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

[DragonCobolt]

Tuvok frowned. "I shall talk to Dr. Kray. Can you interview Mrs. Ren?"

Kes gave him a quick nod and the two advanced in opposite directions.

The turbolift opened onto the rain and Tuvok stepped out. "Dr. Kray!" He called out as Dr. Kray walked to one of the corner side transportation pads, surrounded by a thin plastic partition to keep anyone from stepping onto it by accident. Dr. Kray, his umbrella in his hands, turned and sighed.

"What?" he asked, his beak grinding as he turned to face Tuvok. "Did you not get that I didn't want to talk to you offworlders?"

"This is an ongoing murder investigation, Mr. Kray," Tuvok said, walking forward, rain pattering onto his hat, streaming along the shoulders of his brown coat. "You can't simply walk away from it."

Mr. Kray sighed. "Fine. Ask your questions." He said, leaning against the plastic partition.

***
​

Kes stepped to the door, and her voice was soft. "Miss Ren? I'm Kes, I'm from the USS Voyager. May I come in and speak with you?"

The door opened and Kes found herself looking in at a beautiful Beaneran woman - her plumage tall and vibrantly colored, her beak a sleek little triangle of nearly orange keratin that she had touched up with a bit of coloring and makeup, though it looked faded now. Her eyes were rimmed with red. Even in a species with feather and fur, she had red eyes from crying. "What is it?" she asked, her voice tight.

"We're...investigating your husband's murder," Kes said, gently. "And, uh...I...what the fuck was that up with Dr. Kray? I'm not being nosy, we're just trying to find out who killed your husband and...motive...you know?"

Lindel laughed, bitterly. "Oh...oh, yes, that little sniveling toad bastard would have killed Tol, if he thought he could get away with it. But his alibi is airtight - he was nowhere near...the..." She shook her head. "He was here to offer his condolences." She frilled up her ruff. "He put his hand on my ass."

"What a dick!" Kes exclaimed.

Lindel let out a little churring hiss of pure rage. "That's one way to put it."

***
​

"Tell me, were you-" Tuvok started.

"Mr. Tuvok, please, if we must converse, can we at least get out of the rain?" Dr. Kray asked, gesturing. A tiny tremor went along his hand. His breath caught as he spoke, like he was breathing heavily. Like he had run quite far, quite fast. "We can beam to my offices, and talk somewhere sensible."

Tuvok inclined his head. "Logical," he said. He stepped forward, but he moved with his body angled slightly - shoulder forward, presenting a narrowed profile to the agitated doctor.

And then, as he came close, Dr. Kray jerked something blunt and rough and rectangular. He thrust it in Tuvok's general direction as the rain came pouring down and pulled back on the trigger.

***
​

Kes watched Lindel, looking so sad and angry, her eyes focused on the window of the room, at the streaks of raindrops sliding along the window. Her reflection looked broken up by jagged lines of water. She sighed and then said, quietly. "I still can't believe he's gone, you know. Tolen and I would always look at the stars together - but...now...I can't see anything out there." She looked into the window, turned into a mirror by the light in the place.

"Tolen might be gone," Kes said, quietly. "But you can still get justice for him - come with us."

"I play a detective on TV. I'm not-" A flash of light came from the streets. "That was a beam!"

"Shit!" Kes hissed, drawing her phaser from her transporter buffer. "Come on!"

She sprinted down the corridor, hit the turbolift, and then barked out: "Ground floor!" Moments before Lindel reached the door, the other woman running after her. Kes realized, then, it might have been a bad idea to ask for Lindel to come along - but before she could process that, the turbolift doors opened and she sprang out, rushing to cover, phaser at the ready.

She saw Tuvok standing above a prone figure, his hand drawing away from his throat. "Ah, Miss Kes, Mrs. Ren. I believe we have found the murderer."

"...oh..." Kes said as she looked down at the prone Dr. Kray, who was still grasping a crude phaser.

Tuvok picked up the phaser, frowning. "This has been modified to not be detectable by local security..." He frowned.

"That's great! We just call them and-" Kes started.

"We need more evidence," Tuvok said, his voice firm. "This proves that Dr. Kray attempted to kill me. The local authorities need no room to wiggle out from the accusations against Tom. Pick him up. Do you mind, overly much, Mrs. Ren, if we interrogate him there?"

"Not at all," Lindel growled.

They hustled into the building and into the turbolift, dragging the unconscious man. Kes glanced around quickly, but saw no one looking their way. In the turbolift, Lindel was practically quivering with rage. She glared down at him, her voice soft. "This bastard..." she whispered. Tuvok shook his head, ever so slightly.

"I must ask you to restrain your emotions for the time being, Mrs. Ren," he said, then the turbolift doors opened and they hustled into her apartment. There, Kes and Lindel set Kray against the couch, and Kes hastily tied him up, using her rolls of duct tape - pulled straight from her transporter buffer. Once she was done, they stepped back - and Dr. Kray groaned, opening his eyes slowly.

"Good evening, Dr. Kray," Tuvok said.

Dr. Kray glared at him.

"If you would like to confess-"

"I would like to see my lawyer," Dr. Kray said, his voice clear.

Tuvok frowned. "Is that so. He will be most interested in hearing what we've discovered," he said. Tuvok frowned to himself. They had a number of clues - but Tom had a limited amount of time. If Dr. Kray tied things up in legal proceedings, maybe made up a lie about thinking himself threatened by the off-worlders, then the already antagonistic government would have every reason to be on his side. That slowdown would lead, then, to Mr. Paris' death.

He needed to convince Dr. Kray that they had him dead to rights, with an airtight case...

---
We're at the FINAL update! Based on the clues you have, construct what happened. The more right you are, the more likely Tom lives without having to beam him out with a daring commando raid. We've got a motive, we've got a killer, now we just need to convince everyone else!

[ ] Write in

Spoiler: Rolls!

Dr. Kray rolling to see if Tuvok suspects him: 2s! Tuvok keeping a cool face: 2s. Agressors win! Dr. Kray knows he suspects.

Dr. Kray has to make a call...

Dr. Kray lies: 2s! Tuvok trying to see through it: 1s!

Dr. Kray attempts to kill Tuvok with an energy weapon: 0s!

Tuvok responds by melee: 3s vs 1s, for 2 momentum! Tuvok does 6 damage, inflicting an injury on Dr. Kray. He's out!

 

[DragonCobolt]

"I want my-" Dr. Kray started again.

"Dr Kray, the morning of the murder you stumbled upon Lindel and Mr Paris engaging in what they expected to be a cuckold scene expecting to be found by Dr Ren instead. Instead, you found them. Correct?" Tuvok asked. He saw the flush on his nares, blood flowing beneath his beak. "Lying about it will serve no one - Lindel has already told us."

"...yes," Dr. KRay growled.

"Uou had already decided to kill Dr Ren at this point, having an alibi setup and you were on the hill to find a point on the face visible to both your alibi and the house," Tuvok said.

"Now, hold up here-"

"Backups of the security logs shows you, Dr Kray, providing instruction to the automatons at the house to take a mirror to the hill at a predetermined time," Tuvok said - a statement that caused Kes to look at him in shock. Dr. Kray...though...

Looked smug.

He smirked. "And did they find any evidence of a reflector? Or any of them missing? No. They didn't. They're all nice and in place, fully accounted for."

Tuvok cocked his head. "That is true," he said. "However, I did not say they took one of your experimental reflectors. I said they took a mirror."

Dr. Kray blinked, then tried to hide whatever he felt about it.

"A mirror you had specially designed for the act," Tuvok said, sureness growing in himself. "A mirror-"

"There'd be something left, particles, you have nothing!" Dr. Kray shot back, his voice desperate. But then Kes snapped her fingers.

"Mercury, the cops found mercury there-"

"Not enough!" Dr. Kray exclaimed.

"There is one thing we found there. In abundance. In such abundance that it would have been dismissed," Tuvok said, then turned to Lindel. "Mrs. Ren. Please call your maidbots and query any of them if they have been tasked with refrigeration logistics. Specifically...in the movement of ice."

Lindel blinked, then pulled out her communicator. She flipped it open as Dr. Kray froze - and then she spoke into it softly, then turned up the volume on the speaker: "Robot-3 task report: Move ice sculpture to picnic."

"Ice?" Lindel asked.

