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

[DragonCobolt]

Jenny realized there, as she was snuggled against by the anthropomorphic form of the USS Voyager and her Maquis ally, the Val Jean, that her plan to flaunt her new grayzone friends to her ex was a pretty deceptive one...to herself. It was all rooted in her desire to be with Sidney again - something simple and clear and easy. To turn back the clock to before the breakup. But the problem wasn't just that Sidney had dumped her.

Sidney had also shown Jenny how Sidney had seen her.

And in the upper zones, you are how you're perceived to be.

Jenny was lying to herself if she thought she could get back and be back and still grow.

She should get them home herself. She should learn to branchiate. She should be being Jenny, as Jenny was, not Jenny as she had been! But more importantly!

Jenny turned, feeling the slip of Voyager's hand along her shoulders, grabbed onto Val Jean and kissed her fiercely. Passionately. Val Jean's arms flailed, and she fell back into the sofa as Voyager put her hand over her silvery lips and exclaimed. "Oh my," she whispered.

Then she grinned.

"Well, this is interesting. And we in Starfleet..."

A leather jacket went sailing away, to thump onto the ground.

"We like sc-" Voyager started.

Val Jean managed to slip a long, muscular leg past Jenny's slender body and kick her hard in the hip.

Spoiler: Sex Scene Spoilers!

Jenny, Val Jean and Voyager share one another's company. We also see things from a...different perspective. Branchiation is accomplished!

Spoiler: Sex Scene!

Val Jean's mouth was warm and wanting and eager. Her fingers caressed along Jenny's neck, sliding down along her shoulders, feeling the fine dappling of her scales as their tongues played together. Soft. Needy. The caress of radar and other low, slow pulses that came on the deepest edge of the electromagnetic spectrum tickled along Jenny's spine, until Val Jean's hands found her ass. She squeezed her, roughly, dominantly, tugging her in close. The kiss shifted then, from Jenny's kiss, to Val Jean's. The other woman pushed back, up, making Jenny draw away and sit back at the same time, until she was pressed against sofa sheets, pinned down by Val Jean's weight - and she had no idea how. No idea how. She moaned as Val Jean drew her mouth back. Jenny kissed her chin, tongue sliding along the rough ridge of her scar.

"Well, you two are having fun..." Voyager said. She grinned, slightly. "But I think, while your proximity is valuable..."

It seems that our sensors are better calibrated to understand exactly what this thing is. Don't you think?

True, Kat. But there's a lot more people on your ship than mine. And while we can't move, we're not exactly in any short term danger.

Voyager leaned in. Her mouth caressed along Jenny's ear. She sucked on the tip of one fin, her hand starting to undo Jenny's buttons. One by one. Jenny shivered as she felt the gentle caress of the air being cycled through the apartment's first floor - pushed around by a lazy AC fan - tease along her achingly hard nipples. Voyager's fingers were blazingly hot next to that caress, and they found her breast. Cupping her gently.

Captain, I've got the subspace topography mapped out. You know how this anomaly has been following us?

Yes, Ensign.

I think it's...

Jenny moaned. Voyager's mouth closed around one nipple. Sucking.

...aware. And I think it's communicating with us.

I haven't noticed any communication, not since the Val Jean got encased in the energy field that blew her cloak out.

Val Jean tugged her shirt off, tossing it away. Her muscular frame pressed to Jenny's back as Jenny found herself caught between Voyager's gentle strength and Val Jean's aggressive eagerness. Val Jean was the one who reached between her legs, kissing along her neck. SHe murmured in her ear. "Someone's needy." She sounded amused.

"T-This...ah...oh fuck..." Jenny gasped as Val Jean's fingers pressed against her sex - then thrust up, crooking, finding her center of pleasure with shocking, embarrassing ease. She trembled and clung to Voyager. The elegant Sovereign class hadn't even lowered her shields or removed her clothes. But she did grip onto Jenny's hips, holding her gently.

We just need to keep the field in the tractor inverter and start pulsing the psi-waves we've been getting in our subconscious back into the matrix.

"Yeah, give her what she needs," Voyager purred to Val Jean, holding Jenny in place as Val Jean casually finger-fucked Jenny. Jenny's moans grew fiercer and more ecstatic as her back arched.

We're sending the data to the Val Jean. But I think...

Yes, T'are?

I think that we should try a positive feedback loop on the psi-waves. Not a negative one. If it's communicating, and if the anomaly is extradimensional, uh, maybe all it needs is more clarity. Not less.

Would there be a risk?

Only a little, I think. If it starts going wrong, we can just warp out of there.

Jenny gasped as Voyager reached down. "You're close," she murmured, her voice hungry. "So close." Her elegant fingers pressed to Jenny's clit, working at the same pace, the same languid skill, as Val Jean. Jenny's eyes widened and she clung to Voyager, then bit down on her shoulder, an instinctive reaction as pleasure exploded between her thighs. She trembled and moaned.

Shields at 70%, Captain.

Reinforce them, Tuvok. T'are?

It's...I think it's working!

Jenny released Voyager - who cradled her cheek with one palm, purring softly. "You are a beautiful girl, Jenny. And you can do it. I know you can." She leaned in. Jenny's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, this time accepting Voyager's kiss.

And she figured it out.

It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?

With an explosion of light, pleasure, sound and shifting diegesis, Jenny realized the trick of it. In the low red, in the conceptual zones of thought she had invited Voyager and Val Jean into, perception shaped the perceiver. She had seen them, and she had changed them.

She never needed to branchiate anyone at all. She just needed to realize-

Jenny blinked as she found herself back in realspace, in the gray zone, with two very powerful, very sensual looking starships hovering nearby. She fluttered before them - then blinked as her perceptions unfolded and the communication fro the larger ship appeared. A bunch of grayzoners peered at her, the leader of their impossibly primitive metaself standing before her chair. She was...very familiar. Embarrassingly so. "Greetings," she said, her voice upshifted by a relatively primitive piece of psionic technology into a language Jenny could grasp. "We come in peace, from the United Federation of Planets. We did not mean to caues you any distress or confusion."

