Author's Note: Each chapter will be the prompts from the letters of the alphabet in order, mostly because I couldn't divide the number of prompts into down evenly enough without having it be ridiculous. (You try dividing 346 by any whole number other than 2 and 173, it just doesn't work otherwise.)
16. B'dazzled Blue
Some part of her wanted to know why this was happening. Why any of this was happening in general, but why this was happening to her in particular. She hadn't really expected everything that had started with her return to, well, herself. She had been a Borg drone longer than she had ever been anything else and hadn't wanted that to change. Change was scary, frightening, unwanted and dangerous. She hadn't wanted it for a very long time, had actively tried to stop it from happening and had, for the first time in her life, failed at something. Quite spectacularly as well.
She had never been more grateful for anything in her life and she probably never would.
These turn of events had been followed by learning to respect and even like the crew of the ship that had saved her and a return of such feelings. (Though not all of the crew grew to like her, they did at least appreciate having her abilities that saved them valuable time and connected them, however shortly, to their loved ones in the Alpha Quadrant.) She had also learned the pain of being a mother, though it was a short bittersweet moment. (She would never forget One, he was more a part of her than even her own implants it seemed at times.) She had also made friends with a young girl, probably her first true friend on Voyager that was nothing else first.
Naomi Wildman was a strange child, mostly because of her upbringing as the only child on a lost ship trying to get home. She cared deeply for all the people of her ship and in return, they treasured her very existence. It gave them something that precious little else would do; she gave them hope. She had been born in horrific conditions and then stranded on a planet with little to provide for her or her mother along with the rest of the crew. They had been saved by the two crew members that hadn't been left to die by the Kazon. A holographic doctor allowed sentience and a murder that was only just starting to find peace. No one was more devoted to Naomi Wildman than the crew aboard Voyager. She was one of the few saving graces for Seven of Nine in the eyes of most of the crew.
After all, the Borg treated children no differently than any other species, yet Seven of Nine treated Naomi Wildman better than anyone or anything else aboard the stranded starship. The crew could accept her for nothing else as she too had done everything to protect the child and expected nothing in return from them. They could at least respect that, it didn't make most of them like her any better, but it was a starting point. None of them would leave Seven to die any more.
One of the biggest changes that Seven of Nine had faced was the Borg children she had been instrumental in not only finding, but saving as well. They had found the homes of some of the youngest, but both the eldest and very youngest were still aboard the ship. Icheb continues his study and his time as a full-time member of the crew, working with Seven of Nine in Astrometrics. The youngest, still a baby, is kept in stasis, unable to really survive any other way at the moment. Seven wonders if they will ever really be able to help her and hopes that Starfleet Medical will have come further in their technological advancements than she last knew as a part of the Collective. She had already lost one Borg child to death because of Starfleet's lacking in technology compared to the Borgs'.
It is the new children that have joined the crew that pique her interest at the moment, though. They are both young and old, like she is, but not because of the same reason. They are frightened as she was when she first came aboard Voyager as an individual. They don't know what to do or say to the crew. One of the eldest is deep in denial that anything has happened whilst another works as a go between for the group and the members of Voyager that they interact with. The youngest ones take their cues from them. They are wary of the crew and hesitant to interact with them for anything other than to say thank you or to nod or shake their heads. The only members of the crew that they seem to feel safe around at the Doctor and Mr. Neelix, the former supposedly because he is a medical practitioner and the latter because he seems to be the best at working with the children. The only other members of the crew that they seem to even relax around are the Vulcan members of the crew, Commander Tuvok and Lieutenant Vorik, though they still won't really interact with them.
Seven suspects that part of the reason they are able to relax around the two Vulcans is because one of the elder members of their group is also a Vulcan, though a young female. She supports the other two eldest but seems to concern herself more with the children themselves rather than working with any of Voyager's crew. She had not personally interacted with them much, but she knew that this probably wouldn't last long. The Captain wanted to help these children, but she also wanted them to be safe and find out if they were really who they seemed to be. The children didn't seem to trust the Captain and though they did trust a few of the crew to a degree, they also wouldn't really talk to them. Most of the crew had seen their condition and had tried to speak with them gently if at all. This had not helped them at all and they seemed to be at an impasse.
Seven had never balked at something she felt she needed to do in order to help the crew and these children were now a part of the crew, whether they realized it yet or not. They reminded her much of herself and she wanted them to adapt so that they too would start to heal and grow as she had. She looked at these children and tried to see them as the Captain and crew did, but found all she could see were individuals who didn't know where they were or what they were going to do.
17. Baby Blue
The being who is watching everything and nothing at the same time wonders at times if this is the best course of action. He has come a long way and has done many things, not all of them considered positive for the people receiving them. Many have called him whimsical and flighty, caring for nothing more than the entertainment that is provided to him from his meddlesome efforts.
This is not true. It might have been at one point, but that point is so far in the past that no one who isn't physically related to him in some way will even remember it, for the most part. It didn't really matter in the long scheme of things. Most of the time it didn't bother him that he was seen as nothing more than a super-powered child. (He ignored those moments when it truly felt as if someone were striking him through the heart. He had feelings and emotions; he was just a lot older and had seen more things than people expected. You have to have some kind of emotional armor, strange sense of humor or combination of both in order to watch any person that you come to care about grow old and die again and again and again. No mind, no matter what species, could really take that and stay sane.)
He knew that things were going to get really started soon, at least, soon for the people that he cared about. (Or as much as he could care about anyone with a very finite number of years to live, anyway.) He had done the best he could in preparing people for what was to come and in letting them have some kind of warning. He was also well aware that there were many who would rail against him when or if they ever found out what his part in things had been. He couldn't do more than what he had done, even he had rules that he had to live by, they just weren't like any of the rules that his more mortal friends would ever understand. Even his little 'niece' didn't really understand and she had been around a lot longer than most of his compatriots.
"What do you think will happen now?"
He turned towards his son, probably the only other being that knew what was happening on the same level. Junior didn't look worried, just curious, but he knew his son. Junior was slightly worried about his friends, even if he would never admit it even to himself, much less his father. He didn't know what would happen and that was irking his son quite a bit. Junior was still getting used to the fact that he wasn't as omniscient as he would like to think he was.
"Anything could happen at this point. People, no matter what race they are, are very surprising in their reactions to these kinds of things."
"Did you know this would happen when you introduced them all those years ago?"
"I knew that something like this could happen, but there was always potential for other things to happen as well. You've seen time get rewritten enough to know that."
His son pouted, just slightly, yet enough to see. He didn't like feeling powerless any more now than he had the first time his father had taken most of his powers. His father smiled slightly back at him though it was more of a smirk.
"Don't worry they've come this far without failing. I have faith in them, you should as well."
