Space…the final frontier… These are the voyages of the Starship Pioneer. Her ongoing mission, to explore strange new worlds…to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before…
Star Trek: Pioneer
Starring Tenchi Masaki as Captain James Jean-Luc Tenchi
Washu Hakubi as Science Officer Washu
Ryoko Hakubi as the Space Pirate Ryoko
Ayeka Masaki Jurai as Lt. Commander Lydia Ayeka
Sasami Masaki Jurai as Midshipman Sherry Lynn Sasami
Mihoshi Kuramitsu as Lt. Barbie Mihoshi
Kiyone Makibi as Tactical Officer Cassandra Kiyone
Katsuhito Masaki as Doctor Katsuhito Yosho
Ryo-oh-ki as Ensign Whiskers
Tenchi Muyo and all related characters are © AIC/Pioneer. Star Trek and all related material are © Paramount Studios. This story has been written solely for entertainment. The views expressed herein do not necessarily express the opinions of AIC/Pioneer, the author, or this website.
Based on "Star Trek" created by Gene Roddenberry
And "Tenchi Muyo" created by Masaki Kajishima
Dagger of the Brain
By Galaxy1001D
Chapter Two: Welcome to Gehenna
The planet of Gehenna Two was visible on the main screen. It was a reddish-brown planet, reminiscent of Mars or Vulcan. "Approaching Gehenna Two, sir," Kiyone announced from the navigator's station.
"Put us in standard orbit, Mihoshi," Tenchi nodded from the captain's chair.
"Standard orbit," Mihoshi echoed from the helm. "Aye-aye sir. Standard orbit." The blonde's brow furrowed as she concentrated on putting the Pioneer in a stable geosynchronous orbit over the beam down point on the surface. "Yes sir, standard orbit…" she continued as her hands played over the controls.
"Everything, all right, Mihoshi?" Tenchi asked. It sounded like Mihoshi had to exert a lot of concentration on this routine task.
Mihoshi smiled reassuringly back at the boy. "Yes sir, Captain, everything's fine, it's just that…"
"What?"
"Why do you always ask for a 'standard orbit'?" asked the blue-eyed blonde. "It's hardly a challenge to my abilities you know. Why not ask for the weirdest bizarre orbit that I can imagine?" Mihoshi closed her eyes, spun around in her chair and waved her arms in the air. "One that comes dangerously close to the planet and then so far away that we can't even scan it!" Mihoshi stopped spinning to clinch her fists and smile like a maniac. "That would be so fun! I wonder what strange orbits I could come up with?"
"ME-HOE-SHE!" Kiyone growled through clenched teeth. Her normally beautiful features were contorted into a hideous combination of embarrassment and anger.
"Er, heh-heh," Tenchi laughed nervously as a bead of sweat trickled out of his hair onto his face. "Standard orbit will be just fine, thanks!"
"Okay," Mihoshi turned back to her control panel and resumed pushing buttons as if the bizarre conversation had never taken place. "Standard orbit it is, Cap'n!" A bead of sweat appeared at the temple of every face on the bridge except for the oblivious blonde.
First Officer Ayeka, who was standing next to the captain's chair, took to opportunity to lean down and murmur in the captain's ear. "If the penal colony is a psychiatric facility, why don't we leave her behind too?"
Tenchi shivered at Ayeka's close proximity. He had always been fond of Ayeka, ever since they met while he was teaching at Starfleet Academy. His most promising student, he was impressed by her drive to succeed and her blind devotion to both her duty and to her instructor. She wasn't content to live the life of a spoiled rich girl; she wanted to give back to the galaxy, to make a difference. To earn the power, money and prestige of her wealthy family, not just inherit it! She said that she owed it to her family name to be the best officer Starfleet had ever had, and he believed her.
Almost two decades his junior, he loved her as if she was his own daughter. That's what he told himself, anyway. He wasn't blind. She was beautiful, and had a crush on her instructor. Looking back, he had to admire his self-control when it would have been both easy and tempting to take advantage of her young heart.
When he made it to the rank of captain and assigned his own command, he couldn't think of anyone that he wanted for his first officer more than Lydia Ayeka. Although many considered her too young and inexperienced for the job, Ayeka had achieved the rank of lieutenant commander, the minimum rank for the executive officer of a ship the size of the Pioneer.
