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

Harry lowered his pistol. "All right. We're going to see if we can do this plan of yours."

Kim blinked. "Really?" he asked.

"Yes," Harry said. "Then, once we have the ship, we're going to fly it into the badlands and give it to...Sisko, you say?" He paused. "Wait, Benjamin Sisko? As in the Commander of Deep Space Nine?"

"No, he was formerly the Commander of Bajora Five, the station in orbit around Bajor," Kim said, sneering. "Before he decided to rebel against our glorious Empire and throw his lot in the Spockists. The only reason we have a shot at him is he's left B5 and for some covert mission - and the whole fleet has struck at his weakness."

"But not at his base of operations?" Harry asked. "Like, the center of his logistics and organization? Like, I mean, he's just one man."

"You don't understand warfare, it's clear," Kim said, shaking his head and tisking softly. Tsk tsk tsk. "You need to break the fighting spirit of your enemy."

Harry pursed his lips. "Okay," he said. "So, anyway! Taking over the ship?"

"Right!" Kim slapped his palms together. "We must first lure our superiors into a false sense of security. You will go to your positions around the ship while I sneak through the ducts to my place - I need to, uh, get near engineering. Here." he reached into his pocket, then held out a crumpled piece of paper out. Harry took it, frowning as he started to read the notes - a collection of names, allegiances, vendettas, and feuds that made the Andorian Regency period seem like the War of the Three Kingdoms. Kim nodded to him. "Any questions?"

"Well," Harry started but, with weasly quickness, his evil alter ego scrambled up into his hidey hole. He scooted away through the Jeffery's tube, whispering quietly to himself. It sounded faintly maniacal. Harry sighed, holstered his phaser, then pushed the panel back into place, grunting and hissing as he almost pinched his fingers off. He shook his hands and stepped out into the corridor.

The first thing that struck him was how much more crowded the ship was. Men in what were clearly the uniforms befitting enlisted sailors rather than officers hurried back and forth, carrying spare components and repair gear, while the PA crackled and a bored sounding male voice that he didn't recognize gave orders to different work details. Harry tugged his tunic straight, then accepted a snappy salute from a passing security NCO - who stopped, stood at attention, slammed his balled fist into his right shoulder, then thrust out his palm in a flat sweep. Harry, remembering his Dimensional Survival 102 from the Academy, gave the same salute right back. Then he continued down the corridor.

"Okay, Harry," he whispered. "Evil. Think. Evil thoughts."

He came to the turbolift and, remembering the notes that evil Harry Kim had given him, said: "Deck five."

The turbolift hummed, whirred, and after an impossibly long, sluggish trip that had to taken nearly fifty seconds, it came to a stop and he was able to step out into the corridor. Harry shook his head. "Unbelievably primitive," he muttered.

Then.

The whip almost snapped his head off. He jerked back and clapped his hand to his ear.

"Well..." a high pitched, squeaky female voice crooned out. "If isn't my purrrrfect scratching post, Ensign Kim."

Harry turned.

And knew he had to get photos.

He had to get photos, and recordings. He had to get them, and he had to bring them back to his home universe. Because standing across from him, legs akimbo, high heels spiked and red, skirt shorter than short, black cape a fluttering, was C'nola. Evil C'nola. She wore a high crested cat-crown thing with a pair of bright golden eyes set in it, two bright red bracers, and held a whip in her free hand, which she let trail through her palm as she grinned at him, toothily.

"Uh..." Harry looked for a rank pip - but before he could, C'nola snapped her whip again.

"Unless you want to have a cat-astrophic day, you should do well to bow before me, purrr!" she crooned.

Harry, remembering the utterly servile nature of his evil self, decided that bowing was also the best way to hide his snickering. He bowed low as C'nola sauntered towards him, then chuckled. "Very good, Ensign Kim. Now!" She grabbed onto his ear, wrenching him up, her voice a quiet growl. "Tell me if you notice Force Captain Amy Strong do anything...suspicious."

"Right," Harry said, wincing. She was using her claws. "I will, promise."

"Goooood..." C'nola purred. "I'll be the one to feast on that blond canary when the day is done."

"...right..." Harry said, blinking as C'nola released him, then started to saunter off. As she left, he tried to imagine an evil Amy Strong . Then he blinked. "Wait, fuck, aren't they from the far future evil universe? Or-"
"What was that?"

Harry turned and saw that T'are was approaching him. She was dressed in heavy suit of articulated blue and gold armor, her features concealed by a high gorget that looked like it was designed to lock into a metal helmet that she was currently not wearing. Her armor was adorned in the symbols and medals of...not...quite the Orion Free Captains. It was subtly different. More martial. Harry stood a bit taller and tried to figure out why the hell T'are looked so...well, sexless. Her entire body was concealed, her armor didn't even hint at her gender. If she had had her helmet on-

Her metal gauntlet grabbed onto his chest and lifted him up, then thrust him into the wall. Harry grunted with the impact as T'are growled.

"When an Orion Star Knight asks a question, worm, you answer it. Your captain isn't paying me enough to waste my time."

"I say...I said..." Harry said, dazedly. "I said, that, I was just...wondering where...C'nola got her new hat."

