Bravo on another wonderfully done installment. Although, Vash is usually the more impulsive of the pair, in this instance having her be the more cautious makes perfect sense and fits with canon. She is an archaeologist and in the episode Captain's Holiday she stopped Picard from just handing over the Tox Uthat to the Vorgon criminals who had attempted to steal it in the first place. In canon, Picard does not have the best track record with archaeological artifacts having been involved in the destruction of an Iconian gateway, a Promellian battle cruiser, the Stone of Gol as well as the Tox Uthat. In my stories dealing with the Picard/Vash pairing, I have Vash referring to these as his litany of archaeological sins. Again, the author has utilized the Vash character perfectly here. Love this! Warmest Wishes, Whoa Nellie
I just couldn't wait for the weekend... CHAPTER NINE Joe stood near bye as Seven worked on the portable emitter. “Can you fix it?” he asked. It was the third time in an hour he’d asked that. She looked up from the Briefing Room table. “As I have explained,” she replied with a sigh, “The components are extremely aged. I am replacing what I can with newer parts but this technology is still far in advance of what I have to work with.” She paused for a moment. “To answer your inquiry- I don’t know. If I had peace and quiet I might be able to reconstruct the damaged circuits. It is taking all of my concentration to determine the pathways and resistance of electrical flow needed.” Joe opened his mouth and then shut it again. He wandered over to the window and stared out into the great black. Seven continued her work in silence. Joe hummed arias in his head. ************************* The chip didn’t fit neatly and Joe had to play around with the connections for quite a while. Had he been human, he would have needed to rest but his power source was good for several days before he needed to recharge. He kept at it. Eventually, he had what he thought was a clean link between the chip and his IHP. He picked the padd up once again. Examining the instructions, he tapped basic commands into the IHP. Then he pulled the connection from the Everlite, severing the tie between battery and bulb. In the darkness, after sorting out the voltage and ground lines he separated off half of them and hooked the other half into the chip, directly, according to the instructions Daniels had left. The additional power made his presence glow, like an angel out of legend. Drawing an unneeded breath, he hit the ‘Refresh’ command on his IHP. His world buzzed with confusion for a moment and then he was himself again. Looking around at Daniels’s office one last time, he triggered the new chip. An energy build-up began in his IHP but before it reached its peak a half-remembered sensation overtook him. “I’m being transported,” he thought, and then disappeared. ****************************************** “This ship has seen better days.” That was the first thought Joe had when he re-materialized. It was obviously some kind of cargo ship. Whatever it had been, today it was a barely functioning wreck. Panels were missing from the wall, showing exposed EPS conduits and other circuitry, two of the four transporter pads were dark and the ceiling lacked proper lighting. The Vulcan behind the transporter console glared at him with obvious anger. The same two Klingons that Joe had seen performing the strange ritual were on either side of him. “We detected a strange energy emission from Earth. You are the source.” The Vulcan seemed upset. “Have you ever heard of Surak?” Joe inquired sarcastically, “Your current behavior is causing a negative impact on your blood pressure.” “How would you know that? Are you one of the Demons?” Both Klingons drew disruptor-style pistols and pointed them at Joe. “I am a holographic physician and even if I was flesh and blood your rising hostility would make the diagnosis a simple one.” Joe waited expectantly for a reply. “Stretching the realm of believability, let us assume that you are as you say. The last known holographic being ceased to exist four hundred and forty-seven years ago. How do you explain your current existence?” The Vulcan sounded almost reasonable to Joe. “I was lost in the Delta Quadrant nine hundred years ago. I’ve just returned to Earth.” Joe looked at him steadily, ignoring