Sure enough, Ayeka accepted, and his little girl from the academy had grown into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Confident, strong, and graceful, Lydia Ayeka was a model of poise and efficiency. Tenchi guiltily admitted to himself that now that she was no longer a child he actually permitted himself to entertain thoughts about his first officer, but fortunately he never acted on those feelings.
Then came the terrorist plot against the "Stardate Summit" that was supposed to establish a standard calendar for the known galaxy. Delegates from all over the Federation arrived to sign the document that would convert all of their clocks and calendars to new method of timekeeping, one that would take into account the relativistic effects of faster than light travel. No longer would ships have to reset their chronometers when they arrived at their destination. Even the Klingons and Orions had agreed to convert to the new time system, making the Federation Stardate System a truly universal way of keeping track of time.
On their first mission, the crew of the Pioneer had been assigned to provide security for the conference. When they stumbled upon the terrorist plot to detonate an antimatter charge and kill all the delegates Tenchi had risked his life to evacuate everyone from the summit. After the delegates had been evacuated, Tenchi had been the last to beam out.
The explosion occurred at the exact time he dematerialized. The transporter operator had nearly lost his pattern altogether. Only the technical expertise of Lieutenant Washu had pulled him through, but there were side effects. His DNA had suffered a microscopic modification, and the information that told his body how old he was had been erased. Now he was forced to grow up all over again. He used to be too old for her. Now he was too young.
Worse yet, his teenage form had wandering eyes. Apparently the hormones that he had to endure during his second puberty had intensified his sex drive somehow. It seemed as if he fell head over heels in love every time he beamed down to an inhabited planet. To make matters worse, every officer on the bridge was an intelligent and attractive young woman.
Starfleet was an equal opportunity organization. Every gender was acceptable if they could pass the requirements. The glass ceiling that had plagued his planet's history had been eliminated. His old shipmate Jim Kirk had been assigned the Enterprise, the lucky stiff. Every department head except one was male, and nearly all of them came from his home planet.
Not so aboard the Pioneer. Aside of old Doctor Yosho and himself, every department head was a beautiful woman. To make things even more difficult, last year the female option uniform had been changed to a ridiculously short miniskirt and a relatively tight top. It was as if every female of the ship was wearing fetish suits. How could he profess his love to Ayeka when he was infatuated with every woman he saw?
The short answer was that he couldn't. He just smiled and nodded and pretended not to notice that Ayeka still had feelings for him, too.
Not only that, but some of his other officers seemed attracted to him as well.
Washu was the worst of the bunch. It seemed that his slender effeminate appearance was considered quite manly on her planet. She loved to tease him when she thought no one was looking. Somehow she always found a way to ask him for a 'sample of masculine essence' without being written up for insubordination. Ayeka was right. He was a soft touch.
As if his life wasn't complicated enough, last month the space pirate Ryoko had added herself to the mix. A Burchardian orphan who had grown up on planet Jurai, Ryoko had manifested superpowers during her teenage years and become a criminal. She had fallen madly in love with Tenchi the moment she laid eyes on him and agreed to give herself up if he would wait for her until she got out.
It turned out that wasn't much of a wait. Ryoko would get bored and escape, only to track down the Pioneer so she could give herself up. Even the Galaxy Police stopped devoting manpower to track her down. Everybody knew where she would end up. So once again it was up to the Pioneer to escort her to whatever penal colony that thought they could hold her. During that time, Ryoko would make herself at home, flirt with Tenchi, and annoy Ayeka and any other authority figure that had the misfortune of crossing her.
Now it was Gehenna Two's turn to see if they could hold Ryoko, the ultimate escape artist, in custody until her sentence was up or they cured her of her criminal tendencies. He could only hope that they would succeed, for both Ryoko's sake and his own.
"Now in standard orbit," Mihoshi's announcement broke him out his reverie.
Tenchi took a deep breath and rose from his chair. "Well, I better get our passenger ready to disembark," he commented wryly.
"Do you want security to accompany you?" Kiyone asked.