"Oh, no, it's fine!" Jenny said. "We're all...fine...here, uh, sorry! Just...Hi! I'm Jenny!"

Captain Janeway blinked, then turned to glance at T'are. T'are, who was checking over the universal translator, turned back to her and shrugged.

Yeah, it's working fine, that shrug said.

Janeway turned back to the shimmering collection of glowing orbs of pale light that had cohered into the form of a sinuous serpent, which no longer wrapped around the Val Jean, nor did it bar their path and blast them with erratic pulses of exotic energy that had nearly burnt out half their forward scanners.

"Well, Jenny," she said, politely. "We're glad that we finally sorted out the-"

"It's cool!" The echoing, dimensionally tinged, godlike voice somehow managed to sound...embarrassed? Janeway frowned. What the hell did a dimensional creature have to be embarrassed about? She kept her face and voice controlled as she nodded.

"We're glad that there is no hard feelings between us. We in Starfleet like to learn about the new lifeforms we meet," Janeway said.

"Yeah! I know! It's cool!" Jenny's echoing voice said, hurriedly. "Uh, uh. Uh. Uh. Question!"

"...yes?" Janeway asked, when Jenny didn't continue.

"What did the past, um, from your perspective, twenty four hours, uh, appear to be? Like. What happened? Exactly?" Jenny's orbs shimmered and intersected, then flew apart again, swirling around and configuring into a new spiral shape.

Janeway smiled. "We, ah, found you - though, at the time, we thought you were just an anomaly. Well, okay, more accurately, we ran directly into you - you weren't visible on our scanners but you knocked us out of warp. It was pretty frightening, but we're used to this kind of strangeness. We went to yellow alert, and our fellow ship, the Val Jean joined us, flanking you. We started to scan you to find out what you were, and learned you intersected with higher planes of existence, similar to energies that the Federation has read on beings like the Q. In fact, heh, you may be surprised to learn this, but at first we thought you were similar to the Far Point Net, a rather famous Q construct."

"O-oh! Cool!" Jenny actually sounded pleased. "Really? Holy...wow. Hah. Really!?"

"Yes, really!" T'are said. "You weren't quite as net-shaped, but, still, similar energy structures."

"I looked like the Far Point Net!" Jenny giggled. "Okay! Uh, keep going."

"Right," Janeway said. "We detected strange energy readings that might have been weapon systems arming. Since there have been stranger ships out there, Val Jean brought her weapons online, just in case, while we attempted a deep scan. This caused us both to get kind of ensnared in your energy fields. We noticed that the pulses from your energy fields were attempts at communication, and so, we adapted our tractor beams to assist in that communication."

"D-Did...you both...use your tractors?" Jenny asked, her voice oddly tight.

"Well, first, the Val Jean did, because-"

"OKAY! So, uh, you guys are, uh, uh, uh, uh, really good at...tractoring!" Jenny said. "Now, um, I have to go! Uh..."

There was a long pause.

Then a glowing crystal the size of a small potted plant appeared in the air before Janeway. She caught it before it hit the ground, grunting with the impact.

"C-Call me! If you want...to...ever, uh...tractor me again! Okaybye!"

And then Jenny vanished in a spray of sparkles.

The entire bridge crew stood in silence.

"What do you think this looked like from her perspective?" Tom asked.

"I dunno, a fucking meet cute and a date?" C'nola said, sarcastically. "She was a frigging extraplanar being, basically a mini-Chaos god, how could we even begin to imagine what it was like?"

"Yeah, fair," Tom said.

"Call me," Janeway said, looking down at the crystal she held.

She pursed her lips.

"Think Amelia will be jealous?" D-91 asked.

"Dr. Leah Brahms might," Janeway muttered under her breath.

"Didn't quite catch that, Captain," D-91 said.

"Nevermind," Janeway said, then sighed. "Someone get an ensign up here, we have something for anomalous storage."

The USS Voyager and the Val Jean started to cruise away.

***
​

Jenny hummed cheerfully as she twined around in space around Albert, who grunted as he lifted several small plexdimensions in both of his arms. "And then she took my number! She took my number, Albert!"

"That's marvelous, my dear Jennifer!" Albert boomed.

"And...then...I branchiated!" Jenny exclaimed, spreading her arms wide. "I folded up into teal! I was so excited! And...even if Voyager and Val Jean don't call me, I still won't forget them. Their metaselves were extremely...good. They were good ships."

"Heh, didn't you say you were just mucking up perceptions?" Albert asked between grunts as he continued to pump quasi-iron.

"I mean. I don't think I was mucking up perception. I was just seeing things in a way that worked best for me. And I think that those metaselves really were the gestalt of Voyager and Val Jean. That's how those ships are, even if the grayzoners might not really be able to fully see it." She sighed. "But then again, maybe they do. I don't think we should underestimate them."

"Indeed!" Albert said. "And what of Sidney?"

Jenny sighed. She wished she could say Sidney had seen her branchiate and that she had gotten hopelessly jealous, or impressed, or she had begged to be taken back. She wished she could say a lot. But she hadn't even seen Sidney since the breakup - and she was pretty sure she wouldn't be too impressed with her adventure. So, she just shook her head.

"I'll get over her," she said. "Even...even if it'll hurt for a while."

"A mature and reasonable perspective, my good Jennifer! You are becoming an astute and level headed woman!" Albert said jovially.

"Ugh," Jenny said. "I have to fix that. I'd hate for my tombstone to say 'here lies Jenny, an astute and level headed woman.'"

"You would prefer a better elogium?" Albert asked, his voice playful.

"Huh?" Jenny asked.

"Elogium. Inscription on your tombstone, from the days of the Roman Empire!" Albert said.

