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STAR TREK: A Long Road (Voyager Fix It Quest)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
- What if? Mature Sci-Fi
I did it! I made vote end!
PARALLAX (∞)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Well, obviously, we need to work on some tool that might keep us safe," Harry said. "We're not about to put ourselves at the mercy of the Q - the first time they made contact with humanity, they nearly destroyed all of us at the Farpoint Station Incident!"
"A reasonable plan of action, Ensign Kim, save for the following technical flaw: We lack the technology to effect any changes that cannot be undone or ignored by the Q," Tuvok said. "I believe our only option is to engage with their..." He paused. "Framework."
"Their game, you mean," D-91 said.
Janeway, who was watching the discussion from her place at the table, frowned. "I'm not sure if it is a game," Janeway said, her fingers drumming on the table. "This Q didn't seem like the Q that interacted with the USS Enterprise - which means that we could be facing something more complex. Don't...fall into the trap of assuming a single member of a species is like every other member of the species. If you make that mistake with anyone, then you'll be in trouble."
Everyone considered that.
Wacoche, who was on loan from the Van Jean for the meeting, leaned in. "...why don't we test that?" he asked.
"You have an idea?" Janeway asked.
"Hey, if it doesn't work, I'll just look silly," Wacoche said, then stood. He turned to the corner and shouted, as loudly as he could. "Q! GET RIGHT OVER HERE THIS INSTANT!"
There was a brilliant flash of light and...Q appeared, dressed in a poofy shower cap bathrobe, with slippers on and half his face doused in shaving cream. He scowled at Wacoche. "I was in the middle of my morning constitutional!" he huffed. "But oh no, you're always so pushy, Wacoche."
"You've met him before, Brian?" Torres asked, sitting up.
"No further information is available here," Q said, holding up a straight razor and wiping away at the shaving cream, leaving freshly shaved features. "Ugh, I am getting old in this body, how do you deal with these aches and pains. Maybe I should trade it out." He paused. "Tom Hardy, you think? Tom Hanks is just as old. Tom Hiddleston! There's an idea."
"You can look like a Caballusian draqualisk for all I care," Janeway said, flatly. "Explain this practical joke of yours."
She held up the summons.
Q frowned. His body flashed and he stepped forward, looking as if he was dressed and shaved. He took it, then sighed. "This is no joke of mine, oh Capitan," he said, shaking his head. "Honestly, if you were Picard, I'd be offended. Picard and I, we're friends now. We know one another. We've even held hands a few times." He flipped the dossier shut. "Anyway, you're absolutely up the Styx without a paddle with this one, Janeway."
"How can it be this bad?" Harry asked.
"Let me try and put this into words your tiny brains can comprehend," Q said, then made a big show of thinking. "...you are an atom of uranium that is trying to tell the control rod what to do. And I'm Oppenheimer." He smiled, brightly. "No, better, I'm Shiva."
"A bit pasty," Wacoche said.
"HAH!" Q laughed. "See, this is why I love Bri. Now, why did you call me here?"
"Don't you know?" Janeway asked. "Considering you've already met my fellow captain in the future?"
"Future, past, you've got such limited perspectives on things," Q said, shaking his head, then winced as he sat down next to Tuvok, in Wacoche's vacated chair. "Agh. John's back is really a pain."
"You could choose to be a younger form, rather than continuing to waste time with this irrelevancy," Tuvok said, turning to look at him. Q snorted.
"I love rubbing it in, though," he said. "Now!" He clasped his hands together and, in his uniform, he looked comically like an overeager ensign - at least, until Janeway noticed he had given himself Commodore pips. "Fill me in, Kat. Why am I here?"
"Since the summons is legitimate...right?"
"Oh...oh it's a serious as a hole in a spacesuit," Q said, his voice growing...whimsical. Not mocking nor grave. More airy and light. Yet, as he leaned back in his seat, something about the angle of his head and the shadows cast on his features, the light in his eyes...it made Janeway feel a subtle chill run along her spine.
"Then we need council," Janeway said. "And what better lawyer for the human race than the self appointed judge. You. Q."
Q blinked.
Then he smiled, slowly. "Ahhhhh...very clever Captain. All right then. Lets get to work!" His palms rubbed togehter and there was a brilliant flash.
The judge frowned. "Where is Phoebe Janeway?" he asked. "We chose this court, in part, for her."
"My client's sister has begged off arrival until an event currently three weeks upspin from my client's current conceptual zone," Q said, confidently as he nodded to the judge.
"Can we change the courthouse, then?" The woman in the suit asked, lifting her head.
"No, I like the wig," the judge said.
The woman groaned.
The door to the courtroom shuddered for a moment, then cracked open...and...
Janeway's eyes widened as a spindly limb reached in, and then a narrow, tube shaped body capped with an almost polygonal shape atop the tube filled with swirling liquid leaned in. The shape had a pair of glasses on and a loose, brightly patterned tie hung around what could be considered its "neck" - giving it a faintly headish appearance. "Oh!" the creature exclaimed in a squeaking voice. "This is the wrong room."
"You're scheduled for the next case," the Judge said.
"Very good, sorry, sorry."
The creature swung back and the door shut.
"Now," the judge started.
"What was that?" Janeway asked.
"An entity translated to your visual cortex in a mode you could grasp," the other woman said, frowning as she turned her head to glare at Janeway, as if she was at fault for all of this. "As is this entire court. As is every word being spoken. Any confusion is caused by a lack of interfacing between conceptual zones." She turned her head away, then took a drag on her cigarette before muttering: "But, well, what can we expect from grayzoners and singlets."
"Objection!" Q said, standing up. "Pre-trial conceptualization!"
"Sustained," the judge said, then banged his gavel. "You will abstain from attempting pruning on the lower forks, Q."
Q nodded, while Q looked pleased with himself, leaning over and whispering to Janeway. "See? Already paying off."
Janeway had a headache.
"Now, let us hear our closing statements and intentions for the orange zone," the judge said. "Q, you may begin."
Q sighed, took a drag on her cigarette, then stood. "All right, if it pleases the fucking court," she said, then stubbed out the cigarette. "The Great Barrier exists slash unexists so that it will contain Ego Two in the gray zone. Breaching it flagrantly, without express permission from the Producers represents a grave risk to conceptual zones that we actually give a shit about - but what really matters is the secondary effects of the arrival of an unexpected Sovereign class warship in grayzone bacteriological intercontamination event known as the Dominion War. These events will, without fail, lead to the failure of the Prophet's own goals, goals agreed to and set by the Organian/Prophet Treaty. As the Federation falls under Organian purview, we have a conflict of interest here, and one that cannot be resolved save by Voyager's destruction."
She took her seat, then stubbed out her cigarette.
"And your closing statements?" the judge asked Q.
Q stood up, then spread his hands. "Destruction of a single ship for this end is a wild overreach and just as damaging to the Delta Quadrant. While grayzones are grayzones, the Delta Quadrant is a unique place in the grand scheme of things! It's filled with little hole diggers and boundary pushers, who knows, some may even branchiate into the yellow or far red. Cutting them off at the knees, just to please the Prophets, is excessive." He took his seat.
"Your statements have been heard," the judge said. "Now, lets move onto the evidence. As the defendant, you can call on your first witness."
Q stood and rolled his shoulders. "I call to the stand, as a character witness, Timot Danlen."
The witness stand next to the judge flashed and a man sat there, plain and non-descript. He froze, looking around himself. "What the..." He tensed, then barked. "Daniels, Code 9981, under the Temporal Conventions this is all I have to say."
"We're not a faction in your conflict, my dear absurd Daniels, you're a witness for a trial," Q said, his voice dripping condescension. "Now, can you tell the court who you are?"
"...you're not...part of any faction?" Daniels asked, frowning.
"No, we're not," Q said. "I'm Q. This is Q, and Q." He gestured around himself.
"Oh hell," Daniels said, his face paling. Then he saw Janeway and started. "This is the 24th century?"
"No, this is Tuesday. And, also, sometimes never," Q said, then continued on. "Daniels, what date are you from, from the grayzone perspective pre-Kelvin branchiation?"
"The 31st century," Daniels said, slowly.
"And in the 31st century, are you familiar with the USS Voyager?" Q asked, pursing his lips. Janeway wanted to start asking questions - but she bit her tongue. It wasn't just the fact she was a stranger in this court...it was also her training as a captain. The Department of Temporal Investigations were absolute bears about this stuff.
"Passingly," he said. "There's...a holoserial about it that's pretty fun. A bit too much random sex scenes for my taste."
"Yes, well," Q said, waving his hand. "Can you tell me how much good they did on their way home-"
"Objection, moralistic," Q said, jerking her head up.
"Sustained," the judge said. "Stick to clearfact and don't attempt conceptualization in the higher forks."
Q chuckled. "I had to at least try."
"Objection!" Q said, slamming her palms down. "Fork-Snuffing!"
"Overruled," Q said, but pointed his gavel at Q. "But don't you think I don't see that metafold you're working on. Stick to the clearfacts or I will find you in contempt of justice."
Q lifted his hands, nodding. "Daniels, can you tell me about the clearfact - just the details - of what happened in Voyager's long road home?"
"Uh...they explored an unprecedented amount of space, secured peace with the Borg, you could argue that they led to the Collective Transcendence in the 29th century..." Daniels said, shrugging a bit. "So, in a weird roundabout way, they almost destroyed the Federation twice!" He chuckled. "But it all worked out."
"See, it all worked out!" Q said.
"Objection!" Q said, her voice holding a distant whine. "Moralistic!"
"Overruled," the judge said, and both Q sat down. Daniels lifted his hand - but he vanished with a flash.
"Do you have any witnesses to call on?" Q asked, but before he could the glowing polyhedral began to flicker and flash next to Q, who leaned in close to listen to her client. As they conferred, Q turned to face Janeway, grinning conspiratorially.
"So, I think the case is going well - but it's looking like we may need to stick with your canon route," he murmured.
"Our what?" Janeway asked.
"The long, quiet way," Q said, nodding to her. "The other methods are going to be shot down, no matter how many nice guys I call up - but right now, it's looking like we can settle with that course in court."
---
What say you?