18. Baby Powder
She's stayed home at first, wanting to spend time with what little she had left of her husband. She had quite a bit left after all. She not only had the house that they had gotten together when his grandfather had died (it had been in the family for generations, but it required a lot more than just two people who were going to be in space for quite a lot of time during the year) and she had her sons. Her precious little boys that both looked so much like their father. (Her brother tried to tell her how much they really looked like a blend of both of their parents, but she didn't want to listen. They were George's sons and so they would look more like him than her and that was the end of it.)
Her brother had come to stay with her to help her manage not only Sam but baby Jimmy as well. Frank wasn't the best with kids, but he could feed and burp and change diapers and make sure none of them got hurt while she slept. Sometimes, Frank's fiancé would come over and help out as well; she said that it was good practice for the future and then would share a glance with Frank. Winona would try to smile at them during those times, but she was well aware that most of the time it came out as a grimace. It didn't stop her from trying, though.
Winona Kirk wasn't the type of woman to give in, so she kept at it. Some days were better than others, but no day was every happy, not really truly happy. It's hard to be happy when you can actually feel the jagged edges left by the dull knife that had hacked away half of your soul. But she loved her sons and they were all she had left, so she tried. The therapists that she talked to on earth weren't really any help. They couldn't understand and she couldn't explain it to them, so they helped as much as they could before they discharged her when she was well enough to not stare at a wall for hours on end.
Sometimes, she thought about contacting her sister-in-law, but she could never really bring herself to do it. George's sister had been watching Sam for them while they were in space during their last mission until at least a year after the baby would be born. She had brought Sam back to Winona and Frank as soon as Winona had been discharged from the hospital upon her return to earth, but she hadn't been able to stay much longer than a few weeks. She was probably one of the few people that would ever understand or at least come close to understanding what Winona was going through. At the same time, Winona couldn't really bring herself to stay in physical proximity of the woman due to the woman's blood relation to her now dead husband. Her heart just couldn't take it; it was already hard enough just being around the children and they were her sons.
"Someday, Jimmy," Winona whispered to her son as he lay in her arms trying to fall asleep, "Someday you will meet someone and you will know what it is to lose them. I pray for your sake as well as hers that you do not stay parted for long."
She rocked the now sleeping infant in her arms sitting in the rocking chair that George's grandmother had sat in to rock him to sleep. It wasn't that she wanted her son to die soon after his Bonded's death, but she better than anyone knew the madness that courted the edges of the lingering Bonded's mind. If she hadn't had children and a strong will of her own, then it was very likely that she would have become nothing more than a rabid animal that needed to be put down. For her safety as well as everyone else's'.
19. Baby's Blanket
They didn't have much of anything left after their journey, just what little they had, had on them during their latest escape attempt. They had practiced and researched as best they could about this form of escape, not really having much more than personal theories and what few well-read children or teens amongst their number. The real reason they'd tried this method of escape was because it was the only one they had left. All attempts to send a transmission to Starfleet or anyone really, hadn't worked. They'd been blocked and then the area they'd been in whilst sending the transmission had almost instantly been crawling with Kodos' men. Needless to say, they'd stopped trying to get transmissions through shortly after that, and when they did, it was certainly far, far away from where they had hidden the younger children.
They did have two amongst their number who might be able to get them out of there, but it was risky, very risky. Two sisters who were both there and not there at the same time and who didn't take that much from their supplies to keep running, as long as they had some time to sit in the sunlight or in the starlight. Cloudy days were hard on these two sisters who didn't seem to need as much food as the other children, but sometimes needed more sleep. Their group was mostly human children with a sprinkling of other species mixed in with them, but these two sisters looked and acted human, yet were almost as alien as the lone Vulcan who was with them.
They had come to Tarsus IV separately, assigned as a sort of keeper to two brothers who had several years between them and yet seemed to work relatively well together. The brothers' dynamics were slightly different, as the younger was the more aggressive of the two. The sisters were never physically far from their respective brother that they seemed to be assigned to on some level that wasn't visual or really understood by the rest of the group. The biggest difference between the sisters, other than their proximity to one of the brothers, was their hair color and demeanor. One was calmer than the other with short red-ish blonde hair. The other was much more lively and had slightly longer pale blonde hair.
It was the red-headed sister that had suggested they try a more primitive form of transportation. It was considered primitive only to those who knew the finer details of the transporters that Starfleet and several other Alpha Quadrant space faring species used. They would gather the children in a tight circle with the two sisters, the two brothers and the one Vulcan around them, arms outstretched and hands linked. The sisters would then gather their own energy, different and more solid than the others' and spiral it around the group, twining it tighter and tighter until they had formed a spherical ball of energy around the small group. It would be up to the other three, the brothers and the Vulcan, to direct their path towards where they wanted to go. The sisters would be too busy gathering and molding their energy in order to direct their course.
Such an undertaking might have been more difficult if it weren't for the close bonds between the sisters and the two brothers. The Vulcan's bonds with the two pairs would normally not be as strong had it not been for her own reasons for being on the colony. She too had been sent to study with the brothers' aunt on the possibility of there being a new Guardian or Senshi for this new planet. Though she did not know any of the other children half so well as the others, she was of a same kind as the brothers and so was able to work in tandem with them well enough for their attempt at transport to work.
No one would ever truly know if the attempt might have been successful or not. They never got the chance to complete the molding of the energy before they were found by Kodos' men.
20. Ball Blue
Kirk had a small blue ball in his hands that he had been passing from one hand to the other in an attempt to keep his attention occupied with something now that he had finished going through the reports for the day. Yeoman Rand had already been by to gather up the PADDs now that he was done with them. He had checked in with all of the major department heads on his ship and everything was running smoothly. They were on their way to meet up with the two ships they'd been sent to rendezvous with: a Vulcan Science Academy research vessel and a slightly larger Federation ship that held a few key people that needed to be ferried from one end of the Quadrant to another. They had already been traveling for quite a while before they'd been close enough to send a message requesting further aid in traveling. That they'd made it thus far with just their small crew of 15 before meeting up with the Vulcan research vessel spoke of a certain kind of determination that Kirk's crew wasn't unfamiliar with.
They were about three hours away from their meeting and Kirk was bored. He had absolutely nothing to do and nothing to fiddle around with other than the little rubber ball that McCoy had allowed him to carry out of his office during the captain's last physical. Kirk made sure to check in periodically with different stations from his chair, too bored to even really wander around the bridge like he normally would. He felt unsettled for some strange reason that he couldn't pinpoint. Like something was going to start and he needed to be ready for it, whatever it was. He didn't like not knowing what was going on and it showed in his seated restlessness.
"Sir, I'm receiving a distress signal."
"Put it through the main viewer, Uhura."
"Aye, sir."
