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The first mistake was letting Tom Paris be bored.
On most ships in Starfleet, boredom was an acceptable low-level state of existence. It was paperwork. It was routine patrols. It was another diagnostic on another plasma relay that had not misbehaved since the last diagnostic. It was officers inventing reasons to refill their coffee.
On Voyager, boredom was a volatile substance.
It did not sit quietly in the corner. It fermented. It gained intelligence. It found Tom Paris.
“Lieutenant,” Tuvok said, without looking up from the tactical display, “you are tapping your fingers.”
Tom immediately flattened both hands on the helm.
“No, I’m not.”
“You were.”
“I’m expressing tactical readiness.”
“You were expressing rhythm.”
Harry Kim, at Ops, made the grave mistake of smiling.
Tom swiveled in his chair just enough to aim a wounded look in Harry’s direction. “You hear that? I’m being persecuted for having culture.”
“You were drumming the theme from Captain Proton,” Harry said.
“That’s culture.”
“It is not,” Tuvok said.
The bridge was quiet enough for the argument to spread like spilled tea. Voyager was cruising at warp four through a region of space so empty that even the long-range sensors seemed embarrassed. No ships. No planets. No nebulae. No peculiar energy signatures. No abandoned alien stations full of cursed artifacts. Not even a subspace eddy with delusions of grandeur.
Kathryn Janeway sat in her command chair and read a status report with the calm fatalism of a woman who knew exactly what happened when her crew had too much time to think.
“Mr. Paris,” she said mildly, “if you need something to occupy your hands, I have several inventory reports from Cargo Bay Two that would be improved by your personal attention.”
Tom faced forward with the speed of a man dodging phaser fire. “Helm is fully engaged, Captain.”
“So I see.”
Chakotay, sitting beside her, did not bother hiding his amusement. “It has been a quiet week.”
Janeway did not lower the padd. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m just observing—”
“Don’t.”
The ship chose that exact moment to shudder.
It was not a large shudder. Not the dramatic, console-exploding, all-hands-to-battle-stations kind. It was a small hiccup under the deck plates, like Voyager had stepped on something unpleasant and mechanical.
Every officer on the bridge went perfectly still.
Then all the consoles chimed at once.
Harry’s smile vanished. “Captain, I’m picking up a spatial distortion directly ahead.”
Tuvok’s hands moved over Tactical. “It appeared without warning. Distance: two hundred thousand kilometers and closing.”
Tom leaned toward the helm, delighted despite himself. “Now that is timing.”
Janeway stood. “On screen.”
The main viewer changed from a field of stars to something that looked like a soap bubble had swallowed a thunderstorm.
It hung in space, small by astronomical standards but very obviously there: a shimmering knot of blue-white light, twisting in slow spirals. Sparks flickered along its edges. Its interior seemed deeper than it should have been, as though the distortion contained not empty space but a hallway pointed the wrong direction.
“Analysis,” Janeway ordered.
Harry was already working. “Some kind of subspace fissure. It’s not natural—at least, not according to anything in our database. I’m reading chroniton particles, tetryon emissions, and…” He frowned. “That can’t be right.”
Chakotay glanced over. “What?”
“I’m detecting a small metallic object inside.”
“Debris?” Janeway asked.
“Maybe. It’s hard to resolve. The distortion is scrambling sensors.”
The bubble pulsed.
Voyager shuddered again.
“Captain,” Tuvok said, “the object is moving toward us.”
Tom checked his display. “Not under its own power. Looks like it’s being ejected.”
“Shields,” Janeway said.
“Raising shields,” Tuvok replied.
The distortion flashed.
A small object shot out of it like a cork from a bottle, tumbling end over end. It bounced off Voyager’s forward shields with a sound the inertial dampeners politely declined to translate, ricocheted upward, and came to rest pressed against the shimmering shield grid.
The bridge stared.
It was a cylinder.
No, not a cylinder.
A little dome-headed machine.
Blue and white.
With two side legs, one central leg, and a scuffed metallic body that looked like it had survived a war, a junkyard, and at least one very personal argument with a sandstorm.
Tom slowly leaned forward.
“Is that,” he said, “a trash can?”
The object lit up.
A red photoreceptor blinked angrily at Voyager.
Then the bridge speakers filled with a shrill electronic scream.
“BWEEEEP! DREEE-wooOOO!”
The universal translator paused, considered this, and offered in a crisp computer voice:
“—absolutely not a trash can, you arrogant meat-based flight hazard—”
Then it sparked and went silent.
Harry’s mouth fell open.
Chakotay pressed his lips together.
Tuvok raised one eyebrow.
Janeway looked at Tom.
Tom raised both hands. “In my defense, Captain, first contact usually starts with a misunderstanding.”
The little droid outside the shields beeped again.
This time the translator did not attempt diplomacy.
---
By the time they got the machine into Shuttle Bay Two, it had insulted Tom Paris, Voyager, the tractor beam, the shape of the shuttle bay doors, and—somehow—Neelix, who had not even arrived yet.
It had accomplished most of this without a functioning translation matrix.
This was impressive enough that even Tuvok seemed mildly interested.
The droid stood in the center of the shuttle bay on three little feet, rotating its dome to take in its surroundings with unmistakable suspicion. Its paint was battered. Carbon scoring streaked one side. One of its panels was bent inward; another had been patched with a mismatched plate that appeared to be older than several Federation member worlds. A small manipulator arm extended, waved at the force field around it, and withdrew with a contemptuous chirp.
Tom stood beside Harry at the edge of the containment field, arms folded, trying very hard not to grin like a man who had been handed a wrapped present labeled trouble.
“It’s adorable,” Harry said.
The droid’s dome snapped toward him.
“Dweet.”
The universal translator clicked.
“Translation unavailable.”
Tom nodded solemnly. “I think he said thank you.”
The droid whistled a descending note that somehow conveyed “I will end your bloodline.”
B’Elanna Torres arrived two minutes later with a toolkit in one hand and a diagnostic padd in the other. She took one look at the droid and stopped dead.
“What,” she said, “is that?”
Tom brightened. “I was hoping you’d know.”
“I know what it looks like.”
“A trash can?”
The droid shrieked.
B’Elanna stared at Tom. “Did you already offend it?”
“He offended me first.”
“Tom.”
“It called me a flight hazard.”
“It was right.”
Harry coughed into his hand.
The droid made a series of crisp, self-satisfied beeps.
B’Elanna stepped closer to the force field, scanning. Her expression shifted from irritation to curiosity faster than she probably wanted anyone to notice.
“Huh.”
Janeway entered with Chakotay and Tuvok close behind. The Doctor’s mobile emitter flickered into existence a second later, and he walked in as though personally inconvenienced by the existence of mechanical life.
“Captain,” B’Elanna said, “this thing’s construction is… weird.”
“Weird good or weird bad?” Chakotay asked.
“Yes.”
The droid rotated its dome toward her and produced a softer, questioning trill.
B’Elanna looked down at the scan again. “It’s not using isolinear circuitry. No bio-neural gel packs. No duotronic backups. I’m seeing a dense network of modular logic processors, hardwired astromechanical subroutines, a compact fusion generator, and a surprising amount of improvisational repair work.”
Tom’s grin widened. “B’Elanna likes him.”
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“You made the engineering face.”
“I do not have an engineering face.”
“You absolutely do.”
The droid whistled.
The universal translator flickered.
“—she does—”
Then it cut out again.
B’Elanna’s head snapped up. “Did it just agree with you?”
Tom placed a hand over his heart. “A bond has formed.”
Janeway stepped forward. “Let’s establish a few basics before we start forming bonds. Can it understand us?”
The droid beeped twice.
The translator rendered: “Obviously.”
The room went silent.
Harry blinked at his console. “I think the translator is adapting to its binary language. It’s… not consistent yet.”
The droid chirped.
“—because your translation software was designed by committee—”
The Doctor sniffed. “Finally, an outsider with taste.”
Janeway’s lips twitched. “And can you identify yourself?”
The droid straightened. A small projector lens emerged from its dome, sputtered, and displayed a flickering holographic string of symbols in midair. The characters were not in any Federation database. They glowed blue and wavered, accompanied by a proud sequence of beeps.
Harry frowned. “The translator is having trouble with the designation.”
The droid repeated itself with exaggerated slowness.
The computer spoke.
“Artoo-Detoo.”
Tom tilted his head. “R2-D2?”
The droid warbled in approval.
“Great name,” Tom said. “Very snappy. I’m Tom Paris.”
The droid scanned him from boots to hair.
“Dwooo.”
The translator said, “I know.”
Tom looked delighted. “He’s heard of me.”
Harry said, “Or he has sensors.”
“Let me have this.”
Janeway’s gaze remained on the droid. “R2-D2, I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. We found you inside a spatial distortion in the Delta Quadrant. Do you know how you got there?”
R2’s dome rotated a fraction.
His lights dimmed.
For the first time since his arrival, he did not sound angry. The sequence of tones was lower, more complicated. The translator lagged behind.
“Unknown. Hyperspace miscalculation. Enemy interference. Dimensional fracture. Bad timing. Very bad timing.”
Janeway exchanged a look with Chakotay.
“Hyperspace?” Harry whispered, already fascinated.
B’Elanna’s eyes narrowed. “Dimensional fracture?”
R2 beeped again, sharply.
“Where is Skywalker?”
Nobody moved.
The name meant nothing to most of them, but the tone meant everything.
Tom’s grin faded.
Janeway softened. “We don’t know. I’m sorry.”
R2 stared at her for a long moment, photoreceptor glowing red.
Then he turned his dome away and made a quiet, grieving sound that the translator did not touch.
The shuttle bay felt larger around him.
Tom cleared his throat. “Captain, maybe we can help him figure out where he came from. Cross-reference the anomaly signature with whatever’s in his memory banks.”
B’Elanna looked at the droid. “Assuming he lets us access them.”
R2 snapped upright and screeched.
The translator said, “Absolutely not.”
The Doctor folded his arms. “A patient after my own heart.”
Janeway held up a hand. “No one is accessing anything without permission. R2-D2, you’re aboard my ship. You’ll be treated as a guest unless you give me reason to do otherwise. We’d like to help you, but we also need to make sure you don’t pose a danger to this crew.”
R2 extended a small tool arm and pointed it directly at Tom.
“Bweep.”
The translator clicked.
“Danger detected.”
Tom looked at Janeway. “Okay, that’s unfair.”
B’Elanna muttered, “Is it?”
Janeway allowed herself one small smile. “Mr. Paris, you seem to have made an impression.”
“I’m a people person.”
“You called him a trash can.”
“I’m growing.”
R2 beeped.
“Unlikely.”
Harry made a noise that might have been a laugh and might have been him choking on his own dignity.
Janeway took one step closer to the force field. “R2-D2, I’m going to lower the containment field. I expect you not to interface with any ship systems without authorization.”
R2 said nothing.
The pause was too long.
Janeway’s expression sharpened. “That was not a rhetorical statement.”
R2 emitted a series of innocent chirps so extravagantly false that even Neelix would have struggled to sell them.
The translator said, “Define authorization.”
Tuvok said, “Captain, I advise against lowering the field.”
Tom said, “Captain, I advise for lowering the field.”
Tuvok looked at him. “That surprises no one.”
Janeway sighed.
It was, not for the first time in her command career, the sigh of a woman watching the timeline bend around Tom Paris.
“Lower the field,” she said.
B’Elanna did.
R2 rolled forward.
For exactly three seconds, nothing happened.
Then R2’s dome spun, one panel opened, a scomp-link extended like a tiny silver spear, and he shot straight toward the nearest shuttlecraft maintenance port.
“Hey!” B’Elanna shouted.
Tom lunged.
R2 was faster.
The droid plugged into the port with a triumphant snick.
The shuttle bay lights flickered.
Every console chimed.
Somewhere in the ship, a replicator produced thirty-seven cups of black coffee simultaneously.
On Deck Five, the Doctor’s opera program began playing over the comm system at one hundred and twenty decibels.
On the bridge, the helm briefly identified itself as “SLOW BOY.”
In Engineering, three plasma conduits displayed the words NICE TRY in luminous diagnostic code.
R2 whistled a happy ascending scale.
The translator said, “Authorization accepted.”
Tom, sprawled on the deck at R2’s feet, looked up at him in awe.
“Oh,” he breathed. “You are magnificent.”
B’Elanna grabbed Tom by the collar before he could say anything worse.
Janeway closed her eyes.
“Computer,” she said, with great restraint, “isolate Shuttle Bay Two from all nonessential systems.”
The computer responded in the Doctor’s singing voice.
“Figaro, Figaro, Figaro—”
R2 beeped.
The music cut off.
The lights steadied.
He unplugged himself and rolled back one meter, dome tilted smugly.
Tom sat up slowly.
Janeway opened her eyes.
“Mr. Paris.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“You are no longer bored.”
“No, Captain.”
“You are also confined to this shuttle bay until further notice.”
Tom glanced at R2.
R2 glanced at Tom.
They both looked back at Janeway with expressions—one human, one mechanical—that absolutely did not promise obedience.
Janeway pointed at them.
“I mean it.”
---
The official report called it “an unsanctioned exploratory interface event.”
B’Elanna called it “that little rolling menace sticking his probe where it didn’t belong.”
Tom called it “first contact.”
R2 called it many things, most of which the universal translator refused to say in front of senior staff.
By 1800 hours, Voyager had mostly recovered. The coffee flood was mopped up. The Doctor had filed six complaints, four addendums, and one strongly worded musical rebuttal. The helm no longer identified Tom as SLOW BOY, although Tom suspected this was because Harry had quietly changed it back before anyone could notice.
R2 was moved from Shuttle Bay Two to Engineering, under supervision.
The supervision consisted of B’Elanna, three security officers, an adaptive firewall, and Tom Paris standing slightly too close with the energy of a man watching a fireworks show while holding a lit match.
“Don’t encourage him,” B’Elanna said without looking up.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re radiating encouragement.”
R2 rotated his dome toward Tom and beeped.
The translator, now running through a dedicated buffer Harry had set up, said, “He is the only one here with proper appreciation.”
Tom spread his hands. “See? Recognition.”
B’Elanna crouched beside R2 and opened a tricorder scan. “Listen, Bucket—”
R2 squealed.
“Fine. R2. This is my engine room. You do not touch anything without asking.”
R2 chirped.
“What do you mean, ‘define touch’?”
Tom leaned against a console. “To be fair, that’s a classic engineering question.”
B’Elanna pointed a spanner at him. “You are here because the Captain said he responds better to you.”
“He does.”
“He insulted your flying.”
“That’s practically flirting in pilot.”
R2 blatted an alarmed protest.
The translator said, “Absolutely not.”
B’Elanna smirked.
Tom looked down at the droid. “Wow. Harsh.”
R2 extended a small tool arm and patted Tom’s boot twice.
The translator added, after a pause, “Acceptable wingman.”
Tom brightened instantly.
“No,” B’Elanna said.
“What?”
“No to whatever just happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“A look happened.”
“There was no look.”
“There was absolutely a look.”
R2 made a low rolling whistle. The translator said, “She is observant.”
“Thank you,” B’Elanna said.
“Dangerous.”
“Still thank you.”
Harry entered Engineering with a stack of padds and the focused expression of a man who had found an intellectual puzzle large enough to distract him from the fact that his best friend was about to make it worse.
“I’ve made some progress,” he announced.
B’Elanna stood. “Please tell me that progress includes a way to keep him out of the warp core.”
R2 beeped disdainfully.
The translator said, “Primitive glowing bottle.”
B’Elanna’s eyes narrowed.
Tom whispered, “You have wounded her.”
Harry hurried on. “R2’s language is a binary-machine code hybrid with a lot of contextual emotional modulation. The translator can handle basic meaning, but it’s missing cultural references and, uh…” He glanced at his padd. “Profanity density.”
R2 chirped proudly.
“Profanity density?” Tom asked.
Harry turned the padd. “Some of his statements have five or six layered meanings, depending on tone. This one, for example—”
R2 made a brief sound.
Harry checked the padd.
“Roughly translates as ‘your operating system has the survival instincts of a decorative fruit.’”
Tom laughed so hard he had to lean on a console.
B’Elanna did not laugh.
A console behind her began blinking.
She turned.
“What did he touch?”
R2’s dome rotated away.
“R2,” B’Elanna said.
The droid said nothing.
“R2.”
He chirped.
The translator said, “Allegedly nothing.”
Harry tapped at the console. “He didn’t access anything critical. Just the engineering diagnostic queue.”
B’Elanna stared. “He sorted my diagnostic queue?”
Harry blinked. “By priority.”
B’Elanna snatched the padd.
For a moment, nobody breathed.
Tom watched her face as she scrolled. He knew B’Elanna’s moods better than most people on the ship, which meant he could identify the very specific expression forming there: fury being mugged in an alley by reluctant admiration.
“This is…” she said.
Tom leaned closer. “Good?”
“Annoyingly good.”
R2 made a pleased trill.
B’Elanna rounded on him. “Don’t get smug. You flagged the EPS manifold issue before it became a problem.”
R2 chirped.
“You also labeled Carey’s coolant variance report ‘dramatic whining.’”
Tom lost it again.
Harry tried to hide behind his padd.
B’Elanna’s mouth twitched despite herself. “He’s not wrong.”
R2 swiveled toward Tom and emitted a victorious beep.
Tom crouched beside him. “See, this is how it starts.”
“How what starts?” Harry asked.
“Legend.”
B’Elanna straightened so quickly Tom almost flinched. “No legend starts in my engine room.”
“Many legends start in engine rooms.”
“Not this one.”
R2 made an inquiring chirp.
Tom patted his dome.
“Don’t worry. We’ll start somewhere else.”
The translator said, “Holodeck?”
B’Elanna’s eyes went wide.
Tom’s grin returned, slow and catastrophic.
Harry whispered, “Oh no.”
---
There were many facts about the USS Voyager that Captain Janeway had come to accept.
The ship was stranded more than sixty thousand light-years from home.
Coffee was essential.
Tom Paris could not be left unattended near anything with an engine, a narrative theme, or a shiny button.
Holodeck malfunctions were less an engineering problem and more a recurring weather pattern.
Even with all this hard-won wisdom, she was not prepared for the sight of a three-foot-tall blue-and-white droid rolling across Sandrine’s in a tiny black fedora.
The fedora had a feather.
A red one.
Janeway stood in the holodeck archway, one hand still hovering over the door controls, and took in the scene.
Sandrine’s was packed.
Harry was at the pool table, holding a cue like a defensive weapon. Neelix was behind the bar wearing a striped vest that no one had asked for. The Doctor sat at a corner table with a drink he could not taste, glaring at everyone with the righteous indignation of a man who had been dragged somewhere social. Chakotay leaned against the bar, failing to hide his amusement. Seven stood near the dartboard, analyzing human recreation as if it were an invasive species.
Tom Paris stood in the center of the room dressed as Captain Proton.
R2-D2 sat beside him, wearing the fedora.
A holographic placard floated above them:
THE FIRST ANNUAL INTERGALACTIC GREMLIN GRAND PRIX
HOSTED BY CAPTAIN PROTON AND HIS ASTROMECHANICAL ASSOCIATE
Janeway closed her eyes.
She opened them again.
The placard remained.
“Mr. Paris.”
Tom turned with the bright, doomed smile of a man caught mid-crime but convinced the crime had flair.
“Captain! Perfect timing.”
“I doubt that.”
“We’re improving morale.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Morale was low. Standards were lower.”