[ ] Since the alternative seemed to be destruction, go for it. Accept the plea bargain.
[ ] Ask Q to explain what the hell is going on... (pick as many as you want, but know your time is limited)
"A reasonable plan of action, Ensign Kim, save for the following technical flaw: We lack the technology to effect any changes that cannot be undone or ignored by the Q," Tuvok said. "I believe our only option is to engage with their..." He paused. "Framework."
"Their game, you mean," D-91 said.
Janeway, who was watching the discussion from her place at the table, frowned. "I'm not sure if it is a game," Janeway said, her fingers drumming on the table. "This Q didn't seem like the Q that interacted with the USS Enterprise - which means that we could be facing something more complex. Don't...fall into the trap of assuming a single member of a species is like every other member of the species. If you make that mistake with anyone, then you'll be in trouble."
Everyone considered that.
Wacoche, who was on loan from the Van Jean for the meeting, leaned in. "...why don't we test that?" he asked.
"You have an idea?" Janeway asked.
"Hey, if it doesn't work, I'll just look silly," Wacoche said, then stood. He turned to the corner and shouted, as loudly as he could. "Q! GET RIGHT OVER HERE THIS INSTANT!"
There was a brilliant flash of light and...Q appeared, dressed in a poofy shower cap bathrobe, with slippers on and half his face doused in shaving cream. He scowled at Wacoche. "I was in the middle of my morning constitutional!" he huffed. "But oh no, you're always so pushy, Wacoche."
"You've met him before, Brian?" Torres asked, sitting up.
"No further information is available here," Q said, holding up a straight razor and wiping away at the shaving cream, leaving freshly shaved features. "Ugh, I am getting old in this body, how do you deal with these aches and pains. Maybe I should trade it out." He paused. "Tom Hardy, you think? Tom Hanks is just as old. Tom Hiddleston! There's an idea."
"You can look like a Caballusian draqualisk for all I care," Janeway said, flatly. "Explain this practical joke of yours."
She held up the summons.
Q frowned. His body flashed and he stepped forward, looking as if he was dressed and shaved. He took it, then sighed. "This is no joke of mine, oh Capitan," he said, shaking his head. "Honestly, if you were Picard, I'd be offended. Picard and I, we're friends now. We know one another. We've even held hands a few times." He flipped the dossier shut. "Anyway, you're absolutely up the Styx without a paddle with this one, Janeway."
"How can it be this bad?" Harry asked.
"Let me try and put this into words your tiny brains can comprehend," Q said, then made a big show of thinking. "...you are an atom of uranium that is trying to tell the control rod what to do. And I'm Oppenheimer." He smiled, brightly. "No, better, I'm Shiva."
"A bit pasty," Wacoche said.
"HAH!" Q laughed. "See, this is why I love Bri. Now, why did you call me here?"
"Don't you know?" Janeway asked. "Considering you've already met my fellow captain in the future?"
"Future, past, you've got such limited perspectives on things," Q said, shaking his head, then winced as he sat down next to Tuvok, in Wacoche's vacated chair. "Agh. John's back is really a pain."
"You could choose to be a younger form, rather than continuing to waste time with this irrelevancy," Tuvok said, turning to look at him. Q snorted.
"I love rubbing it in, though," he said. "Now!" He clasped his hands together and, in his uniform, he looked comically like an overeager ensign - at least, until Janeway noticed he had given himself Commodore pips. "Fill me in, Kat. Why am I here?"
"Since the summons is legitimate...right?"
"Oh...oh it's a serious as a hole in a spacesuit," Q said, his voice growing...whimsical. Not mocking nor grave. More airy and light. Yet, as he leaned back in his seat, something about the angle of his head and the shadows cast on his features, the light in his eyes...it made Janeway feel a subtle chill run along her spine.
"Then we need council," Janeway said. "And what better lawyer for the human race than the self appointed judge. You. Q."
Q blinked.
Then he smiled, slowly. "Ahhhhh...very clever Captain. All right then. Lets get to work!" His palms rubbed togehter and there was a brilliant flash.
***
The bridge crew of the USS Voyager all started at the same time - for they found themselves scattered about a large, stone room. A pair of sets of wooden benches ran along the walls - the majority of them were seated there, looking down at the center of the courtroom. A tall desk with several seats sat at the far end of the room, with a stern looking man with a curly wig and black robes seated in the highest chair, while set before him were two tables. At one stood Captain Janeway, with Q beside her, dressed in a black robe and his very own wig. At the other stood a tired looking woman smoking a cigarette and dressed in a suit and tie, who looked utterly miserable. To her left "stood" a hovering prism of glowing green light that pulsed and strobed sickeningly, while orange sparks flared around it.
The judge frowned. "Where is Phoebe Janeway?" he asked. "We chose this court, in part, for her."
"My client's sister has begged off arrival until an event currently three weeks upspin from my client's current conceptual zone," Q said, confidently as he nodded to the judge.
"Can we change the courthouse, then?" The woman in the suit asked, lifting her head.
"No, I like the wig," the judge said.
The woman groaned.
The door to the courtroom shuddered for a moment, then cracked open...and...
Janeway's eyes widened as a spindly limb reached in, and then a narrow, tube shaped body capped with an almost polygonal shape atop the tube filled with swirling liquid leaned in. The shape had a pair of glasses on and a loose, brightly patterned tie hung around what could be considered its "neck" - giving it a faintly headish appearance. "Oh!" the creature exclaimed in a squeaking voice. "This is the wrong room."
"You're scheduled for the next case," the Judge said.
"Very good, sorry, sorry."
The creature swung back and the door shut.
"Now," the judge started.
"What was that?" Janeway asked.
"An entity translated to your visual cortex in a mode you could grasp," the other woman said, frowning as she turned her head to glare at Janeway, as if she was at fault for all of this. "As is this entire court. As is every word being spoken. Any confusion is caused by a lack of interfacing between conceptual zones." She turned her head away, then took a drag on her cigarette before muttering: "But, well, what can we expect from grayzoners and singlets."
"Objection!" Q said, standing up. "Pre-trial conceptualization!"
"Sustained," the judge said, then banged his gavel. "You will abstain from attempting pruning on the lower forks, Q."
Q nodded, while Q looked pleased with himself, leaning over and whispering to Janeway. "See? Already paying off."
Janeway had a headache.
"Now, let us hear our closing statements and intentions for the orange zone," the judge said. "Q, you may begin."
Q sighed, took a drag on her cigarette, then stood. "All right, if it pleases the fucking court," she said, then stubbed out the cigarette. "The Great Barrier exists slash unexists so that it will contain Ego Two in the gray zone. Breaching it flagrantly, without express permission from the Producers represents a grave risk to conceptual zones that we actually give a shit about - but what really matters is the secondary effects of the arrival of an unexpected Sovereign class warship in grayzone bacteriological intercontamination event known as the Dominion War. These events will, without fail, lead to the failure of the Prophet's own goals, goals agreed to and set by the Organian/Prophet Treaty. As the Federation falls under Organian purview, we have a conflict of interest here, and one that cannot be resolved save by Voyager's destruction."
She took her seat, then stubbed out her cigarette.
"And your closing statements?" the judge asked Q.
Q stood up, then spread his hands. "Destruction of a single ship for this end is a wild overreach and just as damaging to the Delta Quadrant. While grayzones are grayzones, the Delta Quadrant is a unique place in the grand scheme of things! It's filled with little hole diggers and boundary pushers, who knows, some may even branchiate into the yellow or far red. Cutting them off at the knees, just to please the Prophets, is excessive." He took his seat.
"Your statements have been heard," the judge said. "Now, lets move onto the evidence. As the defendant, you can call on your first witness."
Q stood and rolled his shoulders. "I call to the stand, as a character witness, Timot Danlen."
The witness stand next to the judge flashed and a man sat there, plain and non-descript. He froze, looking around himself. "What the..." He tensed, then barked. "Daniels, Code 9981, under the Temporal Conventions this is all I have to say."
"We're not a faction in your conflict, my dear absurd Daniels, you're a witness for a trial," Q said, his voice dripping condescension. "Now, can you tell the court who you are?"
"...you're not...part of any faction?" Daniels asked, frowning.
"No, we're not," Q said. "I'm Q. This is Q, and Q." He gestured around himself.
"Oh hell," Daniels said, his face paling. Then he saw Janeway and started. "This is the 24th century?"
"No, this is Tuesday. And, also, sometimes never," Q said, then continued on. "Daniels, what date are you from, from the grayzone perspective pre-Kelvin branchiation?"
"The 31st century," Daniels said, slowly.
"And in the 31st century, are you familiar with the USS Voyager?" Q asked, pursing his lips. Janeway wanted to start asking questions - but she bit her tongue. It wasn't just the fact she was a stranger in this court...it was also her training as a captain. The Department of Temporal Investigations were absolute bears about this stuff.
"Passingly," he said. "There's...a holoserial about it that's pretty fun. A bit too much random sex scenes for my taste."
"Yes, well," Q said, waving his hand. "Can you tell me how much good they did on their way home-"
"Objection, moralistic," Q said, jerking her head up.
"Sustained," the judge said. "Stick to clearfact and don't attempt conceptualization in the higher forks."
Q chuckled. "I had to at least try."
"Objection!" Q said, slamming her palms down. "Fork-Snuffing!"
"Overruled," Q said, but pointed his gavel at Q. "But don't you think I don't see that metafold you're working on. Stick to the clearfacts or I will find you in contempt of justice."
Q lifted his hands, nodding. "Daniels, can you tell me about the clearfact - just the details - of what happened in Voyager's long road home?"
"Uh...they explored an unprecedented amount of space, secured peace with the Borg, you could argue that they led to the Collective Transcendence in the 29th century..." Daniels said, shrugging a bit. "So, in a weird roundabout way, they almost destroyed the Federation twice!" He chuckled. "But it all worked out."
"See, it all worked out!" Q said.
"Objection!" Q said, her voice holding a distant whine. "Moralistic!"
"Overruled," the judge said, and both Q sat down. Daniels lifted his hand - but he vanished with a flash.