"Ice...coated with a thin layer of mercury to turn it into a mirror, placed just as Mr. Paris arrived. His being present at the hill must have been an unexpected complication to your assassination. Without him, the modified phaser would have been completely undetected, and there would have been no warning that something was amiss. His medical alert that recorded his time of death would simply have been written off as an accidental discharge of high energy particles from an experiment he was working on, the exact cause easily able to he setup after the fact if required. Even if someone suspected a weapon discharge from the hill they would find no evidence of a shooter due to the vanishing mirror - with the storm coming tonight, you knew the water would be missed, as easily as a tree in the forest."

Dr. Kray gaped at him.

"But Mr Paris is a Starfleet officer. He returned fire. This triggered the security response and foiled the rest of the existing plan, leaving you to improvise as what was supposed to have gotten treated as an accidental death instead started a murder investigation."

"B...I..." Dr. Kray stammered.

"We have been working with the local authorities since the start of the investigation and sharing our findings and evidence with them. While I understand your legal system offers you a number of protections to attempt to stall I also understand that the Death Penalty is common for crimes of this nature. Starfleet does not condone such sentencing and outside of a request for asylum cannot interfere. I suggest you cooperate with the local authorities, case history shows a high likelyhood of a man of your background and lineage being offered a plea deal for a significantly lesser charge when the victim has been...someone like Dr. Ren."

Lindel drew in a sharp, short gasp, but did not comment more. Dr. Kray hung his head forward.

"I just...why did you love him!?" he asked, jerking his head up. "How!?"

Lindel turned her back on him, snarling. "If you have to ask, you'll never get it. I...g-get him out of here!" She put her hands over her face, as Kes stepped forward, shoving him to his feet.

"Lets get you to the station," she said, her voice tight and furious. She shoved him towards the door and Dr. Kray stumbled, his head hanging forward - defeated. The two left the room as rain continued to patter against the window. Tuvok turned to look at Lindel, who was wringing her hands as she stood before the window.

"What was the point, Mr. Tuvok? I..." She turned back, her eyes gleaming with tears.

"There's rarely a point, Mrs. Ren," Tuvok said. "Among my people, we try to control these emotions for this very reason."

"S-So...no murders on Vulcan, huh?" Lindel sniffed, then sat down on a chair. "It sounds nice."

Tuvok lifted an eyebrow. "I never said there were no murders on Vulcan. They just are draped in logic, hiding the base emotional reasons behind them. We seek to control our emotions. But we often do not attain the mastery we look for." He placed a hand on her shoulder, with a stiff formality that somehow did little to dim the compassion of the gesture. "It is not logical to blame oneself for actions beyond our control. And yet, Vulcans do this as well."

Lindel placed a scaled hand on his hand, squeezing. She looked out to the darkness - and her beak clicked as she realized that she could see, faintly twinkling, the stars.

ROLL CREDITS​

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Mr. Kim, look out!"

Mr. Kim, his PADD tucked under his arm, looked up to see T'are shouting at him, standing next to one of the Vhnori miners that he was down here to meet. He blinked, smiled, lifted his hand-

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

And then the blaring horn of the mining hauler filled his ears. He turned, had enough time to think: Who the hell puts ground traffic on the same road pedestrians use?

And then he was run over by the mining hauler.

***
​

Harry Kim's eyes snapped open and he gasped, sitting up, looking around himself wildly. He was sprawled in a large, lush, gorgeous jungle that spread out in every direction. The flora glowed with glittering iridescent highlights and flowing lines of pale pink and blue bioluminescents. Tiny white fireflies danced and pranced in the air around his nose, about his head, and throughout the whole forest. The air was thick. Humid. Harry reached up and hastily dialed up his uniform's temperature controls, setting it to be more...suited for the climate. This still meant his face and hands were beginning to sweat, but at least the rest of him was feeling fairly comfortable. He scrambled to his feet, then tapped his combadge.

"Kim to Voyager," he said.

Silence.

"Kim to Voyager," he said again. Then he scowled, tapping the combadge. "Diagnostic - are we out of range or jammed?"

The combadge chirruped. "Unknown," it said.

"Do we have any locational data?" Harry asked.

"Unknown," the combadge chirruped.

Harry sighed.

As his neck sweated and his face grew flushed, he checked his transporter buffer. He had two days of rations, his tricorder, his phaser, two charge packs, some survival rope, a multitool, and a mineral scanner. He picked the narrow, stabby looking device up and frowned at it. To think, just a few hours ago, he had been DAMN excited to use this thing. Their ships had come into the Vhnori solar system a few days before and, upon learning that their primary trade goods were exotic, paradimensional minerals...well, they had needed to investigate and see what they could trade.

The only issue was the Vhnori mining cartels weren't exactly eager to share. But negotiations had been going well - well enough that Voyager had gotten to send down away missions to find other deposits of minerals for the cartels to mine, in exchange for finding those positions for them to then...mine them...

Harry set the mineral sampler. "Okay," he said. "Got hit by a truck...and now you're here. Either the paradimensional minerals are acting up or you're in one...incredibly humid heaven." He started to tuck everything back into his transporter buffer, save for his tricorder, and he was just about to dial in Vhorni and known Federation life signals when he heard a loud CRACK of someone stepping on a branch. Harry lifted his head - and heard a soft humming sound. He could see, through the trees, that there was someone humanoid walking through the woods. He stood, about to cry out, but then remembered...he had no idea where he was. This might be a pre-warp civilization he'd been thrown into. Or...or...any number of possibilities.

He started to creep forward, moving from shadow to shadow, and came to the small clearing that the humanoid figure was walking towards.

A thin stream was running over rocks and down into a large, beautiful grotto, surrounded by pale white sand. Pink flowers grew along the small rise that the water flowed over, and floating lillies that were bright white and shot through with red lines bobbed on the water. The humanoid had stepped out and revealed she was a Vhorni - but rather than being dressed in the grungy coveralls and unitards that he was used to seeing, she was dressed in a pale white shift, her short brown hair tied back into a ponytail - showing off the ridges of her forehead. She was about Harry's age - and prettier than he was really expecting. The only other items she had was a curious looking belt around her hips, which drew her shift tight around her hips, and left her long, tanned legs fully exposed and...gleaming. Something slapped against her hip, but Harry couldn't quite see it from his angle.

The Vhorni girl hummed to herself, undid her belt and took hold of her shift and whipped it up and over her shoulders, tossing it aside. Harry jerked his head away from the view before he saw more than a flash of her naked body - stumbled, tripped, caught for his position, hit his palm against a smooth rock, slid off said smooth rock...then went right over the edge of the rise. He landed, head first into the water, and splashed down. His head struck the soft muck and then he flailed around. When his head was jerked up above the water, gasping, water dripping from his black hair, he was able to blink water from his eyes...

And saw the gleaming point of a steel sword, the tip within an inch of his nose. The girl was holding said sword, her other hand pressing the shift to her chest to barely protect her modesty, as she glared at him.

"A peeping Tom, eh?" she asked.

No, that's Paris, was the first thought that skittered through Harry's brain. Instead, he stammered. "W-Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" He lifted his arms, while the woman glared down at him. "I'm not a peeping Tom!"

"Then thou art a spy?" she snarled. "What...is...wrong with thy face?"

Harry blinked.

Thy? He thought. I need to check on the universal translator, don't I?

"I'm not a spy, a-and I'm...uh...I..." Harry stammered.

A low, mournful sound filled the air. The sound of distant horns. Cries and shouts. The woman snapped her head around, hissing. "Hells! I thought I had left yonder blackguards behind miles hence!" She glared at Harry, then sprang into the water, kicking her belt with her. The belt sank and then she was in the pond next to Harry, hastily grabbing a reed from the branch. She shot a glare at him. "If thy are no spy, then thou's best either run and lead Lord Hagastram's forces away - or thou shall hide thy own hide!"

She then ducked beneath the water and the reed stuck up into the air as a makeshift...snorkle.

Well.

She was clever, at least.

Harry pulled his tricorder at, watching as the hydrophobic surface shed water with ease. The scanner flared and showed lots of Vhorni life signs - and other, much larger life signs, matching them - moving out in small groups, fanning throughout the woods. Harry had only been to a few of Tom's war games, but that was enough to recognize what Tom called 'cavalry' ... soldiers riding domesticated creatures. They seemed primitive, but even modern societies used cavalry. Some even in warfare, in specialized roles.

