Episode 1 - Stranded

"Captain, I am detecting a subspace modulation. It is very simple, and in a, well, human pattern," Ensign Kim called out from the operations and sensors station.

"Human?" Captain Janeway asked.

"It's an S.O.S."

That caused Commander Chakotay and Lt. Tom Paris to give each other a surprised look. "Are you sure it isn't a prank from someone within the ship?" Chakotay asked intently.

"Uh, no, sir. It is most definitely external. It is not very powerful and probably only reaches ten light years diameter." Ensign Kim was studying his console very closely.

"Lt. Paris, alter course towards the source. Perhaps we are not alone as we thought we were," Janeway ordered.

"Aye aye, captain." Tom started to push the overlay buttons and adjusting the warp field.

"Sensors are picking up a Class-O planet around a orange star," Harry said as he continued the scanners focus.

"It looks like a lifepod on the debris of the planet. That place is pretty hostile. Snow, ice and fairly poisonous atmosphere. That is not a lifepod that the computers recognizes," Harry called out.

"Captain, I am detecting a Kazon cruiser at long range," Tukok called.

"Can we lock onto any lifesigns?" she called back.

"There is a single, human life sign in hibernation. Remarkable. We should be able to grab the life pod also, which I recommend." Tuvok was heading to the transporter room before Janeway could order him.

"Lt. Paris, prepare to go to high warp the moment we've enacted our rescue. I'd rather not let the Kazon try to attack us."

Five minutes later, Tom reported the successful transport. "Course laid in, engaging warp."

The Voyager flashed out of the lonely system in a burst of brilliant radiation.

"Activate Emergency Medical Hologram," the captain ordered as she followed Kim and Tuvok as they floated a coffin like device into sickbay. The hum of its gravity-repulsor lift was a bit jarring.

"Please state the nature of your medical emergency," the Doctor said as he appeared. He started moving over to the immediate focus of the two officers.

"We just picked up a human castaway that is within this alien life pod. We need your assistance in rescuing her from it," Janeway declared.

The Doctor was already starting to scan it with the medical tricorder. "This seems like it will be straightforward. The patient appears to be healthy and only in a low state of hibernation."

Tuvok helped open the top panel, revealing a young teenaged girl within. Tubes had been inserted to inject chemicals and nutrients intravenously.

With seeming ease, the Doctor had her laid out on the medical bed and was administering chemicals to counteract the hibernation. "Strange, I'm detecting high levels of methane and argon within her system."

"That's from the atmosphere. I don't think you could survive long term without a rebreather unit," Kim said helpfully.

"Well, her body seems to be flushing it out-" the hologram was saying when the girl awoke and looked around.

"Humans?" she said through cracked lips in centuries old English.

"Yes, most of us are," Janeway acknowledged. "Welcome aboard the starship Voyager."

"But you are from Earth?" the girl asked, visibly brightening up.

"Indiana, to be specific," Janeway said.

"I'm from Illinois! So my S.O.S. got picked up?" she asked happily.

"We are wondering how you ended up on the far side of the galaxy," Janeway asked as Chakotay hovered in the background.

"I was banished through time, space and reality," the blonde replied quite seriously. "This looks like the future, because Earth did not have starships when I was there. The far side of the galaxy?" She whistled in appreciation of that. "And I may not even be in the right reality."

"Doctor?" Chakotay asked.

"Fine." The hologram fiddled with his tricorder. "Strange. Her hair and deep bones do have very small traces of low technology pollutants. She may be correct."

"Well, that is interesting. I'm Captain Katherine Janeway. This is my first officer, Commander Chakotay. These are Lt. Tuvok and Ensign Kim." Janeway introduced her officer.

"And him?" the girl asked.

"He is the Emergency Medical Hologram. And what is your name?"

"I'm Sheila Henderson! So when do we get back to Earth?" she asked brightly.

Janeway and Chakotay shared a quick look. "We are actually stranded here by an advanced species. At our current best speed, we are looking at over seventy years of travel."

"Human lifespans have been extended that much?" she asked.

"Not really," the captain replied.

"Great. Well, better than dying on that planet," Sheila said.

"Let's get you set up with some quarters and introduced around."

"Hello, I'm Kess. I guess you are my new room mate?" the short blonde alien said to the short blonde half-human.

"Yes. Neat. You're an Ocampa? And you joined Voyager in the Delta Quadrant?" Sheila asked curiously.

"Yes." Kes winced. "Strange, I'm getting a headache." For some reason, she had the feeling that the young girl in front of her was the reason.

Sheila looked over from where she was checking out her bunk. "Oh, you are getting a low level tele-empathetic headache. Probably from me."

The headache suddenly lessened dramatically. Kes opened her eyes and just stared at the barely shorter girl in shock.

"Is that better?" she asked.

"Yes. What did you do?" the Ocampa asked.

"Oh, I just started thinking on one track. I try to multi-task my thoughts. But I don't want to cause a problem." She shrugged. "So this is the standard civilian outfit?" It being a knitted top over a full bodysuit.

"Yes. Let me introduce you to Neelix," Kes said dragging her outside of their room. The curving walls told them they were to the starboard.

They found him working in a room, tearing it apart.

"Neelix!" Kes called out.

"So what's this project?" Sheila asked.

"I'm turning this into a kitchen and canteen. That way we can save energy on replication circuits," the Talaxion said.

"Interesting. So you are going to turn yourself into a short-order cook?" the scion said as she started to look over the area.

"Yes. It's being a little complicated to integrate into Voyager's systems, but I think it is a decent challenge." The alien looked quite happy.

"Hard to integrate? Ah, so you do not know the Voyager systems? It looks like I'll have someone to learn with while I'm going back to school," Sheila said with a smile.

"I'm a pretty good engineer. You have to be to keep even my old ship going," Neelix said proudly. "I just need to figure some of it out is all."

"I was taking engineering about a year ago, but my knowledge was terribly dated," she admitted.

"They start your training that early?" Kes asked. She had been informed that Sheila was immature. Probably just about her own development level, though she had not told anyone else about that.

"I might be only been twelve, but I was in advanced classes." Sheila shrugged at that.

"I'm only two, but fairly mature," Kes explained. "Twelve seems very old."

"I bet you learn very fast due to your Telempethetic sense," the human-looking girl replied after a moment of consideration.

The Talaxian blinked. "That's probably right. I hadn't thought of that."

"So there is tension between 'Starfleet' and the 'Maquis'?" she asked casually.

"It's something to do with their government in the Alpha Quadrant," the male alien explained.

"Sounds like I have a lot of recent history to catch up on. Though I already know some things aren't the same," Sheila said as she eyed the pasta dish carefully. "They had a World War III before I disappeared from my reality. However they didn't have the Eugenics Wars. "

"That sounds very different."

She suddenly smiled at them both. "You have no idea."

Episode 2 - Two is a crowd

"Sheila Henderson to the Bridge. Sheila Henderson to the bridge," the computer called out from across the room.

Said girl looked up from her preparations. Neelix and her had still been working on converting the room off the main dining area into a full fledged kitchen. Sheila had been a small voice of sanity in setting it up using human convention cooking, not Talaxian. And in a way that would easily serve a decent sized restaurant.

Sheila quickly headed to the nearest turbo-lift. "Bridge."

It was actually one place she had not been. Even though the Voyager was not a very big ship, she really had no reason to go there. The doors slid open, showing the entire bridge crew looking at her expectantly.

"Miss Henderson, would you care to explain how you are sending a subspace message from a star system about two hours away from us?" Captain Janeway said as she stood up and walked towards the turbolift casually.

"Um, what? I'm right here," Sheila exclaimed in surprise. "Probably best to ask the 'me' out there."

"We intend on doing so, but it doesn't appear you have a receiver. You are only transmitting," Janeway said.

The hours seemed to last forever and Neelix was just walking onto the bridge when they started to receive a signal from Sheila's com-badge.

"Henderson to Voyager, I have important information to transmit in person." Sheila's voice sounded ragged. "I would suggest landing the ship as normal."

"Captain, this planet is not evincing any warp technology. We could be breaking the Prime Directive." Chakotay seemed very serious.

"I think that might have been broken already, but Sheila did give us a clue that we should land the ship without revealing our transporters," Katherine said carefully as she turned to the Sheila onboard right now. "I'm surprised you knew that."

"I, ah, have been studying the Starfleet Academy entrance exam materials as part of my continuing education," Sheila said diffidently. "One of the requirements is to study all known ships and their basic specifications. The Intrepid-class is listed as atmospheric capable and of landing on the ground."

Tom turned his head from where he was piloting the ship to look at her where she was standing near the turbolift. "I thought you were catching up with a modern education?"

"That only took me two weeks, Lt. Paris. I was a fully qualified graduate of the University of Berkley already." She gave them a shrug when she took in their expressions of bewilderment. "I'm a child prodigy."

"Captain, we are getting a beacon directing us to land at the main airport of the capital," Harry called out.

"Plot a landing, Lt. Paris."

"Aye aye, captain. You know, this is my first time landing such a large ship." Even so, he started the landing sequence with consummate ease.

"Mine too, Tom." She radiated perfect confidence in his ability.

The Voyager cut through the air to land in the field outside an airfield. In about twenty minutes, a procession of ground vehicles approached at a slow pace. The strange clothing was the only thing that made the humanoids of this planet stand out from the humans of the crew. Katherine led a small group of her officers down to the ground to meet them. Tuvok was on her right, while Chakotay and Tom were on her left.

"Captain Janeway, I am Aspikt, the leader of this city. We do wish to apologize for the terrible tragedy that occurred and your actions in stopping the destruction of our planet." The gray haired alien looked confused. "I never thought I would get to thank you in person. According to Sheila, there was a time space vergence that happened. Which is why I am able to return two of your crew so that you may inter them as your people do."

The local police were carefully helping carry two coffins out of an ornate and somber vehicle. A different Sheila was watching carefully.

"Sheila Henderson, perhaps you could explain." The captain looked deadly serious.

"I beamed down after you and your away team were investigating a planet that had been scorched of all biologic matter by a polaric energy. Lt. Paris, yourself and I all ended up displaced 24 hours into the past before the event. Due to actions taken, the polaric explosion was stopped, at the cost of you and Tom Paris's life. These people feel they owe you a debt of gratitude and would be more than happy to stock Voyager for its journey," Sheila explained.

Katherine and Tom turned and stared at the coffins, gulping audibly.

"You managed to survive," Katherine said slowly.

"I was injured, but I'm healing. I'm not from your time... do I have permission to board?" she asked in apprehension.

"You are a member of my crew. Of course you can. And I would be churlish to reject these people's offer of help. Though I do have to ask, Aspikt, about your reaction to my crew. You do not seem very terribly surprised by our appearance," the captain said carefully, ignoring Tuvok's raised eyebrow.

"We have been attacked by a local race a few times. So we've pulled back into our atmosphere until we can develop defensive technologies and perhaps our own space ships. The polaric energy grid was actually designed for the high energy requirements of pulsed lasers and disrupters," Aspikt explained.

"So you are aware of warp capable starships, but you don't have any yourself. Interesting." Katherine thought for a long moment. "If you don't mind, I would like to take our dead and then we will discuss matters of restocking in a few hours. Miss Henderson, if you will follow me."

The crew of Voyager headed inside and then to a conference room. The Sheila that had been on the ship the whole time followed them in silence.

"This is going to be confusing with two of you," Chakotay said with a wry grin.

"Well, she's the elder. So I'll be more than happy to change my name. Call me Ashley for now," the one scion said carefully.

"You don't have to," Sheila argued back.

"It's not a big deal. I am still myself. I just happen to have an older sister," 'Ashley' said with a grin.

"Now, how did you end up on the planet? You certainly are not trained for away missions," Tuvok asked carefully. "I can not believe you have an expertise that would require your presence."

Katherine noted 'Ashley's' wince, though Sheila merely nodded.

