Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

planned to do?
    B'Elanna didn't buy it. “Would this ‘old friend’ have anything to do with the mission you sent my daughter on?”
    Janeway hid her misgivings in a smile. “Sorry, B'Elanna, but you know I can't talk about that.”
    Can't, won't—small distinction.
    “Couldn't you at least have delayed it till after the reunion? She really wanted to be here.”
    “She'll be home soon,” Janeway said, answering the question B'Elanna was actually asking. “I promise.”
    “May I have everyone's attention, please? Attention!”
    A spoon clinked madly upon a champagne glass on the other side of the living room. Janeway and Torres turned and stepped out of their hiding place in the hallway, to see Reg Barclay quieting the gathering so he could make his announcement. In his uniform, with the rank of commander, he seemed at ease in front of a crowd—quite saying something for Reginald Barclay.
    “Ten years ago tonight,” Barclay began with a touch of drama, “this crew returned home from the longest away mission in Starfleet history. Twenty-three years together made you a family . . . one I'm proud to have been adopted by. So let's raise our glasses—to the journey.”
    “To the journey!”
    Around the room glasses clinked and smiles flickered.
    Admiral Janeway raised her own glass too, but she didn't drink to that toast. She had one of her own.
    “And,” she began firmly, “to those of us who aren't here to celebrate it with us.”
    As around her the extended family of
Voyager
affirmed her sentiment, Janeway pressed her lips to the glass and blocked the rest of her statement with a sip of champagne. Better buried in bubbles than spoken yet . . .
    May things change for them and for all of us, suddenly and soon.



CHAPTER 3

    “L ADIES AND GENTLEMEN . . . MEET THE B ORG .”
    The Borg. Still, after decades, a terrorizing presence that had yet to be subdued. Some neighbors you could live with. Others—
    A Borg drone shimmered into formation at Commander Barclay's summons. Bulky and robotic, the drone had just enough left of the humanoid element to be essentially paralyzing at first, second, and third glance. They were a ghastly-looking bunch, the Borg, with their underlying living body infected with mechanics, threaded with artifice down to the last fiber, until they didn't even need blood anymore.
    Yet, there were those eyes . . . impenetrable, uninfluenced.
    The old Pathfinder research lab, once used for radical communications to call out to the lost
Voyager,
had been converted into a classroom. The Borg hologram rotated gracelessly before a cluster of Starfleet Academy cadets on tiered seats. Some of the kids flinched at the sight—and it was indeed harrowing.
    And even more for someone who had dealt with the Borg, as Kathryn Janeway had. She sat on the dais while Barclay continued addressing his class.
    “Over the course of this term, you're going to become intimately familiar with the Collective. You'll learn about the assimilation process, the Borg hierarchy, the psychology of the hive mind.”
    Barclay paused, letting those words sink in, for they had great eternal significance even though they were spoken quickly. Assimilation . . . the hive . . . what a civilization!
    Janeway repressed a shiver.
    “When it comes to your performance in this class,” Barclay went on, enjoying himself, “my expectations are no different than those of the Borg Queen herself . . . perfection.”
    Several cadets laughed, breaking the sensation of impending doom always brought on by the sight of a Borg, and the mere idea of their queen.
    “This semester,” Barclay continued, “we're very fortunate to have a special guest lecturer, the woman who literally ‘wrote the book’ on the Borg. Admiral Kathryn Janeway.”
    Janeway smiled, but not because of the applause. Poor Barclay, always pontificating for effect—Janeway hadn't really written a book. Didn't he know what “literally” meant? Oh, well, if he weren't trying too hard, he wouldn't be Reg Barclay.
    Speaking before groups of all kinds from students to Rotary Clubs, support leagues to historical societies, had lost its gloss for her years before. The sheer redundancy of the questions quite effectively offset the hero worship. Certainly she appreciated being treated so well, and understood the need of others to focus their own dreams, their fears, and needs for a happy ending.
    Ten years made for a lot of public appearances.
    She stood up to the