Across the final frontier

Prologue

When Athena Maddox boarded the U.S.S. Voyager she had expected many things: She thought she would miss the sight of nature, the buzzing of bees, the humming of the chiffchaff in the garden on Earth. She thought soon she would feel confined within the starship, with the harsh protocol and fixed hierarchy, with nothing than a layer of duranium and tritanium to keep her from suffocating in space. In short, she had expected she would never find her place.

It had been her father's idea to sign in for the training course in the medical bay. Completing school Athena had been considering joining Starfleet. The idea of exploring space had always been alluring to her. However, her father had, like always, presented the facts. Athena wasn't one to follow the rules, her best class had been philosophy, in which she often outsmarted the teacher in constructing arguments both in favour of and against the prime directive. This made Starfleet not a very good idea. However, although she wasn't blind to its flaws, Athena did respect the ideas of the prime directive greatly. In her view, it was the best way to ensure good actions, even though good actions weren't always kind. She also happened to have a knack for Astrophysics, claiming that the principles of physics didn't differ a great deal from philosophy. Athena had a studious spirit and always felt the need to learn and experience new things. She loved the idea of meeting new species and exploring space.

So, one thing let to another, and her father in a last attempt to change her mind, admitted her to a training in the medical bay. The doctor was a good friend of the family and had agreed to take her in. Practicing medicine wasn't her greatest pleasure, but she did consider the profession of ships therapist and working in the medical bay was the closest she could get.

Athena had expected many things to go wrong, except this one thing, to be stranded in the delta quadrant, 60 000 lightyears from home. Missing, above all, her family and friends...