My Life in the Delta Quadrant: The Beginning

Introduction Part Two

Nebula,

I'm so proud of you! I know your father would be proud of you too! My little girl will soon be a dual graduate of Starfleet! Oh if I had known this when I was younger I would have rubbed Kathy's face in it, she always was the smarty-pants… she would have had a fit that her silly baby sister's baby was smart enough to get two degrees from Starfleet in the time it would take her to achieve one! Ha!

Your grandmother and I will be at the ceremony next month. I'm still trying to find something to wear! I want us all to look good because I want to get a family photo at the ceremony. Noah has even agreed to leave medical school for the weekend you graduate! He says he wants to see his big sister officially become a 'fancy space doctor' and was joking on how you best not look down at earth bound doctors like him.

I just want you to keep in mind a few things while on your last internship. Firstly, please don't slip up and call your captain Aunt Katie! She is your captain and she hates being called Katie. Especially do not do this in front of other crewmembers. Also, I hear Tuvok will be the security officer. Please do not call him uncle in front of the crew, and do not try to provoke and emotional reaction. He has no qualms about reporting any insubordination to Starfleet. Also, I hear that some of your friends from your early academy days are on board. Harry and Vorik are ENSIGNS now, not your cadet friends. I'm not saying you can't be friends with them, but they are your superiors not your 'big bro Kimmy' and 'Stud-ly Vulcan Bffl' anymore.

I notice all these warnings have to do with the nicknames you give others; you must get that from me. Please don't name anyone else anything too out there while your gone. It is just a few weeks, I'm sure you can restrain yourself. Maxine, T'Perra and that new friend of yours Kendra have all agreed to make sure you don't mess this up for me. I got a new dress to watch you graduate Nebula! And If I don't get to see that I will be absolutely heartbroken.

I love you,

Mom

I huffed. The way she describes my behavior you would think that I am a mentally unbalanced mess. Ha! Maxe and T helping new friend Kendra to look out for me. That had to be a joke! Maxine Graye has been my friend since I learned to talk, and she was the reason for any trouble I got into when we were together. We didn't start the academy together though, but when I started my roommate was T'Perra and we were friends since the moment we met by bonding over the fact that we were both hybrids.

When Maxe came to the academy she became fast friends with T as well. T graduated a few years ago with Harry, a kid we met at orientation. Vorik, (a Vulcan I met in the library one day that eventually learned to tolerate me because I didn't needlessly chatter) had graduated a year before them. Kendra was my lab partner in Advanced Xenobiology last semester and I enjoyed her company.

Anyway, my brain may work in over drive and I may say a ton of things in my head but only 1.5% of what I think ends up where non-telepaths can hear it. In fact my brain processes things so quick that telepaths only get impressions of my thoughts, they couldn't pick a thought from my head if they wanted too. My father always said that like him only an Astraian telepath would be able to read my thoughts and they were rare. My mother is a very odd duck, and likes to project those personality traits on me. The nicknames for Harry in Vorik were only ever written in correspondence with her and grandmother. And of course I knew not to call my commanding officers my aunt and uncle. Duh! I love mom, can't wait to see her again, her outlook of life is delightful.

Okay Nebula, it's time to focus now…

I was sitting in the quarters I shared with T. We had left DS9 a short while ago and T had just left for her duty shift. My shift didn't start for a while but I was ready to start it just the same. Uniform on, hair pinned back. I took this extra time to put away the clothing I purchased at DS9 and re-read my mothers last letter from my data padd.

After reading the letter and realizing how scattered my thoughts were I decided to report to sickbay early. Perhaps I could be useful there. We should be approaching the Badlands shortly; maybe I could help once we found the Maquis ship?

I was almost to sickbay when the ship went on red alert. I seemed like seconds later that we were thrown. I was thrown against a wall and all was black.


"Nebula. Wake up!"

"Harry, I think she's dead."

"Harry. I'm okay. I need to see how the others are, they might need help."

Harry sighed in relief when he realized I was alive. "I so didn't want to be the one to tell your aunt about this…"

"Janeways don't die easily Kim. Now lets go help sickbay." He and his friend helped me up.

"Did she say Janeway? And you should know sick bay hasn't been responsive."

My heart sank and I started running towards sickbay. When the doors open I am near tears, everything is on fire, everyone is dead.

"They must have been right next to the console when it exploded." The guy that accompanied Harry said. Harry went towards the extinguisher to put out the fire. Then I saw her body.

"Kendra…" I sobbed.

Harry turned to me. "Nebula, I know she was your friend, I know you knew most of these people well. But you have to shelf your grief for now. We are on the other side of the galaxy, have lost many crewmembers being thrown here and you are one of the only ones available that can help save threw crewmembers we have left."

He was right. "I'm just a medic though. I will need help. Computer initiate Emergency Medical Holographic program."

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." The EMH said as he appeared.

"Many injured crew are on their way to sickbay and the entire medical team except for myself is dead."

Note:

So that is it for the intro, and now we are in "Caretaker". It's not the fantastic part two I was hoping for but I needed to get this story started. If I have time later I may rewrite it, but I wanted to get to the actual series.

I probably won't update until the weekend unless I am able to clear up some things on my schedule. But I imagine that most Trekkies (including myself) are focused on the upcoming release of Into Darkness anyways. So I hope you wont be too mad.

I'll be posting some information about Nebula's people, the crew post-caretaker and info about my other OC's on my homepage in the next few days

So at the beginning there is a note from Nebula's mom who I am calling Carolyn Janeway, I know Kathryn Janeway has a sister but I am not sure her name or age is ever mentioned. I sort of channeled myself a bit when writing the letter. I just thought wouldn't it be fun if Kathryn Janeway's little sister was this scatterbrained character? I also think that this will help explain the all the Narration. Nebula takes after her fathers species in regards to higher brain function (you learn that as we go) and she processes thing at a quicker rate than humans do, it doesn't make her smarter, It just means that she has many related thoughts happening at once which makes her feel like she is scatterbrained like her mom, focusing on inconsequential things. The amount of heavy scattered narration will tone down as she gets a bit more life experience and we have more interaction with characters, as we go on she learns to direct her thoughts.