Going On…

Some of the Icheb's crew returned to the ship, and Naomi stepped onto the bridge to find her entire bridge team had assumed stations. The back up fuel feed to the impulse drive was damaged from battle, but it would last until they got into the protectiveness of drydock.

"Rebi, beam the item from cargo bay two onto the hull and engage clamps. Helm, adjust heading to 180 mark 0. One quarter impulse" Naomi ordered.

"Energising now" Rebi said as the Helm altered the Icheb's course slightly.

"I am reading a number of shuttles and liners coming to meet us" said Azan.

"They'll love what I've made" Naomi said. What Naomi had done, knowing that the mission was now complete, and the ship returning to base, was to make a large Jolly Roger and mount it on the aft end of bridge module. She had also spent time painting a picture of each of the Cubes, Spheres, Diamonds and other vessels they had destroyed on the sides of the saucer section such as the Norcadian vessels and the Klingon vessels used by the pirates. Naomi had told Admiral Hoshi, and he had approved of the idea and granted the request. He, too, knew of the custom submarines did in the Royal Navy during World War 2 – raising the Jolly Roger every time they came home after a successful patrol. The Royal Air Force also did something like that on their planes.

"Approaching dock" Azan said. It loomed large on the screen in front of them.

"Secure impulse drive" Naomi said. "Lieutenant Lost, I relieve you" and Naomi took the helm herself – her now standard custom when a ship under her command came home after a lengthy voyage. "Stand by to dock" she ordered.

"All decks ready" Rebi replied. Icheb went alongside the dock, came about and moved toward the waiting Engineering teams.

"Moving in" Naomi muttered. She took the ship into the protective lattice gridwork of the drydock, and cut the thrusters after a quick burst to brake them to a stop. "Standby mooring lines fore and aft" Naomi ordered.

"Mooring lines ready" Rebi said.

"All hands, this is the bridge. Standby for docking" Azan called over the ship.

"And… lock on" Naomi said, watching as the last shred of energy brought them to a dead halt in the middle of the drydock. It was a spectacular piece of Helmsmanship, and not many people could do that on dead reckoning. "Congratulations, everybody" she said. "Secure main systems, and place main power on standby mode. Attention all hands, this is the Captain. You may begin disembarkation in one hour. Begin Post Docking checks, and send log them for the drydock team. I just want to thank you all for what you've done, and be assured that the efforts of yourselves, and those we lost and left behind, will not be forgotten. Captain, out" Naomi stood from the helm. "Lieutenant, you have the bridge. Begin transfer of all logs, mission profiles and repair lists. Once you've done all that, and you've turned the ship over to the drydock crews, you may go ashore"

"Aye, Captain"

"Felix, you should leave now as Lomar is waiting by the docking bay. Azan, Rebi, Doctor, you're with me" Naomi said, stepping into the turbolift and leaving the bridge for the last time.

#

Two Months Later

Naomi spent some of the leave with the twins, but spent a week with Saghi who had recovered from her injuries sustained during the solo away team she had been on. The rest of the leave was spent relaxing at home, but it still felt as if Mezoti would come round the corner and demand sex with the line 'Resistance is futile' – a tactic she enjoyed using. Gratis had been informed of her daughter's death, the fact she would become a grandparent and the fact she would never see the child.

The funeral service for Mezoti had been attended by the remaining members of the 'Voyager Six', Icheb's senior staff, survivors from her brief command as well as officers and enlisted that had come to respect her. Her ashes were placed into the Voyager memorial - contained in a decorative urn – in order that she might spend eternity with her former shipmates. Mezoti's funeral had been the last one after the burials of the dead that they had brought back with them, but the entire Federation watched it. The Klingons and the Romulans had sent official parties to represent their Empires out of respect for everything she had done.

#

"Finally, Captain Wildman" Admiral Hoshi said. "We come to the big finale" and Naomi shifted in her seat.

"Yes, Captain" the Federation President said. "Tell us about the engagement" he ordered.

"Yes, Sir" Naomi replied. "We dropped out of Transwarp space a day away at Warp 8. I didn't want to take the chance that the Borg would pick us up when we got to Unimatrix Zero One. We conducted low level scans of the entire area, and discovered a Mass Detector on the west side of the station. It would have picked us up and alert the Borg the moment we got within range. I held a conference of the fleet's senior officers and came up with the idea of using a probe as a relay to beam a small team inside the complex, disable the detector and then go EVA and return using modified probes"

"What do you mean by that?" asked a nameless Captain.

