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

Wacoche ignored the banter for the moment - his eyes were focused, steely and steady, on Mack. Mack was regarding him with the same focus - differences between Iotian culture and Federation culture notwithstanding, they were both commanders on dangerous missions. Mack frowned. "Ronda, baby," he said. "Hows about you take the green looker back to peep at the doohicky? Gams for days, that one-"

"Fer the last time, Mack, this is no doohicky!" Ronda said, her exasperation clear through her thick accent. "It's a space-time caperator." She grinned, turning slightly to whisper to T'are. "It slices into space time like a fancy heater into one of them big old bank vaults, y'know, back before they made energy screens."

"Oooh," T'are said.

"And the rest of us, we stick with you," Mack said, nodding to Wacoche. "Keep an eye on you. Maybe you can show us around this ritzy place. Intraduce us to yer boss."

"Boss...Janeway, you want to meet Boss Janeway," Wacoche said, his voice slow and growing more amused by the syllable. "Of course. Of course. I think Boss Janeway would love to meet you."

"And we're fixin' to meet him. Thinkin' maybe he and the Boss can cut a deal, y'know?" Mack said, as Wacoche slapped his shoulder, drawing him away from Ronda.

"...maybe," Wacoche said. "But wes have to work together to find Janeway, first."

"Right!"

The groups split, with T'are smiling brightly at Ronda, who was looking down at her fishnets, then up at her top. "So, what does this mean? Bottom?" she gestured to T'are's chest. T'are blinked, then looked down at the BOTTOM stenciled across her chest.

"Oh! It's a Terran term," she said, nodding. "Essentially, it denotes your preference visa vi penetrative sex as to being the giver or receiver when there may be a question in who may be doing the penetrating or being penetrated. In this case, it means I wanna ride a strap hardcore." Ronda, who had been mid-strike, managed to walk directly into a bulkhead rather than take the gentle right. She sprang back, shook her head, then spun to face the green woman.

"You don't mince words, do ya!?" Ronda asked, shaking her head, her voice shocked. "I-I ain't even heard dames who work down at the cathouse talk so...so...so...straight!"

"You know, it's funny you call it that," T'are said, giggling softly. "Because, see, in the Terran parlance that top and bottom comes from - oh, uh, top is the one giving the penetrative sex, while bottom is the one taking it, to be clear. There's also switching, but that can also be for domination and submission stuff. Since, you can dominate while bottoming, or sub while topping, or switch both of them. It's really a broad spectrum!" She clapped her hands together. "Anyway, basically, Terrans also had terms for homosexual and heterosexual attraction, and straight was one of the slang terms for heterosexual! So you see why it's funny, right?"

Ronda, her shoes thumping softly on the felt carpet of Voyager's corridors, shook her head as her energy tommy gun jounced against her hips.

"...cause, like, we're not straight, if we were gonna have sex, since we're both women," T'are said, gesturing between herself and the woman.

"Whoa!" Ronda exclaimed. "We are not...I am not gonna tangle no sheets with a skirt!"

"I said if!" T'are said, hurriedly. "Sorry! We Orions are a lot more relaxed about, uh, tangling the sheets. With or without skirts." She paused, glancing down at herself. "I think these are called booty shorts, actually."


Brian Wacoche and Mack were the first to open the doors that led, at last, to Janeway.

"Well, well, looky here!" Mack said. "You've been holdin' out on me!"

Wacoche frowned - but when he glanced back at Kes, he saw that she had put her hand over her mouth in momentary surprise...then gave him a subtle little nod. Then she mouthed the word 'holodeck.'

Which did explain why this door lead to a perfect recreation of a mid 20th century club - the fronds and plants surrounding the place were all in art deco planters and the tables were made of polished wood. In the center of it all was a tall, luminously beautiful blond singer in a pale white dress, and she clung to the slender microphone that took her singing voice and crooned it throughout the entire room over several artfully placed P.A systems. A small band played accompaniment, while waiters hurried from table to table with drinks, the clink and clatter of it all muted by the design of the room. Mack, Wacoche and the rest of the ersatz away team stepped inside.

