"Mr Paris, take us in," Captain Katherine Janeway ordered, the vibrant chaos and energy twisters of the Badlands taking up the entire viewscreen.
The Starship Voyager, crew complement 150, was the Federation's latest long term exploration vessel. Created as a means to explore quadrants of the galaxy never before seen, it was Starfleet's premiere vehicle of exploration.
Starfleet had been sending probes around the Cardassian-Federation border. Tensions were high as the border dispute ramped up. Unlike the Cardassians, the Federation refused to give up territories that were already colonised by their citizens.
It just wasn't done.
Because of this, Cardassian separatists had been using the badlands in order to strike at the territories around the border. The Federation had been sending probes into that area when one of them got thrown 70,000 light years into the Delta quadrant, probed, then sent back.
Starfleet was intrigued. This could be their chance to expand their knowledge into never before seen star systems and gain technology to help in the cold war with the Cardassians, and the looming threat of the Dominion.
It was on this mission that Harry Potter was assigned. Harry had lived a long life, all 500 years of it. He was part of the initial Federation charter, and wizard kind was too. They were the elusive Section 31 that operated in the shadows.
As humans discovered the existance of aliens, the wizarding world banded together and acted quickly, spelling all world leaders and people in the know to secrecy. The Mages established themselves as the hidden power behind the Federation in the same way as they were the hidden power behind the normal governments. Millennia of hiding had taught them how to do so, and how to remain a myth that nobody could prove.
Harry Potter found that with becoming the master of death, and the defeater of Voldemort, came immortality and power beyond imagining. When Voldemort died his power and knowledge became Harry's in a sort of quickening. No wizard before or since has been as powerful.
Harry was Section 31's poster boy, the immortal mage. He was who they sent on their most important missions, and this was the most important by far. He's been assigned as the first officer to the Starship Voyager in order to ensure the acquisition of technologies to help the Federation.
Voyager's primary mission is to follow their probe into the Delta quadrant, investigate what brought them there, and to make new alliances and gain any technology they can get their hands on.
As Tom Paris, Voyager's helmsman, deftly maneuvered the ship around the eddy's the captain stood up.
"Take us into quadrant 3b Mr. Paris, that was the last known location of the probe,"
Ensign Harry Kim called out from the ops station "We have a gravitic wave coming from 100km out."
"Red Alert. All hands to emergency posts. Seal off all emergency bulkheads and shields to maximum" Commander Chakotay ordered.
"Captain, readings show this is the same wave and same vector that took our probe," operative Potter yelled over the red alert. "I recommend full speed to take some of the stresses out."
"Make it so, Tom," the helmsman complied and Voyager jumped to full impulse before the wave hit them.
The ship shook as it and the crew were hurled towards the delta quadrant at a high speed, exceeding the vaunted warp 10 the federation were heading towards.
Plasma conduits exploded all over the ship as the stresses on the hull overloaded shield systems. People were thrown around as Voyager rocketed through space.
With a tearing sound, it stopped. "Damage report," captain Janeway ordered.
"Hull breaches on decks 10, 11, and 12. Weapons offline. Shields down to 20 percent. Casualties reporting to sick bay," Lieutenant Tuvok stated calmly.
"Captain, we are in front of the array seen by the probe," Potter reported.
"Your mission is a go then Potter."
Harry left his station and headed towards the turbolift. After a small journey he headed for the operations lab, this was the base for all wizards on board. Potter sat down at the computer terminal, attempting to hack into the alien's communications network. After a while he stood up with a stormy look on his face and stomped over to the ring in the center of the room.
He stepped into ring and disappeared in a swirl.
Harry reappeared in a cold, steel room. From his scans he knew the entity was on the far side of the station. Hooking into a control port, he connected his personal computer and told it to download the alien database.
The computer was a blending of technology and magic. Like all Wizarding technologies it was larger on the inside, allowing them to fit much more inside of it. It also contained runes meant to compress time, so the processing speed was faster than mostly everything else. Harry's was unique though, because it contained a watered down version of his consciousness.
Harry looked at the display output of his personal computer, and a frown slowly etched itself on his face. "No way," he muttered as he typed in a command.
He disappeared with the swirl of transporter vortex, and reappeared in what looked like a medical experimentation room. All of Voyager's crew lined the edges of the room, lying asleep on medical beds. Their clothes were gone, nowhere to be seen.
Harry hurried to the computer terminal in the room, plugging his device in and quickly getting to the reason for the apparent kidnapping of the ship's crew. What he found made him angry. It looked like the entity was called the Caretaker, and he was looking for a mate because he was dying.
Harry tapped his communicator, "Harry to Joe, come in."
"I figured you wouldn't be caught up in what got the crew Harry," the holographic doctor said, pleased at this development. "The crew disappeared from the ship minutes ago, and my sensor readings show they are on the alien space station."
"Thanks for the info buddy," Harry replied. "It looks like the caretaker is dying and is trying to find a mate which is why he's bringing in ships from all over. I'm sending you all of his medical records now."
"Readings received, processing…" Harry waited, looking over the data from the caretaker's array. "Yes, it looks like I can cure him. He has an acute form of radiation poisoning," the doctor stated.
