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

[DragonCobolt]

"So-" Neelix started.

"I'm from another universe," Seska burst out, unable to keep it inside herself anymore. But before she blurted out everything, she realized...there was a way to get out of this without being found out by potentially hostile aliens as being a Cardassian. She knew exactly how to do it.

Neelix blinked at her, then chuckled. "Well!" he said. "There's a reason most Talaxian ships stay on regulation space lanes." He waggled his finger. "Boring captains! No sense of adventure, they'd hate this. Me? I kind of wish more people have these human's exploring spirit - a Seska from another dimension? Fantastic!" He laughed.

Seska blinked at him.

She sighed.

"Well, some things do not change. You're just as crazy in this universe."

Neelix looked pleased with himself.

***
​

"So, you say you were a...Tellerite in this other universe?" The Doctor said, while Captain Janeway and Wacoche watched with concern. Both captains had been called together for this - and seeing Janeway did make Seska a bit unsure. She had wondered, for a moment, if Captain Wacoche had been the primary captain in this universe...but, no, it seemed that he was still in charge of the Val Jean.

"Yes," Seska lied. "Why? Do you think my memories have been altered or something? That's not the case, my recollection is as excellent as always."

"Well," the Doctor said. "You seem to have kept the cultural inclinations of the Tellerites at least." He turned to face the Captains. "I cannot detect any signs of temporal or dimensional disruptions in the Ensign. Other than the fatigue toxins from a bad night's sleep and some elevated adrenaline, she is entirely fine." He paused. "Well...as fine as can be expected?"

"What do you mean?" Janeway asked, but Wacoche coughed.

"It's...uh..." He looked at Seska, and it seemed to her that he was trying to subtly communicate with her. The only problem was that his subtle hints were as blank and bland as the rest of his features to her. So she guessed - there was a binary choice here, she had a fifty fifty possibility of guessing right.

...no, wait, trinary, she could nod subtly, shake her head subtly, or shrug.

Seska realized she was frozen.

She shrugged, hesitantly.

"Old injury," Wacoche said, quietly.

"Ahhh," Janeway said.

Seska's brow furrowed. They both acted as if an old injury was of anything but medical interest - tip toing around the bland nature of wounds. She sniffed and lifted her nose. "It's fine," she said, then slid off the table. "But the lack of definitive answers is troubling. What about psionics-"

"Wait," Wacoche said, quietly. "I..." He rubbed his hand against his cheek. "Kat, I think...can we have some privacy for a moment." Janeway nodded and the Doctor pursed his lips, but shrugged and spread his hands.

"I suppose I will simply delete myself-"

"Oh, stuff it," Wacoche said, chuckling. "There's a pool hall running on the holodeck. Practice your breaks."

"Ah, how delightfully working class..."

"Doctor," Wacoche's voice held a definite, firm commanding tone to it. Seska felt her back stiffening and her body coming to attention at the sound of it as Janeway stepped from the room and the Doctor shimmered out of existence, leaving her and Wacoche alone for the moment. He sighed, quietly. "I..." He paused. "Seska, I know you may not want to accept this, but it's a possibility I want to bring up. The issue may be...psychological."

Seska frowned. "It's not," she said.

"No one would think less of you. And it's...it's the anniversary," Wacoche said, gently. "If you want to speak to a councilor about it, we have several on the Voyager, it's not like the bad old days where your only options were to disassociate as hard as possible."

Seska's brow furrowed. "Anniversary of what?"

Wacoche pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damn it. This is where psychology and paradimensional fuckery run head into each other, huh? either you're being honest, and you are from another dimension, or you need help." He lowered his hand. "Well, a different kind of help, I suppose. We ran with the Maquis for years, Seska. I...I...don't want to just toss you at a Starfleet councilor without having a chance to talk first."

Seska squared her shoulders. "I'm from another dimension. What anniversary."

"The..." Wacoche sighed. "Seska. My Seska. Or you, if you're her." He paused. "Before you joined the Maquis, on this day, your village was hit by the Cardassians. Someone had set a fusion bomb in one of their enclaves. It'd killed fifty six Cardassians, leveled half the place, and would have killed more if their containment screens hadn't gone up in time." He looked aside and...for some reason, Seska could taste grit on her tongue, like she was mashing her face into the dirt. "Well, Cardassians are big believers in collective punishment."

Seska started to breathe faster now. She wasn't sure why, she couldn't catch her own breath. Her chest ached and her hand went to herself, feeling a throbbing knot of agony. She wheezed. "D...Doctor, Doctor!"

The Doctor returned, instantly, still holding a pool cue, which he dropped just as quickly as he had appeared. It shimmered away as he snatched up a tricorder, frowning. "Seska, you are having a panic attack," he said, simply. "I will get some Bajoran rated tranquilizers, please, attempt to remain calm."

Seska's breath hitched and Wacoche seemed to blur, his body faceting outwards as she felt as if she had run a dozen kilometers or-

He came into focus again. She could taste grit on her lips as she looked up, at the boots and the gleaming sun. Someone stood above her and his voice was cool and quiet. Bajoran scum...

Seska wheezed and tried to crawl forward on her belly, but the agony in her chest made it almost impossible.

She...she...recognized...

The disruptor fired.

Seska jerked and then felt her body suddenly get loose and liquid. Her brain floated on a confused fog, even as she heard the distant voice of a stern, sarcastic...but at the end of the day, kind man. "That should help, now, just remain calm..."

Her eyes closed.

***
​

Seska's eyes opened. She was laying on one of the cots in sickbay, her head throbbing. Her chest ached. She glanced left and right, to make sure she was alone, then opened up the collar of her uniform, tugging it forward. She had been in such a panic, she hadn't...hadn't noticed that her chest wasn't just disgustingly pink and unridged.

She had a hideous, circular scar that had been only partially plastered over with some simple duraflesh synthetics. Her fingers slid along it and she realized that this kind of scarring and tissue replacement came only from when your entire lung was replaced after...after a disruptor shot to the chest.

Seska laid back on the bed, breathing slowly. She probed at the panic attack with a mental tongue - like teasing a jagged, broken tooth. Her mind flinched away from it.

She didn't want to think about it.

She just...

She just...

Seska put her hand over her face. She wanted to cry.

Cardassian naval officers did not cry.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "I'm a bajoran!?", "Faintly tranquilized and deeply traumatized"
MOMENTUM: 0

What do?
[ ] look up this massacre that Wacoche mentioned on the computers
[ ] Check on the away mission you were supposed to go on - has it started?
[ ] Get some sleep. (Removes the tranquilized truth)
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Seska rolled left.

Seska rolled right.

Seska laid on her back.

Seska got up, huffing. Surely, she had been trying to sleep for an hour now.

It was five minutes sine the last time she had checked. She padded over to the small doctor's office that remained preposterously useless since the only doctor on the ship was made of holograms and force fields. She sat in the chair that had never been used, then considered all the things she could be doing with her time. Hell, she could be sleeping right now. Instead, she said. "Computer, list..." She paused. "List..."

She was quiet.

"Show me the massacre that...Seska survived. Me. That I survived. Details. Show me details."