the Klingons. “It took a long time to come home.” The Vulcan raised an eyebrow. “If that is true, I suspect this is not the homecoming you had hoped for.” Joe relaxed a bit. “Indeed,” he said, doing his best-remembered impression of the long-dead Mr. Tuvok. “Nevertheless, I need to return to the surface. I was in the middle of something when you …interrupted.” “So you say,” replied the Vulcan with a taciturn expression. “Cover him. If he does anything unexpected, shoot the device on his arm.” ****************************** “Who I am is not important right now,” Joe said. “Vash, you have to stop him! Don’t let Captain Picard activate the gate system! Hurry!” Vash had recovered her composure. “Go ahead and stop him yourself. Jean-Luc gets an idea in his head and nothing stops him.” She put her hands on her hips. “And you never did say who you are.” “I can’t, the chip…” Joe’s image wavered in a rainbow effect. “The chip is failing. I’m going to …” Joe vanished. Vash looked at the space he’d been in for a moment and then spun on her heel, racing back towards Picard. He met her at the chamber entrance, flushed with excitement. “Jean-Luc, don’t-” Picard cut her off. “Vash, I’ve done it! I’ve activated the gate system!” He looked quite pleased with himself. Vash stopped in her tracks. “That’s great, Jean-Luc,” she replied dully. “I don’t think you were supposed to do that, though.” Picard looked at her curiously. “Why would you say that?” he asked. Vash waved vaguely behind herself. ”There was a man,” she trailed off weakly. Picard peered over her shoulder. “I don’t see anyone,” he said. “He vanished,” Vash replied, lamely. “But he said you shouldn’t activate the gates before he left.” Picard glanced back into the chamber behind him. “It’s a bit too late for that,” he said. The Iconian device throbbed with power. “The gates are active.” He grasped her arms in his hands. “Do you know what this means for the Federation? What we’ve done?” Vash looked at him. “Jean-Luc, I have no idea. But that man scared me. I’m not so sure what we’ve done was a good thing.” Picard stared at her for a moment and then cast his gaze back towards the Iconian interface. A worried expression crossed his face. *********************************** “I need to know what you know,” Riker said. From his place at the top of the briefing room table he glowered down at Joe. Geordi watched with interest while Data just stared. He wasn’t quite what he’d been before transferring to the B4 unit. Despite the awakening of his personality, Data still hadn’t completely recaptured his full essence. His responses to some stimuli weren’t as natural as they once had been. Seven was her usual self, not giving anything more than her presence. Deanna was the only sympathetic face around the table. Joe sighed and steeled himself for a rough time. Joe looked at Riker. “There are things I can’t tell you. I hope you understand. The Temporal Prime Directive plays into this.” Riker looked annoyed. “If there is a problem we have to deal with you need to tell us.” Joe took an unneeded breath. “We have to stop Captain Picard. I know I came close, temporally speaking. Where is he now?” Riker glanced at Deanna, who nodded her head slightly. “Beta Hydroxii Four. The Captain is on an archeological dig with his…girlfriend.” “Vash?” Joe asked. Riker looked a bit surprised. “Actually, yes. Why, is it important?” “Damn! Commander, you need to get us to Beta Hydroxii now. We have to stop him!” Joe was upset on many levels. ”Commander, you have to go now-we have to stop him from activating the gates!” he jumped out of his seat, his hands on the table. Riker considered it for a moment. Tapping his com badge, he said, “Helm, make course for Beta Hydroxii Four. Maximum warp.” Riker looked at Data as he opened his mouth. “Better to be in position if we have to act than to be out of position.” Data shut his mouth without saying anything. “Ok, Mr. Smith, I’ve just diverted an entire month’s relief supplies that are badly needed on Betazed on your say-so. Tell me something to keep me from turning this ship around right now.” Riker was grim as he spoke. Joe paused for a second and then took a chance. “In two hundred and forty-two years the Federation will fall. The Iconians will destroy the Federation. Captain Picard will release them. Soon. At Beta Hydroxii Four.” He paused for a moment. “They are not just Iconians. They are modified. They have abilities even the original Iconians didn’t have.” He looked at them all around the table. “Pretend Khan Noonien Singh was an Iconian. Now, do you understand?” The shocked looks (except for Data) answered his question. ************************************************ “Look, it doesn’t have to be this way. I have reason to believe this entire stretch of history is a mistake. I can fix it!” Joe’s tone was pleading now. “It doesn’t have to be this way. