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A Birthday Party
Part 1
The door to Kes’ quarters chimed. "Come in," Kes responded. The doors opened to admit Seven of Nine. "Seven!" Kes said. "I’m so glad you could come to lunch today. I get so bored sitting here all alone.
"Why aren’t you in sickbay?" Seven asked. "I was there yesterday for my weekly maintenance. I asked the doctor where you were. He said you were on ‘maternity leave,’ whatever that means."
"Maternity leave is when someone takes time off work because she’s about to have a baby. The baby’s due in about two weeks, and I’ll go back to work about six weeks after she’s born."
"Why? In the collective, drones return immediately to work following the reproductive cycle."
"Well, Seven, parents need time to bond with their children. To us, having a baby is much more than simply reproduction. A baby is someone we’re going to be intimately connected to for the rest of our lives."
Seven of Nine had been removed from the Borg collective about six months ago. Despite the extreme differences in their characters, she and Kes had become friends. No one, including the two friends, could explain the bond between them, but it had happened.
As Kes was trying to explain the concept of motherhood to Seven, she was interrupted by a loud crash from the area of her desk, followed by a loud noise that sounded to Seven like some kind of alarm. Kes ran to the other side of her desk and came back with a very small humanoid in her arms. The child, for Seven had to assume that was what it was, had red hair and brilliant green eyes. The irritating noise was coming from the child, but it was somewhat softer.
"Who is that?" Seven asked.
"You mean you’ve never met Elizabeth?"
"No. Why is it making that appalling noise?"
"She’s upset because she had a bad dream."
"Then what was that crashing noise?"
"Oh, she just knocked over a vase when she woke up."
There was something wrong with that, because the vase had been sitting on the other side of the desk from where the child had been, but Seven didn’t say anything about it. "Who are her parents?"
"Captain Janeway is her mother. Her father’s not on board."
"I didn’t know the captain had a child!" Seven said, utterly shocked.
"You mean you’ve never been asked to baby-sit?" Kes said with a laugh.
"Baby-sit? What’s that?"
"It’s when you take care of someone else’s child. The captain will take Elizabeth to her ready room if she has to, but she usually tries to find someone to take care of her. She says that if we have many more babies, though, we’ll have to start up some kind of care center. Hasn’t Elizabeth ever been out when you were in the captain’s ready room?"
"No, but I have noticed something that looks like some kind of bed."
"That’s Elizabeth’s bassinet. Well, I suppose if you and Elizabeth hadn’t met today, you’d have met at the party tonight."
"What party?"
"Today is Elizabeth’s first birthday. Weren’t you invited?"
"Neelix asked me to come to the mess hall tonight, but I didn’t know it was a party. I thought he wanted to have me try some new abomination. I told him I had too much work to do."
"Now that you know what it is, though, you’ll go, won’t you?"
"I suppose."
"Good. Let’s have lunch."
Part 2
Captain Kathryn Janeway walked into Voyager’s mess hall, carrying the cake she had replicated for the occasion. Between that and Elizabeth’s presents, she would have to eat Neelix’ cooking for two weeks, but she had a feeling it would be worth it. She’d wrapped the presents in her ready room and taken them to her quarters. Since she’d specified no presents when inviting people, she’d give hers to Elizabeth later.
The doors opened. Kathryn turned to see Commander Chakotay. "You’re early," she said. Then she noticed that he was carrying an oddly shaped bundle wrapped in brightly colored paper. "I said no presents!"
"Why, are you afraid she’ll be spoiled if she had too many toys?"
"No, she’s already spoiled. I just don’t want people using up their replicator rations for toys for a child who really doesn’t need them. What if there were some kind of emergency?"
"There won’t be. This last year has been extremely calm. It seems as if, ever since the Nosfu attacked us, people have been going out of their way to be nice to us."
Chakotay didn’t know why the Nosfu had attacked Voyager, Kathryn thought. Elizabeth was important to someone powerful, and she had a feeling that was why they’d had an easy year. "Well, anyway," she said after a moment’s pause, "other people won’t be bringing presents, so we’ll hide yours under the table." She lifted the floor-length tablecloth covering the table holding the cake and put the package underneath.
The doors opened again, and Kes came in with Elizabeth in her arms. Behind her was Seven of Nine. She was carrying two gifts.
"I should have ordered everyone not to bring gifts," Kathryn grumbled. Elizabeth cooed and reached out her arms. "Hey, happy birthday," Kathryn said as she took her from Kes.
*What’s a birthday?* Elizabeth asked, putting the words directly into her mother’s mind.
