Disclaimer: Voyager^TM and it crew are the property of all-mighty Paramount. The Pocket Shuttle Repairman™ is a trademarked concept of Ragpants' Inc. and all trademark infringement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law ‹grin!›.

Author's Note: This story is loosely inspired by my earlier Spring Cleaning and it mayror may not be helpful to read it first.

The Pocket Shuttle Repairman

"Oh poop," muttered Harry Kim at Ops. His private utterance was followed by a louder, crisp report. "Captain, I've just picked up a distress call from the Sacajawea XVII. Commander Chakotay reports that the shuttle has sustained heavy damage and he is attempting to land on a planetoid in the asteroid belt up ahead."

At the helm, Paris rolled his eyes in disbelief.

Janeway came out of her seat to look over Kim's shoulder and study the readout on his board. "Not another one," she complained. "That's the 23rd of Voyager's 4 shuttles he's crashed in the last two years. If I docked his pay for every one he's lost, he'd be scrubbing plasma manifolds for the next 200 years…" She shook her head in disbelief. How did this man ever manage to get a pilot's certification? He surely must have slept with the instructor. She let out a long-suffering sigh and slapped her comm badge. "Janeway to Engineering. B'Elanna, we're going to need to mount a rescue operation. Are there any shuttles available?"

"Kahless!" the Engineering chief swore over the comm and there was the sound of something shattering in the background. Janeway winced and hoped that it was a something easily replaced like a coffee cup or hyperspanner and not a hapless ensign of the week or something that would require giga-quads of replicator processing time and a union crew on overtime to repair. "You *let* him take a shuttle out, didn't you?" Torres accused.

"B'Elanna, " Janeway repeated in a placating tone, "Are there any shuttles available for service?" and thus completely sidestepped the Klingon's question. She had given her First Officer permission, but Chakotay *had* promised her he'd be careful and that he'd return the shuttle with a full tank.

"No."

"No?" echoed Janeway in surprise. "None at all?"

"That's usually what no means, " smirked the Klingon. "All we have left are pieces of shuttles and they aren't enough bits left to build a single functioning unit."

"What about the Delta Flyer?"

"Unfit for action. That "bargain" tritanium we bought at auction in the last system had corrosive impurities and it failed under use conditions. I had to strip off all the exterior plating and I haven't had time to replace it. Sorry, Captain, but when I said none I meant none. Torres out."

"Oh poop," mumbled Kim, though this time his comment referred to the poor roll he'd just made in the Dungeons and Dragons game he was playing via the computer.

Janeway laid a heavy hand on Paris's shoulder. "Tom, is there any chance you could maneuver Voyager through that asteroid field?"

Paris's eyes lit up like tilt on a pinball machine, but the light flickered out and he sobered as he studied the navigational read-outs "No, Ma'am. There's just too much debris floating around out there and even with deflectors at full, the odds are that there'd be a collision."

Janeway nodded understanding. "Harry, can you extend the transporter's range to reach the Commander?"

Harry finished his spell-casting and a punched in a few parameters into his board. "Not far enough, Captain, " he reported apologetically.

"Oh poop," exclaimed Janeway as she turned to face the viewscreen, her arms crossed across her chest.

"The good of the many…" suggested Tuvok from behind her.

Seven raised her pocket calculator and entered a couple of numbers. "I estimate that the efficiency of the Engineering Department will increase by 14.62 % if we do not retrieve Commander Chakotay."

"But I had him all trained," protested Janeway petulantly, "He always said 'Yes, Ma'am' right on cue."

"Yes Ma'am," agreed Tuvok hopefully, eyeing the comfortable-looking First Office's chair and thinking about how much his feet hurt after standing for his entire shift.

"I want him back!" Janeway insisted. "And I will order Neelix to cut off all ice cream rations until the Commander has been safely recovered."

Her threat silenced the Bridge, even the sensors refused to ping and the engines to hum for fear pissing off the Captain further.

Finally, Tom Paris turned and boldly faced the Captain. "Well, there is that old classic shuttle I've been restoring…." he suggested.

Janeway's eyes lit up. "Good. We'll take it"

As Janeway and Paris exited the Bridge together, she asked him, "Interesting hobby you have, Tom. Just where have you been getting the parts?"

Paris blushed slightly, "I've been buying them out of petty cash. You don't really believe I've spent $14 trillion credits on road maps, do you?"

Janeway shrugged. "It did seem rather high, but when you're lost like we are being rip-off is all part of the game."

They rode in silence down to Shuttle Bay 13.

"I didn't even know this was here, " remarked Janeway as Paris pushed the cycle button on the airlock to the shuttlebay.

"Neither did I. It's not on any of ship's schematics. I found it after we had that episode where the ship melted and curled into a closed universe--you know, kind of like a Klein bottle."

"No need to get technical with me,Tom," Janeway reminded him rather waspishly. "I'm the one with all the technobabble lines around here."

The door cycled open and Paris strode through it, but Janeway was left gaping with her mouth sagging open.

The shuttle looked like nothing she'd ever seen before--or hoped to ever see again. She briefly considered refusing to ride in the thing, but she'd already had made such a big fuss about getting Commander Chakotay back she figured that she'd look pretty stupid if she backed out now. So she closed her mouth and stepped forward.

The shuttle sat low to the landing grid--mere inches above it --on illegally low gleaming chromium struts. Above the struts, the royal purple metallic flake paint glistened. Janeway reached out and laid her palm against the side of the shuttle.