"Do you have any witnesses to call on?" Q asked, but before he could the glowing polyhedral began to flicker and flash next to Q, who leaned in close to listen to her client. As they conferred, Q turned to face Janeway, grinning conspiratorially.
"So, I think the case is going well - but it's looking like we may need to stick with your canon route," he murmured.
"Our what?" Janeway asked.
"The long, quiet way," Q said, nodding to her. "The other methods are going to be shot down, no matter how many nice guys I call up - but right now, it's looking like we can settle with that course in court."
---
What say you?
[ ] Since the alternative seemed to be destruction, go for it. Accept the plea bargain.
[ ] Ask Q to explain what the hell is going on... (pick as many as you want, but know your time is limited)
[ ] Ask about Daniels
[ ] The monster that stuck its head in
[ ] What do the color zones mean?
[ ] Did he say Borg?
[ ] What in hell is Branchiation?
[ ] What is this forking you keep doing?
[ ] Write In
Vote closed
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- He/Him
PARALLAX (∞.∞)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Janeway scowled. "Apparently, our plan to visit The Great Barrier interferes with the plans of a-temporal politics, who weild enough influence that the Q act on their behalf," she said. "If Q had just said that, Q, then we wouldn't be in this mess with Q, Q and Q, now would we?"
Q looked offended, shaking his head. "The Continuum doesn't act on anyone's behalf but its own. Do you think we want a corrupted lower fork branchiating through the grayzone and the lower far red?"
"Are you just making words up, or do you expect me to understand that, Q?" Janeway asked, exasperation clear in her voice.
"I'm using the simple words that we use on children," Q said, dryly.
"That doesn't change the fact that if you had just been upfront with us rather than trying subtlety, then we could have changed course without threatening future timelines," Janeway explained, pointing at the witness stand. "You brought someone from my future to the stand."
"Oh please," Q said, quietly. He turned to look right at her, his arm resting on the table was not a table, which served as their seat that wasn't their seat in the courtroom that wasn't a courtroom. His eyes didn't change their color. There was no flash or special effect. There was nothing at all but the slipping of a mask - and Janeway wondered if it was a mask of seriousness pulled over a clown...or quite the opposite. "You humans, you lovely, finite little humans, with your stories that start at the beginning and end at the end and, sometimes, even come to the middle in the middle." He shook his head. "If you had been paying attention, Katheryn, you would notice that a great deal of this whole drama is based in concepts and their...overlap."
"Objection, conceptualization," Janeway said, quietly, quoting the Q that served as the judge.
"Precisely," Q said. "Now, this may be hard for you to believe, but we find it just as hard to speak to you as you find it speaking to us."
"So..." Janeway frowned and thought. "What? You think we should be grateful for this?" She shook her head. "I don't believe it. You're more advanced than us by orders of magnitude. Humans may be bad at understanding how non-human minds work...but we're not that bad, Q. We know that clever people can accomplish a lot when they try. And you lot are quite a lot more clever than us - which means that you can try a hell of a lot harder than this." She shifted and turned to look right at him, ignoring the increasingly loud hissed conversation between the shimmering orb and the other Q. "What's the real reason for all of this? Why didn't you just tell us?"
Q smiled, slightly. "Reflect, Katheryn, on smallpox."
He turned back to the judge as Q slammed his gavel down and Q stopped hissing to the orb. "Against my objections," Q said, standing up, her hand gesturing to the orb. "I call to the stand...Gul Dukat, circa Duet."
"Hold up!" Janeway said, standing. "We will change our course without any more need for a trial. We have alternative courses to heading through either the Gamma Quadrant or the galactic core."
The entire audience - well, save for those who were her crew - burst into murmurs. Except the murmurs...sounded a hell of a lot like people whispering 'rhubarb' to one another.
Q slammed his gavel down and silenced them all. "Very well, do you accept this?" he asked, glancing at Q. She nodded. "And you?"
Q smiled and nodded. "We got what we came here for," he said. He turned to Janeway, who was about to bring up that they had endangered her ship and put her and her crew at immense danger, all for something that could have been clearly communicated with words. "Now, Katheryn, remember to tell them that they shouldn't expect so much from us. We're not really a fan of being used to engineer ships."
"...what?" Janeway asked.
"Seven slash Phoebe is going to be very popular," Q said, beaming at her.
Janeway frowned. "You know, for a second back there, I actually thought...maybe you were being serious for once in whatever we might call your...life. But this has all just been some kind of farce, hasn't it?"
Q cocked his head, looking down at her. He seemed taller. "Consider smallpox, remember?" he asked. "Consider, maybe...finitude is as inexplicable and unimaginable to us as it is to you. Consider that consequences, as much as we hate to admit it, exist in the grayzone and echo upwards - that, in fact, is why we all tread so lightly there. Consider..." His hand went to her shoulder, and he grinned a cold grin. A sepulcher grin. A death's head grin. "Consider that sometimes, a courtroom is a battlefield. And a death sentence is a death sentence."
The judge slammed down his gavel.
"Case dismissed!"
There was a brilliant flash of light and Janeway and her crew were once more in the ready room.
"Did anyone follow any of that?" Harry asked, his palms hovering over the desk, as if he was afraid to touch it. "Anyone at all?"
"I got that we're not taking the fast way home," Brian Wacoche said, sighing. He stood up. "I'll tell my crew."
As he started towards the door, Torres following after him, Janeway frowned to herself. "Consider smallpox," she said, quietly.
"Captain?" Harry asked.
"It's...something that Q said..." Janeway said. "Smallpox was a disease. It was eradicated in the 20th century, but they kept it around in storage units until the Second American Civil War broke out in the 21st century. It was used again - we didn't get rid of it until the 22nd Century." She frowned. "During the war, the Constitutionalist Party...would deliberately infect diplomats being sent into the Freezones to try and put stressors on their health system that the besieged cities couldn't...deal...with." She trailed off, frowning.
Harry frowned.
"...were...we the smallpox?" he asked. "And the court...a vector?"
Janeway considered that. She considered...if she imagined a band of electromangetic light, far red was where things were beginning to move into the band beyond human sight. She imagined...if she was a radio wave...what would the layers of other forms of electromagnetic radiation look like? Stacked one up on the other, growing higher and less perceptible. But...what if it was worse than that. What if not only did they get harder to understand but also got increasingly complex. The complexity growing and growing, to the point where communication became nearly impossible.
Concepts as weapons.
Mortality as a tool.
Janeway frowned. "Mr. Paris," she said. "Work with astrometrics. We're taking the long road home."
Paris sighed, softly. He stood up, then stretched. "It could be worse, captain. Seventy years is only a quarter of our lifespans. It could be the 23rd century." He grinned. "We'd be screwed then."
Janeway did not smile.
Instead, she watched through the glass, glaring out into the stars.
Considering about smallpox.
Thinking about the parallax effect - the way you can see judge the world by changing your perspective.
The stars streaked and the rippling distortion of the warp bubble shrouded the window as the Voyager and the Val Jean left the Okampan system.
Q looked offended, shaking his head. "The Continuum doesn't act on anyone's behalf but its own. Do you think we want a corrupted lower fork branchiating through the grayzone and the lower far red?"
"Are you just making words up, or do you expect me to understand that, Q?" Janeway asked, exasperation clear in her voice.
"I'm using the simple words that we use on children," Q said, dryly.
"That doesn't change the fact that if you had just been upfront with us rather than trying subtlety, then we could have changed course without threatening future timelines," Janeway explained, pointing at the witness stand. "You brought someone from my future to the stand."
"Oh please," Q said, quietly. He turned to look right at her, his arm resting on the table was not a table, which served as their seat that wasn't their seat in the courtroom that wasn't a courtroom. His eyes didn't change their color. There was no flash or special effect. There was nothing at all but the slipping of a mask - and Janeway wondered if it was a mask of seriousness pulled over a clown...or quite the opposite. "You humans, you lovely, finite little humans, with your stories that start at the beginning and end at the end and, sometimes, even come to the middle in the middle." He shook his head. "If you had been paying attention, Katheryn, you would notice that a great deal of this whole drama is based in concepts and their...overlap."
"Objection, conceptualization," Janeway said, quietly, quoting the Q that served as the judge.
"Precisely," Q said. "Now, this may be hard for you to believe, but we find it just as hard to speak to you as you find it speaking to us."
"So..." Janeway frowned and thought. "What? You think we should be grateful for this?" She shook her head. "I don't believe it. You're more advanced than us by orders of magnitude. Humans may be bad at understanding how non-human minds work...but we're not that bad, Q. We know that clever people can accomplish a lot when they try. And you lot are quite a lot more clever than us - which means that you can try a hell of a lot harder than this." She shifted and turned to look right at him, ignoring the increasingly loud hissed conversation between the shimmering orb and the other Q. "What's the real reason for all of this? Why didn't you just tell us?"
Q smiled, slightly. "Reflect, Katheryn, on smallpox."
He turned back to the judge as Q slammed his gavel down and Q stopped hissing to the orb. "Against my objections," Q said, standing up, her hand gesturing to the orb. "I call to the stand...Gul Dukat, circa Duet."
"Hold up!" Janeway said, standing. "We will change our course without any more need for a trial. We have alternative courses to heading through either the Gamma Quadrant or the galactic core."
The entire audience - well, save for those who were her crew - burst into murmurs. Except the murmurs...sounded a hell of a lot like people whispering 'rhubarb' to one another.
Q slammed his gavel down and silenced them all. "Very well, do you accept this?" he asked, glancing at Q. She nodded. "And you?"
Q smiled and nodded. "We got what we came here for," he said. He turned to Janeway, who was about to bring up that they had endangered her ship and put her and her crew at immense danger, all for something that could have been clearly communicated with words. "Now, Katheryn, remember to tell them that they shouldn't expect so much from us. We're not really a fan of being used to engineer ships."
"...what?" Janeway asked.
"Seven slash Phoebe is going to be very popular," Q said, beaming at her.
Janeway frowned. "You know, for a second back there, I actually thought...maybe you were being serious for once in whatever we might call your...life. But this has all just been some kind of farce, hasn't it?"
