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Changes aren't permanent, but change is. (Masterverse fiction)

knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
edited August 2017 in Ten Forward
O brave new world, That has such people in ’t!”


The lines are drawn in the sand across the caress of time
The lines are drawn in the sand across the caress of time

There's a face in the glass
Looking through the mirror
At the maze of my past
It was never clearer

On the distant horizon
The sun approaches
Better cover my eyes
Better hide the roaches

In the best of my time
There was something better
And the quest of my mind
Was to try and get her

Something simple and pure
As the thoughts in my head
Not the tears in the rain
Over me she shed

We were almost there
Still I was unaware

Here in the Brave New World's embrace
I watch the parade begin
Searching for one familiar face
And I wonder where I fit in
How will I know if there's a place
For me in the Brave New World

To be calm in the eye
Of the human storm
In house full of dreams
I am safe and warm

Looking back at a life
Filled with warm embraces
No regrets only memories
Of smiling faces

We were almost there
Now change is in the air

Until now I held the zone
I ruled the world
I called it home
I never saw the down side

See the now see the Zen
There is no division
Through the eyes of a child
There is perfect vision

And the best of our lives
Resonate the hills
And the sun's gonna shine
And you know that I will...
Brave New world, Styx

Part 1

USS Kongo, NCC 1710, Delphic Expanse. Stardate 2260.47



“Do we have the Captain back?!” The Andorian XO thundered, as the constitution class starship rattled like a chew toy in a dogs mouth. On the forward view the Sphere Builders ships were expanding in a cloud of iridescent plasma and debris. The Future Starfleet ships weren't visible, hell much of anything wasn’t due to the brightness of the detonations.

“Transporter room says we’ve got her and the rest of the team” Lt Ed Stein said from communications, the bridge light glaring annoyingly off of the bald human’s head.

The First officer relaxed, even though they weren't out of the fire just yet “Excellent, Lt T’lara, get us clear before that blast wave hits us.” At the helm the pale skinned Vulcan complied, bringing the ship about and engaging the engines. The ship’s drive hummed through the deck plates as they pulled away. There was a final flash and shudder, then outside, space seemed to get back to normal.


“No sign of the Expanse anomaly any more Sir” Lt Zelah reported from the sciences station. “Sensors are still not fully responding, they were overloaded when the Sphere Builders ships were destroyed.”

The turbolift doors opened and the Captain’s bare paws padded onto the bridge. “How did it go sir?” The XO asked with relief to see her in one piece, even if her blue fur was rather, well filthy. And reeking of smoke from the recent fight she was in.


Captain Marsilla McKnight settled her haunches on the bench she used instead of a center chair-one of the few modifications she needed being a hexaped. Her long, rather floofy fox-like tail twitched as she ran a hand over her soot smeared face. “A bit closer than I liked to be honest. Do we have contact with Admiral Garrett on the Yorktown?”


The Lt at communications turned to his station “Contacting the Yorktown now….uh…” he glanced over at sciences “I can’t raise them.”

Turning to the gooseneck viewer on her station, the andorian science officer frowned “no sign of the Yorktown sir...also I’m not picking up astrogation beacons...at least not ours...the timestamp is wrong.” Lt Zelah said worriedly, one hand absently toying with her hair as she did when she was nervous.

“How wrong?” The captain asked, her ears drooping a bit. pleasedon’tsayyearspleasedon’tsayyearspleasedon’tsayyears

“Several...several hundred years..Also I’m detecting another starship.”

“Is it the Yorktown?” Marsilla asked, an icy ball forming in her stomachs which she pushed aside-can’t panic in front of the crew.

She was answered when she looked to the forward window, the graphics coming back up online. As the Kongo turned, the other ship came into view. Nope...not the Yorktown. Not with the long streamlined Primary and Engineering hulls, and the red tipped nacelles. Oh damn... “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

From the helm Lt T’lara looked puzzled “But we have never been to Kansas.”

“Figure of speech Lt.”



30 km away, USS Nighthawk, Stardate 95072.66

“All systems nominal Captain, we’re back in our own universe.”

Captain M’karret sighed with relief. With a wife and child and another cub on the way, being stuck in an alternate timeline wasn’t where he or any of his crew wanted to be. The rusty colored Caitian allowed himself to relax for the first time since he’d beamed over to the sphere builders ship. “What is the status on the Expanse?” he asked, settling back in his seat.

At the sciences station, Commander K’ber leaned to his instruments, the Klingon frowning at something “I am getting no trace of the expanse, but there is an anomaly. Ship sized, sensors are still coming back up on line fully after that overload..”

The captain frowned as he leaned forward “that’s not the Yorktown is it?” he asked, remembering the ship they encountered in that timeline, almost but not quite like the old Constitution class..if they had huge blue nacelles, and the bridge was more brightly lit and had more glaring lights than a Talaxian disco.

“Nope” his rather informal for a Vulcan XO said, brushing her purple hair out of her eyes “USS...Kongo? Yes, IFF designates as Kongo, NCC 1710” Commander T’Beni pulled up that registry number on her console. “This ship does not match the records for the design of the USS Kongo, which was lost in 2301 I believe.” On the viewscreen the ship came in view...

There was a pained groan filling the bridge. The first officer looked over and saw the captain leaning forward, burying his face in his paws. “Sir?”

“Guess it’s fate, with Rhonda out of Starfleet that means I’m the weirdness magnet in the family now.” He sighed, with a few knowing chuckles from some of his crew. M’karret gave them a mock glare then stood, adjusting his uniform. “All right, let’s Hail them. At least this time we’re not the ones down the rabbit hole.”


Three weeks later, enroute to the Sol system. Captain’s Cabin, USS Kongo.

The last few weeks had been very busy. The Kongo had been damaged by both the Sphere Builder battle, which didn’t help some earlier battle damage from dealing with some Klingon raiders near the neutral zone. A busy crew didn’t have time to think. And there was a lot to think about.

They had spent a week at the system where the Expanse had been forming, with both the USS Nighthawk and a Klingon! ship assisting them in trying to find a way back through. The Klingon ship wasn’t like anything they’d seen before to be honest, and the Captain of the Nighthawk told her that technically wasn’t a Klingon designed ship-something called a Paradox Temporal Dreadnought built by a yet future Starfleet...The fact that Captain M’karret reassured them that it was commanded by his cousin was even more confusing, as was it’s name. Maxim 14? The Feline captain told Marissa it meant ‘Mad science never means having to ask ‘what's the worst that can happen?’”. That was even less reassuring in some ways.

The Maxim 14 had stayed in the system to keep looking, the felineoid Commander of the Klink ship, Lady Nova R’roirr-Schrodinger (that was even a LESS klingon name than the ship) personally reassured Captain McKnight that if she could separate just which timeline in the bleed was the one they came from, she might be able to send them home. When asked how she started going on an explanation of exotic n-dimensional quantum physics, at which point Nova’s cousin M’karret of the Nighthawk guided Captain McKnight away, saying “she’ll be going on for hours and hours on math three people in the galaxy understand unless someone pokes her.”

Now Marsilla sat on her haunches behind her desk, looking at the files she just read on the computer. So many changes...so many things that didn’t happen, and others that did. It had taken a few days for Starfleet Command to decide whether to let them access the news and data nets, ultimately deciding to err in the fact that alternate timelines ‘technically’ didn't fall under the temporal prime directive. Which led to her current dilemma, the ‘suggestion’ from Starfleet. Some in felt that it could do further damage to some of the crew, others...well it could be a healing process. She reached her hand over and hit the com button on her desk. “Bridge.”

There was a rapid reply from her first officer. ”Bridge here Captain.”

“Inform command that we’re going to make a detour they recommended. Set course for..”Even with it’s destruction a few years back, it still sounded strange to say it again. “Set course for, Vulcan, warp six.”

”Are you sure that’s wise sir?”

“Not entirely, but we need to deal with that elephant in the room before we get to the heffalumps and woozles. I sent a file to the Nighthawk to forward on to Vulcan about our recent history, hopefully they’ll have people on hand to assist when we arrive.”

”if their Vulcan is anything like our Vulcan was, they’ll be ready for us.”

“Sounds good, I’m gonna get some sleep. Contact me if Vulcan gets back to us before morning. Captain out.” She extinguished the lights and made her way by feel to the large ish bed in her quarters. Only problem was...would we be ready for them?
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

"he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



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  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Part 2

    I close my eyes only for a moment, and the moment's gone
    All my dreams pass before my eyes, a curiosity

    Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind

    Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
    All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

    Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

    Now, don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
    It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy

    Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind (all we are is dust in the wind)
    Dust in the wind (everything is dust in the wind), everything is dust in the wind (the wind)
    Dust in the wind, Kansas


    USS Kongo, conference room


    Despite the popular perceptions, Vulcans did have emotions. Being the target of them when they were expressed wasn’t a comfortable place for any sentient. There were far less in Starfleet than there used to be, with the destruction of the homeworld, many Vulcans had settled on the colony at New Vulcan working to rebuild their race-not to mention the emotional trauma many of them suffered.

    There were only three on the Kongo,Chief Stoval, Lt T’lara, and Ensign Speck, and none of them looked happy. Well less happy than vulcan’s normally did.

    “All I wish to know, is why you are going there? It is not our home, it is not bad enough that we get to see a copy of a world we all have mourned, but families as well?”

    “This wasn’t my idea” the Captain replied “It was suggested by the Vulcan medical institute-they seem to think it’s a good idea. If you do not wish to go, I won’t force anyone to beam down. But they offered this, I didn’t ask. Trust me, I know just what kind of memories going there will bring up.”

    That seemed to calm the situation. Chief Stoval, the grizzled Quartermaster, closed his eyes, enhancing his calm. “I apologise Captain. I know that you too have lost your family when Vulcan was destroyed. This is...difficult for all of us.”

    The Captain nodded “It’s not easy for any of us, none of this is.”

    Chief Stoval nodded, as he saw the logic of her situation. “I understand Captain. While I still have others of my race around to provide support, you are unique as far as the Federation knows.”

    She didn’t like to think about it that way...but it was true. “Yeah. especially nowadays.”


    ShiKahr, Vulcan

    It was as hot as she remembered. But then it would be, the pavement stones not quite burning her paws, but it was mildly uncomfortable through the thin foot covers she’d donned-she remembered her first time here burning her paws on the sand. Marsilla could deal with a bit of discomfort. At least, despite being fur covered, she wasn’t too hot. Having a body type where one did not have to wear pants, helped. Even if blue striped fur on her lower torso was thicker than her upper body.

    She stood at a respectful distance as a few of her crew met their ‘families.’. It wasn’t the same, different timeline she knew. Which led to tragic situations like the chief. In this timeline, he had a daughter who never knew him-as this timeline’s Stoval died when the USS Intrepid was lost.


    “I’m still not sure why we’re doing this…”she muttered under her breath. While initially she was for it, the closer they got to Vulcan, the more misgivings she had. The void in her own life didn’t help. She’d accepted, or thought she did, her mother’s death. But standing here on these sands...with the spires of the Science Academy visible in the distance, it was like the wound was ripped open again.

    “Because it brings peace to the ones here, and hopefully to your crew as well” a measured, logical voice said next to her. “They are not the same, yet knowing that somewhere missing loved ones live on, it may bring comfort.”

    She looked at the dark skinned vulcan male in what passed for a Starfleet uniform in these times. “I hope so..It was pretty rough a few years back after Vulcan was destroyed for a lot of people, myself included.”

    “You had family lost in the destruction?”

    “Adopted family, my mother. Teresa McKnight, she was teaching at the Vulcan Science Academy when it happened.”

    “The name is familiar-I believe I may have heard my wife may have studied under her when she was young. She spoke highly of Admiral McKnight’s work, few non Vulcans ever were granted tenure as instructors at the Vulcan Science Academy.”

    “She had just started teaching there when I was promoted to commander and made captain of the Kongo. Marsilla took a moment to figure out his rank, lets see, a rectangle in a box...oh TRIBBLE. Admiral. She came to attention and saluted “Sorry sir, I still haven’t gotten used to Starfleet’s new rank system-so much easier when all you had to do was count the stripes on the sleeve.”

    Admiral Tuvok simply nodded as he returned the salute “at ease Captain. We do not salute as much as we did in your day either, mainly for formal occasions.”

    “Aye Sir” she replied. “It’s been a rough few years for a lot of us, and we’re getting even more shocks by the day.”

    The Admiral nodded “Indeed, one reason perhaps why I was asked to help liason with your ship. I had a similar experience while serving on the USS Voyager, although we were not tossed into an alternate timeline-but at the time we were looking at seventy plus years at maximum warp just to get back to the fringes of the Federations border.”

    “I picked up a bit of that when I skimmed through the news update they finally let us have” Marsilla replied. “Ah well. If it didn’t take Voyager 70 years to get back from the Delta Quadrant, hopefully it won’t take that long for them to find out how to get us back to our proper timeline.”

    “When that day does, come, you will not go alone.” she glanced behind them as she heard someone approaching, who did not have a Vulcan accent. She saw the insignia on his clothes and if she had been carrying a weapon she would have went for it. Instead she took two steps forward, getting her lower torso between the Starfleet Admiral and the Romulan.

    Fortunately Proconsul D’Tan had been briefed on what Starfleet knew of the political situation from the Kongo’s timeline, and Captain McKnight also had read over the summary of recent events here. Still old instincts died hard, she forced herself to relax, though it took a few moments for her tail to un puff. She stepped back to where she was, and gave a polite nod to the Romulan Republic leader. “My apologies Sir, I’m still getting used to people who were enemies last month, aren’t here.”

    “No apologies necessary Captain, I know how my people were over a hundred years ago here, I have no illusions that they would be any different in your timestream.” D’Tan shook his head. “Still, the news you have brought through with you brings both closure and pain. Closure, knowing Ambassador Spock’s fate when he tried to stop the Hobus supernova..and pain, at what one of my people did.” D’Tan knelt down by the edge of the pathway, reaching a hand down and picking up some sand, letting it drift through his fingers. “Our Vulcan cousins were quick to aid us after the destruction of our world, an action, along with Ambassador Spock’s message, paved the way for us to truly change, to be a Republic instead of an Empire. The least we can do” He said, standing back up “is to help the Vulcan’s in your universe...who we injured, knowingly or not.”

    “As well as try to prevent the destruction of your world a century later?” She asked.

    “I do not think the rulers of Romulus at the time would believe us to be honest,” He replied “but the Hobus event could have spread far past the borders of the Romulan Star Empire, had it not been for Ambassador Spock. If they will not believe us, perhaps the Federation will.”

    She smiled reassuringly at the romulan, something that she thought that she would never do. “I think that I can help with that, should we get back. Have to figure that out before we can get any farther.”

    “Admiral Tuvok has informed me that Doctor Schrodinger herself is looking into your situation. I have faith she will find the solution you seek-the only question is how long.” And how long she wants you here D’Tan thought...It was suspected by Republic Intelligence that the ex Starfleet officer turned Lady of one of the fastest growing in power Ferasan houses had an agenda. But then, that might just be latent paranoia influencing them. And even if she did..at least it was on the side of life rather than death and entropy. He shrugged and changed the subject. “Are there many in your universe like you? Here most intelligent life is biped, there only a handful of exceptions, the Edosians, Tholians.. Nothing, what is the word, Centaur like? Though the closest to your somatotype would be the Karrank}{‘p., though they are smaller and more like...budgies I think the word is?”

    “Badgers” Admiral Tuvok helpfully corrected. “A budgie is a small bird Proconsul.”

    “I’m afraid not” She replied..she probably should be used to this, at least in her federation while she wasn’t widely known, many of those in Starfleet had heard the story. And almost all of them were bipedal mammals. She at least was a mammal, but definitely not a biped. She sat on her haunches and curled her tail around all four of her feet, as she ran a hand through her blue hair. “All I know, is I was found as an infant in cold sleep on a lifepod from a DY100 class ship, near a wormhole that my mother was researching while she was the science officer on the USS Excalibur. There were two adults on board, but dead. Being I was found in space, with no planet nearby the prime directive didn’t really apply. so, when she decided to raise me no one tried to stop her.”

    Admiral Tuvok raised an eyebrow “The DY100 was used by Earth, it was only used for a few years at the beginning of the 21st century-most notably.”

    “I know, same where I’m from.” She shrugged, her tail swishing back and forth “Hell if I know how I ended up on it still in diapers. But then there are far weirder things that happen out there in the black.”

    “Indeed.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Part 3


    USS Nighthawk, orbiting Vulcan

    It wasn’t out of their way, and they were supposed to be escorting the ship from an alternate starfleet back to Earth. So when the Kongo headed to Vulcan, so did the ‘hawk. Captain M’karret was in his ready room, taking care of the piles of reports that bred like tribbles on his desk every time he looked away for less than a second.

    A Captains office was an insight into his character, at least that’s what they said at the Command course back in the Academy. Many captains would have a wall of models of ships they’d commanded, or trophies from alien worlds. M’karret’t had but one ship model-the one he’d lost over Denali several years back. Saber Class, USS Reuben James-betrayed by Admiral Fitsimmons, who was working for the Terran Empire. Only fourteen souls made it out of the James, and of those only three were still able to serve in Starfleet besides himself. The other decorations in the office were more cheerful-if less legible. But then his three year old son was doing good when he got the right colors-getting inside the lines was something he wasn’t ready for yet evidently, children’s drawings and family pictures along the wall and his desk. Holos of his wife and extended family were on his desk, and on the back wall-the crest of House R’iorr. That had caused him some problems-though to be honest, it could be far worse.