Mack was so distracted by the glitzy surroundings that he missed what Wacoche saw out of the corner of his eye: a man with a deadly looking snub nosed semi-automatic pistol held low in one hand, his body angled to avoid showing it to the crowd. The man, flanked by three other men, each of them big and beefy despite their nice, tailored outfits, stepped up beside Mack and growled softly. "If you think you can just enter Mr. Slade's fine establishment with that kind of heat - even if it looks like you got it out of a toy shop, you got another thing coming, buddy." His eyes flicked from Mack, who was remaining quite still, his palms lifted, fingers spread, to R'lash.

"And you, Dix," he said.

"Huh?" R'lash asked.

"You got a lotta nerve comin' in after ducking Mr. Slade's reception. But I guess kidnapping yer secretary will do that," the man said, jerking his head. "Table near the back." He whistled and his men grabbed onto the 'fancy heaters' that Mack and Two Ball were carrying and hauled them off.

"Computer, pause program," R'lash said, but the holograms didn't stop moving. "Fuck. Why does your computer security suck shit."

"It's an extreme situation, I'll have you know!" Kes whispered, while Ensign Wildman pointed, her voice excited.

"There's the Captain!"

Wacoche did see her. Janeway was seated, looking very cross, in a fancy frilly dress, next to a big...burly...

Wacoche blinked.

"Is Mr. Slade supposed to be that?" he whispered to Kes.

"No he is not," Kes said, quietly.

All of them walked forward, flanked by the goons, to stand before the table where Mr. Slade and Janeway were seated. Janeway leaned forward, and her voice was quiet and calm. "I trust one of you knows what the absolute hell program this is because I am at a complete loss," she said. "It seems like something Amelia would be good at, but she's not here, so-"

"Quiet, broad!" The swirling, blackish mass of infinite, recursive cubes that endlessly rotated and swept in and out of one another like the flexing, three dimensional shadow of a hypercube being projected downward into this universe sitting next to Janeway said. "I had you taken here because it'd bring me Dixon Hill...and then he can tell me what it is I wanted to know. And that's all I want to hear, right now. Miss Hill and her explanation for...this." He gestured around himself. "See, I gotta an idea of how all this works, based on what I done seen here, in this club...but it makes me think, maybe, that Miss Hill and her whole passel of friends shouldn't be allowed to take one step farther in my turf. Dig."

Everyone looked at R'lash, who looked down at her rumpled, mid-20th century suit, then groaned.

"Oh fuck off," she whispered in Romulan. Translated, unfortunately, but the universal translator.

Despite having no lips, Mr. Slade still managed to scowl at her.


"Wow!" T'are said, licking her fingers clean. "This doohicky of yours is amazing - you really can tap into subspace channels, similar to that of the Iconian gateway. But, uh, tiny problem: The range can't possibly reach you this far. Which means..." She gasped. "Do you know what this means, Ronda!?"

Ronda, her panties around her ankles, her face flushed, and her breath coming in shallow gasps, lay back on the small table of tools and supplies set up next to the space/time caperizer, breathed out. "Holy cats I didn't know fingers could even do that..."

"You've tapped into some other energy source, and that means we can track it with the doorway!" T'are said, excitedly. "We can drop right in on them and ask them to set the ship to rights. Though, uh, we'll need to make sure you get back to Iotia first." She frowned. "And get a message to Starfleet - I think we've already managed one, but more wouldn't hurt..."

"I think I'm actually in love," Ronda whispered, her eyes unfocused.

---
MOMENTUM: 3

CURRENT TRAITS: Dimensional Fuckery Of Maximalized Degree (Disadvantage)

I forgot, the dimensional fuckery would add +1 diff to the base diff of 2, so 4s and 3s is actually +1 momentum and +0 momentum! Still, it all works out!

How do you explain this to "Mr. Slade."

What do T'are and Ronda do? ...well, mostly T'are...