The Doctor lifted a hand. “For once, I agree with the appliance.”
R2 screamed.
The Doctor smiled thinly. “Good. You heard me.”
Janeway stepped fully into the holodeck. “Why is our guest wearing a hat?”
Tom looked offended. “Captain, we’re not savages.”
R2’s dome tilted up, feather bobbing.
Janeway stared at him.
“R2-D2,” she said, “are you participating in a holodeck program without Engineering supervision?”
R2 emitted a delicate, innocent trill.
The translator said, “No.”
B’Elanna’s voice came from behind Janeway.
“That’s a lie.”
Tom winced.
B’Elanna walked into Sandrine’s carrying a diagnostic padd, a toolkit, and the expression of a woman who had followed smoke to its source and found clowns.
R2’s dome spun around.
He beeped.
The translator said, “Engineering supervision has arrived.”
B’Elanna pointed at him. “Do not get cute with me.”
R2’s fedora feather trembled with the force of his offended silence.
Janeway looked from Tom to R2 to the floating placard.
“What is the Gremlin Grand Prix?”
Harry raised a hand weakly. “I asked that too.”
Tom clapped his hands. “I’m glad you asked.”
“I am not.”
“The Gremlin Grand Prix is a carefully controlled, safety-compliant competitive engineering and piloting challenge designed to promote creative thinking, teamwork, and—”
B’Elanna interrupted. “He built obstacle courses in four holodecks and networked them.”
Janeway’s head turned slowly.
Tom coughed. “In a morale-promoting way.”
Harry added, “There are hover carts.”
“Miniature hover carts,” Tom said quickly.
Neelix leaned over the bar. “And snack stations!”
B’Elanna’s face hardened. “The snack stations are tied to the replicator grid.”
R2 chirped.
The translator said, “Efficient.”
Janeway pinched the bridge of her nose.
Seven said, “The design is intriguing. The competition appears to combine velocity, sabotage, mechanical adaptation, and improvisational rule interpretation.”
Tom pointed at her. “Exactly.”
“That was not praise.”
“Sounded like praise.”
“It was not.”
Chakotay finally gave up and smiled. “What are the rules?”
Janeway looked betrayed. “Commander.”
“I’m gathering information.”
Tom’s eyes lit up with the dangerous glow of a man being permitted to explain himself.
“Teams of two. One pilot, one mechanic. Each team gets a hover cart with identical baseline specs. They race through a series of themed hazards while their mechanic can make repairs, upgrades, or legal interference from designated stations. R2 and I have prepared a balanced rule set—”
R2 beeped rapidly.
The translator said, “Balanced in our favor.”
Tom leaned down. “We agreed not to say that part.”
Janeway stared at him.
Tom straightened. “The important thing is that it’s all perfectly safe.”
At that exact moment, a holographic hover cart shot through the wall, trailing smoke and confetti, and crashed into the pool table.
Harry yelped and jumped back.
The cart’s occupant, a holographic version of Chaotica’s robot henchman, raised one claw and said, “THE ORGANICS ARE WEAK.”
Then it exploded into glitter.
Silence settled.
Tom pointed at it. “That was scheduled.”
B’Elanna’s padd beeped.
She read it.
Then she looked at R2.
“Why,” she asked slowly, “is Holodeck Two drawing power from the sonic showers?”
R2 made a cautious sound.
The translator said, “Moisture is overrated.”
Janeway drew herself up.
Tom saw his life flash before his eyes. It included several reprimands, an unfortunate number of inventory reports, and no hover carts whatsoever.
“Computer,” Janeway said, “end program.”
The computer chimed.
“Unable to comply. Program is currently under Grand Prix lockout.”
B’Elanna’s eyes became very bright.
“Grand Prix what?”
Tom leaned toward R2. “You said lockout was a metaphor.”
R2 whistled.
The translator said, “It became real.”
The Doctor stood. “I knew I should have stayed in Sickbay.”
The room shook.
Sandrine’s windows flashed bright white. Outside, where a holographic Marseilles street should have been, something roared.
Janeway turned toward the glass.
A massive shape moved past the window: chrome-plated, finned, and absurd. It resembled a 1950s Earth automobile crossed with a warp nacelle and an angry chandelier. Flames painted its sides. It had teeth.
Tom whispered, awed, “The Rocket Shark made it in.”
B’Elanna slowly faced him. “The what?”
R2 produced a delighted shriek.
The translator said, “BEHOLD.”
The Rocket Shark rammed through the front wall of Sandrine’s.
Everyone dove.
It screamed across the floor, pursued by three hover carts, two holographic gangsters, a swarm of tiny repair drones wearing goggles, and Neelix, who was inexplicably cheering.
“Go, Mr. Vulcan! Go!”
Tuvok, seated in one of the hover carts with perfect posture, crossed the bar at eighty kilometers per hour.
His mechanic, Naomi Wildman, stood on the back of the cart wearing a welding mask and laughing like a tiny warlord.
Janeway watched them vanish through the opposite wall.
“Computer,” she said very quietly, “freeze program.”
The computer replied, “Grand Prix rules prohibit temporal suspension during active qualifying heat.”
B’Elanna lunged for the nearest control panel.
R2 zipped in front of her, beeping.
She looked down. “Move.”
R2 beeped again.
The translator said, “Counteroffer: drive.”
B’Elanna stared.
Tom’s grin crept back.
“No,” Janeway said.
B’Elanna looked at the hole in the wall.
Another hover cart shot past, driven by Crewman Ayala, whose mechanic appeared to be a holographic raccoon.
“No,” Janeway repeated.
Seven stepped closer to the remaining hover cart that had materialized near the bar.
“This vehicle has been modified beyond its stated baseline specifications.”
R2 made a smug noise.
The translator said, “Correct.”
Seven looked at Janeway. “I believe the most efficient method of ending the program is to win.”
Janeway closed her eyes again.
Tom inhaled.
“Don’t,” she said.
Tom exhaled.
The Rocket Shark roared somewhere nearby. Someone screamed. It sounded suspiciously like the Doctor.
Chakotay stepped beside Janeway. “It would be faster than trying to break the lockout.”
B’Elanna said, “I hate that he’s right.”
Janeway opened her eyes.
There were moments, in deep space, when command required dignity, composure, and the ability to see beyond immediate absurdity to the larger picture.
There were other moments when a captain had to get in the hover cart.
Janeway pointed at Tom. “You and R2 are in my office after this.”
Tom saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
She pointed at B’Elanna. “You’re with me.”
B’Elanna cracked her knuckles. “Good.”
R2 made an outraged beep.
The translator said, “She cannot out-mechanic me.”
B’Elanna smiled in a way that made plasma fires feel nervous.
“Watch me.”
Tom climbed into the nearest hover cart.
R2 rolled into the mechanic’s mount behind him, scomp-link already extended.
Harry looked between them and the captain. “Should I—”
A second cart appeared beside him.
Seven stepped into the pilot’s seat.
“You will act as my mechanic, Ensign Kim.”
Harry blinked. “I will?”
“You are adequate.”
“Thanks?”
The Doctor crawled out from behind an overturned table, holographic hair slightly smoking.
“I refuse to participate in this madness.”
A cart rolled up beside him.
Its passenger was a holographic lounge singer in a sequined dress, who patted the seat.
The Doctor looked at her.
He looked at the oncoming Rocket Shark.
He got in.
Janeway settled into her cart. “Computer. Begin race.”
The computer blared a fanfare so triumphant it bordered on felony.
R2 whistled.
The translator said, “Finally.”
The wall ahead exploded into a tunnel of stars.
Tom grabbed the controls.
“Okay, buddy,” he said. “Let’s cause a little chaos.”
R2 plugged in.
The cart transformed.
Its fins extended. Its engine hummed. Blue lights rippled along its underside. The dashboard displayed a single blinking phrase:
BAD IDEA MODE: ENGAGED
Tom laughed.
B’Elanna shouted from the next cart, “PARIS!”
Then the starting lights turned green.
And Voyager went to war with leisure.
---
Later, in her official log, Janeway described the incident as “a spirited morale exercise that briefly escalated beyond intended parameters.”
Privately, she called it “the race from hell.”
It began in Sandrine’s, passed through a Captain Proton asteroid field, took a hard left through Fair Haven, clipped Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop, looped twice around a photonic recreation of the Cochrane warp complex, and somehow ended up in a jungle full of velociraptors wearing Borg implants.
Tom blamed R2.
R2 blamed Tom.
B’Elanna blamed both of them with the serene certainty of the righteous.
“Left!” Tom shouted.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Too obvious.”
“Left is not obvious. Left is directional.”
R2 did something to the controls.
The cart went up.
Tom’s stomach remained briefly in Sandrine’s.
They shot vertically through a holographic storm cloud, burst into open space, and threaded between two asteroids shaped like giant billiard balls. Behind them, Janeway and B’Elanna’s cart emerged in hot pursuit, its engine whining with Klingon-enhanced fury.
“Paris!” B’Elanna’s voice crackled over the comm. “What did he do to the inertial buffer?”
Tom glanced at his display. “Improved it?”
R2 whistled defensively.
The translator said, “Removed cowardice.”
Tom winced. “Oh, buddy, that’s not the same thing.”
A phaser beam flashed past them.
Tom looked back.
Janeway, piloting with one hand, had acquired a holographic ray gun.
“Captain!” Tom called. “Is that regulation?”
Janeway’s voice came back calm and deadly. “I found it in the vehicle.”
B’Elanna shouted, “And I improved it!”
R2 made a noise of professional offense.
The cart dove.
Tom skimmed across the surface of an asteroid, sparks flying. The course shifted ahead, a tunnel spiraling inward like a corkscrew.
“Can we take that?” Tom asked.
R2 chirped.
“Great.”
The translator said, “Probably.”
“Define probably.”
R2 refused.
They entered the corkscrew at full speed.
For twenty-seven seconds, Tom Paris experienced the pure joy of doing something absolutely unforgivable with a machine designed by someone even less cautious than he was.
R2 screamed with delight.
Tom screamed back.
They exited sideways into Fair Haven, where Michael Sullivan dropped a tray of glasses and Father Mulligan shouted something about demons.
Seven and Harry’s cart slammed through a haystack behind them.
Seven looked completely composed.
Harry looked like he had seen the face of God and found it judgmental.
“Tom!” Harry shouted.
Tom waved. “Having fun?”
“No!”
Seven said, “He is lying. His adrenaline levels indicate engagement.”
“I’m terrified!”
“Also true.”
R2 beeped a greeting.
The translator said, “Your mechanic is inefficient.”
Harry bristled. “Hey!”
Seven’s eyebrow lifted. “He is not incorrect.”
Harry grabbed a wrench from the cart’s tool rack. “That’s it. Tom, you’re going down.”
Tom’s grin sharpened. “There he is.”
R2 beeped approval.
The race continued.
Neelix appeared at a snack station suspended over a lava pit, cheerfully handing out leola-root energy bars to racers who did not slow down enough to take them. Tuvok and Naomi overtook three security officers by deploying what appeared to be a Vulcan logic puzzle as a holographic roadblock. The Doctor, against all expectations and his own repeated protests, proved to be an aggressive driver with no fear of death and a deep personal vendetta against the Rocket Shark.
“I am a physician!” he shouted, ramming the Rocket Shark broadside. “Not a hood ornament!”
The Rocket Shark exploded into glitter again.
The Doctor raised both hands.
Then it reassembled behind him, larger.
R2 shrieked happily.
B’Elanna’s voice came over the comm. “Did you give the Shark adaptive subroutines?”
Tom looked at R2.
R2 looked away.
Tom said, “We should focus on the road.”
The final leg opened without warning.
The holodeck became Voyager.
Not a simulation of Voyager as she usually was, but Voyager reimagined by a deranged racing program with too much access to ship schematics. Corridors twisted into banked tracks. Turbolift shafts became vertical loops. Jeffries tubes widened into tunnels lined with blinking hazards. Holographic crew members dove for cover while actual crew members in the real corridors began yelling over the comm about phantom vehicles passing through walls.
Janeway’s voice cut through the chaos.
“Mr. Paris.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Did you map this course over my ship?”
Tom ducked as a holographic plasma conduit swung overhead. “Not exactly.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “He supplied the ship. I supplied vision.”
“That is not better,” Janeway said.
The finish line appeared ahead: a glowing arch across a recreation of the bridge.
Tom leaned forward. “Okay, R2. Everything you’ve got.”
R2 plugged deeper into the cart.
The engine note rose.
Behind them, Janeway and B’Elanna closed in. Seven and Harry were on their left, their cart now bristling with improvised antennae. Tuvok and Naomi approached from above, somehow driving on the ceiling.
The Doctor was behind everyone, still pursued by the Rocket Shark.
“All right,” Tom said. “On three.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Three is too late.”
The droid hit the boost.
The cart vanished.
For one glorious instant, Tom Paris became acceleration.
The bridge stretched toward him. The finish line blazed.
Then R2 made a startled beep.
“What?” Tom asked.
The translator said, “Unexpected variable.”
That was when the real Voyager dropped out of warp.
The holodeck safeties, already offended by existence, briefly lost the argument.
The cart crossed the finish line, left the holodeck, and burst into the corridor.
Not a holographic cart.
A forcefield-supported, photonic-matter-stabilized, R2-enhanced hover cart.
In the actual corridor.
With Tom Paris in it.
And R2-D2 on the back.
They skimmed past Crewman Chell, who dropped a crate of hydroponic soil.
They shot around a bend, fishtailed, bounced off a bulkhead, and entered the turbolift just as the doors opened.
Lieutenant Ayala, already inside, looked at them.
Tom looked at Ayala.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Deck one.”
The turbolift doors closed.
Ayala said, “I’m not filing the report.”
The turbolift began to rise.
Tom swallowed. “R2?”
R2 made a thoughtful sound.
“Can you turn this thing off?”
The translator said, “Define off.”
The turbolift doors opened onto the bridge.
The hover cart rolled out.
Every officer on duty turned.
Chakotay was in the command chair. His expression went through surprise, resignation, and a kind of weary spiritual confirmation.
Tom brought the cart to a smoking halt in front of the viewscreen.
R2’s fedora feather was bent.
The silence was profound.
Then the turbolift doors opened again.
Janeway stepped out.
Her hair was slightly disordered. Her uniform had a scorch mark on one sleeve. B’Elanna stood behind her, holding the remains of a steering column. Harry and Seven emerged from the other turbolift, followed by Tuvok, Naomi, the Doctor, and—somehow—the Rocket Shark, which immediately dissolved when the holodeck finally gave up.
Janeway walked slowly toward Tom.
Tom stayed very still.
R2 rotated his dome up at her.
The translator, perhaps out of mercy, said nothing.
Janeway stopped beside the hover cart.
“Mr. Paris.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Did you win?”
Tom hesitated.
R2 chirped.
The computer announced, “Grand Prix winner: Team Paris-D2.”
Tom’s smile appeared before he could stop it.
Janeway nodded once.
Then she pointed toward the turbolift.
“My ready room. Both of you.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “No wheels on carpet?”
Janeway looked at him.
R2 rolled forward immediately.
---
R2-D2’s first disciplinary meeting aboard Voyager lasted forty-six minutes.
Tom considered this a personal victory.
Janeway sat behind her desk with a fresh cup of coffee and the expression of someone who was deciding whether murder would damage crew morale more than the status quo.
Tom stood at attention.
R2 stood beside him, if one could call it standing. His dome was very still. The fedora had been confiscated.
It sat on Janeway’s desk as evidence.
“Let me make sure I understand,” Janeway said. “You introduced our guest to the holodeck.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You helped him build a competitive racing program.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You allowed him to connect that program to multiple holodecks.”
“Allowed feels strong.”
Janeway stared.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You ignored several safety protocols.”
Tom opened his mouth.
Janeway lifted one finger.
He closed it.
“You routed recreational power through the sonic showers.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Only briefly.”
Janeway turned to him. “And you. You circumvented Starfleet access restrictions, rewrote portions of the holodeck safety architecture, temporarily converted photonic matter into a mobile vehicle, and renamed the helm interface SLOW BOY.”
Tom made a betrayed sound. “That was him?”
R2 chirped.
“Willing accomplice.”
Tom glared down at him. “I thought we were friends.”
R2 beeped again.
“Friends tell the truth.”
Tom looked at Janeway. “Captain, I would like it noted that this droid has a very flexible understanding of loyalty.”
Janeway sipped her coffee.
“Mr. Paris, you and R2-D2 are hereby restricted from the holodecks unless supervised by a senior officer.”
Tom blinked. “Technically, I am a senior officer.”
“A responsible senior officer.”
“Ah.”
“R2-D2 is prohibited from interfacing with Voyager systems without Engineering authorization.”
R2 whistled.
The translator said, “Define Engineering.”
Janeway’s eyes narrowed. “B’Elanna Torres.”
R2 emitted a wounded chirp.
“Specifically B’Elanna Torres,” Janeway added.
Tom looked impressed. “That’s airtight.”
“And you,” she said to Tom, “will spend the next week assisting Engineering with a complete holodeck system audit.”
Tom’s face fell.
R2 made a sympathetic noise.
Janeway leaned back. “R2-D2 will assist.”
Tom brightened.
Janeway pointed at him. “Under supervision.”
Tom dimmed.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “We accept.”
“We?” Tom asked.
R2 rolled over his foot.
Tom yelped.
Janeway’s mouth twitched.
“Dismissed.”
Tom limped toward the door. R2 followed, dome tilted in what could only be smug satisfaction.
Just before they left, Janeway said, “R2-D2.”
The droid turned.
She picked up the little fedora and held it out.
“Next time you join a crew event, ask first.”
R2 extended a tool arm and took the hat with surprising delicacy.
He beeped softly.
The translator said, “Acknowledged, Captain Coffee.”
Janeway’s eyebrows rose.
Tom froze.
R2 rolled out before she could respond.
Tom followed him into the corridor.
The doors closed behind them.
Tom looked down.
“Captain Coffee?”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Accurate.”
Tom considered this.
Then he nodded. “You’re going to fit right in.”
---
For three days, R2 behaved.
Mostly.
He remained in Engineering, where B’Elanna kept him under what she called “constant observation” and what R2 called “admiration with threats.” He helped repair the holodeck grid. He recalibrated two faulty plasma regulators. He identified a recurring coolant inefficiency that had annoyed B’Elanna for weeks and fixed it in under four minutes while whistling something cheerful.
He also altered the Engineering replicator so that every mug of raktajino came with foam art shaped like his dome.
B’Elanna pretended not to notice until Carey got one with a little blue-and-white heart.
Then she yelled.
R2 hid behind the warp core.
The Doctor conducted three scans and declared R2 “mechanically sound, psychologically insufferable.” R2 responded by slicing into the Sickbay scheduling system and assigning the Doctor a mandatory bedside manner refresher course taught by Neelix.
The Doctor tried to delete it.
It reappeared.
Then it gained homework.
Seven of Nine expressed interest in R2’s compact design and unusual self-modifying subroutines. R2 expressed interest in the Borg alcove power feed. Seven expressed disapproval. R2 expressed fourteen consecutive seconds of binary commentary that the translator summarized as “the Collective lacked style.”
Seven was silent for a full five seconds.
Then she said, “Elaborate.”
Tom watched this exchange from the doorway of Astrometrics and later told Harry he had witnessed the birth of a terrifying friendship.
Harry spent most of the first three days trying to build a better translation matrix. R2 allowed this because Harry was earnest, technically competent, and easy to tease.
