summary:

TITLE: The Queen of The Lost Worlds
AUTHOR: halfofone
RATING: R
CODE: T/7
FEEDBACK: Constructive feedback welcome.
SUMMARY: Same characters, different universe. Very different. And perhaps the characters are not all that similar either ...
NOTES: I don't really have an explanation for the genesis of this story, and only a basic idea of where it is going. There is a lot of exposition in this chapter disguised as back story. I have a whole new universe to explain, some of it is familiar and some not.
ARCHIVING: If you want ... I would quite like to know where.

disclaimer:

TPTB are many. In a perfect world I would be one of them but it's not and I'm not. No infringement of copyright/trade marks or other intellectual property is intended. This story was written for fun and not profit.

warnings:

Warning: This story includes same sex relationships between women. If you are offended by this or it is illegal where you live or you are underage then please read no further.

Full warnings, credits and disclaimers can be found in the contents page and chapter 1.

text:

Part 1a

She braced her hands and arms against the sides of the narrow corridor and placed one foot against the protesting valve. "Take that you pointless piece of junk" she said and kicked the stuck valve sharply with her heel, dropping to the floor as a jet of plasma shot past her left shoulder with a scream of release. It was obviously a dangerous procedure but she had done this countless times in her twenty-seven years and watched her father do it as many times before she was big enough to help.

She lay still on the deck until the pressurised jet subsided and then rolled over and gazed up at the small floating ball of plasma now isolated by a containment field.

'One day we are going to have to fix that,' she thought and grinned.

It was a standing joke in the family. Whatever else they had replaced and upgraded on the old girl, somehow the secondary warp core inlet valve was never amongst the priorities. B'Elanna rose with easy grace and knocked the expulsion lever up with a flick of her elbow. The containment field and its contents were propelled out through an air lock and expelled into space.

Making her way back through the dark and twisting access corridor, she hummed cheerfully to herself. Today she would arrive at Barak VII where the Queen was scheduled for a refit and B'Elanna for some R&R. The main port of Khi'Tok was known throughout the sector for its facilities and the warm, sometimes steamy, welcome given to traders, plus she would have the chance to meet up with Tom Paris. She hadn't seen the him for six months, not since his marriage, and she wanted to know how married life was suiting him.

The entrance to the bridge slid reluctantly open with a mournful sigh and B'Elanna entered the heart of her domain where a small grey parrot eyed her carelessly. "Captain on the bridge, Captain on the bridge,, Captain on the bridge, Captain .... " it trumpeted loudly.

"Pipe down," B'Elanna yelled at the little bird. Not for the first time the young trader wondered what had possessed her dad to purchase the not very attractive, loud-mouthed pest.

'You need a companion on the long hauls,' he had smiled, 'and these little critters are very rare. They came from Earth originally but you won't find any there now except in DNA banks. They are good luck.'

B'Elanna had humoured him by accepting the gift. A course of action she soon regretted when she realised that her father had taken the time to teach the bird a number of mostly profane phrases which it never hesitated to unleash at the wrong moment. The bird was also unfailingly quick to learn any annoying vocal habits which a passenger might have, usually not pleasing either the long-suffering half-Klingon or the offended customer. Her dad simply laughed when B'Elanna recounted these tales.

Oddly enough her mother really liked the bird too and would spend time tickling the parrot's stomach as it lay on its back in her hand. B'Elanna was convinced her mother only repeated this trick because she was the only person that Arkoo would allow to touch him like that. Her mother always liked to demonstrate her Klingon superiority.

B'Elanna glared again at the feathered beast.

The parrot was unabashed by his owner's anger. "Pipe down, pipe down." it mimicked exactly and then squawked delightedly. B'Elanna took out her annoyance on the ship.

"Time to Khi'Tok?" she barked at the computer.

"Fifteen solar minutes captain."

She grinned. Even the damned parrot couldn't ruin her mood for long. It had been a great run from Solar IV, nearly a record, though that was still held by her father. She would beat him one day; the older Torres would be sweating when he heard the news of this run.

She would have beaten him comfortably today if she had not lost precious time being stopped by a vessel from the Interplanetary Trade Enforcement Corp while she was cutting through the great nebula of Martok. The bastards were watching for any ship traversing the nebula. Admittedly it was a major smuggling route and she should have expected the intervention; it was still disappointing. She wouldn't make the same mistake again; next time she wouldn't stop, not even if a Klingon bird of prey was on her tail. The ITEC lackeys would have to catch her and despite her crumbling and slightly antiquated looks, the Queen could reach warp five point eight, maybe even six on a good day, and then hold it for several hours. ITEC had nothing that fast. She had only stopped this time because the plodders were really jumpy right now and likely to assume she was a Romulan spy and start shooting, or even worse, call ahead to get her cargo impounded at the port.