"Hey!" exclaimed Paris, smacking her hand away. "You'll get fingerprints on it!" He grabbed a clean white rag and began polishing away the offending marks. Wrapping the cloth around his hand, Tom pressed the door controls and a ramp covered with gold shag carpeting unfolded from the side.

Tom gave a flourished half bow, "After you."

The interior was as stunning as the exterior. The gold shag covered the floors and extended a half meter up the walls where a wide strip of gold metallic braid edged along it like a wainscoting. The seats were upholstered in deep purple crushed velvet, quilted in a diamond pattern and tufted with shining gold buttons. Gold fuzzy ball drapery edging trimmed the top of the viewports and a pair of incongruously bright oversized pink fuzzy dice hung from the rear-view mirror.

"Like them?" Tom asked, nodding toward the dice, when he noticed the direction of Janeway's gaze. "B'Elanna gave them to me--for luck."

Tom seated himself in the pilot's chair and began a pre-flight check. The control panels looked like nothing Janeway could ever remember seeing. Instead of a flat, touch sensitive board, there was a circle of welded gold chain links about 8 inches in diameter mounted at the end of shaft and a confusing welter of old style analog dials, each with a clear crystal covering and a gold frame around it. Janeway wondered if it was all functional or merely decorative.

The shuttle bay doors were opening so Janeway sat down. The seats were unsettlingly plush and deep, though the buttons didn't scratch nearly as much as she expected them to.

The shuttle slid slowly out of the bay and circled around Voyager at minimum thrust before turning toward the asteroid field. Janeway watched impatiently as it took long minutes for Voyager to disappear from the rear viewport. "Doesn't this thing go any faster?" she asked impatiently.

"No, this baby was designed for looks not speed." Tom reached out and patted the dashboard affectionately. "Besides the whole idea of a restored classic like this is to cruise real slow so you can pick up hot-looking chicks--I mean so that everyone can admire the restoration work.

Janeway was not impressed. She reached over toward the piloting panel, inadvertantly brushing a button. Immediately the front end of the shuttle began pitching vigorously up and down in an increasing arc of amplitude.

"Shit!" yelled Tom. "Now you've triggered the hydraulics." Tom wrestled with small gold wheels and frantically flipped switches and toggled toggles until the shuttle returned to its previous snail-slow flight path.

"Um…Captain," Tom suggested, "This may take awhile. Why don't you go aft and see what kind of rations are aboard. Neelix promised me something authentic."

Janeway returned holding a container in front of her at arm's length. She sniffed it dubiously. "This is all there was," she explained, "and from the smell of it, I'd say it's gone bad."

She extended the container toward Paris, who took it, sniffed and grinned, "Menudo," then devoured it wolfishly.

Several hours later, the purple shuttle had managed to traverse the 5000 kilometer distance to the damaged Sacajawea, despite (and Janeway still gritted her teeth at the memory) slowing to a virtual stop several times to inch over minute gravitational gradients.

Janeway pounded on Tom's arm to get his attention over the deafeningly loud, booming music he was playing on the shuttle's sound system, and pointed to a flash of white that was reflecting from the surface of the planetoid they orbited.

Tom nodded and eased the shuttle toward a landing spot near the Sacajawea XVII, complaining the entire time that an actual landing was going to scratch his custom paint job.

Eventually, they grounded and Janeway jumped out of Tom' shuttle, glad to be away from him and his obsession-- a low-rider, she thought he called it.

Janeway pushed the entry code into the Sacajawea's door panel and was gratified that it opened smoothly. Inside she found no signs of damage anywhere--no odor of burning electronics, no scorched and shattered panels, no bloodstains on the walls, no coolants pooling on the floor.

"Chakotay?" she called tentatively.

Her first Officer's dark head popped up from one of the reclining front seats. "Kathryn? Boy, am I glad to see you. Do you have a hairpin?"

" A hairpin…I need one to jimmy the ignition key. It's stuck."

Janeway patted her hair, but she hadn't used hairpins since she'd cut her hair over a year ago. She held out her empty hands in front of her. "Sorry."

"Too bad…Guess we'll have to abandon the Sacajawea here then. I'll bet B'Elanna is going to be really ticked about this." He stood and began casually walking toward the exit.

Something burst inside Janeway--a long simmering anger. "You mean to tell me that's it. B'Elanna's going to be ticked…Do you know what I've had to put up with to rescue you? Tuvok said it was logical to leave you here. Seven proved it would improve Voyager's efficiency, not to mention cutting down on the number alien babes traisping through every week. And B'Elanna…B'Elanna put three nameless Ensigns in Sickbay when she found out you crashed her last shuttle. Then to top it off, I had to spend six hours with Paris in his low-rider love nest and eat Neelix's menudo!" She was screaming with exasperation now. "Then you want a f*cking hairpin when you know I haven't used hairpins in over a year…I should just leave you here!"

Her anger ran out as she looked at her First Officer who stood placidly---um, make that stoically-- staring at her. She felt like she was kicking a puppy. Janeway shook her head in mixture of resignation and disgust."OK," she said in more rational tone, "I don't have a hairpin, but what about your Pocket Shuttle Repairman? I know you kept one--it's on the cargo manifest."

Chakotay's face brightened at the suggestion and he patted his at chest, then the front and back of his hips. He gave her his best dimpled grin,"Sorry. No pockets…"

The End