Author's Note: This story was a 'loser' in the SNW 3 contest. Hope you like it more than Dean Smith did.
The genesis of this story arises from the fact that Vulcan's Heart shows that Captain Rachel Garrett is from Indiana. Being a born Hoosier myself, how could I resist getting two of Trek's Hoosiers together?

Comments welcome at:

Disclaimer: Voyager^TM and its characters are the sole property of Paramount Pictures. No copyrigt infringement is intended.

Neelix craned his neck, remembering at the last moment that standing on tiptoes ill-befitted his dignity as Voyager's ambassador. He scanned the reception hall for a glimpse of scarlet and black among the more somber earthtones favored by their Pirvello hosts.

There the Captain was…No, that was Commander Chakotay talking with the Secretary for Exterior Affairs.

Neelix squinted into the crowd, quartering the elegant ballroom with his gaze. Commander Tuvok was standing alone on the other side of the room, near the tall moss gold drapes which covered the hall's windows. Perhaps the Vulcan had some idea where the Captain had gotten to. Tugging his brocade tunic back down into place, Neelix abandoned his place near the spidersilk tablecloths and artfully arranged platters of the hors d'oeuvre table and carefully threaded his way through the crush of formally clad aliens.

"Quite some bash, " Neelix commented, taking up a position next to Tuvok and unconsciously mirroring the Vulcan's posture by clasping his hands loosely behind his back.

"It is highly unlikely that our Pirvello hosts would find your use of the term 'bash' an appropriate description for a diplomatic function," Tuvok replied reprovingly.

"Still," the Talaxian continued cheerfully, "It is a quite a bash. And in honor of Voyager and Captain Janeway." Neelix allowed his chest to puff out a bit and he rocked onto the balls of his feet. "The Captain ought to be tremendously pleased. It's a coup, you know. The Pirvellons are not the most outgoing of species. In fact, they can be quite prickly at times." Neelix's attention was momentarily distracted as he caught sight of a situation developing near the dance floor. A young and very lovely Pirvello woman had engaged Tom Paris in an animated conversation, both apparently oblivious to B'Elanna Torres who stood seething just beyond Tom's elbow.

"Umm, Mr. Tuvok, I was wondering if you've seen Captain Janeway. As delightful as this lovely reception is, some of our people are looking a bit restless." He pointed with his chin toward Lt. Torres who was now openly glaring at the Pirvello woman. "As guest of honor, protocol requires the Captain to thank the Sovereign personally for her hospitality and make a small speech before any guests are allowed to leave the function. I was thinking it might be time for the Captain to make her farewells, but I can't seem to find her."

Tuvok did not respond immediately. He delayed a moment, observing Lt. Torres's white-pressed lips and clenched fists. "The Captain is on the verandah just beyond these draperies. She stepped out for a breath of fresh air."

Neelix nodded an unspoken understanding of the Vulcan's reticence. Captain Janeway enjoyed so few moments away from the press of command that both men felt protective of those moments she did get; however, this time there was no avoiding an interruption of her privacy. Her presence was unequivocally required.

Neelix stepped through the curtains. Captain Janeway stood, leaning forward, her elbows resting against the ornately carved balustrade, gazing into the night-dark sky. The five tiny moons that circled Pirvelluus had not yet risen and the sky was gloriouswith stars. Neelix moved quietly to stand beside her and joined the star-gazing.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" he asked, gesturing toward the night sky overhead. "So many stars. It reminds me of home."

Janeway smiled in the darkness. "It reminds me of home, too, though the constellations are all wrong."

"Did you… I mean, when I was a boy I used to go into the forest with my sisters. We'd all lie on our backs and watch the sky. Alixia used to tell such wondrous stories about the stars that I knew that someday I'd have to go, have to visit every one of those places she talked about. Did you ever tell stories about the stars, Captain? Did someone tell you wondrous stories?"

Janeway was silent for a long moment and Neelix thought that perhaps he'd asked a too-personal question. He was about to move on and explain his real reason for seeking her out when she answered.