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” The Vulcan looked at him in a long, drawn out moment. “Can you restore the Fleet?” “I believe I can,” Joe answered. The Klingons bared their teeth in exaggerated smiles. The Vulcan merely peered at him under doubting eyebrows. Joe held himself very still and waited. After a minute, the Vulcan said, “I am S’ton. You will come with me. I will see if what you say is true.” Without any further comment he headed for the transporter room exit, the two Klingons following. Joe shrugged and tailed them out. As they walked through the corridor Joe noticed the peeling paint, the exposed eps conduits, and the bare deck plates. “Nice ship you have here,” he commented drily. S’ton replied, “It is what little the Demons permit us. They deem it harmless.” “I dare say they‘re right,” Joe said. S’ton said nothing further until they arrived at a lower-level cargo bay. After several tries at the control panel, the doors opened. S’ton turned towards Joe. “The Fleet has awaited Restoration for many centuries. If you can, Restore it.” The Vulcan sounded skeptical. Joe gave him a puzzled look and tentatively stepped into the cargo bay. It was divided into aisles by long shelf units stretching from one end of the bay to the other. On every shelf, as Joe walked down into the bay, were small, Lucite-looking rectangles. In each block Joe could see a tiny ship, a replica of an advanced-looking Star Fleet vessel. The cargo bay contained thousands of them. At first, he just walked along, glancing from side to side. Then it hit him. He stopped cold in his tracks. Turning back to S’ton, he asked, “Is this the Fleet?” S’ton nodded from his place in the doorway. “It is. When the Demons came they rendered the Fleet thus. It has been said that only the Captain knows the way of freeing them to defeat the Demons. He did so at Pyris VII and he will do so again. He has died and come again. He will live again. He will free us when the time of Restoration is upon us.” “Pyris VII,” the Klingons echoed. “He freed his ship from the Demons!” The roar of their chant echoed through out the cargo bay. Joe stood there in the midst of the entire Fleet, stunned. ***********************************************
Ah! I thought the ship-in-a-cube sounded familiar! I checked Memory Alpha and discovered the connection to the TOS "Catspaw" episode. Now, if the Doc can find a transmuter lying around . . . Good segment with all the Joe Smiths! (I know - it's just one Doctor, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around time travel. )
It's getting to where I can't tell the Joe Smiths without a scorecard! Time travel stories can be difficult to pull off, but you're doing a good job on this one. I can't wait to see how this all comes together.
Obviously I'm not too good at my Star Trek history - Daniels, is he the future guy from Enterprise - the one who was on the ship as a crewman?
This story should be getting too complicated to follow, but you're doing an excellent job of keeping all the various plot threads humming along nicely. I got the starships in lucite cubes pretty quickly, but that still doesn't explain what's really going on here? Did the Iconians take that technology, or were the people Kirk met Iconians themselves? Ahhrrrrrgh! Too... many... questions!
Yay! I got a reference! Most of the other references are going over my head - but I'm loving the story anyway. I agree with Gibralter - this should be getting too complicated, but it isn't! You're managing to keep each of the story lines clear and well-referenced. Kudos!
I'm just going along with all of this, absorbing it as I go along without trying to figure it all out. I think that's the best approach for now. The only thing that matters to me at the moment is that this story is seriously entertaining.
