“Lightfoot? No, that doesn’t work either.” Cat Saez and blown into sickbay, flowed past two nurses, barely avoided colliding with a freestanding console and appeared at Willow’s bedside with grace and style. She’d even managed to fit in a few quick greetings in her very quick journey before she’d tried another attempt at a callsign for Willow.

They still weren’t friends, barely even friendly, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on Cat’s behalf. She’d dragged Willow to that arcade on Kyban and they’d bonded at least in demolishing a bunch of uppity landlubbers. She’d even told the captain she wanted to cross-train Willow just in case. Republic after all had a small bevy of pilots for shuttles and the ship, but only one squadron of fighter pilots.

But to be a Witch, one needed a callsign.

And nothing the squadron had tried, they liked.

“We just got to let her fly till she fucks up,” Flop had insisted.

“Or identify a personality trait you all find…endearing,” Blunt had pointed out at one point.

Cat shook her head, dismissing the train of thought and tossing a padd onto Willow’s lap before perching herself on the end of the biobed. “First scans of the Leytan system from Atlantis. Thought I’d bring them down to you.”

“Who’s at the helm right now?” Willow asked, her words slow and precise, like she had to wrestle with them before speaking. The padd was considered, even picked up, but only briefly looked at before set back down.

“Trid’s holding down the fort.” Cat held her hands up defensively. “We’re barrelling along in a straight line with nothing around us. The ship can practically fly itself right now. Besides, Trid’s a big girl, she’ll call for help long before something happens.”

“Unless something just happens.” Willow blinked a few times. “Ever heard of the wormhole the Enterprise encountered intercepting V’Ger?”

“Professor T’rek, Astro 203. Warp Field Geometries.” A shorter way of saying ‘Yes, Willow, I attended the same classes you did’ without having the sarcasm dripping off the walls.

The argument died there and then, Willow unable to rally the stubbornness needed to drive the point home. She let out a breath, slowly lifted the padd again and took a look at it, struggling with the contents on it. Minutes dragged on before she set it down, Cat still present, just watching Sickbay go about its natural rhythms. “Why are we going somewhere that’s three hundred and sixty light-years away again?”

Cat turned, an eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Leytan,” Willow clarified. “It’s three hundred and sixty light-years from here.”

Now it was Cat’s turn to blink confusedly. “More like forty light-years, Beckman. Well, from Framheim anyway.”

“No,” Willow argued. Her brow furrowed as she typed a query into the padd in her hand, pulling up information that disagreed immediately with what she knew.

She knew where Leytan was. She knew how far away it was. But the padd presented her with contrary evidence. It didn’t match with what she knew. The padd said they were heading straight there, a mere thirty light-years now. But she could feel their course curving away from Leytan, so far off in the distance, the ship crawling at a snail’s pace.

“Hey, Beckman, you still with us?” Cat asked, waving a hand in between Willow and the padd. “Beckman?”

“This isn’t right,” Willow answered, handing the padd to Cat. “We’re not going the right way.”

“Well, we are.” Cat took the padd and looked Willow over, moving her head around as if the change in perspective might unlock some special insight. “Is your whole godly pathfinding out of whack or something?”

Willow mustered a glare, even a grumbled expletive. “Go away,” she then muttered after a pause. “I’m tired.”

The typical wash of loud noise that might have spilled out of Doctor Pisani’s office whenever the door opened was absent when Cat stepped in. “Got the door and music thing all fixed, I see?”

“Was never broken,” Blake admitted. “But when I’ve got a patient with unexplained migraines who I’ve opted for constant observation, and isn’t drugged up to the gills anymore, I’ve opted for patient care versus deflecting my own staff.”

“You know you could fit a sound-cancelling sheet above the door? No sound would ever get out. Could even tie it in with your music so everything else could pass, just not your music.”

“What part of ‘deflecting my own staff’ didn’t you get?” Blake countered, leaning back in her chair. “What’s up, Lieutenant Saez?”

“How much longer do you think she’s going to be out of it?” Cat didn’t sit, but stopped behind one of the chairs, hands planted firmly on its back.

“You’re not her commanding officer, or the captain, so no.” Blake shook her head. “And I get it; you’re worried for a fellow pilot. But still, no, I’m not going to divulge medical information to you without Beckman’s consent.”

“Can’t blame me for trying.”

“I could,” Blake challenged. “But I won’t. You’re asking from a good place, but I’m not going to go about spilling secrets. Just remember that in the future, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Cat pushed herself back up straight, took a step to the door and then aborted, turning back on Blake. “You know her party trick, right?” She waited for Blake to nod once. “She swears Leytan is actually three hundred and sixty light-years away and we’re going in the wrong direction.”

“And for a simple doctor?” Blake squinted for a half-second. “Wait, we’re like thirty or so light-years out, right?”

“Theres about.” Cat shrugged. “Thought you’d like to know.”

“Hold up.” Blake got to her feet, turning to the large wall monitor behind her desk. A quick double tap and the artificial scenery of some idyllic pastoral landscape disappeared, replaced with sleek computational interfaces. “Computer, bring up star charts with a radius of four hundred light-years around the Leytan system and then draw a circle at three hundred and sixty light-years from Leytan as well.”

The electronic minion bleeped in acquiescence before the monitor filled with the requested chart, wholly out of place in sickbay. A bright red circle sat just inside the outer edge as requested.

“Cait, Free Haven, Cardassia, Galen,” Blake was working her way down the left-hand side of the circle, listing off major systems close enough to the red circle.

“Vadia,” Cat added, pointing at the Federation end of the transwarp conduit. “Last place she truly had her bearings. And…”

“And what?” Blake asked.

“And, if we were here, in this place, a few months ago, Vadia would technically be the closest point to non-Shroud space.”

“Back through the conduit,” Blake concluded.

“Back through the conduit,” Cat agreed.