"Captain Montoya of the Voyager came up with the idea of using modified probes to return the team without being picked up by Borg sensors" Naomi explained. "The probes were stripped of most of their equipment, given extra oxygen tanks, fitted with connection hoses and external control panels installed to allow operation of the probe from the outside"

"You mean to say that the team returned sitting on the top of probes?" the President said with wide eyed wonder.

"Yes, Sir" Naomi told him. "It was the best option with the lowest risk"

"Very well" he nodded. "Please continue"

"Aye, Sir. When the team had been returned, we finalised plans for the attack. At 09:17, we started moving in for the assault. Given the fact we needed seven minutes to arm the Nova Bomb, I ordered the arming of the bomb in the nine minutes before we arrived on target. The Borg picked us up after a while, and they moved to intercept the fleet. We continued firing in a varied attack pattern program. They concentrated the fire on Voyager and so I gave the order to pass between two cubes and fire side torpedo launchers"

"Broadsided the beggars!" a British sounding Admiral said with a slap of his thigh. "I love it"

"Totally spiffing" said another.

"Yes, Sir" Naomi said with a smile. "All this time, all ships flooded the area with high intensity particles to stop the use of Transwarp drive. This prevented the Borg from bringing in more vessels. We took quite a bit of damage, and the computer elected to fire our Nova Bomb before it was loaded into the tube. I went and fixed the problem myself, but something happened that was outside my control" Naomi's expression hardened.

"If you want to take a moment…" said the President, but Naomi shook her head and pressed on.

"I returned to the bridge to find out that a Borg Cube dropped out of warp right in front of the Castiana – hitting her in the forward sections. The Borg ship was destroyed, but the Castiana suffered enough damage to cause a warp core breach. There was nothing they could do to stop it, so Mezoti… sorry… Captain Wildman ordered her crew to abandon ship. Her bomb had been launched at the same time that the Cube rammed them, and was jammed in the tube with the timer running. An attempt was made at setting the helm to ram the Unimatrix, but auto navigation was offline, and the ship was badly damaged to leave to chance. Mez… She seemed alright by what she had to do, and asked permission to ram the station herself. She took our own Nova Bomb aboard and then powered full speed to the station. Despite the danger and continuing damage to the Icheb, I ordered my Tactical officer to give as much cover to the Castiana, and had Helm lay in a course directly out of the area at Warp speed. Our transwarp had been knocked offline, and was expected to take time to repair. The Castiana rammed into the complex and detonated the remaining bombs – resulting in a subspace shockwave that disabled the Borg vessels before destroying them. Just as it was about to hit us, Engineering got 20% Transwarp power online, and we jumped out of the area" a few stray tears ran down Naomi's face as she went over the death of her wife.

"And that is when you returned back home?" said one of the panel.

"No, Sir" Naomi replied. "We dropped out of Warp, put about and returned to the area under impulse power. We launched shuttles to recover any survivors, and found a few in the hardened shuttles loaded aboard Voyager and Janeway before leaving drydock. I remained on station for an additional three days, and sensors located my wife's body thrown clear of the explosion. I have no idea how that happened, Admiral, but it did so I am not questioning it"

"Did you order Captain Wildman to ram the ship?" asked a Captain. "Perhaps so that you might escape at her cost?"

"HOW DARE YOU" Naomi stood so fast her chair went flying back. "I have never ordered anybody to their deaths. How dare you suggest that I ordered my own wife to her death!"

"Be seated, Captain Wildman" the President ordered. "That was out of order, Captain Bush. You are relieved and confined to quarters. Dismissed!" and the afore mentioned Bush left without another word. Although the President was a civilian, he was the Commander in Chief for all Federation forces and an order from him was never disobeyed. "Continue"

"Sir, Yes, Sir" Naomi said, trying to check the anger that had risen in her. "It was clear that the badly injured would not last all the way back to Federation space, so I decided to proceed to Norcadian space to seek treatment and effect enough repairs to the ship to get us back. Despite the best efforts, we lost some people, but people built status chambers and we put the worst of the injuries in there. We left Norcadian space after a few days and set a direct course for Voyager Station at full transwarp speed. After affecting more repairs and offloading the injured and exhausted crew and survivors, we began passage to Utopia Planetia for complete refit and overhaul. We made one brief stop in response to a distress call by the transport Adams under attack from pirates in surplus Klingon vessels. We detained the crews and impounded the vessels, gave aid to the Adams and handed over control to the Sovereign upon her arrival. We then resumed our voyage back and docked at Earth Station McKinley after suffering a problem with our impulse" Naomi finished her report.

# # # # #

"You finished?" Azan asked. He was sat outside the briefing room that Naomi had been questioned about the entire mission in.

"All done" Naomi confirmed.

"What is going to happen?" asked Rebi.