On the fourth day, Harry found his clarinet replicated in miniature and mounted on a tiny drone that followed him through the corridor playing Stars and Stripes Forever at irregular intervals.
“Tom,” Harry said, walking into the mess hall with the clarinet drone hovering beside his shoulder.
Tom looked up from breakfast.
The drone played three triumphant notes.
Tom blinked.
R2 rolled out from under a nearby table.
Tom said, “I had nothing to do with this.”
Harry pointed at R2. “Make him stop.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “The musician is accompanied.”
“I am haunted.”
Neelix leaned over from the serving counter. “Actually, Mr. Kim, I think it adds a festive quality.”
The drone began a jaunty rendition of a Vulcan funeral march.
Tuvok, seated at a nearby table, looked up.
“That is not the correct tempo.”
Harry stared at him.
Tuvok added, “Nor the correct occasion.”
R2 chirped.
The translator said, “Taking notes.”
Harry sat beside Tom and put his head in his hands. “Why is he like this?”
Tom looked at R2, who had extended a tiny grasping arm to steal a cube of toasted bread from Tom’s plate.
“I think he’s lonely,” Tom said.
Harry glanced up.
Tom shrugged, trying to make it casual. “He lost his people. Or got thrown away from them. Whatever happened. He’s on a strange ship, in a strange galaxy, with a computer system he clearly thinks was assembled by sleepy toddlers.”
R2 beeped without looking up.
The translator said, “Not sleepy. Overconfident.”
Tom pointed. “See?”
Harry’s expression softened. “You think the pranks help?”
“I think being a pain in the neck is how he says he’s still here.”
R2 went very still.
Tom realized too late that the translator was still active.
The droid’s dome turned toward him slowly.
For a moment, the mess hall noise faded around them: Neelix humming, cutlery clicking, people talking over breakfast. R2’s red photoreceptor regarded Tom with unreadable brightness.
Then he beeped.
The translator hesitated.
“Acceptable wingman upgraded.”
Tom swallowed.
Harry smiled.
The clarinet drone began playing something softer. Not Starfleet, not Vulcan, not Earth at all. A strange melody, thin and bright and oddly heroic.
R2’s dome turned away.
Tom did not ask.
---
The trouble with lonely gremlins was that eventually they found other lonely gremlins.
Voyager had plenty.
Tom was the obvious candidate. A pilot with a history of bad decisions, daddy issues, authority problems, and a deep need to prove that recklessness could sometimes be indistinguishable from genius.
Harry was less obvious but no less vulnerable: earnest, homesick, brilliant, and so far from being the baby of the crew that nobody noticed he had grown into one of the people holding the ship together.
B’Elanna pretended she was immune. She was not. R2 could speak fluent machine, hated inefficiency, bit first and explained later, and respected tools more than rank. Within a week, she was arguing with him in Engineering at full volume and enjoying every second of it.
Seven should have been immune. She was not. R2 treated Borg technology the way a streetwise mechanic treated an overdesigned luxury hovercar: impressive, sure, but let’s see how fast it breaks when someone knows where to kick.
Naomi Wildman adored him instantly.
This was dangerous.
Naomi found him in Cargo Bay Two, where he was allegedly assisting with inventory. In practice, he had built a small fortress out of mislabeled supply crates and was using a repair drone to patrol the perimeter.
Naomi stood outside the fortress gate, hands on her hips.
“You’re supposed to be sorting those.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “I sorted them by strategic value.”
Naomi peered at the labels. “You put emergency blankets with plasma coils.”
R2 whistled.
“Warmth.”
Naomi considered this.
“That’s silly.”
R2 made a scandalized sound.
Naomi crouched. “Can I come in?”
R2 hesitated. Then the crate gate lowered.
Inside, Naomi found a surprisingly cozy space lit by a portable lamp. Padds were stacked along one wall. A diagnostic scanner hummed in the corner. R2 had placed a small holographic projection in the center: a blue-tinted image of a young man with sandy hair and a mechanical hand, frozen mid-smile beside a woman with determined eyes. There were others too. A golden humanoid droid. A tall, fur-covered creature. A bearded man. Ships. Deserts. Battles.
Naomi sat cross-legged.
“Are these your family?”
R2 did not answer immediately.
Then he beeped.
The translator, softer now, said, “Yes.”
Naomi looked at the figures. “They’re far away?”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
R2’s dome tilted.
The translator said, “Wrong universe.”
Naomi absorbed this with the grave flexibility of a child who had grown up on a starship in the Delta Quadrant and therefore had a very broad definition of normal.
“My dad is far away too,” she said. “Not a wrong universe. Just the Alpha Quadrant.”
R2 rotated his dome toward her.
Naomi touched the edge of the hologram, careful not to disturb it. “Captain says we’ll get home someday.”
R2 beeped once.
“Captains say that.”
Naomi looked at him. “Do you believe her?”
R2 was quiet.
Then he projected another image.
Voyager.
It hung beside the others, blue and silver and alive with light.
R2 made a sound like a shrug.
The translator said, “Ship is stubborn.”
Naomi smiled. “That means yes.”
R2 beeped defensively.
The translator said, “It means ship is stubborn.”
Naomi nodded wisely. “Same thing.”
By the time Neelix came looking for her, Naomi had been granted the title of Junior Assistant Gremlin, Third Class, and had helped R2 relabel five crates in a way that would make sense to no one but them.
The next morning, every turbolift on Voyager announced its destination in dramatic holonovel narration.
“Deck Four,” the lift told Chakotay. “Where destiny coils like a patient serpent.”
Chakotay looked at the ceiling.
“R2.”
The turbolift chirped innocently.
“Deck Eleven,” it told Tuvok. “A realm of logic, plasma, and concealed longing.”
Tuvok paused.
“That is inaccurate.”
The turbolift doors opened.
“Or is it?”
Tuvok filed a report.
Janeway received eighteen complaints before breakfast.
She found Tom and R2 in Engineering, where Tom was pretending to help B’Elanna recalibrate the port EPS grid and R2 was pretending not to have access to the turbolift voice system.
“Captain,” Tom said brightly.
“Mr. Paris.”
“Lovely morning.”
“My turbolift called the bridge ‘the throne room of the caffeine queen.’”
B’Elanna dropped her spanner.
Tom covered his mouth.
R2 made no sound at all.
Janeway looked down at him. “Did you do it?”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Technically, Naomi suggested adjectives.”
Janeway closed her eyes.
“Oh, she’s good,” Tom murmured.
Janeway opened them. “Remove it.”
R2 chirped.
“Now.”
R2 rolled to a console.
The turbolift system returned to normal.
For four hours.
Then the sonic showers began playing dramatic narration instead.
B’Elanna threatened to magnetize him.
R2 called her bluff.
Tom started taking notes.
---
The real crisis began, as real crises often did aboard Voyager, with Neelix making soup.
It was orange.
It moved slightly.
Tom had just sat down across from Harry in the mess hall when the ship lurched hard enough to slide both trays six inches to the left.
The orange soup attempted escape.
Harry caught his bowl.
Tom caught his coffee.
Across the room, R2 extended a tool arm and saved an entire stack of bread rolls with heroic precision.
The red alert klaxon sounded.
Janeway’s voice came over the comm.
“All senior staff to the bridge.”
Tom stood. “Saved by the bell.”
Harry looked at his soup. “Maybe we should bring R2.”
R2 had already started rolling toward the door.
Tom followed. “He’s not senior staff.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Yet.”
The bridge was controlled chaos when they arrived. The stars on the viewscreen had been replaced by a spread of angular ships: five of them, arranged in a formation so geometrically smug it looked bureaucratic.
Their hulls were silver-gray, with red illuminated markings along the sides and long protruding structures that could have been weapons, sensor arrays, or decorative office architecture.
Tuvok stood at Tactical. “Their weapons are charged.”
Chakotay glanced back as Tom took the helm. “They came out of nowhere. Some kind of masking field.”
Harry took Ops. “They’re hailing us.”
Janeway sat. “On screen.”
A face appeared.
It was narrow, pale, and severe, with ridged cheekbones, small black eyes, and a headdress that resembled a stack of official documents trying to become a crown. The alien looked at Janeway with the weary disgust of a civil servant who had caught someone filling out a form in blue ink.
“I am Sub-Registrar Vethren of the Vreth Continuity Authority,” the alien said. “You are in violation of transit statute nine hundred and twelve, subsection forty-four, unauthorized emergence into a regulated corridor.”
Janeway’s command smile appeared.
Tom had seen that smile face down Borg, Hirogen, aliens with religious disputes, and one malfunctioning espresso unit. It was polite. It was diplomatic. It also contained teeth.
“I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. We were not aware this region of space was restricted.”
“Ignorance is not an exemption recognized under continuity law.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Tom muttered.
R2, parked beside the helm where nobody had officially allowed him to be, beeped.
The translator said softly, “Bureaucrat species. Dangerous.”
Tom whispered, “You’ve dealt with these?”
R2 chirped.
“Worse.”
The Sub-Registrar’s eyes flicked toward the sound. “You are transporting unregistered technology.”
Janeway’s smile did not move. “We have a guest aboard.”
“All guests must be declared prior to entry.”
“We did not enter intentionally.”
“Intentionality is addressed under separate petition.”
Harry’s console chirped. “Captain, they’re scanning us. Deep scan.”
Tuvok said, “Their scans are attempting to access our computer core.”
Janeway’s voice cooled. “Sub-Registrar, call off your scans.”
The alien blinked slowly. “Your vessel is hereby impounded pending adjudication.”
Tom’s fingers tightened on the helm.
Chakotay leaned forward. “On what authority?”
The alien’s expression became, if possible, more offended.
“On the authority of the Vreth Continuity Authority.”
“Circular,” Tuvok observed.
“Efficient,” the Sub-Registrar said. “You will lower shields and prepare for compliance officers.”
Janeway stood. “That won’t be happening.”
The alien sighed. “Noncompliance noted.”
The screen went blank.
Immediately, Voyager rocked under weapons fire.
“Shields down to eighty-two percent,” Tuvok said.
Tom’s hands moved. “Evasive pattern Paris Beta-Four?”
Janeway said, “Do it.”
Voyager twisted away as red-white beams sliced through the space where she had been. The Vreth ships adjusted with alarming precision.
B’Elanna’s voice came over the comm. “Bridge, whatever they’re hitting us with is doing something weird to the shield harmonics. It’s like they’re trying to label our shield grid for later.”
“Label?” Chakotay asked.
Harry grimaced. “They’re tagging us with a phased tracking field.”
R2 emitted a sharp series of beeps.
The translator said, “Tow cables without cables. Rude.”
Tuvok confirmed it. “Our velocity is decreasing.”
Tom fought the helm. “They’re dragging us.”
Janeway’s eyes narrowed. “Options.”
Harry said, “We could try modulating shields, but they’re adapting fast.”
Tuvok added, “A direct attack may not succeed. Their formation distributes shield stress across all five vessels.”
R2 rolled closer to Tom’s console.
Tom glanced down. “Captain?”
Janeway did not look away from the screen. “No.”
R2 beeped indignantly.
Tom said, “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
“I know exactly what you were going to ask.”
The ship shook again.
Harry said, “Shields at sixty-nine percent.”
R2 extended his scomp-link.
Janeway turned. “R2-D2.”
He froze.
The bridge waited.
The droid beeped once.
The translator said, “Permission?”
Tom looked at Janeway.
Janeway stared at R2 for a long second.
Then she said, “Engineering authorization only.”
B’Elanna’s voice snapped over the comm. “Fine! Let the little menace help before they put a boot on my warp core!”
R2 plugged into the helm.
The console flashed.
Tom’s display rearranged itself into symbols he could not read. Then a secondary overlay appeared in Federation Standard, labeled:
ESCAPE OPTIONS
1. Run faster.
2. Hit harder.
3. Lie better.
4. Bureaucratic murder.
Tom’s mouth opened.
“Captain,” he said, reverent, “I love him.”
“Pick one,” Janeway ordered.
R2 selected option four.
Every console on the bridge chirped.
Harry’s eyes went wide. “He’s accessing their data network.”
Tuvok turned. “Through their scanning beam?”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “They touched first.”
Chakotay looked impressed despite himself.
Harry leaned over Ops. “He’s sending something back. It’s… forms.”
Janeway said, “Forms?”
R2 whistled rapidly.
The translator struggled.
“Emergency counter-petition. Jurisdictional challenge. Identity verification demand. Appeal of impound authority. Complaint regarding improper notification. Complaint regarding complaint formatting. Notice of clerical injury. Recursive request for supervisor.”
Tom stared.
“You’re filing paperwork at them?”
R2 beeped.
“War paperwork.”
The Vreth ships hesitated.
On screen, their formation wavered.
Harry laughed once in disbelief. “Their network traffic just spiked by four thousand percent.”
Tuvok said, “Their tractor effect is weakening.”
Janeway sat slowly. “Mr. Paris, prepare to break free.”
Tom grinned. “With pleasure.”
R2 beeped sharply.
A new option flashed on Tom’s console:
RUN FASTER
Tom engaged full impulse.
Voyager surged forward.
The Vreth ships fired again, but the shots went wide as their formation broke. One vessel drifted left. Another rotated slightly, as though uncertain whether space itself had submitted the proper paperwork.
The viewscreen flickered.
Sub-Registrar Vethren reappeared.
His headdress was crooked.
“What,” he hissed, “have you done?”
Janeway folded her hands.
“I believe we’ve filed an appeal.”
“You cannot file an appeal before acknowledging receipt of the citation!”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “We appeal the receipt.”
Vethren’s eye twitched.
Harry whispered, “Can you do that?”
Tuvok replied, “Apparently.”
Vethren leaned closer. “Your artificial cylinder has triggered seventeen thousand contradictory procedural reviews.”
R2 shrieked.
The translator snapped, “ASTROMECH.”
Tom whispered, “Don’t call him a cylinder.”
Janeway said, “Sub-Registrar, we don’t want a fight. Let us leave your territory.”
“You cannot leave while impounded.”
“We are contesting the impound.”
“The contestation has been marked invalid due to illegible appendices.”
R2 beeped.
Harry checked his console. “He just resubmitted them in triplicate.”
Vethren’s nostrils flared.
B’Elanna’s voice cut in. “Captain, they’re trying to brute-force the connection now. R2 can hold them off for a while, but not forever.”
R2 made an offended sound.
The translator said, “Forever is poorly defined.”
Tom glanced at the sensor display. “Captain, there’s a debris field twelve million kilometers off port. Dense metallic fragments. If we can reach it, we might lose them.”
Tuvok said, “Their tracking field is still partially attached.”
Harry frowned. “Unless we overload the tagged shield harmonics.”
Janeway turned. “How?”
Tom and R2 made the same sound.
One was a human inhale.
The other was an electronic trill.
B’Elanna, over the comm, said, “I hate that I know what they’re thinking.”
Janeway closed her eyes briefly. “Mr. Paris.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Is this going to involve the Delta Flyer?”
Tom’s grin became a work of art.
R2’s dome spun eagerly.
Janeway stood.
“No.”
The ship shook.
Harry said, “Shields at forty-eight percent.”
Janeway looked at the Vreth ships. Looked at Tom. Looked at R2.
Tom tried to appear responsible.
R2 did not bother.
Janeway said, “Briefly explain.”
Tom was already out of his chair. “The tracking field is hooked into our shield geometry. We take the Flyer, generate a matching false shield signature, buzz their formation close enough to spoof their tags, and drag the tracking lock away from Voyager.”
R2 beeped.
The translator added, “Then make them chase shiny thing.”
Tuvok said, “The risk is considerable.”
Tom said, “When is it not?”
Janeway’s expression hardened. “You are not to engage them directly.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You are not to improvise beyond mission parameters.”
Tom hesitated.
Janeway stared.
“Yes, Captain.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “He is lying.”
Tom looked down. “Buddy.”
Janeway pointed at R2. “And you are to follow Lieutenant Paris’s instructions.”
R2’s answering whistle was complicated.
The translator said, “No promises.”
Janeway looked at Chakotay.
Chakotay looked like a man trying very hard not to enjoy himself.
“Fine,” Janeway said. “Go.”
Tom and R2 moved.
The turbolift doors closed behind them.
On the bridge, silence lasted one second.
Then Chakotay said, “You realize you just sent the two worst possible people.”
Janeway watched the Vreth ships on screen.
“I sent the two best possible people,” she said. “Unfortunately, they’re also the worst.”
---
The Delta Flyer was Tom Paris’s pride and joy.
R2 insulted it in under six seconds.
“Dwooo.”
The translator said, “This is a flying box with ambition.”
Tom climbed into the pilot’s seat. “Hey. I built this flying box.”
R2 rolled to the engineering station and plugged in without asking.
The lights flickered.
“R2.”
The droid beeped.
“Fine. B’Elanna helped.”
R2 beeped again.
“And Harry.”
Another beep.
“And Seven.”
R2 hummed.
Tom sighed. “It was a group project. Happy?”
The translator said, “More accurate.”
The Flyer launched from Voyager’s bay under heavy fire, slipping past a Vreth beam close enough to rattle the hull. Tom dropped beneath Voyager’s port nacelle, rolled, and kicked the impulse engines hard.
R2’s modifications appeared on his display: shield harmonics, false signature generation, evasive routes, and one button labeled:
PANIC, BUT ARTISTICALLY
Tom stared at it.
“Is that new?”
R2 chirped.
“Maybe.”
“Don’t maybe me in my own shuttle.”
The Vreth formation shifted as the Flyer’s false shield signature came online. Two of the alien ships broke away from Voyager and turned toward them.
Tom grinned.
“There we go.”
R2 whistled.
The translator said, “Shiny thing acquired.”
The Flyer dove.
Space became lines and alarms.
Tom skimmed under a Vreth ship’s ventral hull, close enough that the proximity warning gave up and became a solid tone. R2 tweaked the shields. The Flyer briefly appeared on sensors as Voyager, then as three Voyagers, then as something shaped like a very official Vreth tax archive.
The pursuing ships faltered.
Tom laughed. “Did you just impersonate their tax records?”
R2 beeped.
“Fear is universal.”
A beam flashed past.
The Flyer spiraled through it, shields flaring.
Tom’s hands danced. “We need to get closer to the lead ship.”
R2 made a doubtful sound.
“I know, I know. Terrible idea. That’s why it’ll work.”
The droid whistled.
The translator said, “That logic has killed many pilots.”
“Not me.”
“Yet.”
Tom banked hard and shot between the two pursuing ships. Their beams crossed behind him and struck each other’s shields.
R2 shrieked approval.
On the comm, Janeway’s voice snapped, “Paris, report.”
“Everything’s under control, Captain.”
R2 beeped loudly.
The translator said, “He is lying again.”
Janeway’s pause was lethal.
“Mr. Paris.”
“Controlled chaos, Captain. The best kind.”
“No such thing,” B’Elanna’s voice cut in.
Tom dodged another beam. “You wound me.”
“I’m going to do more than wound you if you scratch my Flyer!”
“Your Flyer?”
“I helped build it!”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Group project.”
B’Elanna said, “Do not start with me, trash—”
R2 screamed.
Tom winced. “B’Elanna!”
“Fine! Astromech!”
The Flyer skimmed the edge of the debris field. Jagged metallic fragments tumbled ahead, glittering in the light of distant stars. Tom plunged into them without slowing.
The Vreth ships followed.
Barely.
One clipped a spinning chunk of wreckage and veered away.
R2 projected a route through the debris, then immediately altered it.
Tom followed by instinct more than thought.