These were edgy times. The Klingon High Command had placed all of their empire and dominions on high alert following the recent annexation of two Solar Trade Federation colonies by Romulan forces. Feelings were running very high amongst both klingons and humans and the considerable forces of the empire were mobilising for the inevitable war.

Yet there were some troubling signs. Even the most jingoistic supporter of the empire couldn't fail to realise that the unity and single-minded purpose that had characterised previous imperial wars was distinctly lacking at this time. The fabric of the Klingon empire was wearing thin and small tears were appearing in the tightly stretched seams which bound the different cultures together.

The human Solar Trade Federation with its great wealth and abundant resources was the jewel in the Klingon imperial crown. Without it, when Praxis (the second moon of the Empire's home planet Qo'Nos) exploded, the Klingon empire would have been bankrupt and probably would have fallen to the unholy alliance of Romulans and Bajorans. However the mismatching of klingon military power and human wealth was now causing ructions within the empire. Many humans questioned the absolute right of the klingons to control their destiny. Some were even talking of a human federation of planets based around the Solar Trade Federation; a radically different political structure based on elected delegates and representatives rather than the feudal system of Klingon family oligarchies.

B'Elanna's mother was outraged at such human ingratitude after all the centuries that the klingons had protected them from the numerous warring alpha quadrant powers. Her letters were full of heated polemic and citations from ancient histories demonstrating the utter foolishness of partition.

Personally speaking, B'Elanna Torres couldn't care less about the politics. She had a foot in both camps and all she wanted was for conditions to stabilise so that she could carry on the family business in peace. Her father was likewise unimpressed by all the posturing. In any case he thought separation was inconceivable. Despite cultural differences, human and klingon affairs were inextricably intertwined and there had even been widespread inter-species marriage and migration once the old interdicts had been dissolved a generation before. B'Elanna's parents had been among the first to take advantage of the end of the old, widely hated and widely ignored purity laws.

In spite of being a beneficiary of the change in the law, B'Elanna's mother would still occasionally argue that perhaps the new laws were unwise and had served to weaken the perception of klingon strength. Her husband never failed to retort angrily that this was utter bilge and only a prejudiced old battleaxe with no trace of feeling could ever assert the contrary at which point Prabsa would smile at him as though reassured. B'Elanna had never really understood why her mother found comfort in this argument until Antonio explained one day, 'Your mother believes that personal beliefs chime with the intellectual sweep of history, B'Elanna. My certainty about the change in the law proves to her that I have no regrets about our union. It hasn't yet occurred to her that marriages might end for other reasons than political beliefs.'

The Torres marriage was a source of wonder to all who knew it, including their children. How two such disparate people could remain married, and apparently happily so, was still an occasional topic of discussion amongst the erstwhile drinking companions of Antonio Torres, in bars in every sector of the quadrant. Tony would just smile whenever one of his old friends started to bewail the loss of the good old days when the trader would disappear for weeks at a time into the inns, brothels and gambling dens, in any one of a dozen wild space-ports that dotted the lawless planets on the fringes of the trading routes. His drinking and gambling sprees had been the stuff of legend. That had all changed when he surprised everyone he knew and married the prickly daughter of the Klingon house of Torg. All he would say when asked why was, 'It seemed like a good idea at the time and it still does.'

The fate of this particular marriage was also a subject close to the hearts of the aforementioned Klingon family. The certain doom and disgrace of its youngest daughter, Prabsa, was predicted annually by B'Kor, the matriarch of Torg. Yet Qo'noS had circled the home star twenty-eight times and still Prabsa and her human husband stubbornly stuck together; quarrelling, bickering and destroying an inordinate amount of furniture (though, as their children often observed, items destroyed were usually those for which both parents had expressed a profound dislike, more often than not gifts from that same Klingon matriarch who regarded their marriage as such a strange and ill-fated aberration) yet somehow the marriage held together, confounding B'Kor's expectations. Not that Antonio's mother-in-law disliked Antonio; she very much approved of his fearlessness, lawless behaviour and hard-drinking. These were all characteristics she would have wanted in a son-in-law. What appalled her was his readiness to surrender all this for her bookish daughter!

