"Reg's Adventure"

Since a sequel to "Prometheus" is sometime in the future, I have no established series canon to work from. Therefore, what you are about to read is based upon what canon does exist for both "ST:TNG" and "Prometheus".

With how the final chapters of "The Prometheus Legend" concluded, you might have wondered just what exactly happened when Reg "borrowed" a Juggernaut to travel to the Engineer's homeworld.

Well, here's what happened...

Chapter One: "Here We Go!"

Reg stayed up all night tossing and turning in his quarters. He knew that what he thought about doing was very dangerous and probably detrimental to his Star Fleet career, but there was this nagging little voice, or rather, a pair of voices.

You see, Reg was in one of those "good angel, bad angel" debates, with one voice telling him everything that COULD go wrong while the other was telling him to follow his heart and do what he knew was the right thing to do.

"These Engineers remind me of the bullies that used to push me around in school", one voice said.

"So what? You're way smarter than they are and you have a lot of protective weaponry with you."

"Yes, but it's only been tested in simulations, not in the real world!"

"But you're a Star Fleet officer! Those knuckleheads are still at home running loaders and tending bar."

On the other hand, as Tevye ("Fiddler On The Roof") would say, there were larger things to consider.

Reg smiled as he considered that for as many times as he liked to say "on the other hand", Tevye must have been a cephalopod.

Reg gathered up a few things he believed that he'd need...six weeks worth of water, food, traveling clothes, his personal log, a music player, and toilet paper.

Toilet paper?

And clean underwear...his mother had told him many, many times to always wear clean underwear because you just never knew.

He walked into the transporter room and greeted the overnight technician. "I'm going to run a diagnostic before we return to the surface today. Why don't you get some breakfast and I'll take it until your relief arrives?"

Since Reg had woken the tech from a sound sleep, and since he greatly appreciated Reg not reporting him to his watch commander, he thanked him and left the room.

Reg beamed into the empty, cold vessel and quickly scanned around...there was no one there, the four hypersleep chambers were empty, and there was no trace of the mutagenic pathogen that they'd found aboard the vessel on the surface. "This could work", he thought.

He pushed the four "buttons" that activated the chair, then with his digital music player played the notes David and Data had played to activate the bridge controls. Lights came on all over the vessel's interior and the life support system began processing the ship's atmosphere, musty and stale after over 2250 years.

He touched the holographic globe and the floor opened up as the ship's "captain's chair" rose up out of the floor. "This is the point of no return", he thought. "A leap of faith..."

He climbed up into the chair, got in, and looked at the controls and how they were arranged. "Good thing I'm relatively tall", he thought. "I wonder how Elizabeth and David managed to do this?"

He pressed the control that activated the holographic star maps, and was still in awe at their beauty. Astrometrics had its own certain artistic quality to it, charting routes around stellar hazards and phenomena, compensating for galactic drift and rotation within the galaxy and the larger universe. Then something caught his eye...when he first activated the maps his current galactic position was one place, then suddenly updated to another. An indicator on the control panel was telling him that the ship's navigational system was being updated after over 2250 years from an outside source!

"That's interesting", he thought."I wonder if the system's builders are still alive or has this been on automatic for millenia?"

You see, Reg was the kind of man who paid attention to details, the little things and engineering quirks that permitted LaForge and Picard to overlook the shortcomings in his personality. One of those was programming his tricorder to act as a linguistic interface for the controls. Reg knew a little Proto-Indo-European, or PIE, but wasn't about to chance what he was doing to having it stall out because the ship needed an instruction that he was incapable of giving it. Digital computers need to follow certain universal laws of physics, the language of ones and zeroes, and so Reg had set up his own access to the vessel's computer system.

His screen began to fill in with prompts, things like "life support status", "gravitational system status", "navigation system status", and most importantly, "propulsion system status". He selected life support, and was pleased as the screen filled with status on air, food, water, wastewater treatment, and other related systems. "This really isn't much different than Enterprise", he thought. On the navigation screen, he could see that Enterprise would be rotating into view soon. Time was not on his side!

