Trekking

4

To Boldly Go

Eidolon stepped through the door to the conference room and sat, smoke gently rising from him. The green light from inside his cowl intense but contained. He sat for a moment then started, the light died and he flipped his cowl back "Sorry, bit winded."

Contessa looked at him with what could only be dawning horror. Doctor Mother narrowed her eyes. Alexandria sighed "'I have something to do.' Was that something the Slaughter House Nine David?"

"Manton and Gramme, well that was the intent. Of course Jack thought he could object. I did manage to save Riley. I gave her to the closest vending machine. The one that ate Crawler, the new girl, the crazy fire one and Shatterbird."

Doctor Mother looked at him "What did you do?" He ignored her.

Legend finally spoke, until now he had been sitting rigidly "We are the problem." He hadn't really taken Rebecca telling him all the secrets of Cauldron well.

David sighed "We will do the best we can. It got a bit out of control. Hero, well he was the best of us. Rodenberry can perhaps set us back on the right path. She has that whole 'to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.' thing going on. I think it's something to aspire too. Something we should turn man toward.

"Contessa, Fortuna, I am assuming you cannot path her?

Fortuna nodded "Nor can I model her yet."

"I don't believe that is what we decided." Doctor Mother objected. David ignored her again. She slapped the table "Excuse me!"

David turned to her "Yes, I think you are excused. We will call you if we require your assistance."

"What?"

"David?" Alexandria asked in a tense voice.

David smiled "Your assistance has been appreciated Doctor Mother, and will be appreciated in the future. I'm not sure that the leadership of the organization can be left in the hands of what is frankly a country doctor from Ivory Coast who lucked into finding one of the most powerful parahumans in all the earths though.

"I mean look at the mess we now have to clean up.

"Number man, I killed your boyfriend, smeared him over a hundred yards of country road in Illinois actually, I enjoyed it. If you move I will do the same to you.

"Doctor Mother, Fortuna still needs you, perhaps. Your power descends through her really. Don't get me wrong I am grateful, but you essentially lucked into giving us powers, all of us. The ones that weren't so lucky, well that's a problem. A problem we can now potentially fix with Rodenberry's help. It's possible her technology can restore some, perhaps all of the case fifty threes. We will need to find a genetic sample of them from before you dosed them with one of your witch doctor brews, but you have those don't you.

"We will also need to hire all the parahuman psychologist. Number Man you will facilitate that. Rebecca, we need to turn the PRT around rather than having it fight its holding action. Legend the same with the Protectorate.

"If we have a sample of hero's DNA and the records of the vial he took I think we should try to bring him back. Oh it won't be our Hero, it's mostly nurture after all and I don't think we can recreate his life. His potential should not be lost to the race however.

"It's time to go to work boys and girls."

Rebecca blinked as Fortuna slumped in her seat "David?"

David sighed "This is going to take a while isn't it."

Legend barked a laugh and the glow in his hand Kurt Wynn, Number Man, Harbinger, had been watching in his peripheral vision died. "Have an interesting side trip did you David?"

David sighed "Fucking changers, you have no idea. Goddamn Crawler was a pain in the ass until I thought about feeding him to the replicator. Plus I had to drop a tractor on Hatchet Face, or whatever his name was. He couldn't out brute a 4320 John Deere from five thousand feet."

Legend blinked then laughed "Nothing runs like a Deere David?"

Kurt pinched the bridge of his nose "And do you remember where this was? I mean if we are going to turn to the side of the angels this farmer will need a new one. You couldn't have used a Mahindra?"

Doctor Mother looked at the smiling parahumans around the table "Wut?"

Trekking

Danny stood on the bridge of the Enterprise looking at his Daughter, who was sat in the captain's seat "Engage number one!"

Danny chuckled "Lose the British accent and the deep voice Little Owl. It's a bit ridiculous when you do it." Taylor pouted at him. "So fifteen hundred crew."

Taylor nodded like a bobble head "No families on the first cruise as we shake out and make sure we aren't going to bump into an astro wolf. Star Fleet academy first though. I have to build a bunch of trainers and we need to put up the buildings for an academy. Get the syllabus written. Figure out the purpose of that Kobiashi Maru thing. Find a grounds keeper guy to be the head doctor, sane voice, whatever. So much to do!"

Nala laughed "Whack the Simurgh, Behemoth, and figure out what the golden idiots deal is."

