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

T'are nodded as she began to type away at the computer console that she found in the room. Accessing the computer network took a bit of time and borrowing some of the coinage from Ronda's purse. But the Iotians had some subspace radio wave transmitters - even if they were woefully behind the times and primarily focused on intrasystem communication. It was still better than nothing! She send the message, then smiled and walked back to Ronda.

"There's one thing last I have to teach you!" She said.

"W-What?" Ronda asked, sounding almost frighened.

Then T'are climbed onto the table next to her, laid down, and drew her into a hug.

"Cuddling," she whispered. "It's the best part, some say."

Ronda blinked, then relaxed. "I think I can get used to this..." She whispered.


R'lash adjusted the tie on her suit, her ears twitching up slightly as she drew herself upright. Inside her brain, the normal patter was going on - the kind of thing that went through her head every single time that she found herself in these impossible, stupid situations that Starfleet managed to stumble amalark first every week.

I wish I was home right now...

And home hadn't exactly been a picknick. But at least home was steady and secure. People outside of the Romulan Empire didn't seem to recognize just how much security meant in a galaxy of star gods and time travel. She smiled, then tried to adopt the same slang everyone else was using.

Hey.

It worked in boot camp.

"Listen, uh, Boss Slade," she said, ambling over and sliding into the chair across from him. "This place, uh, this...this joint, you're...casing." SHe gestured around herself with her finger. "This is just a part of the, uh, the real scoop. It's called Voyager, and she's...well, a big boat. Flying around between planets, looking to...to score all the, uh, uh...the moon-lat."

"...the what?" Mr. Slade asked, his shimmering, interfracting pattern growing more compact.

Kess hissed, as softly as she could: "Moolah. Moolah."

"Moolah!" R'lash said, nodding. "But, like, uh, this case it...it doesn't work when it's all split up like. So, we gotta...put it...back..." She trailed off, slowly, as she saw Mr. Slade lifting his...well, chin was the wrong word. The pattern of intersecting cubes shifting and flowing together grew more and more jagged, then settled, remaining at a humming equilibrium. His voice, when it came out, was slow and dangerous.

"You stumbled into my turf. You roughed up my boys with your...warp bubble..." He waved a hand, slowly, over the table, as if to indicate the passage of something through space. "And I look around inside of your joint and I find it's a poorly run racket. A bunch of trouble makers and hoodlums, all looking for their own piece of the action?" He shook his head. "And I finally find the leader of this place, and you try and sell me this flim flam? This pile of baloney!"

He slammed his palm down onto the table.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't tear your whole Voyager in half!"

R'lash gulped.

I wish I was home, she thought.

"W-We...we're not gonna stick around?" she suggested.

Mr. Slade was silent for a moment. "Go on."

"W-well, we travel around! We fly from, uh, from place to place, see, uh, so, if you let us go, we're...we're...not coming back?" She shrugged, spreading her hands. Beside Mr. Slade, Janeway was pursing her lips and a light of calculation was ticking by in her eyes - clearly, she was trying to judge when was the best time to leap in and try and salvage the situation. The fact that Mr. Slade was still listening to R'lash meant...well, they had some kind of chance. At least, Janeway thought so. So, R'lash had to hope so too.

This is why I'm never going to even try and make captain, she thought.

Mr. Slade lifted his head, slowly. "I don't trust you," he said. "So...what if we...cut a deal."

"A-A deal, we like making deals, here, uh, on Voyager," R'lash said, knowing that her gangster accent was slipping with every word. She forced her hands to unclench while Mr. Slade leaned forward.

"I put one of my boys in your joint. He'll stay down by that, uh, the big thinker you have," he said, slowly.

R'lash's brow furrowed - but Ensign Wildman whispered to Wacoche, softly enough that Mr. Slade didn't hear...but R'lash did. Thank you, Romulan senses.

"The warp field acceleration that extends around the main computer bank - it's a dimensional field that these entities might be able to live in," Wildman was whispering. "Course, it'd mean we'd have...them in the computer. For...for however long they stick around."

Wacoche nodded, then looked over R'lash's shoulder. Janeway caught his eyes, then nodded back. Great. They were-

R'lash blinked.