"I hacked the controls to Transporter Room 3 and sent myself down when I sensed that I would be needed to avert a disaster. I arrived just before Captain Janeway attempted an emergency beam out. We were engulfed in a subspace fracture." Sheila's voice was very flat, though not unfriendly.

"Uh, I thought you were still learning to use modern systems?" Tom asked carefully.

"I've finished a modern pre-Academy schooling as of this morning." Ashley said.

"And can already hack Voyagers computers."

Sheila looked over at Ashley. "What can we say? We're prodigies."

Tuvok and Katherine both looked like they were developing headaches. The captain looked like she wanted to continue, but visibly stopped herself. "Commander Chakotay, I would like you to take the bodies to the doctor and verify the cause of death."

The Native American nodded. He could understand not wanting to take your own body down to the morgue. "I'll get right on it."

"Tuvok, we'll need to take some measures to keep anyone civilians from the planet from wandering into Voyager. I'd like you to set up security details at the hatches that we will be processing in the supplies the natives will be bringing in."

The vulcan nodded.

Ashley and Sheila disappeared back to their room. "So, phaser burn?" Ashley asked as the door closed behind them.

"Guess."

"Janeway tried to interfere when you saved the planet from that polaric radiation blast. But you aren't lambasting her, so she must have had a change of heart," the 'younger' time-twin said.

"Exactly. There's also the fact that this is all probably a set-up that we stumbled upon."

"Intuition?" Ashley asked carefully.

"I was at the 'crime-scene' where a species was almost wiped out. I don't know who and how, but someone wanted Janeway to break her precious Prime Directive," Sheila said as she mused who would want to cause that. "Can you try to heal this? I'm not bleeding out, of course, but I'm probably going to be impaired a bit until it is fully healed." The older scion lifted up her shirt to show the ugly, seeping burn on the right-side of her torso.

"And hey, it will prove that I'm no longer you. As I can't heal myself," Ashley said with a quirky grin. "You almost lost your liver there. We'll have to look at a transplant of some sort." Her hand rested on the wound. When it pulled away, Sheila's wound was much improved.

Scar tissue covered the angry red wound and bruises to the surrounding area. "Thanks. And yes, you are not me and I am not you. So... sisters?"

"You can be the wise one and I'll be the pretty one," Ashley said with a smirk that fell suddenly. "Well, I bet you want a hug." With that she grabbed her other-self into a tight grasp.

"I failed. I couldn't save her and Tom. Not and save the planet," Sheila sobbed onto her twin's shoulder.

"We aren't perfect. All we can do is try to be better for the next time," the other girl replied carefully.

After a few minutes, Sheila was calm enough to be able to talk.

"We're going to have to either trade rooms or get a bigger bunk," Ashley said witha wry grin.

"I'd... like a bigger bunk. Even if we do get a new room." The one girl looked very forlorn.

Ashley looked at her other self. "That's fine with me." And she meant it, as the other version of herself looked very distraught.

Katherine Janeway looked at the main view screen as the planet was slowly receding. "Lt. Paris, continue our course to Earth."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

Chakotay followed her carefully into her ready room. "What are we going to do with the twins?"

"That really is the important question. I checked her computer records access. She, or now they, really have been accessing the training materials of a pre-Academy educations. Her scores are something I would expect from a genius rating in math, science and other hard disciplines. Her softer skills in the arts seem to be weaker. More of very bright girl that Starfleet would want to recruit," Katherine said.

"So you do think she could have learned all that in just a few weeks?" her second in command.

"I am not going to rule it out as impossible." Katherine looked over to the window where warp distortion was bending the stars beside them as they travelled in warp. "It looks like we should see about helping them to reach their potential and fit them into the crew. Which will be hard, due to her age."

"Twelve years. That is pretty young. She carries herself much more maturely," Chakotay mused. "Well, I'll see about the different heads and having them check her school work and to have them assign more work."

Episode 3 - Fitting in.

Captain Katherine Janeway opened her private dining room only to hear the sound of people talking, the clatter of cooking and the smell of breakfast behind a counter. A kitchen now took the place of her entire private dining room.

"Captain!" one of the twins called out. It looked like Ashley, as she had a red hair-ribbon. "We have some crepes and poached eggs that we are cooking on our opening day!"

"Miss Henderson, what is going on?" Katherine almost hissed out.

"We are conserving resources and energy by using an actual kitchen to prepare foods," she replied promptly. "While not degrading the quality of food much. Sheila and I decided that part was very important."

"I... see. And you decided that the captain's dining room would be the location for this change?" Katherine's voice betrayed a controlled level of outrage.

"Captain's-? Um, sorry ma'am, but I actually don't think there's anywhere else we could, ah, appropriate," she babbled quickly. "Neelix! You didn't tell me you were taking over the captain's dining room!" she called out over her shoulder.

"You never asked. Besides, it was the room next to the main mess I could find with the computer's help," the Talaxian replied as he scuttled up from the back of the kitchen. "I can't believe you two! I thought Humans didn't know how to cook?"

"Neelix, Sheila and I are before Earth even had protein sequencers... much less replicators. Heck, we could probably hunt with spears if we really needed to." Ashley rolled her eyes without turning to Neelix.

"That really doesn't make sense, but I suppose." The colorfully dressed alien just shrugged. At the moment he was just happy to have capable help.

Katherine closed her eyes for a moment. "Mr. Neelix. Miss Henderson, we will discuss the taking over of my dining room later. I do think I'll take the crepes and poached eggs."

Ashley had her served up in a remarkably short time and over to the nicer table that two Maquis quickly moved away.

Sheila and Ashley shared a look. "That did not go so well, though..."

"...it probably could have gone a lot worse," Sheila finished. "The protein synthesizer seems to be working. With the added computer control tweaks, we should be able to craft bulky base items for foods with a fair taste. And at ten percent of the energy of the replicator."

"So with all the cooking and installing the kitchen, we'll start saving energy in the next few days then."

They both looked up in surprise when the captain was suddenly called away. Neelix left them in charge, spouting off order to not let one of the Talaxian food items scald.

"We are not cooks," Ashley said angrily to the departed Talaxian beyond the door to the room. She looked like she was trying to burn holes in the door by pure will alone.

"No, we aren't. But we all need to eat," the older twin said seriously.

Sheila and Ashley walked into the Sick Bay only a few steps behind Kes who rushed over to Neelix who was in a coma and being worked on by the Doctor and Tom Paris. They had just heard that he had been beamed up from the asteroid where the away team had been prospecting for Dilithium.

"What happened?" Kes demanded. She had a smudge on her cheek from where the three of them had been working in the hydroponics section.

The two Scions whistled at the diagnosis... his lungs were just gone. The Doctor had already stopped the bleeding temporarily and was saturating his blood with a blood-gas infuser attached to his forehead.

"Doctor, why don't we fit him with a pair of artificial lungs?" Katherine asked a few minutes later.

"Neelix's lungs attach at multiple points upon his spine. It's too complicated," the Doctor replied.

"That does not sound correct," Sheila countered. "You have an hour to get at least 30 % of one them attached and then we can continue work to get the rest of them."

"No one can do such long term surgeries of such complexity," the Doctor countered. "I realize you don't understand how intricate this matter is-"

"Doctor, the only thing that was holding us back from a full doctoral degree is that I have no had time to complete my internship at a hospital," Sheila countered right back. "In my time, surgeries that take hours are not uncommon. Let me take a look at your artificial lung and the specifications for attaching it to a Talaxian."

Chakotay, Katherine and Kes all looked at Sheila and Ashley in consternation.

"Your training is centuries out of date. Do you really think that you can do this surgery?" Katherine asked seriously.

"We will need to look closely, but I'm not going to rule out replacing Neelix's lungs with the artificial organs that Voyager can replicate," Ashley replied quite seriously.

Both of the girls moved over to a computer desk and started to rapidly manipulate the interface. Sheila immediately brought up two views of Neelix's internals. One with his lungs that she pulled from the transporter computers and one as it was currently.

Ashley had brought up a diagram of a standard artificial lung. "Sixteen interfaces for each lung?"

"Correct."

"Doctor, we'll have you insert an inflatable balloon for the right lung until we can complete the left lung hookup," Ashley explained.

"This is not going to work. And your physical skills are not going to be up to the task of connecting those with the micro-forcefields," the Doctor protested.

"Then I'll do it manually with physical manipulators," Sheila countered. Both of the twins' fingers were tapping away at a rapid pace as they synchronized their work. Ashley was starting to modify the lung design using alterations from a more similar federation race to Talaxian anatomy.

"Doctor, is what they are saying even remotely possible?" Katherine asked.

"It's barbaric and primitive-"

"That is not what I asked," Katherine snapped out. "Is it possible?"

"I suppose, technically. Though they will have to have phenomenal hand-eye coordination." The Doctor was looking a bit less skeptical as he saw their plans being laid out with a meticulous time-line. "Are you really going to be able to do all those steps?"

"We can bypass all the amber colored ones on the list if absolutely necessary. Luckily I've been looking into modern surgical practices," Ashley said.

"We just didn't think that we would be needing them quite so quickly. And Doctor, we both have a very high kinesis rating."

"Well, then I guess we need to get to work. I was thinking of using a hologram to simulate his lungs, but this is probably a better long term solution," the Doctor admitted.

"We're still going to see about getting his original lungs back. Chakotay, Paris; with me. Kes, you should leave the Doctor and them to their work." Katherine turned to head out of the sickbay.

"But I want to help," the Ocampa complained.

"You can be our morale support," the twins said at the same time, then turned to stare at each other with a curious scowl. They hated it when they said the exact same thing.

"Captain's Log 48532.6. We are in pursuit of the unknown race that had attacked Neelix and removed his lungs. Neelix is currently in surgery. This situation has actually expanded the mystery of Sheila Henderson, who is now also Ashley Henderson. This young girl had finished her medical degree centuries ago, but never had the chance to take her internship back before she was exiled here to this space and time."

Katherine hit pause as she stopped to think, resting her elbow on her desk. She continued then, more slowly. "In fact, we have not gotten a good picture on how she was exiled there. Chakotay reports that the surgery appears to be going well. The artificial lungs are being carefully grafted over a laborious period of time. No complications have come up, so it appears that Neelix will survive."

"Captain, the aliens have dropped out of warp," Chakotay's voice called out from the doorway.

She was up and moving into the bridge.

"Their ion trail goes into the asteroid there," Tom called out from his control panel where he was piloting.

"How big is that entrance?" she demanded.

"Over two hundred meters wide," Harry replied from his science station.

"I don't think we should go in there," Chakotay said immediately.

"If Mr. Neelix's life depended on it, I would disagree. But you are correct, Lt. Commander. Launch a probe instead," Janeway ordered.

The sensor probe was launched from a torpedo tube and slowly entered the caverns until the signal was lost.

"There's definitely jamming of some sort going on. And those energy readings indicate the probe was drained of its energy," Harry called out.

"So it's a trap," the captain said. "Well, I think we are going to have to cut our losses here. I do not want to endanger the ship for more information. Fire phasers and and seal that cavern entrance. That will signal to the aliens that we do not appreciate their actions, I think."

"Aye aye, captain," Tuvok called out

The orange beam of coherent nadions lashed out, sealing the entrance. The Voyager then turned and gracefully sped off back into warp speeds.

"Neelix!" Kes exclaimed a day later.

The Talaxian in question was actually laying on one of the side beds, slightly propped up. "Hi," he replied in a croak.

"You can stay a while," the Doctor said and moved back to start working at the desk doing paperwork.

"Well, Neelix, you should be fine in just a few days," Ashley said.

Sheila nodded. "Just take it easy as those artificial lungs are assimilated. There designed for their generic structures to be absorbed and turned into the Talaxian lungs."

"How can we thank you?" Kes asked. "I was willing to give up my own lung to keep him alive."

"It's what friends do," the twins said, then grinned at each other.