Danny sat in the first officer's seat, Maleficent folded into onto the jump seat cushion beside him and patted his back. He smiled then shook his head "Maybe slow down and write it all down Taylor. A plan is a good place to start."

Jasmine, the synthetic sentience named Jasmine with her black hair all the way to the middle of her thighs if loose and now caught in a hank, banded every six inches with gold bands a half inch wide, nodded "A plan is good. Keeps the monkeys in line."

Chuck, one of the close security beefcake arched a brow "I'm Black, I am not wearing a red shirt."

A panel beside Taylor lit up, a tone sounded and Roses voce came from seemingly everywhere "Captain, seven parahumans and two normal humans are attempting to turn themselves in to the replicators in two separate locations."

Taylor clapped her hands like a little girl "Our first volunteers for the Academy. Beam them here to the Bridge Rose!

Danny jerked "Taylor is that a-" the shimmering lights happened, and The Undersiders, three dogs, Purity with Astor, Theo, and Rune were looking around the Bridge " good idea?"

Chuck smiled "He can wear the red shirt." He was looking through the sights of his M4 at Grue.

Grue turned to Tattletale "I am so spanking you."

Regent shook himself "Well, I feel better?" Imp who was outlined in a white glow, smacked him in the belly with the back of her hand and appeared the glow disappeared. She vanished and the glow appeared. She sighed and appeared again. Pouting.

Maleficent nodded "You had a touch of the flu."

They were all looking where Taylor had run up and glomped Rachel. The dogs hadn't moved, other than to turn around to sniff or head butt Taylor. Who after hugging Rachel had dropped to a knee and was hugging the dogs. Taylor looked up at Rachel "Where are the rest of the doggies? Are they all right? I mean we took care of the waves, but that was a lot of rain."

Rachel nodded "Little water got in. The thing ate it. It kind of washed the yard clean."

Taylor nodded "I thought that reshaping the yard would help. What's with all the empire guys the replicator has been picking up by the shelter?"

Rachel sighed "It's in their territory. They hear the dogs barking."

Taylor nodded "No more dogfighting rings? Do you need more beacons?" Rachel shook her head.

Lisa smiled "Rachel have you been holding out on us?"

"It's Taylor, she helps, dogs like her."

Lisa nodded "And you didn't know she is the real Rodenberry because she just showed up. Then two of these showed up and put in the vending machine." She was looking around at Nala, Jasmine, Rapunzel Ariel, Belle, and Cindy, short for Cinderella.

Rachel looked around "One, she isn't here. Put a marker on the floor and the machine appeared. Good for dog food."

Taylor nodded, then sighed "Elsa is still messing around with the PRT. They are a little freaked. She is having fun though."

Lisa snorted "Introduce us Rachel?"

"Grue, Regent, Tattletale, Imp, my team. Purity, Rune, Nazi's. Don't know the others."

Rune opened her mouth, then shrugged "Fair enough. I mean we were with the Empire. Not a Nazi though, just got kinda sold to them. It's complicated, family shit. Purity left. Her daughter Aster and her stepson Theo Anders."

Tattletale sat in the helm position "Kaisers son, the heir to the empire. Not a Parahuman. Third generation. How have you not triggered. Wow, years of mental abuse if nothing else. I would think you would be a skill thinker twelve plus after that. Maybe an outside shot at Shaker or Breaker."

Purity who had a slight but fading glow nodded "Thinker, Tattletale, how apt, Hellhound, a master shaker, Regent another master, a human master, formerly Hijack, one of Heartbreakers children, Grue, Shaker, darkness generation. Imp was it? A stranger? But this ship knows where you are and is marking you out?"

Maleficent nodded "Intrusion detection system."

"Which is not cool." Imp added.

Maleficent smiled coolly and introduced all of Taylor's people. Danny nodded as everyone digested the introductions "So you decided to turn yourselves in to Taylor instead of the PRT."

Lisa, Tattletale gave another of her grins "Well you are going to need a crew for this thing. At least that was the thought." She looked around at the hard eyed Synthetic sentience's. "Now I'm not so sure Taylor, Rodenberry, can't make her own."

Taylor stood up from the dogs "Bit resource intensive. Plus we hope to help people? Hadn't really planned on starting by rehabilitating villains. The PRT does it all the time though, so we should be able to swing it.