Q cocked his head, looking down at her. He seemed taller. "Consider smallpox, remember?" he asked. "Consider, maybe...finitude is as inexplicable and unimaginable to us as it is to you. Consider that consequences, as much as we hate to admit it, exist in the grayzone and echo upwards - that, in fact, is why we all tread so lightly there. Consider..." His hand went to her shoulder, and he grinned a cold grin. A sepulcher grin. A death's head grin. "Consider that sometimes, a courtroom is a battlefield. And a death sentence is a death sentence."
The judge slammed down his gavel.
"Case dismissed!"
There was a brilliant flash of light and Janeway and her crew were once more in the ready room.
"Did anyone follow any of that?" Harry asked, his palms hovering over the desk, as if he was afraid to touch it. "Anyone at all?"
"I got that we're not taking the fast way home," Brian Wacoche said, sighing. He stood up. "I'll tell my crew."
As he started towards the door, Torres following after him, Janeway frowned to herself. "Consider smallpox," she said, quietly.
"Captain?" Harry asked.
"It's...something that Q said..." Janeway said. "Smallpox was a disease. It was eradicated in the 20th century, but they kept it around in storage units until the Second American Civil War broke out in the 21st century. It was used again - we didn't get rid of it until the 22nd Century." She frowned. "During the war, the Constitutionalist Party...would deliberately infect diplomats being sent into the Freezones to try and put stressors on their health system that the besieged cities couldn't...deal...with." She trailed off, frowning.
Harry frowned.
"...were...we the smallpox?" he asked. "And the court...a vector?"
Janeway considered that. She considered...if she imagined a band of electromangetic light, far red was where things were beginning to move into the band beyond human sight. She imagined...if she was a radio wave...what would the layers of other forms of electromagnetic radiation look like? Stacked one up on the other, growing higher and less perceptible. But...what if it was worse than that. What if not only did they get harder to understand but also got increasingly complex. The complexity growing and growing, to the point where communication became nearly impossible.
Concepts as weapons.
Mortality as a tool.
Janeway frowned. "Mr. Paris," she said. "Work with astrometrics. We're taking the long road home."
Paris sighed, softly. He stood up, then stretched. "It could be worse, captain. Seventy years is only a quarter of our lifespans. It could be the 23rd century." He grinned. "We'd be screwed then."
Janeway did not smile.
Instead, she watched through the glass, glaring out into the stars.
Considering about smallpox.
Thinking about the parallax effect - the way you can see judge the world by changing your perspective.
The stars streaked and the rippling distortion of the warp bubble shrouded the window as the Voyager and the Val Jean left the Okampan system.
ROLL CREDITS
Last edited:
TIME AND AGAIN (1.0)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Tom Paris sat at his console, his fingers drumming as he looked down at the color corrected haze of stars gently puttering past them. A few had a faint subspace mumbling that meant they had some kind of warp capable civilization, but were so far off course that he couldn't get any reads from them. A few were marked with the slowly expanding haze of radio traffic - but three of their radio hazes went for about ten years before puttering off with a sudden stop that meant some kind of major disaster. Take your pick: Nuclear war, climate change, natural disaster, runaway plague, religious upheaval, time loops caused by interpolated singularities, Apollo being a dick...
Tom shook his head.
This was getting morbid.
But being stuck in the far end of the galaxy, with a quarter of your life being trapped in the same ship with the same seven hundred off people wasn't exactly how he'd planned to spend his first or even second retirement. He was thinking he'd spent at least fifty years in the Kingdom, off the coast of New Ireland. Holographic spells, blunted lances, pretty ladies, courtly drama. It might have been fun. Then back into Starfleet of the Maquis or the merchant marine or whatever else took his fancy, then for his second retirement, he was going to just go to Risa and rack up a Federate energy debt big enough to flag the waste allocation sensors.
"Ah well," he said, shaking his head, before a faint chirrup came from the console and he felt a prodding at his shoulder at the same time. He glanced over and saw the half-catian, C'nola, getting ready to poke him again.
"Hey. Flyboy. Stop navel gazing. My chair. I want to fly the big chonky ship. The absolute unit. The huge fuckvessel. The-"
"Yeah, I get it, you think my baby is fat," Tom said, then patted the console. "It's okay, honey, she doesn't mean it."
He stood and C'nola took his seat. "Could be worse, yeah," she said, then smirked. "She could be a Galaxy class."
"Tom, don't," Harry said from his console. "She's trying to get a rise out of you."
Tom scowled at C'nola, then tugged his uniform flat again. "I will have you know," he said, his voice deep in dignity. "Galaxy class ships are very fine vehicles."
"I mean, if you want a hotel in space...with a big shoot me sign taped to the back."
"C'nola!" Harry exclaimed.
"Ahem."
All three looked over at Tuvok, who was sitting in the captain's chair for this duty shift. Harry's cheeks darkened. C'nola gave an insolent little grin and mocking salute, then started to trim the conn. Tom started for the exit, pausing by Harry's console. "C'mon, you're off shift now."
"I'm just doing one last run on the sims," Harry said, quietly. "The port arrays have are still a bit wiggy after their repair - I want to make sure the Q-dot focal lenses are aligning properly so we can do fast tracking. Just in case we run into any more of those Kazon carriers. Or bigger carriers. Then, I think that the automation for torpedo tracking should be updated. If this is a fighter heavy region of space, people may have dedicated point defense guns and not-"
"Harry," Tom said. "We're days out from anything and you're working your ass off like you're making a paycheck. You can come with me to the mess hall and replicate something delicious and bad for you, right?" He grinned.
Harry considered.
"Besides, you're stealing Amy's workload," Tom said, slapping his shoulder and dragging him out just as Amy arrived, a piece of toast between her teeth, her jacket half on and still being zipped up. She zipped, spat the toast into her hand, and began to babble.
"Sorry, I was hit by a Change on the way, I...you know, I'm fine!"
"Your condition is known and accounted for, Lt. Strong," Tuvok said, dryly. "You need not explain yourself."
Harry and Tom started out of the bridge. Tom glanced back, then grinned: "You think we could ever get those two on a double date?"
"Are you insane?" Harry asked, quietly. "I...I don't think they swing that way. Also, C'nola hates you. Also, also...you know..." He trailed off, blushing. "What if...you know...Amy..."
"Becomes a snake while you're making out?" Tom asked. "Ah, but you forget the corollary. What if she becomes a nine foot tall amazon with muscles like..." He sketched a shape in the air. "You just gotta roll the quantum superposition dice, Harry!" He slapped Harry's back.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, C'nola had her feet up. "Hey, Amy, do you think I could trick Tom into getting GRS if I offered to go out on a date with him?"
Amy choked on her toast.
Then her back smashed into the mat and the air exploded from her lungs. "Ow..." She wheezed, while Kes beamed brightly down at her.
"See, what you did wrong there was you didn't keep your stance rooted," the Okampan girl said, panting softly, sweat dripping from her golden locks. She was dressed in a simple gi - replicated for her and T'are for their training. They were in a simple gymnasium formatted holodeck, alone save for the EMH, who looked quite irritated to be there at all. He sat on a chair, his arms crossed, one leg propped over his knee. "So, I could throw you."
T'are nodded, then wheezed. "I think...something's broken."
"No, nothing is broken, you just have had the wind knocked out of you," the EMH said, then shook his head. "Preposterous saying. It's really more of muscle spasm. The saying should be 'you've had a muscle spasm in the diaphram or similar area of the humanoid body.'" He sighed. "Less pithy, I suppose."
T'are took Kes hand and let herself get tugged up. As she did so, Kes shivered and breathed in, her eyes growing hooded. "Oh...uh..." she said.
"Sorry, sorry," T'are said, then laughed. "My fault for letting you get me on my back." She dialed her masker up a few notches.
"...right!" Kes shook herself from her head to her toes. "Want to try again?"
"Yeah..." T'are said. "I...I don't want to be so useless next time. According to the manual...practicing physical combat, even if it's not the type of fighting you actually use in, you know...battle..."
"You'd be surprised," Kes said, grinning. "Neelix used to say: We can fold space, travel through time by sneezing wrong, and destroy continents by snapping our fingers - and you can still get killed by a sharp rock!" She stepped into a combat stance, taking the Talaxian style she had been taught - even if she lacked the claws that added the extra bite out of the motion. "Now...come at me again."
"Right," T'are said, lifting her arms. She remembered how they'd drilled...snapped out her leg with a quick kick, which Kes blocked with her forearm, then tried to grab, but T'are jerked her leg down, caught onto Kes' shoulder, and shoved. The two tumbled, and ended up on with Kes on her back and T'are pinning her down, grinning with fierce triumph. "Hah! I did it!" She said, panting softly, leaning close down over Kes. Kes panted, laughing, her eyes half closed.
"Masker," she said. "...masker!"
"Right!" T'are flushed, then stood, her body buzzing. "Hah! I did it!"
Kes grinned, then swept her leg out. T'are yelped, tried to keep herself rooted...forgot...and ended up flat on her back.
She groaned. "Broken..."
"Once again, no you have not." The EMH paused. "Though, you may have unexplored sadomasochistic tendencies, considering the uptick in pheremone production. Have you considered-"
"Computer, pillow," T'are said. The holodeck shimmered as a pillow appeared next to her palm. She grabbed it and threw it directly into the EMH's face.
After shooing him out and altering the gym to some shower stalls, T'are jerked the water to as cold as possible, shaking her head as she stood under the faucet. "Well, that was bracing," Kes said from the other side of the partition. "...so, um...are you and Neelix..." She paused.
"What?" T'are asked, shivering as she slowly ticked the water heat up and up - feeling a lot more focused now.
"...an item?" Kes sounded nervous.
"No," T'are said, laughing. "We Orions don't...do that so quickly. Humans might fall in love the first time they have sex, but it takes us a bit more time."
"Okay," Kes said, then laughed.
T'are smiled. "You know he is a bit old for you."
"I'm almost four!" Kes said. Then, a beat later. "Okay, I...I get now that that sounds-" She groaned, then. A clattering sound came from the next stall over and then a crash and a thump of a body against tile - even softened by safety systems, it sounded bad. T'are sprang out of her stall, sprinted around the corner, and knelt down next to the prone Kes, her eyes wide.
"Kes!?" she asked, then knelt down, shouting. "Computer! Two to beam to sickbay!"
