By Erin_Cale
Disclaimer: See first part.
***
The next day Dylan met his crew in the galley for breakfast. He took his usual spot beside Beka and started some small talk while they waited for Kathryn to arrive.
“So I assume that Trance’s night shift wasn’t eventful.”
“If it was, she probably dealt with it and never told us,” Harper said, smiling impishly.
“I still don’t see why you have her doing night shift at all,” Beka commented.
“She needs some practice being alone on Command and since nothing usually happens on night shift, she wouldn’t have to do much.”
“Yes and someday that theory is going to be proven wrong and you’re going to be stuck with Trance alone in Command,” Tyr said, sitting down across from Dylan.
Dylan opened his mouth, about to retort, when the doors opened and Kathryn walked in. He noticed that she looked much happier than she had the day before, almost as if she had forgotten completely about her rough trip.
“Good morning,” Dylan called.
“Good morning,” she replied, getting breakfast from where she had seen the others get their meals the day before. As she walked to the table she saw that the only available seat was between Tyr and Harper. Barely suceeding to hide her sigh, she took the seat.
“How did you sleep?” Tyr asked, his voice betraying his suspicions.
“Well, I didn’t feign fatigue just to decimate entire planets,” Kathryn snapped, her blue eyes flashing for an instant before she reigned her emotions in again. She took a short breath, looked at Tyr’s surprised face and explained, “I heard you two talking outside my quarters. I know that this will do no good to somebody who is obviously so used to being suspicious all the time, but I can assure you that I am no criminal.”
Dylan watched the display with interest. Of course, if Tyr tried to hurt her Dylan would step in but until that moment, he wanted to see Tyr’s reaction and how Kathryn reacted to it.
Tyr, to everybody’s surprise, backed down. He looked away from Kathryn’s piercing blue eyes and stabbed his fork into his food with more force than was necessary. “We have no proof of that, do we?”
“No, you don’t. All you have are the observations I assume you have made while I have been here.”
“And you have my word for it,” came another voice. The entire crew turned in their seats to see a young, dark-haired man seated in one of the chairs with his legs up on the table.
Tyr and Beka immediately had their weapons drawn, though Beka was more discreet and hid her force lance under the table.
“Who are you?” Dylan asked calmly.
“Our species don’t need names, except of course when we associate with you humans. You can call me Q.”
Dylan looked at Kathryn questioningly. “Your friend?”
“She’s my godmother, actually,” Q answered. “Though she isn’t a relation to me.”
“How could you possibly prove that either of you are trustworthy?” Tyr asked.
“Well, I could take all of you to see Aunt Kathy’s universe but.... I don’t feel like it right now.”
“I don’t think you can. Your teleportation technology can only transfer one person at a time.”
“I’m not going to fall for that old trick,” Q answered smugly. “Besides, I just came here to assure you that Aunt Kathy means no harm whatsoever. And to ask Aunt Kathy a question.”
Kathryn looked up at him, her eyebrows lowering slightly in confusion. “What kind of question, Q?”
“Well, apparently you missed a very important appointment yesterday.”
Kathryn covered her face in her hands. “Damn! I forgot all about the lecture at the academy.”
“Yes you did. And it seems that Tom and B’Elanna Paris were also to be guest speakers and they knew that you wouldn’t just skip a lecture like that. So they started invesitigating and have found no trace of you so I was wondering... do you want to let them know where you are and how you’re doing? You know, just pop them in this universe for a half an hour then pop them back out again. What do you think?”
***