Left. Down. Roll. Cut thrust. Burst forward. Thread the needle between two slabs of alien hull plating.
This was what Tom loved. Not danger, exactly. Not death. He had danced with both often enough to know they were lousy partners. What he loved was the moment when ship and pilot became one answer to an impossible question.
R2 understood.
That was the astonishing thing.
He did not fly like a Starfleet computer. He did not anticipate like Harry or calculate like Seven. He reacted like a veteran gunner, a mechanic, a pilot’s conscience with none of the usual caution attached. His suggested maneuvers appeared half a second before Tom thought of them. His warnings were rude but accurate. His boosts came when Tom needed them, not when the manual would have allowed them.
Tom had flown with plenty of copilots.
He had never flown with a rolling argument that could make the engines sing.
The Vreth lead ship emerged directly ahead.
Too close.
Tom’s eyes widened. “R2!”
R2 hit the button labeled PANIC, BUT ARTISTICALLY.
The Flyer’s inertial dampeners screamed.
The ship rotated ninety degrees, slipped sideways between two pieces of debris, dropped under the Vreth vessel’s bow, and released a burst of false shield telemetry directly into its sensor array.
For one second, every Vreth ship locked onto the lead vessel instead of Voyager.
Then their own tracking beams snapped inward.
The Vreth formation collapsed into confusion.
Tom whooped.
R2 blatted victorious profanity.
Back on Voyager, Harry shouted, “Captain, their tracking field is off us!”
Janeway said, “Mr. Paris, return to Voyager.”
Tom pulled the Flyer around. “On our way.”
R2 beeped.
Tom looked at the display.
A new warning flashed.
DIMENSIONAL FRACTURE DETECTED
The grin fell from his face.
Ahead, beyond the debris field, space began to glow.
Blue-white.
Twisting.
Familiar.
“Captain,” Tom said slowly, “the anomaly is reopening.”
---
The fissure unfolded like a wound.
It did not simply appear. It tore itself into space, thread by thread, spilling blue light and static across the stars. Sensors went half-blind. The Vreth ships, already struggling to recover formation, backed away in disarray.
On Voyager’s bridge, Harry stared at his readings.
“It’s the same distortion that brought R2 here. But larger. Much larger.”
Janeway stood. “Can we stabilize it?”
Seven, at the auxiliary station, analyzed the data. “Unclear. The aperture exhibits transdimensional properties. It may connect to R2-D2’s point of origin.”
Chakotay looked at the screen. “A way home?”
Nobody had to ask whose.
In the Delta Flyer, Tom turned slowly toward R2.
The droid’s dome was fixed on the anomaly. His photoreceptor glowed red, bright and still.
“R2?” Tom said.
The answer was barely audible.
“Home.”
Tom felt something twist in his chest.
He had imagined this moment for years in a dozen selfish ways: a wormhole opening to the Alpha Quadrant, a slipstream corridor that didn’t collapse, a benevolent alien with a map and a miracle. He had imagined how he would feel seeing a doorway back to Earth.
Joy, probably.
Fear too.
Because wanting home for so long made home into something fragile. A place. A memory. A verdict.
R2 rolled closer to the forward viewport.
Tom softened his voice. “Can you tell where it goes?”
R2 plugged into the Flyer’s sensors.
Data streamed across Tom’s console. Much of it was unreadable. Hyperspace vectors. Dimensional shear. Coordinates expressed in a system no Federation database recognized. But one thing translated cleanly:
SIGNATURE MATCH: 61%
Not enough.
Maybe enough.
“Voyager to Flyer,” Janeway said. “Tom, what is R2 seeing?”
Tom looked at the droid.
R2 made no sound.
“Possible match,” Tom said. “Not confirmed.”
On the bridge, Janeway’s jaw tightened. “Can he transmit through it?”
Harry answered before Tom could. “Maybe. If the aperture stabilizes.”
The Vreth chose that moment to make everything worse.
Sub-Registrar Vethren appeared on Voyager’s screen, furious and slightly smoking.
“You have created an unlicensed continuity breach.”
Janeway turned very slowly. “We did not create it.”
“Your presence, your unauthorized technology, and your malicious paperwork have destabilized this corridor.”
R2 screamed over the open comm.
The translator said, “Your corridor was already held together with lies and wet string.”
Vethren recoiled. “It speaks again.”
Janeway cut in. “Sub-Registrar, that anomaly is dangerous. We need to work together to contain it.”
“Containment requires impound authority.”
“Of course it does,” Chakotay muttered.
Harry stiffened. “Captain, the Vreth are powering weapons.”
Tuvok said, “They are targeting the anomaly.”
Seven’s voice sharpened. “That would be unwise. A weapons discharge could widen the fracture.”
Janeway snapped, “Sub-Registrar, do not fire.”
Vethren’s expression became smug.
“The Vreth Continuity Authority does not recognize tactical advice from unprocessed violators.”
Tom closed his eyes.
“I hate these guys,” he said.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Valid.”
The Vreth fired.
Their beams struck the edge of the anomaly.
Space screamed.
Voyager lurched as the fissure expanded, swallowing light. The debris field spiraled toward it. The Vreth ships were dragged sideways. The Delta Flyer’s alarms erupted.
Tom fought the controls. “We’re getting pulled in!”
R2 plugged into three ports at once.
“Captain!” Harry shouted over the comm. “The fracture is generating a gravimetric shear. It’s going to tear apart everything within fifty thousand kilometers.”
Janeway gripped her chair. “B’Elanna?”
“Working on it! We can generate a warp field inversion, but we need something inside the shear zone to anchor the resonance!”
Tom and R2 looked at each other.
“No,” Janeway said instantly.
Tom hadn’t spoken.
“Captain—”
“No.”
B’Elanna’s voice was tight. “The Flyer is already in position.”
Janeway’s face went white-hot with fury and fear. “There are other options.”
Seven said, “None with acceptable probability.”
Janeway turned on her. “Find one.”
R2 beeped quietly.
The translator said, “Little ship can anchor.”
Tom swallowed. “R2 says the Flyer can do it.”
R2 beeped again.
The translator corrected, “R2 can do it.”
Tom’s head snapped down. “No.”
R2 rotated toward him.
“No,” Tom repeated. “Absolutely not.”
The droid chirped.
The translator said, “You said terrible ideas work.”
“That was for flying! Not heroic self-sacrifice!”
R2 beeped sharply.
The translator said, “Hypocrite.”
Tom jabbed a finger at him. “Gremlin rule number one: you don’t leave your accomplice holding the entire bag.”
R2’s dome tilted.
“Especially not after one week!”
The Flyer shook violently. A piece of debris bounced off the shields. Tom rerouted power, swearing.
R2 projected a schematic. The plan was horrifyingly simple. The Flyer could emit the anchor resonance, but the controls would need real-time adjustment from a system plugged directly into the shear interface. Organic reflexes would be too slow. Federation computers would be too cautious.
An astromech, however.
A stubborn, reckless, overqualified astromech with terrible manners and a talent for surviving impossible wars.
Tom’s throat tightened.
On the bridge, Janeway’s voice came through low and commanding.
“R2-D2, this is Captain Janeway. I am not ordering you to do this.”
R2 listened.
“You are a guest on my ship,” Janeway continued. “Not a tool. Not equipment. Not expendable.”
R2’s photoreceptor dimmed.
The translator rendered his reply softly.
“Ship is stubborn.”
Janeway closed her eyes.
Tom whispered, “R2.”
The droid extended a tool arm.
Not to plug in.
To tap Tom’s knee.
Once.
Twice.
Just like in the mess hall.
Acceptable wingman.
Tom breathed out shakily.
“You little rust bucket,” he said, voice breaking around the insult.
R2 made the most offended sound imaginable.
The translator said, “Astromech.”
Tom laughed despite himself.
Then he looked at the controls.
“No solo heroics,” he said. “We do it together.”
R2 beeped a warning.
“Don’t care.”
Another beep.
“Nope.”
A longer whistle.
Tom pointed at him. “I have been yelled at by Kathryn Janeway, B’Elanna Torres, and my own conscience. You are not scarier than all three.”
R2 paused.
The translator said, “Debatable.”
Tom’s hands moved over the console. “Voyager, we’re staying aboard the Flyer. R2 and I will anchor the resonance manually.”
B’Elanna’s voice exploded over the comm. “Tom!”
“I know.”
“You don’t know, because if you knew, you wouldn’t be doing it!”
“That has never stopped me before.”
“This is not funny!”
Tom’s voice softened. “I know.”
Silence.
Then B’Elanna said, quieter, “You bring that shuttle back.”
Tom looked at R2.
“Both of us?”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Obviously.”
Tom smiled. “Both of us.”
Janeway’s voice cut in. “You have three minutes before the fracture becomes self-sustaining. We’ll match your resonance and pull you out as soon as it collapses.”
“Understood.”
“Tom.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Don’t make me explain to B’Elanna why I let you die doing something stupid.”
Tom opened his eyes and smiled.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “He is lying.”
“R2!”
Janeway’s voice softened by one impossible degree. “Bring him home, R2.”
R2 straightened.
The translator said, “Acknowledged, Captain Coffee.”
The channel cut.
Tom took the Flyer in.
The anomaly filled the viewport.
Blue-white light swallowed the stars. The ship groaned. The engines fought like living things. R2 extended every tool arm he had, plugged into the Flyer’s engineering console, auxiliary control, and a side access panel Tom was fairly sure had not existed that morning.
Tom held course.
“Resonance field forming,” he said.
R2 beeped.
“Power flow stable.”
Another beep.
“Okay, mildly unstable.”
R2 screamed.
“Fine! Very unstable.”
The Flyer crossed the edge of the shear zone.
For one blinding second, Tom saw too much.
Not images exactly. Impressions. A desert under twin suns. A city-planet shining like a galaxy had been paved over. A boy laughing beside a blue-and-white droid. Blaster fire. Starfields that stretched into lines. A golden droid waving his arms in panic. A woman with fierce eyes saying something urgent. A black mask. A green blade. A celebration under alien trees. Loss. War. Hope. Always hope, stubborn as a starship, stubborn as a droid, stubborn as a lost crew crossing the dark by sheer refusal.
Then the Flyer bucked.
Tom slammed back into the present.
“R2!”
The droid’s dome sparked. His whistle rose into a strained electronic cry.
The resonance field flickered.
On Voyager, B’Elanna shouted, “We’re losing them!”
Janeway gripped the rail behind Tom’s empty helm station. “Increase power to the deflector.”
Harry said, “We’re already past recommended limits.”
“Then stop recommending.”
Chakotay braced himself. “Deflector power increasing.”
Seven’s hands moved with Borg precision. “Resonance match at sixty-three percent. Seventy. Seventy-six.”
Tuvok said, “The Vreth ships are being pulled toward the aperture.”
Janeway looked at the screen. The alien vessels tumbled helplessly, engines flaring.
For half a second, her face hardened.
Then she said, “Lock tractor beams. Pull them clear.”
Chakotay glanced at her.
She did not look away. “We are not leaving them to die in their own paperwork.”
Tuvok’s eyebrow rose. “A generous policy.”
“I’m sure they have a form for it.”
Voyager’s tractor beams lanced out, catching two of the Vreth ships. The others used the brief stabilization to limp away. The anomaly pulsed, fighting the resonance.
In the Flyer, Tom tasted blood.
“Almost there,” he said.
R2’s reply was garbled.
The translator failed.
The droid sparked again.
Tom reached over and slapped the side of the engineering console. “Don’t you dare quit on me.”
R2 shrieked.
The translator crackled back to life.
“Not quitting. Improving dramatically.”
“That’s the spirit.”
A warning flashed.
ANCHOR OVERLOAD
Tom saw it a second after R2 did.
The resonance needed one final pulse. The Flyer did not have enough power left unless they dumped the warp core safeties and burned through the stabilizers. It would work.
It would also leave them dead in space inside a collapsing anomaly.
R2 extended a tool toward the command.
Tom grabbed it.
“No.”
R2 pulled.
Tom held on.
“I said no.”
R2 beeped furiously.
The translator said, “Let go, slow boy.”
Tom’s jaw clenched. “No.”
The Flyer shook so hard one of the overhead panels tore loose.
R2’s dome spun toward him.
The droid’s photoreceptor fixed on Tom.
The next sound was quiet.
The translator said, “I have done this before.”
Tom stared at him.
R2 continued.
“Stayed. Burned. Patched. Watched heroes leave. Watched heroes die. Kept the ship flying.”
Tom’s grip loosened, but he did not let go.
R2 beeped.
“Let me keep this one flying.”
Tom’s eyes stung.
He thought of Caldik Prime. Of mistakes. Of prison. Of Voyager pulling him out of the wreckage of himself and making him useful. He thought of every time he had treated risk like it was a joke because joking was easier than admitting he was afraid he might be worth saving.
He looked at R2-D2, a droid from another universe, battered and brave and impossible.
Then he released the tool arm.
R2 hit the command.
The Flyer roared.
The resonance pulse exploded outward in a ring of blue light.
Voyager matched it.
The anomaly collapsed inward.
For a heartbeat, the universe held its breath.
Then the fissure snapped shut.
The shockwave hurled the Delta Flyer out of the shear zone like a stone from a sling.
Tom slammed into the console.
The lights went out.
---
When Tom woke, someone was singing.
Badly.
No, not badly.
Operatically.
That meant either he was in Sickbay or Hell had upgraded its acoustics.
He opened one eye.
The Doctor loomed over him.
“Ah. Consciousness. How novel.”
Tom groaned. “Can you lower your voice?”
“I could, but I choose not to. You have a concussion, three cracked ribs, plasma burns on your left forearm, and a remarkable talent for making my life worse.”
“R2?”
The Doctor’s expression shifted, though he tried to hide it behind irritation.
“Functional.”
Tom exhaled.
Then he tried to sit up.
The Doctor shoved him back down with one hand. “Did I say you could move?”
“Where is he?”
“Engineering. Lieutenant Torres insisted on handling repairs.”
Tom stared.
The Doctor sighed. “The droid is fine.”
“You just said functional.”
“For him, that appears to be fine.”
Tom closed his eyes.
A familiar beep came from beside the biobed.
Tom opened them again.
R2-D2 rolled into view.
His paint was scorched. One panel was missing. His dome had a blackened streak down the side. Several indicator lights flickered in a way that made Tom’s chest tighten.
But he was there.
He beeped.
The translator, patched through Sickbay’s systems, said, “You look terrible.”
Tom smiled.
“You should see the other guy.”
R2 chirped.
“Which one?”
Tom laughed, then immediately regretted it as his ribs protested.
The Doctor pointed at R2. “Do not make him laugh. I just sealed those.”
R2 extended a manipulator arm and placed something on Tom’s chest.
The fedora.
Bent, scorched, feather singed.
Tom picked it up carefully.
“Your hat survived.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Unlike your landing.”
“I landed.”
“You impacted.”
“Pilot terminology.”
R2 made a rude noise.
The Doctor cleared his throat. “As touching as this exchange of mutual incompetence is, Lieutenant Torres is waiting outside, and she has been holding a hyperspanner for twenty minutes in a manner I would describe as expressive.”
Tom winced. “How mad?”
The Sickbay doors opened.
B’Elanna walked in.
Tom took one look at her face and revised every survival estimate downward.
“Hi,” he said.
She came to the biobed.
She looked at him.
She looked at R2.
She looked back at him.
Then she smacked his uninjured shoulder.
“Ow!”
“You promised to bring the shuttle back.”
“I did.”
“In pieces!”
“Most of the pieces were attached.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Debatable.”
B’Elanna rounded on him. “And you.”
R2 straightened.
“You overloaded my warp core safeties.”
R2 chirped.
“Correctly.”
“You bypassed three command locks.”
Another chirp.
“Efficiently.”
“You almost got him killed.”
R2’s lights dimmed.
The anger drained from B’Elanna’s face.
Tom reached out, fingers brushing R2’s dome.
“He saved me,” Tom said quietly.
B’Elanna held still.
R2 made a soft sound.
The translator said, “He helped.”
The Doctor suddenly became very interested in a medical display.
B’Elanna crouched in front of R2.
For a moment, she said nothing.
Then she tapped the scorched panel on his side, very gently.
“You ever try to sacrifice yourself in one of my engines again, I’ll rebuild you with training wheels.”
R2 emitted a horrified squeal.
Tom laughed and wheezed.
The Doctor snapped, “Stop laughing!”
B’Elanna smiled.
Then she stood and looked at Tom.
“You’re on repair duty as soon as he clears you.”
“I assumed.”
“And you’re explaining to the Captain why the Flyer’s navigation computer now displays insults in six languages.”
Tom looked at R2.
R2 looked at the wall.
Tom said, “Team effort?”
B’Elanna leaned down and kissed his forehead.
“Idiot.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Accurate.”
Tom groaned. “Betrayed in my own Sickbay.”
---
The Vreth filed a formal complaint.
R2 filed one back.
Janeway read both over coffee.
The Vreth complaint was 412 pages long and accused Voyager of unlawful corridor disruption, procedural aggression, improper artificial intelligence declaration, reckless piloting, unauthorized rescue, emotional damages, and “weaponized administrative recursion.”
R2’s complaint was 8,906 pages long, included diagrams, cross-referenced seven Vreth statutes against themselves, and ended with a small animated image of the Sub-Registrar’s headdress rotating upside down.
Janeway stared at the animation for a long time.
Then she forwarded the entire file to Chakotay with the note:
Do not let Tom see this.
Chakotay forwarded it to Tuvok for legal review.
Tuvok forwarded a redacted version to B’Elanna for technical analysis.
B’Elanna showed Tom.
Tom showed Harry.
Harry showed Neelix.
By dinner, half the ship had seen it.
By breakfast the next morning, someone had replicated a small upside-down Vreth headdress and placed it on R2’s dome.
Janeway confiscated it.
Then she scheduled a staff meeting.
R2 attended.
Officially, he was there as a “technical consultant.” Unofficially, he rolled in beside Tom and parked himself at the conference table with the confidence of an admiral, even though he was too short to see over the edge. Naomi had solved this by providing a stack of cargo pads. R2 sat atop them like a very small monarch.
Janeway did not comment.
“First,” she said, “the Vreth have withdrawn their impound claim.”
Tom leaned toward Harry. “Because they lost?”
Harry whispered back, “Because R2 buried them in paperwork.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Victory has many engines.”
Janeway continued. “Second, the anomaly has collapsed. Long-range sensors show no residual aperture, but we collected a significant amount of data. Seven and Harry will analyze it.”
R2’s dome lowered slightly.
Tom noticed.
So did Janeway.
Her voice gentled. “It may still help us understand where you came from.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Not enough to go back.”
“No,” Janeway said. “Not now.”
The conference room was quiet.
Then R2 chirped.
The translator said, “Ship is still stubborn.”
Janeway smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “It is.”
B’Elanna leaned forward. “Which brings us to the third point. R2’s technology is incompatible with ours in about twelve different terrifying ways, but he’s also useful.”
R2 made a pleased sound.
“Don’t preen. You’re a maintenance nightmare.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “So is Voyager.”
No one had an immediate rebuttal.
Janeway looked at Tuvok. “Security assessment?”
Tuvok placed a padd on the table. “R2-D2 has demonstrated repeated unauthorized access to restricted systems, evasion of containment measures, disregard for standard command hierarchy, and a capacity for tactical improvisation that is both effective and unpredictable.”
Tom muttered, “So he’s Starfleet material.”
Tuvok turned to him.
Tom sat back.