"Starfleet Command is giving Mezoti the rank of Captain from the moment we left dock" Naomi said. "They've taken my other recommendations and accepted them"

"That's good" the Doctor said. The trio had been waiting for Naomi since she had gone inside that morning. They started walking down the corridor and out to the grounds of Starfleet Command. "Have they offered you another assignment yet?" asked the Doctor.

"Not yet" said Naomi. "Since I lost the baby, I've been thinking about leaving Starfleet" she said.

"That would be unfortunate" said Azan. "Starfleet would be losing one of its most respected commanders, and a very experienced officer"

"You have our support in what you do" said Rebi.

"Thanks" Naomi said. "Now I believe you two gentlemen have places to go to" she said to the twins.

"Yes, Ma'am" they saluted and walked quickly off. They had a wedding to finish getting ready for.

"One of these days…" Naomi shook her head.

"Have Starfleet offered you anything?" the Doctor said. "Anything you say to me is in the strictest confidence" he added.

"I've been offered a few positions" said Naomi. "I'm going to take a little while to decide what I'm going to do. Not spent that much time at home, so I might take a long leave of absence. God alone knows that I've earned it" and Naomi bid the Doctor goodbye and walked off for the nearest transporter.

#

Naomi and the Doctor attended the wedding of the twins later that year, and a place was left at the top table out of respect for Mezoti and Icheb – both of whom should have been there. Saghi had recovered from her injuries suffered from Limetka II and was also in attendance at the proceedings. After doing some desk work for a short period, Naomi took the rest of the leave that was owed to her and spent it on Voyager Station. Getting over the death of her wife was difficult, but she learned to put the pain behind her and face the truth. Once she returned to duty, she'd gone back to her old job of overseeing the construction of new ships. Production of the Voyager class continued with the launching of the Chakotay and the Tuvok. Another ship was under construction but had not been named yet. Apart from that, she'd also overseen a massive refitting of the Defiant class vessels that had been found to have a major design flaw in their Warp Drives. But that soon lost its sense of fulfilment, and she went for something different.

#

"Captain?" a young Ensign called.

"Yes?" Naomi turned. She had decided to take a position at Starfleet Academy teaching tactics. It wasn't bad really, and she often enjoyed pulling surprises on crews on the flight ranges. Her greatest had been to fly an old Excelsior class ship towards the trainees, and claim she had the Federation President onboard needing urgent medical attention. The trainees had lowered shields whereupon Naomi had lit them up with fire control sensors and locked weapons on the bridge.

"There's an incoming call for you, Sir" the Ensign said. "Admiral Cornwell"

"I'll take it in the briefing room" Naomi said, leaving her class to study fleet combat tactics. She slipped into the briefing room and patched it into the main screen. "Admiral" she nodded.

"Captain. You know that you are coming to the period of assignment to the Academy?"

"I do, Sir"

"We'd like to offer you a number of assignments. You can be Officer Commanding Deep Space Nine, Officer Commanding Falklands base or have a starship command" and Naomi thought long and hard about it.

#

"BANG! BANG! BANG!" Azan said.

"Starfleet regrets that your children died because they were stupid" Rebi said. The pair had beamed inside the classroom had pretended to shoot the Cadets.

"You may rise from the dead" Naomi ordered the Cadets. After they had left, Naomi thanked her friends for their assistance. "How is married life treating you?" she asked.

"It is…"

"Very different" the twins said in unison.

"Well I have been offered a starship command" Naomi said. "I'm to report to my new ship tomorrow morning"

"What ship is it?" asked Azan.

"I am not sure" Naomi said. "They refuse to tell me the name of her"

"What's your mission?" asked Rebi.

"Shakedown and then a mapping survey of the McCray nebula" Naomi replied, leading the way out and to the mess hall.

"Although we're under orders not to reveal the name of your next command, I am sure that you will like it" Azan said.

"We have taken a look at her ourselves, and helped out here and there" Rebi replied. "The crew is made up of the best candidates we could assem- APPLE PIE!" he yelled, and several cadets went flying into walls.

"Wildman to Medical. Emergency medical team to the mess hall" and Naomi shook her head. "Is he ever going to get of that craving?" she asked Azan.

# # # # #

"Good Morning, Ma'am" said the cheerful looking officer. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Edwards – head of Security. If you like to step this way…" he took Naomi's baggage and placed it in the back of the waiting shuttle.