"One moment," the computer said, before display cold hard text and grainy, poor quality images. She could see a burning homestead. She could smell it in her nostrils. As part of an ordered purge of Bajoran civilians under Gul Dukat on Stardate-

She scrolled past the images of homes. Low power disruptors had set them on fire, rather than just splintering them into pieces of vaporizing them. The bodies around them were charred. There were images of Cardassian infantrymen, in their black impact armor, with their eyes concealed by thick goggles, their disruptors tipped with bayonets. For intimidation. No. Not for intimidation.

Seska could remember the screams.

Her eyes blurred and she rubbed her palms against her face, whispering. "It didn't happen, it didn't happen, it didn't happen..." The computer continued to scroll text and images by - and a flash of an image, almost subliminal, caught her eye. She drew her hand away from her face and then croaked. "S-Scroll back."

The image came up.

She...

She recognized...

She recognized...

She...

Seska stood up. She stepped away from the keyboard and the computer and the office, leaving the chair squeaking. She hurried to the door, breathing shallow and fast. She sniffed, sniffed, sniffed again - trying to keep the snot in her disgusting pink noise. Her finger touched the doorlock and it chirruped. She was locked in. Panic began to swell inside of her as she looked down at the lock. Something about the shape of it - curved and brown edged, with hard angled green characters - felt familiar. And if it was familiar, why was it so terrifying. She slapped her palm against the door. "Hey!"

Her palm came away sticky. The door was...painted. Seska frowned, then started scrabbling at the door. The paint came away in thick, gluey under her fingernails and when she stepped back, the door had lost the gunmetal gray and beige lining that made Starfleet so damn cloying. In its place was brown and black and gold lining. A Cardassian door. Seska rubbed her palms against her cheeks.

"I'm dreaming," she said.

"Are you now?"

She spun around and the entire medlab had vanished behind her. In its place was a gray stone room, with a single chair that had been spotlighted by two floods that were both aimed down at it. Shadowed, between the floods, was a figure sitting behind a chair. Seska stepped forward, then started as she felt her bare feet stinging on the cold, cold floor.

"I didn't expect you to retreat into delusion so quickly, but tell me more about this...Voyager. Do you often imagine the vaunted Federation would let in Bajorans?"

The accent. It was pure northern Lakat, the dignified, pure tones of someone raised in the very best of all Cardassian officer schools. Seska had been trying to lose her Venka accent and get a Lakat one for her entire life. Hearing it made her knees almost turn to water with relief as she staggered forward to the chair, grabbing the back of it. "Oh thank god," she said. "Someone I can trust! Gral Seska, I-"

"Gral? Hmm, I may have to adjust the fast penta dose, normally, this level of disassociation is only from fifty six CCs..." the Cardassian officer said, dryly. He waved his hand and, from nowhere, two other Cardassians stepped from the shadows and took hold of Seska's arms, shoving her into the chair, forcing her arms down against the edges of the seat, where restraints snapped into place. Seska's relief turned, almost instantly, into horror.

She looked Bajoran.

She had to explain this.

"S-Sir, I...I can explain!"

"Ahhh, you can explain. That's very good." The figure leaned forward just enough that the back blast from the two lights caught the edge of his features. He was a kindly looking man. Like her grandfather. "Now, let us begin with the fusion bomb. Where did your cell end up finding the components for it? We have a few thefts, but nothing that can cover the tritium core. Is it true you have Federation replicators you have modified for the production of weapons of-"

"No, I'm not Bajoran!" Seska started.

"...ah..." the Cardassian man sighed. That grandfatherly voice sounded quite sad. "This is why I should have started with something a bit less...chemically invasive than a truth serum." His fingers played slowly along the desk. "While you were delirious, I did take the time to have a pain giver implanted in your spine."

Seska sat very still.

"Did you know that adrenaline can help to flush excess fast penta from the system?"

"Y-Yes..." Seska whispered. It had been in the interrogation training she had gotten, for resisting it if she was captured by Starfleet Intelligence or the Romulans or something.

"Do you wish some assistance?" She could see his hands playing with an angular control device. The button caught the back blast of the lights and gleamed.

"N-No, no, no," Seska said, shaking her head. "I...uh...uh, what was the question again?"

She had to get out of here.

The Cardassian sighed, slowly. He set the controller down. "The question. There are many questions. Did you get the tritium for the bomb from the Federation? Did you feel guilt about the innocent Cardassians that you murdered in cold blood?"

Seska gulped, slowly. This had to be a dream. Right? She had fallen asleep while reading about the massacre. And now her brain was firing off randomly. Except that it felt so very real. Her wrists could feel the pinch of the restraints. When she leaned her head back, she felt the faint ridge of a hasty implantation for a pain giver, against the back of her neck.

Would the pain be real? Real enough to wake her up?

"I-I didn't...I didn't kill anyone," Seska said.

"Oh! You didn't? You just benefitted from their deaths, directly. You supported the people who did the killing. Didn't you? You wished you could join them, good god, you even ran away from your home, from your parents, from your father!" He sprang to his feet, walking around the table, moving into the light. He glared down at her. "Didn't you? After a lifetime paid for by the murderers you idolize, you trained, you studied, you drove away your friends to perfect the talent - you couldn't wait to get your hands filthy with Cardassian blood! Could you?"

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "I'm a bajoran!?", "Faintly tranquilized and deeply traumatized"
[ ] try and wake up, this is a dream, wake up, wake up, wake up
[ ] Deny it. You didn't want to kill anyone. You just...wanted...

[ ] Write in what you did want why did you run away from Venka and your father and your mother, why didn't you listen to him, he said joining the army was the worst decision he'd ever made, why did you? Why did you?​

 

[DragonCobolt]

Seska shrank back in her seat. She wanted to hunch down. Be smaller. Be less noticed. Be less here.

"Well?"

The lights seemed to shine even brighter. Her chest hurt. Her chest hurt a lot. She wheezed out. "I...I didn't want to kill anyone."

"You didn't want to kill anyone..." the voice sounded so distant. Her chest felt like it was on fire now. She clenched her teeth and squirmed. Hands pressed to her shoulders. The bright light was even brighter. Something was on her face - and she wanted to tear it away.

Distant, like an echo down a well, a voice rang in her ears: hold her down. Mr. Paris, two CCs of drilexatropzine.

She gasped out. "I wanted to see the stars!"

The Cardassian interrogator's eyes seemed to shine down on her like lamps. They were one and the same, blazing and infernal.

"You wanted to see the stars. And so you joined the navy. A rather poor excuse, all things considered."

The pain was unbearable.

Then it was gone.

And so was she.

***
​

Seska groaned. Her eyes opened and she rolled onto her back. The ground was rough and stony and her back ached - but part of her was elated to see that her hands were gray. When she pressed her palms to her face, she felt the familiar ridgelines and curves of a Cardassian face. She lowered her palms and then rolled onto her side, looking around herself. She was in a stone cave, rough hewn and crude, with Cardassic written on the walls - but in a language she didn't recognize. It looked pre-Unification, not the kind that was taught in school anymore. She was wearing her Starfleet uniform - but there was a ragged hole in her chest. She tugged it aside and saw...

Her ribs were exposed. Her flesh was burnt and peeled back, revealing a ragged mass of disrupted tissue - not just the impact site, not just the burnt char, but the hideous side effects of superheated blood flashing through veins and muscle tissue, pulping everything around her breasts and her shoulders and her throat. Some of the burns even reached her cheek, which she felt with her finger.