Episode 4 - Home?

Ashley and Sheila were each sitting an approximation of Vulcan's science academy learning pods. The holo-deck was actually in a minimal power configuration. The only force-field reaction fields were in the control panels they were manipulating in their native Vulcan language. Displays were quickly scrolling as testing was in progress.

So when the power cut out, the room reverted to standby-mode and the lights came on, they were quite surprised. They spared each other a quick glance and then walked to the door.

"Computer, what caused the power loss?" Sheila asked.

"Ship is experiencing a class 2 power drain. All non-essential systems are being diverted."

"Yet we're not under attack." As Ashley had noted, they were not at a red alert.

"Let's go grab a bite to eat," the other scion said. It was only twenty minutes early for their supper.

They entered the cafeteria to hear Neelix arguing with Kes.

"These humans are crazy! Sticking their noses in everywhere when they should just be traveling to their home." The Talaxian seemed quite upset.

"I would do the exact same thing," Kes admitted.

"Mr. Neelix, I'm afraid we're going to have to disagree on this one at a fundamental level. Voyager will not be able to return to Earth without poking its nose into things. It does not have the range nor the reserves to make it so far without gathering supplies and energy the entire way." Sheila looked quite incensed.

"But heading into an unknown nebula and almost getting trapped-" he started to argue back.

"-is part of exploring. And we have to forage for supplies." Ashley was glaring at him right along with Sheila. And if need be they could bring up several strange things Starfleet vessels had encountered in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants over the last two centuries.

"I think we will have to disagree on this matter," Kes said diplomatically.

Sheila and Ashley started helping out in the kitchen, listening to any announcement (few and far between) and the rumor mill from different crewman.

"We're going to be mucking out the impulse engine manifolds for weeks from that organism." The crewman was part of engineering and reported to B'Elanna.

"Hmm. I wonder if that's part of its way of reproducing?" Sheila asked Ashley.

"A type of spore propagation? I suppose that's possible. They probably aren't looking that closely at it and it would spread things around when they dump it." The other twin was thinking about it. "Should we mention it to B'Ellana?"

"She probably won't really care, but it's probably something we should at least mention."

The two finished their stint, completing their 'rush lunch hour' and then ate a quick meal. Then they headed down to engineering where the half-Klingon was busy trying to keep everything together.

"What are you two doing down here? I haven't had any time to go over your papers," B'Ellana called out as she helped a crewman micro-wield a conduit back together.

"We were wondering how in depth you scanned the gunk we got from that nebula?" Ashley asked.

"Enough to know how to get rid of it." The engineer shrugged. "Why? Is it more dangerous than Harry thought?"

"We're thinking it may be a spore-type method of seeding. And using starship to travel those spores around faster than they could get around at sublight speeds." Sheila was busy reading some graphs on power ratings.

That actually got most of the crew working in engineering to look up.

"So we're bees?" Crewman Boylan said, looking over at B'Ellana.

"Exactly. Though I guess that entity is either a kind of Venus Fly trap-" Ashley was explaining.

"Wait a second. Venus doesn't have any native plant life," the chief engineer protested. Terraforming of Venus was just at the stage of terraforming stations.

"It's an Earth plant. It eats bugs. But in our case, if the bug got loose and escaped, the spores might be spread over a very long distance." Sheila looked quite pleased. "It's a nebulonic ecosystem that takes advantage of sentient FTL."

"I'll get Harry to do some scan of the residue that it hit us with. You might be right."

At the end of the day it had been proven. Captain Janeway was not too amused, but had it recorded for future study of nebula in their area. The actual age of the organism might be amazingly long.

Kes bounded into their shared room looking very excited. "Did you hear? Harry found a wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant!"

"Really? That's amazing. I can't wait to see what Earth is like these days. Then maybe I can figure out a way home to my own Earth." Ashley looked quite happy, while Sheila just nodded right along with her. They were both hanging out reading data pads as they continued to get ready to talk to Captain Janeway.

"Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting that you are so out of time." Kes considered it. "Do you think I'd be welcomed there?"

"Or any other planet of the Federation," Sheila noted with a glib grin.

An hour later, the bad news that it was a thirty centimeter wide wormhole in advanced degradation. Sheila heard about it from Neelix in the kitchen.

"Well, that sucks for us," the scion complained. "I'm pretty sure they don't have tessaract technology to make the outside of the Voyager smaller than the inside."

"Do you think something like that is possible?" Neelix asked. "Or is it more ancient Oo-S-A science fiction?"

"That one was more British, actually. But yes. A dimensionally transcendent vehicle could be gigantically huge on the inside, but maybe the size of a shuttle on the inside. It would be a terribly huge surprise if you attacked it thinking size was everything." The scion flipped the burgers over and scooted the buns over towards the less hot side of the grill.

"More coffee, please," Boylan asked.

"Did you want to try the-" Neelix started to ask.

"-just regular coffee, please," the engineer said quickly.

"And Talaxian tastebuds strike again. Neelix..." Sheila called out with almost a sigh.

"But it tastes good!" he replied quickly.

"We already went over this. Your tastebuds processes things differently than most of the humans. And most of the non-humans on the crew have been acclimatized to human foods so they can tolerate it. Remember, I have to ask a Vulcan to taste-test Vulcan food."

"So where is your twin?" Neelix asked curiously.

"She's helping Kes down in the hydroponics section."

In said converted storage room, Kes frowned at the bags and rows of plants. "I'm still not sure this is the right way."

"This is a little more efficient use of space, Kes. I know it looks artificial and overly crowded..." Ashley explained. She was wearing her red hair ribbon. It really did seem there was hardly any room in the hydroponics section. Cords of fiber-optics were placed around to make sure different plants got the right amount of yellow light.

"It just seems odd to be growing things in bags," the Ocampa admitted. "I'm actually impressed with how much food we are actually able to grow in here." She was currently checking an upside down plastic bag that held the liquid nutrients for a tomato plant. There was a smart strip on it that was indicating that more nutrients needed to be added.

Ashley nodded. "It's fun trying to get some things to grow. Like Vulcan Betabas and Bajorian Flemjo."

That was when Sheila and Neelix walked in.

"Did you hear? They contacted someone on the other side of the wormhole. They are wanting everyone to ready messages to send back to the Alpha Quadrant," Sheila said to Kes and Ashley. "Doesn't really apply to us four, of course."

"Ah, right." Kes frowned as she realized that she did not feel any sorrow from the twins. "Your family has probably died of old age, haven't they?"

"Oh, that's terrible. I keep forgetting that you are centuries out of time," Neelix said in a comforting tone.

"Well, it's a little more complicated than that. Our mother is probably still alive, but she's a special case. I don't know how to get a message to her or if she even exists on this Earth." Ashley looked over at Sheila, seeming to communicate with just a glance. Of course an 'Apollo' had claimed that the other gods had passed into a state they were not dead, yet no longer among the living.

"Let's leave it at that," Sheila said with finality.

The two aliens thought about that for a long moment then nodded silently. Neelix left to go back to his quarters. He had some planning to do as morale officer. The twins continued to help Kes make the hydroponics section flourish to the level of jungle proliferation. Time seemed to fly and it was time to prepare for breakfast the next morning. The twins caught up with Neelix as he read a datapad with information.

"So I was thinking we could make some lasagna," Neelix said briskly. "I understand it's quite popular among the crew."

"That sounds fun," Ashley admitted. "We have some synthesized cheeses that should work well."

"I find it odd that you can do that old style machine with so little energy compared to the replicators," Neelix said in confusion.

"Actually, the old machines were pretty energy intensive too, but with 'modern' updates, it worked out really well."

That was when a group of three crew members came in, discussing in hushed tones the hope that they could transport home in B'Ellana's idea to piggy-back a transporter signal through the wormhole.

Sheila and Ashley both whistled softly at that. "Now that would be fast travel."

Everyone was talking about it for hours. And when the Chief Engineer succeeded, everyone became ecstatic. So it was quite a downer when they discovered that the Romulan on the far side was refusing to let them transport.

Kes shook her head. "At least we won't have to abandon the Doctor here." She was sitting in her bunk, reading from a datapad on anatomy.

The rest of the crew was very despondent after the micro-wormhole has been left behind. Sheila and Ashley headed to the captain's ready room, waving to Kim and Harry on the bridge.

"Captain?" Ashley called out through the open door. "We have a question about that passage to the Alpha Quadrant."

Sheila nodded.

"Go ahead," Katherine asked of the duo.

"Why weren't we allowed to transport across? It would get us closer to our past," Sheila asked as she fiddled with her ribbon in her hair.

"Unfortunately, you have become slightly... contaminated with current knowledge. I'm not even sure you would be allowed to go back to your past at this point. There are Temporal Directives that limit sending future knowledge back."

"So because we learned about the present... we have blocked ourselves out from the past?" Ashley asked in a taut manner.

"We are always travelling into the future. It is only going back into the past, or affecting the past, that is blocked." Katherine looked over them both as they let that sink in. "Do you believe you could advance the 21st century with your new knowledge."

They both nodded.

"While you may be from the past, you have made yourself part of the present. Travelling into the future is not that unusual. Cold sleep and high-speed relativity are the usual culprits. Perhaps you will end up back in your past, but I'm afraid at this point, Starfleet would not assist you unless you agreed to erase your memories."

"I wish we had been given that choice to go through to the Romulan ship," Ashley finally said.

"Truthfully, it didn't even occur to me until a few hours after we cut communication. Are you all right, Sheila and Ashley?"

"No. I think we need some time to cool off."

Katherine nodded. "I can understand that. Just don't hurt yourselves."

Chakotay heard the Captain's ready room door open again in a fairly short time. "Are you two all right?"

They shared a quick glance. "We were just told that we can't go home to our own time," Sheila replied in a flat monotone voice.

The second in command nodded slowly. "Ah, I hadn't thought of it that way. But it makes sense."

"We'd like to go back to our room now," Ashley replied as she clenched her fist.

After the twins had left, Tuvok raised an eyebrow at his security station. "Interesting. I was under the impression that human juveniles were more prone to outbursts of emotion."

"She was just controlling it, Tuvok. They both were, actually. They were very upset." Chakotay seemed to be considering things. "We'll have to do something to cheer them up if this continues."

Episode 5 - Starfleet

Chakotay walked into the captain's ready room a week later. "Captain. I have a couple of request from... the Hendersons."

"Something that you can't deal with?" Janeway asked curiously.

"Yes, so to speak. It requires the captain's person touch. Ashley and Sheila want to enroll in Starfleet as cadets." The native American nodded as understanding dawned on her. "Exactly. They are considered minors, so would require the permission of their guardian. In this case, that's you as their parents aren't available."

"Let me guess, they have already filled out the application perfectly and want to take the entrance examination?" the captain said with a soft smile.

"That would be an easy guess. So, I take it you are not adverse to two almost thirteen year olds joining the crew?" the lt. commander asked curiously.

"Twelve. I keep forgetting that. She seems more mature." And they were tall for their age. Janeway considered it for a long moment. But less than five breaths. "Yes, I do think so."

"I thought so too. It will occupy her time. I had Tuvok pull up her self-schooling tests." The older man shook his head. "Her scores are very, very high. She really did go through an entire pre-Academy schooling in just a month. Even impressive by Vulcan standards."

"Perhaps we should extend that sort of offer to Kes." After a quick shake of her head, Janeway continued with, "No, that wouldn't work. Her species is just too short lived."

"Yes, I figure we'd leave Kes to help in the infirmary with the EMH and telepathic training with Tuvok."

The point of their discussion was down in Tuvok's quarters, undergoing a mind-meld. Kes was staring into Tuvok's eyes has he held his right hand to her facial chakra points. Kes suddenly jerked back. "How can she do that?" the Ocampa asked in consternation.

"Concentration is key to the meditative exercise, Kes. Who are you querying about?" the dark-skinned Vulcan asked as he tried to patiently explain what they were doing.