And some were heading his way.

---
CURRENT TRUTH: "hunted in a strange land"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0

What do you do!?
[ ] mimic the reed trick and get some answers once you're free
[ ] Get your phaser out and stun them, then get some answers from the girl.
[ ] Try diplomacy on the cavalry
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Harry scowled, looked at his tricorder, looked up, then whispered. "Shiiiit!" He tugged his collar up, got a seal in, then doused himself under the water. The uniform was designed as an emergency vacuum suit - vital for when you were exposed to space as often as starfleet officers were - and so it formed a near perfect seal against his nose. Now, normally, this would expose his belly to space, but it was considered better to be alive with a bruised tummy than dead with a fine set of abs - but in the comparatively vastly more friendly environment of a pond...

It was fine.

Through the water, he saw large, four legged canine looking creatures loping along, with Vhnori on their backs. They swept past the pond, pausing only to look it over, then kept riding on. The woman beside him remained down for a bit longer - then sat up. Harry did likewise, tugging his shirt back down and breathing clear again.

The woman gaped at him. "How...didst thou..."

"I, uh...my uniform..." Harry gestured to it. "I...it helps me breathe sometimes."

The woman shook her head. "So. Thy are a servant of an Adept, I see." She stood, and for a moment, Harry had just...the most amazing view of her athletic, muscular back, the curve of her spine, and the tautness of her rump, all glistening with the moisture streaming off her body. It was for just a moment because Harry snapped his head to the side, his cheeks burning hard. The woman stepped out of the water, shaking her head, and kept speaking. "Whom do you serve? Ultraviolet? Infrared?"

The jarring contrast between the thees and thous and the relatively modern terms of infared and ultraviolet did make Harry look back. The woman was brushing herself as dry as she could and had slung her shift back on over her shoulders, which meant...honestly, it might have been less distracting if she had just stayed nude. Still, with the sun shining on her, he hoped that her clothing would dry quickly. Harry stepped from the pond, tapping at his cufflinks until the water sloughed off him all at once. The sudden splash drew her attention and her mouth opened in shock. "Such a useful garment," she said, her eyes wide.

"Starfleet uniform," he said, spreading his hands.

"Ah, the Adept of the Stars, then?" the woman said, frowning. "Another Adept come to plague these lands with their scheming?"

"No, no, we're...I'm...not...not any of that," Harry said. "My name's Harry Kim."

"Harry Kim," she said, tasting the name as if it was a strange fruit. "An odd name. An odd name for an odd man, I suppose. Thy may call me Lyan."

"Well, Lyan..." Harry said. "...lets get out of here before those...those, uh, soldiers came back."

"Good thinking, Harry Kim," she said. "Follow me."

Lyan set a harsh pace, walking forward through the jungle with clear determination. Neither of them talked, but Harry still was a starfleet officer. He took SOME readings with his tricorder - but was unable to determine much beyond the fact they weren't going towards the army. So, at least Lyan wasn't heading in the wrong direction. After what felt like an hour of walking, they rested in a small shaded grotto. Harry watched as a six legged deerlike creature ambled by, while Lyan sat on a stump, panting softly and stretching out her long, limber legs.

"So...uh...can I ask some questions?" Harry asked.

"Thy my ask, verily," Lyan said, wincing as she bent forward. The movement of her body, combined with the sheerness of her outfit, made Harry want to look anywhere else. Seeing his blush and shifting eyeline, she laughed quietly. "Harry Kim, have thy never been around a woman in thy life?"

Harry blushed. "It's different with Orions," he muttered. "For one thing, Orions know when to wear uniforms that..." He shook his head.

"Oh-rions?" Lyan asked, then stood. "What are these Orions?"

"Nevermind," Harry said. "I'll explain after you tell me what that army is and who Lord Helgastram is and, and...and what the hell an Adept is and where I am."

"Thou art in the land of the Vhnori," Lyan said. "Tis a land spanning the western ocean and the eastern desert, with several kingdoms, each ruled by an Adept - the Adept of the Ultraviolet, the Infrared, the Antimatter and the Positron." She frowned. "Thy are magicians of great and terrible power, and Lord Helgastram is one of the knight errants of the Adept of Ultraviolet. He hunts me."

"Why?" Harry asked, trying to process all of that.

Lyan huffed. "None of thy business," she said, prickly. "Virgin."

Harry scowled. "I'm not a virgin," he said, "And even if I was, none of that has anything to do with anything about me."

Lyan snorted, then looked aside. "Seems to make thy a blushing fumbler, the last thing I need on my escape."

Harry opened his mouth to respond, then forced his mouth shut. She was trying to distract him from the question he had asked. He instead turned away from her. Now that they weren't stumbling along, he compared, mentally, everything he had seen here with the Vhnori homeworld that he had seen. The...Vhnori homeworld was not exactly the most well tended place, ecologically speaking. It was mostly strip mined. This place, though, looked utterly untouched. And...

"Wait, did you say magic?" He asked, turning to face Lyan.

She looked at him as if he was an idiot. "Yes. Of course."

Harry sighed, then put his hand over his face, rubbing his cheeks slowly. "Great. It's Megas-Tu all over again."

"Megas-"

"Nevermind," Harry said, then frowned. "Where are you planning to go?"

"I...am going to flee to the Adept of Positrons. She, it is said, is kind to those who flee her siblings wrath. And her golems are stout and strong and quite numerous - they can protect me." She rubbed her hand along her shoulder. "What of thee? What is thy plan?"

"Figure out what the hell is going on," Harry said. "I was on the Vhnori homeworld, your homeworld, like, an hour ago and it was nothing like this. Did I get tossed backwards in time? ...I hope not." He frowned. "Or is this another universe? Or...what?"

"...the Adepts are said to have great libraries, Harry Kim," Lyan said, looking aside. "Thy might come with me." She paused. "Not that thy should get any ideas about me wishing to have thee near me. It is merely that traveling alone in such a country, it is a perilous task!" She stuck her nose into the air, frowning as she did so.

---
CURRENT TRUTH: "hunted in a strange land"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 1

What do you do?

[ ] Go with her, maybe get to know her as you walk. Learn more about this mysterious Lyan, if she's going to be thy...er...your only companion for a while.
[ ] Go with her, but first, take a bit to really survey the area with your tricorder - you got some inconclusive readings earlier and might learn more now. This...might give the mounted knights to catch up, but knowing something is worth it.
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

The hike cut through the jungle - which began to thin out as they traveled, Lyan setting a rather brutal pace, her feet chewing up the kilometers, meter by meter. Harry was glad that Tom had kept on his ass to keep in the gym. It was a big problem in Starfleet, that their surface skills suffered during long tours on starships, and he felt kinda grateful that he wasn't completely wimping out in his first long hike. He did notice that Lyan had no water, no food, and was walking with a grim focus - and he said: "So, uh...you've got a sword..."

She glanced at him, withering. "Verily," she said, dryly, pausing to wipe at her forehead with the back of her palm. "And I see thou art unarmed."

"No, I...I have a weapon, don't worry," Harry said, edging around exactly what that was. He shook his head. "It's just, uh, I was wondering are you a...knight? An...adventurer? A...mercenary?" He asked each one carefully, watching her face. Lyan's cheeks flushed more and more with each suggestion, then she huffed and looked aside.

"No," she said, then started to walk forward.

"Well, it's just, it's a very nice sword," Harry said. Did...wait, were swords hard to make in the past? Or was it like everyone had a sword, back before guns. He wracked his brains, but for some reason, instead of the history courses he had taken during high school and college, all he was instead thinking of was the way that Lyan's shift was riding up her back as she walked ahead of him. He focused on the air above her head, his cheeks heating while she said, bluntly.

"I stole it."

"Oh," he said. "From...who?"

"From my father's armory!" She snapped, turning around, glaring at him. "Thou art a stranger to these lands, so I suppose thou must learn of it sometime." She flushed, then prodded his chest with her finger. "I am...Princess Lyan."

"Oh!" Harry said. Princesses. He'd had an entire semester on monarchies and their integration into the Federation, it got really touchy considering the conflicting directives of both...including everyone's cultures and insuring every individual within those cultures had their rights respected. The big issue was no one could actually agree on...what...and where those barriers landed. Some days, it felt like the Federation was always three bad disagreements away from ripping itself into a bunch of tiny parts. And maybe if they didn't have the Klingon and Romulan Empires lurking off in every direction, a lot of people might have left right then and there.

