The Value of Hope

It had been a little over a week and a half since I had all but forced Janeway to make us members of her crew. Raven had joined the Engineering team, while Echo had been placed on a Security team. Katye had requested to join the Sick Bay and train to become a nurse with Kes, one of the main characters during the first three seasons. I asked to assist aeroponics in growing food, but Janeway wanted a number of tests done on whatever I helped grow before anything that I worked on could be eaten by the crew; she also asked me to work a few shifts on the bridge every week and to join the weekly briefings.

Janeway had explained to her crew about our 'race' while keeping things on the simpler side. She told them that we were a reclusive race of aliens that were classified due to our unique abilities. People were curious about us, of course, but they were also respectful enough to not pry too much. Things had been proceeding quietly, so I should have expected the next 'episode' to spring up on us, but this one did not require me to step in and fix anything... and on my first day off duty, of course.

::Rebecca, Captain Janeway is approaching the ship.::

"Oh? That's a surprise. I knew that she wanted to take a look at you, but I thought that she would have sent an engineering team first. Let her in and direct her my way; I'll be done in a few more minutes," I said.

I was in the process of making my first batch of Spirit Wine and the final steps could not be rushed. I had to keep the mash heated consistently with Fire mana while also rapidly cooling the vapors with Ice mana. It was good practice for controlling multiple elements at the same time, as well as the only way that Katye and I could truly get drunk, since our bodies could process normal alcohol faster than it could affect us, no matter how much we drank.

"Captain Cox? Am I interrupting?" Janeway asked as she made her way up the stairs.

"Just Rebecca or Becca, please, and no, I'm nearly done if you don't wait another minute or so," I replied.

"Alright, Rebecca, may I ask 'what' you are doing?"

"Distilling what we call Spirit Wine. It's made in a similar manner to alcohol, but it requires that mana, our energy, is infused throughout the entire process. The replicator can make it too, but it's an old hobby and I wanted to try out a few of the fruits of the Delta Quadrant. Kes gave me a few extra roban berry seeds," I explained as I finished condensing the last of the vapor. "I would offer you a sample, but I imagine that you are still on duty, and it's about four times stronger than Klingon blood wine though the taste is far better, which just adds to its betraying effects."

"I am, so maybe another time."

I chuckled, picking up the bottle and corking it, then asked, "So, Captain, what can I do for you today?"

"We found a wormhole that leads back to the Alpha Quadrant, but unfortunately, it is too small for us to use to get home. We were hoping to be able to send a compressed data stream with a microprobe, but it was mired in a gravitational eddy. There is someone on the other side of the wormhole who sent our test signal back, so I have Lieutenant Torres and Ensign Kim trying to set up voice communications. I'm hoping to allow the crew to send personal messages home, but..."

"It could cause a number of problems if you extended the same offer to me and my crew," I finished, understanding her dilemma quickly. "Let me save you the headache and tell you that we don't need to send any messages back to the Alpha Quadrant. There may be people that look for us, but most of our race drifts through various dimensions and there are means to determine whether or not we are alive despite the incredible distance."

"But surely, you or your crew has friends and family back in the Alpha Quadrant."

"Not really," I replied with a shrug, skirting the lines between truth and lies. "We had only entered your dimension recently, to have a quieter life after a war where we lost everyone but each other. Echo has an ability related to tracking, so Starfleet's request to search for their missing ships was a perfect opportunity. Things obviously did not go exactly according to plan, but we've been in a lot worse situations than this."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Janeway said sympathetically.

"Thanks. We were really lucky to have this second chance together... I honestly believed that we wouldn't."

"Well, I'll take your word that your crew will be fine not sending out letters to the Alpha Quadrant. Thank you, Rebecca," Janeway said after a moment.

"Of course... since you are here, would you like a tour? Raven would be better at explaining the technical aspects of everything, but I can still give you a general run down of our ship," I offered.

"That would be nice, thank you," Janeway replied with a light smile.

Although she had seen most of the ship, I pointed out different bits of technology like the Mind Linker which was for our training and a few other unique devices. Mostly, our 'technology' was based off of the Star Trek Universe, so it was easy enough to explain most things to Janeway. We talked for nearly an hour before she excused herself to get back to her duties.