She looked down at Kes, putting her fingers to her neck and standing at the same time - and then she was next to the sickbay bed, where Kes laid, dressed in a thin white gown. The computer had slapped on the underclothes of T'are's uniform during the transport - a completely unnecessarily prudist step, if T'are had any say in it. But at least she wasn't dripping.
The EMH stepped over to Kes who groaned, softly, blood dripping from her nose. He held up his tricorder, frowning. "She's suffering from what appears to be an intense psionic shock..." He said, then cocked his head. "We're getting reports of Okampans across the Val Jean suffering similar results."
They began to appear - twelve in total, all carried by fellow Okampans. As the doctor started to get to work, T'are grabbed the arm of an Okampan in science blue. "What's their aptitude?" she whispered to him.
He blinked, then looked at his unconscious friends. Despite not being out, he seemed...woozy. All of the mobile Okampans did. "They're all clears, mostly."
"Clears?" T'are asked.
"Clairsentient," he said.
Tuvok frowned. "Source?"
"A local star system - they had no subspace traffic," C'nola said, her hands playing along the console.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Woozy Okampans" (Val Jean)
What do you do?
[ ] Drop out of warp and raise shields!
[ ] Turn and try to outrun it
[ ] Write In
Tom shook his head.
This was getting morbid.
But being stuck in the far end of the galaxy, with a quarter of your life being trapped in the same ship with the same seven hundred off people wasn't exactly how he'd planned to spend his first or even second retirement. He was thinking he'd spent at least fifty years in the Kingdom, off the coast of New Ireland. Holographic spells, blunted lances, pretty ladies, courtly drama. It might have been fun. Then back into Starfleet of the Maquis or the merchant marine or whatever else took his fancy, then for his second retirement, he was going to just go to Risa and rack up a Federate energy debt big enough to flag the waste allocation sensors.
"Ah well," he said, shaking his head, before a faint chirrup came from the console and he felt a prodding at his shoulder at the same time. He glanced over and saw the half-catian, C'nola, getting ready to poke him again.
"Hey. Flyboy. Stop navel gazing. My chair. I want to fly the big chonky ship. The absolute unit. The huge fuckvessel. The-"
"Yeah, I get it, you think my baby is fat," Tom said, then patted the console. "It's okay, honey, she doesn't mean it."
He stood and C'nola took his seat. "Could be worse, yeah," she said, then smirked. "She could be a Galaxy class."
"Tom, don't," Harry said from his console. "She's trying to get a rise out of you."
Tom scowled at C'nola, then tugged his uniform flat again. "I will have you know," he said, his voice deep in dignity. "Galaxy class ships are very fine vehicles."
"I mean, if you want a hotel in space...with a big shoot me sign taped to the back."
"C'nola!" Harry exclaimed.
"Ahem."
All three looked over at Tuvok, who was sitting in the captain's chair for this duty shift. Harry's cheeks darkened. C'nola gave an insolent little grin and mocking salute, then started to trim the conn. Tom started for the exit, pausing by Harry's console. "C'mon, you're off shift now."
"I'm just doing one last run on the sims," Harry said, quietly. "The port arrays have are still a bit wiggy after their repair - I want to make sure the Q-dot focal lenses are aligning properly so we can do fast tracking. Just in case we run into any more of those Kazon carriers. Or bigger carriers. Then, I think that the automation for torpedo tracking should be updated. If this is a fighter heavy region of space, people may have dedicated point defense guns and not-"
"Harry," Tom said. "We're days out from anything and you're working your ass off like you're making a paycheck. You can come with me to the mess hall and replicate something delicious and bad for you, right?" He grinned.
Harry considered.
"Besides, you're stealing Amy's workload," Tom said, slapping his shoulder and dragging him out just as Amy arrived, a piece of toast between her teeth, her jacket half on and still being zipped up. She zipped, spat the toast into her hand, and began to babble.
"Sorry, I was hit by a Change on the way, I...you know, I'm fine!"
"Your condition is known and accounted for, Lt. Strong," Tuvok said, dryly. "You need not explain yourself."
Harry and Tom started out of the bridge. Tom glanced back, then grinned: "You think we could ever get those two on a double date?"
"Are you insane?" Harry asked, quietly. "I...I don't think they swing that way. Also, C'nola hates you. Also, also...you know..." He trailed off, blushing. "What if...you know...Amy..."
"Becomes a snake while you're making out?" Tom asked. "Ah, but you forget the corollary. What if she becomes a nine foot tall amazon with muscles like..." He sketched a shape in the air. "You just gotta roll the quantum superposition dice, Harry!" He slapped Harry's back.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, C'nola had her feet up. "Hey, Amy, do you think I could trick Tom into getting GRS if I offered to go out on a date with him?"
Amy choked on her toast.
***
T'are whistled through the air, had a moment to think: Wow, I agreed to this. I could have been getting railed by the Gorn instead.
Then her back smashed into the mat and the air exploded from her lungs. "Ow..." She wheezed, while Kes beamed brightly down at her.
"See, what you did wrong there was you didn't keep your stance rooted," the Okampan girl said, panting softly, sweat dripping from her golden locks. She was dressed in a simple gi - replicated for her and T'are for their training. They were in a simple gymnasium formatted holodeck, alone save for the EMH, who looked quite irritated to be there at all. He sat on a chair, his arms crossed, one leg propped over his knee. "So, I could throw you."
T'are nodded, then wheezed. "I think...something's broken."
"No, nothing is broken, you just have had the wind knocked out of you," the EMH said, then shook his head. "Preposterous saying. It's really more of muscle spasm. The saying should be 'you've had a muscle spasm in the diaphram or similar area of the humanoid body.'" He sighed. "Less pithy, I suppose."
T'are took Kes hand and let herself get tugged up. As she did so, Kes shivered and breathed in, her eyes growing hooded. "Oh...uh..." she said.
"Sorry, sorry," T'are said, then laughed. "My fault for letting you get me on my back." She dialed her masker up a few notches.
"...right!" Kes shook herself from her head to her toes. "Want to try again?"
"Yeah..." T'are said. "I...I don't want to be so useless next time. According to the manual...practicing physical combat, even if it's not the type of fighting you actually use in, you know...battle..."
"You'd be surprised," Kes said, grinning. "Neelix used to say: We can fold space, travel through time by sneezing wrong, and destroy continents by snapping our fingers - and you can still get killed by a sharp rock!" She stepped into a combat stance, taking the Talaxian style she had been taught - even if she lacked the claws that added the extra bite out of the motion. "Now...come at me again."
"Right," T'are said, lifting her arms. She remembered how they'd drilled...snapped out her leg with a quick kick, which Kes blocked with her forearm, then tried to grab, but T'are jerked her leg down, caught onto Kes' shoulder, and shoved. The two tumbled, and ended up on with Kes on her back and T'are pinning her down, grinning with fierce triumph. "Hah! I did it!" She said, panting softly, leaning close down over Kes. Kes panted, laughing, her eyes half closed.
"Masker," she said. "...masker!"
"Right!" T'are flushed, then stood, her body buzzing. "Hah! I did it!"
Kes grinned, then swept her leg out. T'are yelped, tried to keep herself rooted...forgot...and ended up flat on her back.
She groaned. "Broken..."
"Once again, no you have not." The EMH paused. "Though, you may have unexplored sadomasochistic tendencies, considering the uptick in pheremone production. Have you considered-"
"Computer, pillow," T'are said. The holodeck shimmered as a pillow appeared next to her palm. She grabbed it and threw it directly into the EMH's face.
After shooing him out and altering the gym to some shower stalls, T'are jerked the water to as cold as possible, shaking her head as she stood under the faucet. "Well, that was bracing," Kes said from the other side of the partition. "...so, um...are you and Neelix..." She paused.
"What?" T'are asked, shivering as she slowly ticked the water heat up and up - feeling a lot more focused now.
"...an item?" Kes sounded nervous.
"No," T'are said, laughing. "We Orions don't...do that so quickly. Humans might fall in love the first time they have sex, but it takes us a bit more time."
"Okay," Kes said, then laughed.
T'are smiled. "You know he is a bit old for you."
"I'm almost four!" Kes said. Then, a beat later. "Okay, I...I get now that that sounds-" She groaned, then. A clattering sound came from the next stall over and then a crash and a thump of a body against tile - even softened by safety systems, it sounded bad. T'are sprang out of her stall, sprinted around the corner, and knelt down next to the prone Kes, her eyes wide.
"Kes!?" she asked, then knelt down, shouting. "Computer! Two to beam to sickbay!"
She looked down at Kes, putting her fingers to her neck and standing at the same time - and then she was next to the sickbay bed, where Kes laid, dressed in a thin white gown. The computer had slapped on the underclothes of T'are's uniform during the transport - a completely unnecessarily prudist step, if T'are had any say in it. But at least she wasn't dripping.
The EMH stepped over to Kes who groaned, softly, blood dripping from her nose. He held up his tricorder, frowning. "She's suffering from what appears to be an intense psionic shock..." He said, then cocked his head. "We're getting reports of Okampans across the Val Jean suffering similar results."
They began to appear - twelve in total, all carried by fellow Okampans. As the doctor started to get to work, T'are grabbed the arm of an Okampan in science blue. "What's their aptitude?" she whispered to him.
He blinked, then looked at his unconscious friends. Despite not being out, he seemed...woozy. All of the mobile Okampans did. "They're all clears, mostly."
"Clears?" T'are asked.
"Clairsentient," he said.
***
"...Tuvok, we got a big shockwave coming at us on tachyon sensors - it'll hit in a minuet," C'nola said, lifting her head and glancing back at Tuvok.
Tuvok frowned. "Source?"
"A local star system - they had no subspace traffic," C'nola said, her hands playing along the console.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Woozy Okampans" (Val Jean)
What do you do?
[ ] Drop out of warp and raise shields!
[ ] Turn and try to outrun it
[ ] Write In
T'are V Kes...FIGHT: T'are gets 1s, Kes gets 1s! Being the attacker, T'are does it!
Round Two: 1s and 1s again - but since Kes was attacking, she did it!