    There was a beep at the door. “S’open.”

    His first officer came into the ready room, the vulcan looking, well, resigned. “I Take it it didn’t go well?” he asked.

    T’Beni shook her head, and plopped down angrily in the seat across the desk from her captain. “Not only would my family not speak with me, I was not even given permission to beam down to Vulcan, being it was not part of my ‘official duties’. I am still considered V’Tosh ka’tur, even though I have passed every medical and performance exam since Denali.”

    M’karret sighed “I’m sorry T’Beni. I would have thought with your father's illness, they would have allowed you to visit.”

    “That would be an emotional response. Which my family would die before doing. The true irony though?” she said, looking out the ready room window at the bluish grey Kongo a few kilometers away. “What they denied me is exactly what they are doing for the Vulcans on the alternate timeline ship.”

    At his concerned look she shook her head and shrugged “I do not begrudge them that, in fact it heartens me that some of my people can see the whole person needs healing, not just ‘take two logic and call me in the morning.”

    The captain couldn’t resist and snickered. “Was that a joke?”

    “A poor one I admit”, she said, then switched subjects. “It may take us longer to get to Earth than we thought, it seems the Kongo is still having issues with their warp field.” Handing over a padd, the captain looked it over. “Part of it is they were on one of the ‘five year missions’ that were common in those day, they did not get much in the way of yard time to do in depth repairs of damage. Once we get them to Sol, they’d probably need to go into the first available drydock.”

    “Is it repairable? She's over a hundred years out of date-and that’s not counting the differences between their systems and ours.”

    “Their chief eng believes so, and so does ours. I believe Commander Astylix is almost but not quite literally drooling at the chance to go over the Kongo’s systems in depth.”

    That did get a laugh from the Captain. “I believe it, it took everything he had to quit poking at the Sphere Builder’s tech when we beamed over in the Expanse and concentrate on the mission.” The Nighthawk’s Choblik engineer loved more than anything than to study new, or at least new to him technology. “Well if anyone can get our modules to interface with their systems, he’s the one that could do it.”

    “I’ll make sure to tell him you said that, it will make his day.”




    Spacedock One, Sol System, one week later

    If seeing Vulcan again instead of an empty system hadn’t hammered the point home that they weren't in their own universe, the sight of Earth, and the colossal facilities in orbit reinforced it for the ship's human complement. “Look of the size of that thing..” Ed at communications muttered as the Kongo slowed to docking speed.

    Marsilla just looked over her shoulder at him. She’d been with her crew for five years, and by now she didn’t have to verbally correct them. Lt Stein noticed the look and looked back at his boards. She tolerated a lot actually-but there were times for banter, and coming in to an unknown station belonging to a future starfleet wasn’t one of them. She’d had a chance to look further into the recent history of this time, starfleet, frankly, the entire federation had been a mess. Intrigue, coup attempts, cutting off colonies then acting indignant when they went to the Klingons for help… Then there was the recent revelation that a race called Undine was behind that-the very ones who the Klingons had started their war with the Gorn over, and one with the Federation as well. So yes, some paranoia on this Federations part was justified. Her crew would all be getting medically screened, which annoyed her but she could see the need for it.

    Still, they were being judged, and from what she had been able to discover in her quick research, Starfleet of her time was seen in the 2400s as more primitive, trigger happy, and ones that bent the rules. This annoyed her-as well as her crew. Thus they were going to do their best to make a good impression, especially if it turned out they may be here for some time. It had been Chief Stoval’s idea for them to be in their dress uniforms-as technically this was the same as a full on review by Admiral Garrett, and they were returning from their five year mission. Thus a bit of ceremony was in order.

    “We have docking clearance Captain, they’re bringing us right in to docking slip one.” Ed relayed.

    The captain just grunted, seeing the huge windows overlooking the docking area. “Well then, if they’re waiting for a show, let's give them one.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Viewing area, Starbase one. 1930 hours

    By engineering standards, the Federation main starbase was opulent. The main chamber was easily over twenty meters, one whole wall transparent aluminum, giving a good view to the ships that were cleared to dock inside the Starbase. Most ships ended up parking outside, and transporting over. From an engineering standpoint, a space this huge that wasn’t used for something large, such as cargo storage or a shuttle bay was a sheer waste M’Karret thought as he exited the transporters. The huge window could even be seen from the transporters, and from most of the good tables in Club 47. But then, it was more a human thing, showing off. The career staff types that mostly filled out the Starbase roster didn’t see it as a liability.

    Others tho that have spent time trying to keep the air inside and the black outside, were often a tad nervous when in the atrium. Though in this case the view was worth it. There was already a crowd forming, fortunately he had a reason to push through to the front. There were a few familiar faces waiting as well, seeing one he both knew, and had to report too about the Sphere Builder incident, he headed up to him. “Admiral La Roca.” he said with a nod.

    Jesu La Roca had a bit of a touch of grey in his hair, probably due to being Admiral Cartwrights deputy CNO. He haadn’t signed on for that job, but as many things in starfleet, the job he did have kind of changed when he wasn’t looking. He was still responsible for Starfleet's relations with the Empire, Romulan republic and the smaller powers-but when Cartwright was away…he had to pick up the slack.

    Still. It could be far worse. And he still had his people, and the Tiburon.
    And speaking of his people, as the Caitain Captain came up to him Jesu returned the nod. “Captain M’Karret. Good work on stopping that expanse from forming.” he grinned “even if you did bring back some hitchhikers.”

    M’karret laughed “Wasn’t my idea sir, and not theirs either. Fortunately my cousin wasn’t busy, and is looking into finding out if she can discover where exactly they came from and if we can get them back.”


    “Mmm.” the admiral grunted. He wasn’t overly fond of Dr Schrodinger or her ‘sisters’-but at least this one wasn’t insane. Maybe he was just getting old. “Well hopefully they can find a way back. So that’s them?” he said, pointing at a ship coming into view.

    “The mutant connie with the blue bussard scoops?” M’karret replied “yeah that’s them.”

    “They’re coming in a bit fast aren’t they?” someone in the crowd muttered. “And at the wrong angle to” someone else said. Jesu looked closer-they were. He gave the Caitain Captain a glance, then relaxed a bit. Just a bit. M’karret did not look worried, and he knew these alternate Starfleet people better than anyone here-which honestly, wasn’t much. But he did know their ships capabilities from his report.

    USS Kongo

    “Mister T’lara” Captain McKnight said from her position, the captain and the bridge crew already in their grey dress uniforms. “We have clearance to dock, you have control, lets show them how it was done in the ‘good old days.”

    The Vulcan Lt did not return the grin. That would be illogical. But there was nothing wrong with feeling… satisfaction at the proper performance of one’s duties. She cut the impulse, and using only maneuvering thrusters expertly swung the Kongo about, and without the benefit of 2400s computer autodocking, brought the port airlock inline with the Station’s lock-with only a slight squeak from the seals as the two made contact-followed by the chunk of the maglocks. “We are stationary, positive lock with the station Captain.”

    Marsilla did grin though, that was expertly done. Kirk’s crew couldn’t have docked that smoothly. Maybe. Hikaru Sulu was one of the best helmsmen in the fleet-though it did take him a while to live down leaving the parking brake on-even though that mistake ended up saving his ship at Vulcan. She hit the all call on the armrest of her bench. “Secure from maneuvering, Engineering, stand down the power plant as soon as we’re on station power. Department heads, assemble port airlock to receive dignitaries.”

    She stood up, picking up the peaked cap and setting it on her head, making sure it was straight. At least hers, like Caitains, had notches cut out for her ears. “Allight people, they’re just Starfleet Admirals. Nothing to worry about.” She said, as relief crew took over the bridge stations. Time to meet the locals.


    Airlock, USS Kongo

    It was a tradition even older than starships. In the old days, as far back as the 16th century, the crew would man the rails of the ship when it returned home, or to a port they were visiting. In space, that was difficult at best, not to mention the myriad of ships systems that had to be monitored, in port or not. So traditions change. Now instead of the ships enlisted compliment having to endure dress uniforms and boring formation-now the Ship’s officers were tasked with that. Hard to fit the ship's complement in a corridor outside the airlock.

    Chief Stoval made sure the connections were fast and the lights were green, working with a station CPO. He then stood back, and lifted a bosun’s whistle, blowing the notes that have been used since ships were powered by sails and wind.

    Captain McKnight came to attention as the Starfleet Admiral stepped through the airlock. “Permission to come aboard?” Admiral LaRoca formally asked.”

    “Permission granted Admiral, I’m Captain McKnight. welcome aboard the Kongo.” She replied, saluting. True, Admiral Tuvok did say they didn’t do that as much in the 2400s-but for this, it felt appropriate.

    From the look on the human Admiral’s face, he approved, returning the salute. “Jesu LaRoca” he said, introducing himself. “Welcome home. I know it’s not the Earth you were expecting-but we’ll do the best we can to make you feel welcome while we try to figure out how you got here, and hopefully how to get you back.”

    “Thank you Sir. Would you like to inspect the ship?”

    “I would-but not now. Your people are tired, they’re stressed, they’ve been underway for years, and it’s late in the evening. Take care of your crew first, Captain. Get us a list of what you need and we’ll get on that asap. There’s plenty of time for sight seeing later.”

    She didn’t show her emotions, well except for her tail almost wagging, but relief was the main one. The late Admiral Marcus would have insisted on a full inspection no matter what time they made port. Both her and her crew were exhausted-both physically and emotionally. “Thank you sir, I have the reports from our five year mission ready for you as well whenever you are ready for them.”

    “Bring them by my office in the morning then around 0800. Also, bring your appetite” the admiral grinned “I think better with food. In the meantime” he said, glancing back at the Captain of the Nighthawk who had accompanied him. “Have we gotten the results back from the medical screening yet Captain?”

    M’karret nodded. The Nighthawk’s medics had sent the tests ahead to Starfleet medical for confirmation. “We got them confirmed while you were docking, looks like you haven’t run into the Undine yet back in your timeline.”

    “Well what I read so far is they’re shape shifters, so who knows if we have or not?”

    “Ok, maybe you did-but none of your crew are Undine, and that’s all that matters.” Jesu replied “hopefully if we can send you back, you can have a better first contact with them than we did. Anyway, get some rest captain. Also your crew is cleared for shore leave whenever you’re ready. Also even though we don’t use money as much as you did in your day-replicators are far more common-the crew will still get their end of tour bonuses in energy credits.”

    “I’ll let them know in the morning” Marsilla replied with a grin, knowing the news would make it’s way through the ship before she got out of the dress greys. Would definitely improve morale. Yes they may not be in their right universe, and in a future that isn’t theirs-but still, getting off ship with money to spend after a long tour? Priceless. “Thank you for everything Admiral.”

    “No problem, have a good night Captain.”


    The two future starfleet officers left the airlock, and Marsilla relaxed. “Well that went better than I thought. XO?”

    “Aye Sir?”

    “We’ll need shore leave lists by morning. Some of crew have enlistments that are close to expiring, I’ll ask the Admiral about that in the morning as well.”

    “Some may want to stay here, if they’d allow that.”

    She took off her cap and ran a hand over her hair. “I don’t see why they wouldn't-it’s not like they’d be somewhere where they’d have future knowledge that they could use, even if technically it’s not our future. But we’ll hold off on that for now.”

    Commander Sytav nodded. “Aye Captain.”


    Starbase one, arrivals area

    “Well that went better than I thought.” Jesu said as he headed back onto the station.

    “I thought you wanted to look over their ship?” M’karret asked as he followed the admiral out.

    “Oh I do-but you could see in their eyes they’re exhausted. I’ll get the report from the Captain in the morning, by the way, come along as well, I can get your report of the Expanse incident at the same time.”

    The Caitian looked a bit sheepish. “What, did my stomach growl when you mentioned your breakfast briefing Sir?”

    “That, and I think you might be a bit too occupied to give it to me this evening.” Jesu replied with a grin.

    “Huh?” M’karret said in confusion, just as a familiar scent hit his nose-right before he was hit by a almost meter-tall black and white fuzzy missile, knocking him on his tail.

    “Papapapapapapa!” the toddler squealed happily. Being attacked by a two year old wasn’t something he had been prepared for. “What are you doing here?”

    “Sorry,” his wife said as she came down the passageway “I can’t exactly sprint after him when he gets a headstart at the moment.” At just over 162cm tall, and 8 months pregnant, keeping up with a toddler was a bit of a challenge some days.

    “What are you doing here?” M’Karret asked as he got to his feet, scooping up his son.

    “I’ve got an appointment at Starfleet Medical in the morning” the former Captain Evans replied.”And i knew you were getting in, so…”

    “Appointment for what?”

    “Just a followup, normally they just check in with my OB on Risa, but hey it’s good to visit in person sometimes.”

    M’Karret nodded, his son giggling as he tried to grab his whiskers. His first cub nearly didn’t make it, Caitians normally didn’t interbreed with anything-other than Ferasans. So after as touch and go as Michael was, even though Rhonda was out of active Starfleet service-Starfleet Medical still wanted to make sure the second cub was having no problems.

    “What time is your appointment Rhonda?” Admiral La Roca asked.

    “Not till around 1300. Originally i was going to come in tomorrow, but with the Nighthawk getting in, moved it up.”

    “Great, then I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the briefing as well.”

    “Admiral, I’m out of Starfleet-”

    “There will be waffles.”

    “What time do you want us there?”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Part 4

    Made a note of it
    Did you write it on your hand
    Put a name on it
    To help you understand

    Well do you see
    The futures holidays are for me
    Just let me know
    Where we go after the fall

    Like the sound of it
    Gonna hang it on your wall
    Turn and run with it
    For the sake of one and all
    Where you go, nobody knows

    Well do you see
    The futures holidays are for me
    Just let me know
    Where to go
    Where you go after the fall
    Futures ,Zero7


    USS Kongo


    Captain McKnight waited for the transporter. She had plenty of time, and the first batch of crew going on shore leave were queued up. A good number of them were headed to Risa. She’d never been there herself and given the climate, she probably never would-anything over 25 degrees felt a bit too warm for her. The fact that Risa was even a valid choice for crewmen on a two week leave was amazing in itself. Just last week, (or a century plus ago, but looking at it that way made her feel really old) earth to Risa was an easy two, three weeks. Now, even commercial ships had the advanced ‘Slipstream’ drives, cutting travel down within the Federation core worlds to a few hours. True, back in her time there were rumors of interstellar range transporters, that could even hit a ship under warp-but those were just rumors.

    “Want us to bring you back anything Captain?”

    She looked up from her musing and almost winced. That was possibly the loudest shirt she’d ever seen on Lieutenant Yates. “How many flamingos died to make that shirt Lieutenant?”

    The young engineer laughed “It’s my vacation shirt Captain. Don’t get to break it out much-last time I had a chance to wear it was when we had shore leave on Rigel-and it was too cold.”

    “You thought it was cold, I was rather comfortable” Marsilla replied with a grin “Thanks anyway but I don’t need anything. have a good trip Lieutenant, see you when you get back.”

    “Aye Sir” Yates replied as he stepped up onto the transporter and dematerialized.

    “Good morning Captain,” Chief Stoval said with a nod “your destination this morning?”

    “USS Tiburon. Seems the Admiral doesn’t have an office on the spacedock.”

    “That or he wants to keep the crowd to a minimum” her XO said as he entered the transporter room. “I’ve heard from a few folks that the friday briefing breakfast is quite a treat.”

    “Heh.” she didn’t ask if Commander Sytav had the reports, she knew the Andorian well enough to know that he’d have everything she requested. They worked well together over the last few years, part of her hated the idea of giving him up but she was definitely going to talk to Admiral Paris-Sytav deserved a command of his own. Assuming of course they ever made it back. “Well we both know my appetite, so I guess we’ll see if the Admiral is ready for us.” she said as she stepped up on the transporter. “Energize.”



    USS Tiburon

    So different… she thought as the Tiburon’s transporter room appeared around them. It was the same-yet different. She hadn’t been to the Nighthawk-they wanted to keep possible temporal contamination to a minimum until the current Starfleet Command ruled that it didn’t apply in their circumstance. The uniforms too were… well different. She’d seen Captain M’Karret, and some of his crew but the transporter officer on the Tiburon was wearing something completely different. Still, she read the rank right. She hoped. “Permission to come aboard?”

    “Permission Granted Captain” the red haired female Tellarite officer said as the transporter operator secured the system. “Lieutenant Rena Der Tryhs” she said as the two officers from the Kongo stepped down from the transporter. “Admiral would have met you usually, but he’s on a call from Admiral Cartwright.”

    “Admirals usually take priority” Captain McKnight agreed. “Still better to talk to Admirals than reporters.”

    “oh so ya already heard about that Sir?” Rena asked.

    “Unfortunately. Still it is news, and It won’t be the first time I’ve had to talk to reporters. I saw the newsies on the dock when we came in-you know your starbase really shouldn’t have that much exposed transparent aluminum windows.”

    The young Tellarite officer just chuckled “they didn’t want it to look like it was military-so instead it looks like it should be in a shopping mall somewhere. They even have a nightclub that looks out over it.”

    Commander Sytav just grunted “Kind of extravagant if you ask me, but I came up through engineering. I don’t even like how many force fields you use instead of actual hard divisions.”