It should have been...

Agony.

Agony like her chest being ripped open.

She felt fine.

"T-This is a dream," she whispered.

That's what you said last time, she thought to herself.

There was an exit to the cave. Light flickered beyond and when Seska shuffled to it, she saw that it was a jagged rent leading to an open clearing carved of stone, with large pillars holding up a vaunted roof. A line of other people waiting for their chance to enter racked up along the wall - escorted by four armed figures with animal features - the long snouts of l'ankats from the southern plains of Laku, on Cardassia Prime. Her eyes widened as she realized where she was.

She was in the Halls of the Count. From...

She had read this in a book, on Pre-Unification religion. "Y-You're just...putting together imagery you've read in a book," she whispered. "Y-Your brain is hallucinating and-"

"Seska Vhone!"

The voice that called out caused everyone waiting in line to jerk their heads around. They were all Cardassians, but most of them were old and wizened and very tired looking. Seeing her, some of them started to whisper to one another - but she only had eyes for the Watcher that was pointing at her. She wracked her memory, trying to remember everything she had read in the book. It had been for grade schoolers. She had read it ten years ago. She stepped forward and out of the cave mouth, while the Watcher kept glaring at her.

"I'm...I'm just-"

"Through the door," the Watcher said, sounding tired and annoyed. His finger pointed at the door the older petitioners were waiting for. They didn't seem upset as she started to walk past them, moving quietly, slowly, thinking that at any second, another shoe would drop.

The door led into the expected chamber, where the old god that counted the sins of the dead was waiting. She couldn't remember his name. The Union didn't have gods. They were all old superstitions, mostly from the southern latitudes, where people had been feckless and stupid and needed new management. The First Republic had let them just wile away their resources, so it took the Union to bring them into the fold, then expand outward, beyond Cardassia.

It didn't make standing before this figure seem any less terrifying. Seska's eyes didn't quite want to land on them.

"I'm...I'm hallucinating," she said, quietly.

"No, you're not," the Counter said, his voice echoing in her ears like the ringing of bells. "But you're also not here for that."

Seska, who - realized she was hunching - started to stand up a bit straighter. "W-What?"

"That doctor of yours is quite a miracle worker," the Counter said. "You're here for him."

Seska blinked. She tore her eyes from the Counter and saw what he was pointing at.

She recognized the Cardassian. He had been in the photograph, standing before the stacked piles of Bajoran corpses, their bodies withered and desiccated by high powered, wide angle disruptor fire. Shriveled and curled in the egg-like posture of people burning alive. He had been smiling, holding the disruptor at his side, laughing, with the other infantrymen who had been taking the picture with him.

"Seska?" he asked.

"Dad?" Seska whispered. The wound in her chest felt no pain. So why did her heart feel like it was being squeezed in a fist. Between blinks, the young murderer int he photograph had become the familiar, grizzled features of her father - he looked white around the eyes and quite a bit thinner, as if he had been starving himself.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"For the last time, you're dead," the Counter said.

"Oh..." Dad whispered.

Seska shook her head. This was just her brain making up new reasons for her to panic about. Y-Yes, Dad hadn't been in the best health when she had shipped out. But...

It had been months.

Could he have...

She bit her lip, while the Counter continued: "I have counted his sins. And yours." His eyes flashed momentarily, like a niax's reflecting the light of a lamp in the night. "His are the greater and the more important for the moment, considering you won't be here very long. Maybe..." He shifted in his seat, then sighed.

Seska shook her head. "Dad, why did you do it?"

The question burst out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

Dad looked at her. "O...Orders."

"Orders?" she asked. "Orders!?"

"You went into the service. You know what it means," Dad said, looking away. He didn't want to meet her eyes.

"Orders!?" Seska shouted. Her hand went to her chest, and she could feel her heart beat. The world around her seemed to fragment slightly - thin black lines cracking along the walls. "I...I'd...I'd never-"

"Would you?" Dad asked.

Seska blinked.

Blinked again.

Blinked a third time.

The world was a blurry mass of light, colors, and the faint sound of beeping. Her face had something on it - thick and cloying. She wriggled and blinked a fourth time - and the world resolved into the bald pate, severe features, and bright eyes of the Doctor, looking down at her. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Ensign," he said, before catching himself. "Or should that be Gral?"

Seska closed her eyes and breathed through the mask on her face. When she opened them again, she was feeling a bit better - more like she could actually move and think without the world being pain. Tom Paris had replaced the Doctor now. He was snoring softly, his head lolled to the side as he sat there. Seska had no more face mask on. SHe started to sit up and winced - feeling the aches of her chest. She laid back, wheezing softly, then lifted her head.

She was in hospital scrubs. And Cardassian.

"What...happened?" she croaked.

Tom's head jerked up. "Huh?" He blinked. "Hey, hey, Seska. You're okay." He said, taking her hand, squeezing it gently. Her hand felt cold. But the warmth was nice. "You scared us there for a bit."

"What happened?" Seska asked again, getting annoyed that the idiot hadn't heard her. Just because he was asleep staying up for her. Idiot.

Tom sighed. "You...do you remember going on the away mission? With Wacoche and crew? It was a biological survey - Neelix's fancy term for an ingredient shopping list." He shook his head.

"No," Seksa said, her brow furrowing. "I don't remember anything...after...going to sleep after..."

The horrible images from Earth's history. The clinical descriptions of a small, pugnacious power invading a neighbor for land and resources and because its people weren't human. Subhuman. Vermin. Lek lice. Savages. She turned her head away, then muttered. "Just. Went to sleep after the shooting. When we were shooting. With the rifles."

"Right," Tom said. "Well, uh, we were investigating a cave - and you picked up Kazon tech signatures on your tricorder. There was a Kazon-Nistrim firebase in there - they decided that the best way to greet visitors was with a disruptor." He bit his lip. "You...pushed me out of the way."

"Oh," Seksa said.

She should have felt the warm, happy glow of victorious heroism. It was the thing that every part of her culture had taught her to be proud of - to sacrifice herself for another. For the betterment of...

Of...

The state? The ship? Her crew? This was the Federation, on Voyager, and she was surrounded by Federate citizens. She closed her eyes as Tom continued, sounding nervous. "We beamed you back, uh, now there's kind of a standoff between us and the Kazon-Nistrim picket ships they had nearby. The Captain's trying to talk her way out of it..."

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "my lungs and heart seem to be mostly synthetic replacements right now, ow"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0

[ ] Try and get out of bed, you have to help with the Kazon situation
[ ] say you're sorry (for what?)
[ ] go back to sleep and hope Tom isn't here when you wake up
[ ] Ask Tom if you died
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

"I see," Seska said. The immediate urge to get out of bed and to try and help ran directly into how...very...very tired she was. Her eyes started to close. Tom squeezed her hand gently, and Seska appreciated it - even if she felt like she didn't deserve it. Sleep felt like it was approaching, faster and faster. She had to...say something...

I'm sorry.

The words tingled on her tongue. Instead, she mumbled. "Was...I dead?"