Of course, that kind of abstract debate about law and procedure seemed a lot less procedural and abstract when there was a lady with about a hundred centimeters of sharpened steel ready to draw and stick into someone who pissed her off.

"Thou hath heard of me?" Lyan asked, skeptically.

"No, uh...one second," Harry said, then reached up, pulled his combadge off. "So, uh, in my people, we don't have kings and princesses anymore - but, uh, don't worry, I...can still do all the bows and stuff..." He fiddled with the controls on the back.

Lyan snorted. "What do thou have if thy lack-" ZZT "-kings and queens?"

Harry put the badge back on. "Uh, oh, we elect people."

"You elect people," Lyan said, slowly. "Like the nose counters down south?"

"Yup!" Harry said, smiling at her. "It's more complicated than just counting people, uh, there's a lot of...it's a lot, and I'd love to explain it to you."

"Curious, your grammar just got a lot better," Lyan said, turning her back to him as she began to walk forward again. "Did you do some magic or something? Is that an amulet you have there?"

"...kinda!" Harry said, nodding. "Speaking of, uh, magic, what about those Adepts? Aren't they your kings?"

"My father...is...the Ultraviolet Adept, yes..." She started to walk faster.

"...so they're hunting you because you're a runaway?" Harry asked, jogging to keep up with her. "Is that's what's going on?"

"Shut up, you'd run away too if you ever met him," Lyan snapped. "He's named for he has mastery of the ultraviolet - he is unseen, yet can see much. He slips through bonds and can pass without notice, and yet, learn all. He reads thoughts and memories and reveals the past with a wave of his hand." She shook her head. "He's a vile, awful, creeping, odious little man and I will not be ruled by him, father or not."

"Got it, got it," Harry said, then put his hand on her shoulder. He smiled. "In the Federation, the, the land I'm from, no one can be ruled against their will. Even by parents."

"Really?" Lyan asked.

"Yeah!" Harry said. The complications of Federation child-caring was a bit beyond the topic of the conversation, but the idea of a father being able to dictate anything he wanted to his daughter, especially an adult daughter, was...just utterly barbaric to Harry's perspective. He drew his hand back, realizing it had been there on her shoulder for a while longer than he had...intended. Lyan looked away, then resumed her walk. "So, uh...can you tell me about the other Adepts and their powers?"

"Well, they have powers after their chosen element," Lyan said. "Infrared is the master of flame and heat and light. Antimatter makes dark perversions of the world around her - she can make the dead live and the living dead, or turn steel into brittle glass, and glass into unbreakable, opaque solids." She shrugged a bit. "And the Adept of Positron...she, with her ally Infrared, stand against Ultraviolet and Antimatter. Her mastery is the construction of...I suppose, as you're not from these lands, you might not have heard of a device called a 'positronic brain.'"

Harry blinked at her.

"...is her name...Soong, by any chance?" Harry asked.

"No, her full title is Enpa Ta, the Positronic Adept," Lyan said. "Why?"

"Just checking," Harry said, laughing quietly. "So, huh. Like. Does your father use tools to...do what he does? Like, uh, like this!" He pulled his phaser out. "I can use this to strike enemies with...fire, I guess. Does Infrared use something similar?"

"No," she said, snorting. "Adepts don't need tools, they're not wizards. They simply do as they wish. For weaker spells, they need not even gesture. Just...think it and it happens. For more powerful acts, they need to invoke the power with gestures, words..."

Harry nodded.

Great.

***
​

The jungles petered out and they came to a set of low, light pink foothills, which themselves went up and up to dark pink mountains. Harry did a quick doubletake. Those mountains...he half recognized them. One of the peaks had a very distinctive notch in it - from the tour guide, it had been a geological event from millennia ago. It had been preserved as a natural monument.

The rest of the mountains had been riddled, completely riddled, with strip mines.

But now, they looked as they would have been before the Mining Cartels had gotten their diggers into them. Harry sighed, sitting down on a hill and caught his breath, while Lyan stretched her arms behind her back. She pointed, once she was done. "There's the Castle Positron," she said, and looking at one of the mountains, Harry could see it, just barely, a glittering castle of pinkish stone and fluttering flags. It looked like the only way up there was skimmers or transports or-

Or those treacherous paths of craggy rocks and death defying drops.

"Great," Harry said.

"Well, we could see if there are pegasi in this area," Lyan said, sighing softly. "They could fly us right up - if we could convince them."

Harry took his combadge off, shaking it. "Stupid thing..."

"What?" Lyan asked.

"Just, my universal translator is still throwing out bizarre terms, I...did you say pegasi?"

"Yes, winged horses," Lyan said. "I've never spoken to one, but I've seen them flying too and fro in the distance."

"...you know, if I wasn't stranded here, this would be the find of my lifetime," Harry said, grinning as he started to stand up.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: None
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0

Well, then!
[ ] Risk the deadly climb of the cliffs of insanity
[ ] find a pegasus and see if they'll carry you. You...have never ridden a horse. But...maybe they're sentient?
[ ] Use your phaser to just carve a set of stairs up the mountain. You have the replacement charge packs to do it...and it'll impress Lyra!
[ ] Write in

 

[DragonCobolt]

"When in Risa..." Harry said, shrugging and then turning on his tricorder.

"Where is Risa?" Lyan asked.

Harry found several large lifesigns that were moving about in a way that suggested a herd to him. He walked that way, trying to explain Risa to Lyan in a way that wouldn't mortify him or break the Prime Directive any more than he was already...bending it. Of course, these people could build positronic brains. That was where his classes on the PD had always seriously broken down - warp drive was such an obvious demarcation point, but it was also so clearly arbitrary. Half the debates had been 'okay, but what if this civilization doesn't have warp drive, but does have...X' and then debating the merits and demerits of different kinds of contact, and how much contact could be allowed with civilizations that did have a warp drive, but...

He stepped over a hill mid sentence that had started with: "Well, uh, we have ships, but they're not really like sailing ships, they're-" and then almost walked straight into a bright, iridescent rainbow colored wing, emerging from the broad haunch of a pastel pink Terran style horse. Harry yelped, stumbled backwards, and landed on his ass. "It's a Pegasus!"

"Well, yeah," Lyan said, the 'no shit, idiot' left implied.

Harry stood up. The Pegasus was one of many - the rest of the herd were grazing, their wings folded against the sides. This one was among the smaller of the herd - and he huffed his nose as he looked down at Harry, who still felt rather tiny next to the beast. He'd never known horses were so...big. Before. Maybe it was the wings. Maybe it was the fact he wasn't seeing them on a screen or a book. He held out his palm. "Hey there, Pegasus...ey..." he said, slowly as the Pegasus leaned his head down, sniffing at his palm curiously.

"Well," Harry said, chuckling, petting the broad head gently. "They seem nice."

"That worked?" Lyan asked, blinking. "I...always heard that Pegasi were very flighty. Haughty even." She said, while Harry walked around, then gingerly put his hands on the creature's back. He didn't seem to mind as Harry swung himself up onto his back, settling home behind the wings, which spread, then fluttered. Harry smiled down at Lyan.

"All right," he said. "Though, I'm not sure this can-"

The Pegasus beat once and they shot into the air.

"-flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

Harry clung to the neck of the beast, his fingers clutching to his fur as the pegasus shot towards the mountains - so fast that Harry was fairly sure that it was about to smash into the rocks out of sheer spite. At the last second, his wings flared, twisted, cupped the wind and they shot off to the left, whipping past a pass of glittering white snow. The wings beat again and again, driving them forward faster and faster, and the pegasus exploded through a cloudbank and towards another sheer cliff face. Harry screamed and tugged back slightly. "PULL UP!"

The Pegasus did - at the last second, his hooves prancing cheerfully against the snow as they banked up and up...and then flipped end over end, tail trailing in the air. Harry felt his body losing contact and he clenched his legs tighter, screaming even more as the Pegasus dove, then snapped his wings wide - catching a thermal and soaring above the world, which spread out as a glittering patchwork of forests, prairie, plains and hills, all of it under an infinite light blue sky, bisected by a thick band of pinkish light from the planetary ring system, the shepherding moons hanging like gemstones in the highest reaches of the heavens.

Harry panted, blinking as he looked down at the vastness. "Whoa..." He whispered.