"My father was a Starfleet Admiral. He used to tell me stories about the stars--not the kinds of stories you're talking about though. History. Politics. Then later, when I was older, he was too busy to come outside and look at the sky with me." She gave a small self-deprecating laugh, "Then of course, when I used to go outside and watch the night sky, I was too busy memorizing the names of the stars, observing their magnitude and emission spectra to ever really see the stars themselves. I had to be taught that to truly see the stars, sometime you need to close your eyes.

"That's sounds quite poetic, Captain. From one of your Earth's philosophers?"

"No. It's just something a woman I once met taught me."

***

"Kathryn. Phoebe. Time to get up for school." Gretchen Janeway's voice reverberated in the hallway outside her bedroom. Kathryn Janeway considered pulling her pillow over her head and pretending she hadn't heard, but Phoebe was already splashing and thumping in the bathroom across the hall. Maybe if she were sick…

Kathryn slumped down in the kitchen chair. "I don't feel good," she announced in her best too-sick-for-school voice.

Gretchen set the plate of home-made waffles down on the table and studied her daughter's face. Concern creased her brow, then she laid a hand across Kathryn's forehead. "Your color is good and you don't feel feverish…. Are you ill, Katie? Or do you just not want to go school today?"

"If I answer the latter, do I have to go?," Kathryn answered carefully, sounding more like a defense attorney than an adolescent girl.

Gretchen cocked her head thoughtfully and considered. "You're certainly old enough to take responsibility for your own actions. Provided you're not trying to duck a test or a deadline, and you promise that you'll make up any schoolwork you miss, you can stay home." As relief flooded her daughter's face, she added "Just don't make a habit of it….And Katie, whatever it is that's bothering you, you can tell me about it."

Kathryn nodded solemnly, but how could she explain her feelings to mother when she couldn't explain them to herself?

Her mother and sister left for the day: Gretchen to give her 9 am vertex algebra lecture and Phoebe off to primary school. Kathryn rattled aimlessly around inside the house. None of her friends were home, so there was no one to talk to. She tried to work through a couple of school assignments, but found she had no patience with them. Even the new mystery novel she was halfway through struck her as boring and unsatisfying. The house felt like a prison and she suddenly needed to be somewhere else, anywhere else. She dressed hastily, pulling on a pair of comfortably worn leggings that ended a good three fingers above her ankle and a long sleeved jersey that hung hugely baggy over her growing and still angular frame.

She left the house, glad to be outside, even if it was out into the low gray Indiana skies and muddy fields of late November. She turned automatically toward the commons near the center of the village, but that wasn't a good idea. She was supposed to be home sick. Who knew who might see her there. She changed direction. There was a small regional park southeast of town. People seldom went there, even less so at this time of year when the trees stood stark and empty.

Kathryn avoided the public entrance. She walked farther down the lane and crossed into the woods. She circled around the native stone building that had once been a home to the property's former owner and now served as a park museum, and then followed one of the foot trails that wound through the woods and along the creek. As she walked, she noticed that even the creek seemed sullen today, trickling slow and dark between its mud banks. She settled onto one the utilitarian plascrete benches along the trail and stared moodily at the water. The creek gurgled, but refused to give answers.

Plok. Plok. Plok. Kathryn idly tossed pebbles into the creek.

"Mind if I sit here?"

Startled, Kathryn looked up at the speaker, a woman of about her parents' age, of medium build with chestnut colored hair, wearing none too stylish casual clothes. "Sure, " Kathryn mumbled with as little sociability as she could manage without sounding outright rude. She wished the stranger would go away and leave her to her solitary brooding. She slid to one end of the bench, slouching down and stretching her legs out in front of her, her arms folded tightly across her chest in classic 'you're bothering me' posture. The stranger failed to take the hint, so Kathryn ignored her and hoped the woman would do the same.

The stranger glanced sideways at Kathryn. "You're the youngest cadet I've ever seen."

"What?" That wasn't the conversational opening she'd been expecting.