"THAT'S what the episode title means!?" Jenny exploded, her self flying apart into hissing sparks. She reformed with a furious crackle, buzzing with a violence that emitted into the hard gamma. "WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING!?"

Albert looked perplexed.

ROLL CREDITS​

 

[DragonCobolt]

Kes hummed quietly to herself - Luck Be a Lady by a human musician named Sinatra. She was dressed in her finest, slinkiest red dress, the kind she would have worn back when she had been a commando-spy working under Neelix and what he had grandiloquently named the Freedom for the Okampa Movement. Sometimes, she felt faintly conflicted at the fact that Neelix and his entire organization had been a front, a put on, a cheap way for the Talaxian Republic's office of space security and intelligence to destabilize a dangerous neighboring power without getting too involved and without irritating their rivals, the Haakonians or the Kazon.

But...

Well, it had gotten her freedom.

And it had gotten her here.

And it had let her sing.

So, Kes supposed she was fine with being an imperialist puppet, at least for the time being.

Though she had to admit, the TROSS had had nothing on what she had read about the veritable deluge of alphabetic organizations from Earth's hellish 20th and 21st century. KGBA, CIA, M16, god, the list went on and on and on and they all seemed to be rabbidly eager to see which could be most bloodthirsty and cutthroat. She had a little pet theory about why and how Earth had been like that.

The oceans. It had to be the oceans. No species could be sane with that much water separating them up into little islands and continents. Contrast them with, say, the Vulcans. From her reading, the Vulcans had been relatively orderly, only breaking into two or three sub-states and only one of them had gone completely around the bend. Not that she'd ever tell that to R'lash, her holodeck partner for today.

"Speak of the devil!" Kes said, cheerfully as she came to the holodeck door. R'lash was there, fidgeting as she tugged at her suit, frowning.

"Why am I in this weird outfit?" she asked.

"Okay, so," Kes said, excitedly. "It's called Dixon Hill, Tom Paris suggested it."

"Uh-huh," R'lash looked less than enthused, her ears drooping slightly.
"You play as the main character, Dixon Hill, he-"

"He?" R'lash scowled, her ears flattening against her head.

"Yeah, he's a private eye! A gumshoe!" Kes mimed a gun in the air, aiming down it. "A dick!"

R'lash frowned. "Is the universal translator busted?"

"A detective!"

"He works for the Tal'Mkra?" R'lash asked.

"...which one is that?"

"Tal'Shiar is political security, Tal'Mkra is criminal security," R'lash said, frowning as she started to unbutton her suit jacket. She shucked it off. "I don't wear men's clothes. I don't like the idea of being a man. I, you may have noticed...am a Romulan. Not a man!"

"Oh, no, this is a gender thing, not a species thing!" Kes said.

"I'm not into being a male either!" R'lash snapped.

Kes sighed, then went to the wall console. "Computer, can you change Dixon Hill pronouns?" She asked, firmly.

"Yes," the computer said. "Do you wish to use procedurally generated corrections or one of the sixteen different authored changes?"

"What's the difference?" Kes asked.

"Procedural generation lacks sentient oversight and may be less satisfying than authored content. Considering the minimal nature of this change, narrative structure will be primarily unaltered. Authored content will change more details, but tends to have a higher artistic quality. The authored changes are LesDix by Catra. Enby Eye by Harry Kim. T-"
"LesDix sounds good, does that sound good, R'lash?" Kes asked, turning to the expatriated Romulan. She frowned, cocking her head.

"What does les mean?"

"What does les mean?" Kes whispered to the computer.

"Probable meaning: Lesbian. Homosexual female. Woman on Woman Love," the computer said.

Kes turned back to R'lash. "It means-"

"I heard!" R'lash laughed. "Sure, fine! Lessy Dicks it up!"

"Dix," Kes said.

"That's what I said!" R'lash said, sticking her tongue out at her.

The computer chirruped. "LesDix has been loaded. Program ready."

"Put that back on, Dixie!" Kes said. "Lets solve the save of the Redbuck's-" The door opened and the two women stepped through into a perfectly normal, non-noir flavored Voyager stateroom. There was a bed. There was the window, showing the rippling stars outside, redshifting at the left side, blueshifted on the right side. Standing in the adjoining doorway, his face half shaved, was David Wacoche , who was running his autoshaver along the ridge of his jawline, while wearing nothing but his underwear. The two girls stood in the doorway, blinking in confusion, as the very low-powered stun-beam crackleda long his face, stunning the hair folicles beneath and causing what little stubble had collected to pop out, fall aside, and get whisked away in the auto-cleaning sink. He patted his cheek, smiled, then turned...and froze.

"Uh," Kes said.

"Hi Commander," R'lash said. "You missed a spot."

"What the hell!?" Wacoche exclaimed. "How did you get here?"

"Why are you in a Voyager stateroom?" Kes asked, curiously. "I thought your cabin was on the Val Jean?"

"There's so many staff meetings and Voyager has the best staff room - also, it's not like transporting is hard or anything," Wacoche said, frowning. "Again, though: How are you in my room?"

"W-We just...went through that door," R'lash said, pointing back.

The commander walked over, then pushed the door button. It opened - and when they leaned out, they were back in the corridors before the holodecks. A door across from them - quite clearly labeled EMERGENCY MEDICAL SUPPLIES - opened and an ensign in a blue medsci department top stepped out, a lunchbox tucked under one arm, a data-slate in both hands, and a baggy held in her teeth. She mumbled something unintelligible to her roommate, who called out: "You're gonna be late and the Captain is gonna space you!"

"Huhhhk huu!" The ensign said, backing up, before turning around - and stopping as the door shut behind her. "Huhh!?"

"Ensign, uh, Wildman," Wacoche said. "I think what your department calls 'something hinky' is going on with space time." He glanced around. "Anyone got a combadge?"

Ensign Wildman tried to slap her badge with her data-slate. Kes, helpfully, reached out and took the bag from her mouth. Wildman arched her back to proffer the badge to Wacoche, who gave her a thin smile, then leaned in.