He'd seen worlds from space and hadn't felt this high up.

Then he saw one of those patchwork ecologies shimmer and crackle, like a hologram fuzzing. For just a moment, the rolling yellow and gold grass turned into a more familiar expanse of black rubble and snorting, growling, mechanical monsters - the vast mining apparatus on the Vhorni homeworld. Then, between blinks, the world snapped back to normal in the region.

"Did you see that?" Harry asked, before remembering he was riding an animal.

The Pegasus snorted and flicked his ears in a way that seemed to mean yes.

Harry frowned. Was he...

Was he anthropomorphizing the winged horse? Did...

"...does that happen often?" he asked, feeling half like a fool and half like a Starfleet officer.

The Pegasus bobbed his head from side to side and kinda waggled his ears. Kinda like saying: Eh, kinda.

"More often than it used to, though?"

The Pegasus shrugged.

He shrugged.

Harry could feel it against his thighs.

Harry wasn't sure which was most shocking. The fact this creature could fly, since, scaling laws normally were a thing. And aerodynamics. And...mass? There were so many damn problems with this. Next to that, the fact he was sentient was actually LESS shocking, there were tons of uplifts in the Federation - even if no one had managed it on horses. One of his crewmates was a dolphin! But then he slapped his forehead and pulled out his tricorder. He was in a prime place to-

The Pegasus dove again. They streaked down towards the hills again, and Harry had to cling to the tricorder and the Pegasus at once to keep from being flung off. Those wings caught the air, beat once, and then they were landed, hooves thumping on the grass. They seemed to be a few miles off from the herd, landed near a copse of trees that provided some shade around a few small, pale white flowering plants that looked faintly sinister. Harry laughed, then yelped as the Pegasus bucked his hips, making a whickering noise that clearly communicated: Get off!

"Sorry, sorry," Harry said, then swung himself off, slightly bowlegged by his experiences. "That was amazing, you know, I...thank you, uh...uh..."

A pale white light glowed.

"Uh..."

"You're welcome," a husky, female voice spoke as the light faded and a slender, pink skinned, winged woman stood before him, her wings a glittering rainbow hue that caught and refracted the light like glittering, iridescent mirrors. She was completely and carelessly naked, her arms stretching above her head languidly as she opened her bright blue eyes and grinned at him. "You're a pretty good rider. But I thiiiiiink I need to make sure." She said, then walked forward, touching his chest. "What do you think?" Her finger prodded him backwards and Harry blinked as his back pressed against a tree.

"R-...Ri...rider?" Harry stammered, brain completely shorting out.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Dimensionally unstable world?"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
Oh my...

[ ] ...well, when in Risa...
[ ] Start scanning her with a tricorder
[ ] Write in

Spoiler: Rolls!

I have spent your bonus momentum to give you the factoid about the dimensionally unstable world. Because I love you <3

 

[DragonCobolt]

Spoiler: Sex Scene Spoilers!

Harry and Soria get their fantasy freak on. This is inspired by a Piers Anthony novel, after all. Soria tries to act confident and cocky, but is actually a bookish nerd

Spoiler: Sex Scene!

"Well..." Harry said, gulping slightly. "When in Risa."

He knew this was...against several kinds of regulation. But then again, it was in several regulations. Cultural practices should be respect-

The girl stepped up close, her pale pink nipples brushing against his uniform, and she leaned up on her tip toes to kiss him on the lips, her tail twitching from behind her. Harry's hands went to her shoulders and, remembering what he'd been taught by T'are, slid along her back, down to her ass. He squeezed her athletic rump, feeling the curve of her tail as she melted into him, her mouth opening, her tongue and his meeting and playing together. When the kiss ended, he felt like his heart was thundering - and his hand gripped her tail, holding her close, even as her mouth drew back and she whispered.

"Oh, I think you will be quite a rider." Her eyes glittered. "What's your name?"

"Harry. Harry Kim."

"Harry Kim," she said, slowly, tasting the words. Then her grin grew wicked. "Well, what are you doing in all these useless clothes?" She grabbed onto his starfleet uniform and tore. Or at least, she tried. Her pink arms strained and her wings flared out as she furrowed her brow. "C...C'mon...I...in all the books they tore easy!"

"Books?" Harry asked.

"Nothing!" she said, her cheeks heating.

"Wait..." Harry put his hands on her hands. "Wait, one second. Books? What books?"

The Pegasus girl flushed even more, her wings rustling nervously. "I...maybe read a few romance novels."

"Is this actually a part of your culture?" Harry asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I mean, it used to be," the pegasus said, her wings fluttering. She leaned in close, her voice soft. "And...I can tell at least part of you wouldn't mind reviving some old history." Her palm cupped his groin and Harry tensed as she stroked him through his pants. "You know, the books said boys weren't this reluctant to...have fun..."

"I-I'm not reluctant," Harry said, quietly, leaning forward and kissing her on the mouth - the sweet taste of her lips was almost magnetic. He drew his lips back. "It's just..."

"Whaaaat?" She asked, and this time, rather than tearing at his shockingly tough uniform, she actually began to feel around - finding the zipper and tugging experimentally at it. As it slid along his back, her mouth pressed against his collar, her breath warm and playful. "Do you have another woman?"

"I...kind of?" Harry thought of Libby.

Then his shirt came away and the pegasus girl oohed as she saw his abdominal muscles. "Oh my."

Harry cast aside his worries, then. He was...at the end of the day...still shockingly young for a Starfleet officer. His hands slid to his leggings and he shucked them down, while asking: "What's your name?"

"So..." She trailed off, her mouth opening quietly as he stepped from his pants, his cock hard and throbbing. Her hand cupped him gently, stroking his balls and his cock at the same time, her eyes fixed on it. "They're...different than what the books say...um...less turgid." She said, provoking a laugh from Harry. His hand cupped her ass, gently.

"Your name isn't just So, is it?"

"Soria," she said, softly.

"Now, uh...you don't need to be quite so gentle," Harry said, softly, then leaned forward. His mouth and hers met as her pink hand began to tighten around his cock, then relax, squeezing him and feeling the reactions in the way his whole body trembled. Her hand began to move up and down - awkwardly at first, until she released and reversed her grip. Harry drew back, murmuring softly. "Y-Yeah, that's...the right way to..."

"Oh!" Soria whispered. "It's...silkier than I expected too." She licked her lips, her hand moving faster and faster.

"If...you keep doing that, I...ah...won't be able to-" Harry bit his lip, then gasped as she released him, as if he was suddenly red hot.

Soria nodded, then gasped as Harry took her in his arms. The grass, as it transpired, was just as soft and downy as it looked, and when she laid back on it, she looked mighty inviting. Harry hunched forward, his mouth trailing along her breasts, her belly, her belly button. His tongue and his lips left tiny glittering marks on her skin, gleaming in the warm afternoon sun, while Soria's fingers caught the grass and gripped clumps of it, her moans restrained by biting down on her lower lip - until Harry's lips touched the soft folds of her sex, tasting her clear, tangy juices. His tongue swept along her pussy, teasing her with slow, languid licks, while Soria gasped and then cried out. "H-Harry!"

Her thighs, as it turned out, could grip just as tightly as his could, locking around his head as one of her hands smeared grass in his hair, squeezing him so fiercely that Harry worried she'd rip clumps from him. But...there was the counterpoint to the tightness of her thighs and it was the sweetness between them. Harry managed to get one hand free, sliding his middle finger into her tight sex as he sucked on her clit, focusing on pleasing her. Soria moaned, and bucked her hips, gasping out his name again and again, until she was trembling and whimpering: "H-Harry...take me! Take me now, make me yours!"

Harry wasn't about to say no to that. He kissed his way up, along her belly, to her breasts, sucking first on one nipple, and then the other. Her hand had reached down, her damp fingers pressing his cock against her. She felt so warm and eager. Harry pressed his forehead to hers as her thighs spread and, as the warm sun caressed his back, he thrust into her. Soria gasped into him, her thighs tightening around his back, as he began to make love to her under the sun. Soria gasped, then moaned. "Ah...yes! Oh...oh wow, this...this is amazing!" She laughed, then tightened her arms around his back as Harry drove into her. "Yes! Yes! Ride me! Ride me! Yes!"

