Title: Descendants

Author: Ghosteye99

Characters: Janeway, The Doctor, Chakotay, OC's (implied J/C)

Theme: Adventure/drama (and, er… family?)

Rating: PG 13+

Length: Multi drabble (900 words exactly)

Summary: Based on Threshold, and set many hundreds of centuries post-Endgame. In the far distant future, on a ruined and distant planet, a starfaring species discover an ancient artifact ... and their roots.

Warning: Implied Canon character deaths. A lot of made-up stuff.

Notes: Inspired by Singing Violin's "offspring". This was originally meant to be a parody, being Threshold-inspired & all, but it kind of insisted on devolving into serious!fic.

Disclaimer: Canon characters and settings belong to Paramount Pictures and CBS, not me. No profit or harm intended. This is a fanfiction, not Canon.

Descendants

"We've found an ancient transmitter device. It's possibly still in workable condition."

"Run a full quarantine scan before beaming it aboard." Captain K'Atphrys replied.

"Acknowledged. Scouting Team Out."

"I'll be in lab three," he said, leaving the bridge.

Later...

The last thing Admiral Janeway remembered was an attack, and the blast. She'd deactivated automatically, and certainly hadn't expected to ever reactivate again - or see the beings who'd done it.

Humanoid they were not, looking more like someone had stuck a squid's head on a velociraptor's body, then removed the arms.

...but there was something about their eyes, something human.

-o0o-

"The guest is an ancient sentient hologram," the science chief said. "There's more. When we showed her our evolutionary record and planet of origin, she suddenly consented to downloading her specie's genetic information."

"We found similarities," he continued, "so we ran an evolutionary diagnostic. The computer was able to make a near perfect DNA sequence, linking from our ancestors... back to her."

"Back to her species, you mean?" K'Atphrys queried.

"Back to her species and to her," the chief asserted. "She wants to talk to you, captain. She claims to be our founding ancestor, and that she has the proof."

-o0o-

Janeway couldn't tell her whole story in the captain's limited time, so she'd downloaded a copy from her database to theirs.

She knew everything would be matched against their known history, but already she was being treated with less suspicion, and more respect. Though the Thoriryn weren't humanoid in form, they were certainly so in soul. Another species 8472, they weren't.

And what she'd learnt? ...that, millions of years ago, three creatures she and her helmsman left behind while far from home had not only survived, they'd evolved back to sentience – and she was now a guest on their ship.

-o0o-

"Captain K'Atphrys Jaas, species Thoriryn, of the Union starship NRUU Lightfoot." M'Gosth'Oth announced, extending a facial tentacle.

"Admiral Kathryn Janeway, species Human, of Federation Starfleet," Janeway replied, taking the tentacle in her hand. "Though it looks like my Federation has since been long gone."

"Our history mentions it;" K'Atphrys replied, "The first Federation fell five centuries after your deactivation, but has since revived several times. The Stellar Union is its latest incarnation."

Janeway sat down in surprise. If she'd still had a corporeal body, her head would've been spinning.

"We won the war..." she whispered.

K'Atphrys nodded. "Yes, we did."

-o0o-

"I'm sorry, Admiral," K'Atphrys said, "Our team have scoured the planet. We've found only two more databases; both damaged, but no working transmitters."

"Have you copied them?" Janeway asked.

"We've beamed them in whole," K'Atphrys replied, "Since you've decided to stay with us; we assumed you'd want the originals."

"I appreciate that," She said. "I'll have to help you refine your replicators, but once we do that, we can make transmitters for the other two holograms, after we've fixed their databases."

"You have confidence in their revival," K'Atphrys noted.

"My database was also deteriorated," Janeway replied, "and here I am."

-o0o-

She stared for a long time at the two holoframes on her desk.

In one was a balding man, with a permanently bemused expression. The other… she traced the pattern of his facial tattoo. The Doctor... and Chakotay...

If she'd not been a hologram, and if she'd not self-locked her emotional subroutines, she'd be a weeping mess by now.

"Bridge to all personnel," the captain's voice came over the comm, "Twenty seconds to hyperwarp. Complete all lockdown procedures."

Janeway touched the frames off, put them away, and began her own safety deactivation.

They were going home... but not to Earth.

-o0o-

"Admiral," a crewman said after she reactivated, "We've come out of hyperwarp; we're in our homeworld system. We'll be docking at Paraneis station in four hours."

"Paraneis?" Janeway mused, "Is that the name of your homeworld?"

"No," the crewman replied. "Euhois is the homeworld; Paraneis we terraformed three thousand years ago."

"Of course,' she said. "Euhois, is it still rainforest and swamp?"

"Mostly cities, farms and gardens now, Admiral. There's more wilderness on Paraneis, though its climate is drier. It's sown with desert plants selected from all over the galaxy."

"Any from old earth?" Janeway asked.

The crewman nodded. "Yes."

-o0o-

Two years later...

Janeway waited in the observation bay as a Thoriryn team adjusted the transmitters.

"On the count of four!" the chief announced ...and for the first time in aeons, the Doctor flickered back to life. He looked around in momentary confusion… and then saw her.

"Admiral, you're ok!" he breathed, relieved. "I really thought you were gone. Where's everyone else?"

"It's a long story Doctor," she replied, "But the war's won. These people," she said, nodding to the Thoriryn, "are our distant relatives."

"Next activation!" the chief said.

"That'll be Chakotay," Janeway said, tightly holding the Doctor's hands...

-o0o-

"I would've chosen burial," Chakotay explained, "but when I found they'd made you a hologram after you were killed, I arranged it myself… so should it happen to me, I could still fight beside you a little longer."

"I wasn't given much choice," Janeway said, "Starfleet was running out of senior officers from war casualties, so they started hanging onto what was left."

"At least it worked," he said, as he, she and the Doctor admired their first Paraneis sunset together. "Pity Paris isn't here to see this."

"A pity," Janeway said, ironically. "He'd have been proud of our 'offspring'."

-o0o-

A/N – when re-evolving the Threshold 'offspring' to a usable land-dwelling form, I chose a dinosaur-like biped. Because the creatures in the episode only had forelimbs, I had to reshape & move them back toward the hips to become the legs (much like a flounder's eyes evolving to be both on the same side of the head), re-develop a flexible neck, and make the barbells into squid-like tentacles that could function in the place of hands.

The names K'Atphrys Jaas, Thoriryn, Paraneis, and Euhois were picked from the results of an online name scrambler using Janeway and Paris's full known names.