Chapter 6: Stardust and First Light
The air in the mess hall was stale, recycled one too many times. Tom pushed the cold dregs of his tea around the bottom of the mug, watching the synthetic leaves form a slurry. He’d lost track of how long he’d been sitting there, the quiet hum of the ship a poor substitute for sleep. The door hissed open.He noticed her the instant she entered.
The Voyager was quiet at this hour. Most of the crew had long since disappeared into their quarters, leaving only the hum of the ship and the distant glow of the stars beyond the windows. Then Kes appeared in the doorway and somehow became the center of the entire room.The burgundy uniform she wore immediately caught his attention. It was unmistakably Starfleet in inspiration, yet far less formal than standard duty wear. Sleeveless and closely tailored, it followed the natural lines of her figure without looking restrictive. A small delta insignia rested over her chest, while a narrow keyhole opening at the neckline broke up the otherwise clean, elegant design. The dress ended well above the knee and was paired with matching burgundy ankle boots that completed the look.She spotted him almost immediately and smiled.
That smile alone changed the atmosphere of the room.As she crossed the mess hall, she never seemed to simply walk. She moved with an easy confidence that drew attention without appearing to ask for it. The fitted uniform shifted naturally with every step, the dark fabric catching highlights from the overhead lighting as she approached. Her posture was relaxed, shoulders loose, expression open and playful.
“Couldn’t sleep again?” she asked, her voice soft in the large, empty space.
“Must be a habit,” Tom said, leaning back in his chair.His mug felt suddenly childish in his hand. “You?”
“My habits are different.” She didn’t go to the replicator. She simply stopped near his table, not quite sitting.The evening begins with her simply standing in the aisle between the tables. She isn’t trying to command attention yet. Her hands are hidden behind her back, shoulders slightly drawn inward, giving her posture a surprisingly modest appearance.Her feet are close together and her weight rests mostly on one leg. She smiles openly, warmly, almost shyly.The burgundy tunic is immaculate. The sleeveless cut exposes her shoulders and arms completely. The high collar frames her neck while the teardrop-shaped opening at the chest breaks up the otherwise severe uniform line. The fitted waist narrows sharply before the fabric follows the curve of her hips. A short asymmetrical slit reveals part of one thigh whenever she shifts her weight.Tom’s first impression is not confidence.
It’s friendliness.She looks genuinely pleased to see him.
“Long day in sickbay?” he ventured, needing to say something.“A few routine scans.The Doctor is cataloguing Delta Quadrant allergens. He’s terrified someone will sneeze during a critical procedure.” She tilted her head, the light catching the delicate decorative clips in her auburn hair.“Your day was longer. I saw the helm logs. More evasive maneuvers.”
“Just hornets,” he shrugged, echoing their previous conversation. “Swat, dodge, repeat.”
“You make it sound so simple.” She drifted closer, her hip now resting against the edge of the table next to his. “But it’s not, is it?All those lives, depending on your hands. On your instincts.” Her gaze was direct, utterly without guile. “Do you ever think about what would happen if your reflexes were just… a half-second slower?”
The question was a needle, precise and sharp. It found the space between his ribs where all his old doubts lived. “All the time,” he admitted, the words coming out more raw than he intended.A few minutes later the reserve vanishes.
Without warning she throws one arm straight into the air as if celebrating a victory only she understands. Her entire body lengthens.One boot leaves the floor and bends backward behind her.The pose is spontaneous and energetic. Her smile broadens into something almost mischievous.
The raised arm stretches the line of the tunic, tightening the fabric through her torso while the lifted leg emphasizes the length of her other leg. The movement feels completely natural, like she has suddenly remembered something amusing and acted on the thought immediately.
“What was that?” Tom laughed, startled.
“Ocampa greeting,” she replied, lowering her leg but keeping her arm aloft for a moment longer, a playful challenge in her eyes. “You don’t believe me?”
“Should I?”
