Title: The Leola Uprising
Author: August (appelsini@hotmail.com)
Series: Voyager, Parody
Rating: PG
Summary: The crew finally riots over Neelix's cooking
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You know the story - Paramount owns it all, blah blah blah
No rating
Cheers.
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The Leola Uprising
by August.
c1998
Kathryn Janeway groaned. She couldn’t believe that she was doing this. Again. She rolled out of bed and landed on her feet. It was killing her. He was killing her. It was the eighth day in the row she had had to do weapons check . . . the early am waking was killing her.
She dressed in a daze. She was going to kill him. She was going to haul that dimpled face right into her ready room and skin him alive. Better still, she was going sit him down and stuff him so full of Neelix’s damn Leola root that he would burst.
And he could never remind her that she had lost the stupid bet.
“Captain, another early morning?” Tom Paris greeted her on the bridge. She shot him a deadly look and stalked past. Too chirpy for this early. And . . . her thoughts wondered, she supposed that she really couldn’t do away with Chakotay. He did have his certain uses, after all . . .
Tom Paris. Annoying, patronising and totally expendable. And who the hell was this damn cheery this early in the morning, anyway? The pilot could go. And she would personally enjoy taking care of the job. Although . . . she supposed . . . he really had very little to do with it. And it was the middle of *his* afternoon, he did have every right to be cheerful.
No, she decided, walking past him without comment, this was definitely Chakotay’s fault. Definitely.
They’d already begun to refer to it as the Leola Uprising.
In her Starfleet training she had been briefed on the consequences of Cabin Fever. She knew all about the - rare - cases of crew mutinies on Deep Space missions. She supposed that Space didn’t get any deeper than Voyager.
But riots over cooking?? Who would have thought??
Although . . . she supposed, arriving at her destination and nodding briefly to the crew standing there, it was *Neelix* they were talking about.
“All systems in order, Captain.” The Ensign chirped, and Janeway nodded, turning and heading back to her quarters.
The little Talaxian *had* helped on energy conversation. And she supposed that he could hardly help that some of his creations were . . . inedible.
But a Leola root smoothie? Who had ever heard of such an absurdity? Only here in the damn Delta Quadrant could such an atrocity occur. That, along with the hair pasta, and the malevolent cheeses - no wonder the crew had rioted. Hell, if she wasn’t the Captain, she probably would have been there, making placards.
The majority of her crew had assembled in the Cargo Bay and were . . . for want of a better description . . . rioting.
And all the while, Chakotay had been standing by her side . . . smirking.
“Well Kathryn. I’m going to love seeing how you’re going to fix this one.” He whispered as they formed their ‘command wall’ and faced the crowd.
She shot him the ‘Commander, I’ll deal with you later’ look and moved to the front of the crew.
“Formations, now!!” She snarled, and watched even the most hardened Maquis stop. “Explanation, now!”
Tom Paris moved forward, looking every bit the revolutionary. “Captain, I can deal with the Leola root stew. I can accept baked Leola root. I will even eat mashed, fried or steamed Leola root. But I will absolutely, positively not drink this.” And he thrust a glass under her nose. At the first whiff, Janeway stepped back, a wave of nausea physically assaulting her.
“What . . . ?” Was all she could get out, feeling positively faint as the odour invaded her senses.
“Leola root smoothie.” B’Elanna stepped forward, her Klingon redundant stomach making her among the few who were not protesting out of sheer physical anxiety, but rather moral reasons.
“A . . . smoothie?” Kathryn said faintly, pushing the drink back towards Paris.
“And Leola root chips!! He’s even making Leola sorbet, Captain.” Ensign Parsons stepped forward.
“Ice-cream?” Kathryn looked to Chakotay, who just nodded. “How come I knew nothing of this?”
“You had . . .” He stopped as an undeniable look crossed Kathryn’s face. “Kathryn, what’s wrong?”
“Neelix.” She said quietly. Chakotay quickly looked around and turned back to her, slightly alarmed. In all of the uproar, there was no sight of the one man responsible. The faint unmistakable odour of the Talaxian was suspiciously absent from the room . . .
“Where’s Neelix?” Chakotay asked suddenly, turning to Tom.