"Ashley and Sheila? They are in the holodeck, preparing for their entrance exam. They are in full multi-tasking mode." Kes shrugged to show she was sorry. "It's so hard to keep track of all their thoughts when they do that."

"Strange, I was not aware that humans could multitask to any great degree." Tuvok just added that to the mystery of the twins. "But at this point, we must continue the training."

"Of course."

Ashley and Sheila both stopped their programs and looked over at each other. "So... Kes?" They were both standing in the middle of the Vulcan-styled learning pods with hologram screens.

"It could have been. We're not the most empathetic. And we don't have the proper organelles for proper telepathic communication," Sheila noted.

"Like we'd really need it. Once we verified we weren't Polluxian alien-human hybrids, we re-affirmed that our abilities are mystical. Not just advanced beings pretending to, you know, be Greek gods according to that report from the Enterprise." Ashley rolled her eyes.

"It doesn't make us better, you know."

"Nope, it just gives us advantages!"

They both grinned at each other and restarted their eight separate courses each. Half an hour later, the door opened to the holosuite as Kathryn and Chakotay entered.

"Pause program," Kathryn called out. "Sheila, Ashley?"

Chakotay pursed his lips as he took in the crowd of screens, but did not say anything.

Both of their heads appeared above the edge of their pods.

"Hello, captain. I take it Commander Chakotay mentioned our request?" Ashley asked curiously.

"Indeed he did. I find it very interesting that you want to join Starfleet," Kathryn said carefully. "In fact, after you became upset at the Temporal Directive, I find it very surprising."

"We want to do our best and it will help the ship a bit if we were actual crew rather than just part-time cooks. We can be so much more," Sheila replied. She, like normal, was not wearing a hair ribbon.

"And it's very exciting. While we might never get to our home time and space, we definitely think being on an exploration starship is very neat," the other twin said.

"I see. That does make sense when you put it that way. Very well. Commander Chakotay will start with getting you into cadet uniform."

Both twins snapped military precision salutes.

"So you two are joining Starfleet, which is more than joining Voyager?" Neelix asked. He had a poofy chef's cap on in the kitchen as he worked the grill.

Ashley and Sheila both nodded. "That's right," the younger twin said. She was wearing an apron over her black cadet uniform.

"Chakotay is being very strict and getting us up at 5:00 AM in the morning." Sheila stirred the pot of chilli. The five gallon pot bubbled merrily in the ship's canteen. "And he's assigning us to clean the mess hall and kitchen."

Suddenly, alarms blared as the lights dimmed to red alert. The two scions immediately went and shut down all the heating elements and pulled the food off the burners. They made it to their damage control station (under a Maquis petty officer) in time to hear that they were recovering one of the shuttles that had been attacked.

Half an hour later, it was making the round of rumors that Harry Kim had returned, but Tom Paris had not. The Voyager was headed to the world that Harry and Tom had been contacting for help with resupply and repairs.

That was when Sheila and Ashley's com badges went off. "This is Captain Janeway. Please report to the bridge."

"Aye aye, captain," they replied and headed off.

"Cadets, we are about to go down to the planet. I want you to perform a medical scan of Ensign Paris when we get there. Lieutenant Tuvok will be investigating the murder conviction he has managed to have happen to him." Janeway did not look thrilled.

"You will not be issued a phaser, but please do get a medical kit," Tuvok told them.

"Captain, a ship is on intercept course," the second watch's pilot called out. She was now the most senior pilot on the ship.

"Yellow alert," Janeway called out authoritatively.

Sheila and Ashley quickly moved out of the way as the Voyager was hailed by the Numiri. The curt warning was by Neelix's own words, odd. The species was vaguely polite in a short, brusque way.

"This become more and more curious." Lt. Commander Chakotay shared a long look with his commanding officer.

Lt. Commander Tuvok led the twins down to the planet, as the Benea refused to let Tom Paris leave their planet.

After they rematerialized, the Vulcan nodded to a very fatigued looking pilot. "Ensign Paris."

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes. And you brought the twins," Tom said with a ghost of his normal grin.

They were running medical tricorders over his body, focusing on his head very quickly. "Hold still, please," Ashley said softly.

"Yes, unfortunately it appears your human physiology does not take well to the neural graft which forces the murderer to relived his victims last moment," Minister Kray, the Benea leader present, said sadly. "I'm not sure he will survive."

"Is removal of the implants mandated when the life of the convicted is in danger?" Sheila asked as she adjusted the medical tricorder.

"That would not be possible, as the older sentence of death would have to be applied under the law," the Benea countered.

"You have to explain to them that I'm innocent," the pilot said almost frantically. "Oh god. It's starting." He started to thrash slightly as the images of a Benean murder played in his head. It only lasted a minute or so before he collapsed, being checked over by the twin Scions.

"I would like permission to investigate the crime," Tuvok said afterwards. "I would be remiss in my duties to not investigate this incident thoroughly."

"You are free to do so, but the evidence on his guilt was taken from the mind of the person he murdered. It is considered unimpeachable," the Minister said.

"Then you may want to recheck the technology, because no technology is totally foolproof," Sheila said angrily.

"Is the device supposed to overload the synapses and cause a deterioration of the cerebral pathways?" Ashley tried to say while calming down her twin.

"No, it's supposed to not have any adverse affects." Kray did not look very happy.

The two shared a look, then turned back to him. Sheila then spoke, "We will need to talk to our captain, but I feel there is something wrong with this procedure. Will a physician that specializes in this process be available to discuss the technology a bit?"

"Of course. We have no desire to kill him. We just wish justice served."

Lt. Tuvok returned a few hours later, with a pensive look on his face. "Cadets Henderson, have you ascertained anything of importance?"

"We need to have Tom scanned by the EMH up on the Voyager," Ashley said as she verified she had her red ribbon in her hair.

"According to what we were told, this sort of nuerological cascade should not be possible," Sheila continued.

"It sounds like I will have to talk to the captain about it." He hit his com badge. "Tuvok to Janeway. Cadets Henderson believes that Lt. Paris needs to be examined by the EMH on the Voyager to confirm a problem with his medical condition. I believe I need to return to go over my findings."

"I've been discussing this matter with Minister Kray. He's not happy about it, but he will agree to the transfer as long as there is a Benae guard with Lt. Paris. Return to the ship immediately."

It took a few minutes to arrange the specifics, but they were all transported up in an orderly manner.

The Doctor ran the medical tricorder over Tom's head as he lay on the sickbay bed. "I have to confirm that there is neurological damage being propagated by the judicial procedure. Essentially he suffers from a grand mal seizure every time he is forced to relive the death scene.

"I didn't do it," Tom said hoarsely with pleading eyes to the captain. "All I remember is passing out from the wine and then there were people shouting about how I murdered Professor Ren."

"Something is odd about the implants, but I don't think we are familiar enough with the technology to verify my suspicions," Sheila explained.

Ashley picked up with, "It does not appear to be following the normal patterns for memories. It could be because it was implanted via a computer system, but the memories do not look fully synaptically based, as there appears to be binary encoded data within it."

"I believe that I will needed to experience his next punishment," Tuvok finally said.

Sheila and Ashley looked at each other. "From what I've read," the red-ribboned Ashley said, "that would not be recommended. The rapport may trigger your own seizure controlled by your own telepathic powers."

The Doctor nodded. "Quite so. We will have to think of something else."

Sheila held up a data pad. "I should be able to convert this into a holodeck program in an hour or so."

"I'm due for another 'punishment' before then," Tom complained. His hair was plastered to his head and he looked very unwell. At this point Tom was starting to think them killing him would be more merciful.

"While I can't stop that, I think we can actually put you into a form of stasis while we investigate the unusual data," Ashley explained. "One hour later, if this isn't countermanded and removed and you will have the punishment."

"A simple, though effective, solution," the Doctor said as he nodded. He moved over to the bed and started to manipulate the controls on the side of the bed. A forcefield snapped into existence as chemicals were introduced into the air to put him into a state of suspended animation.

The abortive attack by the Numiri was driven off quite handily, only delaying their investigation into the murder. Janeway noted the timing was very unusual. The twins noted the tactics used. It appeared they had more to learn.

Janeway watched as the dimly lit scene in the Benean's house started to play out. Once again the scientist Tolen Ray was murdered by the apparently philandering Ensign Paris. She shuddered at the image of the knife sticking out of his chest.

"That is not Tom," Sheila declared. "He's too short."

"Computer, please insert a copy of Ensign Tom Paris from Voyager medical records," Ashley said as she played with her red hair-ribbon.

The newly generated hologram stood next to the memory generated hologram.

"I see what you are saying, Cadet Henderson. This is unusual," Tuvok noted.

"Let me see if I can translate into short-hand the mental cues," Sheila said as she moved over to the holodeck controls.

They watched the whole scene again, seeing Tolen Ray enter into the house, confronting his wife and Tom and then being killed.

"Deep betrayal? Why would Tom be tagged with the emotion context of betrayal. He should not have enough emotional connection for that level of feeling," Janeway noted carefully. "What is that, Sheila?"

"Medical record query on the Benean anatomy. I'm just verifying where it went into," she replied. The young scion nodded as her temporal clone looked on over her shoulder.

They shared a look, then both turned to the captain.

"He was stabbed in his main heart. While Tom is medically trained, I doubt he would bother to learn where a species heart is on his first day of meeting them. This was a Benaen attack."

"And I think we have enough evidence to bring to their authorities," Tuvok stated with authority in his logical way.

Tom Paris exited the turbolift onto the bridge.

"Welcome back, Mr. Paris," Janeway said from her chair. "I think you'll find your station is right where you left it."

Tuvok looked over to Sheila and Ashley standing at different stations listening attentively as they learned the ropes. "And good work to you two. Both of you managed to help find the evidence that Mr. Paris was not guilty."

"Yeah, thanks all of you. That was really rough," Tom said as he sat down. "Where do you want to go, captain?"

"Set a course to the next system. Make that the best speed." Janeway was smiling at him. Another roadblock overcome as the crew tightened together just a little bit more.

Episode 6 - Prime Directives

"Well Kes, I have to head to engineering," Ashley said as she stood up from her breakfast in the dining room a few days later. "Thank you for the omelet, Neelix."

The blonde Ocampa smiled at her. "I'll see you later? You are going to show me more of Old Earth?"

"The holodeck isn't really that accurate, but sure." She gave a little wave.

Neelix waved from the kitchen area with a ladle in his hand as he went back to his soup. "So energetic!" he exclaimed with a smile.

One turbo lift trip down and to the secondary hull and she was stepping into the main engineering room where the warp core was humming along. B'Ellanna looked up, his half-Klingon looks making her look more imposing than normal.

Or that could have been her scowl.

"You are late," the chief engineer called out.

"It's exactly 0600 hours. You wanted me to follow behind Crewman Conners?" she asked quickly.

B'Ellanna scowled as she checked the chrono. "Yes, you are going to be working on plasma conduit maintenance. Conners! Your student is here today!"

"Sheila! Over here!" the thirty-ish looking engineer called out from the second level. He turned around to grab his tool kit and then almost jumped out of his skin as he saw the blonde right behind him.

"It's Ashley, actually. It gets confusing to me, too," the Scion said. She reached up to check for her hair ribbon. It was missing. "Oops. Sorry." She rubbed her hand across her hair, leaving a red streak. "That should work for now."

"Right," Conners said. "Plasma conduit maintenance is very important." He ignored the streak of color as a probable prank of the girl. Really, letting such a young girl join Starfleet was just asking for problems.

It was a few hours later that a yellow alert was called that quickly sent everyone to their duty stations. Which, for Ashley, was back down to the galley. She had barely gotten on station when the yellow alert was canceled.

"What was up with that?" the young girl asked.

The slightly older version of herself just shrugged, as she had just barely walked in from the corridor and her own work in Hydroponics. "I don't know either. That's a bit strange."

