Star Trek: Voyager. Linear Illusions.
Note: This story takes place shortly after ST Voyager: Pathfinder episode.
Onboard Starship Voyager.
Captain Kathryn Janeway rubbed her fingers against her temples, something she seem to do regularly since they came to the Delta Quadrant. As the bell chimed she sighed and put on her best confident captain look. Though that wasn't necessary because the whole crew's morale seemed to have increased after the successful contact with Starfleet in the Alpha Quadrant through the Pathfinder project.
Straightening her uniform she pressed the button to freeze the running text display on her desktop console and called out "come in." The door slid open revealing a her first officer Commander Chakotay and the Voyager's resident ex-Borg Seven of Nine. Both were holding thick heavy- duty PADDs.
As Chakotay took a seat, Seven had as usual refused and preferred to remain standing, Chakotay slid the thick PADD console in front of Janeway. There was a chart of the sector they were in, provided by the Stellar Cartography department no doubt, lined in red were several golden shapes that looked like the ancient Egyptian symbols to Janeway. "Well?" Captain Janeway asked her first officer waiting for an explanation. "Captain, Seven found that those appear to be-" Chakotay hesitated "-neural portways that have a low factor density rate so solid objects cannot metaphorically speaking go through. But sensors say that it is emitting strong level 12.3 and up waves on the sonic wavelength.
We are not sure what effect they would have on the crew and the ship." Janeway nodded, "Seven, try to find out more about those portways." As Seven turned and left the room Janeway glanced at Chakotay who seemed to be awaiting her opinion. "Did you notice anything unusual around the ship lately?" Janeway asked. Chakotay shook his head, "any sensor oddities?" Janeway persisted. Again Chakotay shook his head the corners of his lips turning up slightly in amusement. Just then the entire ship shook flinging Chakotay out of the chair he was perched in into the replicator panel. As his head knocked the console the replicated hummed and replicated a mug of hot coffee, the default setting unless Janeway entered something specific.
The starship jolted again and to add to the insult the silver mug of decaf poured down on Voyager's Commander before Janeway could cancel the order. After trying his best to dry his hair Chakotay smiled wryly at Janeway, seeing he was fine she gave him a nod and left the ready-room onto the bridge.
"Red alert, all hands to battle stations!" Janeway ordered seeing a multi colored circle displayed on the viewscreen. The viewscreen shimmered, "Captain, we have been hit with a level 34.92 sonic wave." Tuvok her tactical officer announced. As the air shimmered optically around them the turbolift doors opened and the greatest captain in all of Starfleet James T Kirk strode onto the bridge.
Without hesitation the bridge crew excluding Janeway reacted to the strange apparition by pulling out their phasers and aiming it at the intruder. "Excuse me, where the hell am I?" The apparition of Kirk said a little bit uncertainly seeing the phasers aimed at him.
Unexpectedly the air to Janeway's left shimmered again, "Captain we have a level 23.88 sonic wave emission. A human shaped outline shimmered in the air and resolved into Starfleet's greatest doctor, Dr Leonard McCoy. Immediately have the phasers swung to the new unexpected arrival. "Well, I'll be damned, another adventure is it." McCoy snapped annoyed seeing almost all the bridge crew's attention was drawn to him. "What'd you expect, darned transporter nowadays" McCoy muttered to himself then upon seeing Kirk his eyebrows raised, "Kirk, thought you were dead?" He asked, James Kirk shrugged, "Given the way things are going Spock will maybe show up next." Kirk said glancing around, "Where are we anyways?" Kirk directed the question at Janeway. "You're onboard the Federation starship USS Voyager, I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway." Janeway responded refusing to be shocked by being talked to by the greatest captain in Starfleet.
"Captain I'm picking up another sonic wave." Tuvok informed Janeway, the air shimmered and Jean-Luc Picard appeared in full dress uniform, including the phaser. Upon seeing them his response was different, "Nice hologram" he remarked casually then tapped his comnbadge "Picard to transporter control, this joke is not funny. You better beam be back or you'll be transporting cow manure on a farm." He snapped, then took in the phasers aimed in his direction, rolling his eyes he seemed to ignore the phasers, "computer end program" he said confidently.