"Commander Wacoche to bridge," he said.

The combadge chirruped, then chirruped out. "Out of range. Please deploy communication satelite."

"Out of range?" R'lash asked, frowning.

"These have range of an AU," Ensign Wildman said, frowning. "That's...unsettling."

The PA crackled. Then a buzzing, hissing, crackling noise started to emerge from the speakers. After a second, it resolved into a bleeping noise - fast, then slow, then fast again. They all listened as R'lash crossed her arms over her chest. KEs shook her head - but Wacoche lifted his hand, silencing them all. The message continued, then stopped for about a minute, then started to repeat it. "It's old morse code," he said. "Orders from Ensign Harry, acting command from the bridge. I'm guessing Janeway isn't there. According to his orders, everyone should stay put and attempt to move very carefully."

"Screw that!" R'lash snapped. "I want to figure this shit out." She scowled, then walked over to the door next to the holodeck - leading into the secondary deck. She thumbed it and the door opened...and screaming, howling wind swept past her. She yelped, planted her palms to either side of the doorway - and Kes' eyes widened, her hands clapped to her ears, as pressure alerts started howling throughout the corridor. The door opened into a vast, starry expanse, glittering and infinite. Then with a buzzing POP a containment field snapped down, seconds before R'lash lost her grip. She stumbled, fell into the field, then recoiled and slammed onto the ground. She pushed herself backwards, green blood dripping from her nose, her suit in disarray.

"I don't recognize those stars," Ensign Wildman said, nervously, as the door shut with a hiss and click.

"Okay, we need a plan," Wacoche said. "But it seems that there's a dimensional flux-"

"Yeah no shit!" R'lash snapped.

"First thing, anyone have anything that can mark that door as dangerous?" Wacoche asked, turning to the group. Kes nodded, reached into her purse, and pulled out some of the bright red lipstick she had applied to her lips earlier today. She scrawled the symbol for pressure loss on the door - a circle with a zig zag down the center, representative of a cracked spacesuit visor. She stepped back and nodded.

"Okay!" she said.

"Now, if most of the crew are following Harry's suggestion," Wacoche said, frowning. "Then we may be one of the few mobile parties. Pathfinding through this is going to be...tricky. Suggestions?"

"W-We should check what we have access too!" Ensign Wildman said. "I have my xenobotany tools, a tricorder, a bag lunch, and a lunch pail."

"Why'd you pack two?" R'lash asked, her voice sharp.

"M-My husband always forgets his lunch," Wildman said, blushing.

"Oh," R'lash said, looking chagrined.

"We have the lipstick," Wacoche said.

"And we have a colt revolver and a 1911," Kes said, reaching into her handbag and drawing out the sleek, snubnosed .38 special, before nodding to R'lash, who blinked, then rummaged around under her suit jacket and tugged out her primitive firearm.

"Why do you have that?!" Wildman asked.

"For the holodeck," Kes said. "Don't worry, they're loaded with smart bullets, they're designed to avoid living targets."

"We can crack that pretty easy," R'lash said, grinning.

Wildman made a face. "I hate violent holodeck fantasies. Can't you people just enjoy a nice day on the beach or something?" She asked, sounding harried. "Or you can visit Leonardo DaVinchi!"

"That sounds boring as shit," R'lash said.

"I note I've never had to run into a holodeck gone amok..." Wildman muttered, while Wacoche sighed.

"So, for the plan..." he said, rubbing his jaw.

---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRAITS: Dimesnisonal Fuckery Of Maximalized Degree (Disadvantage)

If you wanna do multiple things, you can do so! There's no time pressure...yet! Just use a plan vote if you want to do that.

[ ] Try and recruit Wildman's roommates - more hands make light a burden
[ ] Start checking doors systematically
[ ] Scan the door leading to vacuum, see if you can determine if something opens into a dangerous environment BEFORE opening it
[ ] Crack a wall panel and check the power and com-systems, see how the ship's still running power, figure out the rules of the dimensional fuckery
[ ] Head into either Brian or Ensign Wildman's rooms and start replicating shit

[ ] Write In​

[ ] Write In

Also, we're BACK BABY!

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Okay," Commander Wacoche said, turning to Wildman. "Get your roomates - we know that door leads to your room, and we'll need more hands."

"Yes sir!" she said, saluting, then turning and heading for the door. She hesitated for a moment, then touched the doorpad. The door wooshed open and her roommates - a pair of Benzites women - peered out. They both breathed sighs of relief as Wildman smiled and said. "Commander Wacoche wants us to work on solving this."

"All right," one said, while the other reached down to adjust her breather. The two of them fell in while Kes walked over to a wall panel. She fished around in her purse, then grinned fiercely as she pulled out a nail file.

"There we go!" she said, while R'lash started rapping on the door that she had marked with lipstick, her ear pressed against it. The wall panel swung open as Wacoche stepped over to watch the Romulan, curiously. She rapped again, and again, and again, then shook her head.

"I can't hear a vacuum," she said. "It sounds like there's air beyond there."

"There goes the low tech solution," Wacoche said, frowning slightly. "We could have the doors open a small amount - easier to close then?"

"Not exactly my favorite method," R'lash grumbled. "Also, why did it open the whole way? Shouldn't the computer be smarter than that?"

"The dimensional anomaly must be messing with the sensors," Wacoche said as Kes knelt before the wall panel, her arms reaching inside. SHe pulled out a few wires and leads, then called out to one of the Benzites.

"Hey, do you have a tricorder?" she asked.

The Benzite smiled behind her breather mask. "I do!" she held it out and then knelt down as Kes fed several EPS conduit lines into the tricorder's side attachments. They both leaned over the console as the Benzite girl whistled quietly. "Now that is odd."

"Report," Wacoche said, frowning slightly. As he did so, a uniform slapped his bare chest. He blinked, and saw that Wildman had tossed it to him, smiling sheepishly.