Her body trembled and Harry felt her tightening around him as he groaned out in pleasure - and emptied himself inside of her. Soria moaned, her mouth pressing to his throat. "Wow..." Harry whispered, looking down at her. "Soria..."

She smiled at him, her eyes faintly glazed. "We need to rewrite some...books..." She whispered.

***
​

Afterwards, they lay together, legs still interlocked, and Soria the Pegasus explained, her voice soft. "Well, in my herd, we don't have many two-leggers around to make mounts anymore. But...the old traditions are there. M-Mostly."

"What does mostly mean?" Harry asked.

"Well, you did survive my ride, and...I did accept you..." Her pink fingers walked along his chest. "So, there's no legal ground for father to be cross at you."

Harry nodded.

"...father?" he asked.

"Yeah, my father's the stallion of the herd," Soria said, sliding so that she laid half on him, her finger playing in his hair. "He's the biggest and fastest and strongest." She nodded. "And he even knows how to use a sword! He learned it from a two-legger knight who came to visit." She smiled and nuzzled against his chest.

"...sword..." Harry whispered.

"So, tell me about yourself," Soria said. "Tell me about this sort of other woman. Was it the two-legger you were with?"

"Lyan? No," Harry said. How to even begin to explain Libby to her. Then...

Then he realized it was really easy.

"So, uh..." Harry sighed. "My...I had a lover named Libby. But she was caught in a magical spell that-"

"Harry!?"

The distant sound of Lyan's voice broke into his explanation - he lifted his head, then flushed. "R-Right, we should get dressed," he said, hurriedly grabbing onto his...where were his pants? They were over there. He grabbed onto them and managed to wriggle them on, while Lyan strode over to the copse of trees, then froze as she saw him.

"H...harry?" she asked, looking at him, shirtless, her mouth opening. Her cheeks flushed. Then she saw Soria. "I...what!?"

Soria giggled. "Hello!" She said, then flung her arms around Harry from behind. "He's my rider now."

Lyan spluttered.

"I can explain," Harry said, while behind Lyan came the thumping hoof-falls of the rest of her herd.

Soria's father came around one of the trees. At least, Harry was fairly sure the huge, burly, white hued and rainbow winged stallion was Soria's father, considering how he had never before seen a widely set pair of eyes glare so biliously hatefully at someone before. He came to his feet - and then the flash of light that covered for the pegasus' transformation flared up as the stallion turned out to be just as powerfully built as a humanoid as he had as a quadruped. He thrust his finger at Harry.

"Youuuuu have defiled my daughter!"

"No, he took me as his mount!" Soria said, cheerfully. "Just like the old ways!"

The Pegasus herd began to whinny and neigh like someone had set loose a bunch of snakes.

"What do you have to say for yourself!?" Soria's Father boomed, glaring down his nose at Harry.

Lyan was a load of help.

She was off by the side, her hand over her face, her shoulders trembling as she laughed hysterically.

Thanks, Lyan, Harry thought.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Angry Herd", "Dimensionally unstable world"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 2

I gave you 2 momentum to callously create the truth of Angry Herd. Ain't I a stinker?

[ ] Uhh...well, uh...you see, uh... (Harry will get into a sword fight)
[ ] Write in how harry defends himself (Harry may avoid a sword fight)

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Defiled how?" Harry asked. "We just had sex?"

The chalk white skinned Pegasus man's wings flared out and he growled - reaching down to a thin belt of black leather hung around his otherwise naked. He drew a long, narrow blade with a flash, snarling as he advanced towards Harry, who realized that maybe he had not communicated the lack of insult required. He stepped backwards as Soria cried out. "Father, no!"

"Kim, catch!"

Harry glanced to the side - and saw a blade hurtling at him. He caught, more by accident than anything else, Lyan's sword, moments before the burly horseman was upon him, swinging his sword in a brutal overhead chop. Harry spring to the side, then slashed out, pulling his blow at the last second to only lightly score the fellow's burly white thigh. Red blood dripped along his fur and Harry stepped backwards, panting. "So, uh...just..." he started. "Just hold on a-"

The chalk white horseman roared in fury. He slashed up at Harry, who managed to bring his sword between himself and the pegasus in the nick of time. Sparks flew and he stumbled backwards, back against a tree. He yelped, then ducked low as the huge man swept his sword through the air, splintering wood and sheering the relatively narrow tree in half with a single sword blow. He stepped back, holding his blade one handed - the edge looking barely even dusted, let alone notched. Harry blinked, looking back at the tree.

There was no way that was just steel.

So...

He reached into his transporter buffer, yanking out the mineral scanner. He hastily adjusted the frequency on the magnetic resonator - and then brought it up at the last second, a blue-white shield flaring to life between him and the onrushing sword. His heels dug into the ground as the sword crackled and buzzed against the magnetic shield, the onlooking herd gasping and stamping their hooves.

"He's a wizard!?" Someone cried from the audiance.

"Harry look out!" A distraught Soria cried out, and drew Harry's attention towards the advancing pegasus. He gripped his sword tighter in one hand, his other hand holding the magnetic shield. he boosted the power - the scanner had to be SO confused about what he was trying to tell it to do - and thrust out his arm, the sword jerking in Soria's father's hands before he could get into range. Harry stepped forward and slashed at his belly, hoping to wound him badly enough to end the fight - he could always repair it with his medical pack.

The pegasus moved faster than Harry expected, darting backwards with a thump of heavy body. His teeth flashed and he tried to catch his balance, but Harry thrust forward - and then realized, he had forgotten the pegasus had another hand. An iron hard grip clamped around his magnetic screen, which crackled, buzzed, popped and shattered as the mining scanner broke in half. "Father!" Soria cried out as that massive hand released HArry's arm, then smashed into his jaw. He stumbled, and then grunted as his sword was knocked casually aside by a sweep of Soria's father's blade.

"Defile her, I'll-" He swung, but Harry dove out of the way. He hit the ground, saw his sword, scrambled forward.

"FATHER!"

The blade slammed into Harry's back. He grunted, his eyes widening. Pain exploded through him and-

***
​

Harry stumbled forward, skidding on his knees, then landed on his belly. He panted, blinking...and groaned, feeling like he had just scraped his entire chest against...hard...concrete. He pushed himself back and realized he had. Since, well, he had never gotten a chance to put his uniform back on. He was shirtless, sweaty, slightly bloody from an abrasion on his shoulder. But...otherwise fine. He looked around himself and saw...the drearily familiar concrete walls and hardened structures of the Vhorni homeworld.

"Ow..." he said, then whispered. "What the...fuck?"

Then a cold fear shot through him.

He didn't have his combadge. It had been on his uniform jacket. He slapped at his hips, then dragged his transporter buffer around. He was thumbing through his options when he heard the squeal of tires and thumping of feet. He sighed with relief, seeing three Vhorni Mining Cartel Security officers coming around the corner.

"Oh thank god," he said. "You will never-"

They had sonic pistols.

"Oh shi-" Harry flung himself behind a dumpster a second before the pavement he was on was hit by a sonic oscillation so intense that the concrete cracked and exploded upwards in a spray of stone and chunks. Harry yanked out his phaser, whispering to himself. "What the fuck is going on?"

He looked around for some place to escape. He was next to a door, but it was locked and secured. He was just about to think about opening it with a beam of high energy particles when the door instead hissed open and a figure in mining coveralls, a long jacket, and a gas mask stepped out and spoke to him.

"Come with me if you want to live, Harry."

They reached out a gloved hand to him while more sonic blasts hammered the dumpster, causing the metal to buzz and ring. Harry could hear, over the sound, more shouts and footsteps - more goons coming from the flank. At least two, if he didn't miss his guess.

---
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Dimensionally unstable world!"

[ ] Go with the stranger
[ ] Phaser your way past the goons and try to call Voyager with some local communications
[ ] Write In

Spoiler: Rolls!

ROUND ONE, FIGHT!

Starfleet: Harry attempts to slash at Swifo. He gets 1s versus his 0s! Success! He does 6 damage, non-lethal, which is reduced to 3 by Swifo's resistance, dropping him to 11 stress.

Pegasus: Swifo counterattacks! He gets 1s, versus Harry's 1s - a success, since agressors win ties. He does 7 damage, dropping Harry to 7 stress and causing an injury, which Harry evades by spending 2 momentum.

Starfleet: Harry attempts to bolster himself by makeshifting a FORCE FIELD SHIELD! He gets 2s using his 1 point of determination, since...ya know! Big deal. This adds +1 to Swifo's attacks.

