STAR TREK: A Long Road (Voyager Fix It Quest)

Tuvok nodded to Neelix. "Me and T'are will accompany you to the back. Our friend, C'nola, is tired from her exertions and will wish to remain behind in the commissary."

"I mean, that's true...very...tired..." C'nola said as a redheaded Okampan woman walked past in very tight shorts. "...hungry, too."

"All right then!" Neelix said. "Lets go back."

The three of them started out to the back rooms. The door leading into the rear closed and Neelix kept up a cheerful string of conversation as they walked: "So, I did start this place up pretty quickly after arriving - needed something to do with my hands, see," he said. "Uh, oh, Mr. Vulcan-"

"Tuvok," Tuvok said.

"I was wondering, what is the little gizmo on your head all about?" Neelix asked.

"A psionic dampener, required to protect me while walking through the Caretaker's protective dome," Tuvok said. They had entered a small lounge. There was a desk with some pieces of paper scattered across it and a rather immense collection of bottles of various shades of drink. Neelix took a red one down, turning back to face T'are and Tuvok.

"Curious isn't it..." he said. "People with strong esper talents can't go through without special tools - but us neutrals, we can get through fine."

"It is indeed," Tuvok said. "Especially when combined with the fact that the Okampa, as a people, are all highly rated espers."

The liquid poured into the glass as Neelix tipped it forward. "What do you think of that?"

T'are frowned, slightly. The question felt...significant.

That was when her com-badge chirruped. A directed whisper to hear came over the link. C'nola's voice.

//Hey, just an FYI...there are four armed Okampa on the roof of your subsection of the building. Disruptor rifles, I think\\ C'nola sounded bored.

T'are gulped, while Neelix turned to face them, holding out his glasses.

"It is strange that we are the ones being asked the questions, when you invited us back here to tell us more information about the Caretaker," Tuvok said, his voice calm as ever.

"It is an exchange of information, isn't it, Mr. Vulcan?"

Tuvok inclined his head, taking the glass but not taking the drink. T'are's finger fidgeted nervously on her pheremone masker.

//I got a good shot, wide angle. Just say the word.\\

"Very well," Tuvok said. "We are explorers. However, we have a code of conduct that includes respecting the fundamental rights of sentient beings. The plight of the suffering majority must always carry more weight than the privileged minority in unequal power structures. It is only logical - if your goal is the betterment of all people in the universe and not merely avarice."

Neelix grinned, slowly. He had very sharp canines. "Well, then." He said, then twitched his fingers twice. T'are tensed, ready to dive for cover before the disruptor blasts came in - but...instead, the room seemed to become less tense. A moment later, one of the doors opened and a tough looking Okampan man entered, a disruptor rifle slung over his shoulder. "I guess I'm pleased to meet you all. Proper introduction." Neelix knocked back a glass of red liquid, sighed, then said: "Captain Neelix, Talaxian intelligence. At your service." He gestured. "These are the revolutionaries I've managed to pick up."

"Hey," the Okampan man said, nodding.

Neelix nodded. "And we're this close to freeing the Okampa from the Caretaker...and I think it looks like you fellas are exactly what we're looking for."

Tuvok and T'are exchanged a glance. Tuvok's eyebrow went right up.

"I know you're scared," Janeway said, her voice soft but commanding. "I know you are surrounded by enemies. But...we all are, Garl. We are on the outer edge of observed space - far beyond the Borg territories, deep into the Delta Quadrent. Seventy thousand light years, at maximum warp, means seventy years of travel. The only hope we have to get home is with help - from our crew, from our ships, and from the people we meet out here. There are stable wormholes that link vast distances...all we need is one, and we can be within range of home." She stepped closer to the screen, her voice growing more firm. "You will not survive on your own - and that is what your people do. They are survivors. That means they use whatever means required. Even..." She smiled, her voice rueful. "...even working with some Starfleet rubes."

Garl Seksa's eyes narrowed. She glanced down and to the side. She shuddered, then sagged back into her seat. "...I have demands."

"We're more than willing to hear them," Janeway said.

"Firstly, I will retain my rank and uniform." Seska said. "Quarters befitting my rank. A role as...liaison between the Cardassian Union Star Navy and Starfleet."

Janeway nodded. "We can work that out. After all..." She glanced around the bridge. "...we have room."

