ultimat5
CHAPTER FIVE


The planet had been another, highly unlikely, "just like earth" scenario. "I don't believe it," McCoy had said. "It seems impossible, but there it is."

It was impossible, but Q enjoyed playing mind games with the human race, even before first contact between their two species. Now, for his final two cards to come into play, he had only to wait, for the first pair, not yet carrying much weight, already lay on the table. Together the four would be an unbeatable hand, in the human game of poker, a royal flush. Q enjoyed moments such as these.

Not far from the original "Enterprise," the way the Q fly, sat the starship Voyager, with crew ever anxious to return home. Now their chance would come.

Tuvok focused on the mathematics of traversing galactic distances in one giant leap. In his spare time he took to this problem, knowing it was not his area of specialty, but enjoying the prospect of scientific unknown, working to make the impossible possible, the unattainable inevitable. His goal, as an explorer and as a Vulcan, was to seek knowledge, and during the past few months his knowledge of subspace mechanics had grown to rival even the Captain's, by training a science officer.

As he pondered, an idea snagged at the back of his mind, and he brought it out into the open for inspection. Finding no immediate faults, he took out a padd and pieced together equations, over an hour developing a theory as the connections in his mind solidified. Once finished, he decided he had
best confer with Lieutenant Torres so that she could confirm his reasoning.

He had no trouble finding Torres, since she was on duty in engineering, and since he recalled her saying that the ship was functioning remarkably well and that nothing had gone "on the blink" lately, he decided he need not wait to share his findings.

On entering engineering, he identified Torres, who lounged at her console, distractedly studying some sort of readout. "Lieutenant," he announced, and she looked up. "I have a hypothesis I would like you to confirm." He handed her the padd with his equations.

She scanned it, then sat up straight as she read it more completely. Finally, she pressed the "pause" key, and her glance rocketed upward. "This is possible," she blurted, "for all I know. It's brilliant. How did you ever think of it?"

"That," replied Tuvok, "is the question."

Just then, an ensign Tuvok recognized as Gabi Quinn approached, looking a little nervous, and reported to Torres, "Sir, sorry to interrupt your conversation, but I thought you'd want to see this. A couple of minutes ago, my mind started wandering and this idea just came to me . . ." Her voice trailed
off as she handed Torres a padd.

B'Elanna Torres compared the information contained by the two data padds she held: the equations, the stated theory, everything written on one identical to the other. She let her gaze travel back and forth between them, noting she would need to get to work right away, call a meeting with the
Captain. Glancing down again, she realized she had lost track whose padd she held in which hand. She looked up at Tuvok and Ensign Quinn in confusion.

"Now which padd is whose?"

Everything peaceful in the aftermath of the amazing show of light, the stars floated serenely in the velvety blackness of space, pinpricks of life supporting thousands of undiscovered cultures. Despite the tranquility, one couldn't help but feel that this was a frontier, the final frontier.

"These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!" Then the music started. Where it came from no one could tell, yet somehow all heard.

"What the . . ." Captain Benjamin Sisko stood sorely, having been thrown from his seat along with everyone else on the bridge, in a time none could remember. "Where are we?"

Anja sat up and leaned over to Frau and Hannah. "I like this part," she whispered.

Dax assumed her station and shook her head to get rid of the grogginess. "We're seventy-five light years from Bajor, in the Safrian system," she paused and took a breath as she saw the next readout, "in the year 2276. There's an object bearing 76.5 degrees, twenty thousand meters off the port bow."

"Can you get it on the viewscreen?" Commander Sisko seemed rather in awe of the whole situation. It didn't seem like him, Hannah thought, but then it did.

The viewscreen fizzled, and the stars slowly shimmered to show a starship, the Enterprise, the original wagon train to the stars.

"Hey," exclaimed Frau suddenly, "I recognize that. It's that spaceship off of 'Star Trek!'"

The moment was broken. Frau, enormously pleased that she had finally recognized something, vigorously related how she had watched "Star Trek" often in the past.

The music chose that moment to die out, while Frau expressed her desire to meet the crew of the original Enterprise and ask for autographs.

"Activate cloaking device," commanded Captain Sisko, finally shaking off the effects of the time travel.

"Cloaking device operational," O'Brien responded.

"Now," Sisko began softly, carefully, turning in the direction of the time travelers. "I want to know everything you know."

Lizzie became curious, despite Captain Janeway's warnings. It had been all she could do to restrain herself from totally devouring the ship's computers, instead restricting herself to relatively unimportant things, such as studying the unusual plant life on the planet of Cestus Three, or learning
of new hairstyling techniques from the fashion magazines of the century. She had just decided she wanted to meet more of the people of Voyager and was heading down to Neelix's cafe when she met someone she did not expect.

"Q?" Why was he here? Unless that explained how she had arrived.

"Who else?" he answered. "I was just going down to talk to your Captain."

"Why are you walking? Can't you just whoosh yourself there?" Lizzie imitated the hand gesture Q used to make himself disappear.

"You have such a puny mind. You can't understand the pressures of being a Q. Exercise is, how shall I say this . . . entertaining."

"Ah, I see," noted Lizzie with a smile. "You wanted to stretch your legs."

"Exactly," returned Q, and then did a double take. "Did I just allow a human to understand me?" He looked sick. "I must be losing my touch."

Lizzie invented a dozen retorts, but kept silent. She thought back to a question that had come to mind a few moments ago.

"Yes," said Q.

"What?"

"Yes," Q repeated. "You were going to ask if I was the one who brought you here."

At the next intersection in the corridors, the two parted ways. Lizzie thought to wave goodbye, out of force of habit, but she was not surprised when Q went on his merry way, oblivious to all but himself.

It was all taken care of. Tuvok and Torres had met with the senior staff, along with Ensign Quinn, for the discussion of how best to utilize their findings. There had not been much discussion on whether to use it or not, only a simple demonstration of what could be, and a pouring out of ideas
on how to make what could be into what will be. For every obstacle they had run into, they had found a detour, and now it seemed there were no obstacles left.

They were going home. It was just a matter of reconfiguring the warp drive to a more efficient pattern and rigging the deflector dish to emit a spatial disruption to elasticize the space near them. Then they would cause a rupture in that area of space and connect it to the space-time of their
destination and punch through to the other side.

They would, in essence, create their own wormhole. Tuvok entered the calculations into the engineering console, while Torres and Quinn made a final check of the warp drive. The Captain herself had donned her zero-g suit and helped prepare the deflector dish, returning to the bridge to wait for the go ahead from engineering.

Finally, Torres raised her head from a diagnostic screen and pronounced, "I think that does it." Tuvok nodded that he was finished, also. "Captain, we're all ready down here." Torres looked nervous, but Tuvok supposed that her anxiety was only natural. It was, however, most decidedly not logical.

Tuvok could hear the Captain's voice from the bridge, broadcast throughout the whole ship as she said, "Mr. Kim, engage." The whole ship lurched, and time blurred.