"I had the replicator fabricate you one," she said.

"Ah, thanks," Wacoche said, then stepped a bit to the side to begin tugging his uniform on. As he zipped it up, Kes read off the results on the tricorder.

"It looks, sir, like the EPS system is running at a lossless state. The localized computers are actually trying to damp the power down - they usually have to compensate for the power loss due to distance. It's not a huge difference, your cabling is already as close to a hundred percent efficient as entropy allows but...this...it's like every part of the table is literally adjacent to every other part of the cable."

"Now that's a trick," Wacoche said, tucking the zipper under his collar and frowning as his suit - which was in a generic size - felt out the contures of his body, then tightened subtly and fitted itself to him. Once it was done, he stepped over and knelt down to examine the tricorder too. "What about the computers?"

"The interconnections are all messed up," Kes said. "Some are out of range, some are closer than they should be."

"So, we have power, but the computer automation is going to be like...a man with a stroke," Wacoche said.

"Yeah that's about right," Kes said, nodding. Wildman winced at the metaphor.

The other Benzite and R'lash were scanning the doorway that led to vacuum. "Aha!" The benzite said. "There's a perceptible dimensional flux, which is subtly different from the other dimensional fluxes. There's a kind of lack of backpressure from the interfacing polarities of the-"

"Yo, Starfleet, we got a scan for vacuum," R'lash said, casually.

"It doesn't mean we can be sure every door we open is safe, though!" The other Benzite added, hurriedly. "It just means we can at least detect vacuum."

Commander Wacoche nodded. Then, turning to Kes, he frowned. "Do you think we could use the power conduits to send messages? I mean, a power conduit and an automation relay are only different in the wattage of the electrical energy being sent down them, right?"

The Benzite next to Kes frowned. "M-Maybe sir. But it will be, um...tricky." She nodded.

"it might blow out parts of the conduits," Kes said, firmly. "I was trained in how to overload sections of systems just like this." She patted the wall. "The only difference is these are harder to burn out because Starfleet builds their ships insanely safe and tough."

"I'm glad someone noticed," the Benzite next to her said, sighing. "I once served two months on a Klingon frigate as part of an officer exchange program and they nicknamed me Console because I once told a story about getting wounded by a console overloading. I...was going to point out that Starfleet has more wounded personal in ship battles because our ships survive to bring them home, but they never listened to the statistical breakdown. I even had a spreadsheet..." She blushed. "I-I'm rambling, aren't i? S-Sorry, I get nervous around Command officers. No offense, Wacoche."

"It's fine, Ensign..."

"Um, Tidak," she said, shyly.

"Tidak," Wacoche said, smiling, then glanced at the other Benzite.

"I'm Tiffany," she said.

"She was born in England," Wildman explained at Wacoche's arched eyebrows.

"I was not!" Tiffany sounded annoyed. "I was born in Ireland."

"A-Aren't those the same places?" Wildman asked, while Tidak sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just, from Alpha Centauri-"

"Yes, we know, from Alpha Centauri, everything on Earth looks the same to you, but Ireland is not England," Ensign Tiffany said, shaking her head so hard she had to adjust her breather mask. Wacoche hid a smile, then slid his hands into his pockets.

"All right," he said. "We have names, and we can identify vacuum..." He considered the options - since he was in command, after all.

---
MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRAITS: Dimensional Fuckery Of Maximalized Degree (Disadvantage)

You have R'lash, Wacoche and Kes, who all have their skills listed above in the spoilers. Wildman's skilled in Xenobotany, while Tidak is an expert in physics and Tiffany is an archeologist scanner technician. If you want to do a task, write in who does it! You can assign multiple people to add more dice, up to a total of 3 people working on a project!

[ ] Mark doors as vacuum doors
[ ] Begin working on sending communications through the EPS
[ ] Try and make workarounds for the "stroke" the ship's automation is having
[ ] Open doors carefully to find other hazards, then work on scans for them
[ ] Try to detect the source of the dimensional anomoly
[ ] Try and make space suits with their available replicator
[ ] Try and find space suits
[ ] Attempt to reach a specific part of the ship

[ ] Engineering​

[ ] Bridge​

[ ] Shuttle bay​

[ ] Holodecks​

[ ] Specific Crew Quarter​

[ ] Medical​

[ ] Science Bay​

[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Wacoche sighed as he walked with Ensign Tiffany and Tidak, the three of them heading from door to door. "Alright," he said, quietly. "Lets see if this one opens to a vacuum too."

They both squared their shoulders and stepped to either side of the doorway - having worked out a procedure by now. They looked grim, as grim as any Starfleet officer would when facing a doorway that might lead into vacuum. Any spacer, to be honest. But they were ready. Wacoche sighed, quietly, then picked up the tool that they had found was perfect for this. It had taken two iterations - one had been too effective, throwing open a door so wide and so fast that he had nearly been blown straight into space, saved only at the last second by R'lash snagging onto his back with her hand.

The other had been a too flimsy?

This one - modeled on a crowbar from 20th century Earth - pushed into the seam of the door. Wacoche shoved with his weight and his muscles, but the heavy seal on the door didn't part. It didn't need too. He just had to wedge the bit in. Once he had gotten it there, he nodded to Tiffany, who gulped and took hold of the wall console, opening it and touching a few wires together to disengage the autolocks. After she had sparked it together with a flash of sparks, the door released its pressure and Wacoche wedged it open with a wrench of the crowbar...

And rather than a screaming gale rushing past his face, the doors instead opened on Neelix's bar.

"Oh finally!" Wacoche said, laughing, as R'lash walked over - followed by Wildman and Kes, who were both holding their markers. R'lash scowled.

"Great," she said. "We're in the dive bar."

"Hey," Kes said.

"Neelix!" Wacoche called in, walking into the bar and looking around slowly as he did so. "Ne...l..." He trailed off, blinking.