The woman flicked a finger back and forth over her chest. Kathryn looked down. The Starfleet Academy logo was emblazoned across the front of her shirt. Kathryn felt her ears flush and covertly peeked at the stranger to see if she was being made fun of. She was twelve and looked it. No one would mistake her for eighteen, or even fifteen.

"Oh, that. I'm not a cadet," she answered, then feeling obliged to explain her shirt, added "But I will be someday." She lifted her chin defiantly, daring this stranger to say otherwise.

"Why?"

Kathryn frowned. That wasn't the right response. Adults were supposed to make encouraging noises and mouth platitudes about noble ideals. "Because it's a tremendous opportunity. Everybody says so."

"Everybody?" the stranger objected mildly.

"OK, not everybody," she backtracked defensively, "but a lot of people. My father says that Starfleet has given him opportunities to influence people and policies he wouldn't have had otherwise." Opps. She hadn't meant to bring her father into the conversation.

"Your father's Starfleet, then?"

"Yes."

"Ah," the stranger said in tone that implied she'd received a great enlightenment.

This conversation had gone from mildly irritating to downright annoying. Kathryn wished this woman would stop her nosy questions and leave. The thought of leaving herself didn't enter Kathryn's mind. This was her home and her park and she'd be damned before she'd let some outsider chase her off. She squirmed a bit, trying to find a more comfortable position on the bench, and pretended the stranger was not there.

"No school today?"

This was the conversational gambit that Kathryn had expected from the start and she had her answer ready. "I wasn't feeling well this morning when I got up. Nothing serious, but my mother…" Kathryn looked the stranger full in the face as she emphasized the words, "thought I should stay home. Just in case….And she knows that I'm here. And it's OK with her." It was a lie, of course, but easier than explaining the truth. Not that this woman would understand anyway. Or her teachers. Or her parents.

A surge of self-pity engulfed her. The salt burn of tears started up in her eyes and her throat clogged. Hastily Kathryn turned away from the woman. She wasn't going to let a complete stranger see her cry. Frustration and humiliation roiled inside her. The tears were so close to the surface lately. They came so easily and so often now. She wasn't sure why. Kathryn blinked back the tears fiercely, hoping the stranger hadn't noticed.

"Home or school?"

"What?" Kathryn croaked, ashamed at how thick her voice sounded.

"When I was," the woman gave Kathryn a brief up-and-down appraisal, "thirteen, two things could always make me unhappy: home and school. So which is it?"

Kathryn swallowed, and hoped her voice sounded steadier than it had before. "School," she replied quietly after a moment. "I started a new school this semester, Academy Prep, and, well, it's not what I was expecting." The sharp disappointment rose up again, choking her. She'd spent months arguing with her mother over this, trying to persuade her to allow her to enroll in the school. She'd even appealed to her father during one of his increasingly rare visits home, believing he, at least, would understand her need to get the best preparation she could before facing the grueling entrance exams to Starfleet Academy. But Admiral Janeway had given the her request only the most cursory consideration before announcing his support for 'whatever your mother decides.' That had hurt. It still hurt. "It's not that the kids are mean or anything," Kathryn added hastily. She didn't want to give the wrong impression. "It's just that…I was expecting something different." 'Better' was the word that her mind supplied. "The teachers too. They're fine, but…" Kathryn sketched a glyph of frustration with her hands.

"…not what you were expecting," the woman's voice finished.

Kathryn sighed and slumped against the bench. "Yeah, exactly."

"Tell me, do you ever go outside at night and watch the stars?"

Kathryn did a mental double-take at the non sequitur. She'd just poured out her soul to this stranger and now the woman was asking irrelevant questions about her sky-viewing habits. She was tempted to walk away from the conversation, but her stubborness asserted itself. Besides, she was curious about where this discussion was headed. "No. There's too much ground-haze around here. You get a much clearer view someplace with a higher altitude and a drier climate--like Arizona or Chile. The view from space is even better."

A small, secret smile formed on the woman's face. "You're right about that. The view from space is better….Why do you want to go to the Academy? And don't give me that tired old claptrap about it being 'a wonderful opportunity.'"