“We have greetings for all kinds of moments. That one is for… when you find someone exactly where you hoped they’d be.” She finally let her arm drop, taking the seat across from him. “So, no, I don’t believe you.”
They laughed, but the sound dissolved quickly into the quiet.
While they talked about duty assignments, navigation reports, and recent shipboard gossip, Tom found himself repeatedly noticing small details. The way she leaned against tables instead of sitting normally.The way she tilted her head whenever she listened. The way she always seemed completely comfortable occupying space. Tom can't help but look into her cleavage and her beautiful legs.It wasn’t just looking.It was a constant, low-grade awareness. The shadow in the keyhole opening.The smooth line of her thigh where the slit fell open as she crossed her legs. The way the fabric pulled across her chest when she gestured.It felt dangerous, this attention. Like noticing a helm alert blinking at the edge of your vision while trying to hold a course.
“You’re doing it again,” she said softly, cutting off his anecdote about a plasma coil repair.
“Doing what?”
“Deflecting. You were talking about B’Elanna’ temper, but your eyes were… somewhere else.” She didn’t sound accusatory.Curious. “It’s okay, you know.To look.”
Heat crept up his neck. “Is it?”
“For an Ocampa, attention is a form of respect. We live too briefly to be ignored.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and the neckline of her uniform dipped slightly. “You think it’s the uniform, don’t you? That it’s this… thing I’m wearing that’s causing this.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s a piece of fabric, Tom.It doesn’t change what’s underneath.” She held his gaze. “You kissed me the other night. Was that the fabric?”
“No.” The answer was immediate, visceral.The memory of her mouth on his flooded back, warm and insistent.
The memory of her mouth on his flooded back, warm and insistent. It left him momentarily wordless, caught between the ghost of that kiss and the woman now studying him across the table. “No,” he repeated, quieter, the word hanging in the recycled air. “It wasn’t the fabric.”
She held his stare for a long moment, then her expression softened into something private. She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping lightly against the deck plating. Without another word, she stood and walked a few paces to the center of the empty mess hall, then turned to face him.Now she stands facing him at a slight angle. Her long copper-red curls have been let loose and fall down her back and over one shoulder. Both arms rest naturally at her sides.Nothing dramatic.Nothing theatrical. She simply stands there allowing herself to be looked at.One knee relaxes slightly while the other leg bears most of her weight. The tunic hangs smoothly across her hips. The overhead lights catch faint highlights in the fabric and along the contours created by the tailored seams.Her smile has become quieter now.More knowing.More deliberate.
Tom didn’t move from his chair.He watched, understanding this was its own form of communication. Her stillness was an invitation, a question posed without words. The hum of the ship’s environmental systems seemed to grow louder, a constant white-noise backdrop to the silent exchange happening between them. He noticed everything: the way her chest rose with a slow breath, the subtle curve of her waist where the uniform nipped in, the casual fall of her hair against her collarbone.Then she starts using the furniture. She drifts toward one of the tables and plants her left hand on the metal edge. Her body leans diagonally backward while her right hand settles lightly against her thigh. The shift completely changes her silhouette.Her shoulder nearest the table drops lower.One hip rotates forward. Her knees angle toward each other.She isn’t sitting.She isn’t standing fully upright either. She’s occupying the space between those positions.Her eyes stay fixed on Tom. The expression says she is enjoying the attention.“You’re doing it again,” he finally said, his voice rough.
“Doing what?”
“Making a point without saying anything.”
“Maybe the point isn’t mine to make.” She pushed off from the table and moved toward the replicator, her movements fluid. “Maybe you’re making it for me.Tea. Orange blossom, hot.” The mug materialized with a faint shimmer. She picked it up, the metal cool in her grasp, and turned back to him.At some point she acquires a metal mug. Now she leans against the table with her right hand behind her supporting part of her weight while her left hand casually holds the cup near her waist. One ankle crosses lightly in front of the other.The pose is effortless.Relaxed.Comfortable. The mug gives her something to do with her hand, but she never looks at it. Her eyes remain on Tom while she smiles over the rim. The uniform appears softer here because her torso twists slightly toward him, creating new folds through the waist and stomach.
