Author's Note: This is an AU Star Trek Universe with several of the following changes:
Star Trek: First Contact did not happen. That was the most fucked up story Berman ever tried to pass off. It violated several things established in the Original Series and just plain sucked. Instead, I'm using what was established in "Strangers From the Sky" as the first contact Earth had with the Vulcans.
I am drawing heavily from Diane Duane's Rihansu series and merging it with Star Trek: Nemesis. It's sort of rough, but will work.
I'm also borrowing heavily from The Vulcan Academy Murders, Spock's World, Final Frontier (the novel) as well as Star Trek Phase II.
The other stuff is based on an online game I ran with this story line. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I wonder if anyone gets the nod to another of my fanfiction stories in this chapter.
Enterprise Ship's Lounge: 17:00 ship time
Beverly Crusher entered the Officer's Lounge, now called the Leading Edge, and looked around. It had been a difficult day and she felt the need to relax. The brass upstairs had been pressuring her to return to Earth as head of Starfleet Medical, and only the importance of this mission had given her the impetus to not take them up on it. On top of that, she was beginning to feel lonely again. Wesley had returned to Starfleet, but was now assigned to the Titan as part of her engineering command, and of course Deanna had joined Will aboard that same ship. That, along with Data's death had left her pretty much bereft of regular companions. Even Worf was now gone from Starfleet to act as the Federation Ambassador to Klinzai. She realized that she'd spent almost two years without a regular group of companions for social interaction.
Looking around the lounge she smiled and nodded to Guinan as she searched for a friendly face. Strangely enough she found it in the form of a short red-headed woman who seemed to be trying to bore a hole through a padd with her eyes. Dr. McKenzie Seizemore had been assigned to the Enterprise on this mission as a technical advisor in areas of possible Transentient Imperial technology. Beverly walked over to the table and said, "Somehow I don't think that staring at the padd will make it change its read-out."
"Changing its readout isn't what I'm looking for," the small woman said without looking up. "For it to make sense is however a different story." She put the padd down and looked up at Beverly, "But I'll get it to, eventually. I always do." Then smiling, she said "Hello, Beverly. Want to join me for dinner?"
Beverly grinned and sat down, "I thought you'd never ask."
"Bad day?" Mick asked as she nodded toward Guinan as the barkeep made her way over to the table.
"Just long," Beverly told her. "I've been reviewing the medical records for our new crew that we're picking up tomorrow at DS-9."
Mick smiled at her and said, "Sounds like the kind of thing you would use on a night you can't sleep."
Beverly nodded and said, "Most of it is." Of course patient client privacy wouldn't let her address her own concerns. Mainly that their new flight control officer was too damn young to be heading into deep space. What was fleet command thinking about that one? The girl hadn't even reached sexual maturity yet. Then there was the long list of fleet waivers for Commander Greenbough for a higher than usual muscle to mass ratio of his body.
"But not all?" Guinan asked from her side. "What can I get you ladies?"
Beverly nodded and smiled, "Not , all," she said. "I'll have that almond Ktarian chicken salad you were bragging about the other day, and a cup of coffee."
Mick smiled over at the other woman and said, "Twelve ounce sirloin, rare, baked potato with a little bit of butter and enough sour cream to float a dreadnaught, a Caesar salad, and a glass of southern iced tea."
Beverly chuckled and teased the woman, "How do you keep that kind of figure and eat like that?"
Mick smiled at her and replied, "A high metabolism. My brother used to accuse of me of being a caffeine addict, but in reality, I'm just generally hyperactive. I usually put in an eighteen hour work day, and sometimes I forget to eat." She leaned back and took a cup of coffee from the table and sipped it. "That's why I can eat like a teenager and get away with it."
Beverly shook her head, "I envy you that." She found herself watching calories more and more often these days. Lately, it seemed that even looking at a meal would put on weight.
