Avec la garde montante

Nous arrivons, nous voila

Nous marchons la tete haute

Comme de petits soldats

Sonne trompette eclatante!

She hated opera. Loved chamber music, loved the symphony – hated opera. Why the infernal chorus from Carmen was playing itself over and over in her head was an unanswerable question.

With the guard we arrive, here we are

We march like little soldiers, heads held high.

Over the balding heads of admirals and dignitaries, she glared. This was a press conference, the longest, most drawn-out press conference of her career. Why did it not please her to discuss her crowning achievement, the safe return of Voyager's crew to Earth? Because, she told herself, Kathryn Janeway is a woman of action. Kathryn Janeway does not like to rest on her laurels.

Someone had told her that there was an underground group who believed that the Federation had entered into a conspiracy with the Borg collective to assimilate planet Earth. Someone else had mentioned a theory that the real starship Voyager had crashed years earlier and that none of the crewmembers who had returned to Earth were real people. For some reason, these stories appeared to her as infinitely more interesting than the truth.

There they were, the two of them, Chakotay and Seven of Nine. Just watching them made her blood turn to stone. She could hardly believe he couldn't feel her eyes boring into him, sending their venom directly into his brain. Nothing. He didn't turn around, probably didn't blink. She didn't exactly think that humans were capable of telepathy, but her own pitiful lack of ability in this regard surprised her. One more try. Come on, Chakotay. That's an order.

Kathryn Janeway left the Voyager press conference three days early.