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Naomi Wildman focused on the green suitcase moving on the conveyor belt, contemplating on what to do. She was on Level 35 of “Lost Luggage,” a mini-game in the ancient edutainment game Let’s Explore the Airport. This was another game Lieutenant Paris gave her access to after digging up files on childhood video games from the late 20th Century, and she had spent the past two hours interacting with every little thing that came to life with a single click on the screen.
In this level, she had to get the green suitcase into the matching colored bin by figuring out a way to use the pushers in conjunction with the immovable pink conveyor belts with arrows pointing to a chute marked by square on each side. There were also two chutes marked with a circle that led to a gray sloping belt that took the suitcase around and around in a repetitive cycle until she could figure out how to get it into the bin.
Upon hearing the doors to the mess hall open, she glanced briefly to see Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay enter, greeting Neelix in the galley. Naomi remained silent as she timed the exact moment when to use the pushers to push the suitcase up the belt that would move it to the goal. She didn’t notice Neelix leaving the kitchen to get something from the hydroponics bay, leaving the command duo alone with her, talking amongst themselves.
At last, the suitcase reached its final destination, and the triumphant chime sounded through the speakers, accompanied by an optimistic tune indicating success. “Yes!” she whispered loudly. Upon hearing her, Janeway and Chakotay both turned and saw Naomi. The young Ktarian hybrid gulped, hoping she wasn’t in trouble. She relaxed when she saw their warm smiles.
“Hello, Naomi,” Captain Janeway greeted.
“Hello, Captain. Hello, Commander Chakotay,” she greeted timidly, standing to attention after she clicked the “Stop Playing” button.
Janeway raised her hand up reassuringly. “As you were. From the cheerful music that played, I’m assuming you’re playing a game Lieutenant Paris found for you?”
“Yes,” Naomi informed as she sat back down.
“What’s it called?”
“It’s called ‘Lost Luggage,’” Naomi answered.
“Sounds interesting,” Chakotay replied. “So, what do you do? Do you help someone find their lost luggage?”
Naomi shrugged, “Kinda, I guess. I’m supposed to adjust these conveyer belts to drop the luggage into the correct bin.”
“Can you show us?” Janeway asked. Naomi nodded and shifted position to allow the command duo to sit on either side of her. She clicked on the button to activate the mini-game right where it left off at the start of Level 36. The game’s mascot, a blue anthromorphic insect wearing an aviator suit, appeared from the side of the screen to greet the player.
“Let’s see if you can get the right colored luggage to drop into its matching bin. I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t look so easy to me.”Once he disappeared, four suitcases – red, yellow, green, and blue -- appeared on the long blue conveyor belt and moved to the right towards a smaller belt in between the blue and yellow bins.
“See,” Naomi explained, “you have to click on the belts to change their direction so you can get the suitcases in the bin of the same color. And you have to be careful to not let the luggage get into the wrong bin or fall off the belt, otherwise you have to start the level over. These small belts have to be rotated a few times until you get them right.” She then provided a visual demonstration, successfully dropping each suitcase into the right bin. Janeway and Chakotay were impressed over how she was able to figure out this puzzle.
“That’s very good, Naomi,” Chakotay praised.
“But why are the belts so slow?” Janeway asked, pointing to the two speed buttons, which featured pictures of the Tortoise and the Hare to indicate slow or fast, “If you clicked that yellow button, you could finish faster, right?”
“Yeah, but it goes really, really fast and I mess up a lot. It’s really frustrating,” Naomi replied
“Well, I could do this no problem!” Janeway claimed. “Could I do the next level and show you?”
“Sure.” Naomi scooted the computer monitor towards Janeway. She then heard Chakotay let out a quiet chuckle. “What’s so funny, Commander?”
Chakotay smirked, “She can do this no problem, huh? You’ll see. She’ll be carrying excess baggage.”
“Hey, don’t you start that with me!” Janeway shot back with a glare. “Just watch and you’ll learn something.”
Level 37 featured a single red suitcase on a straight path towards the bin guided by seven rotational conveyor belts. Almost immediately, Janeway figured out what she needed to do, and rotated the belts until they were pointing right. She then clicked on the yellow hare button to speed up the belts.