Kathryn frowned thoughtfully and twined her finger around a stray lock of hair. "Tradition," she answered in the hopeful tone of a student guessing at a right answer. "My father is in Starfleet and I had another ancestor who was an astronaut back in the early days of space exploration."

The woman raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Shannon O'Donnell," Kathryn supplied to the unasked question. "She was part of the early Mars expeditions." Her name apparently didn't mean anything to the stranger who shook her head slightly at the information.

"Tradition is a fine thing, and there is a long history of us Mid-Westerners going to space," the woman smiled at some private memory, "but it doesn't answer the question of why you," the stranger pointed squarely at Kathryn, "want to go to space."

Scowling harder than ever, Kathryn turned away. She crossed her arms defensively across her chest. "I don't know," muttered in a voice so low she thought the woman couldn't possibly hear her.

"Good," the woman said in brisk approval. "First honest answer you've given me all day."

Surprised, Kathryn turned back to face her interrogator. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Are you a counselor?"

The woman laughed. "No. Though I suspect those duties fall under my purview too." At the blank look of incomprehension on Kathryn's face, she explained, "I'm a ship's captain. Rachel Garrett, Captain of the Enterprise. Starfleet Academy, class of 2322."

Kathryn flushed in embarrassment. "Honored to meet you, ma'am," she said because she'd been raised with good manners and because it was true. She stuck her hand out awkwardly, then realized she was probably overstepping and tried to pull it back, but Captain Garrett had already grasped it and was shaking her hand. "Kathryn Janeway ," she introduced herself. "Um…I didn't mean to be disrespectful, Captain."

"No offense taken," Garrett assured her. "And you can drop the Captain and the ma'am. I'm not in uniform and you're not under my command."

Kathryn nodded, trying to decide what she should call Captain Garrett. Certainly not Rachel. And Ms. Garrett sounded too much like the name of her physical conditioning instructor at school. She decided to avoid addressing Captain Garrett directly altogether.

"Kathryn, can I give you some advice?"

Kathryn nodded again, cautiously, though willing to listen for now because anyone who was captain of the Enterprise deserved being listened to. "Don't go into Starfleet because you think you ought to, because you want to please your father or anyone else."

Kathryn bristled. She wasn't going simply because she wanted her father to notice…was she?

"There are hundreds of reason for going to the Academy and hundred more for joining Starfleet. All of them are valid. Except that one. If you go to because you feel you ought to and not because you want to, you'll be unhappy, disappointed, like you're disappointed with your school, because whatever you're expecting Starfleet to be, it won't be that. And worse than that, Kathryn, you'll never be a good officer. You might be competent, but you'll never be good. And that gets people killed."

Although the temperature hadn't changed, Kathryn felt a chill slide down her spine. She'd never thought about it that way.

"A good officer," Garrett continued, "has to be able to make her own decisions, act on them and accept the consequences. You can't always wait for orders and you can't always do what other people want you to do."

Kathryn absorbed the words. Taking responsibility for her own actions? Was that what Captain Garrett meant? It echoed what her mother had said this morning: that she needed to accept the consequences of her choices.

They both sat in silence while the creek burbled and whispered in its course and still refused to give up any answers.

"There's one thing I still don't understand," Kathryn began after several long silent moments. Garrett smiled as if to say 'only one?'. "Why did you ask me if I ever watched the stars?"

Garrett looked at the girl beside her and pressed her lips together, weighing her words, before she spoke. "I have this theory about why so many midwesterners end up in space: Glenn, Kirk, Armstrong, Carver, D'Amato, Resnick, Garrett." She flashed a brief wry smile. "It's not very scientific, in fact. it sounds ridiculous, even to me." She paused in brief reluctance before continuing.

"Midwesterners are practical people. Doers, not dreamers. We grow up knowing our place in the order of things, living intimately with the cycle of the seasons, and even today depending on our neighbors for help at planting and harvest time. And, as you pointed out so accurately, Kathryn, when we look to the sky, we see humidity, not stars." Garrett made a soft snort of amusement. "Not exactly the best conditions for bringing out the romantic side of people." She shook her head at some private memory before continuing. "Still we go to space. Each of us for own reason. Once there, our upbringing serves us well. We've already learned trust, cooperation and interdependence--priceless skills--and about the power and capriciousness of nature. But we go to space knowing something more important still: that we have to invent the stars."