"Ok, beam to the alien's coordinates and I'll apparate over. Harry out."
With that, Harry's body compressed down into a pinpoint as his magic opened up a miniscule wormhole for him to travel through.
With a pop Harry appeared next to the entity known as the Caretaker, the doctor arriving just after him in the telltale swirl of the transporter.
The old man in the barn jumped in surprise as he whirled around to face them. "How did you get here? I thought I got everyone on your ship."
"You did, the Doctor is a holographic life form, and I was already on your station," Harry explained, as Joe pulled out his medical tricorder and started scanning the alien.
"Well? What are you doing then? Why aren't you attacking me? I'm presuming you're here for your crew?" The Caretaker blustered as the Doctor stopped his scans and sat his medical container on the floor.
"We hacked into your database and found the reason you abduct beings from across the galaxy," Agent Potter stated, as the caretaker looked away in shame. "We know all about you and your partner ruining the Ocampan's planet and only you staying behind," the caretaker's head whipped around as he stared incredulously at Harry. "We know about the radiation poisoning that happened when you tried saving the planet... And we also know you are looking for a mate or someone to replace you."
"What we don't know is why you didn't ask for help," The doctor took over talking as he pulled out a hypospray from his medkit and held it up to the being for inspection. "This is a cure for your radiation poisoning. If you take this cure there's plenty of time for you to find a replacement caretaker, or to find a mate in a more traditional sense. We could even help you with that. Our organisation - the United Federation of Planets - is a multicultural array of beings. Our medicines can deal with incompatibility between species and solve it in quite a few cases. We could help you look after your people. What do you say, will you let us help you?"
The caretaker sighed. Reality around the three of them shimmered as the Sporocystian lifeform disabled the holographic fields. Once disabled the three of them were in a sparse room. Equipment lined the outside and the caretaker was in the center of the room, a sphere-ish crystalline entity tinged in neon blues, with a darkened brown center.
"Your crew has been transported back to their ship. I will take this cure now and enter into talks with your federation," The caretaker said as he moved forward towards the doctor. Joe injected the being with the hypospray, and the form shimmered as the brown center lightened to a vibrant blue, all signs of sickness gone. With that done, the caretaker's form was again replaced with that of the old man, looking more alive this time, standing under his own power once more.
"Thank you," he said simply. "In my mind, what I was doing was right for the Ocampa; I didn't consider asking for help or even think about whether taking a mate was right. I failed to make my partner see the error of her ways when we poisoned the planet with our method of travel between galaxies, and I've been alone for so long that I forgot what it was like to have others I could rely on."
"Janeway to Potter, come in," Harry's comm badge cracked into life.
Harry tapped on his comm badge, "Potter here, go ahead."
"What's going on over there? We were all transported over and then back from the array, do you know what happened?"
"Yes, we have someone here who is best placed to explain - that is if you would like to come and tell your story?" Harry asked the creature.
"Yes, I will come."
With that, the caretaker and the senior staff entered into talks. The caretaker told them of his history, of being a Nacene - a Sporocystian lifeform, and of the Ocampan people who he had looked after for so long. Him having a partner, another Nacene called Suspiria, and how their travel into the delta quadrant irradiated the Ocampan's planet, and how he tried to stop it and got his fatal poisoning.
He sent them underground, and provided technology and energy enough to survive. He told them of searching for a mate, or a successor who would look after the Ocampan people who only lived a short 10 years, and were a childlike people, not understanding the dangers of what was out there.
They had people who were curious and who wanted to see the outside world and explore the galaxy instead of being confined. It was those who the Caretaker was concerned about now. For assistance to defend the Ocampa from the Kazons and other threats, and the potential meeting of a successor for when he dies, the Caretaker gave Starfleet the quantum displacement technology to get ships from one point to another point a great distance away, with the proviso that they only used this between two fixed points, otherwise it could cause another disaster in the same way as on the Ocampan planet.
Voyager stayed in the system for another 6 months to assist the Caretaker, and to shore up the defenses on the Ocampan sub-planet settlement. While there, they agreed to take onboard five Ocampans and one Talaxian, all led by a young woman called Kes. They made up part of Voyager's growing Science department. The new orders from Starfleet were received. Voyager was ordered to use the caretaker's array as a base of operations in the delta quadrant to explore and expand the frontier of knowledge for the Federation.
It was a two year mission to discover as much as they could of the Delta quadrant. Along the way they would build a network of displacement stations and communication buoys to facilitate faster travel in this quadrant in the future.
As for Section 31, Harry received new orders as well. The wizarding world was spread out enough across multiple worlds, and now multiple quadrants to ensure their survival. With the new method of faster travel they had a backup plan if anything went wrong. They were going to trial revealing themselves to a small number of the crew to gauge their reactions and see if the prejudice that threw them into hiding millennia ago had vanished. That crew is voyager.
These are the stories of her continuing mission. To explore the delta quadrant, to find new life, new civilizations, and new technologies. To engage in trade and friendship with other species, and to boldly go where no-one has gone before.