General Disclaimer: I wish I owned Voyagers as an entity. Sadly, I do not. I will, however, play in their sandbox and screw with things. I'm not making any dosh over this so I'd really like it if no one would sue me.
Author's Note: Did you ever have a narrative start running through your head that just would NOT leave you alone? That's what happened here and I haven't seen Voyagers in a long time. I used to catch it on Me-TV out of Pittsburgh a couple years ago and I loved the show when I was a kid but good grief, to just start hounding me outta nowhere? Definitely weird but then again so am I. :) I have another writing account but decided to put this up here since I don't know how dark it may be. Hope you enjoy.
Phineas and Jeff raced through the Cosmos after getting the signing of the Magna Carta back on track. This time, however, the automatic setting on the Omni wasn't hurling them toward another crisis in history. After an uncharacteristic soft stop, they found themselves standing in the arrival center of Voyager Headquarters. Not much looked like it had changed. There was an odd mixture of past and present in every spot of the Voyager building. This area looked more Star Trek meets Steampunk than other places but the feeling that things were very different than anyplace Jeff had been before was the same.
"Bogg, what happened?" Jeff asked. "Why are we here? You don't think we're in trouble for anything, do you?"
"Welcome home, Voyagers," Professor Garth said before Phineas could answer. "No, Young Man, you are not in any trouble."
"So why are we being pulled out of service?" Bogg asked the elder gentleman who looked tired and worn out. He was also walking with a cane. That was new. "We're not due for evaluation yet."
"It's rather difficult to explain," Garth replied. "Perhaps you'd like to come up to my office for some tea and we can talk."
They walked through the corridors of headquarters and Jeff noticed a lot of officers in uniform around. He wondered if there was still a lot of corruption or if something else was going on. His eyes locked with one of the large men who looked fierce and stern. After a brief second, the man offered him a smile and even saluted him as he passed.
Professor Garth's office looked exactly what Jeff thought a teacher's office should look like. There were bookshelves from floor to ceiling and he had five globes turning at different speeds. Occasionally, there was a flash of light on one of the globes and a ticker printed out a slip that fell into a box beneath it.
A plump, middle aged woman wearing a gray Victorian era dress and apron entered with a tea service with sandwiches and cakes that instantly made Jeff's mouth water. She poured cups and took instructions on how each took their tea and handed the young boy a plate. Bogg gave him a slight nod and he tucked into the sandwich eagerly.
"Thank you, Mrs. Bedford," Professor Garth said, taking his cup. "How is our patient?"
"No change, Professor," the woman replied. "It's the same as before."
"You may go," he dismissed her as he looked grave. She shut the door she came through with an audible click.
"Is someone sick?" Jeff asked after swallowing his mouthful of food.
"In a manner of speaking," Professor Garth began, "In the aftermath of Drake's treachery, some very disturbing things have been discovered. He hurt a lot of innocent people in his quest for greatness. Some of this business is very bad and even a boy as bright and clever as you are, Jeffrey, should not be subjected to its ugliness. He's hurt someone very close to Phineas and myself."
"So I've been brought back to deal with that, have I?" Bogg asked. He had a suspicion about who he was there for and it gave him pains in his gut. He couldn't stand that person. He let out a low groan. "I thought I made it clear enough last time that I wanted nothing to do with it. I didn't have much sway against bringing her here in the first place and I don't particularly want to revisit the situation now."
"I thought that given the severity of the case, you might change your mind," Garth replied. "She isn't responding to anyone else, not even Olivia who was one of her dearest friends."
"Who are you talking about?" Jeff asked. "Another Voyager?"
"It's no one," Bogg said. "Thanks for the tea, but we need to get back to work. C'mon, Jeff."
"You're going to turn your back when she needs you most?" Garth said. "I've considered you as one of my favorites, Phineas, and I know you were upset when you were first told but this isn't the time for you to be selfish. Emilia needs you."
"Who's Emilia? Another girlfriend?" Jeff asked with a dramatic roll of his eyes.
"Never!" Bogg replied emphatically. "She is a hateful little pit viper and never should have been brought here."
"She's a sweet girl when you get to know her, Phineas," Garth said. "If you'd only try. She's your daughter, after all."
"Woah, you have a daughter?" Jeff asked, astonished. "You never said that."
"Well, I didn't know it until she was thrust on me here and I'll be damned if I'll take the blame for how the little rat turned out," Bogg answered. "We're going. I don't want you within a hundred miles of that hateful bit..."