    “It is a bit unnerving to know if the power goes out you’re going right out with the air,” Rena agreed, “but if it wasn’t for the emergency forcefield system, I wouldn’t be here after the Smedley Butler got shredded over Goralis.”

    Marsilla chuckled “don’t tell me you’re going to turn into one of those grizzled ‘back in my day’ types Sytav.”

    “Hell Captain, I was that way before we got thrown a century plus into the future.”

    Captain McKnight laughed as they entered the conference room. It was already fairly filled-along the back wall was the serving line. She recognized Captain M’Karret of the Nighthawk across the room, oddly many of the crewmen weren't wearing the same uniform he was, or Lt DerTryhs for that matter. “Does each ship have it’s own uniform?

    “Naw Sir” Rena replied “over the last few years Starfleet changed the uniform design so many times they finally said the hell with it and let people pick from a variety of styles, whichever one fits them more comfortably. That said most crews do tend to gravitate to one design over time.”

    Commander Sytav frowned even more “next thing you’ll say is they allow family on the ships.”

    “Well not anymore, but I grew up on the Tiburon.” They turned, the Admiral had come in behind them. “For a time things seemed a lot more peaceful, even some ships like the Galaxy class were designed for families, with schools and childcare on board. The Dominion war and the Borg put an end to that.”

    “Still, it must have been an interesting way to grow up.” Captain McKnight replied.

    “It had its moments, both good and bad. Anyway, get some food, grab a seat, or some floor space in your case Captain, and once folks have eaten we’ll go over your situation, and the Sphere Builder incident. If you’ll excuse me, my coffee cup is empty.”

    “Certainly sir.” They watched as he made his way over to the mess specialist at the espresso machine.

    “Kinda young for an admiral” Sytav said as they joined the line “At least they considered multi species dietary requirements.” he said. There was everything from Plomek tea to bacon and eggs.

    “I’m kind of surprised that they have actual cooks, I mean with the replicator technology.” Marsilla replied. “Guess it’s the perk of being an admiral.”

    “That and diplomatic functions” Lt Der Trys said as she loaded up a plate with something that looks almost but not quite grits. “Most times we do use the replicator-but the Admiral does this every friday for the crew. Most of the on shift have already been through the line. Meat’s replicated if you were wondering.”

    “Doesn’t bother me” Marsilla replied, giving the Lieutenant a sharp toothed grin “while I am a carnivore, I can eat just about anything, and those waffles look goo-yip!”

    She nearly jumped as something grabbed onto her tail. Marsilla whirled her head around angrily, only to blink in confusion at what had gotten a hold of her. “Fluffy!!” It, no he, was under a meter tall, barely thirty pounds, and obviously someone's toddler.

    “Michael! What did ah tell you about going around grabbing folks tails?” The kit looked back at the noticeably pregnant woman who was chastising him, she had black fur like the youngster, though she didn’t have the white markings-or the small caitian like tail the kid had.

    “But...is so Fluffy!”

    Marsilla just laughed “it’s ok, he just startled me is all” The kit still had a deathgrip on the soft blue fur, his mother was trying to hold a tray with one hand and pull him off with the other.

    “Here let me help you Captain Evans” Lt DerTryhs said as she took the tray for her.

    “Thanks” Rhonda said, managing to pick the toddler up. “I’m sorry about that Captain, I had my back turned just for a second making him a plate. And it’s just Doctor now Lt.”

    “I thought children weren't allowed on starships in this future” the Kongo’s XO said.

    “They’re not normally, unless as passengers or during a Tiger cruise. We’re just visiting. I've known the Admiral for years. Ran into him when the Nighthawk came in last night and he asked me to come for the briefing breakfast.”

    “Are you getting into trouble again?” the Captain of the Nighthawk came over and took the toddler from his mother.

    “Isn’t that a toddler’s job description?” Marsilla asked

    M’Karret laughed “Indeed it is, one that I don’t get to see as much of as I’d like. Here, I’ve already eaten, I’ll keep him occupied while you get your food.”

    Rhonda smiled gratefully at her husband “thank you dear” she said, giving him a caitain style nuzzle. She got her tray back from Lt Der Tryhs “now, where are the waffles? Jesu bribed me with waffles to come here.”

    “Over here I think.” Marsilla replied “at least that hasn’t changed from my timeline to this one.”

    “I know that feeling. I’m originally from a different one myself.” Rhonda replied, placing her order with the mess steward “are there a lot of hexapeds in your timestream? You’re the first one I’ve seen since I got here.”

    “No, I’m the only one that the Federation knows of-wait-you’ve seen others like me? Where?!”

    “More like ‘when’..it was in another timeline, and he was more feline than canid like you are.”

    “Oh…”

    “Are you alright Captain?”

    Marsilla sighed “It’s nothing. I’m the only one of my kind where I come from, seems I am that way here too. Old wounds, what can I say. Oooh” she said, changing the subject as the mess steward slid the freshly baked waffle onto a plate “that does smell good. Let me get one too please.”

    After getting their food, they sat down, as those who were just in the room for the grub and not for the briefing filtered out. “Allright,” The Admiral said over a cup of coffee “Captain M’Karret? Let’s start with the Sphere Builder incident…”




    two hours later

    “Well that wasn’t so bad” Rhonda said, though her son might have had other opinions-the toddler having fallen asleep a third of the way through. His father carried him, the young boy drooling a bit on the shoulder of M’karret’s uniform.

    “Definitely better than Admiral Garrett,” Commander Sytav said with a snort. “He goes on and on and never really says anything.”

    “At least if we’re stuck here, working for LaRoca wouldn’t be so bad.” Captain McKnight replied.

    Rhonda nodded. “Yeah. He tried to get me transferred to Conops for years-but was blocked by Dave Huntington and Admiral Quinn” She sighed “course now that I know why they wanted me to stick close to David…It’s tough when someone you look up to turned out to be not only dirty, but on the other side.”

    “I know the feeling” the caninetaur said, lightly patting Evan’s shoulder “I was considered a protege of Admiral Marcus-who betrayed the Federation trying to start a pre emptive war with the Klingons.”

    Dr Evans smiled at the Kongo’s captain “it sucks, but what can you do. Oh that reminds me, I thought of something during breakfast. You know how you mentioned that you’re the only one of your species that the Federation knows of in your time?”

    “Yes?”

    The blackfurred woman grinned “After a bioweapons scare a few years back from yet another alternate universe, the Klingons, Romulan Republic, Federation, the smaller powers and even the Dominion set up medical back channels. If you have some time, I’m going down to Starfleet Medical for some tests of my own. While I’m there, I can run a sample through the database and see if we hit anything.”

    Marsilla thought about that, biting her bottom lip as she considered it. “Even if you find anything, it’s not the same universe.”

    “No, but if we do, at least you’ll have an idea on where to start looking when you get back.”

    “You mean if we get back, “Commander Sytav grumped.


    “I’ve known Schrodi, well a version of her-long story. Anyway I’ve known her since I was fourteen years old. If there is anyone who can find you a way home, she can.”

    The Captain looked at her XO who nodded “I know it’s always bugged you, and we’re in spacedock, with a third of the crew on shore leave. Go see what they can tell ya Captain.”

    She smiled “alright then, I’ll meet you in the transporter room? That was a bit too much coffee for me.”

    “Sure no problem” Rhonda laughed. She turned to M’karret “you still up for watching him this afternoon while i’m down getting poked and prodded in medical myself?

    “As if you have to ask” M’karret purred. “I’ll take him back to my quarters on the ‘Hawk. I’m due some downtime too, he can keep napping while I watch him.”

    “Dr Evans, do you have a moment?”

    She turned to Admiral LaRoca “of course.” she smiled

    “In my office please, this will only take a few minutes.”

    Nodding, she gave M’karret a hug then followed the Admiral into the office. “You’re going to need a bigger tank, if that’s the same shark you had the last time I was here.”

    Jesu chuckled “it’s his daughter, he’s happily in an aquarium in Sonora.” Sitting down at his desk, he looked up at the ceiling “Hooper, activate security field.”

    ”Active the AI said, as Rhonda’s eyebrows raised.

    “What’s this about Admiral?”

    “Starbase 132.”

    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,275 Arc User
    should i know what this 'bioweapon scare from yet another alternate universe' is from?​​
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #LegalizeAwoo

    A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
    An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
    A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
    A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"


    "It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
    "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
    Passion and Serenity are one.
    I gain power by understanding both.
    In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
    I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
    The Force is united within me.
  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    should i know what this 'bioweapon scare from yet another alternate universe' is from?​​

    A Terran empire experiment that first appeared in Sins of the Fathers, it was supposed to kill anything that wasn't human.
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Part 5


    USS Tiburon, Admiral LaRoca’s ready room


    Some things one didn’t want to think about. A near miss with a cosmic entity, the betrayal of a trusted, even loved friend, and other possibly galaxy shattering revelations. It wasn’t the only reason why Rhonda Evans had put in her packet to get out of Starfleet into the inactive reserve, but it was a big one.

    Q had covered for her, she knew that. But she also knew that while omnipotent in theory… he had a certain tendency to overlook simple things at times. She trusted Jesu-but then she had also trusted David Huntington, and Admiral Quinn. One turned out to be a total convert to the Orion cult of the Masters… the other…

    “Is something wrong Doctor?” Jesu asked. Rhonda didn’t swear, but her panic must have shown on her face at being blindsided by this again.

    “What do you mean Admiral? I gave my report after the incident, and at Dav-,Admiral Huntington's court martial.”

    He said nothing, but hit a button on the keypad on his desk. On the viewscreen in ready room, a familiar scene appeared from the view of the security camera network of Starbase 132. She remembered the moment… the Orion Matron trying to open the gateway with the cube. The playback clearly showed the energy building up around Rhonda’s arm, her eyes growing the same green as she hovered off the deck, Matron Medra looking up at her in fear. “What are you?!” the Orion matron asked, before the energy beam blew out the back of her head. On the screen Captain Evans snarled “Ah’m the Goddamn Polecat.”

    “Sorry” Jesu said as he hit the fast forward key on the console. “I know it’s wrong, but after all the millions of deaths she’s responsible for, I just enjoy watching that scene.”

    “I should have tried to bring her in alive.” Rhonda replied.

    “It wasn’t an option and you know it Doctor, especially after what came next.”

    She knew, and didn’t want to watch that part. Even on the playback, the… wrongness of whatever it was trying to convince Lisa Quentin to open the box for them made her physically ill-the Admiral too she noted. “Why are you bringing this up now? If they had this they could have hammered me with it at Huntington’s court martial.” Looking at Jesu meant she didn’t have to look at the screen-even in just a video the wrongness of the dimensions near the rift made her queasy.

    “They didn’t have it-and no one outside of Atticus, Admiral Cartwright and myself have seen this, or will see this.” That caused her to blink, not expecting that.

    “One of the final acts the Undine impersonating Quinn did, was to insure this record was purged-except for myself, and Admiral Cartwright. Atticus could access it only under Zero Dark protocol.”

    The AI’s avatar that ran the Starbase (and much of Starfleet command) nodded “Admiral Quinn’s instructions were that Admirals LaRoca and Cartwright needed to see this-so they would “know the truth of what they were facing.””

    “But didn’t Lisa’s actions shut them out of this timestream?”

    “For for foreseeable future, yes. But I didn’t ask you here to grill you over this. As for the abilities you seem to still have-well you aren’t the first empathic healer the Federation has run into, and there are other races that have similar abilities as well. Just not in one package.” Jesu said, giving her a reassuring grin. “But the event with the Kongo crossing over, plus some stuff we’ve gotten from intel on the Terran Empire…”

    She suddenly realised where he was going. “You’re wondering if the Masters are a threat to other timelines, not just ours.”

    “In a nutshell, yes.”

    “Ooh boy.” She got up and went to the replicator, getting herself some hot chocolate, then sat back down. “When the Heinlein was shifted into the timeline where Lisa Quentin was from.. Q was there. While he did something to make us forget just how we beat a Borg Tac Cube in nothing more than a Wells Class science ship and a handful of supers-he did say something to my XO right after we crossed over. The transit knocked the crew unconscious, she was the first to come to. Anyway, he told her that “if he were to intervene in our situation there-then other, more malevolent beings would be free to intervene in our reality.”

    “I’m not sure I trust Q to tell me the sky is blue to be honest.” LaRoca replied.

    “Point, he does like to TRIBBLE with people. Schrodi on the other hand, at least that universe’s version. She is on Q’s level...and she told us she believed what she called the Adversary was responsible for both the Heinlein and the Borg’s visit to that timeline. And that they were after all universes, not just this one.”

    “None of that was in your report on the incident last year.”

    Rhonda shrugged “Given what you knew before you saw that” she said , pointing at the images of the multidimensional being trying to convince Lisa Quentin to let it and it’s kin loose into the universe,” Would you have believed me? Plus, I dunno if it was Q or Schrodi-but that memory was blocked as well until I saw what Dave was trying to release.”

    Jesu closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead “No, probably not. Even as weird as things had been up to then.” He looked up at the AI’s by his desk. “Atticus, do you have access to the Kongo’s databanks?”

    “Their systems are not as advanced as ours are-and like many deep space exploration ships of that era, they do have historical records up to their last update, which is about six months past for them.”

    “Get copies of it, and send to Lady R’iorr. Ask her to see if she can identify if Captain McKnight’s timeline is in danger from the Masters. Hooper, I want you to go through it too.”

    Both AI’s nodded. “It may take some time-that is a lot to go through.”

    “Well I also have the damage report on the Kongo, so time we’ve got plenty of.”

    “How bad is it?” Evans asked, her curiosity piqued.

    “Nothing major-but it’s like any ship after a long term deployment. In this case, five years without major maintenance. Just a lot of little things that need to be addressed.”

    “I know how that is” Rhonda said as she sighed “some days I miss it.” Seeing the look on the Admiral’s face she shook her head “and no, I don’t know when I’m coming back, or even if. After what David did...not to mention Admiral Quinn.”

    “The undine that murdered Quinn” he said, that was the official cover story, ‘has been found guilty and is sitting in a Pentaxian prison. As for Huntington, assuming he’s ever sane enough to be tried...I know the best psychiatrists in the Federation are working on that.”

    “I honestly hope they don’t cure him Jesu.”

    That caused him to blink “why not?”

    “You knew him before the Borg right?”

    Jesu looked at the fishtank in the corner of this ready room, contemplating. “I did. We weren't close, mainly because we were stationed at opposite ends of the Federation. I was along the borders, and he was doing exploration missions, the Gabriel Bell wasn’t it?”


    “It was. I was in the medical department on the Bell, got put on TDY on a 22nd century Constitution class that we found stuck in a temporal vortex. Two weeks later, the Borg destroyed Dave’s ship, and assimilated him and the crew.” She sighed, resting her head in her hands. “I knew him from the day I arrived here-hell I broke his arms and nearly his back when he caught me. I was sixteen. And fell for him hard.”

    Jesu blinked again, as Rhonda chuckled “Oh I knew it was just a teenage crush, and he didn’t see me the same way. But he was a good man, the kind that people follow willingly into hell if necessary. When he was liberated from the Borg at Defera..things were different.”

    The Admiral simply nodded. What happened since then was well known. “I think I see why you hope he won’t be cured of his madness.”

    “Better he go through the rest of his life hating me, you, everyone for thwarting his plan to ‘save’ us from the Borg, than him be able to look at what he did through his old eyes, if that makes sense. As far as I’m concerned, David Huntington died the day the Borg assimilated him. What came back, wasn’t him.”

    The ready room was silent but for the sound of the atmospheric systems for a moment. “I think I see you’re point.” the Admiral said quietly. “And why a break from Starfleet is good for you.”

    “For me and this one” she said with a grin, resting her hand on her belly. “I don’t care what they say, Maternity uniforms are not comfortable.”

    “Ha, I’ll take your word for it.” He stood up as she did and walked her to the door “Just so you know, if/when you do decide to put the uniform on again, you’ve got a berth in ConOps.”

    “Medical or Command?” Rhonda replied with a smirk. “Ah’m getting used to being called Doctor instead of Captain.”

    “Why not both?” Jesu grinned “I’ve thought for a long time that we should have a dedicated medical ship.”

    “I’ll consider it in a year or five.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Part 6

    Transporter room, USS Tiburon


    “”Sorry to keep you waiting Rhonda said as she hurried into the transporter room. “Admiral LaRoca needed to talk to me about some things.”

    Captain McKnight just laughed “Getting in the way of plans, well that’s what Admiral’s do” she said as she nodded to the transporter tech “your delay helped me actually-got to postpone the interview with the reporter.”

    “I don’t like dealing with them myself-but over the last few months, Starfleet has really opened up about a lot of things publicly. Of course given that for the last decade or so Undine had been influencing things, I can see the sudden urge for transparency as a good thing.” Rhonda said as they beamed down to Starfleet Medical.


    “Woah,” Marsilla said as she looked out of the windows. It was San Francisco out there-yet it wasn’t. Yet more proof that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. She shook her head, if she was stuck here plenty of time for sightseeing later. “How do they even test for shapeshifters anyway?”

    “It’s a DNA test” Rhonda replied. “Which is why the Nighthawk got hair samples from your crew on the trip over. When undine shift it’s down to the DNA level, but there are enough markers in the proteins if you know what to look for, espeicaly in the g-stable quadraplex structures-” she saw the look on the canid captain’s face and laughed “Sorry, I tend to go into more detail than necessary.”

    “It’s alright, it’s just you lost me about ten seconds in.” McKnight smirked. “Dr Donsa on the Kongo has learned to keep it simple for me. Medical stuff isn’t my forte.”