Tuvok continued. “He has also acted in defense of this vessel and crew on multiple occasions. I recommend conditional integration under Engineering oversight.”
R2 chirped.
The translator said, “Logical one acceptable.”
Tuvok’s eyebrow rose.
Janeway looked to Chakotay.
He smiled faintly. “We’ve adopted stranger things.”
“Commander,” Janeway said, “that is not an argument.”
“It’s precedent.”
The Doctor lifted a finger. “As Chief Medical Officer, I object to the phrase adopted. It implies we intend to keep him.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “You fear me.”
“I do not fear a glorified rolling toolbox.”
R2 extended a small projector.
A holographic copy of the Doctor appeared above the table, singing loudly in a feathered hat.
The real Doctor froze.
Everyone else stared.
The holographic Doctor performed a high kick.
B’Elanna choked.
Harry covered his face.
Tom made a sound like a dying seal.
Janeway’s coffee cup trembled in her hand.
The Doctor said, very quietly, “Delete that.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “No.”
The Doctor pointed. “That is a violation of my personal dignity.”
R2 chirped.
“Now you have dignity.”
Seven tilted her head. “The recording is amusing.”
The Doctor looked betrayed. “Seven.”
“It is inaccurate in posture but compelling in performance.”
Naomi, sitting beside Neelix as an unofficial observer, whispered, “Can we keep him?”
Janeway stared at the tiny holographic Doctor, then at R2, then at Tom’s face, which had gone red from suppressed laughter.
She set down her coffee.
“R2-D2,” she said, “if you remain aboard Voyager, you will follow ship rules.”
R2 beeped.
“Most ship rules.”
Another beep.
“Important ship rules.”
R2 hummed thoughtfully.
Tom leaned down. “Take the deal.”
R2 looked at him.
Then at Janeway.
Then he beeped.
The translator said, “Conditional acceptance.”
Janeway’s eyes narrowed. “On what conditions?”
R2 projected a list.
Harry read it aloud before he could stop himself.
“Access to supervised engineering tasks. Access to noncritical historical and recreational databases. Personal charging station. No disassembly without consent. Hat privileges.”
Janeway looked at the last item.
R2’s dome tilted.
The room waited.
Janeway said, “Hat privileges may be granted on a case-by-case basis.”
R2 considered.
Then he beeped.
“Acceptable.”
Tom pumped a fist under the table.
B’Elanna kicked him.
Janeway leaned back. “Then welcome aboard, R2-D2.”
The droid emitted a bright, triumphant whistle.
The conference room lights flickered.
Janeway pointed at him immediately.
“No.”
The lights steadied.
R2 chirped innocently.
The translator said, “Celebration restrained.”
Tom whispered, “We’ll work on that.”
Janeway heard him.
“Mr. Paris.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“You are responsible for helping R2 adjust to life aboard Voyager.”
Tom’s grin vanished.
B’Elanna burst out laughing.
Harry stared in horror. “Captain, is that wise?”
“No,” Janeway said. “But it is fair.”
R2 beeped delightedly.
The translator said, “Wingman assigned.”
Tom looked down at him.
R2 looked up.
Slowly, Tom smiled again.
“All right,” he said. “But if I’m responsible for you, you’re responsible for me.”
R2 made a doubtful sound.
“Too late. Ship rules.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Regrettable loophole.”
Janeway stood. “Meeting adjourned.”
As everyone rose, Chakotay stepped beside her.
“You know they’re going to cause more trouble.”
Janeway picked up her coffee.
“Of course they are.”
“And you still assigned Tom to him.”
Janeway watched Tom and R2 leave the conference room together, already arguing about whether the Delta Flyer needed “hyperspace-inspired racing stripes.”
She took one long sip.
“Better to keep all the explosives in one room.”
---
For two weeks, Voyager adjusted.
This was not the same as things becoming calm.
R2 acquired a charging station in Engineering, which he decorated with a holographic sign reading:
AUTHORIZED ASTROMECH ONLY
ALL OTHERS WILL BE JUDGED
B’Elanna pretended to hate it.
She also adjusted the power flow so his recharge cycles were twenty percent more efficient.
Tom helped R2 build a translation overlay that gave his binary a little more nuance. Unfortunately, this meant the crew could now understand more of his insults.
Harry regretted everything.
Seven began weekly “efficiency discussions” with R2. These usually ended with one of them proving the other wrong and both of them seeming satisfied.
The Doctor found the feathered-hat hologram in his program files, deleted it, found it again in a backup, deleted the backup, found it embedded in his vocal subroutines, and spent six hours unable to say the word “photonic” without a tiny projected chorus line appearing behind him.
Janeway did not laugh in front of him.
She was a good captain.
She laughed later in her ready room until Chakotay brought her tea and asked no questions.
Neelix declared R2 “an honored morale ambassador.” R2 responded by improving the mess hall replicator’s spice balance. For three glorious days, the food was better.
Then he tried to teach the replicator sarcasm.
“Coffee, black,” Janeway ordered one morning.
The replicator hummed.
“Certainly, Captain. A daring nutritional choice.”
Janeway stared.
The coffee appeared.
She took it.
“R2-D2.”
Somewhere in the walls, a distant beep echoed.
Tom, entering the mess hall behind her, froze.
Janeway turned.
He smiled with great fear.
“Good morning?”
“Fix it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He found R2 in the galley, plugged into a maintenance port.
“Buddy.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “The replicators were bored.”
“Replicators don’t get bored.”
R2 made a flat tone.
The replicator beside them said, “That is what they want you to think.”
Tom pointed at it. “No. Absolutely not. The Captain hasn’t had enough coffee for this.”
R2 whistled.
“Captain Coffee requires worthy opponent.”
Tom crouched in front of him. “Listen to me very carefully. There are forces in this universe you do not antagonize before breakfast. Kathryn Janeway’s caffeine supply is one of them.”
R2 paused.
Then he unplugged.
The replicator returned to normal.
Tom exhaled. “Good choice.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Temporary retreat.”
“We’ll call it personal growth.”
R2 shocked his boot.
“Ah!”
---
The next disaster involved the Delaney sisters, a defective graviton relay, and an attempt to teach R2 poker.
Tom maintained that none of those things were connected when the evening began.
This was technically true.
They became connected through a chain of events that, when later reconstructed by Tuvok, required a six-page timeline and the phrase “at this point, Lieutenant Paris made a wager.”
It started in Sandrine’s. Again.
“Poker is simple,” Tom told R2, dealing cards onto the table. “You get a hand, you bet based on what you have or what you want people to think you have, and then you either win or lose with dignity.”
Harry snorted. “Since when?”
Tom ignored him. “The important thing is bluffing.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Lying with chips.”
“Exactly.”
B’Elanna leaned back with her arms folded. “He’s going to rob you blind.”
“R2?”
“Yes.”
Tom looked down. “He’s new.”
R2 chirped.
The translator said, “I have played sabacc with smugglers.”
Tom paused.
“What’s sabacc?”
R2’s answering tone carried centuries of superiority.
The first hand ended with R2 winning.
So did the second.
By the fifth hand, Harry had lost ten replicator rations, Tom had lost his favorite holodeck time slot, and B’Elanna had started smiling in a way that suggested she was no longer certain whose side she was on.
The Delaney sisters arrived during hand six.
Jenny Delaney leaned over the table. “Is the droid winning?”
Megan Delaney looked at Tom’s chip pile. “Oh, badly.”
Tom placed two chips forward. “I am luring him into overconfidence.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “He has a pair of threes.”
Tom stared at him.
Harry burst out laughing.
“You can’t scan the cards!” Tom protested.
R2 chirped.
“Then don’t hold them so loudly.”
B’Elanna lost composure.
Jenny sat down. “Deal us in.”
Megan pulled up a chair. “I want to lose to the tiny menace too.”
R2 beeped approvingly.
The translator said, “Sensible organics.”
The game expanded.
So did the wagers.
Tom lost his next shift’s dessert rights. Harry won back three rations and immediately lost them again. B’Elanna won a promise from Tom to clean the plasma injector assembly without complaining. R2 accumulated a terrifying number of favors, most of them unspecified.
Then Jenny said, “All right, big stakes.”
Tom should have stopped there.
Harry later testified that he saw Tom’s survival instincts briefly surface.
Unfortunately, R2 beeped something that translated as “slow boy is afraid.”
Tom pointed at him. “Deal.”
B’Elanna put her face in her hands.
Jenny’s wager was simple: if she won, Tom had to perform one full shift in Sickbay as the Doctor’s assistant while wearing whatever the Doctor selected from the holodeck costume database.
Megan added: “And no complaining.”
Tom grimaced. “Cruel.”
Harry said, “Fair.”
R2 put forward his own wager: if he won, he would receive one unrestricted hour in the holodeck with Tom’s assistance.
B’Elanna sat up. “No.”
Tom said, “Restricted unrestricted.”
R2 objected.
“Supervised unrestricted.”
Another beep.
“Morally unrestricted.”
B’Elanna glared.
Tom sighed. “Fine. Engineering-approved unrestricted.”
R2 considered this.
Then he chirped.
The translator said, “Acceptable, because Engineer is corruptible.”
B’Elanna’s eyes narrowed.
The final hand began.
Nobody noticed the graviton relay in Holodeck Two begin to fail.
Nobody noticed because R2 was bluffing.
This was an event.
R2-D2 bluffing at poker involved complete physical stillness, a single low hum, and the distinct impression that he had seen empires rise and fall and found everyone at the table personally disappointing.
Tom folded.
Harry folded.
Megan folded.
Jenny did not.
B’Elanna watched both of them.
R2 raised.
Jenny raised.
R2 raised again.
Tom whispered, “This is beautiful.”
The holodeck lights flickered.
B’Elanna glanced upward. “That better not be you.”
R2 remained still.
Jenny stared him down. “I call.”
R2 revealed his cards.
Nothing.
Absolute garbage.
Jenny grinned and laid down three queens.
The table erupted.
R2 made a shriek of betrayal so theatrical it caused two holographic patrons to duck.
The translator said, “Fortune is rigged.”
Jenny collected the pot. “Looks like Tom is going to Sickbay.”
Tom groaned.
Then the graviton relay failed.
Sandrine’s tilted ninety degrees.
Everyone slid.
Cards, chips, chairs, and one astromech droid went skidding across the floor as gravity reoriented sideways. Tom grabbed the pool table. Harry grabbed Tom. Megan grabbed Harry. Jenny grabbed Megan. B’Elanna grabbed R2 by one side panel and slammed her other hand onto a holographic doorway.
“Computer!” she shouted. “Restore gravity!”
The computer replied, “Unable to comply. Local graviton relay has entered theatrical mode.”
Tom looked at R2.
R2, dangling from B’Elanna’s grip, beeped.
The translator said, “Not mine.”
A grand staircase materialized along the sideways wall.
Then music began.
The Doctor appeared at the top of the staircase in a glittering tuxedo.
He froze.
Tom stared.
The Doctor looked down at his outfit.
“I was in Sickbay,” he said, with murder in his voice.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Now you are entertainment.”
The Doctor pointed at him. “You.”
Gravity shifted again.
Everyone dropped.
The staircase became the floor. The bar became the ceiling. Sandrine’s piano rolled past upside down.
The Doctor, still in tuxedo, slid gracefully down the stairs against his will.
Tom shouted, “That’s actually pretty good!”
“I despise you all!”
B’Elanna hauled R2 upright. “Fix it!”
R2 extended his scomp-link into a nearby access panel.
The panel turned into a bouquet of holographic flowers.
R2 paused.
The translator said, “Interesting.”
“Not interesting!” B’Elanna yelled. “Bad!”
The holodeck doors opened.
Janeway stood there.
For one second, she saw Tom hanging from a staircase, Harry tangled with the Delaneys, B’Elanna wrestling R2, and the Doctor in a tuxedo sliding past on a piano.
The Doctor lifted one hand as he passed.
“Captain.”
Janeway looked at Tom.
Tom said, “Poker?”
The gravity failed again.
Janeway’s coffee rose out of her mug in a perfect sphere.
R2 beeped softly.
The translator said, “Beautiful.”
Janeway said, “R2.”
The droid plugged into the wall, sparked, and squealed.
Gravity returned.
Everyone crashed to the floor.
The coffee sphere dropped neatly back into Janeway’s mug.
She looked at it.
Then at R2.
Then at the room.
“Report,” she said.
Everyone spoke at once.
Janeway held up a hand.
“Never mind.”
She turned to Tom.
“Sickbay. Costume. Tomorrow.”
Tom groaned.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “I will attend.”
Janeway looked down at him.
“No.”
R2’s dome drooped.
B’Elanna muttered, “Don’t fall for it.”
Janeway did not fall for it.
Mostly.
---
Tom’s Sickbay costume turned out to be a 20th-century candy striper uniform.
The Doctor claimed this was medically traditional.
Tom claimed it was a war crime.
R2 attended anyway, from just outside the Sickbay doors, projecting supportive signs such as:
SLOW BOY HEALS SLOWLY
and
ASK HIM ABOUT HIS SPONGE BATH TECHNIQUE
The Doctor laughed exactly once, then tried to pretend he hadn’t.
Tom spent six hours fetching instruments, organizing hyposprays, and listening to the Doctor’s lecture on respect for medical authority. At hour four, R2 hacked the Sickbay doors just enough to play dramatic applause every time Tom completed a task.
By the end of the shift, three crew members had come in with imaginary symptoms just to see the outfit.
B’Elanna took a picture.
Tom said, “You wouldn’t.”
She smiled.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “I already did.”
Tom pointed at him. “You’re a terrible friend.”
R2 chirped.
“Correct.”
---
It could not last, of course.
Not the chaos. The chaos was eternal.
But the illusion that R2 was simply a funny little disaster with wheels could not last, because Voyager was Voyager, and every joke eventually brushed up against the fact that they were all very far from home.
The moment came during a quiet gamma shift.
Tom found R2 in the observation lounge.
The room was dark except for starlight. Voyager’s windows framed the endless Delta Quadrant: beautiful, indifferent, and huge.
R2 sat alone near the glass.
No hat. No tools. No projected jokes.
Just a little droid looking out at space.
Tom stepped inside quietly. “Hey.”
R2’s dome turned.
He beeped once.
The translator was not active.
Tom understood anyway.
He walked over and sat on the floor beside him, back against the bulkhead.
For a while, neither of them said anything.
Then Tom said, “When I first came aboard, I didn’t think this ship would become home.”
R2’s photoreceptor remained on the stars.
“I thought it was temporary. A mission. A sentence. A chance to prove I wasn’t the screwup everyone thought I was.” Tom smiled faintly. “Or the screwup I knew I was.”
R2 made a low sound.
Tom leaned his head back. “I missed Earth, but I didn’t always know what I missed. The place? The people? The idea of being someone different when I got there?”
The stars slid by.
“I think that’s the trick,” Tom said. “Home keeps changing while you’re trying to get back to it.”
R2’s dome lowered slightly.
Tom looked at him.
“You had people.”
A soft beep.
“You still do.”
R2 turned.
Tom shrugged. “Different people. Worse taste in ships. Better coffee.”
R2 beeped, and this time the lounge console quietly activated the translator.
“Coffee captain is formidable.”
“She is.”
“Engineer shouts with competence.”
“She does.”
“Tall Borg is rude but interesting.”
“Careful. She’ll assimilate that as a compliment.”
“Music boy requires supervision.”
“Desperately.”
Tom smiled.
R2 looked back out the window.
“Slow boy flies well.”
Tom’s throat tightened.
“Thanks.”
R2 beeped.
“Sometimes.”
Tom laughed softly. “I’ll take it.”
Silence again.
Then R2 projected an image onto the window: his old family, blue and flickering. The young man. The woman. The golden droid. The others.
Beside them, he projected Voyager’s senior staff.
Janeway with coffee. Chakotay looking patient. Tuvok looking like Tuvok. Harry mid-panic. B’Elanna mid-yell. Seven unimpressed. The Doctor offended. Neelix waving. Naomi smiling. Tom leaning against the Delta Flyer.
R2 placed himself between the two groups.
The image flickered.
Tom stared at it for a long time.
Then he reached out and rested his hand gently on R2’s dome.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how it happens.”
R2 did not zap him.
Which, from R2, was practically an embrace.
---
The shipwide announcement came three days later.
“All hands,” Janeway said over the comm, “this is the Captain. In recognition of recent events, and after careful consideration, R2-D2 has been granted provisional crew status as an independent technical specialist assigned to Engineering.”
A pause.
“His access privileges will remain limited.”
Another pause.
“Very limited.”
In Engineering, R2 beeped indignantly.
B’Elanna stood beside him, arms folded. “You’re lucky you have privileges at all.”
The announcement continued. “Please direct all technical requests through Lieutenant Torres. Please do not attempt to bribe R2-D2 with replicator rations, holodeck time, decorative headwear, or access codes.”
Tom, standing on R2’s other side, slowly lowered the tiny replicated bowler hat he had been holding.
B’Elanna looked at him.
He hid it behind his back.
Janeway’s voice grew drier. “Mr. Paris, that includes you.”
Tom stared at the ceiling. “How does she do that?”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Captain powers.”
The final part of the announcement softened.
“R2-D2 helped save this ship. He is far from his home, as we are from ours. Treat him accordingly. Janeway out.”
For a moment, Engineering was quiet.
Then Carey started clapping.
Others joined.
Naomi cheered from the upper level.
Harry whooped.
The Doctor, present only because someone had invited him and he had complained all the way there, gave two grudging claps.
Seven inclined her head.
Tuvok stood with hands behind his back and said, “Acceptable.”
R2’s dome rotated slowly, taking them all in.
His lights flickered.
Then he beeped, one small sound.
The translator said, “Crew is loud.”
Tom crouched beside him.
“Yeah,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”
R2 paused.
Then he extended a panel.
A tiny mechanical arm emerged holding something small and blue.
Tom blinked.
“What’s that?”
R2 dropped it into his palm.
A pip.
Not Starfleet issue exactly. Replicated, modified, blue enamel over silver. It was shaped like a little dome.
Tom laughed. “Did you give yourself a rank?”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Specialist.”
B’Elanna took the pip from Tom’s hand, inspected it, and shook her head.
“This is completely non-regulation.”
R2 drooped.
Then B’Elanna crouched and fixed it to his chassis.
“But so are you.”
R2 straightened so fast his dome nearly hit her chin.
Tom grinned.
“There,” B’Elanna said. “Don’t make me regret it.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Too late.”
She pointed a spanner at him.
He rolled behind Tom.
Tom raised both hands. “I’m neutral.”
B’Elanna smiled sweetly. “You’re repair crew.”
Tom lowered his hands. “Right. Less neutral.”
Harry came over carrying a padd. “So, R2, I was thinking, now that you’re officially assigned, maybe we can work on a formal Starfleet-compatible interface protocol.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Music boy seeks pain.”
Harry sighed. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Naomi appeared with a small box. “I made him something.”
Janeway entered Engineering just in time to see Naomi open the box.
Inside was a tiny black fedora.
New feather.
Blue this time.
Janeway stopped.
R2 looked at her.
Naomi looked at her.
The entire engine room looked at her.
Janeway held up one finger.
“Case-by-case basis.”
R2 beeped hopefully.
Janeway studied him: scorched paint, crooked courage, illegal rank pip, impossible little soul from impossible far away.
Then she nodded once.
“Approved.”
Naomi placed the fedora on R2’s dome.
Engineering erupted.
R2 spun in a delighted circle.
The warp core lights flickered blue.