The door opened quickly and Mrs. Bedford rushed in. "I'm sorry, Professor, but you're needed. She's trying to break the window again, Sir."
Professor Garth rushed out and Bogg took out after with with a rushed warning for Jeffrey to stay put. The corridor went down to Garth's private housing. Mrs. Bedford produced a key and opened the door to a sparsely furnished room with a bed and sink as its only decoration. At the window, a girl was beating her already bandaged wrists and arms against a break resistant window to the point that she was leaving bloody streaks. She screamed unintelligibly.
"Emilia Marie Bogg!" Phineas shouted as he entered the room briskly. "What in the blue blazes has gotten into you? Knock it off!"
He struck her sharply on the rear, shook and spun her around roughly to see a battered girl only slightly older than his own partner. Both eyes were blackened and there were various swollen lumps and bruises on her face that spoke volumes of a brutal beating. He didn't recall her being so young before.
She screamed at him with a gaping, toothless mouth as she struggled uselessly against his superior strength. She then kicked him in the groin to force his release of her. Once he let go and dropped to his knees, she rushed past Garth and Bedford down the hallway. She stopped when she saw Jeffrey standing at the door.
"Pleathe move, Boy," she begged him. Her lack of teeth made it impossible for her to make an 's' sound. "They're trying to kill me. I jutht want to go home. Let me patht."
Jeffrey began to step aside when Garth, Bogg and Mrs. Bedford caught up with her and Bogg grabbed her around the waist and dragged her back to the room, fighting and swearing the whole way. He held her arm tight as Mrs. Bedford injected the girl with a sedative and within only a few seconds, Emilia stopped struggling and her head lolled forward as she slipped into sleep. Bogg put her onto the bed and let the nurse attend her patient's wounds. He watched in fascinated horror as she unwrapped the bloody bandages that exposed arms that were nothing but healing cuts and bruises. There was not a spot he could see that was not, in some way, damaged.
"What happened?" Bogg finally asked. "She's one of the tech trolls; not a field agent. So how did she end up looking like that?"
"Emilia disappeared during a special assignment," Garth said. "She never arrived at her destination. She was found almost a week ago by another Voyager and brought back with injuries and wounds so severe and depraved that no one of any age should suffer, least of all a child."
"Why?" Bogg asked. "And what does this have to do with what happened with Drake?"
"Because he sent word taking credit," the older man answered. "He couldn't get to you so he took his revenge on your blood relation and I believe he plans to go after the one person you really do care about."
"Jeffrey," Bogg said, suddenly realizing that he left the boy in Garth's study alone. He turned back to check and ensure that the boy was still there but found Jeff standing at the doorway to the room where Emilia was being treated. He was standing silently but there were empathetic tears on his cheeks for the girl he'd only just met. Bogg immediately went to the boy's side and gave him a comforting hug. "You okay?"
"She said you were trying to kill her," Jeff said, roughly wiping away the tears. "She begged me to let her escape."
"Even at the risk of being accused of favoritism, you doted on her when we were at the Academy," Bogg claimed, turning to Garth. "How can she be such an ungrateful cow as to accuse you of that?"
"She doesn't recognize me, Phineas," Garth said sadly. "She doesn't recognize any of her former companions as anything but enemies. I had hoped that she might at least recognize her own father."
"That was a strange thing to expect," Bogg replied.
"It was because I believe she was targeted to hurt you that he might have spared her memories of you. It's the kind of thing that Drake would take sadistic delight in to make sure she remembered the reason she was suffering," Garth answered.
"You could have dealt with this without pulling Jeff and me out of service," Bogg said. "There's a lot going on out there."
"Yes, I'm aware of that," Garth said, nodding towards his globes. "One of her inventions. The activity has been on the uptick for months then about a month ago it started to slow. I'd hoped, rather charitably, that perhaps Drake had burned out his hatred for the Voyagers. His true intention, we now know, is to try and destroy the Voyagers entirely. Here is a copy of the letter he sent after Emilia was found."
Bogg picked up the multi page rambling manifesto that claimed everything from destruction of the Voyagers to his self-proclaimed title of Emporer Immortal over the entire realm. Then he came to the meat of the matter where Drake proclaimed Phineas Bogg as an Enemy of the State. He then went into a graphic description of the injuries visited on Emilia as precursor to his real target; the one person that Bogg protected and cared about. His adopted son, Jeffrey. The details of what he planned to do once he got his hands on the boy were... to say the least, disturbingly specific.
"We're gonna need a place to stay until this can get straightened out," Bogg decided.
"I'll arrange for quarters," Garth said.