The bar looked entirely normal - tables and walls, chairs and cushions, the small private area for Orions and their partners - but the arch that led back into the bar itself was a shimmering, rippling field of distorted space. Through it, Wacoche could see a wild, verdant green forest. A creature bounded through the distortion, its bright red hooves scuttling on the carpet, scuffing it up. Its haunches slammed into a table, sending it crashing to the ground, then it turned back, leaped, and vanished back into the portal. However, before Wacoche could respond, a voice called out from the upper loft of the club.

"Commander?"

Peeking down from the upper loft of the bar was a bright green face, dark hair, and warm eyes.

"T'are?" Wacoche asked, chuckling quietly as he lowered his crowbar. "How often does that happen?"

"Every few minuets," T'are said, swinging her legs down and dropping.

Ensign Tiffany and Tidak blinked. R'lash smirked. "So, uh, when was that regulation uniform?" she asked, curiously, cocking her head to the side.

T'are frowned. "Since I wasn't on duty at the time, I don't think it matters," she said, her finger going to her throat and adjusting her masker. She didn't even try to adjust the rest of her outfit: A belly-revealing black top with the word BOTTOM stenciled on it in bright white text, with fishnets stretching between her fingertips and her shoulders, her toes and her hips, sprawling along her belly, and leaving her almost more revealed than she would have been if she had been naked. She wore big black gloves and boots. "I'm partaking in a late 20th century fashion - it's called Rave, I believe." She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning. "The only problem is that my shift got off twenty minuets before everyone else who agreed to come. Neelix was just behind there..." She nodded to the archway. "Getting the methylenedioxymethamphetamine ready!"

"Th...the what?" Tiffany asked.

"It was part of the rituals of the time period," T'are said. "It's part of my earth studies."

"Well, we can get you a uniform replicated," Wacoche said, grinning at her. "So far, we have two doors that actually lead to rooms and here. Since that..." He nodded to the portal. "Doesn't seem like it prevents biomatter from getting through - so, we're going to seal this door off. Last thing we need is some alien pathogen. Or, worse, hunter gatherers getting aboard." He frowned. "We may not be able to preserve the Prime Directive here until we solve the rest of the ship, but we can at least do what we can."

"Got it, sir," T'are said, while she followed R'lash down the corridor.

R'lash's voice echoed up to Wacoche as she went around the bend.

"So, was the fucking before or after the meth?"

"After, obviously!"

Wacoche shook his head, turning to the others.

"Lets keep checking the doors," Wacoche said, sighing quietly. The others nodded and Tiffany snickered.

"If I had known a Rave meant that, I might have come," she said.

"Okay, focus everyone," Wacoche said, firmly. They went to the next door, taking up their positions. Kes and Wildman got their pens out while Tidak and Tiffany got their tools at the ready. Tiffany swung the console open and Wacoche shoved the crowbar in. When the door parted...there was no whistle of air. No scream of displaced atmosphere. Nothing but a faint, chill waft and a hiss of pressure from the other side. Wacoche frowned, then nodded to the two science officers. Tiffany drew her tricorder, while Tidak drew her phaser. He lowered the crowbar, setting it quietly down on the carpet. He pulled his phaser, then stepped forward and used his shoulder to push the door open.

He stood on a catwalk of dark black metal, which looked out into nothingness. He could hear a distant sound of creaking. Groaning. A faint crackle. A subliminal hum - the sound of something like energy, flowing en mass. He frowned, then set his phaser to emit light, low. He turned on the aperture and it shone brightly as he swept it around the darkness - and it fell upon the faces of Borg.

Alcoves, by the dozens. By the hundreds.

By the thousands.

They arched above and to the sides in a receding set of rows, each alcove containing a cybernetic organism - flesh withered and gray, their bodies clad in gleaming black metal and whirring electronics. Cables slid from brains of all shapes and sizes into the walls, and the pulsing thought of the Borg collective consciousness felt like a hammer blow to his chest. Wacoche breathed shallowly, and used every iota of his being to not scream.

"Well," he murmured. "You don't see that every day."

---
MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRAITS: Dimensional Fuckery Of Maximalized Degree (Disadvantage)

[ ] Weld the door shut immediately.
[ ] Investigate - is this a Borg cube or structure?
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Wacoche swung the light left. Then right. Then left again. Every place that the beam of circular light fell, he saw more Borg. More inexplicable machines, webbing countless thousands of minds, hearts and souls into one vast, gestalt intelligence - an intelligence that had, by now, threatened the Federation directly on the field of battle but one time, and yet, had managed to terrify the entire organization of Starfleet into a massive reorganization and rearmament campaign and caused the complete collapse of parliament's coalition party and the creation of the currently still dominant "strong arm" alliance between T'lane and Kearing's far-right social democrat parties.

In less than an hour and a half, a single Borg cube had destroyed thirty nine ships of the line and killed eleven thousand Starfleet personnel.

And now there was a dimensional portal connecting Voyager here, into the heart of one of their ships.

Wacoche smacked his lips. He clicked his teeth. Then, with a voice that B'lanna Torres would have recognized as his 'oh shit, three Cardi destroyers have just dropped into our sensor bubble' voice, he said: "Well, that's interesting. Ensign Tiffany, I believe we're going to weld this door shut."

"...yes sir!" she said.

Wacoche stepped back. The door shut. He modulated his phaser and then aimed it up and swept it slowly down, melting the door shut. A moment later, Ensign Wildman stepped up, scrawling on the door.

DON'T OPEN
BORG INSIDE

"That should do until we, ahem, solve this," Wacoche said, quietly.

Thomp.

Everyone in the party tensed. Their bodies tightened and Wacoche's jaw clenched so hard he could hear his teeth aching. He aimed his phaser at the door, while Wildman and Tiffany scrambled backwards. Kes and R'lash stepped over to stand beside him, each of them aiming their weapons at the door.

Thomp. Thomp.

The impacts of something metallic and heavy rang through the doorway - a sounding sensation. Then a low whirring noise started to fill the air.