    Nodding, Rhonda led the canidtaur into the sprawling complex. Captain McKnight got a few looks as they went through the corridors “So you got authorization for these tests right?” McKnight asked.

    “Well I mentioned it to Dr Espinoza, who’s the one doing my exam. She’s cool with it, she used to be the CMO on the Tiburon before she made Captain and got assigned here.”


    Dr Espinoza had more grey in her hair than the last time Rhonda had seen her. She greeted the pregnant Dr Evans warmly “It’s been awhile, how’s your son doing?”

    “He’s talking, walking and getting into trouble faster than I can keep up with some days.”

    Dr Espinoza laughed “Well that is his job at his age.” she smiled at Marsilla “you must be Captain McKnight. I’m Maria Espinoza” she said introducing herself.

    “Marsilla McKnight” the canidtaur replied “Dr Evans here said you may be able to narrow down where I came from compared to what we knew back a hundred years ago.”

    “Well we do know more about the galaxy and it’s races now. Plus we’ve information about the delta and gamma quadrant as well, which wasn’t know even thirty years ago.” Dr Espinoza led them into a room with a large scanner set in the middle of it. “Step in here please.”

    “Do I need to take my clothes off or anything?”

    “No, it compensates for that.”

    Marsilla eyed the large contraption as she stepped in between the scanners “do you have many species this large?”

    “Well it’s designed to be used on everything we’ve run into, Gorn can be quite large, bigger than you especially the females. Hold still please.” There was a click and a short flash of bluish light. “There, you can step out now.

    She did and flushed a bit as she saw the display “somehow that’s worse than being naked.”

    From across the room Rhonda just laughed “I know what you mean.” she said as the three dimensional full color image appeared on the display. “Ok, cross indexing-huh.”

    “What do you mean-oh.”

    Both doctors were looking puzzled “what is it?”

    “It’s just a couple weird things. You have TRIBBLE like most humanoids...and yet there are also teats along the underbody. That’s more than a little redundant.”

    Rhonda frowned more as more detailed data was displayed. “I’ve seen this before”
    “So have I,” Dr Espinoza agreed “where were you found again?”

    “In an escape capsule from a DY100 transport, why?”

    Rhonda looked at the data again, pulling up something else. “Did they ever do an indepth DNA analysis of you?”

    “Results were inconclusive, didn’t fit anything in the system back then. Why, what is it?”

    “You’ve 72 percent human dna, that was combined with as yet unidentified. Your species was engineered. And I can tell, because I recognize the handiwork. And I think I know by who, at least in your universe. Maybe they’ll be able to tell us more.”


    Paris, Denali Republic embassy, 1934 paris time

    The guard didn’t quite soil his trousers-but did reach for a weapon when he saw Captain McKnight. “Woah, what the hell?” Rhonda shouted as she and Dr Espinoza got between the Denali guard and the Captain.

    “I.. I’m sorry” the guard stammered, re holstering his weapon. “I just thought that she was a, uhm..”

    “A what?”

    It was a small embassy, being Denali was a small country. But Dr Espinoza had contacted the ambassador first..and he’d had the advantage of having seen images. “Stand down, Doctors, Captain I apologize. “ Chanan Singh was dressed casually, being it was after normal working hours, with a blue robe and a matching turban “I believe we may have some answers for you Captain, if you’ll follow me please?”

    He led them into the embassy, the staff there were mostly Denali-their large fox like ears making them look almost but not quite human. Like something out of one of those games Lt Stein played Marissa thought, following the ambassador. She noted that everyone who saw her stared, eyes wide, almost fearful? “What has got everyone so rattled?”

    “I will explain in due course” Singh replied as he closed his office door. “Please sit, tea anyone?”

    He had a steward fetch some, then sat down on the floor by Captain McKnight. “Where to begin. What do you know of our history captain?”

    “That you’re a lost human colony of augments, that had to adapt for a harsh world, and recently were screwed over is what i got from the short bit I read in the data nets. There is a ton of stuff that changed, from your history to mine, and honestly I didn’t have a ton of time to go too much into anything.”

    “Screwed over, a good term.” he shrugged “yes we were augments, scientists and diplomats who worked for the one who Earth history called ‘Khan.’ We fled earth after his exile, and ended up near the edge of the galaxy on a world that could barely support life without extreme measures.”


    Marsilla nodded, “that’s the gist of what I got from skimming the last hundred years of history.”

    “What is not covered in depth, is that there is indeginous life on that world. Ice Age megafauna. Predators that are larger than shuttlecraft, herbivores the size of a city tram car, and another race. Near sapient predators, that came close in the early days to wiping out the colony.” he brought up an image on the viewscreen in his office.

    Marsilla and the others stared at it. Six limbs, like most Denali wildlife. Except the first two were more hands...the upper torso upright, covered with bluefur and having long tails..”th..they look like me

    “Tundra Worgs we call them. Pack hunters, about as intelligent as chimpanzees are in relation to humans. And how this relates to you, I can not say.” He looked at the screen “I’m an ambassador, and before that I taught philosophy. Possibly why they thought i’d be good at diplomacy.”

    “Does this mean that in my universe, your people created me?”

    “we do not know, and can’t without more detailed testing. I have been in contact with my government, they would like you to visit”

    “Wait, that’s at the edge of the galaxy. It would take months for the Kongo to even get halfway there-assuming it’s even in any condition to go anywhere.”

    “Actually,” Rhonda evans replied “with the mk XII slipstream drives, about three weeks one way. WE had one on the Heinlein, it really cuts the time down.”

    “Nice, we only had a mk3 on the Tiburon when we went out there. Took us over a month and a half.” Dr Espinoza replied.

    She was conflicted. On the one hand..for the first time possible answers. And yet..she had responsibilities. “I need to check with my ship, and with starfleet.”

    “Of Course.”

    CNO office, Starbase one

    He wasn’t sure why the sudden summons. And he had a toddler to babysit. Fortunately when admiral cartwright called for him, there were ample volunteers to watch Michael. Right now he was safe with Commander McKosky on the holodeck in a petting zoo simulation, Mitch having six kids of his own knew how to handle them. “Captain M’Karret reporting as ordered sir.”

    “Have a seat captain. Something’s come up that I need you to handle in Denali.”

    M’karret frowned “Sir, I’m scheduled for Paternity leave in two months. It’s over a month just to get there.”

    “Three weeks-we’re upgrading the Nighthawk with the block 13 firmware on your slipstream drive. Normally I wouldn’t even bring it up-but they asked for you by name.”

    That brought him up “me? Sir, the last time I was there I ionized their atmosphere causing who knows what kind of long term damage.”

    “And probably saved their world, but that’s another issue. They won’t go into too much detail, but apparently they are having a memorial-which is why they asked for you, and any other survivors from the Reuben James.”

    “There’s only three of us left in starfleet, two of us on the Nighthawk, my XO and myself. Lt Commander Chen is on the Excalibur in the Delta quadrant.”
    “Yes I know.” which, being CNO of course he would. “Commander Chen is too far, and given his reply when we forwarded it, the idea of going back there involved certain anatomical impossibilities.”

    He didn’t laugh, but at least the Admiral didn’t seem upset. “At any rate, I can’t order you to go.”

    “But it may help with our relations with the Denali Republic.” M’karret replied, thinking .”I’d have to check with my boss first Sir.”

    “Admiral LaRoca has already signed off on-oh.” Now Cartwright did smile “Yes Captain, I heartily agree with checking with your wife first.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    The beast in me
    Is caged by frail and fragile bars
    Restless by day
    And by night rants and rages at the stars
    God help the beast in me

    The beast in me
    Has had to learn to live with pain
    And how to shelter from the rain
    And in the twinkling of an eye
    Might have to be restrained
    God help the beast in me

    Sometimes it tries to kid me
    That it's just a teddy bear
    And even somehow manage to vanish in the air
    And that is when I must beware
    Of the beast in me that everybody knows
    They've seen him out dressed in my clothes
    Patently unclear
    If it's New York or New Year
    God help the beast in me

    The beast in me
    Johnny Cash, The Beast in me








    Half a block from the Denali Embassy, Paris


    Both of the doctors were worried as they left the Embassy. Captain McKnight seemed slightly out of it as they left, but neither one knew her well enough to know if this was something they should be concerned about or not.

    Rhonda took the initiative. “Are you doin ok?” she asked, looking concerned.

    “Sure, I’m fine. Just fine…”Marsilla’s voice cracked “Here I thought that Admiral Marcus saw something worthwhile in my career...not just another genetic superman for his plots!”

    Dr Espinoza and Dr Evans shared a worried glance at each other as she continued. “It doesn’t matter, my career is over once Starfleet finds out-”

    “Starfleet won’t care.” Maria replied “Julian Bashir, Melissa Travis and the rest of the Denali-yeah it’s still illegal to do it, but if it’s done to you?” not to mention the Siegfried kids-but she doesn’t need to know about those until command makes a decision..

    “Exactly.” Dr Evans said “Hell look at me. My DNA has been redone more than I like to think about sometimes.”

    “It’s not the same! You weren’t created as a genetic superman-”

    As Rhonda kept trying to calm the Captain, Dr Espinoza stepped away for a moment around the corner of a building, tapping her combadge. “Dr Espinoza to USS Kongo.”

    There was a momentary pause as the transmission was routed ”This is Kongo, go ahead Doctor.”

    “I need to speak with the First officer about a confidential matter-”

    ”This is Commander Sytav” the voice changed ”How can I help you doctor?”

    “I was with Dr Evans when we ran some tests on Captain McKnight...it seems the results have shaken her pretty badly..”

    There was muffled andorian cursing from her combadge ”I have your location, it will take me two minutes to get to the transporter room. Sytav out.”

    Ninety three seconds later there was a familiar whine of a transporter. The commander looked a bit out of place in his old style uniform-though it was different enough, and undeniably starfleet.

    “Thank you for coming” Dr Espinoza said quietly.

    “What happened?”

    “She found out that her race was gene engineered-”

    “Well she half suspected that-not many hexapeds in the galaxy, and those that are aren’t biologically compatible with humanoids.”

    “-by a group that exiled themselves from earth, after Khan was overthrown.”

    There was a pause, then another very unpleasant word in Andorian muttered under the Commanders breath. “Great…” he stepped around the corner-his captain was getting more agitated by the moment. “Captain? Are you alright?”

    “Sytav..I have to turn over command to you, and you’ve got to put me under arrest.” Captain McKnight said, nearly in tears.

    “Wha??”

    “I’m tainted. Admiral Nogura was right-I am compromised by Admiral Marcus and his pet augment destroying half of San Francisco three years ago.” She was growing more agitated and distraught by the minute.

    “Wait. you were Cleared, along with six other officers. Admiral Marcus pushed your career due to your tactical ability, same as he did with pushing for Admiral Komak’s getting promoted from Captain.”

    “They weren't genetically engineered! They weren’t monsters who could rip apart Klingon warriors bare handed! They weren't related t-” there was a surprised squeak and a thud, as Captain McKnight fell over as if poleaxed-or as if Dr Evans had quietly injected her with a hypospray tranquilizer. Unfortunately she fell the wrong way…

    “Yeowch! A little help here?” Rhonda muttered, pinned under a hundred ninety kilos of canidtaur.

    “Ohmygosh-did she land on-” Maria said, fearing the worst.

    “No, just on my legs” Dr Evans grunted “but I still can’t get up.”

    Between the Commander and Dr Espinoza they managed to roll her off Rhonda “thanks..I probably shouldn't have done that-but she was on the edge of a full blown panic attack.”

    “We should get her to sickbay-but with the crew’s morale already low with our being possibly stranded here, getting her to there could do even more damage.” Commander Sytav shook his head and pulled out his communicator “can’t be helped though-”

    “Actually it can.” Dr evans replied. While not on active duty-she did have a com. “Dr Evans to Nighthawk”

    ”Nighthawk here.”

    “We need to transport Captain McKnight to sickbay on the Kongo.”

    There was a pause as the target was located. Rodger Doctor, standby. How many total need to be transported?

    “Three including her, at my location.”

    The Kongo’s XO was impressed“You can do that with transporters nowadays?”

    “Targeting resolution is good enough we could beam her into her own bed.”

    The andorian looked thoughtful “hope we get that technology sometime, we’ve lost a few crew over the years getting them from the transporter room to medical when critically injured.”

    ”we’re ready to transport Doctor.”

    “Energize when ready then Nighthawk, thanks.”

    Sickbay, USS Kongo

    Dr Racław Woźniak had seen a lot during his starfleet career. Having his captain, xo and two future doctors beaming right into the middle of his sickbay, wasn’t something he’d been ready for.

    Nor was he ready for his Captain showing up unconscious. “What in heaven?”

    “She found out some rough news” Sytav explained “the Doc felt tranqing her was the best option at the moment.”

    “Possibly-though I would assume that it must have been something pretty traumatic for her to lose her composure that badly.” Dr Woźniak said, as he, commander Sytav and Dr Espinoza wrestled Captain McKnight up on the larger than normal biobed in sickbay.

    “Is it true?” Sytav asked once the captain was up on the bed “that bloodthirsty followers of Khan may be the creators of her parents?” as Dr Woźniak checked her vitals then began bringing her around.

    “They call themselves Denali, after their world. Most of them were Sikh-Canadian, and mostly scientists, not warriors. They left earth after Noonien Singh, only they encountered a wormhole that took them almost out of the Galaxy on the -z axis.” Rhonda Evans replied. “I haven’t been there, but I’ve know a few.”

    “I have,” Dr Espinoza added “there were 63 million people there, the planet was trying to join the Federation before, well it’s a long story. The Federation was infiltrated, they were framed, and a punitive expedition was put forth-that was actually Terran Empire masquerading as Starfleet for the most part.”

    “I read some of that” the XO replied. “Just skimmed it really-was everything really so messed up with the Federation?”

    “They were infiltrated by both the Terrans, and the Undine. A race of telepathic shapeshifters. So a lot of it wasn’t us, if you know what I mean. Anyway, the Denali are augmented humans-but instead of being designed to be warriors, the modifications were designed to survive what was barely a class L planet. Similar modifications to what Captain McKnight has. If the same people designed her for some reason-it was not as a weapon.”

    “Then why was I made?” The captain had started coming out of the tranq-hearing was the last to go, and the first to come back. “Why am i stronger, why do i get angry so easy at times?”

    “The former, Denali does have higher gravity and lower oxygen-it is like athletes who train at high altitudes. When they’re in ‘normal’ conditions, they exceed the norms. As for the latter,” Dr Espinoza shrugged “could be many causes-including your MACO training.”

    Dr Woźniak checked her vitals. “Good eye on how much you gave her, “ he remarked to Rhonda. “Captain I have to agree with her sentiment. I’ve treated you for over four years-and as for aggression, you’re not even close to Andorians, or Irishmen for that matter. No offense Commander.”

    “None taken.”

    Marsilla sat up on the bed, rubbing her head. “What did you hit me with anyway?”

    “50ccs of Melorazine-seemed like a good idea at the time” Rhonda said “I’m sorry for that-”

    “Don’t be...It has been years since I had a reaction like that.”

    “Are you feeling alright Captain?” the Kongo’s polish doctor asked.

    “I’ll live Ruclaw. I still think I’m a security risk though.”

    “Unlikely” her XO replied “if you were programmed in some way-you would have been triggered when Admiral Marcus attempted to start his war.”

    “Which I still think may be inevitable. He was doing the right thing..but the wrong way.” she shrugged.

    Sytav leaned against one of the empty Biobeds “What was it that set you off ‘Silla?”

    Marsilla thought “the Denali asked me to go out to their world and visit them-they said they could help me, and I could help them. Though once I got outside and started thinking about it, I started going off the deep end there."

    “I think you should go see them.” he replied.

    “What? No, it’s not possible. I can’t leave the Kongo right now-”

    “Captain, we’re not going anywhere for months. I went over the full engineering report of the damage. It’s repairable, but even with the faster tech here in the 25th century, it will still take several months, and that’s just for the structural damage.”

    “All the more reason for me to-”

    “Doc, when was the captain’s last shore leave?” Sytav asked, even though he knew the answer.

    Ruclaw didn’t even have to look it up “three, four years ago, two days on Rigel.”

    “I don’t know how regulations are in your time” Sytav said looking at Dr Espinoza “but aren’t officers supposed to take more leave time than two days in three years?”

    “Thirty days a year, and holodeck time doesn’t count” Maria nodded. “Though it is generally hard to get one’s captain to take a break.”

    “And it was hard for me to justify taking one when I was a captain” Rhonda added. “Though nowadays with slipstream drives and the like, taking the time off and having enough time to go home is much more possible.”

    “There. And since we fall under Admiral La Roca’s command I believe until we find a way to return to our time, It would be logical, as the vulcans would say, to follow current guidelines would it not?”

    Marsilla muttered under her breath “ganging up on me, all of you. I see how it is.” she then cracked a rueful grin “I hear you. And we both know that chief Puro will be much happier if he’s allowed to do his repairs in peace. I still don’t know if I should take them up on their offer.”

    The Commander shook his head “I’m telling you this as my captain, and my friend. Go. See what they have to say. yes it’s not our universe-but if they think they can help you, then what risk is there in letting them try?”

    “None I guess...alright. But how do I get there?”

    Rhonda Evans grinned “I think I know who to talk to.”