Tuvok, C'nola and T'are sat at the table with Neelix and the Okampans. Even Kes, the lounge singer, was in - though she turned out to have a cut down snubnosed shotdisruptor strapped to her hip, the reveal of which had made C'nola literally start purring so loudly that the chair buzzed on the carpet. Neelix was letting her explain.

"For centuries, the Okampa have thought the Caretaker protected us. Kept us safe. But that's not it at all. We sustain him. He takes our psychic energy, and uses it to sustain himself - and uses his technology to ensure we reach maturation swiftly enough to keep our population stable, while using that damn Calling tower to suck energy out of people. I..." She shook her head. "When he dragged your ship here, it killed six hundred of us. Outright."

"Gods," T'are whispered.

"Okampa, without the Calling, would live to be standard humanoid lifespans, between nine to twelve decades...well, not these Okampa," Neelix explained. "The tachyons used to enhance their maturation have cut their lifespan down to three decades. But even that isn't given them, because the Caretaker harvests them at six to eight."

"He doesn't want us to get old," Kes said. "Old Okampa who haven't been Called lose control of their esper powers."

"Well," C'nola said. "Fuck."

"Your ship, from what we've observed, is powerful enough to destroy the Array, if its shields are down. We can take them down by destroying the Calling Tower - it's what transmits the energies to orbit," Neelix said. "My people have wanted to take the Caretaker down for years."

"Why?" Tuvok asked. "While this is a worthy cause for purely moral reasons, interstellar states rarely do the moral deed for no reason."

Neelix inclined his head. "Well, it keeps kidnapping our ships to try and find replacement parts, drags strange aliens into the area and lets them roam around - you're the fifth ship that its brought here and then released. And, even ignoring all that, if the Takers notice, they'll sweep into the area. My government wants to avoid that almost as much as they want to avoid another run in with an advanced, unexpected alien spaceship." He laughed, softly. "The last one we ran into almost restarted the war with the Haakonians."

Tuvok nodded. "T'are, is this all consistent with your scans?"

"Yes," T'are said. "And the Caretaker's story seemed fishy from the start."

"I'm down," C'nola said, adjusting her pattern buffer. A class-3 phaser rifle popped into her hands with a flash, complete with a very non-regulation reflex scope strapped to the top of it and a bayonet lug, with extra hardened plating around the edges to make it heavier - and thus, a better club. She immediately started adjusting the sight. "We get this bad boy into the Calling center, set it to overload-"

"Whoa, wait, wait!" T'are said, holding up her hands. "If we do that, the Caretaker...he's the...only way home."

"A way home at the cost of hundreds of innocent lives is no acceptable answer," Tuvok said. He frowned. "How detailed is the Caretaker's psionic sensing?"

"Here? We've got scramblers set up," Neelix said, then grinned. "Why do you think I'm still alive?"

Tuvok nodded. "Such precautions are not aboard Voyager. Yet." He tapped the com-badge. "Away Team to Voyager, come in Voyager."

"This is Voyager actual," Paris' voice came over the link. "What's up?"

Tuvok considered for a moment. "I need to communicate with crewman Gary Mitchell about a matter of some importance. I will signal to you again only once he is on the bridge and fully prepared." He tapped off the communication badge.

"Who is Gary Mitchell?" Kes asked.

"I have no idea," T'are said, her brow furrowing.

"Do we have a Gary Mitchell in the crew logs?" Paris asked, turning and looking back at Janeway. Janeway, though, was already at the science console. Her fingers played over it, frowning as she did so. A moment later, the whole ship buzzed with harmonic resonances, before the hull settled down.

She nodded. "Bring him back on."

"All right," Paris said, shrugging. "Tuvok, you're back on."

Tuvock then outlined the basics.

"Ah," Janeway said. "I see."

Janeway...could say the word 'ah, I see' in a way that implied phaser cannons and photon torpedoes and burning spaceships.

D-91 lifted his head. "I must remind you captain...we are meant to find peaceful solutions."

---
Well?

[ ] This is the peaceful solution - violence is violence, even if it's prettied up with crystal palaces and euphamisms.
[ ] Hail the Caretaker. Lay out that things...have to change. If he refuses, well...we have quantums.
[ ] Write IN

CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT SCENE TRUTHS: (on ship) "Locked on Neutrino Flux", "Psionic Dampening" [Advantage] | (Away Mission) "Everything Is Perfect In The City", "Ambient Tachyon Energy", "Psionic Dampening"