R'lash licked her lips, then, very softly, she whispered. "So, uh...Commander Wacoche...can I ask a question that might get all of you mad at me?"

They both glanced at her.

"...what the fuck is a Borg?" she whispered.

The whirring sound stopped.

Then...

Silence.

More silence.

More silence.

Even more silence. Wacoche holstered his phaser and said: "Wildman? T'are?"

Wildman flipped the tricorder shut - which drew a quiet grumble from R'lash, her voice muttering under her breath about we're about to get attacked and you get out a tricorder - and said: "I think that they were checking our technology. And, well, if the dimensional anomaly is as inscrutable to them as it is to us, then they might just detect the door. And, well, no offense to the Sovereign class...the doors in this ship are basically the same technology that flew in the NX-01. There's only so many ways you can make a door." She shrugged.

"What's an NX-01?" T'are asked.

"First warp capable ship from United Earth," Wildman said, smiling. "The, uh, Columbia, I think."

"Well, then, we'll hope they don't pick up the bionural gel packs," Wacoche said, quietly. "T'are, please tell me that we're going to start understanding this dimensional anomaly so far."

T'are chewed her lower lip. She had half changed out of her rave outfit and into her uniform - she had the blue tunic on, but was still in fishnets for her thighs and her shoes were tossed around her ankles. She had stopped her dressing to get out her tricorder, and was still flicking her eyes from her scanner to the door to the scanner again. She reached up to twiddle her masker as she started to pace, back and forth, her brow furrowing slightly. "Okay...I think...this is just a hypothesis..." She muttered.

Tidak leaned over, whispering in R'lash's ear. "The Borg are a cybernetic species that occupies a quarter of the galaxy."

"But, these connections, they're...they can't be random, they can't be natural, since, well, they connect to doors." She gestured to the doors along the corridors. "Each and every one of them connects to a doorway or something you can see as a doorway - the arch in Neelix's bar, or the arch in the Borg Cube. There's got to be some kind of intelligence animating it."

"And they like to assimilate entire species-"

Wacoche nodded, frowning. "So, if that's the case, we just need to find who is making this, why, and shut it down and Voyager should get back together."

"And you poked them with a stick!?" R'lash exploded.

"W-Well, Q did it actually-"

"Oh that makes it so much better, you had a space god poke them with a stick!?" R'lash put her hands on the sides of her head.

"You've met Q?" Wacoche asked.

"I mean, I haven't," R'lash said. "Romulans have, though. Why wouldn't we?"

Wacoche gave her a subtle nod. Then he frowned, holding up his hand. "...everyone, cover. Now!"

Wildman froze. R'lash grabbed her, dragged her to the side. Kes and Tiffany scrambled behind a narrow protruding console. Tidak rushed to a door marked safe, opening it and standing in the doorframe while Wacoche pushed his back to the wall. The almost subliminal warning that he had heard grew louder - a trio of voices.

"Gee, now this joint looks like it has the bees..." A female voice.

"Yeah, imagine the kinda racket y'gotta run to build a heap this ritzy! We knock this place over, we're made." Young, brash, male.

"You're awful talkative fer one of Marino's loogans, Mack." A low, tough male voice.

The first voice came around the corner, walking backwards to speak to his two comrades. "I'm not seein' Boss Marino 'round here, Two Ball!"

Wacoche blinked slowly.

The man was dressed in an extremely baggy, traditional looking suit for men from Europe or America in the 20th or 22nd century, but rather than being dark black or charcoal, it was the same crimson red as Wacoche's own command uniform, though maybe a touch brighter. He had a golden chain running from his pocket to his neck, and he was carrying a kind of curious looking energy weapon with a circular energy magazine and a narrow, blunt focusing lens. It had wood furnishings and a foregrip, as if it had to deal with major kickback. He carried the weapon one handed, letting the barrel rest on his shoulder as he grinned broadly at the two others who were coming around behind him. One of them was dressed in a similar bright red suit, but had a sleek looking fedora. The third, the only woman, had a tight dress and miniskirt, which didn't stop her from carrying a sleek energy pistol and a...crude looking tricorder, which she was swinging around.

"Like I'm sayin'," Mack said, grinning. "Ronda, that doohicky y'got squawking any?"

"Never pipes down, Mack, but this joint's got real queer, um, energy field fluctumations, y'know?" she asked, popping some chewing gum in her mouth. She tucked her pistol under her arm and fiddled more. "Wait...wait...my pocketsnitch just fingered some goons! Right there!" She pointed down the corridor at where Wacoche and his ensigns were hiding.

Mack and Two Ball snapped their energy weapons up, aiming them.

"Come out with yer hands up real high...chumps," Mack said, grinning.

---
MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRAITS: Dimensional Fuckery Of Maximalized Degree (Disadvantage)

[ ] Light them up (on stun)
[ ] Try and negotiate
[ ] Try and bluff these jamokes
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Wacoche's brows drew in...and he smiled to himself. He lifted his hand, indicating to R'lash she should hang back. He breathed in, steadied himself, then murmured. "Remember First Contact 304..." He stepped out, wishing more than anything else, that he had a deck of cards to play with. It'd go great with this bit. He lifted his chin, frowned at Mack, and said: "Buddy, you just stumbled into the wrong fella's turf."

R'lash, who was watching him from cover, mouthed a Romulan obscenity that, thanks to being nonverbal, the universal translator did not translate.

Mack smirked slightly. "Oh, and which boss is that, huh?" he asked.

"Wait, Mack," Ronda said. "Wait, I think I know what this jamoke's deal is..."

Wacoche grinned. "You're in the Federation's territory."

Almost immediately, Mack's weapon lowered. His eyes widened. He looked at Two Ball, who grunted, then spun back to Ronda. "Yo, Ronda! Are they feds?"