"Well, with you both here, let's get started with lunch!" Neelix called out. "Only two and a half hours to go."

"You really are making this harder than it needs to be, but I suppose it won't hurt. We'll take longer getting back to our stations. Let me com B'Ellanna that we were grabbed fro grub duty," Ashley called out.

"I'll just finish up my report and post it for review," Sheila called out. "Forgot your ribbon? You know that's going to fade in a few minutes."

Ashley just shrugged back.

So it was a surprise when the captain and Tuvok entered the galley about half an hour later with a stranger."Mr. Gath-"

"Please, just Gath," the mostly human looking alien said.

"Gath, then. You really did not have to do this for us," she said to the brightly garbed alien as he set a container that carried some food dishes.

"Captain, I'm going to be serving lunch here in just under two hours," Neelix said from behind the counter, which got both of the Henderson's to roll their eyes at him. All of the preparations should only take an hour at the most.

"Mister... sorry, just Gath of the Sikarian did not want to make a mess on the bridge," Janeway said with a wide smile.

"Sikarian? Well, that is just amazing. The stories of your hospitality have spread quite a ways in this sector," the Talaxian said with a suddenly brightened demeanor.

Gath smiled brightly. "Indeed. I brought this for you to all try and to offer the crew of the lost ship a small respite upon our planet."

Both of the twins suddenly frowned at him as they felt a subtle suggestion within that phrasing. They both turned and looked at him. "Please don't do that," the chorused, then turned and glared at each other.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I was just projecting a little bit. My, you are very sensitive aren't you?" Gath replied while still smiling.

"Projective empathy," Katherine noted aloud. She was actually more interested in that the twin girls noted this before any of the Vulcans or other psychic races. "For a lot of races, it is just a tonal quality to their communication."

"Exactly," Gath said brightly. "Being able to emote our true feelings is one of our great benefits to our civilization. With that ability, our lives work and coexist so much better." The Sikarian nodded to all of them. "In fact, thanks to our empathy, we always seek our best to help everyone. We truly do wish for you to take a rest from your long journey across our quadrant towards your home. Please, do accept our humble generosity."

"This would be an offer of a life time, captain," Neelix said excitedly.

"Provisioning for our journey also?" Ashley asked, not realizing that she and Sheila had shared a moment of clarity in purpose as they subconsciously shared the thought and idea.

"I am sure that something could be worked out," Gath said with a soft smile.

A few hours later, Sheila and Ashley were standing a 'watch' in orbit with Lt. Tuvok as commanding officer. Sheila was at the navigator's console up front, while Ashley was taking an intent look through the Science station's sensors. The rest of the crew were preparing for leave on the planet.

The young woman played with her red hair ribbon for a second, then looked up to the captain's chair. "Lt. Tuvok? I'm seeing a disruption in the orbits of the planets of the system. They aren't matching up where they should."

The black Vulcan raised an eyebrow at that. "That seems highly unlikely. Are you sure you properly applied the correct orbital models for all the planets?"

Sheila winced from her location at the nearly locked down navigator's console.

"I have successfully inputed every fragment of rock larger than one meter with ten light hours of the primary, lieutenant," Ashley said in a controlled voice, trying to not let her outrage show through.

"On screen, cadet." Lt. Tuvok stood up and walked closer to the main view screen. The cloud of data points on it did look quite thorough. "Lt. Sheila, what do you think of it."

The older demigoddess had her console bring up all the calculations. "She's right, this can't be totally natural."

"That's it. It has to be something on the mass of a planet disrupting things," the younger temporal clone said.

Tuvok watched as each planet disappeared across space-time graphs. "That does not seem very likely," he noted dryly as he saw her take the Sikarian home world out of the system.

"No, that's exactly right." Sheila was thinking fast and furiously. "That's a level of technology at least an order higher than any normal Alpha Quadrant nation. The ability to move your planet..."

"That's why Neelix didn't know where the Sikarian's home was. It's never in the same place, but probably only hopping a few dozen light years at a time. Now that's an advanced society. I wonder what spectra their original star was?" Ashley asked herself absently.

Tuvok was studiously going through the math that showed the planet had only recently arrived in the star system. Roughly about two years ago. "An ingenious defense, in some ways. If someone threatens your home, you just leave. But what sort of technology could produce that?"

They filed it away for a report to the captain.

Sheila looked up from a pot of Chili. "Hello, Kes. I haven't see you for a bit." She was behind the counter, making lunch for what crew was still on the ship.

The young Ocampa emoted happiness quite broadly, then pulled out a scrap of fabric. "I'm just back from my 'leave' down on the planet. They have some very amazing fabrics." The shimmering cloth seemed almost transparent, then solid all while feeling amazingly soft.

The young demigoddess nodded. "Probably suitable for a civilian dress. Neelix just went down there to pick up some supplies himself."

The shorter blonde nodded. "When do you go down?"

"I managed to convince Lt. Tuvok that Sheila and I would both want to go down together after lunch when Neelix is back."

"That sounds fun. Are you going to try and find some fabric like this?" Kes asked as she carefully folded away the scrap.

"Probably something a bit more utilitarian. If they have a tougher fabric that cleans better, I may see about using that for my uniforms. I guess the Sikarians are even more advanced than the Federation, according to Neelix. And I'm barely getting caught up on Federation technology." Sheila gave the smaller blonde a small shrug.

Lunch was a big hit for most of the human, though a few complained that it was too spicy. Strangely, Tuvok and the other Vulcan did not. It was pretty hit or miss for the other aliens. Though the Bolians all really enjoyed it a lot.

Sheila and Ashley changed into jeans and a T-shirt and were transported down to one of the larger civil centers. Several Sikarians made themselves available, much to their amusement, though one moved himself to the forefront.

"I'm Dartum, your guide," a suave young man of seemingly about twenty years age. "So your race can have natural twins also?"

"Humans can, but we are rather an oddity," Ashley said, turning her head and nodding to her 'elder' sibling.

"I'm actually a temporal clone or cross-time duplicate, so I'm twenty-four hours older at the time of our split. Space time fissures are much more pretty at sensor range," Sheila continued while studying the Sikarian closely.

His start of surprise was not very well hidden. "That's rather dangerous."

"They nearly vaporized their civilization and all life on their planet, so yes, I think they'd agree," Sheila replied grumpily.

Ashley winced at that. "So, on to other things. Do you guys have an cool fabrics that are really tough and easy to clean? Sorry to be practical, but we're trying to maximize out ability to get Voyager home to the Alpha Quadrant. Which probably sounds terribly egotistical."

"Everyone puts themselves at the center of their universe. It comes from the identification of 'myself' and 'I'," Dartum explained.

"That does seem a standard psychological concept across a great many races. So you are studying us as part of your education system?" the older demigoddess asked him.

The dark-haired Sikarian just smiled and sighed. "I'm caught out. You are pretty bright. In fact, I think you might be a bit smarter than most other humans we have met so far. And very practical, too."

"We do pride ourselves on our intelligence," the younger twin replied.

Two hours later, the twins had discovered a fabric that was about twice as sturdy as the normal fabric, a slightly improved powercell that they planned to reverse engineer and were going over a display of rocks with their tricorders. They had determined a few exotic igneous rocks that had some interesting properties.

"This tetrahedral quartz is giving off a slightly neutrino echo. Is that normal or is it treated that way?" Sheila asked curiously.

"I'm not an engineer. As you surmised, I'm an exopsychologist in training, but I think that's a natural material we use in some of our transportation technology," the Sikarian said casually. "It's fairly common on our world." He blinked as he felt the two minds merge for a second as they sent information back and forth.

"Would it be possible to get some of the basics of this technology? The Federation is always adapting more ideas and technology into its... our base of understanding. This could help in some small manner," Ashley finally said.

"While I'm sure you could ask for some of the minerals, we are not allowed to share our technology with lesser species," Dartum noted.

"Is that like our Prime Directive where you can't share advanced technologies to societies that are not as advanced as you are, but technology that is only comparable is perfectly fine? Even less advanced technology can be traded?" Sheila asked curiously of Dartum. The vendor put the quartz samples in a bag for ease of carrying.

"I'd probably have to verify that, but I do believe that is the gist of the idea."

"I'm sure our captain is requesting such aid and technology at our level."

Gath shook his head an hour later. "I'm very sorry, but we would not be able give you such advanced technology of a Spatial Trajector. Our directives do stop us from giving something like that to a lesser developed society," the Sikarian leader said. They were seated in a casual office overlooking the markets that Katherine had been shopping at earlier.

"I understand completely. I mean a civilization that can move their planet wherever they want is probably much more advanced than anyone that has joined our Federation so far. My race is actually not the most advanced. The Vulcans have several technologies that they have not released to the general Federation data banks." Captain Janeway smiled. "In fact, we have a whole list of banned technologies that we do not allow member races to use."

"I didn't realize your Federation was that advanced. I did get a request from one of our observers for a list of useful, yet not too advanced technologies to go along with resupplying your ship. While the Spatial Trajector is definitely too advanced and our ship technology I believe is not very compatible, we can still see about giving you some thing that will increase your ships duration of travel to some degree. We've also topped up your fuel and Dilithium crystals. We don't actually use those ourselves."

"Advanced warp without Dilithium? That sounds amazing, though I have heard of other species using alternate technologies. I believe the Romulans have their singularity power plants," Katherine said wistfully as a scientist.

"We would request some sort of trade, if possible, for these technologies. While they aren't advanced by our standards, they are fairly advanced by yours."

"That seems more than fair."

They haggled for a few more minutes, Katherine quickly coming to 'sell' books and shows of Federation culture. Ten shows would buy a single technology that might be useful.

Ashley blinked in surprise at Kim's announcement of the Spatial Trajector technology in the cafeteria that Sikarians. "They really transported you casually across the Delta Quadrant?" She whistled at that.

"Yes, but they aren't willing to share the technology," the ensign grumbled.

"Did they say they wouldn't use it to assist us? I mean, even if they shave off just five hundred light years off our journey, that's useful. And if they can transport a person twenty to forty thousand light years or so, they can probably transport a subspace beacon for us. That would probably not break their prohibition about giving us technology." Her mind was awhirl with ideas. "I mean, that would be like letting us use their radio-"

"I get it. I do." The Asian Starfleet officer frowned as he thought through things. "Actually, I think we should go talk to Commander Chakotay and the captain. They may be too worried about acquiring technology rather than asking the Sikarians to use it to communicate home."

Neelix nodded from where he was busy tending to the mashed potatoes (or the facsimile there of) and called out, "I'll be fine for a while. This is definitely more important than just supper."

Kim led her through the bridge and to the captain's ready room.

"Enter," she called out. She smiled as she saw the other Henderson. "Let me guess, you had an idea to ask them to use their technology to transmit a beacon or perhaps even transmit back."

Sheila smirked at her 'twin' even as she shrugged. "I guess our great minds do think a like."

"That was a horrible pun, Sheila!" Ashley groused right back. "Yes, I figured that we could fabricate a subspace beacon and have them Trajector it across the galaxy at the very least. Starfleet might pick it up and we could put some non-confidential information as a download. Communication to families, etc."

"Depending on how close to the Gamma Quadrant it is, that might work," Chakotay said from his seat near the window where the Sikarian home world could be seen.

"I'll contact Gath. He'd probably be happy to do so." The captain looked at the two cadets.

Sheila was working her 'training shift' down in engineering when Ensign Kim came in to talk to Lt. Torres. They retreated down around the corner.

Kim said in a low, intense tone, "I've been contacted by an interested party with an offer for the Trajector device. He said if we can come up with a large group of literature in trade, he'll get us an old Trajector for us to study."

B'Elanna thought about this. "I don't know, Harry. It's an unknown technology. And my department is busy fabricating a large subspace transponder to get moved to the edge of the Delta Quadrant."

