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

Kar drummed his thumbs on the hard, much loved metal of his console, and peered up at the cracked, repaired, cracked, repaired, and cracked again screen that displayed his orbits. The elegant curve of his parabolic arc swept him right through the dark side of Talamon right when he wanted it too. He checked his navs, then checked them again, then grinned and drummed even harder, humming the song squeaking out of the headset he had taken off and let float away.

He was going to do it.

He was going to do it.

Kar glanced around the small cabin that had been his home for what felt like his entire life. There was the VR headset in the back, there was the bed nook, there was the bioprocessor that was turning his spit and sweat and piss into water, with the algae vat in the back, visible as a glass pane so he could check to make sure the contained green glop was still there and growing.

And growing it was. His great great great great great great grandfather had spent his entire life, growing glass boned and spindly, breeding that algae through as many generations as he could, tweaking it until it was just the most perfect kind of oxygen emitting, food producing pile of glop you could want. Kar took pride in that. He took pride in every part of the ship, because every part of the ship stretched back and back and back and back, to his ancestors. To his people. To his Sept.

Not what people called Septs these days. Not the fake, shitty mockeries that stamped around space and pretended that they were Kazon.

Kar paused, then, seeing a blinking light on his console. It wasn't one that was used often.

It was a tachyon burst.

Kar frowned.

Every ship in his Sept had a tachyon receiver and a tachyon emitter. Subspace radio. But you only used it for big emergencies. Important things. Stuff you had to say now. It was for bad news, disasters, and maydays. There was a saying his father had said: good news waits. Bad news has to hurry.

Kar gulped, then tapped away at his console. The screen flickered and winked as he managed to connect the subspace transmitter to the main computer system and have it function properly. He still had to debug it, but that was fine. It gave him something to focus on. Then when he saw the message, it was a tight clenching squeeze in his belly. Fierce and terrible.

It was Lan.

"Oh no," Kar whispered.

He flicked on the message.

Lan appeared on the screen, her growths cut straight and pretty, in the most fusion-flash new style. She was sitting back on her bed, looking chagrined. She didn't look like she had cancer, so, that was it. Kar felt his heart thudding slightly as he leaned forward in his seat. "Lan?" he asked, not quite ready to believe that she would actually react. She was six light hours away, in the Septhome in the belt. But there she was, smiling shyly and nodding.

"Hey Kar..." she said, quietly, brushing her fingers along her green growths, her orange skin darkening. "I..." She bit her lip. "I know...it's not really...I know you're doing your big shot soon, but..."

"Yeah?" Kar asked.

"...I'm seeing someone else," Lan said, her voice blurting out. "I want to see someone else, I mean."

Kar, stupidly, wished he had the cancer now.

"What?" he asked.

"You're just always gone so long!" Lan exclaimed. "I want a boyfriend that's here, not out monopole hunting nine months out of twelve. I want someone who can hold me at night, who...who has bigger dreams than staying in a backwards Sept! I want to join Sept Ogla and see space, and...and travel faster than light and meet aliens! And I...I don't see you being a part of that. But Xon is! And...and...and..." She looked as if she had been working herself up to this and was realizing it had all come out wrong. Kar, if he had been...slightly older than eighteen cycles, might have noticed the sudden stricken look on her face, the horror in her eyes. He might have reflected this was no easier for her - that she had spent just as long psyching herself up, considering her future, and felt just as much pain at realizing that there was no room for him in it. But...Kar...

Did not.

He scowled at her. "Fine! You go join the Ogla jackboot bastards, and see if I ever talk to you again!" He slammed down the button and hung up as Lan opened her mouth to say something.

The screen went black.


Kar drifted. He drifted in space and in time.

He approached the point he had worked for a good chunk of his life. Kar didn't just hunt monopoles and dilithium out in the asteroid belt. He also did, as many teenagers did...stunts. Things to get him recognition, attention, admiration, views! And everyone knew that Sept Ogla ships were in orbit around the big fat gas giant Talamon pretty much thirty six, five. They had a secret base on one of their moons, and they didn't want anyone getting close enough to disturb it. Well, Kar had planned to shoot through the dark side of the gas giant, around the moon, and within a few hundred thousand kilometers of their fancy pants base, all without them noticing.

After all.

He was in a tiny fusion burner. Next to those big antimatter ships that the Septs and aliens (not that he'd ever seen an alien) flew, his ship was basically space dust.

Instead of being keyed up, excited, focused, Kar just leaned back in his seat and watched the stars while an old Kazon lament - Su Tolomor Vora Ma Ta Tale - rang out of his speakers. He'd always used to hate the song, which had been about watching Tazinar burn from orbit as the Takers carved the continents into chunks and cinders, as their cubes came down to begin to extract. But now? Now he felt that pain. His own heart had been ripped out and stomped on by more advanced things. Aliens.

Aliens!

"Next she would have talked about Voyager," Kar muttered. Then, angrier. "Fuck Voyager!"

It was Voyager's fault, he was sure of it. Everyone was talking about it on all the nets, all the Septs, and it filtered into his Septhome, and into his ship. Voyager did this and Voyager did that, and now some aliens he had never heard of were at peace, and blah blah blah, it was stupid. And Lan was stupid. And Kar was stupid. And the universe was stupid! And-

"Collision alert."

And he should just-

"Collision alert."

Kar blinked.

He jerked his head up and almost knocked himself from his restraints as he goggled down at the alert.

There was an unexpected piece of debris in his way, detected by his skimcraft's sensors.

"Uh..." Kar whispered. He tapped away at his console, scanning it, then scanning it again with a wave of focused emissions. The bounce back was clear. It was a ship about the same size...no, a little bigger. The hull composition was wildly different from any ship he'd ever seen, even Ogla ships. And it looked like it had been damaged, badly. A good chunk of it was floating in a debris pattern around the rest of the ship. There was a life sign aboard.

Kar frowned.

Then he got a visual bounce and saw it.

It was gray and boxy, with two sleek nacelles to either side - though one nacelle had been shattered in half. As it floated, though, he saw a symbol he had seen on the nets a million times. The swoop of a delta shape.

"Voyager," Kar growled.

---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRAITS: None

What does our sad Kazon do?
[ ] The Stardiver only has a grappler, but Voyager looks damaged. Maybe Kar can steal it! That would impress Lan! And then she'd want him back!
[ ] Open hailing frequencies and start cursing the stupid aliens out for being idiots and getting their ship busted up!
[ ] Ignore them and keep moping and listening to sad songs.
[ ] Write in

Who is on the shuttle? Choose between 1 to 3 (use a plan vote if you want just a solo character)
[ ] Brian Wacoche
[ ] Torres
[ ] D-91
[ ] T'are
[ ] Kes
[ ] Tuvok