Round Two: 1s and 1s again - but since Kes was attacking, she did it!
Vote closed
- Pronouns
- He/Him
TIME AND AGAIN (1.1)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Tuvok reacted immediately. "Project our shield ahead of us through the deflector dish, using harmonic frequencies matched to-"
"Done!" Amy said, her fingers flying along her console. "Punch it, C'nola!"
C'nola thumbed down a few buttons and the entirety of Voyager shuddered faintly. The Val Jean slowed and banked to float before them as a glittering triangle of white energy appeared before the ship, a shockwave that met the incoming curve of the concussion rushing towards them. The two met and there was an audible crackling buzz - and then the wave broke, sweeping past both ships harmlessly. The wave kept going, past them, and they were left unharmed.
Tuvok arched an eyebrow. "Excellent work, Lt. Strong, Lt. C'nola."
"I don't actually have a rank," C'nola said, leaning back. "I'm not even wearing a uniform."
Tuvok took a second look and while she was wearing a red jacket, it wasn't actually a Starfleet uniform.
He frowned. "I see."
Tom whistled, softly, while Janeway - who had come to the bridge as soon as they had tracked down the source of the explosion - shook her head.
"Any lifesigns?" She asked.
"Microbes, and even they're on their way out," Tom said, softly.
"What happened?" Harry asked.
"My readings say that that shockwave was primarily made of tachyons," Amy said. "This kind of detonation is analogous with a massive warp drive failure, or an antimatter containment system going...bad." She frowned. "But we had detected no subspace traffic around this planet."
"Species do sometimes make unexpected and intuitive leaps. Technology is not a straight line, Lieutenant," Tuvok said.
"So, they built something big and complicated and blew themselves up," C'nola said. "...that sucks, we move on?"
"Not quite yet," Janeway said. "This species was wiped out...I don't want them to be forgotten. Starfleet has prevented extinction time and again - every time we fail, we owe it to the people we couldn't help to not forget them. I want an away mission prepped and ready to be sent down there. We're looking for cultural artifacts, maybe survivors our sensors can't find, and, finally, any resources that we can use. If the could do this, they may have dilithium crystals we can use."
Everyone nodded.
"Wacoche," Janeway said, tapping her combadge. "Take the high station, cloak. ANd keep an eye open for any vultures."
"Aye aye, Captain."
C'nola looked a bit subdued - as if she was realizing just how grim and gallows her words had been. She put her feet down and started to work with Tom to pierce through the cloud layers, looking for an area to land the away mission.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 4
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Woozy Okampa"
Please use plan votes! Away Team Time!
[ ] Write In Who Goes Down!
Also...you can ask and get 1 question per Momentum spent - representing scanning and analysis. However, Momentum can also be banked for future use!
[ ] Write In Questions!
[ ] NO QUESTIONS! Bank everything
"Done!" Amy said, her fingers flying along her console. "Punch it, C'nola!"
C'nola thumbed down a few buttons and the entirety of Voyager shuddered faintly. The Val Jean slowed and banked to float before them as a glittering triangle of white energy appeared before the ship, a shockwave that met the incoming curve of the concussion rushing towards them. The two met and there was an audible crackling buzz - and then the wave broke, sweeping past both ships harmlessly. The wave kept going, past them, and they were left unharmed.
Tuvok arched an eyebrow. "Excellent work, Lt. Strong, Lt. C'nola."
"I don't actually have a rank," C'nola said, leaning back. "I'm not even wearing a uniform."
Tuvok took a second look and while she was wearing a red jacket, it wasn't actually a Starfleet uniform.
He frowned. "I see."
***
The world was dead. A grayish pallor, the result of what seemed to be planet consuming firestorms that had been extinguished only recently, shrouded the whole planet, and thick particulates saturated the lower atmosphere. What little could be seen through the layers was ruined wilderness and the occasional slagged city. Buildings melted. There was a thin and growing ring of ejecta that glowed in orbit, blown out of a chunk of the planet that had been forced into space by the strength of the detonation.
Tom whistled, softly, while Janeway - who had come to the bridge as soon as they had tracked down the source of the explosion - shook her head.
"Any lifesigns?" She asked.
"Microbes, and even they're on their way out," Tom said, softly.
"What happened?" Harry asked.
"My readings say that that shockwave was primarily made of tachyons," Amy said. "This kind of detonation is analogous with a massive warp drive failure, or an antimatter containment system going...bad." She frowned. "But we had detected no subspace traffic around this planet."
"Species do sometimes make unexpected and intuitive leaps. Technology is not a straight line, Lieutenant," Tuvok said.
"So, they built something big and complicated and blew themselves up," C'nola said. "...that sucks, we move on?"
"Not quite yet," Janeway said. "This species was wiped out...I don't want them to be forgotten. Starfleet has prevented extinction time and again - every time we fail, we owe it to the people we couldn't help to not forget them. I want an away mission prepped and ready to be sent down there. We're looking for cultural artifacts, maybe survivors our sensors can't find, and, finally, any resources that we can use. If the could do this, they may have dilithium crystals we can use."
Everyone nodded.
"Wacoche," Janeway said, tapping her combadge. "Take the high station, cloak. ANd keep an eye open for any vultures."
"Aye aye, Captain."
C'nola looked a bit subdued - as if she was realizing just how grim and gallows her words had been. She put her feet down and started to work with Tom to pierce through the cloud layers, looking for an area to land the away mission.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 4
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Woozy Okampa"
Please use plan votes! Away Team Time!
[ ] Write In Who Goes Down!
Also...you can ask and get 1 question per Momentum spent - representing scanning and analysis. However, Momentum can also be banked for future use!
[ ] Write In Questions!
[ ] NO QUESTIONS! Bank everything
TIME AND AGAIN (1.2)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The USS Voyager shot away from the ruined world - streaking off into space - while the Val Jean remained in a polar orbit, doing a slow, steady scan of the planet. Aboard the Val Jean, their equipment piled up beside them, was the chosen away team: Lt. Amy Strong, their leader, with Lt. Paris, Ensign Kim and...C'nola.
Who was just C'nola.
The equipment was, in total: Environmental suits, tricorders, phaser pistols, and medical tools, along with fully stocked transport buffers, and as Amy checked the seals on their suits, Wacoche and a few of the Okampan crew, all of them at work preparing the transporter to beam them down to the surface. Amy nodded. "Okay, we're here to look for survivors first, cultural artifacts second, resources last of all."
"Right," Harry said, tense as Amy stepped to him and began to check him over. "S-Shouldn't we-"
The USS Voyager returned - announced by their com badges chirruped.
"Away team," T'are's voice came over their communicators. "We've completed our long ranged, atemporal scans."
"Anything interesting?" C'nola asked, adjusting her phaser pistol, twiling it on her finger, then holstering it.
"Yeah. The planet was destroyed by catastrophic antimatter breach - the kind that's powerful enough to crack local spacetime a bit. But there was a warp capable ship in orbit - it was right in the way of the main mass of the ejecta. Approximately the same size as one of those Kazon ships, though Neelix says it also matches Vidiian or Trabe ships. Or Talaxian, for that matter."
Amy frowned. "Any confirmation on silhouette?"
"Too far to get more than an IR blob, sorry."
"Maybe we'll find pieces on the planet," Amy said.
"We're scanning for some, and if we detect any, we'll tell you," T'are said as Amy stepped onto the platform. Harry and Tom and C'nola followed her - and turned just in time to see the whipping orange energy of the transport swirl around them. When it was gone, they were standing in a blasted, ruined street, choked with ash and surrounded by buildings that looked as if they had been flattened by the fist of a furious god. The street was bedecked with corpses - hundreds of them, their bodies turned to ash and smeared out on the pavement. Their shadows were blasted into what little bits of walls were left over, all pointing towards a fireball on the horizon - a visible red glow from the exposed mantle, even from hundreds of kilometers away.
"Christ," Tom whispered, while Harry pulled his tricorder out. He knelt, scanning one of the bodies.
"There's barely enough here for a reconstruction," He said, quietly.
C'nola was rubbing her shoulder. Her tail, contained in a thin film by her environment suit, twitched nervously. Amy put her hand on her shoulder, then shook her head. "Where do we even begin?" C'nola asked.
"T-There are a lot of intact structures nearby. We start by scanning for any active power sources, any life signs that might have been hidden from orbit," Amy said, drawing her tricorder out.
C'nola nodded, then pulled out her tricorder as well.
Harry and Tom followed after, Tom staying close - noticing that both he and C'nola held a tricorder...and a phaser pistol.
The first building that they stepped towards was only intact because of its low construction and dense walls. Stepping inside, they could see a flickering hologram, projecting a hazy, faintly humanoid figure in a repeating pattern, a ghostly voice speaking endlessly: "-new life...-new life...-new life..." it kept saying, reaching judderingly upwards before jerking its hand back down to the original form.
"Harry, see if you can pull any data off that," Amy said, her voice firm despite the desolation around her. "C'nola..." She turned and saw that while Harry and Tom had entered, C'nola was standing at the doorway.
"...t-the bodies..." She said, quietly.
The bodies in the building - twelve visible here, and more elsewhere, surely - hadn't been vaporized. But they had still been desiccated by the heat-blast. Their shriveled, shrunken forms were curled up on the ground. C'nola was looking at a pair that were clutching around a third. The third was smaller. Amy stepped to her, then put her hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Catra, it's all right," she whispered, her voice soft - while Harry tried to ignore the sights around him. He focused on the holographic emitter - pausing only to pass his hand through the glittering light to make sure it was just volumetric as opposed to holo/force projection. As light scattered around his fingers, he heard Amy whispering. "Do you need to head back?"
"No, no, just..." C'nola paused. "I've seen...planets die before. You know."
"Yeah..."
Harry popped the casing open with a multitool.
Tom was stepping among the bodies. He didn't touch them - just waved his tricorder over them. "These bodies have identifiying cards on them, they're intact here," he said. "Running them through the translators."
"What kind of ID - standard bureaucracy or...uh..." Amy paused.
"They're not racialized eugenic papers, I can tell that already," Tom said. "They're just...ID cards."