Pegasus: Swifo attacks! He gets 2s! Harry gets 1s! 2s vs diff 1 versus 1s vs diff 0 means...a tie, again, but at least Swifo isn't getting +1 momentum! He does 4 damage, dropping harry to 3 stress! Ruh oh!

Starfleet: Harry swings for 1s - Swifo gets 2s...but again, diff 1 for him means Harry succeeds on the tiebreak. He re-rolls damage with 1 threat to the Pegasus, and then reduces his resistance by 2 for another threat, putting the GM at 2 threat. He does 7 damage, reduced to 6! That drops Swifo to 5 stress and forces him to deplete HIS avoid injury!

Pegasus: Swifo attacks! He gets 2s! Harry ALSO gets 2s! 2s vs diff 1 versus 2s vs diff 0 means Harry...WINS THE TIE! However, he gets a complication. He does 4 damage, reduced to 1 by Swifo's resistance. No good! Harry gives +1 threat to ignore 2 of his resistance, doing 3 damage, bringing Swifo down to 2 stress. Hmm...I shall say the shield is shattered for the complication and for 3 threat, Swifo gets to attack again at +1 diff. He gets 1s...at +1 diff, versus Harry's 1s! Swifo misses!

Starfleet: Harry rolls 1s to hit! ...with a complication. Swifo gets 2s on his defense, meaning he wins and gets 1 momentum to boot! He does 4 damage, and Harry is dropped to 0 stress, taking an injury. Poor Harry

ROUND TWO

Ambushing Goons: 1s vs a diff of 2! Miss!

 

[DragonCobolt]

Harry gaped at the hand offered him. Then he took it, and the stranger yanked him to his feet. She dragged him into the door, slamming it shut behind him. They were in a warehouse and the walls started to buzz and ring with the impacts of sonic weapons in the alleyway. The stranger then took Harry quickly down the side chambers, then to a small set of stairs, leading down into maintenence tunnels. They turned left, right, right, left...Harry started to close count, stumbling after the coated figure, their hands the only guidance he had in the darkness and industrial rumbling of this place.

Then, at last, they ducked into one more room and the door shut. The strange sighed, and Harry panted. He looked around himself, his eyes widening as he recognized that he was in what was clearly a kind of underground scientific facility. There were mass spectrometers bunged together out of scrap and wires, and a small laser scanner that was running over a hunk of pinkish crystal. He recognized that crystal - and he pointed at it, gasping slowly. "What...how..."

"I stole it," the woman said, shucking off her trench coat.

Harry gaped.

The woman...was a robot. Her facial features were clearly modeled after the Vhorni, but her skin was sleek chrome and silvery metal, with clear joins around every moving part of her features, from her neck to her shoulders. Her breasts were large and tipped with rubby nipples, her hips sleek and sweeping outwards into a perfect hourglass shape, a wild contrast to the athletic Lyan and the slender Soria. Harry jerked his head away, blushing, and the woman sighed: "Right, biological modesty." She clicked her tongue. "Ignore it, for the moment." She walked to his side. "My name is Bifurcate. You can call me...Cate, I guess." She quirked silvery-rubber lips up, her hand touching one of Harry's scratches.

"What is going on, Cate?" Harry asked, panting, keeping his eyes focused on her camera lens eyes.

"You...were just in the other world, weren't you?" she asked.

"...yes," Harry said, nodding. "What was that place?"

"It's called Inrohv...Vhorni spelled backwards, very creative. But I didn't name it," she said as she stepped away from him and to the crystal. She adjusted the scanner, her bare back showing off the aesthetic intentions of her designers - Harry wanted to either smack them or shake their hands, he wasn't sure which yet. "Inrohv is connected to our world by a dimensional vacuole. Sudden death can drag one from one to another, but more often than not, you don't survive the process and show up as a cocooned corpse." She shook her head.

"I've gone there and back again," Harry said.

"That's why the Cartels want you," Cate said, glancing over her shoulder. "And why my mistress has tasked me to find and serve you, until we can solve this."

Harry slowly sat down on the nearest chair, sagging a bit. "Your mistress?"

"She's known, on this world, as Miss At, full name Apne At. But on Inrohv, she goes by a more grandiloquent sobriquet," Cate said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"The Adept of Positrons," Harry said, nodding. "She built you?"

"On Inrohv, but with the ability to split myself between both worlds," she said, then smirked. "Thanks to one of these." She patted the crystal case.

"You're...dilithium powered?" Harry asked, his eyes widening slightly. Cate turned to face him, freezing, her eyes widening with a whirr and a click.

"You know what this is?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's dilithium, it's what most ships use for enhancing and stabilizing matter/antimatter reactions," Harry said. "It's temporally locked - you need to put energy into it at various points along the timeline for it to break. That's why it's so useful, if you work it into an antimatter reactor, it spreads the energy release over a longer, more stable period of time, so you have the juice when you need it without exploding your ship." He blinked. "What do you think it is?"

"The Mining Cartels call them PDMs - paradimensional material," she said, frowning.

Harry stood up, his eyes widening. "Wait, the materials that...they...got us here to trade is just dilithium!?" He shook his head. "I mean, not JUST dilithium, dilithium is valuable as hell. You can't replicate it, mining it is hard as get out, and...but it's just dilithium?"

Cate frowned. "I don't think so. Watch." She grabbed the crystal with one hand, yanking it from the containment unit. She held it aloft, then spoke a single word. "Vaxnia!"

A glowing orb of blue-white light exploded into existence before her, shimmering and flickering, then turning into a swan, which flew about the room, swept around, then crashed back into the dilithium crystal. Cate arched an eyebrow at Harry, nodding slightly. "See?"

"That was what the Vhorni in the other world call...magic," Harry said, slowly. "That's not how dilithium is supposed to act."

"It may be," Cate said. "But it's why the Cartels are mining and selling it so much. And why our world is dying. The Adept of Positron has realized it first - she's active on both worlds and can see the effects...and she built me to try and find a way to stop it. I've been studying this PD...this...dilithium." She set it down, sighing. "But...nothing going. You're a new wrinkle. And a new possibility." She smiled, slightly. "And so, I am at your service."

"We need to contact my ship!" Harry said.

"No," Cate said. "I am under strict orders to maintain as intense security as I can. The Mining Cartels spy on all communications - your ship and your communications are watched. If they make any move, they'll know. The Cartels would want to squash this information."

"What, you think they'll just...keep trying to make a profit as your planet explodes!?" Harry exclaimed, horrified.

Cate cocked her head. "Y...Yes?" She asked, unsure why he was even asking such an inane question. "Of course they would. If they wouldn't they wouldn't be CEOs."

"...fuck," Harry said, sagging. "Okay..." He paused, thinking.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Countdown...to DOOMSDAY!", "Harry Kim is exhausted"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: None

Vote for as many as you want, but you may not be able to do all things! When making your plan vote, PUT THEM IN ORDER!

[ ] Study the Dilithium. Maybe your expertise with the material will do better than Cate's investigations.
[ ] Question Cate about the nature of the apocalypse.
[ ] Question Cate about the political situation in the world
[ ] Fucking get some rest, you're exhausted (this will remove the Harry Kim is exhausted truth)
[ ] Try and establish secure communications with Voyager (you'll have to convince Cate)
[ ] Write In

Spoiler: Rolls!

Bad guys get 1s to shoot - a miss

 

[DragonCobolt]

Harry rubbed his palms against his face. He felt exhausted, bone weary, and completely done with today. He wracked his brain and found that...no, no. He still hadn't quite beaten the Starfleet record for deaths per 24 hour period that was still held by the entire crew of the USS Enterprise-D, for their six hundred and twenty three consecutive deaths in the temporal anomaly back in the 2360s.

"Two is easy," he said, quietly. "Two's nothing. Kirk died two times before breakfast, I'm sure."

"What?" Cate asked.

"Nothing, nothing," Harry said, rubbing his palms against his face.

"You're tired, you've not had much rest have you?" Cate shook her head. "Very well." She put her palm on his chest, pushing him backwards towards a bed. Harry stumbled backwards, caught his knees against the edge of a cot that was hanging from the wall, and fell into it with a yelp. He sprawled there, and glared up at Cate, who cocked her head. The view from down here was...spectacular. And remarkably reflective. Cate put her hands on her curvy, silvery hips as she pursed her rubber lips down at him. "Once you have rested, we can begin studying..." She paused, then, her eyes dipping down. "Hmm..."