Janeway looked at Naomi and Chakotay with a satisfied smirk. “See? Nothing to it.”
Checking the screen, Naomi noticed something was off. “Uh, Captain,” she informed, “you’re not done yet.”
Janeway looked back to find that she had forgotten to rotate the conveyor belt right in front of the bin, and the luggage was bouncing back and forth, trapped in between the opposing arrows.
“Oh, oh! Wait, I got this.” She quickly clicked on the belt to rotate it upwards. She clicked it again so it would point towards the bin, but the accelerated belts allowed the luggage to move up onto the small belt above it, where the straight arrow pointed towards the edge. The luggage fell off the edge and onto the ground with a crash. Janeway winced at the sound implying that the drop broke the contents inside the case. The accompanied sound of three horns blowing and Chakotay’s sputtered laughing next to her added insult to injury.
While Naomi remained polite and showed sympathy, Chakotay guffawed at the ironic nature of this blunder.
Janeway ran her hand over her forehead and up through her hair. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Aw, can I have a do-over?”
“Yeah,” Naomi answered, “try it again.”
“I told you you were carrying excess baggage,” Chakotay quipped, “Way to shatter the owner’s trust in you handling their expensive goods.”
“Well, thanks for pointing out my emotional baggage. I appreciate that,” Janeway remarked sarcastically. “Good thing this is just a game, or I’d be facing a lawsuit in the very near future.” The screen refreshed to start the level over. “Okay, here we go.”
“That luggage has my valuables in it, so don’t drop it,” Chakotay teased.
“What valuables?” Janeway returned the ball to server. “The x-ray scan showed nothing but a hunk of junk.”
“Hey, one’s trash is another’s treasure!” Chakotay shot back, feigning offense.
This time around, Janeway was able to rotate all of the belts before accelerating the luggage’s drop into the bin. But Janeway decided to try another level and see if she would ace it in one go. Level 38 was no problem, and neither was Level 39. Level 40 was a game of patience, but she nailed it.
“Okay,” Janeway stood up and stretched as soon as she saw Neelix enter the galley from the back door. “It’s time for us to head to the bridge to continue our duty shift. Thanks for showing us the game, Naomi. It is fun.”
“You’re welcome,” Naomi replied, “I’m sorry that mess-up happened to you, but you were great at it.”
“Yeah," Janeway rolled her eyes and smirked, “let’s just pretend that never happened.”
“Okay,” Naomi giggled.
“Oh, Captain,” Chakotay handed Janeway his PADD, “I just got this in my inbox.”
Janeway took the PADD, her eyes bulging as she read what was on it. "OH NO!!!"
“District Court of the United Federation of Planets: Kathryn Janeway and Voyager Airlines, Plaintiff, vs. Chuck O. Taye, Defendant; Case number 74656-005…”
To sum up the legal jargon shown on the screen: she was being sued for personal property damages…or rather the so-called “Chuck O. Taye” was making it clear he was not going to let her live this down!
“Wait a minute!” Janeway spat, “Voyager Airlines? District Court of the United Federation of Planets? And the first number column is Voyager’s serial number. This lawsuit’s a fake!”
Naomi peeked at the PADD. “And who’s Chuck O. Taye?”
Janeway’s head shot up to glare at Chakotay, who was standing right next to the doors. What was even more infuriating was that instead of being afraid for his life, he was shamelessly grinning.
“CHAKOTAY!!!”
That was his cue to start running.
“I’ll see you later, Naomi. I’ve got a certain ex-Maquis to catch.” Janeway quickly said before taking off after him, leaving Naomi, and Neelix staring at the doors bug-eyed.
“What happened?” Neelix asked.
“It’s a long story,” Naomi answered, “But Lieutenant Paris said he does that with her a lot, so I shouldn’t worry. But I wonder how it’ll look to the other crew members to see her chasing him like that?”
Lieutenant Paris entered the mess hall with a wide grin on his face. “Whoa! I just saw the captain hot on the commander’s heels through the corridor. What did he do this time?”