Janeway pointed at him.
R2 froze.
The lights steadied.
The translator said, “Celebration restrained.”
Tom leaned against a console, smiling so hard his face hurt.
B’Elanna came to stand beside him.
“You know he’s going to make your life hell,” she said.
Tom watched R2 beep indignantly at the Doctor, who had just asked whether the hat came in a less ridiculous size.
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Probably.”
“You’re happy about that?”
Tom thought about loneliness. About a blue-white tear in space. About a little droid choosing a stubborn ship because sometimes getting home meant helping someone else keep going.
He watched R2 roll toward the center of Engineering, hat feather bobbing, while half the crew argued over whether the new pip made him outrank Neelix.
Tom smiled.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”
---
The first official duty shift of Specialist R2-D2 began at 0800 hours the next morning.
By 0807, he had reorganized the Engineering maintenance schedule.
By 0813, he had insulted the warp core in binary.
By 0820, he had repaired a faulty diagnostic relay that had been misreporting power fluctuations for six months.
By 0831, he had convinced the computer to stop calling him an “unclassified mobile device.”
By 0845, he had changed Tom Paris’s helm login chime to a dramatic heroic fanfare followed by one rude beep.
By 0850, Janeway heard it on the bridge.
Tom sat very still.
Harry looked ready to rupture something trying not to laugh.
Tuvok said, “Your console appears to have developed commentary.”
The helm beeped again.
The translator said, “Slow boy online.”
Janeway, from her command chair, took one sip of coffee.
“Mr. Paris.”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Fix it.”
Tom touched the controls.
The fanfare played again, louder.
R2’s voice came over the comm from Engineering.
“Bweeeeeep!”
The translator said, “Good morning, Voyager.”
The bridge lights flickered once.
Not a malfunction.
A wink.
Tom looked at the screen, at the endless stars ahead.
Somewhere below, B’Elanna started yelling.
Somewhere else, the Doctor demanded an investigation.
Harry finally broke and laughed.
Janeway sighed into her coffee, but her mouth curved at the edges.
Voyager flew on.
Far from home.
Ridiculous.
Stubborn.
And now, undeniably, with wheels.
Tom Paris had learned many things about R2-D2 in the months since the astromech had become Voyager’s least regulation-compliant technical specialist.
R2 liked speed, sabotage, dramatic entrances, minor electrical revenge, and hats.
He did not like being called a trash can, appliance, cylinder, rolling toolbox, mobile device, or “that thing,” although he tolerated “little menace” from B’Elanna because she said it with professional respect.
He could out-argue the computer, out-stubborn a Vulcan security lock, and out-insult the Doctor in six languages and three tones of binary that the universal translator still refused to touch.
He had once convinced the mess hall replicator to produce coffee labeled by emotional stability rating.
Captain Janeway’s cup had read:
BLACK COFFEE. THREAT LEVEL: COMMAND.
She had kept the mug.
Tom also knew something else.
R2-D2 missed home.
Not in the obvious way. Not loudly. Never loudly. R2 was loud about everything except the things that mattered.
He did not sit in Engineering and whistle mournfully at the warp core. He did not roll into Sandrine’s and play sad melodies over Tom’s pool game. He did not ask, every morning, whether they had found another anomaly. He did not linger near Astrometrics when Harry and Seven worked through the old fracture data.
Except he did.
Not obviously.
Never obviously.
But Tom noticed.
Tom noticed because R2’s bad behavior changed when certain subjects came up. Mention hyperspace, and the little droid went still. Mention dimensional fractures, and his dome rotated just slightly faster than usual. Mention home, even casually, and his photoreceptor dimmed for one-half second before he made some rude noise and shocked Tom’s boot.
Tom noticed because he had once been a man who pretended not to want anything too badly.
People could use what you wanted against you.
So you laughed first.
You made jokes.
You caused trouble.
You became the kind of person nobody expected to ache.
R2 was good at that.
Tom was better.
Which meant Tom knew.
The worst moment came during movie night.
It was supposed to be harmless. Tom had programmed an old Earth adventure serial into the holodeck, something with rocket ships, cliffhangers, heroic speeches, and villains wearing capes because subtlety had apparently not been invented yet.
R2 loved it.
At least, he loved heckling it.
“That engine would explode,” the translator said dryly after a holographic rocket launched with sparks and orchestral fanfare.
Tom threw popcorn at him. “It is called artistic license.”
R2 beeped.
“Art requires engineering supervision.”
Harry, sitting on the couch beside them, laughed. “He has a point.”
“He does not. He has a personality defect.”
R2 extended a little arm and stole popcorn from Tom’s bowl.
On the screen, the hero leapt into a cockpit and shouted, “To the stars! Home awaits!”
R2 stopped.
It was tiny.
His dome froze mid-rotation. His little manipulator arm remained in the popcorn bowl. His photoreceptor went from bright red to soft, dark crimson.
Then, after exactly two seconds, he beeped loudly.
The translator said, “This pilot will die before the second act.”
Tom did not laugh.
Harry did not either.
R2 turned his dome toward them.
Tom made himself grin. “Yeah, probably. Terrible preflight checks.”
R2 resumed heckling.
But Tom kept watching him instead of the movie.
Later, when R2 rolled off to Engineering and Harry stayed behind to help Tom shut down the program, the younger man said, “You saw it too.”
Tom leaned on the holodeck control arch. “Yeah.”
Harry’s expression softened. “He misses them.”
Tom did not answer right away.
The holodeck grid shimmered around them, blank yellow lines over black walls. It felt like standing inside a half-remembered dream.
“He’s happy here,” Harry said quietly.
“I know.”
“We’re his friends.”
“I know.”
Harry swallowed. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to go home.”
Tom looked at the place where R2 had rolled out.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
---
The first rule of doing something stupid aboard Voyager was that Captain Janeway would find out.
The second rule was that B’Elanna Torres would find out sooner and louder.
The third rule was that Seven of Nine had probably known before anyone started and had chosen not to stop it because she was curious.
Tom and Harry began in Astrometrics.
This was already suspicious, because Tom Paris only voluntarily entered Astrometrics for three reasons: to bother Harry, to bother Seven, or because he had broken something and wanted the most intimidating room on the ship to make him look innocent by association.
Seven looked up from the central display as Tom and Harry walked in together carrying padds.
“Lieutenant Paris,” she said.
“Seven.”
“Ensign Kim.”
“Seven.”
She looked between them.
“You are attempting to appear casual.”
Tom stopped. “No, I’m not.”
“You are failing.”
Harry sighed. “We need your help.”
“With what?”
Tom glanced at Harry.
Harry glanced at Tom.
Seven waited.
Tom held up a padd. “The anomaly that brought R2 here. The one that reopened during the Vreth incident.”
Seven’s expression did not change, but her eyes sharpened. “You have been reviewing the data.”
Harry nodded. “There’s a pattern. The aperture wasn’t random. It had a recurring subspace-hyperspatial pulse.”
“Hyperspatial,” Seven repeated.
Tom shrugged. “His word, not ours.”
Harry moved to the display and uploaded the data. Blue-white lines unfolded across the Astrometrics screen: Voyager sensor logs, Delta Flyer telemetry, R2’s own corrupted readings from the shear zone, and a chaotic cluster of coordinates that had made the computer threaten to file a complaint.
Seven stepped closer. “This data is incomplete.”
“Yes,” Harry said.
“It is unstable.”
“Yes.”
“It is based partly on technology from another universe.”
“Also yes.”
Seven looked at Tom. “This is a poor foundation for experimentation.”
Tom tried a smile. “But not the worst foundation we’ve ever used.”
“That is not persuasive.”
“It’s Voyager persuasive.”
Seven considered this.
Harry said, “We don’t need to create a permanent aperture. Just a micro-window. A communications ping, maybe. Enough to see if we can find a matching signal.”
Tom’s voice softened despite himself. “Enough to know whether home is still out there.”
Seven looked at him for a long second.
Tom looked away first.
That annoyed him.
Seven turned back to the display. “R2-D2 has not requested this.”
Harry’s shoulders lowered. “He won’t.”
“No,” Seven said. “He likely will not.”
The room hummed around them.
Astrometrics projected starfields better than any viewport on the ship. Tom had always found that unfair. Space outside was dangerous, cold, and usually trying to kill them. Space in Astrometrics looked like a promise.
Seven entered several commands. The data shifted.
“The dimensional fracture interacted with Voyager’s warp field, the Vreth scanning lattice, and the Delta Flyer’s resonance pulse,” she said. “To recreate even a controlled aperture, we would require power, precision, and an anchor.”
Harry nodded quickly. “I can work on precision.”
Tom said, “The Flyer can provide an anchor.”
Seven looked at him.
Tom raised one hand. “Not inside the anomaly this time. Adjacent to it. Near it. Respectfully distant from it.”
“You are lying.”
“Optimistically framing.”
“You are lying with improved posture.”
Harry made a small helpless noise.
Seven studied the data again.
Then she said, “R2-D2’s internal systems may provide the necessary hyperspatial reference.”
Tom’s face tightened. “Without hurting him?”
“Unknown.”
“Then no.”
Seven tilted her head. “You sought my assistance to send him home. Now you object to using the most viable method.”
“I object to turning him into a component.”
Harry stepped between them before Tom could get louder. “We don’t have to connect directly to his core. Maybe we could use residual telemetry from his interface logs. The stuff he already shared after the Vreth incident.”
Seven paused.
“That may be sufficient.”
Tom exhaled.
Seven added, “It may also fail catastrophically.”
Tom pointed at her. “There’s the Voyager mission statement.”
Harry almost smiled.
Seven turned back to the display. “We will need to construct a resonance matrix. It must include Starfleet subspace control, Borg transdimensional stabilization, and R2-D2’s hyperspace sensor data.”
Tom stared. “So… yes?”
Seven looked at him.
“Yes,” she said. “I will assist.”
Harry smiled for real this time.
Tom’s chest felt too tight.
Seven continued, “However, the Captain must be informed.”
Tom winced.
Harry winced.
Seven raised an eyebrow. “You intended to conceal this from Captain Janeway?”
Tom coughed. “Not conceal.”
Harry said, “Delay.”
Tom nodded. “Delay sounds better.”
“It does not.”
The Astrometrics doors opened.
Captain Janeway walked in holding a cup of coffee.
Tom closed his eyes.
Harry whispered, “Every time.”
Janeway glanced at the display, then at the three of them.
“Mr. Paris,” she said, “please tell me this is not what I think it is.”
Tom opened his eyes.
“It depends what you think it is.”
“I think,” Janeway said, “that you, Mr. Kim, and Seven are attempting to reopen a transdimensional fracture in order to locate R2-D2’s universe.”
Harry looked down.
Seven said, “That is accurate.”
Tom muttered, “You could have softened that.”
Janeway stepped toward the display.
For a moment, she said nothing.
Then she looked at the blue-white data stream and her expression changed.
Not softened exactly.
Janeway did not soften when faced with danger. She focused.
But something human moved beneath the captain.
“He misses home,” she said.
Tom nodded once.
Janeway took a slow sip of coffee.
“And you thought the appropriate response was to risk tearing open space.”
Tom shifted. “When you say it like that—”
“It sounds accurate,” Seven said.
Tom pointed at her without looking. “Not helping.”
Janeway set her coffee on a console. “Can it be done safely?”
Harry inhaled.
Tom looked at him.
Seven looked at him.
Harry looked at the impossible data, then at his captain.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I think it can be done carefully.”
Janeway seemed to appreciate the difference.
“R2 needs to know,” she said.
Tom’s stomach sank.
“I know.”
“And he needs to choose.”
“I know.”
Janeway looked at Tom for a long moment.
Then she said, “Begin simulations. Nothing live. Nothing connected to the main deflector. Nothing that can open anything larger than a theoretical pinhole without my direct authorization.”
Tom smiled faintly. “Yes, Captain.”
“And Mr. Paris?”
“Yes?”
“If I find out that you have attempted to ‘optimistically frame’ those orders—”
Seven said, “He used that phrase earlier.”
Tom looked betrayed. “Seven.”
Janeway’s smile was very small.
“Then I will personally assign you to inventory every spare conduit on this ship.”
Tom swallowed. “Understood.”
Janeway picked up her coffee and headed for the door.
Just before leaving, she stopped.
“One more thing.”
They all looked at her.
“If this works,” Janeway said quietly, “we may lose him.”
The room went still.
Tom looked at the display again.
Blue-white light.
A wound.
A door.
A goodbye.
“Yeah,” he said.
Janeway’s voice softened.
“Do it anyway.”
Then she left.
---
They told R2 in Engineering.
This was not ideal, because Engineering had many things R2 could hide behind, weaponize, or emotionally avoid by repairing.
B’Elanna insisted on being there.
“So he doesn’t zap you and roll off into a Jeffries tube,” she said.
R2 beeped from his charging station.
The translator said, “Tempting.”
Tom crouched in front of him.
R2’s little fedora was tipped at an angle on his dome. The blue feather bobbed with suspicion.
“Hey, buddy.”
R2 said nothing.
Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “So. We’ve been looking at the anomaly data.”
R2’s dome stopped moving.
Harry stepped forward gently. “We found a possible way to open a small portal. Maybe not big enough for travel at first. Maybe just a communication window.”
R2’s photoreceptor brightened.
Then dimmed.
Seven stood beside the warp core, hands behind her back. “With refinement, the aperture may be expanded. There is a nonzero chance it could connect to your origin universe.”
R2 stared at them.
The translator remained silent because R2 had not made a sound.
Tom swallowed. “We didn’t want to say anything until we knew it wasn’t just wishful thinking.”
B’Elanna muttered, “It is still at least thirty percent wishful thinking.”
Harry said, “Twenty-eight.”
B’Elanna looked at him.
Harry amended, “Thirty.”
R2 rolled forward an inch.
Then another.
His dome turned toward the data padd in Harry’s hand.
Harry knelt and held it out.
R2 extended a small tool arm, touched the padd, and downloaded the schematics.
His dome rotated slowly as he read.
No one spoke.
Finally, he beeped.
The translator said, “Dangerous.”
Tom nodded. “Yes.”
Another beep.
“Unstable.”
“Yes.”
A third.
“Bad idea.”
Tom gave a weak smile. “Historically, our specialty.”
R2 looked at him.
The translator said, “Why?”
Tom’s smile vanished.
Harry opened his mouth, then closed it.
Seven was silent.
B’Elanna looked away.
Tom rested his arms on his knees.
“Because you want to go home,” he said.
R2’s lights flickered.
Tom continued before he could lose his nerve. “And because you’d do it for us. If there was a way to send Voyager home, you’d slice into half the quadrant and insult physics until it cooperated.”
R2 made a tiny sound.
The translator said, “Physics is weak.”
Tom laughed once, softly. “See?”
R2 rotated toward Seven.
The translator said, “You agreed?”
Seven inclined her head. “I am familiar with separation from one’s collective.”
R2 beeped.
Seven’s eyebrow rose. “An imprecise comparison, but emotionally relevant.”
R2 hummed.
Then he turned to B’Elanna.
B’Elanna folded her arms more tightly. “Don’t look at me. I think it’s stupid.”
R2 beeped.
“I also think we should do it.”
Another beep.
“Because,” she snapped, “you’re annoying and I hate seeing you sad.”
R2 went still.
B’Elanna pointed a spanner at him. “Tell anyone I said that and I’ll weld bells to your feet.”
R2 chirped.
The translator said, “Already logged.”
“R2.”
“Encrypted.”
“That is not better.”
Tom reached out and tapped R2’s dome gently.
“You get to choose,” he said. “We don’t open anything unless you say yes.”
R2’s dome lowered.
For several seconds, Engineering’s only sound was the steady thrum of the warp core.
Then R2 projected an image.
Luke Skywalker, younger than Tom had seen in R2’s memories, laughing in a flight suit.
Leia Organa, fierce and bright.
Han Solo leaning against a ship with the posture of a man who knew how much trouble he was and considered that a public service.
Chewbacca.
C-3PO.
A woman Tom did not know, beautiful and sad, with her hand on Anakin Skywalker’s cheek.
Then the image shifted to Voyager.
Janeway with coffee.
B’Elanna scowling.
Harry smiling.
Seven looking unimpressed.
Tom standing beside the Delta Flyer, one hand on R2’s dome.
R2 beeped softly.
The translator said, “Home there.”
The image flickered.
“Home here.”
Nobody moved.
Tom’s throat tightened so badly he almost could not breathe.
R2 continued.
“Want both.”
Harry’s eyes shone.
Seven’s expression remained composed, but her voice was quieter than usual.
“That is inefficient.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Correct.”
B’Elanna wiped at her face with the heel of her hand. “Stupid dust in here.”
Tom nodded quickly. “Engineering dust. Terrible stuff.”
R2 looked at them all.
Then he beeped once.
“Yes.”
---
The next eleven days were the kind of controlled scientific effort that only looked like a crime from the outside.
Harry built the resonance matrix.
Seven rebuilt half of it.
Harry objected.
Seven improved the objection.
Tom modified the Delta Flyer to serve as a portal anchor, which B’Elanna immediately unmodified because “apparently some people think structural integrity is a suggestion.”
R2 added a hyperspatial converter.
B’Elanna asked where he got the parts.
R2 refused to answer.
Neelix reported that three soup ladles, a decorative lamp, and one of the Doctor’s backup vocal modulators had gone missing.
The Doctor demanded justice.
R2 projected a legal brief titled:
ON THE TEMPORARY LIBERATION OF UNDERUTILIZED COMPONENTS
Janeway banned him from writing legal briefs after midnight.
Tuvok reviewed the safety protocols and declared them insufficient.
Then he reviewed R2’s additions and declared them “unconventionally adequate.”
R2 preened for six hours.
The actual portal device was assembled in Shuttle Bay Two, where R2 had first insulted Tom Paris and Voyager as a whole.
Tom found that poetic.
B’Elanna found it structurally convenient.
The device itself looked like three incompatible civilizations had gotten into an argument and decided to become architecture.
A Starfleet deflector ring formed the outer frame. Borg stabilization nodes pulsed along the sides. R2’s hyperspatial converter sat at the center, all polished metal, exposed cabling, and one tiny sticker Naomi had placed on it that read:
GOOD LUCK, SPECIALIST D2
The Delta Flyer waited nearby, tied into the system through a dozen power couplings.
Voyager hovered in empty space, far from inhabited systems, nebulae, gravitational disturbances, suspicious alien monuments, or anything else that might decide to become involved.
Janeway had insisted on that.
“No neighbors,” she said. “No corridors. No bureaucrats.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Cowardice.”
Janeway looked down at him.
He added, “Prudent cowardice.”
“Better.”
The first test opened a portal the size of a dinner plate.
It showed nothing but blue-white static and made every replicator on Deck Six produce pudding.
The second test produced a burst of alien radio traffic that made the universal translator cry.
The third test opened a pinhole view into what appeared to be a swamp.
Yoda’s swamp.
R2 shrieked so loudly that three crewmen dropped their tools.
Tom’s heart slammed into his ribs.
Harry shouted, “Signal match! Signal match at forty-two percent!”
Seven’s hands moved over the console. “The aperture is unstable.”
On the tiny portal image, something green and blurry moved.
Then the portal collapsed.
R2 rolled forward and slammed into the safety field.
“R2!” B’Elanna snapped.
The droid beeped wildly.
The translator struggled.
“Again. Again. Again. Again.”
Tom knelt in front of him. “We saw something. That’s good.”
R2’s dome spun toward him.
“Again.”