The realization hit her so suddenly, it was like being punched in the back of the head.

The dimensional creature was embodying itself in the holodeck.

It was touching and being touched. She subtly slid her hand forward, then poked his knuckles. The touch was solid, even if he felt cool to the touch and slightly slippery. Mr. Slade grunted. "Well?" he asked, drawing his hand way from her, clearly not wanting to hold hands.

You're a Romulan, R'lash, R'lash thought. Some people - the romulan government included - loved to play up the distinction between Romulan and Vulcans, down to the biological level. But no one who worked in space could cling to those fantasies, not when they were going to be in direct combat with Vulcan spacers at any time in the Neutral Zone and surrounding. Not every Vulcan joined Starfleet, and many times, the Vulcan Science Command liked to stretch ancient muscles - things they had once used on the Andorians, to keep their cousins in Romulus on their toes. Of course, R'lash knew that the Romulans had been just as eager to poke back, and to make the Vulcans have to respond. It was all very stupid, but it kept her paid.

But there was one thing both clades had in common.

They were strong.

They were very.

Very.

Very.

Very strong.

R'lash had an idea.

---
MOMENTUM: 2

CURRENT TRAITS: Dimensional Fuckery Of Maximalized Degree (Disadvantage)

[ ] R'lash will manhandle Mr. Slade and scare him off of Voyager with her uncanny Romulan Strength (diff 1, Opposed)
[ ] Accept success at cost (escape the anomoly, but have one of Mr. Slades' "boys" aboard for the foreseeable future
[ ] Write In

R'lash nodded. "Your boys..." She said, nodding. Then she grabbed the table and flipped it. When a Romulan flipped a table, they flipped it hard. The table swung off through the air and crashed into the wall with a resounding sound of shattering plates, tiles, and cracking wood. As splinters flew, men and women cried out, but before anyone had done anything, R'lash grabbed onto Mr. Slade, then lifted him up by his fancy lapels and slammed him into the wall. "Your boys can't stop me before I squish the stupid little squares that make your stupid little head. So, listen here!" She growled, glaring into his eyes. "I have had it up to here with this stupid time and space bullshit. I am a Romulan officer of the Romulan STar Empire, and we do not go wandering amalark first into anomalies and space rifts and weird time vortexes like these Starfleet schmucks! We stick to WELL maintained, well organized, well explored routes and we do not fuck around!" She shook him. "So, right now, I am giving you the romulan answer to this - which is you get the fuck out of our spaceship, put everything back together, or else I start getting nasty!"
Mr. Slade held his hands up, the shimmering, interlocking shapes flowing one into the other.

"...I think...I didn't understand precisely what was what with this whole shindig," he said, his voice thick with nervous tension. "How about we call it even, and...uh...uh, we let you go on your way?"

R'lash glanced over her shoulder, then to her left. She saw the other men with their primitive holographically simulated kinetic weapons were lowering said pistols and weapons, their faces shocked, tense.

She let go off Mr. Slade. He dropped down to the ground, his feet thumping home. He only managed to remain standing thanks to the wall, which he clutched.

"We'll...we'll get this all...sorted out, then," he said, nodding.

"See that you do," R'lash said, stepping backwards, then reaching down and picking up her dropped fedora. She settled in on her head.

Janeway stood from her seat, sighed, then said. "Usually in Starfleet, we do try and avoid being quite so..." She paused.

"Effective?" R'lash asked.

Janeway frowned at her.

And the crew got to work, putting the ship back together again.

"Oh no."

The soft sound that filled the small office in Diplomacy & Commerce's annexes was not the sound that the ambassador L'leytian wanted to hear when she was midway through her meal. She hastily set down the small, steaming bowl and stood to hurry to where a slender tellerite was hunched over, looking at the communication that had just come in. It had been routed from D&C's main offices, earmarked as being a small enough detail that L'leytian and her assistant, Korak, could handle it. She smiled slightly, adjusting her breather as she leaned over, her whiskers twitching happily.

"Well, well, well, lets see what we're working w- oh no."

"That's what I said."

"Uuugh! It's three week trip out there!" L'leytian muttered. "And we're going to need to fly on an actual starship not a shuttle."

"I'm already checking - the only ship heading that way that can provide passage is the ... USS Cerritos," Koark said.