He selected "propulsion" next, and saw that all systems and flight modes were available and ready. He briefly scanned the schematics for warp and quantum slipstream drive and concluded that he'd have time for that later.

Now, it was time to fly!

Voice command: "Computer, begin pre-launch sequence."

Reply from the ship's computer: "Scanning required parameters. All parameters are nominal. Activating pre-launch sequence to antigravity surface hover."

Things outside began to happen. The ground trembled as the launch pad doors began to open.

Aboard Enterprise, Data was scanning for any vessels within range, including a tachyon scan to see of any cloaked vessels were within sensor range, so he did not notice that there was a new, alien power signature coming from the surface of LV-223. It was only when LaForge notified Picard that Barclay was missing did he notice.

"Captain, I can't locate Mr. Barclay and no one's seen him this morning."

"Standby, Geordi. Computer: please locate Lieutenant Barclay."

"Lieutenant Barclay is not aboard the Enterprise."

Riker rolled his eyes and exclaimed "Here we go again!"

Data worked his ops console controls, and said "Captain, according to his com badge signal, Mr. Barclay is aboard one of the alien vessels."

Picard was not happy! "Which one? The one with the bioweapon?"

"No, Captain. That ship is inoperable. He is in THAT vessel!"

Data was pointing to the viewscreen. A horseshoe-shaped vessel was slowly rising out of its launch platform. Barclay had somehow learned how to operate the vessel by watching the log videos and was going off on his own.

The "incoming message" bell sounded on Worf's console, and he said "Captain! We're being hailed. The source is the alien vessel."

"Put it on screen." Picard said. Riker asked "How much weirder can this get?"

The image of the ship's control chair filled the screen. There was no Barclay, just a being resembling one of the alien spacesuits they'd found while exploring the bridge.

"Mister Barclay, I demand that you stop this foolishness and return to the Enterprise immediately!"

Off audio, he turned to Worf and said "Target his engines." Worf nodded in silent agreement.

"Data, can you get a transporter lock on him?"

Data frowned and said "I cannot get a lock on Barclay. I believe that our sensors are being interfered with by the normal operation of the ship's power source."

Worf agreed and said "I cannot get a weapons lock either, Captain."

"Data, what about the tractor beam?"

"The same field the ship is using to lift up is interfering with the tractor beam. It will not lock either."

Picard tried another tack..."Mister Barclay, you've proven your point. Would you like to follow us back to Earth?"

"Captain, Elizabeth Shaw and the others came out here looking for answers. We didn't even know if they really existed, let alone if she found her answers. This vessel can take me to their homeworld in three weeks, and I can find OUR answers."

"Alright, Barclay. At least take Commander Data with you."

"No offense, Captain, but these people didn't treat the last android they met very well, and I like Data too much to place him in what would be certain danger."

Data liked what Barclay said. Picard looked at Riker, then looked at the screen, held up his hand in a Vulcan salute, and repeated the words Boothby had given him: "May your journey be free from incident, Mister Barclay."

"Thank you, Captain. The suit you see me in is almost like the neural interface the Cytherians had me construct. The vessel responds to my thoughts rather than my motions."

Then, he paused, and said "Captain, I would appreciate it if you could follow me and record my jump."

"Standing by, Mr. Barclay."

The alien vessel turned towards an unseen point in unexplored space, then accelerated through impulse speed with the Enterprise close behind. Worf commented that the ship didn't merely leave a trail of "bread crumbs", it left a trail of ionized "biscuits"! Geordi remarked that although it was advanced there was a lot of work to do to clean it up.

Barclay said "Here we go!" and the ship jumped into quantum slipstream drive, leaving the Enterprise behind.

And just like that, Lieutenant Reginald Barclay was gone.

(end of chapter)