And you have both, in my opinion, earned a promotion."
"There's going to be an official announcement this evening," Chakotay said. "But if you two want to keep up your diplomacy skills, this crew could really use it."
The sisters both watched, dumbfounded, as Janeway retrieved two small boxes from her desk. Jenny was frozen as the captain attached the new pip to her collar. "Ensign Delaney…." She handed the other box to a stunned Megan. "…and Ensign Delaney. You can put this on after you've received your new uniform." Her blue eyes bounced between the two sisters. "Welcome aboard, Ensigns."
"We're alone, in an uncharted part of the galaxy. We've already made some friends here... and some enemies. We have no idea of the dangers we're going to face. But one thing is clear: both crews are going to have to work together if we're to survive."
Megan and Jenny stood next to each other in a corridor near the bridge. The entire new crew stood at attention, all in clean Starfleet attire. In addition to their different hairstyles, the twins could now be distinguished now from their different uniforms—Jenny's green, and Megan's gold.
"That's why Commander Chakotay and I have agreed that this should be one crew –a Starfleet crew. And as the only Starfleet vessel assigned to the Delta Quadrant, we'll continue to follow our directive: to seek out new worlds and explore space. But our primary goal is clear. Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy-five years to reach the Federation."
Megan reached over and grabbed her twin's hand. Jenny squeezed back. The other officers around them stayed at attention. But seeing their subtle reactions, Jenny realized how cruel it must be, for them to see her with her sister. Most of them would probably never see any of their family members again.
"But I'm not willing to settle for that. There's another entity like the Caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster. We'll be looking for her. And we'll be looking for wormholes, spatial rifts, or new technologies to help us. Somewhere, along this journey, we'll find a way back."
Janeway allowed her next order to be played over the com. "Set a course Mr. Paris…for home."
With the captain's finishing speech, the crew dispersed.
Jenny and Megan would be sharing quarters; most of the crew had their own, but plenty were rooming up, for various reasons. On the wall above the sofa now hung a copy of Megan's painting of Avi—the original was gone, but the photo Jenny had taken was as sharp as a printout. It sat in an artistic mosaic frame, made from the fragments of the broken Andorian plate. On the floor near the sofa was the new harp Megan was building, out of scrap salvaged from the remains of the Array.
"Megan," Jenny took a seat on the sofa, "Do you think we'll actually get back home?"
"I don't know…." Megan flopped down next to her sister. "But what can we do? We're alive. We have each other. I just wish we could tell everyone back home that we're okay."
"What about the war?" Jenny looked at her sister. "You were devoted to that cause, Megan."
"Devoted to it," Megan confirmed. "Prepared to die for it. Suppose in a way I have died for it. I'll just have to find a new cause."
Ready to move on, Jenny offered, "Is Philly cheese steak pizza a noble cause? The replicator won't be as good as Mom's, but it's better than nothing."
Megan grinned. "Vive la cheesesteak!"