    Captains Cabin, USS Nighthawk

    M’karret was not looking forward to this. He agreed with the Admiral, and also agreed that this trip might do him and T’beni some good, give them closure after that horrible day on the USS Reuben James over Denali, when they were targeted by what he thought was his own fleet.

    Explaining this to his wife on the other hand...He heard the door to the outer room of the cabin open-only one person had authorization to enter without asking. ’Hi honey, how was your day? Oh mine was good-and I’m going to Denali six weeks before our daughter is due…’ yeah, that will go over well. His wife walked in, looking troubled. “Everything ok?” he asked, his momentary qualms about his orders evaporating in the thought there may be a problem with their daughter…

    “With the baby? Yeah, tests came out good, she’s still a bit on the small size, but well within the standard percentile. Besides, it’s not as if I'm big boned to begin with.” Which was true, at only 1.6 meters, it was part of the reason why her son was a difficult pregnancy. “So how was Michael?”

    “We had fun, went to the holodeck, then I took him to the San Francisco zoo to see real animals. He’s napping now”

    “Wait you were down there? We could have had lunch-”

    “Lunch was tied up with Admiral Cartwright,” he said. Might as well get it out in the open. “He had a request for me from the Denali government…”

    “To go out there? Ties in with a meeting I was at with the Denali ambassador.” At his look she just chuckled “It was actually because they wanted to meet Captain McKnight. They think the Denali in her universe created her.”

    Good thing he hadn’t taken a sip of his tea-still he almost spilled it “what? But she’s not a humanoid.”

    “No-but a lot of the DNA and RNA in her is human. Mixture of northwestern north america and some definite indian subcontinent ancestry.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, groaning in pleasure as she got off of her aching feet. “So they want you to go out there, did they say why?”

    “Something about a memorial service for the Reuben James and the Warsaw crews. Also to ferry the new Ambassador. The Federation is now making it official and cementing relations with the Denali Republic.”

    “Who are they sending?”

    “Chadweil Oxenstierna. Used to be ColDev, was on Moab before it went indy. Tried to bring up what Colonial Development actually did that drove the Mobie’s away from the Federation, and was reassigned to be a cultural liaison for the Ssnpth.”

    “Eww..”

    He nodded in agreement. “Someone was trying to either punish him or force him to quit. He didn’t, and when Quinn died, and the undine were exposed, he was vindicated and offered a position somewhere with a climate he liked.”

    “Isn’t it still the TRIBBLE end of nowhere though?”

    “Not too bad nowadays with the Slipstream upgrades.”

    “So when do we leave?”

    He blinked “We?”

    “My maternity leave starts on Tuesday, I’m due sometime in the two months after that-it’s hard to pin down an exact date with our situation. After that, I know your CMO, she’s good, and she has a good ob specialist, and if anything they can’t handle goes wrong you’re going to a planet with some of the most advanced med tech in the galaxy. Of course I’m going with you. And so is Captain McKnight.”


    At his look she just grinned “We talked to Admiral Cartwright as well before I beamed back up here.”

    He surrendered and flopped onto the bed next to her. “Have I told you I love you today?”

    “Just today?” she teased , ruffling his ears.

    M’karret purred contentedly “Everyday.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Act 2 Part 1 Down the Rabbit hole

    USS Nighthawk, Hiromi Fifteen asteroid belt, near Cold Butte

    Captain M’karret wasn’t nervous. A bit concerned perhaps, but he knew who they were meeting for the trip to Denali. Somewhat. His cousin’s ‘sister's’… well that was a can of worms. Technically the same person, just from different timelines, whose minds merged when this universe's M’chelle Schrodinger was trapped in a FTL computer core running a quantum slipstream drive test on the USS Nighthawk.

    For a time, she was as powerful as a Q. Then she gave it up and in the process, brought several of her counterparts over. A few he’d met, the human looking one, Michelle, he got along with well enough. But the russian one, who joined the Denali SDF. there was something about her..he couldn’t put his finger on it, but she was extremely uncomfortable around him.

    And now they were waiting on her to show up. “Cold Butte traffic acknowledges, and asks us to hold 5k Km from the edge of the asteroid belt.” Lieutenant Ducasse said from the helm.

    “Thank you Lieutenant.” He frowned at the screen. They had to go to Denali. So why did Admiral LaRoca tell him to go to Cold Butte first? That added close to a week. At least his guests were not upset. But Starship captains tended to make bad passengers, so the legend went. Even when one of them is your wife.

    So far though that hadn’t been the case. His wife had spent most of her time in Medical, talking shop with his medical department. The other Captain on the trip, McKnight of the USS Kongo, had spent a good amount of time in one of the holodecks-something that didn’t exist in her time. Which wasn’t bad-and she didn’t over do it at least, unlike some of his crew.

    Even the politico on board, Chadweil Oxenstierna, wasn’t a problem. True, he wasn’t exactly welcome in parts of the Confederacy they passed through-but they weren't stopping there, so it wasn’t an issue. He kept to his quarters along with his wife, the two of them looking forward to his Ambassadorial posting.

    So why was he on edge? “Captain, we’re being hailed by SDF Vancouver

    Oh. That’s why. His ‘cousin’ from another timeline. She was always strange around him, almost guilty about something. He shook his head as if to clear it, maybe he was just getting old “onscreen.”

    She looked older than his cousin, if not from years, but experiences. Larger too, looking like a snow leopard, clad in the dark olive and black Denali Space Defense Forces uniform.. “добро пожаловать кузен.”

    “General Mishka Cherenkov” M’karret replied “it has been a while. Though I am wondering why we are here instead of Denali.”

    The largish spotted feline on the screen nodded. “It will be explained in time. Do not worry, you will get there soon, via a переход”

    “So we’ll be following you then?”

    ”Partially. We will lead you to the перемещение, then we have other duties. Two will need to ride with you however.

    Great. As if the ship wasn’t crowded enough with passengers. “Fine, transport over when ready. Nighthawk out..”

    “Are you ok Captain?” T’beni asked, the vulcan’s hair this week a light mauve. She'd served with M'karret long enough to read his moods.

    Now his frustration was showing. “No. I mean yes, I’m ok, it’s just an annoyance is all.”

    “Transporter room reports three beamed aboard, General Cherenkov, a human and a Klingon.”

    No sense in putting it off “T’Beni, you’ve got the con. I’ll go meet our guests, ops, have quarters assigned to them.”

    “They’ll be set up by the time you get to the transporter room.”

    Happiness as a captain, was a competent crew he thought as he took the lift down two decks. She was just as he remembered, taller than him by at least ten centimeters. She saluted as he entered the transporter room “permission to come aboard?”

    “Granted” he replied, looking over the other two. One he thought he recognized, one of the sons of Koldor, maybe Khurok? Maybe D’ward? the other he definitely knew. “Been a few years Hunter. What brings you to these fields?” god please don’t make a mess

    “That it has Captain,” Ahn ‘Hunter’ Cu’ong, of house Riorr replied. “My Lord asked me to escort Colonel Khurok, Son of Koldor, to his new posting on Denali.”

    The young klingon grinned “It wasn’t one that was wanted to be honest by many-but my father saw value in that world, as do I.”

    M’Karrett knew it would be a mild breach of protocol with most diplomats. With Anh, though, it was very nearly a private joke-and in the presence of her Klingon client, an expression of confidence. “Weapons check?” he asked, looking straight at Anh, managing to keep a straight face.

    She sighed, “Of course, Captain, could you… ah… have someone bring a cart, Captain?” she smiled at the Security officers, “It could take a while.”

    “Nevermind. I trust you’re not going to add to my morgue… It’s good to see you’re well.” He added, “I take it your Lord and Lady no longer need your service as a bodyguard?”

    “Well with him being a General and the head of a growing house now, he needs more ships. So I’m going to look over a couple Raptors we gave to Denali under lend/lease after I get the Colonel there. With the Denali republic having a lot of ex-Terran empire ships on hand, they’ve decided to standardize with Federation sourced designs. With the way Klingon environmental control systems work, it is a perfectly rational idea. Klingon designed ships can never really be cool enough to be comfortable for them.”

    “Ships should make their crews tough,” Khurok said with a laugh “But even klingons have difficulties at temperatures that the Denali find tolerable.”

    M’karret nodded “I never landed there, but it’s colder than I’d like. If you’d follow me please, we’ll show you to your quarters. General Chernkov, if you’ve got a moment, I’d like to talk to you before you return to the Vancouver.” probably wasn’t the best time-but for some things, there wasn’t a ‘good’ time to do it.

    She looked apprehensive, and for a moment he thought he saw shame in her eyes-before she nodded “Da, there is time.”

    “Excellent.” he’d have to consult with the Ambassador, with this many people on board representing two different governments, some kind of formal-ish dinner was probably inevitable.


    Captain’s Ready Room, USS Nighthawk

    The colonel and Ahn were safe in their rooms, they had holodeck access and replicator rights. The cooks were happy at least-mess specialists in Starfleet usually had little to do-it was only on the bigger ships that might hold diplomatic functions that actually had them assigned. While there was much a replicator could do, there were some dishes that needed an artist's touch.

    As the door shut, he offered the snow leopard looking felinoid a seat as he took his own. “I’ve got a couple questions.”

    “I thought you might” she replied, still standing.

    “We’re supposed to go to Denali. Even at slipstream, that’s two to four weeks, depending on how efficient the drive is and how long we can keep the stream active. Yet you insisted that we come here first-which adds a full month to the trip. Why?”

    “The Colonel needed transport-”

    “Nyet” he replied, using one of the few Russian words he knew. “The Klingons could have happily carried him there themselves. And no way Ahn is going to bring home a raptor by herself. She’s good but she can’t man a dozen stations at once.”

    She said nothing. “Then there’s the insistance from your government that my wife comes along. Who’s in her eight and a half month of pregnancy. True Caitians usually go ten months-but she’s not Caitian. You are potentially putting my family at risk, and I want to know why.”

    That seemed to break through her cold facade for a moment “That is not our intent, but it is necessary.”

    “That’s not good enough. Maybe it is for starfleet, but not for me.”

    “I would never do anything to harm you again-”

    “Wait.” He stood up, his tail thrashing a bit “What do you mean again?”

    Mishka sighed, as if in pain. “Я не хочу пережить эту память…”, she said softly, her eyes faintly glowing in the manner that his cousin’s did - when she was conversing with her quantumly linked ‘sisters’

    “...это не то, чем я горжусь.”

    M’karret couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation-but from the looks of it, Miska wasn’t happy. Her eyes faded back to their normal golden irises and she sighed. “How much has Schrodi told you of my background?”

    “Little to none actually - you were from a timeline where the Russian’s were more dominant.”

    “Not Russians. Soviets. In my Earth’s history, the capitalists lost the cold war, and the forces of socialism spread through the stars, trying to forge a way to true communism within our lifetimes. Cait was annexed in the late 2100s, by the time I was born, there was the State. That was all.” She looked out the window of the ready room windows, at Cold Butte in the distance. “These worlds tried to go their own way, and were crushed. The Klingons tried to help them-but they had enough to deal with on their own.” She looked down at the deck. “You must understand. That when one lives one’s entire life in muddy water, that becomes your world. Traitors had to be eliminated for the good of the Party. And, when I was a Young Pioneer, I had caught my older cousin… with contraband reading material..”

    “You turned him in.” Me. Turned another me in...

    She nodded. “It was years later, when Schrodi had the Quantum Core incident that linked us, that I even realized that the State I was serving was wrong, it’s goals, wrong, and I was wrong. Everything I have done since then, since coming to this timestream, is to atone for my choices.” She tapped a finger against the Denali SDF patch on the uniform shoulder “I protect instead of terrorize. I defend Denali, instead of committing genocide against the Romulans.”

    “Wait-what?

    She simply smiled sadly. “To the Party, the Borg were living examples of true communism. A deal was struck, where our enemies would be assimilated, and eventually, we would too. Except for Party members of course.” At his stunned look she shrugged. “It was then when I was awakened. Almost the entirety of the Romulan Star Empire by then had been assimilated. And I knew, unlike the Party - the Borg would not stop there because we were communists like them.”

    “So how did you stop them?”

    “Filled the Hobus sector with Omega molecules - then when the entire collective was in range, set off the Iconian gate. The blast destroyed them all.”

    At his horrified look she simply laughed without humor. “I told you the first time we met, at your wedding. I am not a nice person. It was necessary - and it will allow the Klingons and others in my original timestream to resist the Soviet - and hopefully find better ways.” She looked him in the eyes. “Your coming to Denali with your family is necessary in a different way. Where before I was awakened, I was death. Now, there is a chance for a real peace. And I will die myself before risking any more lives. I have killed enough.”

    “That doesn’t explain why we’re here.” M’Karrett finally said, “I mean, that’s all good moral reasoning, but why here?”

    She flicked an ear, and licked her nose, “Because, is fastest route to Denali.”

    Now he knew what his wife meant when she said sometimes talking to a Schrodinger ‘made her brain hurt.’ He rubbed his head. “Fine, when do we see this short cut of yours?”

    “Tomorrow morning. Your crew needs to be rested and ready. It is not an easy journey, and they must not get distracted.”

    Tomorrow. Fine. “All right.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry if I snapped at you earlier.”

    “No, you had every right to. Too long, we have run roughshod over people, doing what had to be done without explination. The immediate danger however is past us, the Orion's 'Gods' were locked out at Starbase 132. Now it is time for to be more calm.” She smiled “Besides, is rough time for you as well, with new малышка on the way. Have you picked a name yet?”

    “Rhonda’s leaning towards Melissa.”

    Mishka gave the first real smile he’d ever seen from her. “Missy Travis would have liked that.”




    Aerie, USS Nighthawk

    Some ships simply called the space ten forward. Others, tended to give it a name that matched the ship-the lounge/restaurant area on the lower portion of the saucer section, with expansive views forward. While most cabins had replicators, and there were mess areas about the ship ts well-sometimes people just liked to be around others.

    Even after being back for almost a year from his, well, exile with the Ssntph. No sense in beating about the bush. After having been seen as ‘losing’ the colonies in the Hiromi sector when Moab III and other worlds allied with the Empire, his even staying in the diplomatic service wasn’t expected. Nor was him pushing for full investigations into shady deals by certain elite in the Federation, who could stand to profit if those colonies had been evacuated. Instead he was shipped out to be the ambassador to a race that had recently made first contact.

    It took the Undine infiltration to be proven at the Moab peace talks, plus the arrest of Admiral Taylor-Smythe for attempted murder and conspiracy to send many a bureaucrat scurrying into retirement-and for Chadweil Oxenstierna to be recalled from the edges of known space and recognized for what he at least tried to do.

    Of course, he mused ironically as he waited for his wife to return to their table, now he was being sent even farther away. But this time, by choice. Denali was another world that had almost fought to get in to the Federation. Only to be betrayed by Colonial Development, and a Federation that had been infiltrated by it’s enemies. Now they were defiantly independent-but as a full Ambassador from the Federation, acknowledging their independence, hopefully he could help undo the damage that had been done.

    “Now there’s someone I never expected to see again.” The voice was familiar, and very surprised. Almost as surprised as he was when he turned his head “Anh Cu’ong!”

    “Glad to see you made it safe Mister Oxenstierna.”

    “I wouldn’t have if not for you and your people. I know about the assassination attempt you prevented on Mars.”

    “Three of them actually” Ahn replied. It had been several years ago, and Ariel had gotten word that the former colonial development Adminstrator of Moab III was targeted. They protected him both out of necessity, as not to be framed for his death, and because he was one of the few who had stood and argued for them in Paris.

    He blinked then chuckled “not surprising with the rot that was uncovered when you people left the Federation. Do you know what happened to Mira?” he inquired about the other girl that was his guard while in the then rebels custody.

    “She’s working for the Pentaxian Dynasty is all I know, she’s doing good though.”

    “I see you’re with the Empire now.”

    She looked down at her uniform “It was kind of necessary at the time, and please keep it to yourself.” Truth be told...the ones that knew she was still alive and the same as the former Confederacy diplomat who was ‘accidently’ executed on Facility 4028. Technically, part of her thought, she needed to kill him for operational security. But that part was overruled. The man, despite being hamstrung and fed false information by Colonial Development, had tried his best to help her world. Trust in other people needed to start somewhere. “So you’re going to be the new ambassador to Denali? Isn’t that a bit of an exile again?”

    “Not when we asked for it.” his wife announced, “Chadwell, Honey, who is this?” Dame Oxenstierna was like her husband; tall, blonde, and distinctively nordic.

    “This is the girl who kept me from being taken by Orions, dear, it was before we met.”to Ahn he introduced her “this is my wife, Vigids.”

    Her expression immediately softened “so you’re the one-or one of them anyway.” She smiled “I knew him before his assignment to Moab. To be honest, I wasn’t interested in him. He was-”

    “The very model of a modern pompous bureaucrat?” Chadweil replied with a smirk. His wife rolled her eyes and punched him in the shoulder lightly.

    “Yes. it was not until he returned and attempted to uncover the conspiracy that had been deep in Colonial Development for years, that I fell in love with him” she said with a smile “when he fought for what was right, not just what the regulations stated.”

    “Not that I did much good” the Ambassador griped.

    “You did plenty of good.” Ahn replied. “Because even when you can’t win-the fact you stood and tried despite all that, is something to respect.”

    “Taylor-smythe didn’t think so...I hear he was implicated in the assassination attempt on me in 08.”

    “Three.” Ahn replies

    “Eh?”