"Well, even if we don't use it immediately, we could study it. I mean, transporting across thousands of light years. That's amazingly advanced," the younger ensign said enthusiastically.

"No promises, Harry. It might not be compatible or require one of their generators. Our warp drives aren't very useful without our warp cores."

He nodded at that. "I guess. It's just after months of failed hopes, to actually have something that might help."

B'Ellana nodded. "Seska had mentioned something about tomorrow being her brother's birthday."

Harry nodded. "I guess we all want to get back." With that, he headed back out of engineering.

B'Ellana walked back to the main reactor area and quickly noticed that the blonde-haired girl not wearing a ribbon was giving her an odd look. "Do you have a comment, Cadet Sheila?" It wasn't proper Starfleet protocol, but two cadet Hendersons had been too confusing.

"Do we really want to annoy our gracious hosts by stealing some of their technology?" she asked. With a grin, she continued. "We should probably wait until we are about to leave before absconding with it."

The half-Klingon gave her a raised eyebrow as she realized what the girl was referring to. "That's-" She paused a second, thinking it over. "That's not a bad idea actually."

"I've been going over the schedule for the maintenance cycles and I think I can squeeze out some efficiencies. I put it as a suggestion in your queue," Sheila said with a change of subject.

Now the chief engineer had a scowl on her face. "You think you know how to repair things better than full crew?"

"No, not at all, actually. What I've noticed is that certain engineers seem to be very good at some things and if you juggled the schedule just a little bit, everyone will probably get a bit more free time to look at tuning the warp drives. We've been reading up on that, trying to figure out a way to get the most, but the subspace and warp theory classes all seem a bit too simple," the demigoddess said. She wished she were more powerful, as Sheila was sure that she could improve the Voyager's engines with enough work.

"I'll take a look at your recommendations. Still taking some classes in the Holodeck?" the half-Klingon asked curiously as her wrath was forestalled. At Sheila's nod, she then asked, "What course are you up to?"

"Um, Professor Maldenorff's advanced physics and subspace theory right now. He's a bit of a maverick, but his thinking outside the box and trying to disprove 'known theories' let me learn more about the theories themselves. I don't actually think he's fully right, but that he's not quite seeing everything that Professor Stewart says in Deep Subspace Theory and Inter-Relativities." In fact, a lot of Professor Marion Stewart's theories seemed to be used in the construction of Voyager with its variable geometry warp drives.

"Send me the reference codes for that. It sounds a bit interesting. I never got that high up in Starfleet Academy myself."

"I think Stewart was teaching at Harvard in the Physics department."

"Ah, major league egg-head. Though I suppose its the job of real engineers to apply his theories," the half-Klingon said.

Sheila just had to laugh at that.

Janeway's sudden cancellation of all leaves and the plan to leave within the hour was quite surprising. That had both Sheila and Ashley down in engineering readying all of the different propulsion systems. Which they were happy to do, as it got them out of kitchen duty.

So they were quite surprised to see a very nervous Lt. B'Ellan Torres, Ensign Seska and Lt. Joseph Carey huddling around the main engineering console in the warp core room near the main entrance. It was when Lt. Tuvok walked in and handed them all the Spatial Trajector that they realized that they had finally made the trade with the Sikarian Garet.

"So that's it?" Sheila asked from right behind Seska, nearly giving the Bajorian a heart attack. "The Spacial Trajector?"

The ensign whipped around in an almost panic. "What do you know about that?" she demanded.

"If you are going to have a private conversation in engineering, you might want to see about activating a forcefield," Ashley noted adroitly.

"They are both fine with us getting the Trajector installed and start running some simulations," Carey called out. The man who had thought he was going to be the chief engineer. He waited for Seska to install it in a console.

Sheila and Ashley were sharing a concerned look. That small of a device did not look powerful enough to encompass the entire ship.

"We can do a full on test while we are waiting to depart," the Bajorian said with a maniacal gleam in her eye.

Ashley coughed and played with her ribbon just a bit. "We really should get a better understanding of the technology first..."

"And a bit further away from the Sikarians, as they can probably detect our using their stolen technology quite easily. I mean, the guys are so advanced they Trajector their planet around with them. I'd rather not annoy the species that can probably take it back from us with a snap of their fingers," Sheila countered directly to the older alien.

"Typical Starfleet-" Seska started to say in a sneering voice, only to be cut off by B'Ellana.

"None of that. She's just a cadet and brought up a good point. Only simulations for now while we try to figure out a way to implement a Trajector neutrino field in subspace."

Ten minutes later, they were still working on it when Voyager broke orbit.

Lt. Carey was looking confused as he tried to understand. "The physics is very advanced. I don't see how they can get the nuetrino field so large and then push it through subspace."

"They are probably using a larger version hooked into their power grid or into amplifiers. This might be the equivalent of an emergency transporter," the chief engineer noted.

Joseph suddenly narrowed his eyes as she brought up a computer. "No, they must have been using the tetrahedral quartz mantle of their planet to amplify it. Damn it. There's no way we will be able to convince the captain to go back and use that as an amplifier."

Ashley piped up first with, "But that doesn't make logical sense, Lt. Carey. How would they use the Spatial Trajector on one of their ships to send someone back to their homeworld. In fact, how would Ensign Kim have been able to be transported back from the edge of the Gamma Quadrant?"

"She's exactly right. Just because we don't see a way to amplify a hand-held unit to transport our ship across the galaxy doesn't mean that the technology is flawed or requires their planet," Sheila noted caustically. "I mean, we use electricity all the time and don't expect to have a lightning storm over our head everywhere."

"Cadet Sheila, that is not the way to address a senior officer," B'Ellana snapped out.

The slightly older twin flinched. "I apologize, sir. That was unwarranted." Sheila did not miss the worried look Ashley gave her.

"As long as you don't do it again, I'll forgive it. Let's continue our simulation to see if this can be a usable technology." Carey frowned as he looked at the screens. Inwardly he was glad at least they won't punch him in the face like his now superior officer had before gaining that rank.

"Yes sir!" the demigoddesses called out.

"Oh, come on, Lt. Torres. Let's try to actually use this Trajector. We aren't going to get anywhere with a sensor scan and simulations," Seska complained.

"If we are going to do anything, let's start small. We'll Trajector a 25 kilo weight across engineering. Let's hook up a station to control the Trajector. I'll bring up a framework of a transporter," B'Ellana said as she started to adjust the console.

They spent an hour calibrating the consoles and adjusting the connections to the plasma conduits, making sure everything seemed fine. During that whole time, Sheila had done a thorough scan of the Spatial Trajector Matrix and saved the data to the main computer core.

Finally they were ready for a test. Everyone in engineering was excited, though most of the crew realized that it was the five brains of the officers and the cadets that were doing most of the work.

"Energizing," Carey called out.

The Voyager suddenly shook as the Spatial Trajector translocated the target across the room.

"What the hell? I've got massive feedback of anti-neutrinos in the plasma manifold," Seska called out. The Bajorian looked totally flummoxed.

"We are going to have a warp core breach!" Joseph shouted out. His short, blond curls looked wet with sweat and worry already.

"Janeway to Engineering. Torres, what is going on?" the captain called down from the bridge.

"We have an engineering emergency in the plasma manifolds due to anti-neutrinos. I'm trying to flush it, but its not working. Evacuate engineering!" she yelled out. She moved over to try and physically disconnect the Trajector Matrix, but it would not budge.

Around her, most of the engineering staff moved out immediately, following her second in commands directives. Carey really had taken to his role well. "Move it! Move it!"

Seska looked terrified, but grabbed the chief engineer's arm when she pulled out a phaser. "You can't destroy that! That's our only hope to get home!"

B'Ellana pushed Seska aside, but could not take a shot as the Hendersons had moved in her way. "Cadet, get out of there."

Ashley and Sheila were on either side of the console and their superhumanly strong hands gripped the small device. Ichor flowed through their veins even as pumping adrenaline heralded them channeling everything they could into the heroic moment.

B'Ellana and Seska had just a moment to shield their eyes as the girls ripped the matrix right off the console and breached the plasma manifold. With a booming thunder, plasma exploded into the room and sent both girls flying.

"Oh, god. Sheila! Ashley!" the half-Klingon called out. She had already sealed off the plasma conduit with an emergency force field and was moving to put out the fire that plasma leak has set on one of the girls.

Ashley coughed hard as she rolled to her side. "Sheila!"

The other demigoddess was severely burned and dying from her wounds, half of her face on fire as the emergency fire suppressant was sprayed over her. Ashley raised up her hand, even as she desperately channeled her Legend into her healing power. Scalded skin and burnt muscles turned to first degree burns and bruises

"Medical emergency! Crew down," B'Ellana called out.

"She will be fine," Ashley said unsteadily. "Promise."

"Damn, there's no way we can cover this up," Seska said in a panic.

"Ashley, take the Trajector and put it in the secure compartment until we can figure out what went wrong."

Captain Katherine Janeway looked at her chief engineer and security officer in her ready room. Lt. Commander Chakotay was standing at her side.

"You broke Sikarian law, endangered the ship and caused two of my crew to be seriously injured. Give me one good reason I shouldn't remove your commission and throw you in the brig?" the captain demanded in a cold fury.

"I can't give you one, sir. As senior officer, it was my responsibility. All culpability should fall on me, as the rest were just following orders," B'Ellana said with a voice thick with emotion. "I can only hope that the cadets will be able to forgive me."

"Captain, I have to disagree with Lt. Torres's statement. It was not her who was the senior officer, but myself. I took the Federation Library down to Eudana and traded it for the Spatial Trajector. I have reviewed the logs and Lt. Torres and her staff appear to have taken reasonable precautions in investigating the device and seeing if it would aid us in getting back to the Federation. I would assume full responsibility for their actions," the black Vulcan said in his direct way.

Chakotay and Janeway narrowed there eyes at that.

"You did this, Tuvok? I trusted you to be my moral compass and then you go behind my back?" Katherine said in a harsh, low voice.

"It was the logical action required in the situation to get Voyager back home, captain," Tuvok stated.

"That is the power of logic. Well, you are going to bring your logic up to me before you go behind my back again, because this is definitely not what I wanted. I should be throwing you all in the brig, but I need you. I can't even demote you, because I do not have a replacement. Lt. Tuvok, Lt. Torres; you will be confined to quarters when not on duty and your off-duty privileges are hereby revoked for a month. If you step out of line in any way at all, I will come down on you like the hammer of God. Get out of my sight," the captain said harshly.

Once it was just her and Chakotay, she turned to him. He nodded after a long moment.

"I think that you got through to B'Ellana and punctured Tuvok's logic just a little bit. I can't see any way you could punish them more harshly either," the second in command said finally.

"No, I really couldn't."

"Hello," Ashley called out to the EMH in the sickbay as she walked in.

"Ah, there you are. I'm actually surprised at the limited damage that was inflicted on your twin. I've never seen anyone respond so well to the dermal regenerator." The medical hologram smiled down at the resting girl was a bit baffled.

"We heal fairly fast," the younger scion said. "How are you doing, Sheila?"

"I've been better," the burned girl said. "Did we save the Trajector?"

"It's a bit scorched, but not really damaged." Ashley pulled out a portable pad. "I have some ideas of what we can do to use the neutrino field to extend the regular transporters a bit."

"I did too, but I'm not supposed to be working," the other girl admitted.

"We'll have to convert one of the transporters and put in specialized equipment and our own version of the Trajector into it. I've talked to Lt. Carey about a anti-neutrino bypass. Which should have been standard equipment. I think we were handed a booby trap."

"That doesn't seem to be a Sikarian trait," the injured girl said muzzily. "They espoused that they were more advanced and did not get into conflicts."

"Yet they were more than willing to put us in a situation where we were pressured into giving them exactly what they wanted. And I heard that they just wanted us to stay on their planet and give up on going home. I think they were a bit more manipulative and sneaky than we gave them credit. It might have been quite within their morality to let us blow ourselves up using stolen technology."

