Author's Note: I needed a break from my other fic and this happened. Sooooo... whatever. I'm rolling with it.

Space. It was empty and cold. Devoid of sound and substance, except where small pinpricks shone bright with life and potential, like pearls hidden in a velvet blanket.

From the Bridge of Voyager, Tom Paris gazed at the tiny green planet breaking up the darkness on the viewscreen with unconcealed longing in his eyes. "What if someone runs into trouble? I could go make sure the transporters are working prop-"

"The transporters are functioning within normal parameters, Lieutenant." Tuvok spoke up behind him, seated in the Captain's chair and seeming less than patient but otherwise unmoved. "Referring to what might go wrong every five minutes, however, would not change matters even if they were not."

"But-"

"The Captain's orders were very specific on this matter." Tuvok turned back to reviewing the padd he held in his hand, slim fingers tightening on it.

"It's just cruel!" Tom protested, turning his seat around so he could look the Vulcan in the eye. He ignored the brow raised at him and gestured at the viewscreeen. "To keep a guy stuck on a ship with such a beautiful planet not a transport away! Think about it Tuvok- lush jungles, teaming marketplaces, exotic foods and the women..." His face conveyed the ecstasy yet to be uncovered.

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before you ignored warnings and chose to take bets on whether the Captain was going to take the people of Caltis up on their offer or not."

"It was just a little harmless fun." Tom sulked, leaning back into his seat and folding his arms over his chest.

"The Captain was clearly not amused."

"Just because they requested she participate in their festival in exchange for trade and shore leave for the crew, she gets in a bad mood and suddenly everything is my fault." Tom groused. "Besides, that doesn't explain what you did to get stuck here too."

"Since the Captain was indisposed, it fell to Commander Chakotay to arrange trade agreements with the Caltisen officials. They would trade with no one of lesser authority. Someone with the proper rank needs to stay with the ship, regardless, and you are under disciplinary restrictions, which falls under my purview as Chief of Security. Thus, my presence here." He taped something on the padd and then on the console to his left.

Tom turned his chair back around to face front. "I still say it was an overreaction. Making a man miss out on such an opportunity."

To that, Tuvok made no comment, sure that in not five more minutes, the Lieutenant would start up again with his complaints.

Down on the planet, the sunlight was bright, midday near at hand. It beat down on the market square, where Caltisen's shopped and sold- trading items back and forth or offering markers for special, large trade items stored rather than present. They looked like exotic birds with their brightly colored clothes and sharp noses. The double ears on the sides of their heads hung thickly with beads and earrings and filled the air of the marketplace with a musical tinkling.

Up on a platform ringing one side of the market was the entrance to a kind of amphitheater at the center of the city and on the platform, near the meeting of the double stairs up to the entrance, a Caltisen female dressed all in a eye-distracting pink danced.

"Forward with the left leg and bring the arm up at the same time. Keep your hip tilted back." She instructed, freezing in place to watch.

Captain Kathryn Janeway did her best to copy the woman without wincing, feeling the muscles in her leg trying to cramp as she pointed her foot appropriately. It had been too long since she'd last danced, her muscles were stiff with lack of use and fatigue from running threw this same routine for six hours straight. Her uniform wasn't making it any easier either, despite the fact that she'd removed her jacket after the first hour. In fact, her boots were making this downright tortuous. She knew she should have changed before coming here. She wasn't dressed for contorting her body into these positions.

A passing uniform, its black standing out in the sea of color, caught her attention.

Commander Chakotay looked up and grinned as he walked past, padd in hand.

Kathryn just glared at him, turning her hand away from her as Fazimaf, her Caltisen instructor, showed her.

His grin widened at her disgruntled look, crinkling the edges of his eyes. He paused briefly, losing his Caltisen counterpart in the flow of foot traffic, and raised his eyebrows, smile still in place.

She rolled her eyes and sighed, conveying that while growing bored and exhausted, she wasn't being tortured, however it may feel. Nor was she about to lose her cool. Fazimaf was kind, if a little self-absorbed, and was extremely patient with her.

Getting the message that she wasn't really in need of assistance, Chakotay lifted his padd, tilting it back and forth to indicate that his progress was so-so as of yet.

Pursing her lips to keep her own smile to a minimum, she lifted a single eyebrow.

In answer, Chakotay held up his hands placatingly, then mimed tying them up and shrugged his shoulders.

Our hands are tied anyway, right?

Kathryn snorted slightly and laughed aloud.

"Something amusing, Captain?" Fazimaf asked primly, folding herself out of position and standing straight facing her.

"Uh-" Kathryn shook her head. "No, not at all." She felt like a misbehaving schoolgirl caught in the act.

"Then let us continue." Fazimaf took back up her position and lifted her foot.

Kathryn copied her and on one foot, looked back at Chakotay.

He had a hand over his mouth and was turning a light shade of red from lack of oxygen.

Glaring icily at him, she jerked her head, telling him in no uncertain terms that he could leave now.

Whether he would have obeyed or not was moot as his counterpart returned, lightly touching his arm and speaking as he gestured the way he had disappeared. Chakotay nodded and began to follow him again, but cast a look back over his shoulder at her, smiling impishly.

She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him like a petulant child as she grudgingly smiled back, already shifting positions in mimicry of Fazimaf again.