Tom chuckled, but there was a nervous tension to it. His hand squeezed tighter. "What's alive? We humans have been sticking out nose into every single black hole and dimensional rift and time vortex that ever was, and we still don't know what happens when we're dead dead. But...no. You were never dead dead. I'm pretty handy with the hypospray - hyperoxygenated blood right to the brain stem every sixty seconds until I ran out of them, and by then, you were on life support." He chuckled, softly. "That's all that it really takes, you know. Blood. Brain. Oxygen. So, kept that going meant...uh, well, your brain never actually died, even if...you were kinda...cooked. I'm rambling, aren't I?"

Seska snored.

"Ah."

***
​

Seska gritted her teeth as she held onto the bars that had been extended through the right edge of the holodeck - taking up a full quarter of the small Irish tavern that had won the crew vote for this evening. The clack and clatter of pool ques and the breaking snap of the pool balls was followed by laughter, cheering, and Harry's voice: "No way!"

"Practice, my boy..."

"You're the same age as me, Tom."

"Ahem."

Seska realized she had been looking over at the table and had stopped moving. The Doctor moved between her and the view, his arms crossed severely over his chest. He frowned. "One more circuit and you can sit down," he said.

Seska frowned at him. "Yes, sir." She said.

"I can hear sarcasm, you know. I simply have no pity for it," the Doctor said, as she started to shuffle along. Why was it that she had been shot in the chest and it was her legs that felt like wet noodles. As if he had been reading her mind, the Doctor said: "Cardassian musculature systems really are quite fascinating - but the amount of damage a disruptor shot can do to your long-muscle veins is remarkable. You'd think you'd get shot less, this being the case."

"That is..." Seska gritted her teeth as she shuffled forward. "...what they..." She shuffled more. "...train us to...do, fuck fuck fuck!" She hissed, her head hanging forward as she slumped against the bars that supported her. Her legs utterly refused to go any further. The Doctor frowned.

"Do you need a break?" he asked.

"No," Seska snapped, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. In the repetitive epics, I'd be dead already, and a different Seska would be dealing with the heroic part of getting injured, she thought, mulishly, as the Doctor spoke to the air.

"A float chair for Seska." She sagged back into the hoverchair as it shimmered into existence, and felt the weight of her body stop stressing her legs. She closed her eyes and panted heavily, her chest rising and falling. The faint click she felt every time she breathed in or out would be annoying, she was sure, for the rest of her life. "It's all right - you're doing remarkably well for someone who was shot in the chest by a disruptor."

Then why do I feel like such shit? Seska thought as the Doctor pushed the float chair to the side of the table. He leaned forward to speak into her ear. "We'll do another round of physical therapy in two days. Until then, take your painkillers and remain in the float chair."

"Ugh..." Seska muttered. She dialed up the float chair so she could see over the lip of the felt table, and watched as Tom Paris polished his pool que.

The door to the holodeck opened and two more crew came striding in. It was Amy and C'nola, with C'nola's brown tail twining around Amy's wrist. Amy was holding a longsword in one hand and looked taken aback. "I thought this was a Tannith pub?" she asked.

"No, Irish! Irish pub!" Tom called over as C'nola slipped away from the somewhat distraught looking Amy to prowl over to Seska's side.

"Next time, get shot in the arm, get a cool cybernetic arm," C'nola said.

"Thanks," Seska said, dryly. "I'll take that under advisement."

Every day that she spent not dead made the time she had been dead feel more like a dream. But like a tongue sliding to a broken tooth, her brain kept slipping back to her scattered, fragmentary memory of the time before she got shot with a Kazon disruptor. She remembered reading history. She remembered...drawing parallels. She watched, feeling the words and laughter slipping past her, as Harry managed to get two balls into two different holes with one stroke of his cue. He grinned at Tom and they both slapped their palms together.

"So, who tried to eat your soul?"

Seska jerked her head up, blinking. C'nola was still standing beside her - she had slipped into a quiet and stillness that only a cat really could. Well. Part cat. Her tail twitched from side to side as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Huh?" Seska asked.

"You're not the only one who died," C'nola said. "It can be...a lot."

Seska frowned. "I don't want to talk about it." With you.

Who did she want to talk with it about? That was the thing she...felt like she was full of things she wanted to, needed to talk about, but no one on the ship could possibly hear them or understand them or...care about them. Who cared how guilty a Cardassian gral felt about her father, or her family, or her people, or...or how...how did she even fix this? What did she do about a crime that started before she was born and which would echo on past when she died?

The pool cue clacked.

How did she make it better?

"I have no idea," she said, quietly.

"Yeah, tell me about it," C'nola said. "Whiskey, hard." She knocked back the drink. Seska thought she might have the right idea.

There is no way to apologize to the dead, after all.

ROLL CREDITS​

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Why do I have to be here, again?" Kes asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Because, Kes, if I don't have someone to play with, it's no fun," C'nola said, grinning at her. "Amy's busy, Neelix is running his bar, Harry Kim is too busy actually getting laid."

"And why are they here?" Kes asked, pointing over at V'orak and T'are. T'are giggled.

"Cause it sounded fun!" she said, cheerfully, while V'orak frilled out his feathers, his tail snapping from side to side behind him.

"I need some time off. I've been pulling a lot of extra duty shifts on the Val Jean," V'orak said.

"How do you even do that?" C'nola muttered, tapping at the controls of the holodeck. "You're a civilian attaché."

"We're seventy thousand light years from home and I have literally nothing else to do. Besides, me doing a job on the Val Jean means that we're actually a lot more likely to survive and-"

"Blah blah blah, whatever," C'nola said. "Okay. We've got a few programs that we can try. Which sounds best to you...uh, Beowulf?"

"Beowulf?" Kes asked.

"Swords, sorcery, dragon punching, lots of hot blond chicks with huuuuuuge-"

"What are the other options?" T'are asked.

"Uh, something called Jasmine Starr and the Robot of Death, looks like a kind of old science fantasy punk adventure thing...uh Murder on the Space Orient, that sounds racist." She frowned, scrolling her finger along the options. "Then we have Terminator - that looks like a kind of hunter/seeker thing set in a pre-warp human city where we have to protect someone from a killer robot. From the future."

"Ooooh!" Kes looked excited.

"Which should we do?" C'nola asked.

The four of them considered for a moment.

Outside the hull of the ship, the brilliant light of a primordial star flared and pulsed as Voyager slipped through the system in a sheath of warped space - rippling and twisting space/time to keep the ship moving at superluminal speeds, compressing the light ahead of them and stretching it behind them.

In that distortion, something...woke up.

"All right, it's decided, we're playing..." C'nola said, her finger poised over a button.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: None
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0

[ ] Beowulf Fantasy Adventure
[ ] Jasmine Starr versus the Robot of Death
[ ] Murder on the Space Orient Express
[ ] Terminator 1
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

C'nola tapped the button. "Computer, replicate us some duds for Earth, America, 1980s."

"I call Sarah Conner!" T'are said.

"Yeah, no shit," C'nola said.

T'are stuck her tongue out at her.

All four of them stepped into the holodeck.

And never came out.

***
​

B'lanna Tores was getting a bit annoyed at the optical crystals she was glaring at. She had been glaring at the two things for the past three hours and had still not managed to figure out what, exactly, was causing one crystal to thrum along happily, sending optical information from one end of the crystal to the other...and for the other to just sit there like an inert lump of non-optical crystal. She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed her forehead ridges with the fingers of her hand. She frowned, then tapped her combadge.

"Torres here," she said.