    “Three attempts. We stopped two of them, an..acquaintance of mine stopped the third one.” She owed Drake for that, among other things.

    “Why would the Confederacy have done that?” Vigdis asked.

    “One, self preservation. We would have been obvious suspects, and two-he was one of the handful in the Federation who understood why we did what we did-and tried to make things right so other worlds wouldn't get screwed over like we were.”

    “That much I managed,” Chadweil replied, “in the last few months anyway. Colonial Development is no longer a separate agency. It now falls under the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. If a lost colony is found, instead of a paperpusher showing up telling them how they need to live to meet our standards, SCFE will ask them what they need from us.”


    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    USS Nighthawk Cold Butte System. Approaching Asteroid D57

    A good night's sleep always helped, Captain M’karret thought as he watched the stern of the Avenger class SDF Vancouver on the viewscreen ahead of them. He felt better than he did the day before, he’d be glad when Rhonda finally had their daughter.

    She was on the bridge as well, good thing the Nighthawk’s bridge was a good size. Because Captain McKnight was there as well as Colonel Khurok and Ahn. The three women however weren’t just passengers. Being that Miska hadn’t told them they couldn’t scan wherever it was they were taking them, some of the auxiliary stations were powered up.

    “I think they’re taking us to the large rock ahead” Khurok muttered softly from the jumpseat where he was sitting.”

    “Confirmed,” Lieutenant Cedric Ducasse verified from the helm “She’s leading us in to that asteroid ahead.”

    “Internal volume is close to the size of Spacedock one.” T’beni raised an eyebrow. “Which is unusual. To hollow out a cavern that large in an asteroid the size of Ceres, would be a major multi year undertaking.”

    “Unless they used a marcus affect device.”

    “No,” his wife said from the secondary sciences station. “Protomatter leaves detectable residue, there’s none.”

    No spacer likes taking a ship into a confined space. But either they trusted the SDF, or they didn’t. “Continue to follow the Vancouver Mr Ducasse.”

    “Aye sir.”

    At least they didn’t need lights. While it wasn’t as well lit as Starbase one, it was more than bright enough. “Whats with the walls?” McKnight said as she scanned them “it’s almost like it’s a solid carbon nanotube extruded structure.”

    “That’s impossible..”Commander Zelah, the Nighthawk’s science officer, shakes her head, the andorian leaving the main station to check McKnight’s readings. “No...you are right” she said “but it is still not possible with our current technology to make such a surface of one piece..”

    From the Captain’s chair, M’karret had a thought, and glanced back over his shoulder at his wife, mouthing the word ‘schrodi’?

    Rhonda nodded silently. Not doable under ‘our current technology’. They both knew that M’karret’s cousin had access to tech from alternate timestreams. He made a mental note to talk to his cousin the soonest he was able. Not that it would probably do much good.

    “What the hell..”The helmsman blinked “Sir...it’s a dead end.”

    “Huh, that’s strange....” Anh “Hunter’ was leaning over Lt. Simmons’s shoulder looking at the sensor returns. “Is anyone besides me noticing that there’s too much stored energy here in that nice, uniform carbon-nanotube surface?”


    “Considering who probably built this?” M’Karret replied, visions of mad scientist cousins filling his mind. He shook his head “where is the power coming from? And any word from the Vancouver?”

    “It seems to be concentrated in the arrays along the walls and ceiling of the cavern...oh.” T’Beni blinked as those arrays began to pulse with sequential lights, slowly at first and then faster.

    “I’m picking up something...some kind of spatial rift is forming..”

    ”Nighthawk, this is Vancouver. Follow us. Once we are through, it is vital you maintain a visual and sensor lock on us. Best to stay with in five kilometers.”

    Captain M’Karret looked at his helmsman who nodded “Easy enough” Ducasse replied, locking nav sensors on the Avenger class. “Rodger Vancouver” he replied, his own eyes widening a bit as a bluish white vortex formed between the arms of the array “Why do we have to stick so close?”

    ”Because without proper navigational equipment, you would never find your way back out. Let’s go.”

    “She’s moving ahead, half thrusters.”

    “Stay with her Mr Ducasse.” he said, calmer than he felt. There was a momentary feeling of nothingness, then the view outside changed. “What the hell...where are we?

    “I don’t know. It’s not subspace, or a pocket dimension like fluidic space.” his science officer replied. Outside, the light seemed to flicker and dance, the only thing that was even remotely visible was the reassuring bulk of the Vancouver.

    Anh stared out at it, and whispered, ”Fascinating.”





    “You can call it that,” Rhonda replied, “it’s making me nauseous.”

    Ahn just shot Dr Evans a grin “everything makes you nauseous these days. That's why i’m never gonna have kids.”

    Rhonda rolled her eyes “That comment made me nauseous.” she said with a grin.



    It was a tense few hours, the shifting lights outside had started to give people headaches when the Vancouver signaled again. “This is where we leave you.” General Cherenkov transmitted “proceed through the Gate ahead, you will be approximately three days from Denali on slipstream” .

    “Rodger Vancouver, where you you going if you don’t mind my asking?”

    ”We need to study this more, to see if it’s usable to more locations. I believe it is-but first it needs to be mapped, so one will know where points between here and normal space intersect.” on the screen the spotted Feline grinned ”otherwise one could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova.”

    M’karret had seen that ancient film. “That would end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”

    ”Da. До свидания cousin.”

    The Vancouver pulled away, and ahead of them was another of those pylon assemblies like they had passed through in the asteroid back in cold Butte. “Take us through Mr Ducasse”

    Moving forward, there was a momentary feeling of dislocation, then the viewscreen snapped back to an almost more normal starscape. Part of the starfield wasn’t visible, as if a cloud had obscured something ahead, and a about fifty kilometers ahead was a station close to the size and design of Spacedock One at Sol, complete with yard facilities. “Ok, where the hell are we?”

    “Moosejaw Nebula” Commander Zelah replied “It’s a dark nebula, between the Empire and Denali. Closest settlement is a Klingon colony at Ragesh IV.”

    “We’re also getting nav beacons again, Klingon.” Ducasse said from the helm.

    “Well they are the only ones who had major trade with Denali so it makes sense” M’karret replied.

    “Where did they get the station from?” someone asked, one of the new-ish ensigns at one of the engineering stations.

    “It used to belong to the Terran Empire. It wasn’t here-my Cousin managed to use their transference engine against them, and shift it over to our universe.”

    “How the hell did they manage to capture something that big?” Ensign Heidt asked.

    Ahn answered her “Because the Terrans had gotten used to using slave labor for support roles-and when we helped them take it from their former masters, they had Looking Glass along as well.”

    “And we’re being hailed by the Station.”

    The Captain sat up straighter “onscreen.”

    It wasn’t a Denali, the human who looked back at them wasn’t modified for harsh environments. He wore the olive Denali SDF uniform, and his scarred face smiled at them. Something he probably didn’t get to do much in his previous life, working for the Terran Empire. “Nighthawk, this is Colonel Murnau. Welcome to Firebase Zulu. How was your trip through the rabbit hole?”

    “It was..interesting.”

    ”I can’t stand it myself, rather take the long way when I have to go up into the main part of the galaxy. While I’d give you the nickel tour, I know you’re expected back home in a few days.”


    M’karret had been briefed, and he knew the story of how some of the Terrans had turned on their leaders, and joined the Denali after the destruction of Vancouver. He personally didn’t think he’d have been as easy to forgive as they had been-but from Murnau referring to it as home, he guessed he did see it as a second chance. “Maybe on the way back Colonel.”

    Fair enough. You’re cleared to Denali, safe journey. Murnau out.”


    “You heard the man, Mr Ducasse, set course for Denali.”

    “Course set...you know there must be close to two hundred starships out there.”


    “All but a dozen are hulks” Zarah replied from sciences “many damaged, a few just powered dow-”

    “WAIT! What’s that one there?” Ahn was almost fallen out of her chair as she caught a glimpse of a silhoutte, nothing special, just a Miranda class, with a black hull however. “It.it can’t be her…”

    She turned to the station she was sitting at and pulled it up big on the monitor. “No..it’s not the NX-86.”

    “Another Ex terran, ISS Jabberwock it says on the hull” Ducasse reported “completely inert, no life signs, no power signatures. Probably scrap like the rest of them.”

    “Curiouser and curiouser...I know which ships the Terrans disguised as Starfleet Vessels” Colonel Khurok muttered. “and I know which ones were supposed to ‘rescue’ the denali from ‘Starfleet’. That one was not there at that time.”

    “More questions to ask when we get there.” Captain M’karret shrugged “Mr Ducasse, engage slipstream for Denali.”

    Leaving the mystery of the Black Miranda behind, the Nighthawk opened a quantum tunnel, and disappeared.

    Holodeck 2, 2 days from Denali

    Even with Quantum Slipstream drives, it was still a four day trip. It was still better than the nine days it would normally take under warp, but Rhonda was getting cranky. She thought she’d be able to give up being a Captain, and concentrate on being a doctor and mom instead. However the last few days on her husbands ship-his command style was different, and she found her self feeling the urge to meddle. Add in pregnancy hormones, and that could be a dangerous combination.

    Hence her retreat to the holodeck. The water was warm, it soothed her aching back. The Onsen program was a popular one, the water just the perfect temperature, the zen garden outside the springs soothing, and this time she’d set it for female only, with one exception. Her almost three year old son napped on a towel by the edge of the spring as she relaxed in the waters.

    She had other company as well. Fortunately the spring was large, as Marissa McKnight’s longish centaur like lower body taking up one whole side of the pool “you know, I don’t care that the water’s not real. If I can’t get back to my own time I won’t mind as long as I can have one of these put on the Kongo

    “I’ve used Sonic Showers,” the other woman in the pool replied “And I agree, they suck. when you’re on a place with not much water like Moab III, bathing like this isn’t an option sometimes.”

    “First time I was in one of these, I thought it was something like that planet in Omicron Delta that Jim told me about.”


    “Jim?”

    “Jim Kirk” Marissa replied, sighing contentedly as she settled down in the water.

    Ahn sat up “Wait you knew James T Kirk?”

    “Knew him? I dated him” McKnight replied, her tail splashing water at Ahn teasingly.

    “No way!”

    “Yes. Well the first one wasn’t so much a date, it was during the memorial service for those killed when Admiral Marcus’s ship was crashed into San Francisco by Khan.” She shrugged “not exactly date material. We went out a couple times before he left on his five year mission, and I went on mine. It was different back then.” she said, looking at Rhonda “Captains didn’t get married-because it wasn’t really fair for a family to wait half a decade or more before you got back. If you got back.”

    Anh chuckled, which turned to a giggle.

    “What?”

    “There are stories about James Kirk. The Klingons have this comic-opera…it’s called vav qIb.”

    vav qIb?”

    “Father of the Galaxy.” Anh giggled, “Dahar Master Kor had it commissioned after the Khitomer treaty. One of the best songs from it starts off with majQa' rur qIrq! Qo'noS charghwI' be'! ('ach Qo' bach 'e' DalIjchugh chugh vaj biHegh) and it goes on to detail this warrior’s efforts to match majQa' law' conquests qIrq! (but don’t forget your shots!)” Anh’s giggle-fit subsided, “if you hear the phrase ‘Kirking it up’ or kirking 'oH woDDI' it’s because of Jim Kirk’s legendary method of diplomacy. He’s lucky he died when he did, or got nexus-swallowed or whatever, because it kept his many TRIBBLE children from finding him... Which is what the opera’s all about, one of his Klingon TRIBBLE gathering a group of his other illegitimate children to hunt him down and hold him to account. One of the running jokes is, that the band of vengeful offspring keeps getting bigger, and stranger.”

    Marissa’s expression was confused, and slightly offended, “He wasn’t that bad...Jim was a perfect gentleman every time I met him, on or off duty.”

    “Maybe yours wasn’t.” Anh allowed, “But it doesn’t stop the opera from being hilarious if you speak th’lingan-Hol with enough ability, and you can still fill a dance hall on most Klingon colony worlds if you can get the local censors to allow you to stage it.”

    “Why would that be censored?”

    “Riots after the show got bad a few decades ago after its first revival.”

    “Heh, you think that’s bad” Rhonda replied. “My brother had a production of the stage show version of the Lion King in th’lingan-Hol and Ferasan.”

    “Oh my. When did he do that, and I’ve got to see it.” Ahn replied.

    “Just a couple months ago. It’s really kinda clever, the adult parts you can’t tell what they are, but the kids are played by both Ferasans and Caitians, and they switch from night to night. Personally i think the Ferasan young Nala has a better voice.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,275 Arc User
    that gateway device they used as a shortcut to denali sounds a lot like a B5 jumpgate​​
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #LegalizeAwoo

    A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
    An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
    A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
    A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"


    "It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
    "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
    Passion and Serenity are one.
    I gain power by understanding both.
    In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
    I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
    The Force is united within me.
  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Later that evening, VIP Lounge, after somewhat too much food and drink…

    “I’ll be honest-we didn’t know much about the Klingons in my time.” Marissa said thoughtfully. “They usually shot first and spoke later. I’ve engaged two D-7’s along the border, backing up Enterprise, but that was pretty much a draw when they retreated to their side of the neutral zone.”

    “I’ve fought against them, and alongside them, and frankly, I’d rather be with them than against them.” M’karret replied.

    “You get used to the culture, and before you know it, you realize they’re just like us.” Anh commented, “like what things might’ve been if our first contact was a hostile invasion, and imagine if the ‘age of discovery’ from Archer’s time...was chasing an enemy that infests and destroys-they fought a three hundred year war from their first contact, until the H’urq...that’s the first ones, were driven from the quadrant, and only after that did they run into the races you and I know.”

    “What?” marissa was a little surprised.

    “Two books for you to read, K’Ragh got one of them removed from the ‘banned’ list.” Anh told her, “there’s english translations but both of ‘em work better in th’Lingan-Hol...lemme see if I’ve got digitized copies…” she digs into her pocket for a PADD. “The one by B’Sanos is probably the one you want to read last, read Foolish Notions first.”

    Anh handed the PADD to the Starfleet officer-from-the-past.

    “Foolish Notions?” Marissa asked.

    “Lord K’Ragh earned the nickname ‘The fool’ before he reached academy age, because he questions...well, pretty much everything and some of the answers he finds run face on into conventional wisdom for Klingons.” Anh explained, “He was one of the architects of the Klingon offensive to ‘evict’ the Federation from the Hromi cluster, General B’Sanos was the other, and they kinda ‘shared’ a way of looking at the world...until K’Ragh had to kill his best friend to save the Empire from civil war.”

    “Why?”

    “He won’t tell me.” Anh said apologetically, “but it was bad. Bad enough that two men who’d spent decades covering each other’s backs had to wrap it up with an honor duel on Boreth, after which K’Ragh adopted B’Sanos’ entire House, placing his heirs under protection, and he still won’t let anyone speak ill of his dead friend...he even got B’Sanos’ banned books off the blacklist.”

    “How did he do that?”

    “Simplest way, he suggested anyone on the High Council who didn’t vote to release the bans would have to face him in single combat to the death.” Anh noted, “He said it while standing over the broken body of a Ferasan warlord he’d brought to the edge of death with his bare hands...he’s a short little guy too, I can look him straight in the ridges.”

    “You know him then.”

    “Yeap. Lord K’Tirr’s my House lord, but General K’Ragh is technically my boss, and he’s got big ties to Cold Butte, Moab, and Arluna. He’s the leader of the combined Border Fleets, and with B’Sanos gone, he’s technically ‘lord’ of the Klingon possessions in the Hromi sector.”

    “And he wrote a book...one you say is good reading.” Marissa noted.

    “Uh-huh. He’s a historian.” Anh explained, “in addition to being a general, a leader, the possible future husband of the First Minister…”

    “Odelaw?”

    Anh stifled a laugh, “No…Debbie Mac, the Assembly and the Council of Governors have agreed that they can use a couple precedents, to keep her in office if she tries to step down after her term-limit as Governor of Cold Butte expires. She was spittin’ mad about that, didn’t want to stay in office after her term’s up, but as long as people vote her in, she can’t step down from running if she’s nominated, and Lizzie didn’t include a term limit for First Minister-probably because Governor Tran expected to be dead before it came up.”

    “EW. ‘President for life’?”

    Anh shrugged, “Liz Tran was Terminal, she only had like five years left before her nervous system would collapse.”

    M’Karrett filled in his colleague, “Not sure if they have DNSS in the ‘verse you’re from, but it’s fifteen percent of Moab III’s population are born with it-stage three is typically an agonizing death if your loved ones don’t put you down before it destroys your mind. Tran was in stage two before Fek-day.”

    “This is all new to me-no, we don’t have...that.” Marissa stated. “And the info from the Challenger that found the Moab Colony, well they tend not to worry so much about details like that in the reports.”

    M’Karrett glanced at Anh, who asked, “What did the preliminary report say? Did it mention average lifespan?”

    “Not really-but we were more compartmentalized back then. Starfleet was exploration, and defense. Corp of Engineers, Medical division, they all pretty much were separate. So that probably was covered -but not in the general info.” she thought for a moment, swishing her tail “I think the Challenger was still under the United Earth Space Probe Agency, they were even more bureaucratic than what replaced them.”

    Anh chuckled. “Our people’d already established New saigon, but average lifespan on Moab when Challenger arrived was thirty six earth years, in a tech level about mid 21st century. DNSS was a big part of that-thirty percent of the population then were born with it.”