"What?" Harry tried to very subtly hide his hardon.

"Well, you can't rest with that bothering you." Cate said. "Sit up."

"I-" Harry started to sit up - then yelped as Cate took hold of his leggings and tugged.

"I was ordered to serve you, Mr. Kim. I will be doing so."

And he was born onto his back by the curvaceous robot girl swinging one leg over his hip, her weight pressing him onto his back with a faint squeal of cot-springs.

Spoiler: Sex Scene Spoiler!

Harry gets fucked by a hot robot girl. Fun is had by all!

Spoiler: Sex Scene!

Harry was actually a little surprised at how hard and eager he was, his cock pressing against the slightly cool, sleek metal belly of the robot girl straddling him. Her expression was set, focused. Dedicated, almost. "Y-You don't have to do anything, you know," Harry stammered. "I've slept with-fuck!" He gasped the last word out as, in a single smooth motion, Cate lifted her hips and dropped herself down with mechanical precision. Her sex was warm and slippery and definitely artificial - but that only added to the lewd pleasure of it. Her breasts rocked in time with her hips as she bounced atop him, nodding subtly to herself.

"Is that good, Mr. Kim?" Cate asked, her voice quiet and inquisitive. Harry's hands grabbed her chrome ass and squeezed and she actually smirked. "Thought so."

"I...have...fucked...a lot of weird people today," Harry said, grunting as he started to buck his hips in time with the other woman, bouncing her on his lap as she leaned forward, brushing his chest with the gray tips of her rubbery nipples. Her hands cradled the back of his neck as she rocked her hips in time with his thrusts, her eyes meeting his.

"Oh, who?" she asked.

Harry closed his eyes, his hands gliding up her chrome back, to her shoulders, to slide under her shoulders to her breasts, which he squeezed, feeling the faint give of her synthetic flesh. His fingers rolled her nipples gently as he gasped out: "A Pegasus."

"Ah. A traditionalist," she said, showing no sign of being short of breath at all. "Mm, my orgasm is at sixty percent, Mr. Kim."

Harry, who felt his own pleasure boiling inside of himself, clenched his jaw to keep hismelf under control. His right hand delved down as he bucked his hips faster now, trying to add to the pleasure of his cock by seeking for her clit. Finding it - he began to rub the grayish silver button that crested her pussy, and as he worked it, Cate actually did gasp softly, her camera lens eyes whirring and clicking as she focused in on him.

"You don't have to- AH!" She cried out. "S-Seventy percent!" She bit her lip, hard, as Harry found that, by pushing down hard on her clit, he could feel a kind of tactile wheel - one that he twirled up and up and up with quick, scrolling motions of his finger. The change on Cate's face was shocking - her eyes' glowing blue lights shifted to pink and her mouth opened as she moaned out. "N...Ninety! Ah! Oh! Mr. Kim! Mr...KIM!" She trembled as he thrust up into her faster now, then let himself lose control as she threw her head back, her coppery hair flashing back over her shoulders. "One hundred!"

She collapsed against him, panting, whimpering, trembling - for all the world like a very human woman who had just been fucked absolutely silly. Harry held her against him, his eyes closing as he breathed steadily.

"...wow..." Cate whispered as she and Harry lay together in the bed. "I...I've been ordered to serve males and females alike in my time working with the Adept of Positrons, but I've never before felt...such...remarkable...I...have you made love to many women in your time, Mr. Kim?"

Harry, his eyes closed, mumbled. "Orions don't count..."

"What?" Cate asked.

Harry snored loudly.

***
​

When Harry woke, he was feeling shockingly well rested. His palms rubbed against his cheeks and he stood, slowly, then blushed and jerked his pants up and around his hips. He found that Cate was sitting pensively at the door, holding a disruptor rifle that had the focusing lens sawn off to make a kind of conic field emitter that would utterly butcher anyone in the tight confines of the corridor beyond. Harry stepped to her, put his hand on her shoulder and smiled.

"Ready to get to work?" he asked.

She glanced at him, then nodded. "Yes."

"Okay," Harry said. "Lets start with the basics. The paradimensional materials that we came here to buy have unique properties - but it's dilithium." He said, starting to pace back and forth. "...this...split between worlds. What's the history on that? Has the world always been like that?"

"Of course," Cate said, frowning. "Five hundred years ago, the Adepts alive in Inrohv found the portals to Vhorni. They found a world just like our own, but devestated and ruined. They sent their prisoners out here - the exiled, those doomed to die. But those prisoners survived, made contact with other stars. They began to trade in PDM - what he Inrohv call mana."

Harry frowned. He patted at his belt, then pulled out his tranporter buffer. He pulled out the mineral scanner - and saw that he was pulling out a jagged stump of a ruined piece of trash. "Right," he said. "I used this in the sword fight."

Cate arched a single silvery eyebrow. "Was the Pegasus you made love to, by any chance, the daughter of the herd stallion?"

"Heh," Harry said, smiling weakly. Then he smacked his forehead. "Right, I'm an idiot, do you have some uh..." He eyed the ruined junk. "Tungsten, beryllium, steel, carbon alloys and copper?" He asked, and before he had even finished asking, Cate had arrived with the materials - all contained in small plastic boxes.

"Various samples for experimentation," she said as he fed them into his transporter buffer. "What are you doing?"

"A transporter buffer has a mini-transporter in it. Items are stored in subspace, then pulled out. But a transporter can take the molecular structures of things and break them down. It lacks the printing capacity of a replicator - but if we give it the right supplies and I...trick it a little..." Harry said, slinging the transporter buffer off his belt, then pulling out his tricorder. He tapped buttons, yanked out a few wires, sparked the wires together, then stepped back. "Okay, this should work."

"Should?" Cate asked.

"Yeah, should," Harry said, frowning. "...if you hear a loud whine, uh, we run."

Cate opened her mouth - but before she could say anything, Harry touched a button. The transporter on his transporter buffer whirred, whined, and then flashed with blue white light. What came out...was a perfectly functional mineral scanner, clattering down onto the desk, smoking faintly. Harry pumped his fist. "Yes! With the original pattern stored in the buffer and the raw materials, I've turned my belt buckle into a replicator! Yes!"

"Fine. What does this get us, though?" Cate asked, frowning as Harry took the spike and rammed it into the floor. He frowned.

"Okay, lets see, lets see...there it is," he said, nodding. "We detected this from orbit - but this confirms it - your planet is ringing like a bell."

Cate frowned. "A harmonic?"

"The kind you get after a major celestial impact - the crust is still reverberating from it, even centuries later," Harry said, drawing his legs under him as he looked up at her while laying on his elbow next to the metal rod. "...that's what did it. Your world is filthy with dilithium. It has sentient people on it. Then it gets hit with something big and energetic enough that the crust is still ringing five centuries later...and the dilithium, which is atemporally stable, fractures into two universes. One where the impact happened. The other where it didn't! But!" He lifted his finger. "The potential energy of the impact has to be radiated somewhere. It's being radiated into the dilithium!"

"So the dilithium has become-"

"It's become mana!" Harry said, excitedly. "So charged with energy that it makes quantum miracles happen because you shake it up like a can of soda with pop rocks! And it's a stable system too, since the dilithium exists in two nearby universes!"

"...except it's not stable..." Cate said, slowly. "Because...the Mining Cartels have...been selling it to Vidiians and Kazon and Talaxians and...and..."

"And the Adepts haven't," Harry whispered.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Countdown to Doomsday..."
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0

What do you do?
[ ] Harry has to contact Voyager.
[ ] Harry has to break this news to the population of Vhorni as quickly as possible
[ ] The only way to stablize this quickly would be to move the dilithium from Inrohv to Vhorni to 'balance' the worlds out - that means Harry has to get his longsword and get back to the land of fantasy!
[ ] Write In

Spoiler: rolls!

SEARCH FOR MR. KIM! A diff 1, resistance 0 check with 14 work and 2 breakthroughs.
2s, which is a success with 1 momentum! They get 3 work done, and re-roll their work dice with the 1 momentum for 6 work. That's 1 breaththrough and 8 work left...

Kim does some PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATIONS! He gets 3s! So, I'm going to give you THREE ANSWERS!