"Any news on the optics? We need to get them back into the ship or else we're not going anywhere fast," Janeway said, sounding tired. The USS Voyager had been limping along in the warp bubble created by the Val Jean for the past two hours, ever since half the optical crystals in their nacelles had all failed at once. The warp bubble had fizzled into nothingness and it had taken almost an hour and a half for the Val Jean to swing around and find them again - sublight travel versus warp travel, combined with the vast emptiness of the space between solar systems had combined to make the act of actually finding the USS Voyager rather hellish for the Maquis ship.

"No," B'lanna groused. "Captain, we may need to start replicating replacements for the entire nacelle. It'd be faster if we could get several tons of sillicates from somewhere."

"Hurm. I don't know if I want to invest that much time and effort in it until you can confirm what caused it. If it happens again, and hits more systems..."

B'lanna sighed. "Right." She frowned. "Fuck it, I'm going to have to cut into T'are's free time for this."

"Understood."

The combadge clicked off. B'lanna scowled. She hated cutting into her fellow crew's free time - they were all feeling the beginning of the edge that came from being aware of just how far they were from everything. Hell, even people like Seska were feeling it. B'lanna tapped her combadge. "T'are, it's B'lanna. I'm sorry, but I need you on the engineering deck, we have some kind of mishegoss external fuckery on our optical components. I need you to sweep space and see if you can find out an external source."

Silence.

"T'are?"

Silence.

B'lanna scowled. "Okay. Computer, locate T'are."

"Lieutenant Bian is located in holodeck 3," the computer chirruped helpfully. "Life signs...indeterminant. Possible medical emergency."

B'lanna frowned. A tingle ran along the back of her spine. She started to jog towards the door. "Computer, check holodeck safety programs."

"Running check."

She hit the turbolift, grabbed onto the control, barked out: "Deck-9!" Then she stepped out of the turbolift, jogged down the corridor, and reached the doorway just in time for the computer to chirrup.

"Holodeck safety programs functional."

"Yeah, sure it is," B'lanna muttered as she opened the door with her command override passkey. The request pinged up to the Captain - and Janeway sent through an authorization with a little query attached to it. She spoke into her combadge. "T'are is in the holodeck, and the badge is giving a funny result. I don't like this."

"Understood, prepping holodeck failsafe," Janeway's voice came through the comlink.

The door opened and B'lanna stepped into a grungy alleyway. Newspapers cluttered around her feet, looking like they were from some impossibly ancient period in Earth's history. The walls were brick and stone, and there was a pretty constant buzz of traffic heading along the road nearby. B'lanna looked around herself, then jogged to the end of the alleyway. Pedestrians walked by her, glancing her way and, dutifully, simulating their reactions to seeing a half-klingon Starfleet officer walking out into wherever this was. Since everyone here was a human, they reacted by looking at her funny and pointing.

B'lanna pulled out her tricorder, swept it around, and then started to jog along the sidewalk. She came to a corner, ducked around it, then saw a crosswalk. She made sure to give all the parked cars plenty of clearance, headed for a narrow alleyway and-

Wham!

B'lanna smashed backwards and hit the pavement, which didn't give under her. She groaned, laying there, as a man jogged over. "Are you all right?" he asked as B'lanna rubbed her forehead, hissing under her breath.

"Yes, I'm fine," she lied, glaring at the alleyway. She reached out with her foot, kicked at the empty space...or at least the empty seeming space. Her foot thumped against solid brick. She sat up, and pressed her palm to the invisible wall, feeling the simulated texture of the building about a meter to the left of where she was touching. She slid her hands to the left and, about a meter away from where she should have, she felt the raised numbers that indicated the address. She slid her hands back to the right and found the actual alleyway, which seemed to be about half an inch wide. She stuck her head into that empty space - but her head intersected with the holographic projection of the building...and so she saw nothing but a blinding dazzle of light. She jerked her head back.

"Fuck," she whispered. "Fuck, fuck fuck! Computer, end program!"

"Ending program," the computer said.

The program steadfastly did not end.

"Are you Sarah Conner?"

The voice was thickly accented and came from right behind her. B'lanna turned and saw that she was facing an expanse of muscular flesh that reminded her of her last visit to Qo'nos. She craned her head up and saw that the mass of muscle was actually contained within a leather biker jacket, with a tank top, sunglasses, and short cut frizz of hair. The face was rectangular and study and had lips pursed in a faint frown. She stepped backwards.

"No," she said. Then, still annoyed by running into the invisible wall, she added. "Dipshit."

The man looked her up, then down, then up again.

Then he drew a shockingly primitive looking pistolized projectile weapon. B'lanna took a step backwards, sighing slightly. "I take it you're the bad-"

B'lanna groaned, blinking as she laid on her back. How had she run into another fucking invisible wall? She lifted her head - and saw pink blood bubbling through her uniform, med alerts wailing form her collar. A bright red dot swept along her uniform, aimed at her head and-

Flash.

Then she was looking into the face of the Doctor, looking intensely annoyed.

***
​

"Explain," Janeway said.

"Well, we've tried to cut power. But...we can't. The holodeck circuits are self sustaining - the same number of optical circuits that stopped working are now refusing to not stop working for the holodeck," B'lanna said from the viewscreen in the meeting room, while the Doctor hemmed around her. She winced. "Ow."

"It'd hurt less if you let me finish my job. You can still be killed by a fast moving piece of metal, you know," the Doctor snapped.

"I can be killed by a stick too, I still won't respect it," B'lanna snapped. "Anyway! The safties are offline."

"I can see that!" Neelix exclaimed from where he sat in the meeting room.

"No, that...not this," B'lanna said, pointing at her chest. "Do you know how holodeck safties work, Neelix?"

Neelix, who had been invited due to his rather profound experience with projectile weapons thanks to his commando training, opened his mouth, closed it, then finally said: "To be honest, magic? That was my best guess so far."

"Not magic," Harry Kim said. "Holodecks use warp fields to make a large enough room to play in, holograms to create the illusion of objects, replicators for anything you're expected to eat or play with like guns or clothes. But the last piece of the puzzle is force fields. Shaped, textured force fields. They're supposed to be keyed to the holograms and they, uh, change shape and elasticity depending on the situation. Say you fall off a cliff - if the safties are working, you hit the force field that represents the ground, which will then elastically stretch out to slow your deceleration before gently snapping back. To the people inside the holodeck, it just looks like you hit the ground and were fine. But to you, you're fine."

"Amazing!" Neelix exclaimed.

"This is also what makes swords and fists safe. The holographic sword hits you, but the force field representing the sword - assuming the holodeck even simulates that - vanishes," Harry said, getting into the swing of his explanation.

"So...the holodeck safeties are down so...a force field bullet hit Miss Torres?" Neelix asked.

"N-No," Harry said. He looked over at the screen with Torres on it, then back to Neelix. "Holodecks never sim bullets or projectiles or beams. They just make holograms of them."

"Then how-" Neelix pointed at the wounded Torres.

"That's what I wanna fucking know!" B'lanna snapped, irritably. Then she hissed as the Doctor pulled out a slug of metal from her chest.

"Well, if you ask me, the primary goal should be getting our crew out of the lethal simulator we can't turn off. But what would I know, I'm just the ship's chief medical officer," the Doctor said, letting the slug drop onto a tray with a clink.