Prabsa had been a source of great sorrow to her parents. She was more interested in poetry, opera and Klingon history than war or upholding family honour. As her mother, B'Kor, was too fond of saying: the old stories and religion were all very well and should be honoured with the appropriate customs but a good Klingon did not laze around reading about ancient warriors and valiant deeds, they went out and caused a bit of mayhem for themselves, preferably at the expense of a rival family. Unmoved by her mother's rages, the daughter of B'Kor showed a complete lack of interest in real combat or even the ritual quarrelling and fighting that characterised much of Klingon social interaction. On top of everything else that worried her parents, this unwillingness to participate in the socially acceptable rioting amongst young Klingons, made it that much less likely that Prabsa would attract the attention of a suitable mate. That their daughter was actually a very apt student of the Klingon martial arts rubbed the salt of disappointment even deeper into the parental wounds. They couldn't even blame her deficiencies on some physical malady or shortcoming. It was much worse. Prabsa was every Klingon parent's worst nightmare: she was a scholar of the liberal arts.

When, at the age of thirty two (after her mother had given up all hope) Prabsa announced her forthcoming marriage to the human pilot and transport captain, Antonio Torres, her parents barely managed to twice forbid the marriage. They were secretly so relieved to be rid of their troublesome daughter that it had been an effort to oppose the marriage at all. Although Torres was just a human, he was better than nothing they reasoned to each other in the privacy of their own bed-chamber. The marriage would get their daughter off-world, away from the mockery of other Klingon houses; at a distance, her eccentricities could be laughed off. So, at the third time of asking they had consented and B'Kor made the first of her gloomy predictions: 'You will not keep him a year child. Why should a man of action remain with a woman who prefers stories to life? Take my advice: it would be better if you did not bear children to such a marriage.'

Prabsa became pregnant within a month of the marriage and their first child was born seven months later. A girl with beautiful dark hair, a stern Klingon brow softened attractively by her human ancestry and a temper that made her grandparents proud. Named B'Elanna for a heroic ancestor of her maternal grandmother, the child was the opposite of her own mother. The little girl fought with anyone who crossed her and especially anyone who was foolish enough to laugh at her mixed heritage. In later days she extended her belligerence to the defence of her younger brothers and sisters.

The seven Torres children on an outing were a force of nature. B'Elanna's grandmother was almost misty-eyed the day the young Torres clan routed the more numerous offspring of a rival Klingon family. 'How did that dish of lukewarm gagh produce such a fine brood of young Klingons and with a human at that?' B'Kor wondered aloud to her husband several times a day.

Prabsa was not in the least misty-eyed about the battle of the stolen doll, as it became known in family legend. She grounded her oldest daughter for a month, an action that resulted in the girl stowing away aboard a freighter bound for the outer colonies. It took Antonio six weeks to find her, by which time she was working as a technician in the engine room of the freighter after impressing the vessel's captain with her knowledge of warp technology. After this episode, B'Elanna's parents decided it was time that the fourteen-year-old was apprenticed to one of her father's small but growing fleet of cargo ships.

'If she is so bored with studying that all she can find to do with her days is brawl with louts then it is time she grew up,' her mother asserted implacably. 'I have no illusions about this. She will, I am sure, find plenty of opportunity to indulge herself fighting with the dregs of the empire. She is without doubt her father's daughter.'

Antonio had some justification in objecting to this slur since he had not indulged in fighting - just for the hell of it - since his wedding. His wife had taken it on herself to satisfy her perception of her husband's need to fight by abandoning her own anti-violence principles where disputes with Antonio were involved. Their rows were occasional, titanic, both in volume and the destruction of inanimate objects, and again, a source of utter mystery to B'Kor. Why had her formerly passive daughter, whom she had never managed to provoke to any expression of anger more extreme than an exasperated sigh, suddenly become this paragon of Klingon wifehood?

Apart from the symbolic battles with his wife, Antonio had only twice found himself in a situation requiring the application of unusual force to the skulls of some thieving former associates. On both occasions, his wife had intervened to such stunning effect that potential combatants now kept clear of Antonio Torres. He was an awkward customer on his own. Together with his Klingon wife, he was lethal and, as his opponents noted humorously, Mrs Torres was right there with him at all times. Her husband seldom escaped her attention.

