Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

Starfleet Command but not live on the grounds. To Janeway, though, the bridge and the bay meant something more, she truly believed, than to all the other admirals. At least something different.
    She hoped that after today it would still mean something good.
    * * *
    Invasion.
    Another reunion.
    The apartment was filled now with people, all kinds of people, human and alien, young and old, Starfleet and otherwise—the surviving members of the
Voyager
's crew and their families. Thank God some of them had enough time left to have families. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres, soft music, laughter, some smiles. Janeway hovered behind the umbrella tree and watched as one of the kids approached Harry Kim and tapped his arm, breaking a conversation he was having with somebody else.
    Kim was a Starfleet captain now with his own starship, the only one of the remaining crew who had pursued such command. The studious effort had taken him a while and grayed his hair, but he'd made it. Oh, yes, Janeway had to admit to herself that she'd pushed a few buttons for him, and he had a leg-up just from the
Voyager'
s reputation. Why not?
    “Hello,” Kim said to the child at his elbow.
    “What's your name?” the little girl asked.
    “Harry. What's yours?”
    “Sabrina.”
    “Naomi's daughter? You've gotten so big?”
    “I don't remember you.”
    “I haven't been to one of these reunions in four years.” Kim straightened, rather proudly. “I've been on a deep-space assignment.”
    “For four years?”
    Janeway smiled. To a child, this was eternity.
    “Compared to how long I was on
Voyager,
it seemed like a long weekend. Can you find your mother for me? I'd love to say hello.”
    The little girl nodded and merrily departed, giving Janeway her opening. She wanted to talk to Kim, but only to him, not to a knot of smiling relatives trying to pretend they were having a great time—again.
    “Here you are, Captain” she began, circling in on Kim with a fresh drink for him.
    “Thank you, Admiral.” Kim nodded toward the little girl. “I haven't seen her since she was a baby.”
    “It's amazing how fast you've all grown up,” Janeway said.
    Kim shrugged, then his smile faded. “How's Tuvok?”
    “The same.” She wanted to tell him the truth, but this was more gentle.
    His expression suggested he knew more than he was saying. “I thought maybe I'd go see him tomorrow.”
    “That would be nice.”
    And it would be nice if we were more honest with each other.
    “I'm sorry I missed the funeral,” Kim went on. “I should've been there.”
    Janeway took his hand. “You were on a mission. Everyone understood.” They looked at each other in mutual discomfort, but with genuine affection too. “It's good to see you, Harry.”
    She started to say more, but her throat closed up. There was no clever way, after all. How could she tell him she needed him and his ship out of her way?
    This reunion was the tenth time she'd fielded these awful sensations, so much that she had come to dread such events. People had been kind and generous, certainly . . . she'd been given citation after medal after doctorate after award, and each one diminished her sense of accomplishment. As she glanced around at the faces of her crew, her friends, the awareness of being a celebrated central figure in this great drama of space exploration pressed her again with the feeling that she'd failed. She couldn't shake it.
    Every time they had a reunion, they wanted to feel more like they were home, and every time satisfaction slipped a little farther away. They'd been lost for twenty-six years, the prime of each of their lives. When they'd returned, their families had grown, died, changed, forgotten, or dreamed of possibilities no longer possible. The
Voyager
had done the impossible—it had come back from the dead.
    The crew had stayed dead.
    She had brought them back, but too late. Though she had dreaded this reunion, it galvanized her sense of purpose. Her mission wasn't over.



CHAPTER 2

    T HIS PARTICULAR REUNION WAS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE OTH ers. Janeway moved away from Harry Kim without saying what she had planned to say. She'd given him plenty of orders in the past and demanded he not question her judgment or plans, but today he was a Starfleet captain and things were more complicated. He had a right to ask why. She wasn't ready to tell.
    She floated about the room, attending everyone but not really engaging in conversation. She was going through the