"Don't. It's more of a hassle than it is a blessing. Sometimes I get so wound up that I go for days without sleep. When I finally do, it's usually to crash for at least twenty-four hours." She smiled ruefully to herself. "I once spent an entire week without sleeping, while working with a friend of mine. My brother and my friend's husband threatened to stun us and lock us up until we slept. I pointed out that we could probably pick any lock they put on us, and that when were out, we'd be looking for revenge. At that point, Ben and Jason decided to leave us be."
Beverly nodded and smiled, "It's nice to have people around who miss you when you disappear."
Mick raised an eyebrow, "You sound like someone who's feeling a bit lonely."
Beverly shook her head, "I don't mean to. It's just that lately there've been a lot of changes aboard the ship, and a lot of people I used to socialize with, are now gone. I guess I'm being a little small minded about this, but I do sort of miss my friends."
"That's only normal," Mick told her. "I went through the same kind of thing several years ago when my family moved. It took me a while to make new friends, but part of that was probably because I threw myself into my work in order to avoid thinking about it."
"Yeah, but there's only so much time I can spend in sickbay before I get stir crazy," Beverly told her. "I used to have a pretty full social life. Now, I find myself reading medical texts alone at night."
Mick chuckled, "Well, if you're looking for something physical, I usually work out in the gym around 22:00 ship time. I'll warn you though, it tends to be a pretty eclectic martial arts program."
Beverly smiled, "I used to study the bat'leth with Worf."
Mick smiled and shook her head, "Never cared much for that weapon. It's too unwieldy for my taste. If I'm going to work with an alien weapon, I much prefer either the Vulcan Ahn-woon or the Romulan sienov. I really don't understand humans' fascination with alien weapons styles. Earth has a very rich history of martial arts. I have a friend who insists that the best weapon to master is the short stick. He says it's functional, effective, and easily improvised. To this day, I haven't been able to find an argument against that."
Beverly was surprised, "Somehow you didn't strike me as a martial person, Dr. Seizemore."
Mick smiled and replied, "Mick, please; and as for the martial arts: I've had some very good teachers over the years. I've sort of picked it up and found myself enjoying it. There's something to be said for the therapeutic value of bashing in someone's head, or having it done to you."
Beverly laughed out loud as Guinan arrived with their meals and asked. "I take it you ladies are having a good time?"
Mick smiled over at her and said, "We were just discussing the medical value of getting your butt kicked."
Guinan shook her head and said, "Not your normal prescription, Dr. Crusher."
Beverly noted the interplay and said, "Not usually for my patients, but it does have some value for me. Sometimes I just need to blow off some steam in the gym."
McKenzie began to saw into her steak and said, "If you want to mix it up in the gym sometime, let me know. I miss my favorite sparring partner, and could use another one."
"Your favorite sparring partner?" Guinan asked.
McKenzie smiled and said before popping the slice into her mouth, "My husband, Jason."
"I thought Jason was your friend's husband," Beverly said.
McKenzie chewed her food and then sipped her tea before asking. "Same name, different men. My Jason is Jason Seizemore. Bill's Jason is a different Jason. "
Beverly exchanged looks with Guinan and then asked, "You spar with your husband?"
"My husband and my brother," she said mischievously. "Everybody else says I'm too mean to spar with."
"Really?" Beverly asked as she leaned back. "Maybe I'll take you up on your offer. I was a pretty good student in Worf's mok 'bara class."
"Be glad to have you," McKenzie said.
"You are acting rather pleased with yourself," Beverly smiled and leaned forward. "Do you really think you're that good?"
Mick smiled and leaned back, "I'm good, but I'm by far not the best of those I know. I studied too long on alien worlds to think that. I'm too erratic and, and my brother tells me that I am too easily distracted to ever be a true master of any particular form. I just fight to win. "
"That's quite a confession," Guinan said.
Mick smiled up at her and said, "Not really. I've moved around quite a bit, and any Federation scientist worth their salt who thinks that their lives may not be put in danger, is too stupid for the title. My brother made sure I knew how to protect myself."