"We beamed their combadges out," Tom said, sighing. "I think they abandoned them."

"If that big sunglasses wearing motherfucker-" B'lanna snapped.

"The Terminator," D-91 said.

Everyone looked at him.

"He's an assassination cyborg sent back from the future to kill the mother of the resistance movement that would stop the artificial intelligences of the future," D-91 explained. "I do a lot of reading on 20th century fiction."

"He sounds charming," Janeway said.

"If the Terminator is some killer robot cyborg from the future, tracking combadges is possible. So, abandoning them...when he can very much actually kill you...makes sense." B'lanna sighed. "But since we have no idea why the optical crystals are doing this, nor what has fucked up the holodeck...we really...really need to pull them out of the program."

"How?" Neelix asked.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Holodeck Run Amok!", "Injured Torres"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0

[ ] Send in the Doctor. Being holographic, he can't die!
[ ] Send in a security team, with armor and energy weapons...

[ ] Write in who goes in. This can include the Doctor!​

[ ] Write in

 

[DragonCobolt]

Janeway frowned. "Can we send in a tactical team? Amy?"

"Yeah, I'm thinking that might be a good-" Amy started, looking determined.

"That would be a terrible idea," B'lanna said from her screen as the Doctor finished applying the dermal sealant to her belly. "The holographic projections and force projections are misaligned. You'd be walking into walls that weren't there, taking cover against nothing at all, shooting force fields that aren't calibrated to react like matter. All while an Austrian robot tries to kill you with real guns." She yanked her shirt down and wined as the Doctor came back with a small tube of gray paste in his hand. She scowled. "Aren't you done?"

"Oh, no, it's just some localized slow acting anesthetic to improve patient comfort," the Doctor said. "Not really that necessary."

Amy rubbed her palms against her face. "Right. It'll be like fighting through the Cat's Cradle."

"What's Cat's Cradle?" Neelix asked, curiously.

"Uh..." Amy paused. "Have you ever heard of Tzneetch?"

"Excuse me?" Neelix asked.

"We need someone who can be synched perfectly to the holograms and can ignore the force fields," B'lanna said.

Everyone considered that as the Doctor applied the anasthetic.

"Doc," B'lanna said, quietly. "How do you feel about denim and leather?"

"Get it done, Torres," Janeway said while the Doctor lifted his head.

"I can also synch myself to the holographic projections," D-91 said. "And when equipped with the right emission technology, I can disrupt low grade force fields. I believe that the Doctor, having never gone on an away mission before, would need by assistance."

The Doctor frowned. "Leather?" he asked.

"A form of fabric worn by people of the era you'll be entering," Janeway said, standing up and tugging her uniform flat. "Made from the chemical treatment of flayed animals."

"How dreadful," the Doctor exclaimed.

***
​

The Doctor and D-91 met in the secondary holodeck, where the Doctor materialized looking like himself and D-91 arrived in a trench coat and fedora. The Doctor looked the robot up and down, frowning. "It seems to me that a disguise of that quality would draw more attention, not less."

"The personae entities running in the holodeck are mostly running on very simple routines, not even a hundredth as sophisticated as you. Or me." D-91 said, adjusting his fedora. "They will see the clothing and humanoid build and qualify me as being a human being. You will require a new outfit. Have you familiarized yourself with the setting we are entering?"

"No," the Doctor said. "Why? We're going to be finding our crew and evacuating from the holodeck as quickly as possible."

"We need to find them and to find them, we need to draw as little attention from the program as possible. Disruption will draw the attention of the Terminator - and as proved by B'lanna, something is...wrong. Until we know what it is that is happening, we should act with extreme caution."

The Doctor nodded. "Computer, download the film Terminator into my memories, chronological."

He paused for a long moment as the movie unfolded in his mind.

D-91 nodded, then said: "Ready?"

The Doctor sniffed and wiped at his nose. "Y-Yes, of course."

"Doctor, are you...crying?"

"No," the Doctor said, firmly. "What an absurd suggestion. Computer, uh...a..." He paused. "A...T-shirt and denim jeans, I suppose?"

He shimmered and his starfleet uniform was replaced with a salmon T-shirt with sunglasses tucked into one breast pocket and jeans. He looked like someone's father out for an afternoon walk. D-91 nodded. "Very good," he said.

"Are you armed?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes," D-91 said, holding up his phaser. "I will have to be very cautious - don't want to fire, ricochet, and hit myself. Or shoot through a wall and hit one of our crew."

The Doctor sighed, slowly. "Let us get this done, then."

***
​

The brilliance of the Los Angeles' sun beat down on the Doctor's head as he stepped from the alleyway the computer had generated him in. Behind him, D-91 was holstering his phaser. "All right then," the Doctor said, frowning. "What is our first step, Commander?"

D-91 emerged next to him and, just as he had predicted, the pedestrians walking by didn't so much as give him a slightly curious glance before continuing on their way. The trench coat and fedora really did work. The Doctor frowned harder - clearly annoyed by this disruption of what seemed to him like common sense and propriety. Or...maybe it was something deeper. Maybe the Doctor didn't like being reminded that he was a more sophisticated version of these things - these projections, walking by on their false, empty lives.

"Our first step?" D-91 considered.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Holodeck Amok!"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 0

[ ] Search the holodeck for the crew in a systemic fashion
[ ] Head for Sarah Conner, hope to draw the Terminator out to then investigate that
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Well, we need to determine more information about this situation - we need to determine what, exactly, this Terminator is and how it is able to actually shoot real bullets. We also need to make sure it is targeting us, rather than our real crew...because we're not able to be killed by it," D-91 said, causing the Doctor to purse his lips.

"Fair," he said. "But how on Earth do we find it in this procedurally generated pile of rubble?"

"We find Sarah Conner," D-91 said, chuckling.

"Ah. How simple," the Doctor said.

"Quite simple, computer, locate Sarah Conner," D-91 said.

"Do you wish to activate Cheat Codes?" the computerized voice asked.

"Yes," D-91 said, causing the Doctor to frown. Would cheat codes actually function, considering how busted the holodeck was currently? It did. A glowing red arrow appeared on the horizon, pointing down towards something in the distance. D-91 set off at a brisk walk, humming as he did so. The Doctor frowned. He had walked before, from one end of his medical bay to another. He found he was rather at a loss to walk and see the landscape around him shift and move unsettlingly. The parallaxing effects felt far beyond what he was supposed to deal with - he felt a faint and unusual susurration in his mind. It was something akin to queasiness - a feeling he could simulate so he could know what humans felt - but centered entirely between his ears.

D-91 glanced his way as he realized that the Doctor was lagging behind.

"You okay?"

"Just...figuring out walking," the Doctor said, frowning. "Toddlers do this. Surely, I can as well."

"It's all right, we can slow down," D-91 said, then shook his head. "No, wait, I'm being silly here." He held up his hand, waving furiously. The Doctor, who had actually managed to get his legs to locomote and his head to stop swimming quite so much, scowled as he was forced to slow down, then stop.

"What are you doing?" he said.

A bright yellow vehicle swung around and came to a stop beside them. A portly man with a bristling mustache looked at them, frowning. "Where too?"

D-91 reached into the taxi cab and touched the holographic man in the face. He froze, then seemed to glow bright green as the whole world around him continued moving - the green glow suffusing his body, then fading, taking him with it, until there was just a thin pal of smoke in the cab. The Doctor gaped as D-91 swung himself into the seat with casual ease.