"Nice shuttle" said Naomi, looking around at the interior. She thought that she was on the Delta Flyer II. They left the shuttlebay on Spacedock and headed out to one of the orbiting drydocks at San Francisco. All Captains came aboard their new commands via shuttle – a call back to when Kirk boarded the Enterprise by shuttlepod during the V'ger incident. They worked around the other traffic and came towards one drydock in particular. Even from such a distance, the lines of a Voyager class ship were quite familiar to her and she wondered for a moment if she was getting the Icheb again. Then she remembered that it was on a patrol of the outer rim under the newly promoted Captain Boender. Naomi had taken great pleasure in cutting his orders herself, and he was more then overdue for his first command. Edwards brought the shuttle along the port of the ship – skimming the transfer tunnels as he did so. He went out the far side of the dock, then turned it around to face the vessel head on.

"Your new command, Captain" said Edwards.

"Christ almighty…" Naomi's jaw dropped.

"Close" Edwards grinned. The name on the top of the saucer displayed the ship's name for all to see. USS Mezoti – NCC 82210. "Congratulations, Captain" Edwards said, and took the shuttle over the saucer and then around to the shuttle bay. The tiny craft glided to the deck with a number of crew in parade groups on the shuttlebay floor. Edwards lowered the ramp and stepped onto the deck. "Captain, USS Mezoti, arriving" and the crew snapped to attention.

"Permission to come aboard?" Naomi asked her first officer.

"Permission Granted" she replied – saluting as she spoke. Naomi stepped onto the deck of her new ship and stood behind the lectern and opened the old fashioned paper orders given to her.

"To Captain Naomi Wildman, Stardate 70321

You are hereby requested, required and directed to take command of the USS Mezoti as of this Stardate.

You shall, with due regard for the safety of the ship, proceed on a shakedown of your ship and test all systems. You shall sail in an expeditious manner and respond to any and all ships in distress. You shall take on such cargo as directed by your superiors, and revictualing and refuelling as you may find necessary from time to time.

Signed

Admiral Saavik

Starfleet Operations

"Carry on" Naomi said. "Dismiss"

#

The crew had been told to stay away from the Deck 7 port airlock, and away from the route leading from it to the main magazines. Naomi pushed an unmarked crate down the corridors until she went inside the armoury with it. Bringing the hover cart up to the level of the doors, Naomi opened the high security storage chamber and rolled the box off and into the space.

"Captain Naomi Wildman, Commanding Officer. Nova Containment authorised – Flotter T Water III" Naomi said, pressing the door controls as she spoke.

"Sir?" the computer addressed Naomi. "Are you sure you want to retain a Nova Bomb onboard ship?"

"No" Naomi replied. "But all the same, Flotter T Water III" and the computer bleeped acknowledgment and closed the door – sealing it with soft thumping noises as it did the magnetic and metal bolt locks. Not even the First Officer knew the last Nova Bomb in existence was aboard the vessel, and she hoped she would never have cause to use it.

#

"Report" Naomi said. Her tour of the ship had impressed her greatly, though she was used to most of it. The one big change was that two of the weapons labs had been turned into scientific labs.

"All stations manned and ready" said Donaldson – the first officer.

"Then let's get going. All hands rig for departure" Naomi turned to her chief engineer. "Chief, please bring the main deflector, warp drive and impulse engines online. Make sure our warp intermix ratio is at optimal efficiency"

"Aye, Captain. Main deflector and main drive systems register as ready"

"Tactical Officer, please bring the structural integrity field online, and make sure our tactical systems are primed and ready"

"Shields and defensive systems registering as fully operational, Sir. We have a full torpedo compliment, and the structural integrity fields are engaged for transit" it replied.

"Helm, clear all moorings and take us out easy – one quarter impulse power" Naomi sat in her chair like Captain Janeway used to do.

"All moorings cleared" Helm reported. "Impulse engines engaged" and Mezoti flew out of the dock. "We are clear and free to navigate"

"Very well" Naomi said. She was about to order a nice and easy start, but then a wicked thought crossed her mind, made a home and refused to go. "Helm set course out of the solar system. Speed Warp 5"

"Aye, Captain"

"Engage" and the newest ship in the fleet took to warp.

"Captain, we are receiving an emergency distress call" the Operations manager said. "It is from the mining vessel Red Dwarf. It is reporting a Warp Core breach and requests assistance"

"Code One Zero Alpha – Ship In Distress!" Naomi said. "Yellow Alert. Helm, get the location and alter out heading to intercept it"

"Aye" Helm report as the ship went to Yellow Alert. "Captain, I am reading an imbalance in the Warp Drive. We should drop out of Warp and deal with the problem" but Naomi just shook her head and smiled.

"She just wants to stretch her legs" she replied. "Helm, increase to maximum warp – full speed ahead!"

A/N:

And that, ladies, gentlemen and Transgendered persons (just covering all the bases there) is that