“Do you want to know what I think?” she asked, her thumb stroking the side of the warm mug.
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.” She took a small sip, her gaze never leaving him. “I think you’re afraid of what’s underneath the fabric.Not the person.The… consequence. The reality of it.” She paused, letting the words settle. “That kiss wasn’t an accident, Tom.It was a choice we both made. And choices have trajectories.”
He stood up slowly, the chair sliding back.The distance between them felt charged, unstable. “Trajectories,” he echoed, taking a step toward her.“You mean like a ship’s course. One degree off and you end up lightyears from where you thought you’d be.”
“Exactly.” She took another sip, watching him over the metal rim.Her posture remained relaxed, but her eyes were intent. “So I’m standing here.And you’re standing there. And the ship is on its course. The question is… are we?”
The question is… are we?”
He took another step, closing the distance until only the small table remained between them. His fingers traced its cold metal edge, a tactile counterpoint to the heat he felt radiating from her. The ship’s endless hum seemed to lower in pitch, becoming a tangible presence in the room.
“A course implies a destination, Kes,” he said, his voice lower now, stripped of its usual casual humor. “I’m not sure I know what ours is.”
“Maybe that’s the point.” She lifted the mug and took a final, slow sip, her throat moving as she swallowed.Her eyes never left his.She held the moment, the sound of the sip somehow intimate in the quiet.
Then she set the mug aside.The soft clink of metal on the tabletop was definitive. It marked a shift, a decision. The playful challenge in her posture melted away.She remained leaning against the table but her expression changed. The smile faded.Her head tilted slightly downward while her eyes remained lifted toward him, watching him from under her lashes.Now she looked thoughtful.Listening. Interested.
One hand rested on the table behind her for support, while the other hung naturally beside her leg.The pose felt less playful and more personal, as though the conversation had moved beyond small talk into something harder to define.She was giving him the floor, and her full attention.
“You said I’m afraid of the consequence,” Tom continued, the words coming easier in this new quiet. “You’re right.I am.What happens after? On a ship this small, with nowhere to go… a wrong move isn’t just personal. It’s structural.It could fracture the crew.”
“And a right move?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.It wasn’t a challenge.It was a genuine question.
“I’m less familiar with those.”
Then she shifted again.
Her left hand rose toward her hair in a slow, unconscious gesture.Her fingers brushed near her ear, partly tucking loose auburn strands back behind it. The gesture was small but intimate because it briefly exposed the line of her neck, the delicate shell of her ear, drawing his attention upward.Her body remained supported by one arm against the table, the angle of her torso becoming more pronounced.The smooth burgundy fabric pulled subtly across her chest with the movement.
The smile returned, smaller this time.More private.As though she had just heard something she liked in his unguarded admission.
“You think in terms of damage control, Tom,” she said, her hand now resting lightly on her collarbone.“Always the aftermath.What if, for once, you thought about the moment itself?Just the moment. Without the ghost of the penal colony or the fear of tomorrow on your shoulders.”
He let out a slow breath, a tension he hadn’t named seeping from his shoulders.“The ghosts are pretty good navigators.They keep me on course.”
“Good navigators,” she echoed, a smile touching her lips.She pushed off from the table, a deliberate shift in the energy between them. Her gaze drifted to a nearby chair, its metal frame gleaming under the muted lights.She considered it, her head tilting as if appraising a new idea.Eventually, she chooses a chair.
It was not the one across from him, nor the one she’d vacated. It was a third, set slightly apart, its back to the vast starfield of the viewport.She walked toward it with a soft, unhurried grace. “I like myself, Tom,” she said, the statement simple and declarative.She paused beside the chair, her hand resting on its cool back. “And I like you. The question is: do you?”
