Captain Janeway smiled at her most junior bridge officer. "Mr. Kim, would you care to do the honors?"

Harry's grin almost split his face. "Yes, ma'am." He touched the controls on his console to put the exchange on audio and said proudly, "Spacedock, this is the USS Voyager returning from seven years in the Delta quadrant. Request permission to dock."

"Roger, Voyager. Be advised you are fifteenth in line for entry. Assume parking orbit over Luna station and wait for further instructions."

The officers on the bridge looked at one another, dumbfounded. On the command deck, a certain redhead sat rigidly straight in the center chair. "This is Captain Kathryn Janeway. Do I understand correctly that you are putting fifteen ships ahead of us?"

"Affirmative, Voyager."

Tom Paris muttered, "They must have renamed this 'Spacedock LaGuardia.'"

Kathryn rose. "That is completely unacceptable. We've been in the Delta quadrant for seven years and we want to dock. Now."

"Are you declaring an emergency?"

"No. I'm saying we want to dock." She used the tone that had crushed the Kazon, humbled the Hirogen and beaten the Borg, the tone that half the Delta quadrant had learned to fear.

"No can do, Voyager. The Shortrange Holographic Image Tracking system is out again, and only one entry port is functional. I have twenty ships that want out and fifteen that want in, and we have to do it one at a time."

Paris looked up in surprise. "I thought the new system was supposed to eliminate the S-H-I-T system blackouts."

"We haven't had a new system since Kirk stole the Enterprise. The Federation Astrogation Authority just put the specs out to bid again. Where have you been?"

"In the Delta quadrant."

"Right. Look, if you don't want to take parking orbit, you can circle around Neptune and back. Watch for heavy traffic in the Saturn-Uranus corridor and maintain 5,000 kilometer separation."

Chakotay turned to his commanding officer, noting that she was flushed. "What shall we do, Captain?"

"Take her for 'a swing' around Neptune, Mr. Paris. And Mr. Kim, send a shipwide message that Space Traffic Control has diverted us to a holding pattern." She shook her head, and spoke to quietly to her first officer. "I really thought they would have fixed this by now. What have they been doing all this time?"

Before he could reply, the comm system sounded again. "Voyager," the controller said, "Switch to frequency 8011 and take heading 4 by 560 by 9 around Neptune. Call me when you get back to Mars."

Chakotay shrugged. For once, Kathryn Janeway didn't have the last word.