As nothing happened his eyes grew wide, "Um, Computer identify your make and type and the current program running?" He asked shakily. "This computer is a 182bit Neural processor, Modified by-" the voice paused as it accessed it's files "-Chief Engineer Lieutenant Torres." Voyager's voice replied. Picard appeared startled at this and jumped backwards pulling out his phaser, "under Starfleet regulations you are impersonating starfleet officers-"
Before he could finish McCoy spoke up "Calm down baldy, this is a probably another one of their damned transporter experiment gone wrong," Janeway tried to hide her sigh, "Gentlemen, you are aboard the Intrepid-Class federation starship USS Voyager, I'm Captain Janeway the Captain of the ship." She said resisting to urge to add 'any questions?'
Kirk looked pointedly at Picard, "aren't you missing something here?" He asked sweeping his hand at the phasers aimed at them. "Q?" Picard asked as pointedly as Kirk. Surprisingly there was a flash of light and Q appeared haggard and harried. As Picard opened his mouth to say Q held up his hand wearily, "I know I know, it wasn't my fault,-" then he saw the disbelieving glances everyone including Janeway gave him, "seriously!" He said annoyed, the air shimmered again and a small old-fashioned radio transistor set matralized on the carpeted floor near the science station. As all the eyes were drawn to it the entire Intrepid-Class vessel shook sending it's occupants reeling against the wall, Tuvok however, as usual mantained his position at Tactical. "We seem to have gone through the partway captain," He reported directing his attention to the forward viewscreen.
On the viewer was a blue planet revolving serenely against the backdrop of stars. "Earth...1999." Tuvok continued looking at the sensor where Ensign Harry Kim stood, As Harry nodded confirmation Janeway turned to their guests from the past, "We'll have to settle this later, right now I want engineering to run scans to determine if it's real or not." As Tuvok relayed the order to the engineering deck Janeway turned to front, "Tuvok...prepare away team, we're going to explore the planet."
As Tuvok nodded and left the bridge she turned back to the guests. "Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, Dr.McCoy please meet me in my ready room in an hour, Ensign Kim if you wouldn't mind please give direct them to their temporary quarters while Lieutenant Tuvok is away." She said.
Harry nodded and motioned for the guests to follow him. Only when they left the bridge module then she gave a sigh, and then looked at her executive officer who was grinning, "looks like you've got your hand full eh Captain?" He remarked, Janeway responded with a wan smile and headed into her ready-room to get ready for the tiring session ahead.
As she leaned into the back of her chair she suppressed a sigh and bolted upright as a diagram of Deck 3 appeared with Security Alert flashing in red on her desk LCARS console. Deck 3 was where Kirk and the others were going. She leaned forward and tapped a holocam control.
The image that flashed onto the screen was anything but amusing, Kirk and Picard were holding phasers against the fallen security detail and McCoy was no where to be seen. Frowning she tapped the console opening a communications link, "Janeway to transporter control, lock onto all phaser tags and beam target directly to brig." she ordered, "Yes Ma'am" Came the reply as the familiar blue column of transporter energy descended on Kirk and Picard. Almost another alert flashed up on screen. Security Alert contained, Beaming security officers to br01110101101010110011010101110101010101010101010110010111101011010101010101 01010101101011111110101010101. The rest of message was in binary. Frowning Janeway tapped a control marked test/scan. As the test dialog appeared on screen it immediately turned into gibberish, not binary. "Paris to Captain Janeway," came a voice from her comnbadge, tapping the badge she responded "go ahead." "Captain, scans confirm that Earth's scanners are coming within sensor range of Voyager, also there's a weird dynamic flux affecting the computer systems, B'Lanna is going to try to fix it." Flux? Janeway wondered, "Wouldn't the flux be noticed by whatever satellite Earth is using?" She asked, "The satellite's systems are to low-density to trap the flux wave." Voyager's helmsman responded. "Then can we lower the density of our systems until we can harden the computer circuits?" Janeway said. "We could, but with Voyager's main computer systems offline we'll be dead weight and without the Shell Cast emitters to protect the starship there's a high chance that Earth's sensors might detect us." Came the response. "What about landing on the planet?" Janeway wondered. "Good idea Captain, I suppose we could land in the Sahara desert or the Atlantic Ocean." Paris responded amusement evident in his tone.
Captain Kathryn Janeway did not like to be ridiculed. "Plot a course that avoid the satellites and put us into high orbit." She ordered, "can you get B'Lanna to increase the polarity of the shields so at least we might evade detection." She continued.
There was a usual yes ma'am from the other side, "Janeway out." She finished tapping the badge again, "Janeway to Shuttle bay, prepare the Delta Flyer for aquatic terrains." She commanded then leaned against the neck-rest of her chair. "Janeway to brig, contain the prisoners until my return." Without waiting for a reply she rose to her feet and headed towards the shuttle bay... To be continued... [I'm not begging you to review but I would be gratified if you did.]