"Now that's an interesting attitude," Beverly told her. She really was surprised by the comment, and the insight was more in standing with a different century. "Surely you can't see yourself as that important to the Federation," she teased.
Mick smiled at her and said, "Important to the Federation, no, important to my family and friends, yes. Doctor Crusher, outside of your son in a few decades, I can safely say that my intellect is probably the most advanced in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. I'm not trying to be a braggart, but it's a simple statement of fact. It's been that way since I was a child, and to be honest with you, if it weren't for my brother, I probably would have gone insane because of it. "
Beverly found the comment intriguing and for some reason not quite as off putting as she would have thought. "What about your parents?" she asked.
Mick shrugged, "They died when I was about thirteen. Ben took care of us after that."
Beverly nodded, not knowing really what to say. She'd heard of siblings like that being close, but had not really run across it before. She wondered how things would have been different for her if instead of her grandmother raising her after her parents died, if it had been an older sibling. It was definitely something to think about. "You sound like you two were very close."
Mick laughed, "Listening to us as kids, you'd never know it. We fought like cats and dogs. But when our parents died, Ben stepped up and took care of things for us. We still tease each other massively, but when the rubber hits the road, we both know that the other one is there for us."
"How about you? You interested in finding out if I'm as full of crap as I sound like?" Mick asked Guinan.
"Somehow , I get the feeling that anybody who underestimated you Dr. Seizemore would be in for an unpleasant surprise," Guinan replied.
"Like I told Dr. Crusher, Mick, please," McKenzie said. "Whenever someone calls me Dr. Seizemore, I expect to find myself in trouble."
"Do you get into that much trouble Mick?" Guinan asked.
Mick grinned and answered, "You have no idea, Guinan. You have no idea."
Enterprise Gym 22:00 ship time:
Beverly put her pack down on the bench and looked around. Over in one corner, she saw the small form Dr. Seizemore going through warm-up stretches. She noticed two long bags leaning against the wall that obviously held some kind of weapons.
The woman was surprisingly flexible as she worked through the major muscle groups, making sure that she wouldn't pull a muscle while working out. Beverly walked over, nodded to her and began her own stretches. Beverly considered the conversation she'd had with the young scientist. She wondered how she might have known about Wesley. As far as Beverly knew, Dr. Seizemore had never been more than an attaché to Starfleet, not a member of the organization itself.
Beverly considered what she knew about the woman. She had approached Starfleet with plans about the new transwarp engines not long after Voyager had returned from deep inside the Delta Quadrant. After eighteen months of studying the declassified details about the Borg transwarp network, she'd managed to produce a functional transwarp engine. She'd then spent the next year overseeing their development for the Sovereign class starships. When Enterprise had returned from nearly being destroyed in the whole Shinzon mess at Ch' Havran , Dr. Seizemore lobbied Starfleet to use Enterprise as the test ship for the new engines.
After almost two years of refit, Dr. Seizemore was here now ready to go with the ship on its first real mission: to find the enhancer colony deep in the Gamma Quadrant. Beverly hadn't had much contact with the woman in those two years, but now she should have her chance. She watched the woman come out of her stretches and begin some rather brutal katas. She watched as the woman moved gracefully through the techniques, each one designed to turn an opponent's attack against them. "That's a Japanese style, isn't it."
Mick nodded to her and said, "It's Shoto-khan, karate: combat style."
"Will Riker practiced a Japanese form: Ambo-jytsu. He claimed it was the ultimate form of human martial arts."
"Everybody who practices a style makes the same claim. If I'm ever in a situation where I'm blind and have a staff with a proximity sensor on it, I'll consider ambo-jytsu the ultimate form. Until then, I'll stick with a style that has a proven record in the widest variety of situations," Mick told her with a smile.
"So what do you consider the ultimate form?" Beverly asked her.
"The form that works," Mick replied. "Like everything else in life, it's a matter of matching the individual with the technique that works best for them. I've found that techniques that work on one species are not always the best for another species. It's best to know as many styles as possible."