"Uh..." She said, tapping at her tricorder. Wacoche saw that, despite the wood furnishing and gilt, it was actually remarkably similar to a tricorder about six or seven iterations before - like something Wacoche would have seen in a museum. Or...in old log videos studied in his First Contact 304: Studying the Iotian Contact and Its Ramifications. He tried to protect a sense of cool confidence, not reaching for his phaser or shifting from foot to foot. It was just like dealing with a Cardassian boarder patrol officer searching his ship, only...maybe a little easier. The Iotian Donocracy weren't fascist, they weren't even particularly dangerous beyond small level interpersonal battles that, according to second and third follow-up teams, mostly had shifted from indiscriminate projectiles to stun weapons. He wasn't quite sure if he could read the indicators on their tommy phasers, but they had a dial and it was set on the bottom.

Now, was that the kill setting or the stun setting...

He hoped it was the latter.

Mack was still looking at Ronda. "Hurry up, Ronda!"

"They is!" She said, excitedly, pointing at Wacoche. "They got the, the, ya know, them funny chroma-somes what means they's Terrans! Like Big Man Kirk."

"You serious?" Mack asked, swinging back, beaming at Wacoche. "Yer a Fed? Whowza, that's a headline, I've never met a fella from the Feds, you keep mighty distance with that prime derivative of yours. Is it true you still gotta a piece of the action of, like, a whole ten percent of the frigging galaxy? The whole godddamn spinny?"

"It's closer to twenty percent now," Wacoche said, his hands sliding down to his suit's pockets. He slipped them in. "How'd you get here?"

"Well, see, Mr…, uh, boss?"

"Wacoche," Wacoche said.

"Right," Mack confirmed as Ronda holstered her tricorder in a purse looped around her shoulders. "So, like, we got...well, like, it's been, what, a hundred years? My grand-grand pappy was back when Old Boss Oxmix got himself snookered but good by Big Man Kirk, but the grand-don of Boss Mordino found the dookhicky."

"You can't just call every widget a doohickey," Ronda muttered.

"Button it, toots."

"Make me. So yeah, that doohicky launched us forward, like, two hundred years overnight!" Ronda said, brightly. "We went from usin' them old stupid tommy guns to these fancy heaters - they sling photons that'll bump off a fella and hide the body in one triggerpull. Or, of course, just give him the little sleep instead of the big one!" As she spoke, Mack proudly held up his phaser tommy, to show that the dial that Wacoche had seen had three settings. The highest level was a tiny fish (zzzz), the middle level was a skull and crossbones, and the lowest level was a chair.

"A chair?" Wacoche asked.

"Ya know, so you can shake .em down after" Mack said, nodding. "Hard to do when you've turned 'em into neutrinons."

"Neutrinos, Mack, it's one of them fermiwhatsit partickles," Ronda corrected insistently.

"So, how did you get here, though?" Wacoche said, firmly.

"Right, so, like, back in the 20s," Mack said - which meant...anywhere from five minutes ago to half a century as Wacoche didn't know what the Iotian dating system was. "Boss Mazati had this real cake of an idea: Why try n' go up against the big bosses when you could go...out there. There's a whole galaxy of stuff ta pinch! So, he had his biggest egghead, Mr. Takxho, take a look at the problem. Now, it was something like...taking eighty bazillion years ta get anywhere, with them warp drives, ya know? Dunno how you get anywhere with 'em…."

"They took too much powah, Mack," Ronda said, rolling her eyes. "We still ain't sussed that out. Some goon called Zee keeps pinching all the power out of our fusion boxes, is what I've read."

"Right," Mack said. "But Mr. Takxho, he had this great idea! Made this fancy math thing, E equals something with a square, but point is… What if space-time… was like a bank."

"A bank," Wacoche said, nodding as if he understood - though he was fairly sure they had run into the simple issue of not having the technological base to build fusion power plants to run slow enough warp drives to reach dilithium deposits that would allow for antimatter regulation and, thus, safer construction of faster warp drives. It was a common trap for civilizations that could build warp drives but didn't.

"Yeah that's the ticket!" Mack said. "Ya can go in through da front door, but that draw a lotta heat - the fuzz all over ya, shooting left and right, y'gotta build several kill-o-meters of radiator panels.... Or, ya can go in sneaky and clever, drill it out when the guards are asleep. So, Mr. Takxho built Boss Mazati a kinda doohicky that lets ya just sparkly real far and he's been sending out goons to check out neighbouring solar systems - sometimes, they gotta wear these real nasty diving suits, but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But anyway, our boss, Mordino, he realized that Mazati's been rakin in the dough, so, he got himself his own doorway, and we're casing the joint!"

Wacoche frowned, slowly.

"Well, that's interesting," T'are said, leaning out. "Can we see this… doohicky?"

"Which doohickey? He calls everything a doohickey," Rhonda complained.

"Oh mama mia!" Mack whistled. He walked past Wacoche and started to step around and around T'are, his eyes almost bugging out of his head. "Look at the legs on this dame!"

"You sure can see em all right," Ronda muttered.

Two Ball grunted.

T'are frowned, slightly, watching as Mack walked around her again, finishing before her. "How about you n' me grab a private place, cutie?" he asked.

"Sure, once the danger's done," she said, shrugging slightly. "Heck, if you don't mind being gentle, we can even go at it while I'm studying your, uh, doohicky."

Ronda burst out laughing as Mack practically choked. "She called yer bluff real good, Mack ya big fucking virgin!"

"Bluff?" T'are looked confused.

R'lash stepped over to Wacoche, muttering in his ear. "Are these like the Borg, are they something i missed in the time jump, or is the Federation even more insane than the Romulan propaganda said it was?"

Wacoche sighed.
---
MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRAITS: Dimensional Fuckery Of Maximalized Degree (Disadvantage)

[ ] Study the doohicky
[ ] Try and contact Janeway - this is a serious diplomatic mission that does need command oversight
[ ] Split up - send T'are to study the doohicky, and also, try and contact Janeway
[ ] Write In