His wife and young family always accompanied Antonio as he plied the imperial trade routes with his cargo-ship, the yuQmey chIl SoS'a': Queen of the Lost Worlds. Consequently, the children learned to crew a starship almost before they could read or write, though their mother ensured that they were not lacking in the academic department either, nor in any of the traditional skills associated with Klingon childhoods. While Prabsa firmly discouraged frivolous warlike behaviour in her children, she trained each of them to fight with the traditional weapons, claiming that the self-discipline of martial arts would stand them in good stead. Even her youngest girl, Marta, who was the least Klingon in appearance or demeanour could wield a Bat'leth with deadly effect.

With typical determination and fair-mindedness, Prabsa did not neglect her husband's culture either. Teaching herself first, she instructed all her children so that they were fluent and literate in the two main lingua francas of humans. Reflecting their mother's obsessions, they were also well versed in human and Klingon literature and history, even if they were left with the distinct impression that human culture was less advanced than Klingon.

*******************************

B'Elanna was still preoccupied with memories of her parents when the landing authorisation was transmitted to the Queen. It took her a moment to come back to herself and start the docking sequence. The Queen's landing thrusters burned brightly against the darkening sky before the old girl settled gently into the arms of the docking bay with a mournful sigh as the engines cut their power.

Part 1b

Outside the docking bay, Tom Paris was waiting, pacing, impatient for the airlock doors to open. He was tall and germanic; handsome in a slightly unfocused way. An underlying softness in his features made him appear boyish and undercut the attitude of world weary cynicism that he maintained. He had a galaxy-full of aquaintances, and a very small solar system of good friends, of whom B'Elanna Torres was one. In fact, if it came right down to it she was his best friend and his family, so much so that they often fought like jealous siblings.

*******************

B'Elanna met Tom Paris when she was barely eighteen years of age and serving as a midshipman on his father's flagship. She was in this position because, as with most things in the Torres Family, B'Elanna's inheritance, the command of 'The Queen', had not come to her without argument.

B'Elanna's mother had insisted that her daughter should wait until she reached the Klingon age of consent for her first command. She argued that B'Elanna might know everything there was to know about operating a starship, but a captain was more than just a capable crew member; she was responsible for the lives of her crew and the passengers and they deserved more than an arrogant eighteen year-old who believed that all arguments could be settled by a good right hook. Instead her parents had enrolled B'Elanna with a rival shipping company to receive the command training she needed.

Nine years on, the eldest daughter of the house of Torres shook her head at the memory of the quarrel that followed this dictate, although looking back she was forced to accept that her mother had been right to make her wait a few years. B'Elanna had learnt a great deal while in the employ of the large Paris Shipping and Leisure group.

Old man Paris was a martinet who expected polished perfection and discipline from his officers at all times. It was totally unlike the more relaxed regime on her father's ships. She had hated it but stuck it out for her father's sake. She didn't want to embarrass him in front of one his rivals. As it turned out, Paris' son, Tom, was a far greater embarrassment to the stiff old man than B'Elanna could ever be to Antonio.

Thomas Eugene Paris at the age of twenty was a spoilt brat. To her dismay, B'Elanna found herself in the invidious position of baby-sitting the young fool, covering up his wild escapades and being unwillingly drawn into a world of youthful debauchery. Suddenly she was the responsible one and it sucked. Old Paris had not been fooled in the end and Tom was summarily dismissed from his father's company. Nonetheless the old man had been oddly grateful to B'Elanna for her efforts on behalf of Tom and had rewarded her with rapid career progression. At the end of her four years, he had offered her the captaincy of one of his freighters. Although she turned the offer down unhesitatingly, she was surprised at her sadness when she finally left Paris Shipping to rejoin her father.

She had made many good friends there and gained a surrogate human grandparent in old man Paris and a dissolute older brother in Tom Paris. Her mother often complained that B'Elanna didn't marry young Paris and yet somehow she had gained another worthless son to worry about. Prabsa's complaints died down when Tom actually married Jeri, her second daughter, and really became part of the family. He further endeared himself by his unswerving devotion to Jeri's small daughter, Miral, who is now just three years old.

Tom and Jeri and daughter, live in Khi'Tok where Jeri operates a small but popular hotel, catering to pilots and hauliers and Tom freelances as a pilot and as a part-time agent for Torres Freight Inc. They seem settled and happy. Even Tom's father has mellowed sufficiently to occasionally visit his son although the old man is adamant that this is only for the sake of little Miral whom he adores rather than admitting any affection for his errant son.