I watched her leave the Shuttle Bay then headed back inside my ship with a heavy sigh. This 'episode' did not have any danger to the ship or crew, but it would put me in an unusual position once Katye, Raven, and Echo got off duty and started questioning me. Originally, it had played out so that there was a chance for the crew to beam themselves back to the Alpha Quadrant, but this wormhole was not only a rip in space, but also time. The cherry on top of this rollercoaster of hope and disappointment was that after they did get the Romulan's help to send their personal letters, Tuvok would reveal that the man in question died four years prior, before he would have sent the messages. The show never really addressed whether or not the letters were sent out or not, so the crew was left questioning their success.

Although I could probably come up with something to dissuade the effort entirely, I did not really think that it was the best course of action. Hope was a powerful thing and something that the crew of Voyager needed, especially in the beginning. The prospect of a seventy-year journey home through uncharted space was not an easy thing to face and there were plenty of challenges ahead of them.

When the rest of my little group got off duty, they all headed straight for our ship and wanted to question me. By the time that happened, Voyager had contacted the Romulan ship, but the captain of the ship had broken off contact shortly afterwards, fearing that Voyager were Starfleet spies. I had managed to get them to agree to wait until dinner to explain, but that had only put off the conversation for a little bit.

"Alright, spill it. This whole situation has all the markings of an episode," Katye said as she placed a large bowl of pasta on the table.

"I can, but how much I explain will depend on how good all of you can act" I replied, taking a portion of the food.

"What do you mean? Is he really not going to talk to Voyager because they're Starfleet?" Raven asked with surprise.

I chuckled, "I never said that."

"Tell us already," Katye complained.

"Can all of you keep what I am going to tell you a secret, and more than that, not let your expressions or emotions give you away?" I asked.

"Do you really need to be so dramatic? This isn't the first time that we've had knowledge of the future," Katye teased.

"True, but we aren't ruling over the masses this time, 'Heda', and Janeway is probably going to be suspicious of us for some time. I can tell you that the Romulan captain will answer the constant hails at some point this evening, I believe, and Janeway even gets him to agree to help send the message," I retorted.

"There is a 'but' somewhere in there," Raven sighed.

"Just tell us, Becca," Katye insisted.

"After Voyager manages to make visual communications with the Romulan ship, B'Elanna will realize that it's close to the frequency that they use for teleportation. This will cause great excitement among the crew because there is a chance that they could all get home, but it will be crushed by the fact that he is from twenty years in the past. The wormhole isn't just a hole in space, but in time as well. If they use the method to return to the Alpha Quadrant, they would also be transported into the past, polluting the timeline which Janeway will not allow..." I sighed.

"That's not so bad. I mean, it's a kick in that ass sure, but..." Raven started.

"I'm not done. It's not until he is onboard for a short period of time that he gives his name after realizing that there is little that he can do to help other than send the messages. After he is sent back, Tuvok reveals that he looked up the Romulan and found that he died four years prior to 'now'. The show never officially addressed it, but the 'Pathfinder Project', which Starfleet will start to try and figure out how to get Voyager home, referenced the Doctor's appearance on a ship several years in the future as to why they were created."

"Oh..." Raven said softly.

"Then how are you going to stop it?" Echo asked.

"I'm not, and I want all of you to not reveal anything. Janeway talked to me earlier today and I assured her that we did not need to send any messages back to the Alpha Quadrant, so that we would not cause any hiccups for this little mission," I replied.

"But why? It's only going to hurt morale when they find out that everything was in vain," Echo said.

"Will it? Sure, it will take a blow at first, but there is something to be said about the hope it gives to them. B'Elanna is a good example. She has practically no one in the Alpha Quadrant, yet she works extremely hard to make this transport possible and then the first words out of her mouth after Tuvok reveals the Romulan's death were possibilities of what he could have done to ensure the messages were still sent. There are a number of these events throughout the journey where it is more about building the character of the people involved than fighting some enemy or investigating an anomaly. When you taught Madi to use the bow, did you always correct her stance, or did you let the string sting her a few times? Everyone needs setbacks, that's how we grow."

Echo sighed but nodded her head in agreement. We had faced our fair share of setbacks throughout the universe of 'The 100' and most of them had been the spark of growth for us and for my powers in particular. I was not expecting that the crew of the Voyager would suddenly develop magic powers, of course, but I had learned that changing everything would not always benefit the people around me.

"I told Janeway that we lost our friends and family in a war before we came to this dimension, so there is no reason for us to send messages back to the Alpha Quadrant. Raven, help them out to the best of your abilities; I remember that they will have some difficulties handling the transporter beam, so I'm sure that it would be good practice for you," I said.