"That's not necessary," he smiled bravely as he walked to the elevator, and then his smile faltered. "They would only make things more difficult anyway," he sighed. Looking utterly defeated, he entered the turbolift. "Deck seven," he muttered.
"Got a moment, Jim?" Old Doctor Yosho asked his young commanding officer. Tenchi hadn't noticed him enter the turbolift.
Doc Yosho's voice startled him, but he managed to hide it. "Sure," Tenchi said with a forced breeziness as he turned to face the bespectacled doctor. "Full stop," he instructed the elevator.
"This will be the first time that Ryoko has ever been in prison." It was true. She had always escaped her captors before they ever got her to a penal colony.
"They aren't prisons anymore, Doc," The young captain gently corrected him. "The modern penal colony treats criminal impulses as what they are: a disease. They use counseling, conditioning and medicine instead of confinement and punishment. A lot has changed since we were kids."
"A cage is a cage," Yosho pointed out. "Even a gilded cage becomes confining. Ryoko agreed to give herself up and go straight so she could be with you, and now you're going to leave her behind on an isolated planet parsecs away from civilization. I'm afraid she might do something desperate."
Tenchi nodded ruefully. "So do I. That's why I'm going to beam down with her. We're going to check it out and see if it's right for her. We'll interview the doctors, check out their counseling programs, see if Gehenna Two is right for her."
"Sounds as if you're putting your elderly aunt into an old folks home," Yosho quipped.
"Feeling self-conscious?"
Yosho smiled grimly. "Don't push it, Jim. The point I'm trying to make is that Ryoko may feel betrayed. She's built her whole life around you. So far you are the only one she trusts. If you betray her trust, she could end up on the wrong side of the law forever."
"Resume," Tenchi instructed the elevator. "Doc, so far I've been completely open and honest with her. This is the best thing for her, what do you expect me to do?"
"All I'm saying is that she might feel abandoned," Yosho replied with fatherly concern.
"Look," Tenchi snapped as the turbolift doors opened onto the main deck, "I joined Star Fleet to explore space, not to take care of a woman who's made bad decisions with her life. It doesn't matter how beautiful she is, or how much I like her. I already have one woman to take care of; her name is the Pioneer."
Meanwhile in the counselor's office on deck seven, Ryoko was doing everything she could to drive Noike, the beautiful Vulcan psychiatrist, crazy.
"Stop repeating the things I say!" the green-haired Vulcan and the cyan-haired Burchardian shouted at each other.
"You have no respect for authority…" they said as one. To Noike's irritation, Ryoko not only repeated what she said but also mimicked her movements as well.
"Stop it, or I'll nerve pinch you!" The two alien women threatened each other. "I'll give you the Vulcan death grip!" they snarled simultaneously. "That's it, I'm warning you!"
The door slid open and Midshipman Sasami entered the room and gasped in shock. "Noike!" the blue-haired girl exclaimed. "Shame on you!" With Ryoko's back to her, the plucky young cadet could only see the hideous look on Noike's face. "I thought Vulcans didn't feel any emotion!"
As if a switch had been flicked, Noike's countenance returned to that of a lovely, green-haired lady. "C-calm yourself, cadet," Noike stammered as she blushed a bright green. "I was merely conducting a psychological exercise. You know that as a Vulcan, I don't feel any emotions."
"And I got some property on Bajor I'd like ta sell ya!" Ryoko crowed. "So Noike, it's not so funny when I steal your lines is it?"
"Will you let it go?" Noike hissed in Ryoko's rather large ear. "OVA Three is my only appearance aside of one episode of GXP. You have three series and three movies to be in, as well as over twenty manga and other books. I'm sorry that I grabbed all the spotlight in OVA Three, now will you just let it go?"
"Can't," Ryoko gloated. "I'm too busy admiring your Vulcan-like stoicism. Aha-ha-ha!" The pirate threw her head back in cruel laughter.
The doors hissed open and Tenchi entered the room to see Ryoko cackling and the ship's counselor reduced to tears. He had never seen a Vulcan cry before. This was not a good sign. It didn't look like Ryoko would be cooperating with the doctors on Gehenna Two. Still he had to try.
Next: Meet Doctor Clay