Onboard Starship Voyager.
Captain Kathryn Janeway rubbed her fingers against her temples, something she seem to do regularly since they came to the Delta Quadrant. As the bell chimed she sighed and put on her best confident captain look. Though that wasn't necessary because the whole crew's morale seemed to have increased after the successful contact with Starfleet in the Alpha Quadrant through the Pathfinder project.
Straightening her uniform she pressed the button to freeze the running text display on her desktop console and called out "come in." The door slid open revealing a her first officer Commander Chakotay and the Voyager's resident ex-Borg Seven of Nine. Both were holding thick heavy- duty PADDs.
As Chakotay took a seat, Seven had as usual refused and preferred to remain standing, Chakotay slid the thick PADD console in front of Janeway. There was a chart of the sector they were in, provided by the Stellar Cartography department no doubt, lined in red were several golden shapes that looked like the ancient Egyptian symbols to Janeway. "Well?" Captain Janeway asked her first officer waiting for an explanation. "Captain, Seven found that those appear to be-" Chakotay hesitated "-neural portways that have a low factor density rate so solid objects cannot metaphorically speaking go through. But sensors say that it is emitting strong level 12.3 and up waves on the sonic wavelength.
We are not sure what effect they would have on the crew and the ship." Janeway nodded, "Seven, try to find out more about those portways." As Seven turned and left the room Janeway glanced at Chakotay who seemed to be awaiting her opinion. "Did you notice anything unusual around the ship lately?" Janeway asked. Chakotay shook his head, "any sensor oddities?" Janeway persisted. Again Chakotay shook his head the corners of his lips turning up slightly in amusement. Just then the entire ship shook flinging Chakotay out of the chair he was perched in into the replicator panel. As his head knocked the console the replicated hummed and replicated a mug of hot coffee, the default setting unless Janeway entered something specific.
The starship jolted again and to add to the insult the silver mug of decaf poured down on Voyager's Commander before Janeway could cancel the order. After trying his best to dry his hair Chakotay smiled wryly at Janeway, seeing he was fine she gave him a nod and left the ready-room onto the bridge.
"Red alert, all hands to battle stations!" Janeway ordered seeing a multi colored circle displayed on the viewscreen. The viewscreen shimmered, "Captain, we have been hit with a level 34.92 sonic wave." Tuvok her tactical officer announced. As the air shimmered optically around them the turbolift doors opened and the greatest captain in all of Starfleet James T Kirk strode onto the bridge.
Without hesitation the bridge crew excluding Janeway reacted to the strange apparition by pulling out their phasers and aiming it at the intruder. "Excuse me, where the hell am I?" The apparition of Kirk said a little bit uncertainly seeing the phasers aimed at him.
Unexpectedly the air to Janeway's left shimmered again, "Captain we have a level 23.88 sonic wave emission. A human shaped outline shimmered in the air and resolved into Starfleet's greatest doctor, Dr Leonard McCoy. Immediately have the phasers swung to the new unexpected arrival. "Well, I'll be damned, another adventure is it." McCoy snapped annoyed seeing almost all the bridge crew's attention was drawn to him. "What'd you expect, darned transporter nowadays" McCoy muttered to himself then upon seeing Kirk his eyebrows raised, "Kirk, thought you were dead?" He asked, James Kirk shrugged, "Given the way things are going Spock will maybe show up next." Kirk said glancing around, "Where are we anyways?" Kirk directed the question at Janeway. "You're onboard the Federation starship USS Voyager, I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway." Janeway responded refusing to be shocked by being talked to by the greatest captain in Starfleet.
"Captain I'm picking up another sonic wave." Tuvok informed Janeway, the air shimmered and Jean-Luc Picard appeared in full dress uniform, including the phaser. Upon seeing them his response was different, "Nice hologram" he remarked casually then tapped his comnbadge "Picard to transporter control, this joke is not funny. You better beam be back or you'll be transporting cow manure on a farm." He snapped, then took in the phasers aimed in his direction, rolling his eyes he seemed to ignore the phasers, "computer end program" he said confidently.
As nothing happened his eyes grew wide, "Um, Computer identify your make and type and the current program running?" He asked shakily. "This computer is a 182bit Neural processor, Modified by-" the voice paused as it accessed it's files "-Chief Engineer Lieutenant Torres." Voyager's voice replied. Picard appeared startled at this and jumped backwards pulling out his phaser, "under Starfleet regulations you are impersonating starfleet officers-"
Before he could finish McCoy spoke up "Calm down baldy, this is a probably another one of their damned transporter experiment gone wrong," Janeway tried to hide her sigh, "Gentlemen, you are aboard the Intrepid-Class federation starship USS Voyager, I'm Captain Janeway the Captain of the ship." She said resisting to urge to add 'any questions?'