*A birthday is the day of the year someone was born on. You were born one year ago today,* Kathryn responded. It had been very easy to learn to speak to Elizabeth telepathically. She simply thought the words and directed them at her. In private, she talked to her normally, but when she was around other people, she had to either speak telepathically or explain to everyone that Elizabeth could. She was the only one who knew about Elizabeth’s telepathy, although she thought Kes might suspect. She was also the only one who knew that objects tended to fall or fly across the room when Elizabeth got upset. Jolan hadn’t had any ability like that, and it scared her. She told Elizabeth every time something happened that she mustn’t do it, and she didn’t think she’d done it anywhere else, but she was still worried.
More people were starting to arrive now, and everyone had ignored what she said about presents. Tom and B’Elanna came with a big, rectangular package, and Harry Kim brought something that was shaped vaguely like a grand piano (much smaller, of course). Even Tuvok brought a gift. Then he went back to the bridge. Tuvok wasn’t too crazy about parties. After the first five or so, Kathryn started putting the presents on a nearby table.
Harry quickly got his band organized, and they began to play a tune from the twentieth century. Tom said it was from some movie called "Star Wars," from the cantina scene, whatever that meant. Harry’s odd crew of musicians had become very popular at Voyager’s celebrations. The group included Harry and one other on clarinet, an oboe, a flute, and a French horn. Harry had been searching for a piano player for months, but there didn’t seem to be anyone who could play. The doctor wasn’t too bad, but he said he was too busy. Harry had been trying to get Seven to take lessons from the computer, saying that her Borg-enhanced memory and hand-eye coordination would let her learn quickly, but she didn’t see the point. Kathryn wasn’t about to let on that she played a little herself, and she especially wasn’t about to say that she’d taken it up again (mainly because of Elizabeth’s interest in music). She guessed that there were at least a couple of others who played but were keeping quiet.
When Kathryn judged that pretty much everyone had arrived and people were getting anxious for things to start, she motioned to Harry. When the number he was on was over, he came to the front of the platform and waited until everyone quieted down. "Would the birthday girl come up here, please?"
Kathryn carried Elizabeth to the front of the room and sat her in the chair set up for just that purpose. "Whenever you’re ready, Harry," she said. Harry’s quintet played a short opening phrase, and then everyone in the mess hall launched into "Happy Birthday."
Part 3
An hour later, the party was winding down. Kathryn had decided to go ahead and have Elizabeth open the presents after the cake was passed out, but she had gotten bored after about ten gifts. She told her mother, telepathically of course, that she wanted to play with the presents she already had. Kathryn asked everyone if they would mind her not opening the rest of the presents right away. Right now people were just standing around talking. No one had left yet, but Kathryn had the feeling they were just waiting for someone to make the first move. Elizabeth was sitting near the wall, playing with the toy piano.
Kathryn was standing by the door, waiting for someone to come over and say they’d love to stay, but they … when Harry Kim came over. "Captain, come here. You’ve got to see this," he said urgently.
"What’s wrong?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing’s wrong," Harry responded. He led her over to where Elizabeth was sitting. "Listen."
Elizabeth stopped playing and looked up. She put up her arms to be picked up. "Play for your mommy what you just played for me," Harry said.
Elizabeth looked at her mother. Kathryn nodded her head. Elizabeth looked down at the piano and began to play. Kathryn realized with a start that she was playing "Happy Birthday."
"Captain, she’s a prodigy," Harry said. "I’ve never heard of anyone picking out a tune like that when they were only a year old."
Just then the ship jerked, followed immediately by the red alert klaxon. Kathryn immediately contacted the bridge. "Tuvok, what’s going on?"
"We’ve just been fired upon by an unidentified ship."
"I’ll be there momentarily," she answered. She scooped up Elizabeth and headed out the door. Nearly everyone was already gone, headed to battle stations or to quarters.
In the turbolift, Kathryn looked at Elizabeth. Her eyes had changed color, from brilliant green to a flat gray. She had a worried expression on her face. *Mommy, what’s happening?* she asked.
"We’re being attacked, honey, but everything’s going to be fine," Kathryn responded as the doors opened onto the bridge.
As she headed down to her command station, she looked at the ship on the viewscreen. It was huge. If its weapons were anything to match, they were in trouble.
"Hail them," she said. At a nod from Tuvok, she said, "This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. Why have you fired on us?" Suddenly realizing that she was still holding Elizabeth, she sat her in the captain’s chair.
The viewscreen changed to a view of the inside of a ship, with a man’s face in the center. "You are in violation of Krenim space. You will be destroyed."
The huge ship fired again, and the ship shook, harder this time. "Shields down to 15%," said Harry Kim from behind her. Kathryn had a feeling that everything was not going to be fine.