She lowers herself into it sideways, crossing her legs neatly.One arm drapes over the chair back while the other rests against the table. Her posture is remarkably relaxed.
She wasn’t facing him directly, but presenting herself in profile, a study in casual confidence. The line of her body was an unbroken curve from shoulder to crossed ankle.Not formal, but playful—she was demonstrating and presenting her body to him as a gift. One leg extended slightly farther than the other, emphasizing the length of both. The tunic remained smooth across her waist while the crossed-leg posture created new tension lines through the skirt.
She looked completely at home, and very seductive. He knew at this moment that he wanted those legs to be wrapped around him.And she sat as if she had forgotten the rest of the ship existed.
“Do I like myself?” Tom asked, moving to lean against the table near her. “Or you?”
“Yes.”
He let out a slow breath, watching her. The ship’s ambient hum was the only sound for a long moment.“The first one’s complicated. The second one… isn’t.”
“Complicated is just a word we use when we’re scared of simple,” she said.Her fingers traced a pattern on the tabletop, an idle, abstract motion. “You flew us through a Kazon armada today. You don’t find that complicated.”
“That’s just math and reflexes.This…” He gestured between them, a vague motion. “This is a different kind of vector.”
“It’s the same principle.You plot a course. You commit.” Her grey-blue eyes held his, unblinking. “Or you stay safe in orbit, watching the stars go by.”
The conversation stretches on.They talked about nothing and everything. The peculiar taste of Neelix’s latest leola-root concoction. The way the Doctor had started singing opera during sterilization cycles. The quiet, almost imperceptible shift in the crew’s morale over the last week, a restlessness that hummed beneath the decks. Tom found himself talking more than he intended, his words flowing easier in the shelter of her attention.
She shifts deeper into the chair.Now her elbow rests against the chair back while her fingers touch the side of her head. Her other hand remains on the table. Her head tilts slightly and she watches Tom with an expression somewhere between amusement and curiosity.The pose felt conversational.She looked like someone settling in for a long story. Nothing about her appeared hurried.Nothing suggested she intended to leave anytime soon.
“Your ghosts,” she said softly, interrupting his story about a failed spectrometer. “Do they ever tell you to just… live?However briefly?”
The question struck a different chord. It wasn’t about consequence, but permission.“No,” he admitted. “They’re not that kind of ghost.”
“What a waste.” She said it without malice, a simple observation. Her thumb stroked her own temple, a thoughtful gesture. “All that energy, just to keep you in a holding pattern.”
Finally, the scene circles back to where it began.Her posture had evolved again. Her hair seemed shorter now, the auburn strands framing her face rather than cascading down her shoulders. She sat comfortably with one leg crossed over the other. One elbow rested against the chair back while her head leaned into her hand.Her smile was the brightest of the evening so far.Open.Relaxed. Genuine.The uniform had become almost secondary now. What stood out most was how comfortable she looked.The nervousness of the first image had disappeared completely. Throughout the evening she had moved gradually from standing politely in the aisle to occupying the room as if it belonged to her.
Every transition felt natural.A hand finds a table.A shoulder leans.A leg crosses. A strand of hair is adjusted.A chair becomes more comfortable.Nothing happens abruptly. She simply keeps settling closer and closer into the moment.
Tom watched her, this woman who lived her whole life in a decade, who saw time as a compressed, urgent thing. He felt the weight of his own protracted hesitations, the slow, careful calculus of every move he’d made since Janeway pulled him from that cell.
He felt the weight of his own protracted hesitations, the slow, careful calculus of every move he’d made since Janeway pulled him from that cell. Kes watched him process this, her chin now resting in her palm. The ship’s lighting cycled to a lower night-time setting, bathing her in softer, shadowed tones.
