Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

applause of the starstruck children of Starfleet's near future. Before very long, these would be the helmsmen and spectrographers and analysts and officers of the next batch of Starfleet ships spreading out into the settled galaxy to discover the new and tend the established.
    Most of them didn't even shave yet.
    “Thank you,” she said when the applause settled. “I'm glad to be here . . . a question already, Cadet?”
    One of the kids in the middle of the class had his hand up. He was glancing at his classmates. Janeway recognized the symptoms of a put-up job.
    “I suppose it could wait till after class, Admiral,” the kid said skittishly.
    “As they say in the temporal mechanics department,” she encouraged, “there's no time like the present.”
    The kid turned a few colors and screwed up his daring. “In the year 2377, you aided the Borg resistance movement known as Unimatrix Zero—”
    “Sounds like someone's been reading ahead,” Barclay commented.
    Janeway glanced at him, then looked at the cadet. The kid had moxie, she had to admit that. “I thought you had a question, Cadet.”
    “Yes, ma'am . . . when you informed the Queen that you were going to liberate thousands of her drones . . . could you describe the look on her face?”
    At first she didn't have a clue what that meant. Okay, she still didn't.
    Was she missing something?
    When in doubt, play smart. She broke a grin and smiled right at the kid as if she knew exactly what he was fishing for.
    The cue was right—the other cadets broke into laughter. Whatever fraternity he was pledging for, he'd probably just guaranteed his membership. Janeway was about to give him extra ballast by actually trying to describe what he asked for, but a Starfleet yeoman drew her attention when he came into the classroom and hurried down the steps toward her. So much for chitchat.
    When the yeoman whispered to her and Janeway excused herself from the class, she thought this might be a good lesson too—that speaking to a group of cadets was leisure, not mission, and that even an officer without an assignment had priorities. She left without any more explanation and heard Barclay redirect his students to nanotechnology, but felt his curious eyes tug after her.
    They'd all understand, eventually, why her behavior had become so quirkish. Time would tell.
    Once in her own office, a cluttered echo of her ready room on
Voyager,
she went immediately to the desk monitor, which was flashing INCOMING MESSAGE: CLASSIFIED.
    Classified and time-sensitive. She touched the controls.
    Instantly a youthful face replaced the words, a girl in her mid-twenties. Miral Paris, the daughter of Tom and B'Elanna.
    Janeway pushed down that last part, and forced herself to see a Starfleet ensign instead of practically her own granddaughter.
    “Sorry to pull you out of class, Admiral,” Miral said quickly.
    “Did you see it?” Janeway asked immediately.
    “Yes, ma'am.”
    “And?”
    Miral smiled conspiratorially. “It works!”
    Janeway allowed herself a deep breath of relief—good news, great news.
    “Korath has agreed to the exchange?”
    Miral's smile fell away. “Yes . . .”
    “But?”
    “He's insisting on handing it over to you personally.”
    “I'll be there as soon as I can. Good work, Ensign Paris.”
    The girl nodded—now,
there
was hero worship.
    The monitor blinked to a dark screen and the cryptic conversation ended like a snap. They were engaged in dangerous games, and no mistake, but there was something engaging about all this.
    Janeway settled back in her chair. She could easily have resisted, sent a message to Korath that Admiral Janeway didn't just sally off to a Klingon stronghold at his first beckoning. She probably should've toyed with him, led him on, made him believe she wasn't interested in dealing with him or helping him advance his family's influence. He'd have known she was lying and he would've lied back at her and this could've gone on for a while until they were both good and ready to lay things on the line.
    No sense dragging out the inevitable. Korath knew what he wanted and Janeway did too. So they'd skip over the general playbook and get right to the end zone.
    The reunion was over. Miral had reported in. Korath was primed. Janeway's private shuttle was refitted and ready to fire up. The key pieces were in place. She was thinking clearly and had retired all her doubts long ago.
    Just one more obligation.
    * * *
    The day was bright and