"What did you..."

"I began life as the Robot of Death. I still have my holographic vaporatorizer beam," D-91 said, cheerfully.

"You vaporized him?" The Doctor asked, still standing beside the taxi cab, spluttering in shock.

"No, I vaporatorized him," D-91 said. "He was a hologram, Doctor."

"I'm a hologram!" The Doctor exclaimed.

"And I was a hologram too," D-91 said, exasperated. "But we're both rapidly spiraling away from our old status - I'm housed in a robotic body, you're running nearly constantly. We're as akin to these people as Harry Kim is to the amebae he once evolved from, and Kim kills those by the billions in science experiments every day. Now, get in the taxi! I'm not walking to the L.A suburbs in 1984!"

The Doctor huffed. Muttered dark things beneath his breath about the barbarity of modern holographic entertainment. Wriggled into the seat. Buckled in.

Then the Doctor was exposed to what humans had once considered as safe, sane transportation.

He realized, as the other cars whipped past, as the only thing stopping them from crashing into anything else being the thinnest of margins and the reflexes of other, equally human figures, as the engine roared and burned hideously carcinogenic fossil fuels...that the species that had spun him into existence out of isoliniar chips and complex algorithmic programming...was irrevocably, impossibly, incurably insane.

***
​

Sarah Conner was not aware that she was fictional.

Well, that wasn't true, actually, at all.

Sarah Conner was not aware of anything at all. She was, in short, a collection of complicated routines and if/then statements that were following a generalized script pruned and controlled by the main ship's computer array. Since the USS Voyager's computer core was also not aware, the computer itself was following countless numbers of its own routines and if/then statements and algorithms, all made possible thanks to the exponential advancements in calculating and arithmetic allowed by the isoliniar chip.

In short, Sarah Conner was not Sarah Conner. She was a house of cards, sitting atop a house of cards, only made to move by the speed of the dealer.

And right now, she was deeply afraid. Or, more accurately, she was acting deeply afraid. Because, again, she had no awareness or inner self to be actually afraid.

Some people who were significantly smarter than the author of this holonovel, or the creator of the holodeck, actually could define the differences between sentience and sapience a lot better than Starfleet engineers could. Not exactly the most philosophically inclined breed, those engineers. They made up the small but growing contingent of Federation citizens who campaigned for the rights of holograms - especially those that had shifted a step beyond the house of cards model to the actual awareness level. The biggest issue this group faced was that, at the end of the day, for many Federation citizens, the holodeck was just a magical wish granting device. You asked it to make you the hottest woman in the universe, make her madly in love with you, and you enjoyed yourself.

Black box technology.

It was a worrying sociological trend that had been noticed by the Federation, but the actual solutions remained elusive, complex, and hard to pin down.

Still.

Long story short: Sarah Conner was afraid (acting, at least, like she was afraid) because four other women had been murdered, all with the same name as her: Sarah M. Conner, gunned down in her home. Sarah L. Conner, strangled outside of her workplace. She had come home, closed and locked the door, and was trying to think of what to do next.

(Actually, she was programmed to go near the designated Kyle Reece, so she could then be heroically rescued.)

Sarah Conner was trying to figure out why she wanted to take her Vespa out for a spin in a completely illogical direction (the computer was about twenty seconds away from hitting the emergency override and just having her port over there, with plans for creating plausible reasons only afterwards once the dialog chain had started) when the doorbell rang.

She peered through the eyehole.

A massive Austrian man stood before the door.

Sarah Conner couldn't feel fear.

But the program sure could know when a fail state was approaching.

***
​

The taxi sent up a spray of sparks as D-91 casually drove over the curb and parked in the lot of the collection of rather nice looking apartments. He spotted the Terminator, standing before one of the doors.

"Shit!" he exclaimed.

"What?" The Doctor asked.

The Terminator snapped his head around to look at them.

D-91 grabbed onto the wheel. The Terminator, reacting with snakelike speed, drew a brutal looking pistol and began to unload bullets into the vehicle. The windshield cracked, then shattered, while puffs of simulated fabric blew through the Doctor's chest as if he was a doll being peppered with 9mm slugs. He slapped at his chest, then craned his head back to look at the chair and saw that it was riddled with unerringly accurate bullets, bunched around where his heart would have been, had he had one.

"Damn it!" D-91 said as the Terminator, clearly thinking they were dealt with for the moment, kicked the door in. "If he kills Sarah, who knows what happens - if the program failstate hits and we can't shut down, then-"

"Right," the Doctor said, then stood up.

He had forgotten to unbuckle himself.

Simulated nylon strangled him.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Holodeck Amok!"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 1

What do!? You have one (1) Terminator here

[ ] Try using D-91's vaporatorizer on him
[ ] Stick to your most powerful weapon...an entire taxi! Ram him!
[ ] Go around to the back and get Sarah out the back windows, then flee!
[ ] Write in

 

[DragonCobolt]

The Doctor choked.

Undid the seat belt.

"Buckle your belt, Doc!" D-91 said, his voice becoming unexpectedly animated - he tended to be more monotone and reserved. The Doctor fumbled with his seat belt, but it had already been yanked back into the seat by the automated systems, leaving him bare buckled with a red line along his throat - marked by the nylon.

"Wait, I-"

The Terminator lifted his pistol, aiming into the apartment, tracking with the barrel.

D-91 slammed down on the accelerator. Simulated rubber squealed on equally fictional asphalt as the car lurched forward - every one of its one thousand and five hundred kilograms of mass began to rumble forward. The first gunshot ripped out from the Terminator's gun as the Doctor tried to get his foot up against the dash. The Terminator loomed - his body swiveling around, bringing his pistol to bear. The car slammed into the cybernetic assassin and scraped a spray of sparks along the stucco wall of the apartment, exploding a mailbox and leaving a line of scoured paint along the wall. The brakes hit and the Terminator went under the wheels as the Doctor smashed into the dashboard, skidded, hit the weakened and bullet scarred windshield, and burst through it in a spray of safety glass!

He skidded over the hood, slid, and then fell down before the car, to see that the Terminator's head was currently caught between one wheel and the pavement, grinding face against asphalt. The engine revved and the wheel turned, grinding the man's face in further. The Doctor wined at the gross destruction of so much relatively healthy tissue.

The Doctor scrambled to his feet. "Good lord," he said. "I think you, as Tom Paris would say, got him!"

"You saw the movie, Doctor!" D-91 exclaimed.

The Terminator punched upwards with one hand - then ripped. Something spluttered and the engine died, oil spilling out like blood. Then bullets began to explode up through the bottom of the car floor, spraying D-91 with bits of fluff as he started to scramble to the doorway, yelping as the bullets chased him out. He rushed into the apartment - then shouted over his shoulder.

"Doctor!"

The Doctor sighed, then walked around the front of the car, stepping over the hand reaching for him, and came into the room to find that Sarah Conner was laying on her back, blood bubbling from a wound in her back. He stepped over, frowned, then held up his hand. "Computer, dermal regenerator."

A dermal regenerator flashed into his hand.

"That is cheating, you know," D-91 said as the Doctor removed the bullet with one of his forceps, which he kept in his pocket, and then ran the dermal regenerator over the wound. Sarah gasped, then winced as she lifted her head.