"Re…in need o…Our warpdr…All bu…crew…Repeat…"
"Is there any way to clean that up a bit more, Lieutenant?"
"I'm trying sir, but there seems to be some kind of strange interference that I haven't seen before."
"Keep at it."
"Yes, sir."
"Do we have their coordinates?"
There was a beat of silence before anyone spoke up, "Sir, they're not that far from where our rendezvous is."
Kirk's eyes snapped from Uhura to Sulu, "Lieutenant Sulu, maximum warp."
"Aye, sir!"
"Uhura, anything from the two ships we're heading towards?"
Uhura's fingers moved swiftly and efficiently over her station, "There seems to have been an acknowledgement from the Vulcan ship before both the Federation and Vulcan ships lost their warp drives along with the interference that's jumbling our distress call. They don't seem to be having any other problems, but can't contact or get anything from the ship in distress. They can't even seem to get a visual of the ship in question. They aren't able to find the reason why, sir."
"Well, isn't this just lovely," Kirk murmured to himself, that sense of waiting that he'd had for the majority of this shift spiking momentarily before fading away.
21. Ball Green
Naomi Wildman was bored, bored and sick and really wanting to meet the new kids on the ship. She would be cleared from being kept apart from them and confined to her quarters soon enough, she just had another few hours before she was no longer contagious and would be officially over it anyway, but that didn't stop her from being bored at the moment. She wouldn't have been kept away from them like this if they had been slightly healthier when Voyager had found them, but that wasn't really their fault and it wasn't something she could hold against them. In fact, it was really her own fault for getting sick in the first place.
Her door beeped, requesting entry. She sighed to herself, long and put-out, before letting whoever was at the door in. It was probably the Doctor coming for her final check-up; if she was lucky, he would release her early and she'd be able to meet the new kids in the Mess Hall for dinner. She was, therefore, slightly surprised when her best friend walked into the room, back straight and tall.
"Naomi Wildman, I would like to request an update on your physical status."
"Seven! I didn't think you'd come over while I was sick. If I'd known, I'd have set up the kadis-kot board."
Seven walked closer to the still ill child and raised her cortical implant, "That is not necessary, though it is appreciated. I came to inquire after your health."
"Oh, I'm doing better, I should be released from my quarters as soon as the Doctor comes to see me at some point today. I'm just so bored!"
Sever took a seat next to the irritable child and brought her hands from around her back revealing a small green ball in one hand. She offered it to the child, "According to my research, it is customary to bring a present to a friend that is temporarily debilitated."
Naomi smiled at her friend before taking the gift, "Thanks, though I'm not really sure why you didn't bring a book. I would think that a PADD with information would be more your style of gift."
Seven inclined her head, "I had originally intended to bring such a thing, but the Doctor encouraged me to bring something more frivolous. I do have a PADD with a collection of the next few star charts and the planets within them that I will bring to you later today."
Naomi grinned, "Thanks. I do appreciate the 'frivolous' gift, but I also look forward to the PADD. Maybe I can share some of the stuff you've taught me with the new kids. Have you met them?"
"I have not, though Icheb did mention that he saw them when he reported for his weekly maintenance with the Doctor earlier this week. He stated that most of them were still too physically debilitated to do much more than consume nutrients and rest. A few of them, mostly the Vulcan and the elder Human male, have requested information on their families."
"Any idea who they are?"
"I am afraid that I cannot share such information with you at this time, Naomi Wildman."
The little girl sighed heavily before nodding at her more adult friend, "I suppose a lot of it's going to be 'classified,' isn't it?"
"Indeed."
"I'll have to ask them myself when I get the chance to meet them then."
"Perhaps you can welcome them officially to the ship tomorrow. I'm sure that Mr. Neelix wouldn't be against allowing you to accompany him when he gets their nutrients for the day ready."
22. Banana
Out of all the things she'd ever eaten since becoming a member of this crew, bananas had always remained one of the things she liked the least. If she had a personal preference for food, that is. She would eat them if they were presented to her, just as she knew that the others in their group would eat anything given to them, provided they weren't allergic to the food or drink in question. As it was, whenever she received a banana as part of her food allotment for the meal she was sitting for, she would carefully divide it up into smaller pieces and then give it to the children in her care. They required the substance far more than she did and would appreciate the treat at the same time.
None of them were really well enough to eat food that would have more sugar or seasoning to it, but they were allowed a few very bland treats now and then, such as now. The younger children liked to eat the fruit and they eagerly accepted the small pieces and consumed the, with satisfaction. She did not smile at them but her eyes did brighten in pleasure at seeing those under her care properly eating and enjoying their meal at the same time. She had not had many of these moments before they had been rescued by Voyager. She would be forever grateful to the crew aboard this ship and she did not feel any shame or disinclination to repress such emotions, despite the teachings of her people.
"Do you want some?" one of the youngest asked. She held up a half-eaten piece of fruit.
Saavil did not smile, though she did open her mouth and lean down so the child could push the piece into her mouth. She slowly chewed and swallowed before thanking the you girl. She smiled up at the Vulcan teen before turning back to her own meal.
23. Banana Mania
"Why did you name her Saavil? Was that after Saavik?"
"No, it's actually after a character from a Mercedes Lackey book."
She'd overheard one of her parents talking about her name once when she was small. They hadn't really argued (Vulcans didn't argue and if they did, they wouldn't tell you about it.) She had returned home from the Vulcan equivalent of elementary school and her mother had been speaking with one of her friends over a comm. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but she had anyway. She was curious and she wasn't yet old enough to start controlling her emotions just yet. She had grabbed the Vulcan equivalent of a banana and taken it with her to her room after listening. She hadn't really liked the fruit, but she hadn't been feeling well the last few hours and figured it would help as the thought of anything else made her stomach slightly queasy.
She hadn't really thought about it in a while, not until she'd awaken from a healing coma on a Federation Starship in the middle of the Delta Quadrant and she'd once again overheard two people wondering about her name. She hadn't really involved herself in either conversation and she didn't allow it to take up too much of her thought processes. When she recovered enough to sit up and hold something, she requested a copy of the books in question to occupy her time while she waited for the other children to awaken. She read through them slowly, taking notes on which ones she would start reading to the children once they did wake up.
24. Beaver
It was one of the things she missed the most while she was looking for help. She didn't have time to stop and just look at the world around her. She'd had enough time for that when she was still just a child, back before she'd found her purpose. She'd even had the time to look at most of the interesting flora and fauna of the Alpha Quadrant, or at least most of it, once the Line she was charged with guarding became more than just sea faring, they became space faring as well.