Garrett had turned away from Kathryn and now looked out into the indefinite distance, remembering a lesson she'd mastered a long time ago and was recalling once again. "We have learned to see the stars not as they are, dimmed by haze and distance, but as they ought to be. Bright. True. Unsullied by pettiness and triviality. Filled with promise. And we've learned, Kathryn, that this is a truer vision of the stars than even the one we can see from space." Garrett paused. Kathryn leaned in toward her to hear the rest of her words. "And it's this view of the sky that we each have leaned to carry inside of us so we can see the stars no matter where we are."

Garrett spread her hands in urgent wordless appeal to the girl at the other end of the bench. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Kathryn tilted her head, unsure of how to answer. She considered the notion of carrying the stars inside of her, turning the idea around this way and that, testing it from all directions, tasting it. She wasn't sure if she understood what the Captain meant, but the idea had a certain appeal. Maybe tonight she would go outside and look at the sky--and she'd leave her study padd inside.

"Can I ask one more question?" Kathryn was surprised by her own boldness as the words left her mouth. "Why are you here?" She gestured around the bleak and empty park. "I mean, why aren't you on your ship or in San Francisco or someplace interesting?"

Garrett smiled in bemusement. "I grew up near here." She waved in a vaguely westerly direction. "I used to come to this park on field trips when I was a child. I'll bet you did too. As for the rest of your question, my ship is in drydock and I escaped all the brass and the meetings to come here. I was hoping for a bit of solitude before I had to go back and face it all again."

Kathryn made a small apologetic sound and felt ashamed at her earlier selfishness. It had never occurred to her that someone else might have sought out the park for the same reasons she had. She squinted up at the overcast sky. It was hard to tell how much the sun had shifted since she'd come to the park. Although the sky was still bright, the clouds diffused the light quite effectively, disguising the sun's exact position. She ought to be home before her mother got back from her afternoon lecture anyway. She stood up. "Thank you, Captain Garrett," she said formally, "you've given me a great deal to think about, but I have to go before my mother starts worrying about me."

Garrett nodded acknowledgment and the girl started down the footpath. "Kathryn," Garrett called out, stopping the girl in her tracks, "if you do decided that you want to go to the Academy, let me know. I'll sponsor you." Garrett grinned at the girl's look of delighted surprise. "Us Hoosiers have to stick together."

A surge of pleasure and pride rolled through Kathryn. "I'd be honored." She started down the path again, then stopped. "Are you sure I can't walk you back to town, Captain?"

"No. Thanks. I think I'll just sit here for a while and look at the stars."

Kathryn was confused for a moment. It wasn't anywhere near dark. Then she saw Garrett lean back against the bench as the weak sunshine flowed over her while she closed her eyes to seek her own vision of the stars.

***

"A lovely story, Captain. Captain Garrett sounds like a very wise woman. Did she sponsor your admission to the Academy?" Neelix asked.

"No. No, she didn't," Janeway answered somberly. "The Enterprise and all hands were lost defending the Klingon colony on Narendra III shortly after that. One of my instructors from prep school sponsored me." Janeway paused, and when she spoke again all nostalgia had been erased from her voice, leaving only the tenor of command. "Now, Neelix, I'm sure you didn't talk your way past Commander Tuvok who is so zealously guarding my privacy just so you could hear me reminisce. What's the problem?"

"Uh," the Talaxian temporized. "I'm sorry, Captain, but as a matter of protocol, no one can leave the reception until the guest of honor--that's you," he reminded her tactfully, "takes formal leave of the Sovereign."

Janeway grinned understanding and slipped her hand under Neelix's elbow. "In that case, I guess I'd best not hold up progress--or in this case, egress. Let's go find the Sovereign so we can all go home."

The End