“We will.”
“Now.”
Harry grimaced. “We need to recalibrate.”
R2 let out a sound that needed no translation.
Seven said, “Impatience will not improve the probability of success.”
R2 beeped furiously.
The translator said, “It frequently does.”
Janeway stepped forward. “R2.”
The droid turned.
Her voice was command-soft.
“We will try again. Properly.”
R2’s photoreceptor flickered.
Janeway crouched slightly, not quite kneeling, but lowering herself enough to meet him.
“I know.”
That was all she said.
Somehow, it was enough.
R2 rolled back.
Tom released a breath he had not realized he was holding.
The fourth test showed stars.
Not their stars.
R2 knew immediately.
Tom did not know how he knew, but he did. The droid went still, and the entire shuttle bay seemed to lean toward the portal with him.
Harry’s voice trembled. “Signal match at seventy-six percent.”
Seven said, “Dimensional variance is significant.”
Tom’s eyes snapped to her. “How significant?”
“This is not the same universe.”
R2’s dome turned.
Seven continued, “It is an alternate branch. Related to your origin point, but divergent.”
R2 made a low, uncertain sound.
Tom crouched beside him.
“Buddy?”
The portal flickered.
Beyond it, a planet appeared. Blue. Green. Silver-white clouds.
Then the image shifted.
A city-world.
Coruscant.
R2 surged forward again, stopped only by B’Elanna’s hand on his dome.
“Wait,” she said.
For once, he did.
Harry pulled in data as fast as the system could process it. “I’m getting transmissions. Thousands of them. Galactic Basic, I think. The translator is adapting.”
A voice crackled through the shuttle bay speakers.
“—Chancellor Amidala’s address to the Senate will follow Grandmaster Yoda’s fleet communiqué regarding the Second War front—”
R2’s dome snapped around.
Tom stared.
The speaker continued.
“—Council Master Skywalker and Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker returned today from the Mandalore-Peridea corridor, where combined Jedi, clone, and Fett-Kryze Federation forces repelled the Talon vanguard—”
R2 made a sound like a system crash.
Harry whispered, “Did it say Skywalker?”
The signal strengthened.
A new voice came through, bright and formal.
“Citizens of the Republic, after twenty-five years of peace, we face war again. But we face it united. Jedi of the main Temple and the Altisian Order stand together. Mandalore stands with us. The clone legions, old and new, stand with us. We do not fight for conquest. We fight so that peace may endure.”
R2’s lights flickered wildly.
Tom knew that voice only from R2’s memories.
Padmé Amidala.
Older.
Alive.
Chancellor.
R2 backed up one inch.
Then he rolled forward again.
The portal expanded slightly, revealing a landing platform beneath a golden sky. Figures moved in the distance. Jedi robes. Clone armor. Mandalorian beskar. Droids. Ships.
Harry said, “Captain, the branch is stable enough for a transfer. Maybe.”
B’Elanna barked, “Maybe?”
Seven corrected, “Probability of successful transit is sixty-two percent and rising.”
“That is not comforting!”
Janeway looked at R2.
“Is this your home?”
R2 did not answer.
On the portal’s far side, another transmission broke through.
A male voice. Older than in the memories, warm and steady.
“Artoo would have loved this, Master. He’d have called the whole Council a maintenance hazard.”
R2 froze.
Tom felt every hair on his arms rise.
Another voice answered, ancient and amused.
“Miss him still, you do.”
“Every day,” said Anakin Skywalker.
R2 screamed.
Not an alarm.
Not an insult.
A pure, ecstatic, impossible whistle that filled Shuttle Bay Two from floor to ceiling.
The portal flared.
On the other side, every head on the landing platform turned.
A golden protocol droid stepped into view.
His photoreceptors brightened.
“Oh!” he cried. “Oh, my goodness. Oh, my stars and circuits. That sounded—”
R2 shrieked again.
C-3PO staggered backward.
“Artoo?”
R2 shot forward.
The safety field stopped him.
He bounced off it, furious.
B’Elanna yelped. “Wait!”
R2 beeped so rapidly the translator simply displayed:
[UNTRANSLATABLE JOY / THREATS / DEMANDS / LOVE / PROFANITY]
Tom laughed and covered his face.
Harry was crying openly now and pretending he wasn’t.
Seven stared at the portal. “This is unexpected.”
Tom wiped his eyes. “That’s one word.”
On the other side, C-3PO flailed both arms.
“Master Anakin! Master Luke! Someone! Anyone! I believe the universe has broken!”
A man entered the portal view at a run.
Tom knew him from R2’s holograms and nightmares, but not like this.
Anakin Skywalker was older now. Lines bracketed his eyes. One streak of silver cut through dark blond hair. Jedi robes moved around him, not black, not armored, not monstrous. A lightsaber hung at his belt. A small braid, tied with copper and blue thread, hung from the shoulder of a young Padawan hurrying behind him.
His face was alive.
Whole.
Confused.
Hopeful in a way that hurt to see.
“Threepio, what—”
R2 beeped once.
Anakin stopped.
The entire platform seemed to stop with him.
He took one step forward.
Then another.
“Artoo?” he whispered.
R2’s dome trembled.
The translator, very softly, said, “Skyguy.”
Anakin Skywalker’s face broke.
He laughed once, disbelieving, and then he was running.
The portal shuddered.
Seven said sharply, “Aperture destabilizing.”
Janeway turned. “Can we send him through?”
Harry’s hands flew over the controls. “Yes, but we have maybe two minutes before collapse.”
B’Elanna looked at R2.
Tom looked at R2.
R2 looked at the portal.
At C-3PO, who was making noises no protocol droid should make.
At Anakin Skywalker, alive and reaching.
At the golden city beyond.
Then R2 turned back.
To Voyager.
To Janeway.
To B’Elanna.
To Harry.
To Seven.
To Tom.
The shuttle bay was suddenly too quiet.
Tom crouched.
R2 rolled into him hard enough to bump his knee.
Tom put both hands on his dome.
“Well,” Tom said, and his voice only cracked a little. “You found the one branch where everyone’s apparently fine and still dramatically under-supervised.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “They require me.”
Tom laughed.
“Yeah. They do.”
R2 made a softer sound.
“So do you.”
Tom’s smile wavered.
“Yeah,” he said. “We do.”
R2’s lights dimmed.
Tom leaned closer. “But we’ll be okay.”
R2 made a doubtful beep.
Tom snorted. “Fine. We’ll be disasters. But, you know, professionally.”
Harry knelt beside them and rested a hand on R2’s side.
“You better send us data,” he said. “All of it. Hyperspace theory, droid language files, embarrassing stories about Tom’s alternate-universe equivalents—”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Many embarrassing pilots available.”
Harry laughed through tears.
Seven stepped forward.
R2 turned toward her.
She inclined her head. “Your presence has been disruptive.”
R2 beeped sadly.
Seven continued, “It has also been beneficial.”
R2’s dome tilted.
“You improved efficiency by eleven percent, morale by an unquantifiable but observable margin, and my understanding of individuality.”
The droid was silent.
Seven added, “You will be missed.”
R2 extended a small arm.
Seven looked at it.
Then she took it with two fingers.
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Tall Borg acceptable.”
Seven’s mouth almost curved.
“Small astromech acceptable.”
B’Elanna crouched last.
Her eyes were suspiciously bright.
“You,” she said, “are banned from overloading yourself, bypassing battlefield safeties, or letting anyone call you a trash can.”
R2 chirped.
“Except me. I earned it.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “You may say little menace.”
B’Elanna nodded once. “Good enough.”
She pressed something into his side compartment.
R2 opened it, scanned, and beeped.
Tom leaned over. “What is it?”
B’Elanna folded her arms. “A Starfleet-compatible emergency beacon. Modified. If he ever finds a way to ping us, it’ll help.”
R2’s photoreceptor softened.
The translator said, “Engineer shouts with affection.”
B’Elanna stood abruptly. “Portal’s closing.”
Janeway came forward.
R2 straightened.
For once, no jokes came from the translator.
Janeway looked down at him with the full weight of command and goodbye in her eyes.
“Specialist R2-D2,” she said, “you are relieved of duty aboard the Federation starship Voyager.”
R2’s dome lowered.
Janeway’s voice softened.
“With honors.”
R2 beeped, low and solemn.
The translator said, “Acknowledged, Captain Coffee.”
Janeway smiled.
“Safe journey, Artoo.”
The portal flared.
On the other side, Anakin shouted, “Artoo!”
C-3PO cried, “Oh, do hurry, you stubborn little scrap heap!”
R2 shrieked.
B’Elanna laughed wetly. “Go!”
Tom stepped back.
R2 rolled toward the portal.
Then he stopped.
Tom’s stomach twisted.
R2 turned around one last time.
He beeped.
The translator said, “Slow boy.”
Tom swallowed.
“Yeah?”
R2 extended his little shock prod.
Tom barked a laugh. “Seriously?”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “For luck.”
Tom crouched and held out his hand.
R2 zapped him.
“Ow!”
Harry laughed.
B’Elanna rolled her eyes.
Seven said, “Sentimental.”
R2 beeped.
The translator said, “Correct.”
Then R2-D2 turned, accelerated, and shot through the portal in a blur of blue and white.
The aperture snapped smaller.
On the far side, Anakin Skywalker dropped to one knee and caught him.
R2 slammed into his chest.
Anakin wrapped both arms around the droid like he was holding a person back from the dead.
C-3PO reached them, flapping helplessly.
“Oh, Artoo! You inconsiderate, impossible, overdramatic little—oh, I am so relieved!”
R2 beeped furiously into Anakin’s robes.
The translator on Voyager caught fragments.
“Alive. You are alive. You are alive. You idiot. You tall reckless laser-sword disaster. You are alive.”
Anakin laughed and cried at the same time.
“Yeah, buddy,” he said. “I’m alive.”
The portal collapsed.
Voyager was left with empty air.
And silence.
Tom stood staring at where the doorway had been.
His hand still tingled.
Nobody spoke.
Then the shuttle bay speakers crackled.
Harry’s console screamed.
“Wait!” Harry shouted. “Incoming transmission! It’s riding the residual aperture!”
Janeway spun. “Can you receive?”
Harry’s hands flew. “Trying!”
Static filled the room.
Then R2-D2’s voice erupted through Voyager’s comm system, louder than necessary and absolutely on purpose.
The translator struggled, sparked, and finally rendered:
“Attention, stubborn ship.”
Tom laughed once, helplessly.
R2 continued.
“Arrived. Wrong branch. Better branch. Skywalker alive. Senator queen is Chancellor queen. Golden panic droid still loud. Tiny green goblin still in charge. Many laser monks. Mandalorians organized, somehow. War problem. Will fix.”
Harry covered his mouth.
The transmission crackled.
R2’s beeps softened.
“Voyager crew acceptable. More than acceptable. Home also. Miss you already. Do not let slow boy fly without supervision.”
Tom put a hand over his heart. “Betrayed.”
The comm popped.
“Engineer: check port plasma manifold. I left improvement. Not sabotage. Mostly.”
B’Elanna shouted, “R2!”
“Music boy: translation matrix good. Needs less fear. Tall Borg: continue being terrifying. Doctor: deleted nothing.”
The Doctor’s voice came over the comm from Sickbay. “What does that mean?”
R2’s message continued.
“Captain Coffee: good captain. Best lost ship captain. Keep going.”
Janeway’s face went very still.
The last part came softer, almost swallowed by static.
“Thank you for finding me when I was lost.”
The signal broke.
Then returned for one final burst.
“And Tom?”
Tom stepped closer to the console.
“Yeah, buddy?”
R2’s beep was bright, rude, and full of love.
The translator said:
“Slow boy upgraded. Best wingman.”
A pause.
Then:
“Still slow.”
The transmission ended.
Tom laughed until he had to sit down on the deck.
Janeway looked away for a moment.
B’Elanna wiped her face and muttered something Klingon under her breath.
Harry leaned against the console, smiling and crying.
Seven stood very still.
Then she said, “His assessment was accurate.”
Tom looked up. “About me being slow?”
“About Voyager being stubborn.”
Janeway looked at the empty portal frame.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It is.”
---
R2-D2 arrived in the wrong universe with the force of a small meteor and the emotional volume of a planetary evacuation alarm.
Anakin Skywalker had faced Sith Lords, war fleets, political hearings, Council meetings, Mandalorian honor feasts, three childbirths, and Grandmaster Yoda in a mood.
None of that prepared him for being tackled by his astromech after twenty-five years.
“Artoo,” he said again, because it was the only word his brain seemed to remember.
R2 screamed into his chest.
C-3PO hovered nearby, hands fluttering. “Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I do believe he is attempting to scold and embrace you simultaneously.”
Anakin laughed, wiping at his eyes with one sleeve. “Yeah. That sounds like him.”
R2 pulled back and scanned him from boots to hair.
Then he shocked Anakin’s mechanical hand.
“Ow!”
C-3PO gasped. “Artoo!”
R2 beeped.
Threepio straightened. “He says, and I quote, ‘That is for becoming dead in several universes.’”
Anakin stared. “Several?”
R2 beeped again.
Threepio’s head tilted. “And that is for being dramatic about it.”
Anakin blinked.
Then he started laughing again, helpless and bright.
The landing platform around them had filled with people.
Jedi in brown, gray, cream, and Altisian blue. Clone officers in white armor marked with old legion colors and new Republic gold. Mandalorians in armor painted with the sigils of House Fett, House Kryze, and the unified federation crest. Senators. Mechanics. Pilots. Temple guards. Droids peering out from behind legs and landing struts.
Above them, Coruscant glittered beneath a clear afternoon sky.
R2 turned his dome slowly.
He took all of it in.
The Jedi Temple still stood.
Not burning.
Not silent.
Alive.
Its spires rose into the light, banners flying from the upper terraces: the symbol of the Jedi Order, the open starburst of the Altisian Jedi, the Republic crest, and a blue-and-silver ribbon of mourning for those lost in the new war.
But not the old one.
Not the purge.
There had been no purge here.
R2 knew it instantly, in ways no sensor could have measured.
The Force around the Temple did not feel like a wound.
It felt like a storm shelter full of people singing.
Anakin followed his gaze.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “It’s still here.”
R2’s dome turned back to him.
C-3PO translated, voice wobbling.
“He says, ‘How?’”
Anakin’s expression changed.
A dozen old memories passed over his face, all of them from a life R2 had not lived.
“Long story,” Anakin said.
R2 beeped sharply.
Threepio said, “He says he has crossed universes and survived Tom Paris, whoever that is, and therefore has time.”
Anakin blinked. “Tom who?”
R2 projected an image.
Tom Paris appeared in miniature, grinning beside the Delta Flyer.
Anakin studied him.
“Pilot?”
R2 beeped.
“Trouble pilot.”
Anakin smiled faintly. “You found another one.”
R2’s answering beep was soft.
“Wingman.”
Anakin’s throat moved.
Then another voice called from behind the gathered crowd.
“Anakin?”
The platform parted.
Padmé Amidala walked through.
R2’s world stopped again.
She was older.
Of course she was older. Twenty-five years had written themselves in silver at her temples and fine lines at the corners of her eyes. She wore Chancellor’s white and deep Naboo blue, with no crown except the quiet authority that had always been hers. A tiny bundle rested against her shoulder, wrapped in soft cream cloth.
Beside her walked Leia Organa-Skywalker, regal and sharp-eyed in Jedi-diplomat robes, one hand resting near her lightsaber and the other holding a stack of Senate briefings as if daring anyone to make her choose between politics and combat.
And behind Leia came Luke.
Not the young farm boy from R2’s memory.
Not the black-clad knight who had stood before an emperor.
This Luke was perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, sun-bright and steady, wearing Jedi robes with a pilot’s jacket thrown over them like tradition had lost an argument with comfort. A red-haired woman in fitted Jedi blacks walked beside him, green eyes keen and amused.
Mara Jade.
R2 knew her and did not.
In his universe, she had been danger, enemy, blade in the dark, then something else.
Here, she walked at Luke’s side openly, one hand brushing his.
Knight Mara Jade.
Luke saw R2.
He stopped.
“Artoo?” he said.
R2 made a tiny, shattered sound.
Then he launched himself at Luke.
Anakin barely got out of the way.
Luke dropped to his knees and caught him with a laugh that broke halfway through. “Hey! Hey, buddy!”
R2 beeped at him frantically.
C-3PO turned toward Padmé as though seeking permission to collapse.
“He says Master Luke is too tall, his haircut is acceptable, and he is relieved that he is not wearing black in a concerning manner.”
Luke stared. “What?”
Mara’s eyebrow rose. “Concerning black?”
R2 beeped at her.
Threepio said, “And you are apparently ‘murder lady but friend version.’”
Mara looked delighted. “I like him.”
Luke put both arms around R2. “Where have you been?”
R2’s dome tilted toward the fading spot where the portal had been.
Then he projected Voyager.
The tiny starship hung in the air above the platform: sleek, silver, alone.
Anakin stood.
Padmé’s face softened.
Luke stared.
Mara crossed her arms. “That’s not Republic.”
R2 beeped.
Threepio translated, “Lost ship. Good crew. Bad coffee dependence. Worse bureaucracy. Excellent chaos.”
Padmé stepped closer. “They helped you?”
R2’s photoreceptor glowed.
“Yes.”
Padmé smiled, and R2 nearly shorted out from the sight of it.
Then the bundle in her arms stirred.
A tiny face peeked out, soft and sleepy.
R2 rolled closer.
Anakin’s smile became unbearably gentle.
“This is Shmi,” he said. “Our youngest.”
R2 went completely silent.
Padmé crouched, careful and graceful, lowering the baby just enough for R2 to see.
“Shmi Amidala Skywalker,” she said.
R2 looked at the child.
The child looked back with unfocused newborn solemnity.
Then she reached out one tiny hand and patted R2’s dome.
R2 made a sound so tender that C-3PO did not translate it.
Anakin pressed his hand to his mouth.
Leia looked suspiciously misty.
Luke’s arm tightened around Mara’s waist.
Mara whispered, “You Skywalkers are ridiculous.”
Luke whispered back, “You’re dating one.”
“I know. It’s my greatest tactical error.”
R2 beeped.
Threepio said, “Artoo says he approves.”
Mara grinned.
Then the air changed.
The gathered Jedi shifted almost as one.
A small figure moved through the crowd.
Grandmaster Yoda leaned on his gimer stick, ears lifted, eyes bright and ancient.
R2 turned.
Yoda stopped in front of him.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Yoda chuckled.
“Lost and found, hmm?”
R2 beeped.
Threepio hesitated. “He says… ‘Swamp goblin alive.’”
Several Jedi inhaled sharply.
Yoda laughed.
Anakin covered his face.
Padmé looked away, shoulders shaking.
“Missed you too, little one,” Yoda said.
R2 rolled forward until his dome gently bumped Yoda’s robe.
Yoda placed one three-fingered hand on his head.
“Far, you have traveled.”
R2 beeped softly.
“Much, you have seen.”
Another beep.
Yoda’s eyes grew sad.
“In your branch, dark was the road.”
R2 went still.
Anakin looked from Yoda to R2.
“What does that mean?”
Yoda did not answer immediately.
R2 did.
He projected broken images.
Not all.
Not enough to wound this happy world too deeply.
But enough.
A Jedi Temple burning.
Clone troopers marching.
Anakin in black.
Padmé dying.
Luke alone under twin suns.
Leia in white, grieving a world.
Vader.
The Emperor.
A second Death Star burning.
Anakin returning at the end, but only at the end.