**************

At last the airlock lights changed from orange to blue and slid aside, revealing the small half-Klingon standing just inside the Queen. Tom and B'Elanna looked each other over critically.

"Still married Paris?" B'Elanna challenged.

"Still single Torres?" Tom retorted. "Not found any woman fool enough to have you yet?"

They glared at each other and then on some signal that only they could recognise, threw themselves into a bone-crushing hug.

B'Elanna grinned.

"Looks like you got the last foolish woman available in the sector. Don't tell Jeri I said that will you?" she cautioned quickly. Her sister had the Torres temper and a limited sense of humour.

"Your secret's safe for a price!"

She raised her eyebrows.

"Give me a job," he said seriously, "riding escort on the Queen."

"I don't need a shotgun on this next trip Tom. It would cut a big hole in the margins. Anyway why do you need a job? You haven't really fought with Jeri have you?" she asked anxiously. "I don't want to have to go all Klingon on your ass over my little sis!"

"Leave my ass out of this," he objected mildly and chuckled. B'Elanna still looked worried, so he said more reassuringly, "it's nothing like that. I need an excuse to leave Khi'Tok without worrying Jeri."

"Again Tom, I have to ask why?"

His expression closed. "Just trust me," he said stubbornly, "can you do that? Or do you still think I'm the unreliable and worthless son of a grand old man - only now I'm gonna cheat and disappoint my wife too. That's what you think isn't it?"

"Don't be an idiot!" said B'Elanna sounding tired. "I don't have time for this nonsense and neither should you. I just want to know if you're in trouble."

"I told you, there is just something I have to do." He looked sullen and B'Elanna knew there was no point in pursuing her questions.

"I'm planning to leave on the third," she said, "is that soon enough for you?" He grinned triumphantly and she felt compelled to add a warning. "I trust you Tom. Just promise to tell me if you're getting in real trouble."

"Fine." He hugged her. "Come on I'll help you get the Queen unloaded and we can get out of here. Jeri is waiting. She's been longing to see you, so much so she's been cooking up a storm and destroying the kitchen; I had to leave the house; it was getting too dangerous. The kid is hopping up and down for her favourite aunt and her favourite parrot too and I believe Koren's due by later to show off his new girl. It's going to be a real family affair this evening."

B'Elanna smiled a little half-heartedly. Much as she loved her family and close as they all were, sometimes they were over-whelming, especially at family celebrations.

**************************

When his family grew larger, Antonio acquired a bigger vessel and transferred his family home to the new ship. He stubbornly refused to dispose of the old Queen, saying it was part of the family and his first-born's rightful heritage, and true to his word, at twenty-two years of age, B'Elanna Torres became the Queen's captain.

The day her father gave B'Elanna, the command codes of the Queen was a major family event. Smartly garbed in the dark-blue dress uniform of the Torres Freight Company, B'Elanna's father and older siblings formed a guard of honour, escorting the new captain on a symbolic tour of inspection from the engine room to the bridge, where her father solemnly recited the commands giving control of the vessel to his daughter. Then B'Elanna's youngest brother Torg, had to recite a Klingon poem of his own composing, celebrating his sister's transition to adulthood. Protests from the young man about the appropriateness of this task for a young Klingon warrior were rejected by Prabsa with the icy admonition that anyone who believed that Klingon tradition could be reduced to bashing your cousins on the bonce was sadly mistaken or had been spending too much time with their grandmother.

The poetry reading passed off without much incident except for the youngest child's complaints that she too should be allowed to read a poem for Lanna. A compromise was finally struck allowing Marta to sing a short song for her sister. B'Elanna graciously acknowledged the performances of her youngest siblings with vigorous hugs; then, Koren, a small giant and the next eldest of the Torres clan, gave a wild whoop and picked up his relatively tiny big-sister, and threw her in the air. Karnok and Anton, both nearly as large as Koren though two and three years younger respectively, caught her on the way down. 'Put me down you stupid great oafs' she had yelled at them. At which command, the boys immediately jumped to attention and dropped their sister on the ground. 'Yes Captain' they had cried and burst into helpless laughter as she lay winded on the deck of her first command. The rest of the family followed suit, laughing 'til it hurt, apart from Prabsa who gestured impatiently at her husband. Antonio cut the grin and helped the furious young woman back to her feet, the corners of his mouth twitching. She glared angrily at him, daring him to start laughing again; instead he pulled her into a tight hug.

'Much safer,' he whispered in her ear, 'than facing down you and your mother. Congratulations, B'Elanna. I am proud of you.'