She knew that she could probably stop and take a look at one planet or another. There was time, she wasn't exactly out of options yet, but she couldn't. She couldn't stop to smell the roses because there was just too much at stake here. If she allowed herself to get distracted there was no guarantee that she would be able to get herself back on track. She was alone here, so very alone, in a way that she hadn't been alone before. Even when her sister had been trying to piece what was left of her mind back together (that was so long ago, so very long ago that it was nothing more than space dust on the far side of the galaxy) she had been able to feel her. Now, there was nothing in the back of her head but a strong line of string pulled taut enough that she still worried about it snapping at the wrong moment.
She would look down at the gold thread that was still tied to her finger. It, too, was taut enough that with every movement she feared it would give in and snap. She thanked Haven every time she stopped to look at it, making sure it was still there. She knew intellectually that she would feel the snapping of either thread before they severed completely, but she had spent such a long time around humans that she couldn't stop the nervous habit of checking things visibly. She didn't want to stop those habits, they were all she really had right now.
That and her mission. She had been able to communicate with several life forms that were able to move between 'normal' space and wherever they actually came from. She couldn't remember what they called themselves, but they had been willing to help her look for someone who could actually help her. They had suggested a few different peoples, but she couldn't bring herself to trust those they had suggested. They didn't take this personally for the most part, they were able to read things from her that she still wasn't sure about. She didn't hold their ability against them as they had seemed just as surprised by it as she was.
Apparently they hadn't met many of her kind and the ability was more a hit or miss thing with the ones they had met. She hadn't run into any of her kind that weren't dormant. She didn't wake them.
"I have to find someone. They said that there was a ship here that might help, but where do I find them?" she muttered to herself.
25. Big Dip O' Ruby
Life came at you fast, that was all she could think as she felt the severing of her connection tear sharply at her mind.
She wasn't at home, not really, she was never truly at home when she was without several of the members of her family. It had been so long since she'd had a family, so very long. Decades where she'd just existed beside her sister after it was all over. They had found their princess, their purpose in life, but the future that so many had seen hadn't happened. She didn't stop much to think about that, she had a job to do, a job that was more her life than anything else. Her princess had grown up and met someone, a good man whose name her guardians have long since forgotten. (There have been too many names and faces and time seems to go faster and faster now that they've found their purpose and lost it at the same time.) Her princess had a family and grew old and had grandchildren.
Her princess, her purpose for those long lonely centuries with no one but her sister at her side, dies.
She attends the funeral, she couldn't do anything less, but a part of her disappears that sunny autumn day. She doesn't have to glance at her sister to know she feels the same. They are surrounded by their princess's family and friends, people that they know and have been friends with just as long, but they are alone in their grief. They would never try to downplay anyone's feelings on everything, but how many people waited their entire lives for someone? How many people's entire lives was closer to the planet's lifespan than anything else?
Their princess, their purpose, was gone and she wouldn't be coming back.
26. Big Foot Feet
Jimmy loved to read. He loved to learn and know things that other people didn't know. He was good at keeping secrets, he had to be. Otherwise bad people would come and take away his very bestest friend in the whole wide world. He was still very young, but he knew that his friend knew everything there was to know about the world. She told the best stories and she was always willing to answer his questions to the best of her ability. She was the best storyteller in the world, he was sure of it.
Jimmy knew that he wasn't the only one to have someone watching out for him. His big brother Sam had someone too, but she always seemed slightly distracted whilst Jimmy's someone was always giving him the best of her attention. Sam didn't take offense to this as he was often distracted by one thing or another as well. It had something to do with his 'studies' that he was always talking about. Jimmy knew that Sam was studying to become someone who could help people, though he was never sure just how Sam was planning on helping people or what he was going to do. He just knew that Sam was smart and that Jimmy wanted to be smart like him.
Uncle Frank was an okay guy, but he could have been better. Jimmy knew that his uncle had a lot to deal with, the farm and his sister and his nephews. He also knew that he, Jimmy, was one of the hardest things to deal with. Jimmy had horrible allergies to just about everything and he couldn't even take the medicine that other people would take as it made some things better and then everything else worse. Uncle Frank was good to his nephews, even if he didn't always feel like he was. Jimmy was a little boy who was curious and wanted to know how people would react to certain things and so he was more obnoxious than he probably needed to be because of it. Sometimes, though, when he was feeling guilty, he would do something nice for his uncle and then wouldn't admit that he had done so.
His best friend, though, she was always game for whatever it was he wanted, provided it didn't put him in mortal danger. She was kind of a stick in the mud about that and wouldn't let him climb on top of the roof anymore. You almost slip off in the middle of winter once and they never let you forget it.
27. Bittersweet
She hadn't thought she'd be sent on a mission quite like this one, though, granted, she hadn't really had too many parameters for how this mission was going to go in the first place. She was just going to check up on a few things in the Alpha Quadrant for her uncle. (She was also fully aware that he had ulterior motives for sending her to one of the few places she least wanted to go.) All she had to do was show up, look over a couple of planetary systems, record her findings and send them to her uncle and then she was free to go back to the Nexus. She was already feeling a little homesick for that ribbon of light wandering around space.
What she hadn't expected was to come across a signal from the Delta Quadrant being sent to the Alpha Quadrant, specifically to Earth. She hadn't been to that planet in a long, long time. She wasn't even sure how long a time, but long enough to be surprised that they had any kind of constant communication with the complete opposite side of the Milky Way. There hadn't been that kind of connection since long before Earth was aware as a whole that they weren't alone in the universe. She's even more surprised by the cooperation amongst people that, last she knew, were trying to cheerfully rip one another's throats out. It really has been too long since she's had actual interaction with people outside of the ones picked up by the Nexus.
She hadn't expected to get involved in it either.
"Who are you and what are you doing in this room?"
She ignored the question and all of the following ones as she continued to stare at the screen in front of her in disbelief. She continues to see the words across the screen long after she's been dragged out by security and placed in a cell. She continues to see those names after her first interrogator comes into the cell block and asks her questions without any kind of stimuli. Later she'll think that if they'd introduced some kind of physical stimuli, she'd have snapped out of her daze a lot sooner. She would have forgiven them as she understood just what it took to protect something much larger than yourself and also larger than a single planet.
None of this will remove from her mind the names of people that she hasn't thought about in what, to her, is more than a thousand years. After all, time in the Nexus is all relative and George Samuel Kirk Jr. has been long since dead.
28. Bittersweet Shimmer
They're not really sure what to do with her. Their scans don't pick up on much, just photons and electrons and chroniton particles. It's like she's not much more than light and shadows and time mixed into one. Eventually, they pick up on the particles that make up your typical comet or asteroid somewhere in her blood stream even though she still reads as a somewhat human life form. It's very confusing to most of the people aware of her capture and existence in the brig. They don't have any current record of who or even what she is, for the most part.