"Ah, the Caitian?" T'are snorted. She released him. "I see. I wonder how she gets anything done when she's always...rutting." She shuddered, shaking her head. Then she started to stomp down the corridor, her boots clumping and her armor whirring. Harry rubbed his back with a wince.

He slapped his palm against his face.

Right!

Right!

People called it the evil universe. But that was inaccurate. Well, okay, it wasn't inaccurate. It was just biased in Federation studies, because when the Federation broke into this universe, they interacted with the Federation's opposite - the Terran Empire. Because it was an oppositional universe. Not an evil one. So, T'are was from the Orion Star Knights - honorable for sale mercs rather than honorless independent pirates. Duh! Duh! And C'nola was...

"...cheesy and actually evil, instead of cool and actually nice," Harry muttered. "Right. Of course. Makes sense."

He still had no idea how there was a mirror C'nola here. But fuck it. He could figure out the timelines when he got home.

Harry paused outside of the door leading to Deck 2, Energy Management-A. He tugged his tunic straight and started to think of how to best explain why he was, uh...he wished he had his combadge so he could check his chron, but, he was pretty sure he was ten, fifteen minuets late. He started to mentally prepare himself for the Agonizer when he opened the door and stepped inside.

He almost tripped of a groaning body. He blinked. His supervisor was sprawled on his back, his face a mass of bruises. Harry lifted his gaze, to see three other ensigns were sprawled on the ground, while a slender, muscular, dark skinned ensign about his age was typing away at the computer console, humming as she worked. She had firzzy black hair and her uniform suited her - which was a polite way of saying she was smoking hot.

"...uh..." Harry said.

"Oh shit!" the girl spun around. "Uh...uh..." She said as Harry stood there. "I can explain! I'm murdering all these people...for...evil." She nodded. "...yeah, you'll buy that, right?"

Harry blinked at her.

"Fuck it," she said.

Then she sprinted right towards him. Harry immediately dropped into the defensive stance he'd been taught and drilled on by Tuvok and Amy. His arms lifted up and blocked the downward streaking kick that whistled at his head, then sprang aside as the woman punched at the air where his sternum had been. She whistled. "Dang!" she said, then kicked at his head again. Harry sprang backwards, but she kept up the attack, springing over the prone man as the door hissed shut. "You are really good at blocking!" She said as blow after blow slammed into Harry's guard as he tried to find an opening.

"Thanks! I! Practice!" Harry said, then shoved back and away, stumbling against a console. He grabbed for his phaser...only to find his holster empty.

"But, like, I'm kind of amazing, soooo..." the girl said, aiming the pistol at his chest. "Night night, evil dude!"

"Whoa!" Harry exclaimed. "I'm not evil!"

The girl narrowed her eyes. "Prove it."

Harry blinked at her, opening his mouth, then closed it. He paused. "Uh...uh...uh...the USS Voyager went missing a few months ago! Which it hasn't in this timeline if we're not in the Badlands yet!"

"Oh shit!" she lowered her pistol. Well, his pistol. "Nice to meetcha!" She held her hand out. "Beckett."

"Harry," he said.

They shook.

"How'd you end up here?" she asked.

"My evil alternate duplicate kidnapped me to steal the ship," he said.

"Oh wow, no way!" Beckett said, beaming at him. "I got stuck in a polyharmonic cave that swapped me and my evil alter ego's butt!"

"Are you also assigned to the Voyager?" Harry asked.

"I wish," Beckett said, shaking her head. "Well, actually, no offense, no I don't, since, like, you're all...lost in space and shit. Sorry about, by the way. But, uh, no, I was assigned to the Quito, an Olympic class. But in this timeline, they never frigging made an Olympic class!"

"What!?" Harry exclaimed. "But they're so cute, they have an orb."

'I know, right!?" Beckett huffed. "Asshole. Fascist assholes hate orbs."

Harry nodded. Then his head jerked up. "Wait! You can tell the Federation we're not destroyed."

"Fuck yeah!" Beckett said. "But, first, we gotta blow this sucker up." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "I figure, do a bit of sabo-tage, then we can bounce back to our universe with a transporter beam."

"Actually, my evil self has a plan to take over the ship and give it to Sisko, who's running with the Spockist rebels here," Harry said.

Beckett whistled. "Youuuu don't think small. Future Captain walking here." She grinned. "Cool! I'm down!" She looked down at the prone, groaning men. "...we should probably figure out what to do with these jerks. I...I know they're evil, but, like, I don't just want to phaser sleeping guys. I know, I was gonna blow up the ship, but, like, that's different. There are escape pods and shit."

"I get you," Harry said, nodding. He rubbed his chin. "Still. Having another good guy here is a huge weight off my mind."

"Fuckin A," Mariner said, making finger guns at him, then blowing the finger guns off, then miming twirling and holstering them.

---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRAITS

What to do with the goons?
[ ] Stun everyone, hide them in a closet! Easy, peasy
[ ] Force everyone in the room to swear to secrecy - claim that the whole beating them up thing had been a test, and they all failed, and they should thank Beckett and Harry like the WORMS that they are! Crawl, worms! CRAWL!
[ ] Write In