"I don't see the point of all this technology and what we are supposed to learn here. It's nothing like how either of you learned your powers," Echo complained.

"Just because you don't like your duty assignment, that doesn't mean that this is all pointless," Raven retorted. "This ship may run on mana, but the same principles that dictate what we can do with ours, exist in their ship. You just need to figure out how that applies to what you are good at."

Raven twisted her hand, and I could sense her manifesting some sort of Space spell. Her mana wrapped around the fork in Echo's hand and created the glowing lights of a Star Trek transport beam, only dark maroon in color instead of the classic blue, then it appeared in her hand. Both Katye and I stared at Raven in shock as it had taken us a lot longer to learn how to teleport ourselves and we could not move anything that we were not touching.

"The looks of surprise on all of your faces are worth the migraine," she chuckled. "It's only short range and that's about the size limit for now. Fae says that I have a strong affinity with the Space element, but the idea is still valid."

After we all got over our initial shock, Echo complained, "And what would 'suit' me in this universe?"

"Well, you have the 'Eye of the Hunt', right? Voyager's sensors can track all sorts of things light years away and, once they build Astrometrics, their range will make another massive leap. Their energy weapons could also be another thing that might help... Their torpedoes harness the power of matter, anti-matter explosions and a simple phaser can vaporize people if turned up to that level. If you learn how to recreate them, even I wouldn't be able to shrug off the attack like a bullet," I tempted with a smirk.

"Is that even possible?" Echo asked.

::It is. If you can learn the principle behind an action, then you can learn how to recreate it with your mana. Without knowing the principle, you can only meditate on the various elements and learn how to manipulate them slowly. Rebecca's and Katye's accelerated rate of learning their various abilities is due to the influence of their past lives and the stories that Tori had given them. They had an idea of 'how' mana was supposed to work, and their Will did the rest.::

"There you go, Echo, an explanation of why even this technological world can benefit us. Raven has certainly proved it by doing something that Katye and I can't do... yet. If the duty shifts are truly bothering you, I can talk to Janeway to take you off them so that you can hole yourself up in here, but that also means that I won't let you participate in anything else, since your training is sooo important," I said, giving her an ultimatum that I knew she would not agree to.

Echo huffed with annoyance, "My duty shifts are fine. I just don't see the point in all of the reports."

The rest of us chuckled because we knew that she was just making up a random excuse. The truth was that she really had not seen the value of what being here could bring; hell, I had not either. Voyager was not exactly the place to pick random fights or work on espionage missions which were a lot of what we had been doing in our old lives. While there were fights to be had in the future, the most important thing that we could do with our time here was to learn different things.

After dinner, Raven and Echo used the Mind Linker to go and practice on the Mental Plane that the device generated. Every night since we had joined the Voyager crew, they both would spend any extra time that they could, training. While I could not blame them for their dedication, I was starting to miss them.

"Do you think that this is their new way of getting back at us? Hiding away in the Mental Plane because we did not bring them in on the Final War?" I asked.

"Mmm... my guess is that being twenty to thirty percent of their motivation," Katye mused. "The rest is them wanting to catch up to us."

I stared at Raven while she sat on the couch with her eyes closed, and retorted, "Why did we fall in love with such stubborn women again?"

"Because they are the only ones that could actually deal with all of this bullshit that we have dragged them into..." Katye sighed. "Are you really upset that they are spending their time training, or are you worried about their future, and how you'll affect it?"

"Am I such an open book?" I asked with amusement as I sipped on my glass of wine.

"To those that take the time to get to know you, perhaps," Katye chuckled lightly.

"The root of Chaos, yet I am so easily deciphered... I wonder if my past self would be disappointed."

"Considering that she sacrificed herself for the sake of countless Souls, I doubt it. There is still that vein of goodness in you, that could be found in her, so I think that she would take it as hope that we can overcome this trial. Both of you are protectors, I know from my memories and Alkatyenia's... you shouldn't be so hard on yourself," she replied.

I could not help but smirk and shake my head wryly. Although I did not like being compared to my past self, I could not deny that I respected her decision. Even if she had lost everything that she held dear, not everyone would be willing to give up the chance to rule over everything, no matter how Chaotic it may have been.

"Well... I guess that we should follow their example and get some training in before our next duty shift," I said.

"Worried that you'll fall behind?" Katye teased.

"Considering that I just gave Echo the idea to throw anti-matter explosions at me? You're damn right," I chuckled.

"I doubt that she would... at least, outside of the Mental Plane, until she knew it was safe," Katye said.