All of that changes when someone they haven't called for happens to come by to see what is going on in their neck of the woods.
She isn't sure what it is about the person in front of her that shakes her out of her daze at reading that name, but when she looks up, he's still standing there. It's been so long since she's even thought about one of the people who were close to the last of her charges. She hadn't been around her last charge that much when he was with these people. She'd had another charge to be with, but her last charge's son had still not been the last or even the next as he should have been. She doesn't think about that right now, though. What she's thinking about is how on Earth this person is in front of her.
She hadn't even seen his image in the Nexus in a while, though that's more because she doesn't spend all of her time with what's left of her charge in that energy ribbon. He is older than the last image of him she saw, he isn't even really standing. He's sitting in a chair and looking across the force field into her eyes as she comes back to reality.
"Dr. McCoy."
29. Black
Everything is so dark here even though she can see the stars and their accompanying planets so clearly as she travels, looking for help and never quite finding what she's looking for. She's still looking for that ship that she heard about, the one that stopped its sister because she was hurting life forms that were innocent. She needed to find that ship and that crew and do anything they needed or wanted just so that they would look at her family, what was left of it, and save them too.
She's getting closer that is the only thing she knows in this endless darkness that is not really pinpricks of light and little planets zooming by her. She is hearing the planets talk of the strange ship that they have heard of and only some of them have met. She hears the talk of a crew that is devoted to one another so much that they will go into the heart of their deepest mortal enemy for one of their own. She hears tale of a people that are and aren't one as they fight and argue and live and breathe all at the same time. She hears tales of how they are respected and hated and loved and admired and feared and all other kinds of things as others before them have been and others after them will be.
It's dark and it's cold here not because she is in space or even because she is traveling at a speed that is and isn't faster than light can travel. It's dark and it's cold because she can see the light from the stars that she would feel in the back of her mind always.
Yet she feels nothing from their cold light. Not even a blip of energy pulsing at the back of her mind and soul. She is more alone now than she has ever been before.
30. Black Coral Pearl
It's been a long time since anyone has seen or felt that reaction. The last of the active Guardians was lost so long ago and all that remains are the dormant. Very few of the dormant are even aware of what they are and amongst those few are an even smaller number of people that know what they are and know someone else like them. The connections that used to span across solar systems and from one galaxy to another were now nothing more than a few points that were barely even aware of the others' existence.
That number had been cut more than in half after the events of Tarsus IV, though no one outside of those who knew about the people who had been there even knew it. Jim was alone once more as there wasn't really anyone left who knew. Well, that wasn't entirely accurate, but he really only had one or two people who really knew about it and a handful of others who had some kind of inkling. Those handful were all on a different planet than he was, but he went to them as soon as he could, taking the only member of his family that he had a strong connection to with him.
Vulcan was beautiful, its sunset absolutely breathtaking and the quiet and calm of the monastery at Gol soothed as much of his soul as it could. He still felt the jagged edges of where his connection to his aunt had been and the barely there pull of the thread that connected him to his brother and his own guardian. The strongest of the threads in his mind was the one to his brother's guardian and she wasn't really in any kind of mental state to help him out. He needed the help of people who were telepathic to some degree or other and the only ones he really trusted with his family were the Vulcan Masters of Gol.
Maybe they'd be able to help him trace the links he had to those who were missing, but still alive. One of the missing people was one of their own after all and Vulcans were very protective of their own people, especially those who were young.
31. Black Shadows
He was old, he knew it and so did everyone else. Most of his friends were gone, though there were still a few out there in the Quadrant kicking around doing something. His family is all but gone as well, his little girl having long since grown up and married. She had found a nice young man, one that he had grudgingly approved of (and had his friends help him threaten). They had only had one child, a girl who had also grown up and married a nice young man. (His son-in-law had actually helped with the talk that young man had been given and took the time afterwards to thank his father-in-law for his own talk. Amazing what a little thing called perspective can do for a man.) She had given birth to two beautiful children before dying giving birth to her third child who was stillborn. Medicine can come as far as the human mind can imagine it and then some, but there will always be things that no doctor no matter how brilliant can stop. Death is just as final now as it was all those years ago when doctors had been using leeches to help their patients.
His daughter takes her own daughter's death hard and never really recovers from it. She is alone, her husband having passed on shortly after their daughter married and had her first child. It was a natural death that no one really knew what caused it. She gives up on living and dies quietly with him by her bedside and her grandchildren gathered around her, still too young to understand what happened. His grandson-in-law doesn't look at him with pity but with understanding and doesn't hesitate to ask for help when he needs it. He had been the youngest in a family of five. They had all been in Starfleet and died from one thing or another, even his parents. He knows what it is to lose your family and cherishes his children as much as possible without stunting their own growth.
Leonard thinks that this young man is probably one of the smartest people he's ever known and respects him for it. He also makes sure doors are open for him when they need to be, he's a family man after all as well as a career man.
He watches his great-grandchildren grow up and start to live their lives. He also watches as a new generation of Starfleet officers, men and women, enter the black aboard a brand new Enterprise. He even gets the opportunity to come aboard before they chip out and see the new lady that is replacing the ones he's seen off dozens of times. He even meets the person they've got to replace the hobgoblin (who is off somewhere, probably getting himself into more trouble than it's worth to track him down. Spock was just as capable of finding ridiculous amounts of trouble as Jim had been; probably part of why they were able to work so well together. Idiots.)
(He missed his friends, missed his crew and he missed his family, but no one would ever drag that out of him. He'd spent to long as a stubborn cuss to change now that he was an old man.)
He had been called, slightly out of the blue; he was retired after all, to come down to Starfleet Headquarters to look at something. He'd come and looked at whatever it was they wanted him to look at (something in Medical) and then he'd randomly wandered around the rest of the buildings to see if there was anything interesting going on that he might want to know about. That's how he finds out about her.
Leonard McCoy had lost most of his friends and just about all of his family to time and death and noble actions. He never expected to find someone who reminded him too much of people that were long since gone. He certainly never expected to get pulled into something like saving the world, again, at his age.
He was really getting too old for this.
32. Blast Off Bronze
It took everything he had to keep his head straight after that planet imploded. If he hadn't had experience with dealing with the sudden slack of a mental thread going from taut to floating free in the wind, he'd have been in more trouble than he was before. He doesn't even take the time to flinch as the last of his family is gone, ripped apart by the force of a black hole. He hasn't been this alone and yet this surrounded by people in longer than he cares to remember.
He doesn't let it stop him from doing what is right, from doing everything possible to stop this from happening to someone else.
He's seen more than one world destroyed at this point by a madman who thinks that his own pain and his needs are more important than thousands of others. He will not allow one more planet to be added to this list.
If he has to do things that make him hate himself all the more, then so be it. Just as long as no one else will feel what he has had the dubious pleasure of experiencing multiple times.