"A frigate!?" L'leytian asked, horror filling her voice. "I'm a diplomat. Isn't there something bigger? Maybe a cruiser? We have a few constitutions still bouncing around that sector, in the reserves. Or, maybe we can charter with the Andorian or Vulcan navies?" She looked increasingly gloomy as Korak started to bring up the specifications on the frigate in question - it wasn't just a frigate, it was an engineering support and second contact ship. The kind of ship whose primary duty was taking new ensigns fresh out of the academy and giving them a few easy milk runs, or building deep space infrastructure, or maintaining subspace repeater beacons. They were the kinds of people who went to planets long after first contact teams arrived, and helped to slowly spread the fundamental fabric of the federation outward by inch after painstaking inch of space.

Admirable.

Honorable.

Uncomfortable.

Cramped.

Smelly.

L'leytian sighed.

"It won't be so bad," she whispered. "It's not like I'll get stuck in some tiny room next to the nacelle or anything."

"Right," Korak said.

"And uh, which...we've got a subspace message in demanding an ambassador to the...Iotian Donocracy. Never heard of them." She sighed. "At least I'll get to read a lot."

"Right," Korak said.

"Well, draft us up two shuttle rides to the frigate and we'll get on our way, right, Korak!" L'leytian said, patting his shoulder.

Korak was very still for a long, long moment.

L'leytian had to explain to the very chipper and polite orion that, in fact, she didn't require an assistant. As a fully trained member of the Federation Diplomacy and Commerce Commission, she was, in fact, TOO qualified to need an assistant. She was going to handle this Iotian message on her own.

After two weeks of sailing.

And studying.

And...

The door to the room opened and the blazing red light of the nacelle outside the window shone in. "Oh come on!" L'leytian said, her voice trilling as she put her hands to her bald, blue head.

"Oh, uh, sorry, lemmi just, uh, get that for ya!" the ensign said, flicking a switch - and the screen shutters started to close, leaving L'leytian's horrified immediate reaction curdling to lowkey second hand embarrassment in her stomachs. She turned and smiled, sheepishly.

"Sorry for freaking out," she whispered.

"It's okay!" the ensign said. "Anyway, if you need any help with your mission or studying or anything, just use your communicator to ping me. I'm always ready to help! Though, I've been really slacking off in my hijinx quota." She whispered, her voice growing conspiratorial as she leaned in. "I've been trying to follow in my friend's footsteps, but she's way ahead of me in capers, scams and even shenanigans! I haven't even done one shenanigans!"

"...uh...don't you have...duties to do?" L'leytian asked, and the ensign started, then gave her a nod, a wave, and then jogged down the corridor. Then she leaned around the corner and waved.

L'leytian sighed, then threw herself into bed - and landed directly onto the massive pile of contraband hidden there by an enterprising ensign who had assumed their ship would never need to use the ambassadorial suite.

...this is going to get so much easier when I get to the Iotians. I'm sure their government is rational, L'leytian thought as she lay in a spreading puddle of Romulan ale.

Then she lifted her PADD up and started reading.

"Oh no."

---
next episode is Partiution! You need to pick two characters for mysterious reasons! I will be taking the two highest votes, so, you can vote for as many as you want.

[ ] Captain Katheryn Janeway
[ ] Commander D-91
[ ] Lt. Commander Brian Wacoche
[ ] Kes
[ ] Tom Paris
[ ] Ensign Harry Kimm
[ ] Lt. JG Amy Strong
[ ] C'nola
[ ] Tuvok (Skilled: Science | Weakness: Emotionless)
[ ] Lt. Bian T'are (Skilled: Communications | Weakness: Combat)
[ ] The EMH (Skilled: Doctor | Weakness: Kind of a Dick)
[ ] B'lanna Torres (Skilled: Engineering | Weakness: Also a dick)
[ ] Seska
[ ] R'lash
[ ] Ensign Steve
[ ] Ensign Becky
[ ] Petty Officer Third Class Jessie
[ ] Crewman Billingsly
[ ] Crewman Chandra
[ ] Bifurcate
[ ] Princess Lyan Positron
[ ] Soria Flyte
[ ] Mirror Universe Trevor