"Interesting. Essentially they would not be at fault because we killed ourselves. There are several races in the Federation that have a similar outlook," the EMH noted in interest. "Well, you are cleared for light duty, Cadet Sheila. Try not to injure yourself any more."

"I'll take that into consideration," the older twin said bitterly. "Computer, deactivate the emergency medical hologram."

Once the hologram had faded, Sheila just shook out her hair to its full, short length. "Well, that could have gone better," she groused.

"You mean you did not mean to take the more dangerous spot where you would likely get hit by the broken plasma manifold?" Ashley asked.

"Ah, you spotted that? Well, yes. I did. I shouldn't exist-"

"Stop that! You have just as much right to exist as I do! I like having an older sister." Ashley reached out and hugged her other self tightly. "It's not your fault that your Janeway and Paris died."

"But I lived." Tears were seeping out of Sheila's eyes.

"And they would want you to keep living, wouldn't they?" Ashley gave the other girl a look from only inches away. "I could ask, but I think you know the answer."

"And I don't want them knowing my problems," the time-displaced girl said softly.

"I'll be here for you. As long as you promise to be here for me."

Sheila nodded slowly. "I promise. I like having a little sister. Even if we are too competitive."

With that, they headed back to their quarters.

Episode 7 - Fluctuations in Status

Neelix was recounting all the various things the poisonous fruit would do them in quite a gruesome and graphic manner. "It's quite the painful way to die, with your throat swollen shut like that." The sun was glaring down on them in the sandy, scrub on the craggy hill they had transported down to.

Lt. Carey and Lt. Commander Chakotay both looked a little green after his little performance. So when Ashley (red ribbon in her hair) walked up and ran a tricorder over it, they were a little surprised.

"Um, cadet?" the Native American commanding officer called out.

"I quite believe it is as poisonous as Mr. Neelix says, sir. That doesn't mean it might not be useful for medicinal or chemical reasons. Not everything organic we can't eat is useless," she explained carefully.

The orange-skinned and spotted Talaxian frowned at that. "You are right. I forgot that sort of scavenging might be necessary."

"Probably should get a few hundred pounds is all. It's a very strong toxin." Ashley looked over at Chakotay expectantly. "After we pick them, can me and my sister go for a run? It's been a long while since we've been able to do a marathon."

"After your work. Just make sure you have your com badges so we can transport you up later." The lieutenant commander just had to chuckle at the two's brisk pace, even as he listened to Neelix's explanation of a root that was nutritious but tasted so horrible that you almost preferred the poisonous fruit.

Lt. Carey noted the twins coming back with a several bushels of the dangerous fruit (very thoroughly labeled for their toxicity) and then nodded at them as they charged off.

Sheila and Ashley nodded to each other after they crested the hill, speeding up dramatically. At fifty miles an hour, they started to really pump their arms, leaving a wake of dust being kicked up behind them. One hundred miles an hour, then two hundred miles per hour. Sweat really didn't have time to form on their brows as they reached their peak speed.

"Jump!" they shouted together, diving off a cliff and then kept going upwards. No longer running, the winds of the sky seemed to catch them and hold them as they flew through the air in a spinning, twirling display of aerial acrobatics.

So the blee-beep of their com badges was quite startling. They came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the air.

"Cadet Sheila here," the older twin said.

"Chakotay here, we're being recalled to the Voyager. They just spotted a Kazon raider in orbit," the second in command of the starship explained back at the rally point. "How long until you get back?"

"About fifteen minutes, sir," Ashley replied. They had been running that long.

"Too long. Have Voyager beam you back directly. Chakotay out."

"Sheila to Voyager, two to beam up."

Up in the primary Transporter room, Crewman Erioca frowned at the sensor reading. "Locked on and transporting." She watched two figures appear on the transporter pad when they started to fade in and out. "Buffer overload? Trying to balance the system."

With a final waver, both figures reappeared and then staggered around in a punch-drunk fashion.

"Ouch," the said at the same time.

"We had some sort of transporter glitch. Do you feel alright?" Erioca asked them. She walked up and looked at them closer. "What's goin going on with your hair?"

"Eh?" They quickly both looked at each other, taking in the other's softly glowing hair. "Cool!"

"Get off the pad. I've got the entire away team to transport since we spotted that Kazon," Erioca called out, the pretty brunette looking quite miffed at them as she ran a very fast diagnosis. "We've got wounded incoming."

Seska sighed as she sat the platter on the table in Chakotay's quarters. "I had to use some replicator credits. I'm pretty sure if it were just Neelix in the cafeteria, we could have tricked him, but I swear that the twin cadets have eyes in the back of their heads. And they can see a false 'home-sickness' story a mile off."

Chakotay snickered. "It's a good thing you didn't succeed, otherwise I'd have to set a punishment. Food is a very important resource on the ship right now, even with the protein sequencer that the cadets pulled out of the archives. What's this I hear about their hair glowing?"

"Some sort of weird transporter accident, though Lt. Torres swears there is nothing wrong with the transporter and the Doctor can't find any issues." Seska just shrugged her shoulders. "To be quite truthful, it's just kind of cool looking."

"They really are a mystery. Exiled hundreds of years in the future and across the galaxy, survived being dropped through a space-time fissure and training to be full officers of Starfleet. All at the age of twelve," the second in command said with a rueful shake of his head.

"Twelve?" Seska asked to make sure she had heard that correctly. "I didn't think humans matured that quickly."

"They are very tall for their age," Chakotay said simply. "And they want to help out. Considering that matter last week where Sheila was injured deactivating the Trajector, I'd say they are succeeding."

"Well, that's been pretty much a bust. We can't just plug it in and use it. Too dangerous." Seska hid how upset that made her, not wanting to get reprimanded more for her involvement.

"Unfortunately, too accurate." The Native American looked pensive for a moment, before going back to his replicated mushroom soup.

"So it appears to be a real emergency?" Captain Katherin Janeway asked from her position in the center of the bridge. "Not a fake signal?"

Ensign Kim nodded from his position in the Science station. "The Kazon cruiser only shows emergency power and life support. I'm only detecting a few life signs."

Neelix looked at the cruise for a long moment. "Captain, I would suggest caution. That ship belongs to the Kazon-Nistrim. They are a very dangerous group within the Kazon Collective."

"That may be, Mr. Neelix, but they are in trouble. Mr. Kim, what do your sensors say?" the captain called out.

"It's that same cruiser that was skulking around in stealth in that system where Commander Chakotay was injured. The signature match is exact," the young Asian officer stated intently.

"Well, isn't that a coincidence." Katherine looked at the main screen which had a three-quarter profile of the Kazon ship. "Lt. Commander Chakotay, Lt. Torres; I think you should lead an away team to render any assistance necessary."

"I'm on it," the chief engineer called out. She gave some orders in the turbolift to her engineering team.

So when she saw Ashley and Sheila exit the turbolift a minute behind her to assemble in the Transporter room, she frowned at the two youngest members. "What are you doing?"

Ashley blinked in startlement at the question. "Joining the away team for EVA and rescue certification? We had talked about going on the next excursion."

"That's was on Monday during our training meeting right after you had your department meeting," Sheila replied helpfully.

"I... forgot that." And they had finished all their pre-certification training. All cadets had to go on their first 'real' rescue mission. "Fine. That actually makes you third in line behind Ensign Kim, Cadet Sheila." B'Elana only remembered doing this after her first year, but she had to admit the girls were tearing through the courses and training like it was absurdly easy for them. She shook her head and quickly checked over their rescue equipment.

They appeared spread out over the dim confines of the Kazon cruiser, quickly moving to find any crew. They quickly discovered an area of the bridge that had been sealed off by emergency force fields with several bodies strewn around, half-melted into the very structure of the ship.

"We've got a survivor," Ashley called out, pointing out one particular body before pulling out a tricorder to verify it with a scan through the force field. She shrugged off Sheila's glare, even as their softly glowing hair made them stand out. "Radiation burns and he's been molecularly infused with metals and plastics. He needs immediate medical help, as he appears to have absorbed 300 rads of exotic radiation."

"Nucleonic radiation? Do a sweep for the source," Chakotay called out even as he started to swing his tricorder around. "Away team to Voyager, we have an injured Kazon that needs to be transported directly to sickbay."

The Kazon disappeared in a glow of blue-white sparkles.

"I'd say it came from the Federation device that's installed in that console over there," Sheila called out in a slightly snarky tone. She was pointing to the console in questions which was sparking from behind an emergency force field.

"You are kidding, aren't you?" B'Ellana asked as she walked over from a different side of the room, skirting the force field. "How can you tell?"

"It has a Federation standard control panel and the open side looks like the plasma conduit connections," the older Scion explained.

"You have some good eyes. And that's a problem. Because as far as I know, there is only one source of Federation technology around." The Native American thought hard for a long minute. "Chakotay to Voyager. We're ready to return."

Seska had narrowed eyes as she glared at Sheila in as unobtrusively a manner as possible.

It was about two hours later and the captain and her second in command were listening in to the engineering staff brainstorm cleaning up the Kazon ship's bridge.

Ashley and Sheila both listened in consternation as Seska and then Joseph Carey tried to sell their plans of using subspace fields or force fields to clear the area to the suspected console that had Federation technology.

"I should have it ready by tomorrow," B'Elanna confirmed to Katherine with a nod.

"Have it ready by tonight," the captain ordered.

"We'll be ready tomorrow, captain. I don't pad my estimates." Torres looked uncomfortable countermanding her order.

Katherine just nodded. "I see."

Ashley and Sheila shared a look, which got a glare from the crewman Tal Celes. The Bajorian crewman really felt intimidated by their intellects. They were already correcting her work at times. And they had not even finished their first year of being a cadet.

The younger scion coughed loudly to get everyone's attention. "This is contaminated, radioactive particles and gasses, correct?"

Katherine turned away from B'Elanna for a second. "Yes, that's very basic. Why?"

The older girl without a ribbon sighed. "It's on a spaceship. Just vent the atmosphere in the room out into space using their version of emergency hatches or Jeffrey tubes. We can spray a standard anti-radiation sealant foam over the other affected areas and cut out the console."

Chakotay's eyes were almost twinkling at the semi-stunned expression that the engineers all had. It seemed they had gotten too caught up in their advanced tools to remember a basic solution.

"That's really a lot easier," the chief engineer finally admitted. "Um, give me ten minutes to replicate a dispenser for the sealant and I'll start working on removing that. You two get to come along and figure out their systems."

"Do it." Captain Janeway narrowed her eyes as she felt the urge to redo her bun. Casually and to herself, she wondered at what level the two's genius rating was at?

Twenty minutes later, B'Elanna, Carey and the two cadets transported back.

Ashley moved over to a console and started to type at the Kazon controls. "At least they file their emergency exit plans in an easy to find location. It might be useful to know where the emergency hatches are if some of our crew ever get captured."

"Let me disable the automatic force fields that will try to keep the air pressure in," Seska called out, struggling with her own use of a Kazon control.

A panel in the floor kicked open from the explosive bolts. Other hatches down below kicked open with their own explosives. A final bang pre-empted the rush of air all being sucked out of the hatch. From there it was a straightforward matter of closing the hatch, re-pressurizing the bridge and the sealing the surfaces after turning off the force fields.

The purloined Federation technology was retrieved then. After that it was merely a matter of beaming them all back.

Seska was studying the rough form of the wounded Kazon from the ship in the sickbay. The Doctor and Kes were working even as Ashley entered.

"You don't understand, Doctor. He's the only one that knows what actually happened on that ship. The only one that can clear this..." Seska muttered. B'Elanna had taken the damaged Federation device to figure out where it had come from and was personally overseeing it.

"I'm sure he'll recover soon," the Ocampa said with a smile. She felt something brush past her senses, something immense from the doorway. She turned to see the young blonde girl looking at her quite startled.