33. Blazing Bonfire
Comet isn't sure why she is doing this.
No, scratch that. She knows why, she just doesn't want to admit it. She likes to hide when she's hurt and confused. She's only been doing so for the last century or so, maybe longer, time is so relative for her now, even more so than it was when she was younger and could and would shake off more than a thousand years just watching as a civilization grew and then collapsed.
She's doing something that she hasn't really done since her purpose died all those years ago.
She's going into battle against someone that she's not sure she's going to defeat, but she's doing so because every other option is too much like giving up and letting them take everything and she's not about to let that happen. She couldn't defeat death and time and everything that came with those two and maybe she can't defeat these beings that have decided that this world, this people, this Galaxy are theirs to play with as long as they want. But she can sure make them have to work for it. She's not going to send herself back into retirement just because the people she has to work with are echoes of those she had loved and lost.
She's going to make the Borg fight for every square inch of territory they take and she's going to make them pay for it with more than just their life's blood.
34. Blizzard Blue
When he looks up and sees the walls of ice all around him, he knows that he's lost.
He hasn't felt like this in a long time, longer than he's been alive he likes to think.
He just sits there and looks up from the little pod he's in for what feels like an eternity (and he knows what that feels like, you can't be mentally linked to someone that's been around since the galaxy you're a part of started molding itself out of dust and energy and not know what an eternity feels like. Just saying.) but what is probably only a few minutes, if that. He snaps out of his little funk quickly enough after that and starts climbing. He's not going to take this lying down and if he has to go all down and dirty then by all means. He's not given up before and he doesn't mean to change when he's got a good thing going.
It's not until he falls down a lovely little ice cliff being chased by something that he'd rather not think about that he really starts to think that he's done for. Even he'd have a hard time coming out on top with the kind of echoing he's got going on in his head. It's really messing with his thinking now that the only things around him are cold, white and slightly murderous red giant crab-monster things (and whatever that other thing was too.) He still doesn't want to give up, but it's important to know when you're beaten.
That's why he's so surprised by someone turning up at the last possible moment (well, maybe not quite the last possible moment. He isn't been chewed on just yet) and saves the day. He's even more surprised when it turns out that his savior is also the guy that got him stranded on this frozen rock.
Apparently they're also something like super friends in another universe. He doesn't believe the crazy Vulcan until their minds are joined for what feels even more like an eternity (and an eternity of pain that he's only ever gotten a slight glimpse of from his keeper, she had too much control to let him touch that. She didn't want him to lose himself in her mind after all.) He hasn't had someone touch his mind like this on purpose in several years, but he knows that this touch is different. For one thing, it's mostly one-way and more of an information dump in the form of intense Cliff notes than anything else. He's pretty sure that Old Spock hasn't picked up on Jim's mental stability (or the lack thereof) in the face of the old man's less than stable grounds.
He doesn't say anything about it. Now that he's got a better chance at stopping the crazy Romulan from destroying anymore lives, he's going to grab it with both hands and hang on until there's no problem left to worry about.
Once that's done, then he will worry about picking up the pieces that have fallen around him like a fallen angel's shattered innocence.
35. Blue
Everything was going to fall apart, she just knew it.
Somewhere out there was a ship, a ship full of people that could help her. With every story of them that she found, she knew that they not only could help her, but that they would and they would do it even if they gained nothing in return. She needed that, she needed someone who would help her and not want anything from it because that was the only way she could actually bring herself to trust another with something so important as what remained of her family. She had to reach that ship and she wouldn't stop or rest or even think until she found them.
She followed every rumor of their being somewhere, looked into nebulae that she hadn't remembered the existence of in centuries and watched for the shadow of the port nacelles to show up in the black of space. She hadn't looked so hard for something since she had first noticed the little gold string tied to her finger and tried to follow it to its originator. She had found that person, her original purpose, but that had taken most of her life. She prayed that this wouldn't take as long. She didn't have that kind of time anymore.
She wondered that if she found them in the next five minutes, if she would still have the time to get them to her family in time to save them.
She wasn't so sure anymore and that more than anything else, scared her.
36. Blueberry
Out of all the things she had seen, she never wanted to see this again.
She had taken part in the assimilation of thousands of people, seen whole worlds destroyed in the Borg's need to take and take and take. They needed to be perfect, but perfection was impossible no matter how hard you tried for it. She knew that now even if she would never admit to it. Yes, she had seen perfection when the Omega Molecule had stabilized randomly, but she also knew that the chances of that happening to a sentient being, finding perfection in themselves, was a chance of 0.0000000000000001%. And that was being optimistic, something that had been leaking into her calculations not long after Voyager and her crew had successfully rescued her from the Borg Queen once again (the last time, she wasn't going to put them through that ever again, not if she could help it.)
She still didn't care as much about people outside of the Voyager crew and her actions were consistent in that regard. What she was feeling now, though, that surprised her and she wasn't entirely sure why. When she looked at the children, and they were just as much children as the last Borg drones that Voyager had found and taken aboard, she felt distinctly unwell. She wanted to help them like she hadn't wanted to help others that her actions hadn't affected before. The Captain would likely say that she had taken another step in the direction of accepting her humanity, but it seemed to be more than that.
It was like there was something within her that recognized these individuals on a level that was lower than even the subconscious. Recognized and welcomed.
37. Blue Bell
She finally found them, found the people who were going to save what was left of her life.
She found them on a planet, surrounded by blue bells. She was a little surprised before she realized that she wasn't actually on a planet, but in a holodeck, probably on the ship that she had been looking for. She wasn't entirely certain just how she had gotten onto the ship without actually seeing the ship, but she suspected it had something to do with her spending the last few weeks not sleeping and just traveling. Looking was all well and good, but it won't really help you if you're too tired to realize you've found what you were looking for.
Still, she had found the ship, and some of the crew and that was good enough in her book.
Now she just had to figure out how to talk to them.
38. Blue Gray
His eyes hadn't been the same; she had been the first to tell him that. It had taken her a while to be able to look at him and actually realize that, let alone remember to tell him when she saw him, but she did eventually tell him. It had been one of the moments when he realized that he would need to leave her at the monastery at Gol for longer than it would take him to be finished with his recovery. He wasn't looking forward to that.
He had looked back into her eyes and realized that they were looking right through him even though she had gotten the change in his eye color correctly. She wasn't going to be getting better any time soon, if she ever really got better at all. He had spoken with the masters at Gol and they weren't exactly reassuring, but at the same time they seemed more optimistic than he would have been. Probably because he knew if he looked into her mind and tried to help patch her up, he would just make everything worse. He was still only a teenager and he had his own mental landscape to worry about at the moment.
