Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

gossip than a problem for command officers.
    True, the ship's cook could make or break the quality of life belowdecks, especially in a near-survival situation, and could keep the crew going, but this just wasn't the kind of thing she should have to be discussing with her first officer.
    Janeway threw it a bone anyway. “Neelix left some pretty big pots to fill. Does Mr. Chell think he's up to the challenge?”
    “Apparently so,” Chakotay said casually, and handed her a padd. “He prepared a sample menu.”
    Janeway scanned the information and crinkled her nose. “Plasma leek soup? Chicken warp-core-don-bleu?”
    “If his cooking's as bad as his puns, we're in trouble.”
    “Oh, I don't know . . . I wouldn't mind giving his red-alert chili a try . . . feel like having lunch?”
    “I'd love to. But I already have plans. Rain check?”
    “Absolutely.” He turned and headed for the door, which in fact opened at his approach before he changed his mind and peered at her over his shoulder.
    Janeway felt his gaze even though she had gone back to the work on her desk. When she didn't hear the door close, she looked up. “What's wrong?”
    “Yes. What's wrong with you?”
    “Psychic, are we, Chakotay?”
    He strode back toward the desk and pressed one finger to the black surface. “You've been more nervous than Tom. You're not giving birth to this baby, you know. It's Tom and B'Elanna's problem.”
    “Is it?” She drew a long breath. “I thought I'd put my misgivings to rest.”
    “Kathryn, you can't stop them from starting families. It's one way they feel less captive.”
    In a kind of annoyed fitfulness, Janeway pulled her fingers through her hair and tried to relax. “A long time ago, I came to a decision that there would be no children on
Voyager.
Remember?”
    “I do remember. You suffered over that decision. And if memory serves, it was just a few months before Naomi was born.”
    She nodded at the irony. “Yes, it was one of those brilliant command decisions that lasted about six seconds before I had to swallow it.”
    “The only other option is find a planet, park the ship and plant a colony, and start our lives over there. The idea has come up before.”
    Janeway's chair squeaked under her as she pivoted and put one foot up on the leg of her desk. She fixed her eyes on the part of the wall where the viewport met the bulkhead and got very interested in the seam. “I've been over and over this.
Voyager
is a Starfleet ship on a mission. It's not our ship . . . it belongs to the people of the Federation. They built it, supported it, educated all of us and sent us into space with this fabulous resource . . . it's our sworn duty to return this vessel and its power back into their hands.
    “Our priority is to return this ship and its strength and all we know about the Borg to the Federation so we can mount a singular plan to deal with them. That's our mission. Our
only
mission.” She stood up and stretched her legs—how long had she been sitting? “If we forget that, we're just the passengers on some vague journey whose end we can't plot out.”
    “No one's forgetting that,” Chakotay pointed out. “No captain in Starfleet has ever had to command the kind of ship you have here or this kind of mission. We only brought half the ‘the book’ to the Delta Quadrant with us.”
    “Seven years, Chakotay . . .” Janeway murmured. “Two years longer than the usual deep-space mission, and those are usually punctuated with home leave from time to time. And our mission wasn't a long one anyway. They crew was expecting to go home after a few months at the longest. Paris didn't even know B'Elanna. Tuvok has a wife and five children. Five! You and I were on opposite sides of a local conflict . . . my setter had had puppies . . .”
    “I think we can forgive ourselves for improvisation, don't you?” he suggested. “You're mourning the fact that we've been lost for seven years. How about giving ourselves credit for having survived seven years when we didn't in any way intend to be out so long? Most ships are provisioned for months before a voyage like this. We've actually learned to be comfortable.”
    “Too comfortable,” Janeway complained. “Naomi was one thing; an entire second generation, growing up on this ship, makes me very conscious of the time that's passing. Tom and B'Elanna will have one child to worry about, but I have a ship full of crew to think of.
    “What if I have to order Tom