"We are picking up a criminal about every fourteen seconds. Leave out the ones who committed violent crimes, let the system deal with them, and we could have a big pool. A lot of it is situational stuff. I mean look at Rachel, was it her fault her foster mother was an ignorant cow? If they can make it through the academy and the psychologist we could turn out ok. The Parahumans are a bit different. Though some of them got railroaded like Canary. Like they want to do to Rachel, or wanted. That shit is overwith.

"Oh! Rose make sure to talk to Paige and see if she wants to join. She has to be bored on that ranch. No neighbors for fifty miles and half the year you have to have a dogsled to get there.

"Meanwhile you are aboard a capitol ship of a foreign power. I don't think they can take you.

"Might have to put Star Fleet academy on Mars. Bit light on the gravity but it's doable. Grave plates aren't that tough and don't use that much power, plus they can double as part of the heating. Mars is freaking cold!

"Rose how we doing on that genesis torpedo?"

The contralto voice came from everywhere again. "Mulan and Aiko are nearing completion of the warhead. Once that is complete we can simply install it in a photon torpedo casing. We should be extra atmosphere for launch however."

Danny opened his mouth but Maleficent beat him to it "Taylor dear, why don't we investigate the possibilities before we terraform Mars. That is bound to bring further complications."

Taylor huffed "A week, then we are moving on. Not like they have ships to fight me. We can swing by and suck up the birdy bitch on the way, give us some material to work with. Mars is a little light anyhow. Hey, if we send the gecko there he would make us some water."

Lisa's mouth opened and closed. Then she rubbed her temples "My power is racing but I have no headache?

"Most parahumans have urges to conflict, some more than others, you triggered and disappeared? Have you been suppressing your conflict drive this whole time? Is that why Leviathan got smoked?

The voice from everywhere answered "Heat. You have been slightly modified to accommodate your power, a heat exchanger has been installed subcutaneously in your back."

Taylor sighed "Say goodbye to sleeping on your back. You'll wake up roasting."

Nala hugged her from behind "But you will be so snuggly."

Alec, Regent, looked at Lisa's fish impression and collapsed laughing.

Trekking

Emily looked at the monitor "Three days. She has been answering questions for three days, twenty four hours a day, online, by video teleconference, and in person simultaneously, and other than taking up our executive conference facility, essentially turning it into her office, and pugging herself back in the wall we haven't seen her be uncomfortable or stop."

Rebecca Costa Brown nodded in the window on the monitor "She and hence they, Rodenberry's organization, have been remarkably open as well. She only refuses to answer questions about proprietary or deeply personal information.

"The medical treatments you received have been examined. By both normal researchers and parahumans, thinkers, tinkers and healers. She didn't lie. The medical researchers are frankly astounded they didn't see the possibilities before.

"Not that they can duplicate any of the work, or build a transporter and have the facility to rearrange a genome. They have neither the machines nor the materials necessary. I'm afraid we are at the building tools to build the tools to build some of the molecules stage. It is slow going, and meanwhile she files for five new patents a day between drugs and technology. It is not tinker tech however."

Emily nodded "And she appears from nowhere. A tinker ten. Possibly triggered by Shadow Stalker before she was a ward, a year and four months ago. Squealer stole the first replicator a week before the second one appeared and was unable to use it, or most of its components. Other than the fusion power source and the dimensional pockets it uses to store material.

"She somehow manages to stay completely covert, possibly with the support of Daniel Hebert and the dock workers. Then Leviathan and there she is. Sprung forth fully formed.

"My people are telling me the story is remarkably coherent, does not change, and elements of it are starting to be verified through external sources by investigation.

Rebecca nodded "Unbelievable I know. The reactions I am getting from the politicians would be hilarious if this was some kind of candid camera prank."

Director Tagg from the Madison containment zone broke in in the pause "We should recruit her or eliminate her."

Rebecca nodded on the video and sent her special strike team some instructions via her secure text connection to them. Tagg was obviously not going to be able to survive the new reality. How exactly were they to eliminate someone who had shields an Endbringer couldn't break. Endbringers who had routinely tanked Nukes in the early days of their appearance. Someone who now had experience with an Endbringer and who had defeated that Endbringer. Something Scion had never done, for whatever reason. Someone who had what the thinkers were telling her was a completely functional space battleship capable of faster than light travel across most of the Universe. It was time he went into M/S confinement and got some psychological assistance. Or resisted arrest and got a bullet and his widow a survivors benefit, either one really.

AN: OK where to next folks?