Kirk looked pointedly at Picard, "aren't you missing something here?" He asked sweeping his hand at the phasers aimed at them. "Q?" Picard asked as pointedly as Kirk. Surprisingly there was a flash of light and Q appeared haggard and harried. As Picard opened his mouth to say Q held up his hand wearily, "I know I know, it wasn't my fault,-" then he saw the disbelieving glances everyone including Janeway gave him, "seriously!" He said annoyed, the air shimmered again and a small old-fashioned radio transistor set matralized on the carpeted floor near the science station. As all the eyes were drawn to it the entire Intrepid-Class vessel shook sending it's occupants reeling against the wall, Tuvok however, as usual mantained his position at Tactical. "We seem to have gone through the partway captain," He reported directing his attention to the forward viewscreen.
On the viewer was a blue planet revolving serenely against the backdrop of stars. "Earth...1999." Tuvok continued looking at the sensor where Ensign Harry Kim stood, As Harry nodded confirmation Janeway turned to their guests from the past, "We'll have to settle this later, right now I want engineering to run scans to determine if it's real or not." As Tuvok relayed the order to the engineering deck Janeway turned to front, "Tuvok...prepare away team, we're going to explore the planet."
As Tuvok nodded and left the bridge she turned back to the guests. "Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, Dr.McCoy please meet me in my ready room in an hour, Ensign Kim if you wouldn't mind please give direct them to their temporary quarters while Lieutenant Tuvok is away." She said.
Harry nodded and motioned for the guests to follow him. Only when they left the bridge module then she gave a sigh, and then looked at her executive officer who was grinning, "looks like you've got your hand full eh Captain?" He remarked, Janeway responded with a wan smile and headed into her ready-room to get ready for the tiring session ahead.
As she leaned into the back of her chair she suppressed a sigh and bolted upright as a diagram of Deck 3 appeared with Security Alert flashing in red on her desk LCARS console. Deck 3 was where Kirk and the others were going. She leaned forward and tapped a holocam control.
The image that flashed onto the screen was anything but amusing, Kirk and Picard were holding phasers against the fallen security detail and McCoy was no where to be seen. Frowning she tapped the console opening a communications link, "Janeway to transporter control, lock onto all phaser tags and beam target directly to brig." she ordered, "Yes Ma'am" Came the reply as the familiar blue column of transporter energy descended on Kirk and Picard. Almost another alert flashed up on screen. Security Alert contained, Beaming security officers to br01110101101010110011010101110101010101010101010110010111101011010101010101 01010101101011111110101010101. The rest of message was in binary. Frowning Janeway tapped a control marked test/scan. As the test dialog appeared on screen it immediately turned into gibberish, not binary. "Paris to Captain Janeway," came a voice from her comnbadge, tapping the badge she responded "go ahead." "Captain, scans confirm that Earth's scanners are coming within sensor range of Voyager, also there's a weird dynamic flux affecting the computer systems, B'Lanna is going to try to fix it." Flux? Janeway wondered, "Wouldn't the flux be noticed by whatever satellite Earth is using?" She asked, "The satellite's systems are to low-density to trap the flux wave." Voyager's helmsman responded. "Then can we lower the density of our systems until we can harden the computer circuits?" Janeway said. "We could, but with Voyager's main computer systems offline we'll be dead weight and without the Shell Cast emitters to protect the starship there's a high chance that Earth's sensors might detect us." Came the response. "What about landing on the planet?" Janeway wondered. "Good idea Captain, I suppose we could land in the Sahara desert or the Atlantic Ocean." Paris responded amusement evident in his tone.
Captain Kathryn Janeway did not like to be ridiculed. "Plot a course that avoid the satellites and put us into high orbit." She ordered, "can you get B'Lanna to increase the polarity of the shields so at least we might evade detection." She continued.
There was a usual yes ma'am from the other side, "Janeway out." She finished tapping the badge again, "Janeway to Shuttle bay, prepare the Delta Flyer for aquatic terrains." She commanded then leaned against the neck-rest of her chair. "Janeway to brig, contain the prisoners until my return." Without waiting for a reply she rose to her feet and headed towards the shuttle bay... To be continued... [I'm not begging you to review but I would be gratified if you did.]