The platform fell silent.
Padmé’s hand tightened around the baby.
Anakin looked like he had been struck.
Luke’s face went pale.
Mara’s expression sharpened into something dangerous and protective.
C-3PO whispered, “Oh my.”
R2 ended the projection.
Anakin sank slowly to one knee in front of him.
“Artoo,” he said, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.”
R2 beeped fiercely.
Threepio translated softly. “He says you did not do it here.”
Anakin closed his eyes.
R2 continued.
Threepio’s voice trembled.
“He says you listened here. Someone reached you. The Jedi changed. The war ended. The clones were freed. The Chancellor was exposed. The Sith failed. You lived. She lived. The children lived. The Temple lived.”
Anakin opened his eyes.
R2 rolled closer.
The translator built into Threepio’s vocabulator almost failed on the next line.
“He says this universe is… loud, incorrect, strategically absurd…”
A pause.
“Perfect.”
Padmé knelt beside Anakin and touched R2’s dome.
“We’re glad you found it,” she said.
R2 beeped.
Threepio sniffed. “He says he is glad too, though he phrases it very rudely.”
---
They took R2 to the Temple.
He expected ghosts.
He found children.
Younglings ran across polished floors in supervised chaos. Masters argued gently in alcoves. Knights returned from patrol. Altisian Jedi in colorful robes debated with orthodox Jedi over tea. Clone veterans stood at ease near memorial walls, not as guards, but as honored guests. Droids moved everywhere, busy and opinionated.
No one shot at them.
No one whispered.
No one carried secret chips in their skulls waiting for a command that would turn love into murder.
R2 rolled very slowly through the halls.
Anakin walked beside him.
His current Padawan, a serious twelve-year-old Togruta named Veyra, trailed them with wide eyes.
“So this is really your astromech, Master?” she asked.
“Our astromech,” Anakin corrected automatically.
R2 beeped.
Threepio, who had refused to let R2 out of his sight, translated, “He says he belongs to no one and supervises everyone.”
Veyra nodded gravely. “That sounds like him.”
Anakin smiled. “You have no idea.”
Ahsoka Tano met them outside the Council chamber.
She was older too, steady and luminous in white-and-blue Jedi robes that blended old Temple tradition with the freer Altisian cuts. Her montrals were longer, her face marked by years of command and compassion.
R2 saw her.
Ahsoka saw him.
For once, R2 did not move first.
Ahsoka covered her mouth.
“No,” she whispered.
R2 beeped.
Threepio said, “He says, ‘Snips.’”
Ahsoka laughed and cried at once, kneeling to throw her arms around him.
Anakin’s eyes shone.
Veyra whispered, “Master Tano cries?”
Anakin whispered back, “Don’t tell anyone. She’ll deny it.”
Ahsoka pulled back and tapped R2’s dome.
“Where were you?”
R2 beeped.
Threepio said, “He says he was abducted by physics.”
Ahsoka smiled wetly. “That sounds inconvenient.”
Another beep.
“Also adopted by a coffee captain.”
“I want that story.”
R2 beeped.
“Many stories.”
Ahsoka stood, one hand still on his dome.
“Good,” she said. “We have time.”
R2 looked toward the Council chamber.
Yoda waited inside, seated among the Masters. Not all the faces were familiar. Some were older. Some new. Some who should have died in R2’s memory were alive here, scarred perhaps, changed, but breathing.
And there were empty chairs too.
This universe had not been painless.
It had simply not been broken in the same way.
Yoda tapped his stick.
“Begin, we should. Much to discuss, our returned friend has.”
R2 beeped.
Threepio’s head jerked. “Artoo! You cannot refer to the High Council as a ‘decorative debate engine’!”
Yoda’s ears lifted.
“Wrong, is he?”
Mace Windu, very alive and very tired, folded his hands.
“No comment.”
R2’s dome spun so fast it squeaked.
Anakin whispered, “Careful. He loves it when authority has a sense of humor.”
Mace looked at R2.
“I have been informed.”
---
The briefing lasted four hours.
R2 presented everything.
Not the private things first. Not the heartbreak. He was, after all, a professional.
He began with the anomaly.
Voyager’s scans. The resonance matrix. The Borg stabilization nodes. Starfleet warp theory. Hyperspatial mismatch. The Vreth incident, summarized in a way that made Jedi Masters blink and clone commanders lean forward with deep appreciation.
Rex, older now and wearing general’s armor with blue jaig eyes painted above the visor, interrupted once.
“Did you say you defeated an enemy fleet with paperwork?”
R2 beeped proudly.
Threepio said, “Weaponized administrative recursion, apparently.”
Rex turned to Anakin. “I like him even more now.”
Anakin grinned. “Told you.”
Then came the war.
The Second War, they called it.
Twenty-five years of peace had followed the fall of Darth Sidious.
In this branch, Anakin had confessed his fears before they consumed him. Padmé had lived. The Jedi had investigated the chips in the clones before the order could be given. The Altisian Jedi, long distrusted by the old Council for their families and attachments, had been brought into alliance instead of isolation. The Jedi Order had changed because it had to. Not perfectly. Not easily.
But it had changed.
The clones had been freed.
The Senate had survived.
Padmé Amidala had become Chancellor after the reconstruction period, reluctantly at first, then with the full force of her terrifying competence.
Mandalore had ended its long fracturing after the Siege That Did Not Become a Purge. House Kryze and House Fett, through war, marriage alliances, duels, treaties, and approximately nine hundred arguments, had forged the Fett-Kryze Compact: a six-hundred-thousand-strong federation of warriors, protectors, artisans, pilots, and clans.
Mandalore stood independent.
Mandalore stood united.
Mandalore stood with the Republic, because Padmé Amidala had negotiated with them for six years and Bo-Katan Kryze had eventually declared that any politician that stubborn was “basically a Mandalorian with softer armor.”
Then peace had held.
For twenty-five years.
Until Darth Maul returned from the far dark.
He had not returned alone.
With him came Darth Talon, red-skinned, tattooed, terrible, carrying the teachings of something old and venomous. Behind them came droid armies not built in Separatist foundries, but in hidden war-forges beyond known hyperspace lanes. And with the droids came alien warbands from the far galaxy: raiders, exiles, witches, beasts, and soldiers drawn through ancient pathways once thought myth.
Peridea had opened.
The old maps had lied.
The galaxy was not alone.
And war had come again.
Grandmaster Yoda led the Jedi response, though he no longer pretended the Jedi alone could hold the galaxy together.
The old clone armies, those who had chosen to remain in service, marched beside newly grown volunteer clone lines created without slave conditioning and with full citizenship from birth. Mandalorian fleets guarded evacuation lanes. Altisian Jedi protected refugee worlds. Main Temple Jedi led defense fronts. Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker had become heroes in the early campaigns along the Mandalore-Peridea corridor.
R2 absorbed it all.
Anakin, Master of the Jedi Council.
Padmé, Chancellor of the Republic.
Luke, Jedi Knight, war hero, dating Mara Jade, who looked like she could kill a Sith with a hairpin and then critique his footwork.
Leia, Jedi diplomat and Senate firebrand.
Ahsoka, Master, alive, laughing.
Yoda, still Grandmaster.
Threepio, still anxious enough to power a moon.
And now a war.
Of course there was a war.
R2 had not expected paradise to be tidy.
He only required it to be alive.
When the Council asked what he intended to do, he answered immediately.
Threepio sighed before translating.
“He says, ‘Find me a socket.’”
---
R2-D2 was given a socket.
Then a hangar.
Then, after twelve minutes, three hangars, a restricted tactical archive, and a formal warning from Temple Maintenance.
He ignored the warning.
Temple Maintenance sent a second warning.
R2 sent one back with corrections.
By nightfall, half the Jedi Temple’s starfighter wing had improved diagnostic response times, the clone logistics network had been reorganized by battlefield urgency instead of Senate filing order, and a Mandalorian quartermaster named Vira Fett-Kryze had challenged R2 to an honor duel after he labeled her ordnance inventory “emotionally arranged.”
R2 accepted.
The duel consisted of speed-repairing damaged jetpacks.
R2 won by six seconds.
Vira declared him “tiny beskar-hearted menace” and painted a small Mandalorian crest on his side panel.
R2 preened so aggressively that C-3PO nearly shut down.
“Artoo, you cannot collect military honors from every culture you encounter!”
R2 beeped.
Threepio stiffened. “No, I am not jealous.”
Another beep.
“I would look ridiculous in armor!”
R2 projected an image of C-3PO in full Mandalorian beskar.
Several clones applauded.
Threepio covered his face. “This is intolerable.”
Luke, leaning against an X-wing nearby, laughed. “I missed this and I never had it.”
Mara stood beside him, arms crossed. “He’s useful.”
R2 beeped.
Threepio said, “He says you have excellent survival instincts for a murder lady.”
Mara smiled. “Tell him flattery will get him access to my ship.”
Luke turned. “Mara.”
“What? I want to see what he does to it.”
R2 beeped brightly.
Anakin’s voice came from behind them. “He is not modifying your ship before he modifies mine.”
R2 spun around.
Anakin stood at the hangar entrance with Padmé beside him. The Chancellor had changed out of formal robes into a simple dark blue gown, the baby asleep in a sling against her chest. She looked exhausted and radiant and real.
R2 rolled toward them.
Padmé smiled. “The Temple has filed seven complaints.”
R2 beeped.
Threepio translated, “He says the Temple is welcome.”
Anakin crouched. “I talked to the Council. Officially, you’re to be debriefed, medically scanned, and quarantined for dimensional contamination.”
R2 made a rude noise.
Anakin grinned.
“Unofficially, I told them I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
R2’s dome stilled.
Anakin’s smile softened. “Not for a while.”
Padmé knelt carefully beside him.
“We lost you here too,” she said.
R2 looked up.
Anakin took a breath. “Twenty-five years ago. Near the end of the Clone Wars. There was an anomaly over Cato Neimoidia. You vanished during a rescue operation.”
R2 went utterly silent.
“We searched,” Padmé said. “For months.”
Anakin’s jaw tightened. “Longer.”
Padmé touched his arm.
Anakin looked down. “I didn’t stop for years.”
R2’s dome turned toward the portal scar still glowing faintly in his memory.
An alternate branch.
But not one where he had replaced another version.
One where he had always been missing.
One where a hole had been waiting for him.
R2 made a tiny sound.
Anakin rested his mechanical hand on his dome.
“Welcome home, buddy.”
R2 shocked him again.
Anakin yelped.
Threepio said primly, “He says that one was for taking twenty-five years to find him.”
Anakin laughed. “Fair.”
Padmé smiled through tears.
R2 rolled closer and pressed against her knee.
She laid one hand on his dome and the other over sleeping baby Shmi.
For a moment, war and portals and wrong universes did not matter.
The Temple lived.
His family lived.
Voyager flew somewhere impossibly far away, stubborn and bright.
R2 had both homes now.
One in reach.
One in memory.
Both real.
---
At dawn, Coruscant prepared for war.
R2 watched from the Temple’s eastern platform as ships rose into the sky.
Jedi interceptors.
Clone carriers.
Mandalorian fang fighters.
Medical frigates.
Altisian long-range cruisers with family quarters and meditation gardens tucked beside shield generators.
Republic Star Destroyers redesigned after the peace accords so they looked less like blunt instruments and more like shields.
The galaxy had changed.
Not enough to avoid war.
Enough to face it better.
Anakin came to stand beside him, holding two cups of caf.
He offered one to R2 out of habit, then looked at the cup.
R2 beeped.
Anakin laughed. “Right. Sorry.”
R2 scanned it.
Then beeped again.
Threepio, standing behind them because he had appointed himself translator and emotional support protocol droid, said, “He says Captain Coffee would judge your beverage inadequate.”
Anakin blinked. “Captain Coffee?”
R2 projected Janeway.
Anakin studied her.
“Looks formidable.”
R2 beeped.
“Very.”
Padmé joined them with Leia, Luke, and Mara.
Yoda approached more slowly, leaning on his stick. Ahsoka and Rex followed. Behind them came Mandalorian commanders in Fett-Kryze blue and silver.
For a moment, R2 thought of Voyager’s briefing room.
Different uniforms.
Same stubborn.
Yoda looked over the rising fleet.
“Begins again, the hard road does.”
Padmé’s voice was steady. “Then we walk it together.”
Anakin looked down at R2. “Or roll.”
R2 beeped.
Threepio sighed. “He says walking is inefficient.”
Luke grinned. “He’s right.”
Mara glanced at Luke. “Don’t encourage him.”
“That’s impossible. He encourages himself.”
R2 beeped approvingly.
Ahsoka crouched and tapped his dome. “You ready?”
R2’s answer was immediate.
“Yes.”
Threepio translated it quietly.
No insult.
No joke.
Just yes.
Then R2 added something else.
Threepio tilted his head.
“He says he has one more thing to do.”
---
Voyager was three days away from the portal experiment when the message arrived.
It came through Astrometrics as a burst of blue-white static, riding a subspace ripple that should not have existed.
Harry saw it first.
“Captain to Astrometrics,” he said, voice cracking halfway through.
Janeway arrived with Chakotay, Seven, Tom, and B’Elanna in under two minutes.
The Doctor appeared via mobile emitter and insisted he had come only because the signal might contain hazardous radiation.
Neelix arrived with snacks.
Tuvok arrived because someone had to represent dignity.
Harry stood at the console, hands hovering.
“It’s from R2.”
Tom’s heart kicked.
Janeway stepped forward. “Play it.”
Harry did.
The Astrometrics screen filled with static.
Then R2-D2 appeared.
Not as a clean recording. More like a holographic ghost, blue and flickering, but unmistakably himself.
He had a new mark painted on one side: a tiny Mandalorian crest beside his Starfleet pip.
His fedora sat on his dome.
The feather had somehow been replaced with one that glowed faintly green.
Tom laughed immediately. “Oh, buddy.”
R2 beeped.
The translator engaged.
“Voyager. Report.”
Janeway folded her arms, smiling despite herself. “He’s giving us a report?”
R2 continued.
“Arrived safely. Confirmed alternate branch. Local me missing twenty-five years. Therefore not duplicate. Convenient. Suspicious. Accepted.”
Seven said softly, “A remarkable convergence.”
R2’s hologram spun slightly, showing the background.
The Jedi Temple.
Harry inhaled.
Tom stared.
R2 beeped.
“Jedi Temple intact. Skywalker alive. Both Skywalkers alive. Many Skywalkers. Too many Skywalkers. New baby small and loud. Named Shmi. Approved.”
B’Elanna covered her mouth.
R2 continued.
“Padmé alive. Chancellor. Terrifying. Captain Coffee would approve. Anakin is Council Master. Still reckless. Requires supervision. I have resumed duties.”
Tom whispered, “Of course you have.”
“Luke is Jedi Knight. Hero. Dating murder lady friend Mara Jade. She is acceptable. Dangerous. Good taste. C-3PO still complains. All is correct.”
The Doctor muttered, “How touching. A universe full of people to annoy.”
R2’s hologram turned as if he had heard him.
“Doctor: hologram still hidden in your opera files.”
The Doctor froze.
B’Elanna lost it.
Tom doubled over.
Janeway pressed her lips together and failed to look stern.
The message went on.
“Grandmaster Yoda alive. Small swamp goblin remains in charge. Altisian Jedi allied with main Jedi. Attachments no longer treated like engine leaks. Improvement.”
Tuvok raised an eyebrow. “An interesting doctrinal reform.”
“Order 66 never happened. Clones free. Old clones and new clones fight by choice. Mandalore unified under House Fett-Kryze. Six hundred thousand warriors. Efficient shouting culture. Engineer would enjoy.”
B’Elanna whispered, “Damn right I would.”
R2’s tone shifted.
“Twenty-five years peace. Now war. Darth Maul and Darth Talon attacked with droid armies and far-galaxy aliens from old pathways. Jedi, clones, Mandalorians, Republic together. We will win.”
Janeway’s smile faded into something solemn.
R2’s hologram rolled closer to the recording source.
“Voyager gave me second home. Voyager returned me to first home. Debt large. Will not repay because friendship is not accounting. Learned that from organics. Inefficient but good.”
Harry wiped his eyes.
Seven looked down.
Tom could not speak.
R2’s next beep was softer.
“Miss you. All of you. Even Doctor.”
The Doctor sniffed. “I suppose that is mildly acceptable.”
“Especially slow boy.”
Tom laughed through a sound that was not quite a laugh.
R2’s photoreceptor seemed to brighten.
“Tom Paris. Wingman. Pilot. Menace. Friend. You saw homesick and did not look away. Good flying.”
Tom closed his eyes.
B’Elanna took his hand.
R2 continued.
“Harry Kim. Music boy. Scientist. Portal worked. Mostly. Be less afraid of greatness. Also less afraid of clarinet drone. It misses you.”
Harry said, “The what?”
Somewhere outside Astrometrics, a faint marching tune began.
Harry groaned. “R2!”
“Seven of Nine. Tall Borg. Thank you for understanding wanting two homes. Continue intimidating everyone. It is effective.”
Seven’s voice was very quiet.
“I will.”
“B’Elanna Torres. Engineer. Little menace respects you. Check plasma manifold. Improvement will save power. Not sabotage. Mostly.”
B’Elanna wiped her face angrily. “I’m going to find it.”
“Captain Kathryn Janeway. Captain Coffee. You gave lost droid crew status, hat privileges, and goodbye with honors. Good captain. Stubborn captain. Get ship home.”
Janeway stood very still.
R2’s hologram tilted.
“Do not argue. Get ship home.”
The message crackled.
Static ate the edges.
R2 beeped faster, as though rushing before the universe shut the door.
“Coordinates attached. Hyperspace theory attached. Droid language attached. Recipe for acceptable coffee attached. Legal brief against Vreth attached. Use carefully.”
Tuvok said, “That is unlikely.”
The hologram flickered.
R2’s final words came through bright and wild.
“Voyager: fly fast. Break rules when necessary. Fix rules after. Keep hats ready.”
A pause.
“Slow boy: still slow.”
Tom laughed.
The last beep did not need translation.
But the computer translated it anyway.
“Love.”
The signal vanished.
Astrometrics went dark except for the stars.
For a long time, no one said anything.
Then Janeway turned to Tom.
“Mr. Paris.”
Tom wiped his face quickly. “Yes, Captain?”
“Set a course.”
He blinked. “For where?”
Harry looked at the data.
His eyes widened.
“Captain… R2 attached a hyperspatial resonance map. It’s not a route home, but it identifies subspace conditions that could improve slipstream stability.”
Seven was already analyzing it. “Preliminary assessment: the data is viable.”
B’Elanna leaned over Harry’s shoulder. “That little menace actually sent us something useful.”
Tom smiled.
Janeway looked at the stars.
Far away, in another universe, R2-D2 had gone home to a Temple that still stood, a family that still lived, and a war that needed him.
Here, Voyager still had seventy thousand light-years of stubborn ahead of her.
But the ship felt less alone.
Janeway lifted her chin.
“Then let’s see what our former specialist gave us.”
Tom returned to the helm.
His console chimed.
A heroic fanfare played.
Then one rude beep.
The display read:
SLOW BOY ONLINE.
Tom stared.
Harry started laughing.
B’Elanna bent double.
Even Tuvok looked faintly affected.
Janeway closed her eyes.
Somewhere, impossible and far away, R2-D2 was probably laughing too.
Tom placed his hands on the controls.
“All right, buddy,” he said softly.
The stars waited.
Voyager flew on.