A series of beeps came from the med-table that the Kazon was located on. The Doctor moved over immediately and then grabbed his tricorder. "This is... astonishing. I've never seen a recovery quite like this. It appears his most severe injuries are now quite limited and his blood has somehow cleared up of the toxic metals that had bonded with the plasma. It's quite intriguing."

Ashley winked at Kes, then moved in. "I think he might have some brain trauma though, so his shorter term memory might be affected." Both Ashley and Kes, as the budding empaths they were, noted that Seska's tension had increased and then decreased.

"That's... great," the Bajorian stated with a slightly strained smile.

"The captain will be pleased," Kes remarked.

"I guess a Kazon vessel is on its way. They really should have tried to test that in the hold first. Of course, we tested the Trajector in main engineering." Ashley suddenly considered things. "Hmm. You know, they had a catastrophic failure like we almost did. I wonder if it was a similar instance. Someone not thinking of the whole technology and things that are needed to make it not go boom. So the Sikarians might not have tried to blow us all up after all."

Seska frowned at what the girl was saying. "You are saying that the persons gave the technology, not realizing that we wouldn't have things like an anti-neutrino filter as part of our normal power conduits?"

"Exactly. Oh, right. Nearly forgot. Ensign Seska, I think Lt. Torress was interested in getting a sample of the Kazon stealth technology. They might know how to counter it, but its probably 'cutting edge' for their technology so we might be able to use it to sneak around more effectively."

The Bajorian nodded. "I'll go on and head down there." She moved on out.

Ashley then turned back to Kes. "Did you hear that the there is another Kazon vessel on its way?"

The Ocampa looked a bit surprised. "No, I had not."

"Probably heard this guys distress signal and is on their way."

The second Kazon vessel pulled up near Voyager and the first, distressed vehicle and hailed Voyager.

"I am First Maje Culluh of the Kazon. You will stop stealing from that ship for salvage and remove yourself from this place."

Captain Janeway's jaw tightened at that. "We are here assisting a ship that was transmitting an emergency distress signal. A distress signal that I think you heard."

Culluh studied the woman in the red and black outfit. "Then I demand to talk to the crew to review your side of this story."

"Unfortunately, the only survivor is recovering in our sickbay and is not conscious yet. I would be honored if you accepted my invitation to examine him," the captain replied carefully.

In minutes Captain Janeway (armed with a hand phaser) was leading Culluh and his second in command into the sickbay. "As you can see, he is resting comfortably. Doctor, how is the patient?" Behind her, Tuvok took up position across the patient with his phaser rifle held ready.

The hologram frowned as he looked up from his computers that were modeling what had happened. "He's doing remarkably fine. The metals-infused blood was totally cleansed and most of his more life threatening issues have been resolved. I have no idea how this happened, though I suspect something to do with Kazon physiology."

Across the room, Sheila just rolled her eyes as she ran another sensor scan from the Kazon's bed. Ashley had told her what she had done, which she was not sure was the wisest course of action. She and Kes were running diagnostics on the scanning equipment because the medical program could not believe the resolution.

"Any idea on when he will wake up?" the captain asked him.

"We aren't totally sure, but we expect any time. Of course, we don't know what sort of cellular brain damage he took. If he awakens, it will be a miracle," the EMH was saying when the second Kazon deployed a poison ring.

"Stop!" Tuvok shouted even as the alien injected his fellow.

Sheila unconsciously held her hand out, mimicking the actions needed when she had to brandish her relic, Athena's Wisdom. So the virulent nerve toxin was flushed even as it entered his system. With a side-swiping gesture, she healed the nearly deathly levels of systemic shock the poison had inflicted.

The Kazon just smirked as he backed away under the barrel of Tuvok's phaser rifle. The Doctor was at the patient's side even as Kes was handing him a medical tricorder.

"He's in a deeper coma, but I find only traces of a nerve toxin fading away. I need to calibrate my sensors-" the EMH started to say.

Katherine cut him off with, "Or we can ask what Sheila did."

The young scion looked at her offending hand for just a second. Idiot. "I purged the toxin and healed the extreme neurological damage that the poison had inflicted. If I'd been a moment slower, he'd probably be dead."

The captain turned back to Culluh and his poisoner. "Get off my ship. I will not be turning him over to you."

"You are making a grave mistake, captain," the Kazon leader declared, looking very wild and savage with his scattered, wind-blown looking hair. Even so, he realized he had done enough.

"Mr. Tuvok, post a guard once you have escorted our guest to the transporters. Cadet Sheila, it appears I have some questions that need answering," Katherine said to the young woman.

"We should probably have my sister here for that also," Sheila said carefully.

Ashley entered when admitted to the Captain's ready room. "I heard there was an attack on the patient? Is he all right?" she asked before she noted the very serious expressions on everyone's face.

"Thanks to the quick actions and unexplained powers of Sheila, the patient is alive." The captain smirked as she noted the girl's start of surprise. "We also have to ask if you have been hacking any systems or records. Lt. Commander Chakotay has some questions about your location when you were beamed off planet on the last ground side mission."

So Katherine and Chakotay were both surprised when they smiled at that one. "Changing computer logs is a serious offense you two." The Native American had privately vowed that he was going to bring some semblance of order to this crew.

"Let me guess, the logs showed that we were over thirty miles from the away team and several hundred feet in the air?" Sheila asked them with an impish grin.

"Yes," Chakotay said while looking at the young blonde closely.

"Well, the computer logs were not changed, actually. We happened to be on a real run, competing a bit against each other. I think we actually hit about two hundred and seventy kilometers an hour and had just started flying," Ashley said carefully.

Captain Janeway tilted her head slightly, as if to discern the truth. "I'm sorry, I thought I heard you say you were flying and running faster than humanly possible. Even for Augments."

The wind picked up suddenly spinning around the younger scion as she floated off the ground. "Yes, I did."

"Show off," Sheila said while blowing her chronal duplicate a raspberry.

"It got their attention and proved the point," Ashley shot back with a glare.

"I feel like I've fallen for a trick by Coyote," Chakotay said after a long moment. "You aren't human, are you?"

"Less than we used to be," the flying girl said before she landed on the carpet with a soft thump. "All terrestrial though!"

"What do you mean by that?" the captain said after a long moment. "And why has this not come up before?"

"Because most people go looking for straitjackets when you start mentioning that you are a demigoddess," the older scion said flippantly. At the older officer's glare, she responded, "They do!"

"We've had a lot of experience with beings that claimed to be gods," Katherine said while trying to hide her derision.

"Yes, we know. Polluxian aliens were the first thing we found when we researched into the 'gods' here. The thing is, we don't have any biological organ that allows us to control powers like that. There's nothing about us physically that would make you think that we are probably five times stronger than Olympic athletes," Ashley explained carefully as she sat down on one of the couches.

"Or can run more than five times faster than that same athlete can sprint. And keep it up for hours."

"That actually sounds within the realm of Augments, actually. The Doctor didn't find anything different about you, did he? No sign of genetic tampering though." Katherine sat back in her chair deeply as she concentrated hard. "And you can just magic things away?"

That got twin snorts. Sheila just shook her head. "We have some cool powers, but the Greek gods were never fully omnipotent. Powerful and with some godly powers, yes. But we can do a bit of healing and control the air enough to fly. Talking to owls isn't that useful. We're on the wimpy end of demigods."

"Well, we are very, very smart," Ashley said cheekily. "We can't all be epically strong like Uncle Hercules."

Katherine studied them both closely. There was not a hint of a lie in their whole, ludicrous story. "And you were banished by a god here to that O class planet?"

"One of Uncle Herme's scions was a traitor and was granted quite a bit of power by the Titan Prometheus. He banished us to a hellish world where we would die choking on acid and bile was the way he phrased it. But we found some escape pods and then jury-rigged a cryogenic hibernation chamber and set up an SOS." Both girls had a thunderous expression on their face.

"And that explains how you got to the Delta Quadrant," Chakotay noted aloud to himself. "Well, Captain, that was our best bet within Engineering of who was selling our secrets to the Kazon and breaking the Prime Directive. Now we're back to suspecting everyone. Did you want me to bring in Lt. Carey?"

Both girl's started to think things through quickly, going over all the officers and crew of the twenty-odd engineering staff.

"Captain..." Sheila said carefully. "I would have to say the most likely candidate for doing just about anything that would get us home and breaking any rules would have to be Lt. Seska."

"Not you too," the second in command of Voyager snapped out.

"Sir, you didn't see her down in the engineering compartment when we were trying to test the Spatial Trajector. All she cared about was a way home and was quite willing to do a full scale test with the Voyager as the Guinea pig."

Ashley just nodded in confirmation. "She gives off a very ruthless vibe." Something was itching the edge of her consciousness about the Bajoran.

Chakotay didn't look very happy about this. He trusted Seska completely. Then he remembered that he trusted Tuvok as well and he turned out to be a spy for the Federation.

"Couldn't anyone in my Maquis cell be trusted?" Chakotay groused. He knew he was exaggerating and hoped Seska was just desperate to get them all home, but at this point everything seemed to be turned upside down.

And he didn't like it one bit.

"Very well, cadets. You will report to the Doctor for an in-depth medical scan. Lt. Commander Chakotay and I will review our position, but this is not the sort of secrets that endears trust. Are you are dismissed, Cadet Ashley and Cadet Sheila." Her tone brooked no argument and she was surprised to see them both use that archaic salute and the leave.

Chakotay looked back over to his captain from where he was standing. "Now we still need to uncover our traitor. Lt. Torres was not able to find anything incriminating from the damage replicator."

"Yes, but our mystery traitor does not know that. Let's set a trap, commander."

Kes actually ran into the mess hall nine hours later. "Ashley! Did you hear?"

The ribbon-wearing girl looked up in surprise. "Um, sorry, no. What happened?" She was in the process of using the protein synthesizer to make artificial eggs for the morning's amused her that Tom Paris commented the protein synthesizers got tomato soup better then the replicators did.

"The Kazon ship departed with Seksa. She was the person selling Federation technology to the Kazon," the young Ocampa explained breathlessly.

"Really? Doesn't she realize how dangerous the Kazon are?" Neelix asked from where he was working on the pancake mix.

"I don't think she honestly cares," Ashley remarked a touch harshly. "Getting home is all that matters to her, not what sort of mess she leaves in her wake."

Sheila just snorted to herself where she was turning some artificial maple flavoring into a syrup. "The Prime Directive is too literal in stating that only people that can develop a certain technology would understand the moral imperitives of using that technology. And that is so simplistically silly its not even funny."

Her twin rolled her eyes. "Yes, the Prime Directive really doesn't place any emphasis on understanding and morals, just on if you have developed something."

"I'm not sure I understand," the Talaxian asked of them. Then again Neelix really hadn't thought about the philosophical aspects of the major rule that his new friends lived by.

"Philosophy and morals is not really dependant on your technological development. For instance, a pre-warp human could grasp the concept of a phaser rifle with about a weeks worth of training. The fact that he was a blood-thirsty barbarian or a monk that eschewed violence makes no difference in that."

Kes blinked at Sheila, trying to process that. "I think I see what you are saying. You could be a technologically advanced person, but could still misuse technology. While a very moral person from an uncivilized area might use it only in a manner to help people."

"Exactly," Ashley responded. "I mean, you don't want to be handing everyone a weapon that can vaporize their towns, but the Prime Directive makes no allowances at all for all situations."

"Well, that's interesting and all, but we have breakfast to get on with. Hop hop, as the humans say. Those pancakes aren't going to cook themselves," the orange-skinned alien called out.

Left unsaid as they got back to work the Hendersons pondered the willingness of Starfleet captains to let worlds die because of the Prime Directive. And a quote by Captain James T. Kirk.

"Between the Prime Directive, and letting an entire species die out; I make the only decision my conscious would allow," Sheila said softly as they considered that Dogma had replaced understanding.

TBC