not "safely" ahead but still running in front... CHAPTER TEN The Enterprise was at maximum warp, heading for Beta Hydroxii Four. Gleaming metal, glowing plasma exhausts and a wondrous speckle of lights denoting the existence of life within. One being aboard was not life by a biologist’s definition, yet he could speak and think and learn just like the flesh-and-blood or wire-and-circuits members of the ship’s crew. Currently, he was being interrogated by certain high-ranking members of that self-same crew. “You’re sure Captain Picard will release them?” Riker still sounded as though he couldn’t believe it, even though Joe had reiterated the point several times. Sighing, Joe met his eyes across the briefing room table. “Yes, Commander. The records I gained access to laid the blame for the Iconian resurgence directly at Picard’s feet. And, no, I can’t produce those records. Even if I could, they carried a detailed history of what is to come. The Temporal Prime Directive has already been bent-I don’t wish to break it completely.” Geordi spoke up. “It seems to me that by coming back here you’ve already broken the rules. I mean,” and here he looked apologetic, “The Federation fell by your time. Trying to stop it breaks every rule I was taught in Temporal Mechanics 101. I don’t want what we have to disappear but if that is the flow of history…” Beverly jumped in with,” How can you say that, Geordi? It’s pretty obvious that millions of people died during the Iconian attacks. If Mr. Smith can stop it he should!” Her voice was strident. “Please, Dr. Crusher,” Joe held up his hand in a placating manner, “As a former physician I understand your position but it wasn’t my primary motivation. I am far more concerned with what the Iconians did to the survivors. If you had seen the ignorance, the shredding of civilization, the sheer magnitude of informational loss! I didn’t come back here to save lives-I came to stop a new Dark Age on a galactic scale! The people I spoke with, those that still had a modicum of knowledge, they told me about what was left. The Federation wasn’t the only entity that had been destroyed. The Klingons were a refugee tribe, scattered across the Alpha Quadrant. The Romulans were just gone-and no one seemed to know what had happened to them. The Dominion had degenerated into a scattered, unaffiliated region of worlds after the eradication of the Founders. Any polity you can think of-they were all gone. Where there were survivors most or all knowledge had been lost. That is what I am trying to prevent!” Joe realized he had become heated as he spoke and sat down abruptly, flustered. “The loss of knowledge should not be adequate reason to tamper with the flow of history,” commented Data. “History has shown that civilizations rise and fall. Any knowledge lost would be reclaimed, eventually. It might not be reclaimed by the survivors of the societies that we are familiar with but some form of life would eventually rise to and even exceed our own accomplishments.” He looked at Joe impassively. “Data, how can you say that?” Deanna asked. “Don’t you realize that we all have an investment in our own way of life? Of course Mr. Smith wants to save the things he is most familiar with. It’s in the nature of life as we know it to want to save the things we cherish. Otherwise we’d be little more than…” Suddenly distressed by what she was about to say, she trailed off. Data cocked his head slightly in her direction. “Were you about to say, ‘machines’, Counselor?” Deanna looked uncomfortable. “Data, I didn’t mean-“ “It is alright, Counselor. I take no offense.” Seven spoke up, “I believe that Mr. Data is correct. However, I also believe in the tenets of the Federation. The Federation was formed as a political body to safeguard individual members through the exercising of the collective whole. Guidelines have been laid down and modified as situations have evolved for dealing with threats to the citizens that make up the Federation. This is an obvious threat. We should act.” She folded her hands in front of her. “The fact that the end result of the threat takes place in the future does not affect the reality that the origin of the threat exists in the here and now. We should stop Captain Picard.” “I’m still not convinced. Changing the time stream seems like a violation of everything we believe in. The Captain would probably say that we have a responsibility to preserve the proper history.” Commander Riker seemed to be waiting for a comment. Joe gave him an exasperated look. “In the ‘proper history’ the entire Fleet is locked in suspended animation. In the ‘proper history’ Earth is inhabited by savages, the few Vulcans and Klingons remaining think James Kirk is some kind of Messiah who will come and save them, and they continue propagating a crude semblance of Federation technology with no clue of the science behind it. In the ‘proper history’ the Vulcans have only fragments of the teachings of Surak. The Andorians are on the brink of extinction and the Romulans are gone.” Joe looked at him in an exasperated manner. “Could you explain to me how all of that is ‘proper’?” “As Data said, we may not like what happens but it is the natural flow of things.” Riker looked grim. Deanna