    “It’s good, actually, it’ll probably burn out in the Moab population in a couple more generations, though with the death of Jian Kwan pushing the Federation Council over, they might lift certain research bans on humans, so it could be sooner.” Anh noted.

    “Who’s that?”

    “She’s an artist...was an artist, also a patient at one of the big medical facilities Starfleet runs.” Anh explained, “They were trying to find a cure, she lasted eighteen weeks in Stage three before organ failure finally finished her-they kept trying things right up to the point she died.” she shivered, “the recordings are f*cking chilling. Even with her pain receptors turned off, the rest of it was just more pronounced. The seizures, the way her higher functions collapsed… hell of a way to go, really, especially since she wound up there because she was at Son Tay with us.”

    “Son..Tay?”

    “We pulled six hundred people out of an Undine interrogation/imprisonment complex in Fluidic Space. Three hundred of them made it to Risa with us, the rest died along with half our force on the way out.” Anh explained, “Lance Corporal Jian was an Assaultman on the mission, that’s breaching and heavy weapons, personally responsible for saving fifty lives during the rescue, and she died sh*tting herself and spasming uncontrollably with her higher functions falling apart...because she volunteered to let them study the progress of the disease and test treatments. The sad part is, they really didn’t learn anything they didn’t already know from the reports by both earlier Starfleet medical, and the Cardassian relief doctors after Fek-day.”

    Marissa was horrified, “that’s horrible...didn’t anything Good come out of it?”

    “Yeah. this time Jian made a rep as an artist, so when a certain Bajoran Captain went to Bajor and Cardassia’s reps to the Federation, it was with the same video, and it got the Federation Council off their TRIBBLE and got them to overrule Earth’s restrictions on recombinant DNA medicine-they can actually push forward on a vaccine to end the defect. Any luck, and this will be the last generation that has to get a scrip for fursnake venom to say goodbye when they hit third stage progression. This’ll be the last generation born that has to face the certainty of an agonizing death from that...it also means the Rec party has a real, solid reason to push for a rapprochement with Earth.”

    “Starfleet wouldn’t allow them to hold such a thing hostage.” Marissa stated.

    “Nope, they wouldn’t-but getting that restriction lifted means a lot.” Anh stated, “The Empire’s working on a cure too, and they’re closer, but Starfleet Medical has a reputation, and the fact is, the Empire’s doctors are more oriented toward treating existing conditions, the Fed is better at preventative measures. Between the two, maybe this generation won’t need the Mercy shot either.”

    “Denali’s got a programme too.” Rhonda Evans noted.

    “Yeah, but imagine...the three nations can combine their data now.” Anh stated, “along with anyone else who’s working on, or worked on, something similar. There’s a lot of hope and optimism going around, what with the civil war ending, the renewed Alliance, acknowledgement of Denali and the Romulan Republic...things are getting better than they were when I was organizing other high-school students to fight under Rabbi Moskowitz.”

    “Who were you going to fight?”

    “Orions, Starfleet.” Anh said, “For the first few months after we declared independence, we half expected to be looking down the barrel of a Federation punitive expedition, with only moral support and guns from the Klingons, or worse, that the Klingons would void their promises and just invade. They didn’t. We wound up making our international bones with a series of daring operations that never quite put us in direct conflict with the Federation.”

    “Not ‘quite’?” M’Karrett asked.

    “It’s going to be declassified at the state of the confederacy hearing next monday, but I was on the team that extracted Janey Qua from Starbase 24.” Donald Odelaw noted,

    Anh nodded, “we sabotaged the station just enough to get in and out, but made damn sure the crew could get the systems back u p with minimal effort. General B’Sanos wanted to Embarrass General K’Hugh and let enough of Starfleet survive that the Undine we killed on that station would be evidence to help push the peace faction forward in both nations...it was a limited success.”

    “A...limited success? That station almost fell!”

    The Colonel laughed “It did not-because your wife-” he said, raising his mug towards Rhonda, “Warped into General K’Hugh’s formation in a Galaxy class heavy cruiser, with less than half a kellikam clearance. She then dumped every torpedo magazine and mine, and even a few antimatter pods, then warped out to a point a few light minutes away.”

    “You did What!?”” M’karret was incredulous, his mouth hanging open.

    “Hey your cousin plotted the course for me to fifty seven decimal places. And yeah I know a Galaxy isn’t meant to take on that many targets-but I had the Dauntless and the Raven backing up the Agamemnon. And I know Jesu was inbound as well.” She shrugged apologetically “I just had to TRIBBLE them off, and keep their attention until the defenses came back or the Cavalry showed up.”

    “It was a thing of beauty, she got inside his shield bubble. You don’t know, Ronnie, I got to see it when we were pulling out. Frigate 14 was the last to lift-we were front row for that move, Peri Wahlberger even snapped a pic for the yearbook we didn’t make.”

    M’Karret just rested his head in his paws “I picked the wrong day to have syntheol.” He got up to pour himself something stronger while his wife just laughed.

    Anh grinned, and pulled out a flask, “Here, have some booze. And anyway, back to my story,” she said impishly, “The 24 Op was limited because we were pretty sure the infil’s corpse would be enough to push things ahead-”

    “But then Alcott couldn’t get it unburied from whatever classified hole the evidence was dumped into.” Rhonda contributed.

    Anh nodded. “-So we had to mount Son Tay, and we couldn’t let anyone on your side know until we were on the way back with the packages. Starbase 24 was also the op that got K’Hugh replaced, and B’Sanos was able to use behind-the-curtain strings and K’Ragh’s contacts to get the Armistice rammed down the High Council’s throat at a time the Empire was winning.

    “Won’t that cause problems?”

    “Yeah.” Anh stated, “K’Hugh was K’Lek’s oldest boy, heir to the house, and their House took a hell of a hit from the clusterf*ck at 24, they really haven’t recovered from that, just like Terrath didn’t recover from the Cursa raid. It’ll probably reopen the Woldan/K’Lek feud, at least, in the shadows since K’Ragh is Woldan’s third son and wasn’t set to inherit jack squat...but K’Ragh insisted that Debbie acknowledge the Confederacy’s role and honour the troops that went, especially with Janey dead. She was killed by a bomb hidden in one of the bodies brought back for processing from Starbase 132.”

    M’Karrett digested that. “What? WHY?”

    “I don’t know. It’s political.” Anh said, “but my guess is, because we need to underline that aside from ripping our own guts out, we’ve always fought against the real enemies-the Undine, the Fek, the Masters, to reassure the neighbours we’re not going to do something like that again, maybe. Or maybe it’s just to rub K’Lek’s nose in how much of a f*ck up it was to let his boy indulge in racial politics in the face of a real conflict. The son of a targ set us up to be captured or killed by Starfleet, he edited the intel info he gave Mouse to put us in a position to be killed, we used our own intel people to plan our mission, because his data was bowdlerized.”

    She paused, “And maybe, to remind the Federation that they want us ‘on-side’ again, because we were never their enemies. Captain MacKnight, I swagger because my people, we’ve done the impossible more than once, and that makes us a mighty fine friend to have, as the Denali can attest. When we pulled the Starbase 24 op, we had five operational warships and maybe half a division of Marines available, of which we sent one company, when we hit the Son Tay objective, it was with 24 light Frigates, the Norgh class Bird of Prey, and we lost ten, but we pulled off a mission Starfleet gave a 5% chance of success with their best ships and men.”

    M’Karrett snorted. “we could have done it, under Alcott, if we’d gotten the go-ahead.” he stated, “Kanril had a plan that would’ve cost only forty percent casualties.”

    “Yeah, but that’s a mission you couldn’t have taken.” The Klingon Ambassador stated, “You were tied up fighting Klingons at the time, and uncle K’ragh was perfectly able to keep your fleet very busy.

    “THe cease-fire.” M’Karrett noted. “We could have done it then. Assuming we ever got clearance.”



    “Starfleet didn’t approve it because the casualty risk was too high, and the odds of success were too low, even with Kanril Eleya’s plan, which is a piece of brilliance they should be teaching.” Anh stated, “I’ve seen it. Brilliant stuff, Peri Wahlberger called it a piece of art, it should be taught in every academy in the quadrant...but even that one violates the ten-percent rule.”

    Marissa was fascinated, “The ten percent rule?”

    “If your ‘acceptable casualties’ exceed ten percent, it’s usually a bad plan.” Anh explained, “We took pretty close to fifty percent casualties getting out of there, and ten percent going in, and the odds of success were less than ten percent. Kanril Eleya’s plan was better than ours, but not that much, and Starfleet would’ve lost most of a company of MACO on the ground, we lost one company of infantry, and that’s without the gear MACO has-but we had gear that was specific to the mission that Starfleet still doesn’t want to have, much less use.”

    “What kind of gear?” Marissa asked curiously.

    M’Karrett stepped up, “guns, firing undepleted metallic uranium bullets, for one, Quantum entanglement commo gear that can’t be intercepted or detected, squad level networked sensor systems with augmented reality overlay visors, you guys didn’t have the full-on powersuits, but I’ve seen some of the gear recovered off the BoPs that were salvaged at the Gamma Orionis transwarp gate after the battle there, lots of ‘nifty’ and ‘dirty’ tricks that weren’t allowed for our guys, or weren’t purchased, or weren’t developed.”

    “Exactly.” Anh stated, “There’s also the training differences, Marine training back then, was based on MACO-Delta’s training regimen, not exactly ‘regular’ even by Klingon standards. Our force for Son Tay was functionally similar to sending a couple MACO Delta teams in...then losing one in combat.”

    “You didn’t tell her the other part.” M’Karrett said cautiously.

    “She doesn’t need that many shocks.” Anh stated.

    “Goralis.”

    “I was on Earth for that.” Anh reminded him, “but yeah, we weren’t really ‘elite’ within the organization at Son Tay. The guys who went to Goralis, now…they were an elite unit. We sent our best to the Rift, including the best vets from Son Tay and 24, I swear, Ngoc shouldn’t have had to go into the hole, we lost our genius, our best man closing that.”

    “Suicide??”

    “In a manner of speaking.” Anh stated, “Nova Schrodinger-K’Tirr showed me the math once. He’s still burning, he’ll be burning after the heat-death of this universe, but he and she decided it was better than genociding an entire dimensional ecosystem filled with intelligent, albeit enemy, life. So he rode the bomb in, left his wife pregnant with their only kid behind, so he would burn in a perpetual, time-looped explosion that also eradicated most of his alternate and parallel selves.” she opened a flask, and poured a little on the deck, “Those alternates of him? Got to die, at least, if there’s any justice in the afterlife, they’re in heaven, because he chose Hell to save the rest of us….and he knew it at the time.” she took a sip of the drink, and winced, “Like some kinda bible story or something. The Tripods seem to think so too, they basically stopped trying to overthrow this side of the divide, and they’re trying to make nice now. His wife, Betty, she’s got a damn Tripod that follows her around like a damn butler.”

    “You clearly don’t approve.”

    “No, I don’t.” Anh said, “It’s a personal failing of mine, I can’t forgive them for what they did to us, or for collaborating with the Masters against us instead of coming out and asking for help, and there are a lot of people like me who can’t...maybe just ‘won’t’, I mean, the peace is nice, but those TRIBBLE…” she shook her head, “I can’t let it go, I won’t do anything to break the peace, but I won’t forgive them for what my people, and the peoples around us, went through, and I know a lot of Gorn and Klingons who feel the same. The war in Hromi lasted almost ten years, billions of people were displaced, the Tripods tried to destroy Betazed entirely, they almost took down the whole damn quadrant at Goralis...then there’s the attack on Earth, and on Qo’noS, and...I can’t forgive them for the billions killed or displaced, for making us do what we had to do...or for what they made Ngoc have to choose. Betty’s a better person than I am on that score, I guess.”

    “You don’t exactly have a spotless record yourself.” the Klingon ambassador pointed out, “What was it you did before your people declared independence?”

    “I killed people.” Anh stated, “From the age of twelve until the age of...well, really recently. I cut a man’s throat in his own bed a couple times even. One of Haganah’s Azrial, angels of death, sending people to g_d’s judgement on an expedited ticket. I killed Pam Bentine’s abusive stepfather when she was recruited by The Movement, a few others who needed killing for victims who couldn’t get justice, a few others who were ‘untouchable’ by the law for one reason or another. Someone ratted me to Federation security with enough evidence to get me sent to 4028, where a Tripod’s reprogramming put the whole facility on ‘kill Anh’ mode. I got out because the ISIS system isn’t programmed with assassination in mind. If it had been, I’d have been dead before the rescue team arrived.”

    She took another sip, “and maybe that would’ve been a just and fair outcome, but it didn’t happen...anyway, I try not to kill people anymore. It’s a lot easier, because Lord K’Tirr doesn’t need an assassin and General K’Ragh doesn’t work that way, the Confederacy’s officially ‘retired’ the Azrial category and the new Michael doesn’t like wet-work, and besides, my ‘cover’ is permanently blown after what went down on Earth, so I’m free of those obligations. I even get to visit the psychiatrists once a week to help deal with all the emotional TRIBBLE from a life of bloodletting, battle, brutality, and murders. The only part i can’t do, is make full restitution for my many sins on behalf of others.”

    “Sins…”

    “Yeah. “thou shalt not do murder’. It’s right there in the book.” Anh stated, “I did murder a lot, and there’s no absolution for it. Not even the soldier’s absolution of ‘maybe I missed’, because most of the ones that trouble me, were too up close, too personal, too certain it was my hands, and my heart, that did it.”

    “How do you...live with it?” Marissa asked.

    “Lots of antidepressants, some alcohol, and striving to be a better protector than I was a killer.” Anh stated, “Oh, and frequent visits to a shrink to help keep my head screwed on straight and prevent the inevitable ‘ate a bullet while drunk’ scenario. Wetwork TRIBBLE you up if you’re not already a psychopath.”

    “What if you are?”

    “Then you’re me at age sixteen.” Anh stated, “that me would cheerfully gut a person, wash her hands and go out for a jero-juice bubble-tea and frystrips between classes. I’m not her anymore....”

    “So what happened?” Marissa asked in morbid curiosity.

    “Ngoc Trung took a hit for everyone, and he’s still burning alive-how can I possibly justify not trying to be a better person?” Anh asked, “how can I justify being a selfish TRIBBLE, when a guy I went through training with, is going to spend eternity in agony to save everyone else? It kinda changes the scale, don’t it?? Our petty squabbles turn meaningless in the face of that kind of sacrifice.” she adjusted a sensor, “I mean, it’s not like some distant would-be prophet being nailed up for telling people to be nice to each other and pay their taxes back in the bad-old-days, it’s a guy I personally knew stepping into the inferno for everybody, even our enemies, because it’s the right thing to do. There’s no ‘fair trade’ for that, there’s only ‘do your best for everyone’ for that, or maybe ‘don’t make it meaningless’.”

    “How will you do that?” M’Karrett asked.

    “Protecting the right people, mostly, and maybe killing anyone who breaks the peace he helped make.” Anh said it without looking up, “it’s what I’m good at, after all. Not really made to be a mom...”


    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User

    Captain's Quarters, USS Nighthawk, even later that evening.


    “Drink some more water, otherwise you’ll feel that real booze in the morning.”

    Sometimes being married to a physician had it’s downsides.”yes dear,” M’karret replied with a bit of sarcasm, getting a laugh and a pillow tossed in his general direction. He downed a glass then popped his head into what would usually be a meeting area in the Captain's Quarters-his son was still sleeping peacefully. Purring happily he stepped back through the door and sat down on the edge of the bed.

    “You’re not upset still at hearing about Starbase 24 are you?”

    “Heh. I wasn’t upset before, just, well, it’s not quite fitting with the image you tend to put forward.”

    “It’s in my records, you could have checked them if you wanted to know what I was doing while you were tied up in the Hiromi sector with Kanril’s crusade.”

    He just shook his head “your war stories are yours to share when you feel like it. And I was just more wishing” he said as he fell backwards on the bed next to her “that we really could have used you at Cursa.”

    “Alcott tried to get me actually. LaRoca too. Didn’t know till later that Quinn purposely assigned me elsewhere.”

    “Why is that?” he asked

    Rhonda shrugged “I dunno. It was weird though. The last time I saw him, was during the hearings over Starbase 132. A lot of what happened had suddenly been classified, to be honest it was parts I’m kinda glad they did...anyway I was cleared, and I started the paperwork to go inactive. He asked me to stop by before I went down to Earth to finish the paperwork.” she played idly with a strand of her hair as she remembered. “I reported, he wished me luck..then thanked me. “

    “For your service?”

    “No..that’s the weird part. For singing an old song, he’d overheard me one evening while some of us from the Heinlein were in the arboretum on Spacedock one . He said it reminded him of what was important..”

    “What song was it?”

