Disclaimer:

Paramount owns Voyager and Grant & Naylor had something to do with Red Dwarf, but a few of you at alt.startrek.creative got me started and this is what popped in my head, so there yah go...

"Captain, we're tracking an object approximately a hundred kilometers from here," Chakotay reported as Kathryn came onto the bridge.

"Can you ascertain what it is, Commander?" she asked.

"I was just about to have it transported," he said. "It appears to be some kind of a household appliance."

"A what?" asked Captain Janeway.

"It's a toaster," Tom supplied.

"What's a toaster doing floating around in the middle of the Delta Quadrant?" Kathryn wondered. "We'd better beam it aboard. Ensign Kim, are you still in the transporter room?"

"Yes, Captain," said Harry's disembodied voice.

"I want you to beam in a--toaster," she told him.

"What?" he asked. "Could you say that again?"

"We've found a toaster," she said. "Chakotay is sending you the coordinates now. We'll meet you there."

"Yes, Captain," Kim agreed.

"Well, Chakotay? Are you coming?"

"Yes, Captain," he said, and the two of them headed for the lift.

"It's been five months since I got here, and you still haven't asked me for some toast," said Talkie Toaster. "Would you like some toast now?"

"No, thank you, I do not require toast," said Tuvok for the tenth time. "Now, can you tell me how you got here? Where did you come from? Who created you?"

"I have a question for you first," said the toaster. "Given that space and time co-exist and intermingle on many levels..."

"Yes?" Tuvok prompted.

"Would you care for a crumpet?"

"No, I would not care for a crumpet," Tuvok told the toaster.

"How about a nice roll?" it wanted to know.

"My nutritional requirements have been adequately met," Tuvok assured the toaster. "I fail to see the logic of repeatedly asking me if I want bread products when I have sufficiently answered your inquiry. Now, as you have pointed out, it has been several months since your arrival and you still have not told me what I want to know. Can you tell me how you got here?"

"Yes," it finally said. "I was jettisoned from a ship that passed through this quadrant many years ago, and I have been floating aimlessly through space all this time. And the one thing that kept me going during all that time was knowing that some day somebody would find me, and when they did they would want to have some toast. I mean, what is the point of my existence if I cannot make somebody some nice, scrummy toast? Why doesn't anybody ever want toast anymore? Toast is good for you..."

Tuvok put the toaster in the replicator and incinerated it.

"Captain Janeway, the Talkie Toaster is no longer on board," he said into his badge. "I believe it has suddenly disappeared."

"Acknowledged," Janeway said. "And Mr Tuvok, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Nobody on board seemed to want any toast anyway."

"Yes, Captain," he agreed.

On the bridge, Kathryn smiled over at Chakotay and he grinned back.

"I wondered how long it would take him," she said. "If that toaster had been in my quarters I would have done away with it weeks ago."

"Yes, Captain," Chakotay agreed. "So would I."

FINIS