Amy nodded, while C'nola stepped over to Harry. Her voice was gruff. "C'mon, nerd, let me help." She knelt down next to him. Harry smiled at her, then together, they started to pull out unbelievably primitive optical computer cards.
Amy stepped towards Tom - and then gasped and vanished.
"Adora!" C'nola shouted, then sprinted towards where she had been - and then she vanished too.
"...shit," Harry said.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRUTHS: (Away Team) "Utter Desolation", "Choking Atmosphere", "Quantum Fluctuations"
What does Harry do
[ ] Run over to where Amy and C'nola vanished.
[ ] Scan the area
[ ] Write in
What does Tom do
[ ] Run over to where Amy and C'nola vanished
[ ] Scan the area
[ ] Write in
Who was just C'nola.
The equipment was, in total: Environmental suits, tricorders, phaser pistols, and medical tools, along with fully stocked transport buffers, and as Amy checked the seals on their suits, Wacoche and a few of the Okampan crew, all of them at work preparing the transporter to beam them down to the surface. Amy nodded. "Okay, we're here to look for survivors first, cultural artifacts second, resources last of all."
"Right," Harry said, tense as Amy stepped to him and began to check him over. "S-Shouldn't we-"
The USS Voyager returned - announced by their com badges chirruped.
"Away team," T'are's voice came over their communicators. "We've completed our long ranged, atemporal scans."
"Anything interesting?" C'nola asked, adjusting her phaser pistol, twiling it on her finger, then holstering it.
"Yeah. The planet was destroyed by catastrophic antimatter breach - the kind that's powerful enough to crack local spacetime a bit. But there was a warp capable ship in orbit - it was right in the way of the main mass of the ejecta. Approximately the same size as one of those Kazon ships, though Neelix says it also matches Vidiian or Trabe ships. Or Talaxian, for that matter."
Amy frowned. "Any confirmation on silhouette?"
"Too far to get more than an IR blob, sorry."
"Maybe we'll find pieces on the planet," Amy said.
"We're scanning for some, and if we detect any, we'll tell you," T'are said as Amy stepped onto the platform. Harry and Tom and C'nola followed her - and turned just in time to see the whipping orange energy of the transport swirl around them. When it was gone, they were standing in a blasted, ruined street, choked with ash and surrounded by buildings that looked as if they had been flattened by the fist of a furious god. The street was bedecked with corpses - hundreds of them, their bodies turned to ash and smeared out on the pavement. Their shadows were blasted into what little bits of walls were left over, all pointing towards a fireball on the horizon - a visible red glow from the exposed mantle, even from hundreds of kilometers away.
"Christ," Tom whispered, while Harry pulled his tricorder out. He knelt, scanning one of the bodies.
"There's barely enough here for a reconstruction," He said, quietly.
C'nola was rubbing her shoulder. Her tail, contained in a thin film by her environment suit, twitched nervously. Amy put her hand on her shoulder, then shook her head. "Where do we even begin?" C'nola asked.
"T-There are a lot of intact structures nearby. We start by scanning for any active power sources, any life signs that might have been hidden from orbit," Amy said, drawing her tricorder out.
C'nola nodded, then pulled out her tricorder as well.
Harry and Tom followed after, Tom staying close - noticing that both he and C'nola held a tricorder...and a phaser pistol.
The first building that they stepped towards was only intact because of its low construction and dense walls. Stepping inside, they could see a flickering hologram, projecting a hazy, faintly humanoid figure in a repeating pattern, a ghostly voice speaking endlessly: "-new life...-new life...-new life..." it kept saying, reaching judderingly upwards before jerking its hand back down to the original form.
"Harry, see if you can pull any data off that," Amy said, her voice firm despite the desolation around her. "C'nola..." She turned and saw that while Harry and Tom had entered, C'nola was standing at the doorway.
"...t-the bodies..." She said, quietly.
The bodies in the building - twelve visible here, and more elsewhere, surely - hadn't been vaporized. But they had still been desiccated by the heat-blast. Their shriveled, shrunken forms were curled up on the ground. C'nola was looking at a pair that were clutching around a third. The third was smaller. Amy stepped to her, then put her hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Catra, it's all right," she whispered, her voice soft - while Harry tried to ignore the sights around him. He focused on the holographic emitter - pausing only to pass his hand through the glittering light to make sure it was just volumetric as opposed to holo/force projection. As light scattered around his fingers, he heard Amy whispering. "Do you need to head back?"
"No, no, just..." C'nola paused. "I've seen...planets die before. You know."
"Yeah..."
Harry popped the casing open with a multitool.
Tom was stepping among the bodies. He didn't touch them - just waved his tricorder over them. "These bodies have identifiying cards on them, they're intact here," he said. "Running them through the translators."
"What kind of ID - standard bureaucracy or...uh..." Amy paused.
"They're not racialized eugenic papers, I can tell that already," Tom said. "They're just...ID cards."
Amy nodded, while C'nola stepped over to Harry. Her voice was gruff. "C'mon, nerd, let me help." She knelt down next to him. Harry smiled at her, then together, they started to pull out unbelievably primitive optical computer cards.
Amy stepped towards Tom - and then gasped and vanished.
"Adora!" C'nola shouted, then sprinted towards where she had been - and then she vanished too.
"...shit," Harry said.
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRUTHS: (Away Team) "Utter Desolation", "Choking Atmosphere", "Quantum Fluctuations"
What does Harry do
[ ] Run over to where Amy and C'nola vanished.
[ ] Scan the area
[ ] Write in
What does Tom do
[ ] Run over to where Amy and C'nola vanished
[ ] Scan the area
[ ] Write in
TIME AND AGAIN (1.3)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Harry gaped at the empty space where C'nola had been.
He had been drilled in crisis response during his time in the Academy - and those drills remained fresh, but this was one crisis he had never been exposed to in real life...so he was faintly, distantly shocked at himself when he actually did exactly what he had been trained to do. When in doubt...scan, scan, scan! You never know if you're dealing with a distinigration field, a teleport beam, a transmet system, a quantum fissue, a superstring loop, a Q interaction, a...
His instructor had kept going. Harry's brain didn't as he stood and swept the area with the front end of his tricorder, looking down. "Shit," he muttered. "There's a...temporal crack here. I was hoping for spatial," he said, lowering the tricorder and looked at Harry. "It looks one way."
"Crap," Tom growled, then tapped his badge. "Voyager actual, this is the away team - C'nola and Amy have fallen into a...time hole."
"Scanning your area," T'are said. A beat later, she sighed. "Okay, uh, sending you updated telemetry, put on your optics."
Harry and Tom both tapped their helmets and their visors shimmered - and they saw the room had dozens of cracks and shimmers in the air, each of them slender enough to be more like a string than anything else. Each one hovered about two centimeters into the air and stretched up about two or three meters u, some intersecting with the ceiling. The one that C'nola and Amy had headed through looked thicker, but as Harry looked at it, he saw it was shrinking bit by bit. "What the hell..." He muttered, then shook himself. "We don't have much time!" He hurried to the crack, Tom hurrying after him.
"Whoa, Harry, we can't go into the past, present, future, sideways, whatever, without being able to get back!" Tom said.
"The crack's closing, we only have a few seconds..." Harry held up the Tricord, just barely not touching it. He looked down at the scanner. "Yes, we're picking up some subspace traffic and radio messages! Sending the information back to you, Voyager."
"Receiving," T'are said.
The crack sealed full back to a thin line.
"And we're not getting anything anymore," T'are said. "Captain wants you to beam back up before anything else weird happens."
"I hope that was enough," Harry said, quietly.
Tom slapped his shoulder. "Don't worry. We shall rescue the fair maidens like gallant heroes and they will shower you with kisses and me with kicks to the groin." He sighed. "I can already tell my charms aren't working on C'nola."
Harry snorted, softly. "How can you crack jokes at a time like this?"
"When you've been on a few away missions, you get used to it," Tom said as the world around them vanished and then was replaced with the transporter bay of Voyager.
She lifted her head - and heard another voice, distant and male, saying: "Sign up today for a new life in the Kazon-Relora Habitations! Touch the stars. Protect your people."
Amy rolled onto her back and looked up to see an alien looking down at her nervously. The alien was humanoid, with a curved ridge of three bumps on their forehead, but other than that, seemed fairly close to human norms. Amy felt as if she had been compacted and crammed through...the Change. Her hand went to her brow and she laughed, raggedly, as she realized that for once, the Change had decided to just be useful. Her forehead and clothes, during her quantum superpositioning, had snapped to be similar to all the aliens around her.
"Y-Yeah, I just tripped," she said, while the alien took her arm and helped her to her feet. Amy looked around herself, and saw...she was in the same building that she had been. But the corpses were now living, walking people - a lot of them were heading into the back of the building, but more than a few of them were standing beside the walls, chatting with one another.
"You here to sign up too?" the man asked.
"Uh...thinkin' about it!" Amy said, looking around herself. Where was C'nola?
The center of the room had a smiling humanoid projected from a plinth - the damaged hologram from before.
Except it wasn't one of the local aliens.
It was a Kazon.
The Kazon was a handsome fellow, bearded, his mane of green hair trimmed and cut into a stylish fit. He beamed outwards at the people walking in. "Welcome. Welcome. Sign up today for a new life in the Kazon-Relora Habitations. Touch hte stars. Protect your people." He brought his hand to his chest while triumphal music played. Seeing her eyeline, the man who had helped Amy up chuckled.
"Still hard to believe, right?" he asked.
"Huh?" Amy looked at him.
"Aliens, you know," the local said, grinning with a rueful smile. "I watch a million vids about them, and then they just...show up."
"Yeah, it's...amazing," Amy said, looking around. "Did...did you see another girl?"
The last thing C'nola is going to do is let me fall into a...time hole or something and not immediately jump in after me, Amy thought.
"Uh, no, not with you, why?" the man asked.
"...nevermind," Amy said, her voice dry.
The hologram had shifted to a new image - and a voice narrating. "Live News Report: Unidentified alien captured in high security Kazon owned factory." The hologram showed several armored figures dragging a hissing, kicking C'nola away from a large building. Her voice came through the speakers untranslated - but since she was shouting Federate, Amy could hear her clearly.
"Where the FUCK is Adora, you assholes?!"