    “Just an old one from the 21’s century that I grew up with..” she sang it softly, so as not to wake her son.
    Was it loneliness that brought you here
    Broken and weak
    Was it tiredness that made you sleep
    Have you lost your will to speak
    Was the earth spinning round
    Were you falling through the ground
    As the world came tumbling down
    You prayed to God what have we done

    Free me from these chains I need to change my way
    Heal these broken wings I need to fly far away, far away, far away

    Was it emptiness that made you weep
    No more secrets to keep
    Was it bitterness that gave you time
    To forgive your sins
    Was the earth spinning round
    Were you falling through the ground
    As the world came tumbling down
    You prayed to God what have we done

    Free me from these chains I need to change my way
    Heal these broken wings I need to fly far away
    Free me from these thoughts long forgotten down below
    Take these angel's words give them life to carry on, carry on, carry on
    Free me from these chains…



    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    Arrival
    Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
    In a world of magnets and miracles
    Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
    The ringing of the division bell had begun
    Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway
    Do they still meet there by the Cut
    There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
    Running before time took our dreams away
    Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
    To a life consumed by slow decay
    The grass was greener
    The light was brighter
    With friends surrounded
    The nights of wonder
    Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
    To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
    Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
    Dragged by the force of some inner tide
    At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
    We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world
    Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
    There's a hunger still unsatisfied
    Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
    Though down this road we've been so many times
    The grass was greener
    The light was brighter
    The taste was sweeter
    The nights of wonder
    With friends surrounded
    The dawn mist glowing
    The water flowing
    The endless river
    Forever and ever
    Pink Floyd, ‘High Hopes


    USS Nighthawk, Entering Denali orbit

    “Correct me if I’m wrong Sir...but I thought this world was in an ice age?”

    “It was.” at least several years ago, the last time Captain M’karret had seen the world. Of course to be fair, at the time he didn’t have a lot of time for sightseeing on that trip-his closest view of the planet was while going to warp in the planets Atmosphere, ionizing it badly enough that the Terran Empire troops masquerading as Starfleet could not beam down to the planet’s surface. At the time it seemed like the only alternative. After hearing about the orbital bombardment of the capitol with everything from phasers to Thaloron enhanced warheads...maybe landing would have been the lesser evil.
    He pushed that thought from his mind. Second guessing oneself never got anywhere but chasing their tail. Yet while there was still ice, there was a hell of a lot less of it.

    “I’m confirming, average surface temperature is seven degrees, for this time of year it should be below zero near the equator.”
    “Getting downright nice groundside.” Anh pointed out, “Not quite as nice as, say, Equatorial towns on Cold Butte like Frasier, but it’s pretty close to late spring in Yellowknife down there. Only thing you gotta really worry about, is whether the ice got rotten.”

    “You talk about Cold Butte like it’s home, weren’t you from Moab?”

    “Born and raised.” Anh confirmed, “Home is where you want to be as much as where you’re from. I kind of fell in love with Cold Butte when I was investigating a slaving ring. Cold Butte is home because I like it there, it’s not loaded down with memories and other baggage...but the people are enough like where I grew up-the positive parts, mostly, but no ghosts there for me.”

    M’Karrett understood immediately about ‘ghosts’ as the appointment with Denali grew closer.
    “Standard orbit Mr Ducasse.”

    “Aye Sir.”

    He straightened his tunic out of habit “have they hailed us yet?”

    “Coming through now Captain actually.”

    Good timing then. “Onscreen.”

    Coquitam, Denali

    “Are you sure you want to pursue this course?”

    The woman being asked was human. Human technically “it is the right thing to do. Her existance is proof of a theory that i almost pursued after our arrival.” Dr Ranjit Kaur seemingly was in her mid fifties, a bit of grey starting to show in her dark hair. Truth was much stranger. True, time in cold sleep didn’t technically count, but it was still over four hundred years since she watched Noonien Singh’s dream turn to nightmare.

    “The Federation won’t like it.” The other woman also looked human, but wasn’t, nor was she from this universe. Michelle Schrrodinger found her self fitting in well in Denali, along with other scientific minds who didn’t quite fit in with the previous political climate in the Federation.
    “Can they stop us?”

    “Well, no.”

    Dr Kaur looked out the window. It was still visible from here just over the ridge. The grave of over four million people, contaimated by Thalaron residue. True it hadn’t been the ‘federation’ who fired the bombs, but it was the Federation that had pushed against them for years, that had sterlized anyone from their world who joined Starfleet, who had thousands in the streets of Paris, san fransicco and a dozen other cities screaming for her people’s destruction. She looked the other direction where construction was still finishing up. General travis had it right. They’d work with the Federation, and the other governments in the galaxy. Never for them.

    “Then, if she agrees, we proceed.”

    There was a knock at the door “Dr Kaur? The Nighthawk as arrived.”
    l
    Michelle looked at the augment woman. “Well, might as well get this show started.”

    Coquitam Denali. Transporter station

    Blue light shimmered-the coloration wasn’t strictly necessary, any more than the Klingon Empire’s standardized ‘red’ transporter beams-it wasn’t really an artifact of technological need, as much as ‘safety convention’-a blue-shifted warning on behalf of Federation safety engineers to warn persons to stand clear of the incoming matterstream.
    Six figures materialized, right on time.

    The Klingon Ambassadorial party was first off the pad. Anh was decked out in ‘mid spring’ Cold Butte fashion, while the Ambassador, he was more sensibly dressed for the climate, in water-shedding furs over woolens and leather.
    “Ambassador.”

    “Lady Doctor Kaur, It’s a pleasure to be here.” he smiled.

    “Are you trying to show how tough you are, Anh?” Michelle cracked.

    “Weather report says it’s springtime in Yellowknife out there.” Anh shot back, “I’m good with that kinda weather, eh?” Anh reached into her jacket, and pulled out a bottle, “Besides, I brought summat to keep everybody warm, ya know?” her imitation of Debbie Mac’s speech pattern was hilariously close. “I mean, it’s too warm for Hockey, eh?

    “If she starts talking about Poutine I’m going to throw up in my mouth-just a little bit...I take it you’re also repping for the Cold Butte government?” Kaur asked.

    “Nah, our ambassador’s already here.” Anh said, “i’m bodyguarding His Excellence here...which is mostly fetching his papers and having a weapon handy for him to use.”

    “Not as needed nowadays to be honest, it seems many of the more dangerous predators are having problems adapting to the change in climate of late.”

    “We noticed that,” Captain M’karret replied “I know you had applied in the past for federation help in teraforming, but they shut you down.”

    “Ironic as it’s the attack by presumed Federation forces a couple years ago t hat did it. Thalaron radiation, while the lethal effects fade rapidly, also have a disruptive effect on the atmosphere.”

    “Yet another reason why the Empire willingly signed the treaty banning such weapons, in addition to the other factors.” The Klingon ambassador stated. “War should be between warriors, not those we are sworn to protect.”

    “How bad is it?” even out of starfleet, Rhonda was still a scientist.

    The blonde human looking woman shrugged “not as bad as it could be, thanks to the second warhead going into a mountain instead of airbursting. We estimate that you’ll feel right at home ambassador, the climate will end up stablizing closer to the scandanivan area on Earth.”

    “Still that’s not what your people are used to, “ the new Federation Ambassador said.

    “We are very adaptable, as history has proven.” Dr Kaur replied “We will survive, as we have so many other things.” she led them outside, to where ground vehicles were waiting. “If you’ll follow me, you’ve arrived just in time. We have something to show you all.”

    Aerodrome, outskirts of Vancouver ruins

    The city in the distance was abandoned. It was found that Thalaron radiation tended to linger inside structures, not at fatal levels but enough to cause issues. So most of the former capital was abandoned, damage still visible from the Terran Empire’s attack. This area however was just past the range, the aerodrome was still in operation, ships of both Klingon and Federation make in various stages or loading or unloading. Well, at least Federation designed…

    “Those are Terran copies of Danubes aren’t they?”

    Michelle nodded “Good eye Captain,” she said “they’re not as efficient but they do lift more.”

    “Slower too.” Ahn added.

    “True, but for the job we use them for, doesn’t really matter.”

    They rode in the ground car for another few minutes, a large structure, covered by opaque projected holo screens looming closer. “That’s where the Khan statue was isn’t it?”

    “The one that Federation Colonial development paid for?” Dr Kaur replied, slightly bitter “The same. We’ve found a better use for it.”

    Anh snorted, “I actually liked that statue.” she shook her head. “It was like giving the pricks in paris a big, middle finger, and the artist did a great job.”

    Chadwiel looked at her open mouthed, “You understand the political ramifications of that statue-the Historical baggage?”

    Anh shrugged, “It was a good looking statue, of a dead guy.” she said, “that’s all it meant to me. Now, if it had been Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Li Dam…” she paused, “yeah, I guess I see the problem, I just don’t really want to see it.

    “We were duped into believing that It was what Earth wanted, and it would bring healing.” Dr Kaur replied. “We wanted to belong, and I could see the logic in it. Still, it’s new purpose is much better.”

    “I thought most of it was destroyed, replicated into other things?” Captain M’karret asked.

    “The exterior facade, the internal structure, well that we found another use for, as you shall soon see.” The bus pulled up to a small viewing area, there were Cameras there for news orginzations. “Captain M’karret, we will not be beginning for a while, and if you choose not to take part I fully understand..”

    “What are you talking abo...oh my.” He could see it now, close to 350 meters long. Smooth grey hull..even the markings were the same-on half of the ship anyway, probably a decomissioned Terran copy, the detached anylitical part of his brain thought as he got off of the bus and looked up at the Saber class escort mounted on a plinth.

    His wife was right behind him, eight and a half months pregnant or not. “M’kar? You ok honey?”

    His eyes went to the plaque, and the names engraved upon it with care. Lt Jennings, helmsman. Lt Commander Bomarito, enginnering, and all the others from the Reuben James..The Captain of the ]Warsaw, Mike Collins and his crew were there also...he absently noted that the starboard half of the Saber was painted as the Warsaw.

    Anh looked at the plaque, then she walked up, and ran a finger over it. “Real Heroes.” there wasn’t a hint of her usual snark. “This is good. Kinda like what we put up in Memorial Park after they finished clearing Canh Tho.” She looked up at lettering in an unfamilar script. “What does that say at the top?”

    “Through selfless service, eternal peace is obtained.” Dr Kaur said quietly. “It is a quote from Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji”

    “It...It fits.” M’karret stood there quietly “and is similar to a Caitian expression. “The most peaceful rest, comes from serving others.” He let out a breath, his fingers tracing over the names of his crew. “We...would have done more if we could have…”

    Anh rounded on him, “don’t do that.” she snapped.

    “Do what?”

    “Wallow.” she almost growled, “it dishonors them...it dishonors you. What you guys did, it took more than you’re letting yourself believe. It’s easy to ‘go with the flow’, follow orders when you know in your gut they’re wrong, it takes stones to do what’s right, and so what if it’s a little late-trust me, that thought you were just having?” she fixed him with her eyes, “It doesn’t go anywhere good. You’ll waste the sacrifice if you sit there playing ‘coulda-shoulda-woulda.”

    Rhonda was glad Ahn was saying it-saved her the trouble. “She’s right, and I’ve been burying friends and teammates since before the Rikti wars in 2007. You do what you can do, and trust in God for the rest.” She said, resting her head on his shoulder.

    The Caitain slid his arm around her. “You’re both right.” He turned to Dr Kaur and the other Denali citizens. “Thank you for this.”

    “Their story needed to be told, because sacrifices forgotten, tend to need to be made again someday..and speaking of which….here’s what we did with the rest of the statue of Noonien.”

    They looked over as the opaque holograms faded out. It was a statue, but instead of an early twenty first century warlord…”it’s a good thing she’s dead, because she would kill someone over making a statue of her.” Rhonda muttered with amusement.

    “I think it got her pretty good” Ahn replied, looking up at the fifty plus meters of General Melissa Travis. “Looks kinda like the big statue in Russia, in where was it..”

    Ambassador Oxnestra had seen the one she was thinking of. “Volgograd. The Motherland Calls it is called, except this one has a rifle instead of a sword in her hand.”

    “Lever action Winchester. I’ve seen the original.” Rhonda said “It belonged to her father. At least she’s in a uniform and not some kind of flowing gown.”

    “Oh like she’s not already going to haunt you guys over this already.”

    “Bah.” the Klingon ambassador said dismissively. “Only those in Grethor haunt the living. She is in Sto ko vor, I was honored to have fought against her in the war. She is one of the few in starfleet who earned their way there through her deeds in battle.”

    Anh looked at the statue silently, a grim expression on her face. “The great ones never make it, do they? They always leave the rest of us behind.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



  • knightraider6knightraider6 Member Posts: 396 Arc User
    (Sorry bout the delay. RL has gotten in the way lately)

    Next Day, Coquitlam Denali


    For political theater, it wasn’t bad. More of a memorial ceremony than anything, they weren’t even expected to say anything. Both M’karret and the Federation ambassador did however, as did Ahn, surprising even herself. She may have not known M’karret’s crew on the Reuben James, or the Warsaw’s crew-but she knew Missy Travis well enough to get choked up abit.

    As did many of the Nighthawk crew. Some of them had known Travis ever since the War with the Empire, when she was just the first officer. M’karret had authorized as many as wanted to permission to attend the statues unveiling-which ended up in a bar, drinking and toasting fallen friends.

    She was feeling it as she exited the quarters the Denali had given her to use, almost running into two very un-hungover individuals. Rhonda Evans, who couldn’t drink due to her pregnancy, and Captain Mc Knight, who had stood watch on the Nighthawk so that everyone who wanted to could attend the memorial, and toast their fallen friend and former Captain.

    “Good morning!” Dr Evans said cheerfully.

    “Auggh..not so loud.”

    Rhonda just shook her head and pulled out a hypo from a pouch on her belt. “hold still. I did tell you all to have plenty of water before I went to bed…” she said.

    “I forgot about that.” Ahn muttered as the hypo hissed, visibly relaxing. “That’s much better, at least the contents of my skull are going to stay inside my head this morning.”

    “You’re welcome.” Rhonda replied. “Where are you off to this morning?”

    “I was asked to stop by the parliament building, along with the Ambassador and your husband. Though I was going to get a run in before that.”

    “Just make sure you’re armed-the wildlife may be having problems with the climate shift, but they’re still dangerous they say.”

    Ahn just grinned “I’m always armed. Even when I don’t look it.”

    Evans laughed, as she and Captain McKnight headed out to meet their ride.


    Runabout Meramec

    It wasn’t an iceball here, wherever here was, an hour flight from the city. No, it was definitely warmer, and there was mud everywhere. The human pilot led them along a pathway of raised planking towards a large building, while apologizing for the mess.

    “...there never has been much in the way of environmental impact studies of orbital bombardment with Thalaron weapons. The folks here have banned them, and back home, they didn’t give a TRIBBLE if you’ll pardon the expression.”

    “Back home..you’re Terran then?” Rhonda asked.

    “Not willingly. Was from a colony called New Vegas. We had left earth when Khan was taking over, and the Optimum movement was solidifying it’s hold on earth. Vegas was a bit of a hellhole, but it was ours, and the Empire didn’t know we existed for a time.”

    “I see what you mean by not willingly then,” Captain McKnight said.

    “Yes Ma’am. It was the choice between serving, escaping to the Klingons, or dying.” He looked grim at the memory. “Or watching your family die. Hostages are a tactic the empire loves.”

    “I thought the Klingons were at war with the humans, after conquering them for a time.”

    “They were at war with the Terran Empire Ma’am. We lived near them since the 1800’s, thanks to our ancestors sleeper ship passing through some temporal anomaly. They didn’t dislike us as a race-they just hated the Earth government as much as we did,” he said, as he led them inside. “Dr Kaur is waiting for you, if you’ll excuse me?”

    The two women nodded, as the young Lieutenant went back out to the ship. Marsilla’s nose wrinkled “something smells…”

    “Rotten in denmark?”

    She shook her head “Not figuratively, literally. It’s familiar. I can’t place it though.”

    “Your sense of smell is better than mine, I’ll take your word for it.” Rhonda commented as they stepped into the room. Dr Kaur turned when they entered, looking tired. “Doctor, Captain, I’m glad you came here.”

    “I am curious why you invited me all this way,” Captain McKnight said “you said last night that you’d explain this morning, how you think you know ...about….my…..” she trailed off, her eyes going wide, and the fur on her tail and lower body poofing upwards, as she saw one of the medtechs behind her. It was a small biobed, the kind you might use on a child, but from the scan projected above…”hexaped...like me…you weren't exaggerating that you created me.”

    “When I said I know your origin, I was not exaggerating. It was something that in those first chaotic years after our arrival when I fought to save the few survivors, to adapt us to this world I had considered..but did not prove necessary in the end. In you timeline however..”

    They looked down at the small pup in the biobed, blue fur same as Marsilla, same taur like body…”in your timeline, you were uplifted.”




    Parliament Building

    M’karret wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted to talk to them about. He and Ambasador Oxenstierna were just asked to be there at 1000. Along with the Klingons evidently. “Colonel, Ambassador.”

    “I see they want you along at this as well.” Colonel Khurok said, looking slightly hung over. Unlike humans, the Klingons wore their hangovers with pride.

    “Not sure what the reason though,” Ambassador Oxenstierna replied, as they followed the human aide into a briefing room. As they entered they saw a frowning Ahn waiting for them.

    “Something wrong?” the colonel asked.

    “No-I just thought I saw someone who was supposed to be dead.” she said with a shrug. “But it was probably someone who just looked like them. I know Dahn is dead-his ship was destroyed at Son Tay.”

    “It might have been him-Son Tay didn’t happen in our timeline-Janeway exterminated the Undine.”

    They turned at the new voice, and both Ahn and Chadweil both turned white, the older ambassador fainting dead away and would have hit the floor if not for the reflexes of Captain M’karret.

    There were several figures at the opened door, many in Denali SDF uniforms, the Governor Racelle Kincaid, dressed in a blue Sari, and a human woman in a powered wheelchair.

    Elizabeth Tran, former commander of the Black Fleet, grinned from the chair. “I love making an entrance.”
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein

    "he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."



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