Remove the beam in thy own eye first and all that.
He was absolutely useless for anything other than emotional support right now and that wasn't going to get through to her very well when it took her over a month to realize that his eye color wasn't as clear as it used to be.
He trusted the masters though, if nothing else, they should be able to help her. At least he hoped so.
39. Blue Green
Seven turned her eyes to the side once again and cocked her cortical implant. She was certain that she had seen someone moving in the periphery of her vision, but she still wasn't able to pinpoint it. She hadn't mentioned it to anyone just yet as every time she opened her mouth to do so, she would see the flash of color again. She didn't want to tip anyone who shouldn't be there off just yet. They'd had enough of those the last time someone had come aboard and started using the crew as their science experiments.
She used what scanning equipment she had available that wouldn't tip off whoever was watching (hopefully) before she was able to get any kind of readings. They reminded her slightly of the readings they had on the photon based life forms that had somehow entered the ship through one of Lieutenant Paris's Captain Proton holonovels. They weren't exactly the same, but they were close. She narrowed her eyes as her scan from Astrometrics lab (she was very grateful that Ensign Kim had helped her install a few ship sensors that would pick-up on intruders that were trying to mask their presence on Voyager. Out of everyone on board, she had the best chance of catching someone, other than the Doctor; he'd caught them the first time and used her help to expose them. She was slightly concerned that he hadn't seemed to notice this time.
She tracked the individual as they seemed to appear and disappear from completely random places all over the ship. It was almost as if the being was trying to get somewhere, but couldn't pinpoint where that place was. As far as Seven could calculate, it also looked as if the individual wasn't using any of the ship's technology or sensors to move around. Meaning that this person either didn't know how to use Starfleet technology or had something to use instead. Her eyes narrowed once more and she took the time to send a message to the captain as well as Commander Tuvok, heavily encrypted of course.
The individual was making steady progress towards both the bridge and Sick Bay. Almost as if it was being drawn to both places by a magnet and couldn't decide which one to enter.
40. Blue Jeans
It had been months, years even, and she wasn't getting better. She stared through people more and more lately rather than actually at them. She was actually more in tune with the world around her at the beginning of her stay at the monastery. Jim knew that it wasn't the Vulcans' fault; she was just losing interest in things. He'd gotten himself stable enough to finally connect mentally with her. She was a mess and because she wasn't interested in healing or even slightly fixing the mess it was getting worse. Kind of like what happens when you don't clean a room for something like several months and then ignore the problem while still trying to use it.
She was getting worse because she refused to get better and nothing he did or said would change her mind. She's given up on ever seeing them again and even he's not enough to make her change her mind. After all, he never really needed someone to look after him, not after what they had gone through. She knew that, she knew that before he did and he could see that just as clearly as he could see that she was trying something that he hadn't even thought about.
She was shielding him from how badly strained their connections to his brother and her sister really were.
41. Blue Violet
It was the Vulcan female that really started reaching out for help first. Something that slightly surprised most of the crew and yet didn't surprise Commander Tuvok or even Seven of Nine at all. In fact, they were only surprised that she had waited as long as she did before asking for help. He had turned to Tuvok first, asking for his help with nothing more than her eyes, knowing that, somehow, he understood what she was asking for.
She was right to take such a risk, because his reactions were what calmed her down, almost as if he were her father or older brother. She felt safe around him because her soul reached out and his answered even if he wasn't aware of it happening. She wasn't really sure if he knew about it or not. He probably did, he looked (and felt) old enough to understand this kind of thing and the way he responded to the minute emotions that flickered over her face and in her eyes told her more than any words could have.
With his help, she was able to find her stability once more and even start to take care of the children in their group. She watched over them and worked with them. She met Naomi Wildman, once the child was no longer contagious and well enough to actually meet others. She approved of the child's attempts to befriend the other children and she was grateful for the other child on board's assistance, Icheb. He helped her to set up a schedule for the children as they were still too wary around any of the adults other than Commander Tuvok and Naomi's mother.
Everything changed once again when she met the other Vulcan on board. Vorik.
42. Blush
When their eyes met for the first time, they were surprised though they didn't show it. They were Vulcan after all, and Vulcans didn't go around letting all and sunder know that they had emotions…most of the time. Neither of them had been expecting to see another Vulcan in their age group in the Delta Quadrant. To be fair, other than Tuvok there weren't any other Vulcans in the Delta Quadrant that anyone on the ship knew of.
They didn't become fast friends or anything like that. That kind of thing was rare for most Vulcans due to their reticence that was more cultural than anything else. She only saw him around the ship and in the Mess Hall for the most part of the first three months that they were on the ship. She spent more time around Lieutenant Tom Paris than she did around Vorik and she only saw the pilot in passing or when one of the kids wanted to learn something from the blonde. Tom Paris was many things, but good with kids was, not surprisingly for Saavil, one of them. He was kind of like a big kid in an adult's body.
He reminded her of a friend they'd left behind. She hoped he was alright, but she was also realistic with the idea that he was probably dead. She was careful to not bring this up around any of the children or, more importantly, around his brother. Sam was still too much in shock over everything and probably wouldn't handle it very well. He wasn't handling much of anything at the moment.
Ironically enough, it was Vorik that reached through to the troubled young man, although Saavil was certain that it hadn't been his intention to do so.
43. Booger Buster
Maria tilted her head and looked at the board in front of her with her tongue sticking out in one direction and her brow furrowed in thought. She wasn't sure just what she was going to do next, but she knew that it would be the most important part of the entire game. She wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around her. That didn't change until an argument started. She blinked in surprise when there was a loud noise just behind her. She didn't duck under the table at first, but when it happened again s he dived and didn't come out.
She refused to come out from under the table no matter what anyone said. The last time she'd come out from under a table that she hadn't wanted to she'd lost her family.
She had a family again and she wasn't going to lose it no matter what. The seven-year-old was frightened that this thing they had going for them, a place to rest and eat and not be afraid, was going to become conditional like it had been before. She hadn't recovered very well from it the first time this had happened.
She stayed under there for over 24 hours before she fell asleep and was pulled out gently by Vorik, the only person that she didn't fight off in her sleep.
In his arms she was still and her slumber deep.
That was not the turning point, but it was the beginning that many would look back on and recognize as, if not the first step, then at least the first inclination to do so.
44. Brick Red
Jim didn't want to put that uniform back on, but he knew he had to. He had a mission to fulfill, a world, no, a galaxy to protect. He would do his duty, no matter the cost to himself, just as he had been taught all his life. The worth of the one is just as important as the worth of the many that he never had any doubt about. It was the needs of all involved that would be his distraction. It had paralyzed him momentarily as a young child, but it no longer did so.
He had seen what madness lay in that decision. Had witnessed how it could destroy more than one world and would not watch it happen again.