"Makes sense," Beverly told her. "So, tell me; how did you know about my son, Wesley?"
Mick smiled at her, bowed to the dojo, and then said, "I've been on this ship almost two years. Granted, most of it has been buried up to my waist in the engines and the warp core, but I've been here enough to make a few friends. Trust me, there are people still talking about Ensign Crusher. After a while I did some research. You are right to be proud of your son. He's going to go a long way in the Federation, and if we pull off this mission, probably in whatever alliance we are able to forge with the enhancers."
"What do you mean?" Beverly asked warily as she finished her own stretches and stood to bow to the dojo.
"The enhancers are the next stage of evolution in humanity. According to the files on this Traveler person, your son sounds like he carries the same genetic anomalies. Mix that with an incredible intelligence, and you have a natural fit. Don't be surprised if he isn't tapped by one side or the other as a liaison."
Beverly didn't have time to pursue the line of questioning as the sparring match began. She had to admit that Dr. Seizemore's techniques were as good as Worf's. It was very possible that the woman really could go toe-to-toe with a Klingon. She gave as good as she got, but she slowly began to realize that this was a woman who had seen combat first hand. It was little things that gave her away. She didn't fall for the traditional tournament style feints and when she moved in to attack, she did it efficiently, and brutally.
She also realized that she was having a very good time. The earlier comment about the therapeutic value of getting your head bashed in was starting to prove true. Beverly had never made a friend in the dojo before and found it to be a unique experience. When it was over, she was surprised to find herself feeling much better than she had earlier in the day. She wasn't quite so lonely, and the sense of self-pity she was feeling had disappeared.
As she wiped her face and neck with a towel and sat down on the bench beside the mats, she looked over at Mick and asked, "What do you mean about Wesley being tapped as a liaison? I mean, he's smart, and this understanding of how to travel by another means not yet understood is rather unusual, but it doesn't put him on the same level as the Organians," she protested.
"I don't think the enhancers are on that level either," Mick countered. "After all, if that were the case, the Dominion wouldn't be a threat to them." She leaned back and took a long drag from a water bottle with the old United States Naval Academy logo on it. "I think that they are somewhere between the energy based races like the Organians, and humanity. It sounds like your son is somewhere along the same lines, not quite an energy being, but more than human."
Beverly thought about that. She'd never considered the idea of a connection between Wesley and these enhancers. It was possible, but to be honest, the information they had on the enhancers was sketchy at best. Admiral Shir' Khar had said that they had exhibited incredible psychic and physical abilities when they defended the Earth against the Dominion. Wesley's own abilities could fit that description. "You may be right Mick. To be honest, I hadn't considered it."
"You might want to think about it," Mick told her. "He's about the closest thing that the Alpha and Beta Quadrants have right now- that is besides the Rihansu Elementals that is."
"Elementals?" Beverly asked.
"They are a Romulan priests who have unusual abilities linked to one or more elements. They are rare, but very powerful. I would say that they are the closest equivalent to an enhancer that the Rihansu have," she told Beverly.
Beverly gave her a questioning look. "How is it that you use Rihansu and Romulan so interchangeably? Not very many people know enough of their language and culture to be aware of those."
Mick smiled, "It's called knowing your enemy. I've studied enough of the information about Captain Kirk's experiences at Levaeri V, and Dr. McCoy's experiences on Ch' Rihan to gain some insight into their culture. I even speak the language, but I'm told with a horribly out dated accent." Mick laughed at that. Reading Rihansu is sometimes easier than speaking it."
Beverly chuckled and said, "I've heard the same thing said about Klingon. I think it's all the hard consonants."
"With Rihansu, it's all the aspirated consonants. Sometimes I feel like I spitting at people when I try to speak it. But you've got a point about Klingon. I once ended up in a duel with a Klingon because I tried to clear my throat and insulted him instead," Mick said with a smile.
Beverly laughed at the comment and then thought about it. Of the few Klingon insults she knew, several of them would sound like a human clearing his or her throat. "The sad part about that, is I can see it happening."