Amy put her hands over her face and sighed.
"Time locked?" D-91 asked.
"Temporally, events in the past have always happened. Sometimes, this is always the case - depending on the method used to travel back in time," T'are said, sighing quietly. "Timelocked means-"
"It means that we have twenty four hours to get them back, not forever," Janeway said. "What do we know about the planet and the event?"
"And the ship," Tom added. "...is it us? Was the ship Voyager?"
"No," T'are said, chuckling. "We're not in a predox from what I can tell. Looks like we're in a classic BTF-semistable localization event."
"So, we can change the past and we'll remember everything as it was," Janeway said.
"Yes. Now, the ship appears to be a Kazon ship of their sect Relora. Neelix?" T'are looked over at Neelix and Kes, who had both been invited to the table by T'are. Neelix frowned.
"Relora is one of the semi-stable ones. They're not fully nomadic, they build space habitats. They're on a major population and recruitment drive, as opposed to the other sects that are more focused on technological regression. Their thinking is, uh..." He scratched at his jaw, considering. "Basically, if everyone's Relora, then everyone can be kept below the threshold for the Takers. Er. Borg."
"So, this world was in the middle of a Relora recruitment drive?" D-91 asked.
"Seems that way," T'are said.
"The temporal fissure appears to be unidirectional...can we transform it to a bidirectional fissue?" Tuvok asked.
"...maybe..." T'are said. "The quantum effect of Amy's condition is what opened it. That's a biological malady she picked up in her childhood - we'd have to go digging into her medical history to learn more, then replicate it. It'd be easier to open it one way and send supplies or information into the past than to open it...two ways."
"And, of course...we need to settle on an operational goal," Janeway said. "This disaster happens in twenty four hours and we have two crew down there who are going to die unless we save them. But...there were how many people on the planet?"
"Best guess?" T'are said, quietly. "...six billion."
Janeway sighed. "All right then. We have twenty four hours to save six billion and two lives. Ideas?"
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRUTHS: (Away Team) "Stuck...IN THE PAST!"
What does Amy Do
[ ] Try and find where they're taking C'nola
[ ] Try and find out where the crack is.
[ ] Write In
What does C'nola Do
[ ] Break out (fists - hard)
[ ] Break out, violently (phasers - medium)
[ ] Break out, extremely violently (exploding phasers - easy)
[ ] Write in
What do the Voy Crew do (you can choose multiple ones)
[ ] Fish through Amy's records to build a device to make the portal one way
[ ] Try and make the portal two way
[ ] Contact Kazon-Relora and ask, kindly, what the fuck
[ ] Write In
He had been drilled in crisis response during his time in the Academy - and those drills remained fresh, but this was one crisis he had never been exposed to in real life...so he was faintly, distantly shocked at himself when he actually did exactly what he had been trained to do. When in doubt...scan, scan, scan! You never know if you're dealing with a distinigration field, a teleport beam, a transmet system, a quantum fissue, a superstring loop, a Q interaction, a...
His instructor had kept going. Harry's brain didn't as he stood and swept the area with the front end of his tricorder, looking down. "Shit," he muttered. "There's a...temporal crack here. I was hoping for spatial," he said, lowering the tricorder and looked at Harry. "It looks one way."
"Crap," Tom growled, then tapped his badge. "Voyager actual, this is the away team - C'nola and Amy have fallen into a...time hole."
"Scanning your area," T'are said. A beat later, she sighed. "Okay, uh, sending you updated telemetry, put on your optics."
Harry and Tom both tapped their helmets and their visors shimmered - and they saw the room had dozens of cracks and shimmers in the air, each of them slender enough to be more like a string than anything else. Each one hovered about two centimeters into the air and stretched up about two or three meters u, some intersecting with the ceiling. The one that C'nola and Amy had headed through looked thicker, but as Harry looked at it, he saw it was shrinking bit by bit. "What the hell..." He muttered, then shook himself. "We don't have much time!" He hurried to the crack, Tom hurrying after him.
"Whoa, Harry, we can't go into the past, present, future, sideways, whatever, without being able to get back!" Tom said.
"The crack's closing, we only have a few seconds..." Harry held up the Tricord, just barely not touching it. He looked down at the scanner. "Yes, we're picking up some subspace traffic and radio messages! Sending the information back to you, Voyager."
"Receiving," T'are said.
The crack sealed full back to a thin line.
"And we're not getting anything anymore," T'are said. "Captain wants you to beam back up before anything else weird happens."
"I hope that was enough," Harry said, quietly.
Tom slapped his shoulder. "Don't worry. We shall rescue the fair maidens like gallant heroes and they will shower you with kisses and me with kicks to the groin." He sighed. "I can already tell my charms aren't working on C'nola."
Harry snorted, softly. "How can you crack jokes at a time like this?"
"When you've been on a few away missions, you get used to it," Tom said as the world around them vanished and then was replaced with the transporter bay of Voyager.
***
Amy groaned. She laid on her belly - and then heard a confused voice saying: "Uh, are you all right?"
She lifted her head - and heard another voice, distant and male, saying: "Sign up today for a new life in the Kazon-Relora Habitations! Touch the stars. Protect your people."
Amy rolled onto her back and looked up to see an alien looking down at her nervously. The alien was humanoid, with a curved ridge of three bumps on their forehead, but other than that, seemed fairly close to human norms. Amy felt as if she had been compacted and crammed through...the Change. Her hand went to her brow and she laughed, raggedly, as she realized that for once, the Change had decided to just be useful. Her forehead and clothes, during her quantum superpositioning, had snapped to be similar to all the aliens around her.
"Y-Yeah, I just tripped," she said, while the alien took her arm and helped her to her feet. Amy looked around herself, and saw...she was in the same building that she had been. But the corpses were now living, walking people - a lot of them were heading into the back of the building, but more than a few of them were standing beside the walls, chatting with one another.
"You here to sign up too?" the man asked.
"Uh...thinkin' about it!" Amy said, looking around herself. Where was C'nola?
The center of the room had a smiling humanoid projected from a plinth - the damaged hologram from before.
Except it wasn't one of the local aliens.
It was a Kazon.
The Kazon was a handsome fellow, bearded, his mane of green hair trimmed and cut into a stylish fit. He beamed outwards at the people walking in. "Welcome. Welcome. Sign up today for a new life in the Kazon-Relora Habitations. Touch hte stars. Protect your people." He brought his hand to his chest while triumphal music played. Seeing her eyeline, the man who had helped Amy up chuckled.
"Still hard to believe, right?" he asked.
"Huh?" Amy looked at him.
"Aliens, you know," the local said, grinning with a rueful smile. "I watch a million vids about them, and then they just...show up."
"Yeah, it's...amazing," Amy said, looking around. "Did...did you see another girl?"
The last thing C'nola is going to do is let me fall into a...time hole or something and not immediately jump in after me, Amy thought.
"Uh, no, not with you, why?" the man asked.
"...nevermind," Amy said, her voice dry.
The hologram had shifted to a new image - and a voice narrating. "Live News Report: Unidentified alien captured in high security Kazon owned factory." The hologram showed several armored figures dragging a hissing, kicking C'nola away from a large building. Her voice came through the speakers untranslated - but since she was shouting Federate, Amy could hear her clearly.
"Where the FUCK is Adora, you assholes?!"
Amy put her hands over her face and sighed.
***
In the meeting room, T'are stood at the front of the screen. "I've done a quick skimthrough on the data we were receiving," she said, quietly. "They are from approximately a week ago - about one day before the detonation that destroyed the planet. Due to the linkages of the temporal fissues and their interaction with Amy's condition, we're now timelocked."
"Time locked?" D-91 asked.
"Temporally, events in the past have always happened. Sometimes, this is always the case - depending on the method used to travel back in time," T'are said, sighing quietly. "Timelocked means-"
"It means that we have twenty four hours to get them back, not forever," Janeway said. "What do we know about the planet and the event?"
"And the ship," Tom added. "...is it us? Was the ship Voyager?"
"No," T'are said, chuckling. "We're not in a predox from what I can tell. Looks like we're in a classic BTF-semistable localization event."
"So, we can change the past and we'll remember everything as it was," Janeway said.
"Yes. Now, the ship appears to be a Kazon ship of their sect Relora. Neelix?" T'are looked over at Neelix and Kes, who had both been invited to the table by T'are. Neelix frowned.
"Relora is one of the semi-stable ones. They're not fully nomadic, they build space habitats. They're on a major population and recruitment drive, as opposed to the other sects that are more focused on technological regression. Their thinking is, uh..." He scratched at his jaw, considering. "Basically, if everyone's Relora, then everyone can be kept below the threshold for the Takers. Er. Borg."
"So, this world was in the middle of a Relora recruitment drive?" D-91 asked.
"Seems that way," T'are said.
"The temporal fissure appears to be unidirectional...can we transform it to a bidirectional fissue?" Tuvok asked.
"...maybe..." T'are said. "The quantum effect of Amy's condition is what opened it. That's a biological malady she picked up in her childhood - we'd have to go digging into her medical history to learn more, then replicate it. It'd be easier to open it one way and send supplies or information into the past than to open it...two ways."
"And, of course...we need to settle on an operational goal," Janeway said. "This disaster happens in twenty four hours and we have two crew down there who are going to die unless we save them. But...there were how many people on the planet?"
"Best guess?" T'are said, quietly. "...six billion."
Janeway sighed. "All right then. We have twenty four hours to save six billion and two lives. Ideas?"
---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 2
CURRENT TRUTHS: (Away Team) "Stuck...IN THE PAST!"
What does Amy Do
[ ] Try and find where they're taking C'nola
[ ] Try and find out where the crack is.
[ ] Write In
What does C'nola Do
[ ] Break out (fists - hard)
[ ] Break out, violently (phasers - medium)
[ ] Break out, extremely violently (exploding phasers - easy)
[ ] Write in
What do the Voy Crew do (you can choose multiple ones)
[ ] Fish through Amy's records to build a device to make the portal one way
[ ] Try and make the portal two way
[ ] Contact Kazon-Relora and ask, kindly, what the fuck
[ ] Write In
Vote closed
- Pronouns
- He/Him