“Neelix?” Tom stuttered.
“Yes, Mr Paris. You remember Mr Neelix?” Chakotay jeered. “Short little man, about yay high, lots of whiskers.”
“Ah . . .”
“Out with it, Paris.” Janeway said sternly.
He didn’t answer, just looked away.
It took Tuvok and an experienced security team exactly three hours to pry the doors of Neelix’s quarters open. An extremely angry crowd had soldered, gaffered and phasered them shut.
It took Janeway herself another four hours to coax Neelix out of his tub, where the rodent-like creature had submerged himself in water. She didn’t even want to know why.
It was turning out to be an absolutely fantastic day for Kathryn. And later that night, when she had gone through the incident with Chakotay, she had laughed hard.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.” Kathryn smiled. “I was just thinking that this is probably the closest we have come to having a mutiny.”
“I hardly think locking Neelix in his quarters-”
“-Chakotay, they soldered the doors shut.” She said wryly.
“Not very well, though.” Chakotay offered.
“They wanted to launch him off in a shuttlecraft!”
“But they didn’t, Kathryn. Why do you always have to look at the worst part of the situation?”
“That is the worst part.”
“Oh, you are evil Kathryn Janeway.” Chakotay said, laughing.
“Well nothing changes the fact that we still don’t have a cook. I think it’s best if I pull Neelix out of the kitchen for a while. We’re going to need to get rotations of crew in there cooking.”
“So I guess I’m going to have to go and give lessons.” Chakotay groaned. “Cooking for 200, Professor Chakotay.”
“Well, not necessarily you . . .”
“Oh, so you’re going to cook?” He laughed and it bristled Kathryn.
“I could . . .”
“Kathryn, it’s me.” He laughed again. “I lived with you on New Earth, remember?”
“I cooked there.” She said, indignity.
“Twice. The first time we got food poisoning-”
“-Chakotay, it was a very mild case. We fixed it with the tricorder.”
“The second time, you forgot to put flour in the cake.”
“It was an easy mistake. I was squeezing those fruit for the juice . . .”
“Which is another thing. *No one* eats cake and juice for dinner, Kathryn.”
“I do.”
“My point exactly. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the classes.” He said, standing up.
“Chakotay, I said I’d do it.”
“You don’t have to.” He grinned, and walked to the door. “It’s OK, I’ll do it.”
“Commander, I said I will take the classes.” Janeway snapped, suddenly angry.
“You’re serious?”
“Deadly.” She shoot back, almost covering the hesitation in her voice. Almost.
“Alright.” He walked back to her slowly. “How serious?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t think you can do. I’ll willing to back that up.” He sat back down again, moving slowly like a cat, content with its situation.
“A bet?”
“If you like.”
“You’ve been around our Lieutenant Paris too long, Chakotay.” Kathryn said, trying to dismiss it.
“Prove me wrong, make it interesting.”
“I don’t need any more replicator credits-”
“-I’m not talking about replicator credits.” He leaned forward.
“What then?” She asked, leaning in.
“Weapons check.”
Kathryn drew her breath in. Weapons check. The downfall of command, a job that Chakotay and herself spilt on alternate days. Having to rise in the middle of the night to check the battle bridge, a new procedure brought about by the way the Delta Quadrant kept popping mysteries at them. Kathryn didn’t handle waking from sleep particularly well, and especially not in the middle of her night.
What made it all the more worse was the most of the time, she couldn’t get *back* to sleep. Tuvok’s latest programme saw mostly lower ranking crew manning the bridge, and it scared her. She returned to her cabin and could only think about what those ensigns were doing to ‘her’ ship.
It was wrecking hell on her sleeping schedule. She smiled at the thought of having to forgo the ritual for a period of time. Of having Chakotay rise every day, instead of every alternate day.
It was too good to refuse, and she knew it.
Except that Chakotay was right, she couldn’t cook. And he knew it.
But she couldn’t back out now. He was an evil man.
“Alright.” She agreed, against all better judgment. “Two weeks weapon check.”
“A month.” He smiled. “Unless . . .”
“Stow it, Commander. A month it is.”
“Good.” He stood again. “I’m going to enjoy sleeping in.”