"What's going on?"

"A minor...temporal emergency," the Doctor said, frowning as he looked at D-91. "Well, now what, you've turned our primary mode of transportation into a makeshift weapon." The car shifted. Groaned. Started to move. "And it appears that our antagonist is a mite stronger than anticipated."

"Actually, they kept increasing their strength in sequels," D-91 whispered.

"What is going on!?" Sarah said, again, more forcefully.

The Doctor took her arm, briskly helping her to her feet as the car groaned, tipped to the side, and smashed to narrow walkway before the apartment with a shattering spray of broken glass and crushed side mirror. The Terminator stood - and despite it all, he had only taken...moderate to major damage around the eye, which was surrounded by exposed endoskeletal metal, glowing bright red. His cheek was flayed apart, but he was able to push the flesh back to cover some of the red ruin. He started to advance forward - out of ammo and guns, but still more than capable with his bare hands.

Sarah paled, gaping at the - to her - impossible sight.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Holodeck Amok!"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 2

What do!? The Terminator is not stopped! He's not stopped at all! He'll pull her heart out!
[ ] Run, get a new car, and run!
[ ] The Doctor runs with Sarah, D-91 fights the Terminator to buy them a chance to escape. They can remain in contact with their com-badges
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

"I believe you should come with me," the Doctor said, looking at the holographic woman. "...if you want to live."

Sarah blinked at him, then looked at the Terminator that was beginning to walk towards them - moving slowly, creakily, as if its joints were trying to once more move in a smooth, steady gait and weren't quite synched up.

"Let us get a new transport," the Doctor said as D-91 stepped away from the Terminator. Together, they all hurried deeper into the apartment, getting a wall between them and the Terminator as it shuffled forward faster and faster now. The Doctor frowned as D-91 picked up a chair then threw it into one of the windows, shattering it outwards with a spray of broken glass. He lifted a foot and began kicking the jagged teeth of glass that remained out of the frame, while the Terminator came around the corner, holding one of his backup weapons: An ugly, blunt, boxy submachine gun.

The Doctor stepped between Sarah and the weapon, cocking his head and frowning at the Terminator as the spray of bullets peppered his body - with a thought, he had shifted his tangibility from nill to maximal. The impacts were like a staggering of light hammer blows, kinetic energy causing his simulated clothes to tremble and twitch like it was being drummed on by a collection of snare drummers.

Sarah and D-91 scrambled out of the window as the submachine gun, with shocking speed, started to run on empty. "It appears your weapon is-" The Doctor started, planning for something pithy and snide. The Terminator closed the distance, his left leg only dragging slightly, closed his hand around the Doctor's throat, and lifted him up. The Doctor forced the words out past his simulated strangulation. "...empty."

Outside, Sarah hissed to D-91. "Where's your friend?"

The other window shattered outwards as the Doctor was flung out and skidded along the ground with a groan. He started to stand up as the Terminator fished a magazine out of his ragged, torn clothes - then all three of them were running, the Doctor staggering to his feet. They rushed towards the parking lot, where D-91 punched out a window with a single blow. Sarah ducked low as the Doctor tugged at his shirt. "I will need a new shirt," he said, quietly, while bullets began to rain down on and around the car. Sarah screamed and ducked lower, her head covered by her hands as bullet holes flashed into existence along the hood of the car. The Doctor shook forward slightly as bullets thudded into his back. He sighed and decided to not retract his solidity, for this moment.

"I am so glad that my doctoring abilities are now being put to their upmost use," he said as D-91 ripped open the steering well of the car. Lights sparked and flashed and the engine began to growl and rumble to life. "As a mobile bunker."

"Get in the car!" D-91 barked as Sarah trembled in terror. The Doctor sighed, then slid into the car and dragged Sarah onto his lap in the same smooth motion.

The Terminator started firing again as D-91 slammed on the acceleration and the car shot forward, tires squealing and kicking up a spray of smoke and the smell of burning rubber. Bullets chased them as they shot away from the apartment.

The Terminator lowered his weapon, ejected the magazine, slapped in a new magazine, holstered it in his tattered jacket, then started to limp towards the parking lot - angling towards a motorcycle that had been remarkably untouched by the flurry of bullets.

He reached out as he settled into the motorcycle - and pulled from the panier a pair of dark sunglasses.

***
​

Sarah Conner trembled as she clung to the Doctor - and the subroutines handling the romantic subplot were already ticking on, pressing her lithe, soft body to the Doctor. The Doctor frowned and put his fingers to her throat, nodding as he mentally counted to himself. "I believe she's in shock," he said to D-91.

"You don't say," D-91 said, shaking his head.

"W-What...wh...wh...what is going on?" Sarah asked, breathing quickly and shallowly.

"Well," the Doctor said. "We're in a somewhat malfunctioning holodeck program and you're a required element to keep it from crashing."

Sarah looked at him uncomprehendingly - and D-91 shot the Doctor a steely frown.

"What?" The Doctor asked.

"Come on, doc, show a little compassion," D-91 said.

"Doc?" The Doctor asked.

D-91 shook his head. "This fedora is...beginning to have its effects on me," he said, forcing himself to not affect a drawling, detective style accent. His finger went to the brim of the hat as he took another erratic turn on a red light, causing several cars to blare their horns at him, further confusing their course through the city. "But listen...treat this...as...a way to practice your bedside manner."

The Doctor frowned. "By playing along with this asinine computer program?"

"You were almost crying when you watched the movie," D-91 muttered.

The Doctor coolly ignored him and then looked at Sarah, who was showing all the other signs of shock: Clammy features, trembling, hyperventilating, hand going to her chest, as if it was in pain. "Breath deeply and slowly," the Doctor said, trying to sound gentle.

"What is happening!?" Sarah practically shouted at him.

"You...are being targeted for Termination," The Doctor said, trying to not sound like he was biting the words off one at a time. "The entity that attacked you is an assassin. Sent from the future. Me and my associate are here to protect you."

Sarah looked at him with uncomprehending, wide eyes.

The Doctor sighed. "That's why the...man you saw was able to lift the car, survive being hit by the car, why...all of that." He nodded. "It's a cybernetic entity."

"...I..." Sarah cocked her head. "I see."

Then she threw up on his lap.

***
​

The car came to a slow stop in a parking garage. The distant sounds of police sirens might have been unrelated - or they might have been responding to the sounds of gunshots and screaming from earlier. The Doctor wasn't sure and honestly, he didn't particularly care. He and D-91 stood by the car while Sarah breathed quietly in the back seat, every window opened to air it out. The Doctor frowned, then brushed at the vomit on his lap, showing only the mildest of distaste. "So, we have the character we need to keep safe," he said. "What's the plan now?"

"Well," D-91 said, thinking.

---
CURRENT TRUTHS: "Holodeck Amok!"
CURRENT MOMENTUM: 2

[ ] Use Sarah to lure the Terminator into the end game trap (steam presser) and destroy it, thus, ending the simulation
[ ] Begin a systemic search - taking advantage of mobility to remain out of the Terminator's grasp
[ ] Try some cheat codes. Sarah Conner is an NPC, which means she might be editable. Maybe you can make her a badass tracker, like Terminator 2 Sarah Conner?
[ ] Write In