She unfolded herself from the chair with a fluid grace that seemed to disregard the passage of time. One moment she was seated, the next she was standing before him, a study in deliberate composure. Her posture was a languid curve, one leg crossed neatly over the other, creating a long, uninterrupted line from the hem of the burgundy tunic down to the pointed toes of her boots.
Her right arm rose high above her head, fingers extended in a playful gesture that stretched the fabric taut across her torso. Her left hand rested casually on the table beside her.The pose made no practical sense; it existed purely because she wanted to be seen. Her smile was broad and genuine, eyes locked directly on Tom.
“You did it again,” he laughed, the sound rough in his dry throat.
“What?” she asked, her laugh a lighter counterpoint.“That Ocampa greeting.” He shook his head, gesturing vaguely at her extended arm. “The whole… reaching-for-the-stars thing.”
She lowered her arm slowly, the movement itself a kind of caress of the air between them.Her smile turned predatory. “Well,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “Maybe it’s not a greeting after all.” She winked, a swift, deliberate flash of intimacy.
The transition to the next moment was subtle. She stood and moved closer to one of the empty tables, her movements utterly silent on the deck plating.Both palms came to rest flat on the metallic tabletop as she leaned forward slightly. Her shoulders rolled forward just enough to soften the line of her posture.
Her face tilted upward beneath loose strands of auburn hair.The bright grin was gone, replaced by something quieter and far more focused. She looked at him from underneath her brow, as though waiting to see whether he noticed the difference. The tunic hugged her torso more tightly in this position.
The fabric stretched smoothly across her waist and followed the contours of her body without any unnecessary decoration. From his position, her eyes became the focal point, but the pose naturally drew attention to the elegant line of her neck and shoulders as well. He could see the faint pulse in her throat.She shifted her weight, a small, deliberate adjustment. She leaned forward while moving her hips back.The burgundy fabric tightened, riding higher. The motion was unequivocal, an offering laid bare. From this angle, he could see she was not wearing anything beneath the uniform.The full curve of her was displayed for him, pale skin stark against the dark material.
The air in the mess hall no longer felt recycled. It felt charged, thick with a potential that stole his breath.
“Do you like what you see now, pilot?” The question came in a hushed whisper, a secret shared across the gap of polished tabletop.
“I do.” He replied without realizing he’d spoken. “Very much.”
A moment later she straightened slightly, the motion fluid and unconcerned. One hand remained on the table while the other hung naturally at her side.The pose was less playful and more confident.Her expression remained calm and self-assured.
She wasn’t performing now; she was presenting herself. The angled seam across the front of the uniform became more visible, guiding the eye toward the narrow waist created by the tailored cut. Tom found himself noticing details he probably shouldn’t be studying this carefully—the way the fabric followed the subtle flare of her hip, the way the sleeveless design left her arms completely uncovered, the way she never seemed to break eye contact.He stood up. His own chair scraped back, a harsh sound in the quiet.She moved even closer now, stepping into his space until her legs were between his. The scent of her, floral and clean, cut through the sterile ship air. She slowly took his hands, her fingers warm and sure. She placed them on her lower back, her gaze holding his, allowing him to feel the heat of her through the thin fabric.
Then she guided his hands lower, over the curve he had just seen.His palms met bare skin, smooth and warm. He inhaled sharply, a jagged sound.Her lips parted.
“Your ghosts,” she whispered, her breath feather-light against his cheek.“Are they talking now?”
“They’re… quiet.” It was true. The usual noise in his head, the chorus of past failures and future doubts, had faded to a distant hum. All that remained was the tactile reality of her under his hands, the sight of her lips, the profound quiet of the ship around them.
“Good.” She leaned in, her body arching into his touch. “Then maybe you can hear me.”
His thumbs traced the dimples at the base of her spine.He could feel the powerful, graceful muscles beneath her skin. “I’m listening.”
“I’m not a complication, Tom. I’m a choice.” Her voice was low, each word deliberate.“A simple one.Yes or no. Here or not here.”