His daughter relaxed. She returned the hug fiercely and whispered in his ear, 'Thanks Dad, for everything ... except my brothers,' she qualified.

Her father snorted 'Don't mind them sweetheart, your Mother will deal with them.' True to his words, they heard Prabsa coolly sending the miscreants off to entertain their grandparents, ignoring their vociferous whispered objections that the old couple were boring and impossible to please. Antonio raised his dark head and winked at his daughter. Unable to resist his charm, B'Elanna gave an answering sunlit smile which shone from identical dark eyes and then turned in her father's arms to admire her new command. B'Elanna fell in love with her ship in that moment. The yuQmey chIl SoS'a' may have been a little out-dated but she was fast and fair; the Queen was as much a part of the family as any of the living members of the Torres clan.

At the time B'Elanna took command of the old girl, life had been good to her and her family. And so it had remained except for the usual crises that afflict any family. Karnok and Anton left the family firm and joined the Klingon imperial guard against their mother's explicit wishes. Both boys were doing very well, much to their grandmother's often expressed delight. Jeri, daughter number two, ill-advisedly ran off with an ITEC pilot who soon after abandoned her and her four month-old baby and B'Elanna admitted, to her not very surprised mother, that she rather thought she preferred women to men.

This last revelation only attained the status of family crisis when old B'Kor tried to insist that B'Elanna be sent for immediate psychological treatment since no grand-daughter of hers could possibly swing that way. Prabsa refused to entertain any such notion and recounted the story of the great maraQat, second daughter of Kahless and hero of the defence of Ogat, who had two wives. In any case as she pointed out to her old mother, B'Elanna was an adult and could do as she pleased. Not to be so easily defeated by mythical phooey and personal rights, B'Kor recruited two cousins to abduct B'Elanna and take her forcibly to be treated by a military doctor who specialised in such 'disorders'. There then followed the only armed campaign in which Prabsa had ever deigned to take part, as she rallied her family to pursue and then defeat the abductors in a violent skirmish.

It was several years before either Prabsa or B'Kor would speak to each other and then only in the sad circumstances of the death of old Torg in a pointless dispute with an equally elderly neighbour. Shortly after this his widow came for a short visit with her daughter. The visit had now lasted two years and Antonio had built special quarters on his flagship, Barcelona, to meet B'Kor's exacting standards, though publicly neither Prabsa or her mother would admit that the arrangement had become permanent. B'Kor talked constantly of her imminent return to Qo'Nos. She only stayed, she said, to counteract the influence of her bookish daughter on the extended Torres family. It was her duty as matriarch. The children and grandchildren needed a good Klingon warrior to lead by example.

Prabsa maintained an icy aloofness, ignored her mother's constant interference and ensured the old lady was treated with respect by every member of the Torres clan, including B'Elanna who learned to ignore her grandmother's constant enquiries as to when she was going to get a man. The eldest Torres child usually responded by saying she was too busy for romance of any kind, a claim which wasn't entirely untrue.

B'Elanna had little desire to settle down with anyone and this despite the best efforts of her family to find a girl that they regarded as a suitable mate for the future head of the clan. Since suitable usually seemed to equal frightful or sometimes frightening, B'Elanna had come to dread the fateful words 'We'd like you to meet..." She made a point to never stay anywhere long enough for her family to pin her down to a second meeting with any of the chosen. The side effect of this was that she never stayed long enough to develop any kind of relationship with anyone and her affairs to date consisted of one-night stands with strangers and some longer-term but entirely casual liaisons with women who were more like friends with benefits than lovers. She was looking forward to just such an encounter with an old friend in Khi'Tok if she could just get away from her family but as it turned out, that pleasant opportunity was to be out-of-reach.

*********

After several hours of hard work unloading the Queen and a couple of short scuffles with bureaucracy, B'Elanna reluctantly found herself in the bosom of the Khi'Tok based branch of her family, feeling totally overwhelmed. Every person she knew in the port seemed to have been invited for dinner. Her heart was with Arkoo who squawked with his usual remarkable acuity "Screw this. I'm outta here." True to his word the feathered one then hid in the branches of an indoor plant for the rest of the evening. His owner wasn't so lucky.

"Lanna, I'd like you to meet Tasha," said her sister, after casting a conspiratorial smile at her husband.

B'Elanna barely hid the sigh that rose in her throat. "Hi," she said resignedly. It was going to be a long evening.

TBC