turned on him. “Will, how can you say that? Joe Smith has made it very clear. If we don’t stop the Captain our way of life may be doomed!” Riker turned on her in a manner that was almost savage. “And who’s to say that our way of life is worth saving? Who can say that it’s better than any other? We live inside of that very same way of life-how can we decide with anything resembling fairness?” Deanna seemed shocked by his intense response and sat back in her chair abruptly. As Joe gazed around the room, he saw similar expressions on every Human face except for Seven’s. Data was impassive. Joe opened his mouth to speak, realizing his next words either would or would not sway Riker to his point of view irrevocably. A woman’s voice came out, and Joe looked at the settings on his IHP for a moment in confusion before realizing it was Seven talking. “Commander,” Seven said, and her voice was a soft contralto Joe had never heard her use before, “The Federation is far from perfect. It does protect its citizens, though, and it also looks out for those peoples that cannot look out for themselves. Where so many other civilizations seek to exploit or manipulate civilizations less than their own the Federation nurtures or protects. Joe Smith has said that if we don’t intervene in Captain Picard’s actions that self-same Federation will fall. Millions will die, whole races will disappear.” Her voice was gentle, with the tiniest of quavers. “The Iconians will destroy the knowledge of a dozen or more civilizations. The knowledge we accumulate is our way of striving towards perfection-and the Iconians will disrupt that striving in a way that assures no one in this galaxy will have a chance to strive in our place for hundreds or thousands of years.” A somewhat guilty look crossed her face as Riker stood, flabbergasted at her unexpectedly emotional outburst. The room waited in silence, as if afraid to speak and break the spell she was weaving. “I managed to activate the Doctor’s emitter for a few moments before the components failed completely. He told me of what this Federation will become in just a few centuries, the heights not only we but others will reach.” She glanced down at the table and then looked up at Riker in defiance. “He came from a Federation where a hologram and a biological woman could marry without prejudice, where former Borg were common and,” she held her left hand with it’s interlacing tubules in front of her face, “this was not considered a stigma.” Fire in her eyes, Seven glared at Riker. “Would you condemn such a legacy, Commander?” Riker stared at her, his brow creased. ************************************** hope you liked it
You have an interesting problem here...I actually thought the arguments to not stop the return of a 'dark age' were winning. And it is also very interesting that the women, Seven, are all together on this one. Can't wait to see where you take this. But I do love the debate and exchange of what should and should not be done...me? I totally agree violating the prime directive-temorpal prime directive, so I am with the women!!!! Time for Riker to do some 'Kirkonian' thought, and to break some rules too.. Rob
Very interesting to actually see Seven take that side of the argument! At least, it was at first--but then it struck me that as a former Borg, she wasn't steeped in the relativist attitude of the Federation that Riker espouses ("how can we say our way of life is any better?") and was ready to take a stand on absolute right and wrong. One minor nitpick: I believe the word you're looking for is "stigma," not "stigmata." The latter refers very specifically to the wounds of Jesus Christ, and their appearance is regarded by certain sects as a miraculous event.
No problem. I'm a bit of a nitnoid--but rest assured, overall you've still got me REALLY hooked with this story!
I have to admit that I wasn't completely convinced with the arguments here. I absolutely believe that this has to be about saving the Federation AND billions of lives. And I think back on Voyager the Doctor would have agreed. (A long time ago for Joe Smith.) I can simply not imagine a single good argument (at least none made here) why you would not try to change the time-line in order to avoid a disaster on that scale. Perhaps if there had been something positive that had come out of the Iconian disaster in the future which would be destroyed as a consequence, there may have been a valid point. Otherwise I'd say, time-line be damned. And it's not like Temporal Investigations will (be able to) object.
An interesting philosophical quandary. Certainly, the questions deserved the merit of discussion which you portrayed admirably. I must confess, though, that I was surprised that Riker took the "hands-off" position. I always figured him for the let's save 'em all, consequences be damned type. Likewise, I pictured Seven being more of a pragmatist and keeper of the sacred time-line. But heck what do I know? Nice segment!
My take was that Seven looks at the Federation as her "collective" now, at least subconsciously, and is protective of it. And Riker (here, post-series) is more mature and more likely to take a "what would Picard do?" attitude when he's acting in his place.