This, more than anything, is what helped him to get up and put that red student uniform on for one last time. Soon enough he would be wearing more than one color anyway and he would find comfort in the black that all of Starfleet wore. A small part of him really hoped that he would be able to wear the gold of command, but he also knew that he would do his best in the red of tactical or security as well.
45. Bright Yellow
The light in front of her was so powerful, but she knew that it wouldn't end her, no matter how it wanted her to believe that. She was strong and she wasn't going to give in. She had a promise to fulfill and a people to save. She breathed in deeply and struck out.
Today would not be the day that she failed.
Not again.
46. Bronze Yellow
It was astonishing how life could change at the last moment. What was one way for however long you'd been alive could suddenly change to mean something completely different. Even if that difference was only a slight change, it was still big enough to not be the same thing and that was what was so hard to accept.
That more than anything else was what made it so hard for George Samuel Kirk to accept.
He was a man of science, but he was also a man that knew, intimately, that magic did in fact exist. He wasn't the best at controlling what little he had, but he did know that it existed and was powerful. Science was powerful in and of itself, especially when used properly and correctly and, most importantly, by someone who actually knows what they are doing. Magic is both very much the same and very much not at the same time. It was maddening.
"Sam, will you join us for breakfast?"
He turned and looked at Saavil. She was awaiting him with no expression on her face.
"I'll be along shortly."
She took a few moments to look into his eyes wordlessly before she nodded and turned to leave. He watched as the door opened and then closed behind her, leaving him alone.
47. Brown
Brown eyes, he should have had brown eyes, but he did not.
That more than anything else is what tells Spock that he has entered a place that he has never been to before. He had seen other places, other universes (sometimes he still wondered at the use of such a word, it was so illogical) and the eyes of his dearest friend had always remained the same. James Kirk had always had brown eyes or at least hazel-brown, never had they been blue.
Blue eyes were what really told him that this place was different, so very different from his home and any other place he had ever been to and likely ever would be to.
That was all right, though, he was after all a scientist. He would do better than adapt, he would grow here and hopefully be able to help his people and those of this galaxy better than he had ever been able to in his own.
48. Brown Sugar
Out of everything that he finds out from Old Spock (yes that nickname was kind of lame and no, Jim didn't have any problem using it. It made the old man smile and that was good enough for him) it's the difference in his eyes against his counterpart's that strikes him as the most important part. Funny how having your father die on the day of your birth which is actually kind of early isn't the thing that tips him off the most about anything.
He knows that the eyes are important partly because of that old saying that has been thrown about for over a millennia. The eyes are the window to the soul. They are also the door, as he has heard in several other places that aren't all open to the mainstream public. He knows better than most everyone (he wouldn't say everyone period as he knows that he isn't the only one with this knowledge. He just happens to be the only one in the nearest hundred light years) that this is true. He knows that the difference showing between his eyes and his counterpart's eyes aren't just because of the radiation or any other problems that he knew he had from being born when and where he was born. His eyes are still the crystal clear blue they had been when he was born for a reason.
He was the first in more than a century in his family Line to be truly Active. Even if that wasn't enough to save everyone he cared about. After all, all the power in the universe won't help you when you have no idea how to use it without accidentally sending those you're trying to help out of your galaxy at the least or incinerating them with the sheer energy at the worst.
49. Bubble Gum
Vorik isn't sure what it was about the small human girl that had reached out to him. He's not even sure if the others know. He would wonder what it is about him that causes a child that has shied away from just about every other crew member of Voyager to have her look up at him with wide green eyes and offer him the last piece of candy she has on her.
The Vulcan engineer cannot bring himself to turn the pink piece of bubblegum down. It is only after his jaw has chewed it for several hours that he realizes that she had smiled at him and he had smiled back at her through his eyes. He hadn't been able to look at anyone with that kind of affection since he'd last seen his younger brother before accepting his commission to work aboard Voyager.
50. Burnished Brown
It had started out all right, sensors were working correctly, the ship's warp drive was just fine and they hadn't had any problems or incidents involving the inhabitants of the Delta Quadrant. That week had actually been pleasant, up until they had received the message from Astrometrics.
Things kind of went downhill and uphill (somehow at the same time) after that point.
Soon after the message was received there was a flicker on the bridge between the captain's chair and the helm that looked like some kind of dull colored flame attempting to take a human shape before it flickered out? After it flickered out the ship made a jump and the stars around them were not even seen as streaks of light anymore. Everyone, ship-wide, braces themselves as they travel further and faster than they had when Kes had sent them hurtling thousands of light years closer to home when she had left their crew.
Engineering comms in to report that the flickering that had been on the bridge is now somehow in the warp core. Ensign Kim reports that there seems to be some kind of shield around the ship's shields, holding Voyager together so that the insane speed it's hurtling at doesn't rip the ship to shreds. Their internal sensors can't read anything beyond strange energy and photons being behind the flickering light.
51. Burnt Orange
The planet they found them on was one of the weirdest colored planets he had ever seen. They're still not sure how a planet can look so orange from orbit and have little to no orange on the actual surface except where it blends in with the green of the foliage. They don't spend as much time looking into that when they come across a crude campsite with starving and comatose children. Children that are very much only from Alpha Quadrant species and don't seem to have any kind of technology to explain their presence in the Delta Quadrant.
They bring them aboard and are horrified when they do find files that match up with the children.
Some of these children were supposed to have died on Tarsus IV.
52. Burnt Sienna
They're sent back to his childhood nightmare to check up on the new colony that has arisen several months after the destruction of Vulcan. This planet is one of the few that many of the remaining Vulcans have chosen to settle on, though they are still mixed up with the few colonists that were there already. Attempts to find another planet that is close enough like the lost Vulcan home world that is still in Federation space have all failed. Vulcans, ever logical, seem to have accepted this and are trying to move on.
This isn't to say that there haven't been attempts to find them a permanent home that look good, but all attempts to make sure they are safe enough from outside forces (or crazy Romulans, even if the Romulan Star Empire has gone out of their way to not harass or cause problems with Starfleet since the whole Nero incident). No one feels safe enough leaving one of the Founding Races of the Federation with anything less than the best protection they can afford. The problem is that Starfleet took just as big a hit and are several ships down and are still trying to recover their personnel numbers.
Either way, Tarsus IV looks like a good place to the Vulcans and they're getting along with the twenty or so humans that have been trying their hardest to make that planet habitable again. The Enterprise is being sent not only with supplies (and a couple more Vulcans that they're supposed to be picking up on the way over) but to check up on the progress so far.
Jim doesn't say anything to his crew about his own past on that planet, not even when he receives a personal message from one of the few survivors left. It looks like Tom Leighton is the current head of the colony in question.
