String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [6]
Choosing an ancient visualization technique, a simple, non-automated door became the focus of his thoughts.
His hand was on the doorknob.
Point-two-five seconds. Beat.
Clockwise turn, seventeen degrees.
Point-two-five seconds. Beat.
Regulated intake of breath, diaphragm release, lungs filled to capacity.
Beat.
Biceps contract, pulling door forward five degrees.
Sound rushing like wind through his physical being, resonating not in his mind, but in his katra. Temptation, almost unbearable temptation to throw the door open and allow the symphony to swallow him whole. It would be so easy. Just like falling off a cliff.
Exhale.
Point-two-five seconds.
Beat.
His course heading had been accurate. He was almost there.
Kathryn Janeway strode purposefully into her ready room off the bridge of the Starship Voyager and found not one but two unanticipated visitors waiting within.
Her first officer, Commander Chakotay, sat comfortably on the long bench that lined the far wall beneath a large window, engrossed in a sheet of drawing paper. Next to him, occasionally indicating some point of interest on the drawing with the fingers of her right hand, stood Naomi Wildman, the half-human, half-Ktarian daughter of Ensign Samantha Wildman, and the first child ever born aboard Voyager. Though Naomi was little more than two years old, the combination of her human and Ktarian DNA resulted in a child who looked more like five or six and had already demonstrated the cognitive skills of a child nearly twice that age.
As Naomi struggled to answer a question posed to her by Chakotay, scrunching her forehead lined with small pointed horns running vertically from her hairline to the bridge of her nose, and absentmindedly pulling the end of her long strawberry blond braid to her mouth, Janeway noticed that in her left hand, Naomi held a large mug of a steaming beverage that looked, and dare she hope, smelled gloriously like coffee.
“I hope I’m not interrupting something important,” Janeway offered casually.
She noted with an inward smile that as Chakotay rose automatically to his feet, handing the paper back to Naomi and greeting her with a warm “Not at all, Captain,” Naomi’s eyes grew involuntarily wide. The child stood at a miniature version of attention, managing to maintain both the drawing and the mug, though her hair remained fixed in her mouth as she waited, appropriately, for the captain to address her personally before she spoke.
“Good morning, Miss Wildman,” Janeway began, not wishing to put Naomi through one more moment of discomfort.
“Captain,” Naomi replied seriously, extending her left hand and offering the mug to Janeway as her braid mercifully dropped from her mouth and returned to its proper alignment running straight down her back.
“Thank you very much,” Janeway smiled, as she took the mug, her senses calming instinctively as she took in the aroma of the steam rising from the dark liquid.
Definitely coffee.
“Neelix…” Naomi began, but then paused as if unsure as to whether or not she should continue.
“You have just made my morning, Miss Wildman,” Janeway offered graciously, placing a gentle hand on the child’s shoulder. “Please speak freely.”
Naomi relaxed a little as she drew a deep breath and continued. “Neelix was helping me finish this star chart over breakfast when he saw that you had left your quarters and were going straight to the bridge…” She paused before adding, “… without stopping to eat.”
Janeway threw a playful glance at Chakotay, who was obviously enjoying this exchange tremendously.
“Am I to understand that Neelix monitors my every move?” Janeway asked with mock seriousness.
Naomi appeared to realize her error immediately.
“No!” she blurted out before she noticed that the captain was still smiling. “It’s just… he’s programmed the computer to tell him when you get up in the morning… so that he can make sure your coffee is hot.”
Janeway stood upright and took a sip, thankful that the morning’s brew was replicated and not one of Neelix’s usually interesting