valkryies2

Ship of the Valkryies (Part Two)

A Star Trek crossover fanfic by Lt Taya 17 Janeway (TaTTooGaL™)

When she'd called for this conference, Janeway had hoped to elucidate some stickier points of their current situation. But now, seated in the middle of eight others just as and even more confused than she, Janeway was beginning to suspect that it might not exactly have been the best idea. She glanced around the crew, attaching names to faces. Jadzia Dax, Kira Nerys, Keiko O'Brien, Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Guinan and the remains of my crew. She stood up, trying one last attempt at order. "Okay, so we have established that large portions of our respective crews have been somehow misplaced. Is there any significance to that?" she asked.

"No men. None at all," Jadzia observed. "I checked. Every last male member of the Starship Voyager is nowhere to be found, and the crew replacing them is exclusively female."

"And the three selected crews all have a history of contact with Q," interjected Seven of Nine.

"Q's only been on Deep Space Nine once," Kira pointed out. "But it was hell enough already."

Guinan narrowed her eyes. "So Q basically kidnaps the men of Voyager, and replaces them with women from his two favorite starship crews. Why?"

Janeway stared distantly, thinking. "The Ship of the Valkryies…"

"Captain, you're not seriously thinking of that, are you?" asked Torres, folding her arms.

"Who can fathom the thinking of a Q?" said Janeway, shrugging. "To him, it's just another day of fun and games."

As if on cue, Q appeared, dressed in the garb of a carnival clown. "Was someone looking for me?" he asked sweetly.

"Enough of games, Q," snapped Janeway, folding her arms. "Why don't you just spare us the agony and tell us exactly what you are hoping to achieve by this?" She gestured around the assembly of women.

"Enough of games?" asked Q, scandalized. "But the fun hasn't even begun!" He walked around the table, looking unbelievably ridiculous in his puffy, garish clown suit. Crusher suppressed an urge to giggle. "Oh, I know how you will react, all your little protests and fits of histronics…" Q shuddered melodramatically. "That, by the way, were my biggest worry when I decided to put together an entire crew comprised of women… non-stop blathering and nagging. Almost as bad as that old hag, Jean-Luc Picard. Anyway… I have absolutely no doubt that none of you spoilsports are going to play along with me if I ask nicely, no?"

All he got in return were nine basilisk stares. "You human women are so difficult." He shook his head as if aggrieved. "I am proven right…. as usual." He clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. "So! With you being mortals, the only way to get you to cooperate is to tempt you, of course."

Janeway snorted derisively. "I'm afraid bribing us isn't going to work. You'll have to find a more creative approach."

"Bribing? Who said anything about bribing?" asked Q in an innocent manner which none of them bought. "I thought a small reward would be a little more in order." He shrugged nonchalantly. "After all, you do want to get your men back, don't you?"

Janeway's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

At this Guinan stood up, unable to take anymore nonsense from the omnipotent being anymore. "Alright, Q. None of us want to suffer anymore of your dramatics and your twisted ideas of 'fun'. Tell us straight what it is that you want."

Q pouted slightly. "I won't tell you the rules of the game until you commit yourself to playing, darling,"

Janeway slapped her hands on the table in frustration, their inactivity driving her close to losing it. "Dammit Q, alright! We'll play your ridiculous games; now tell us what the hell we're supposed to do!"

Q's face lit up with a pleased, wolfish smile. "Ah. I'd knew that you'd finally come to your senses!" With a snap of his fingers they were instantly gathered on a brightly-lit sound stage about the size of a shuttle hangar. A hundred or so other similar groups stood around the hangar as well, and they gazed up at Q on the speaker's podium with an air of eagerness, reverence even. Q was now dressed in a pin-striped suit in shades of red and white, complete with matching top hat and a microphone to boot.

He addressed the audience facing them; a roaring crowd of thousands so vast they seemed to be a teeming living mass pressed against the far side of the hangar walls. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, enemies and allies, sentient beings and" here his voice dripped with distaste and pity-"humans, welcome, welcome! Welcome to the first ever-Intergalactic Treasure Hunt! As you are all aware, you are witnessing history in the making right before your very eyes! It is a day where beings from all around the universe unite, despite their differences, to participate in a week of non-stop entertainment. How noble. How altruistic. And most of all, how utterly, unabashedly and pointlessly delightful! So without further ado, may I introduce the contestants? Standing on the far right in blue suits is the Tak Tak delegation. Don't use violent hand gestures when you're near them; they think most of them are obscene..." He paused for the wild raucous cheers and laughs. "Next, we have the Pendari delegation…"

Somewhere in the middle of the thirty-seventh introduction, Janeway realized she was falling asleep standing right up in the middle of the sound stage. It would have been mortally embarrassing. Why couldn't Q just speed things up by speaking faster, for example?

Without warning a duplicate of Q appeared beside Janeway, whispering in her ear. "Too slow for you, dearest?"

Janeway suppressed a gagging reflex to the saccharine sweetness of Q's tone and grumbled, "Do we really need to know the lineage of every contestant from his or her great-grandmother?" She gestured to the blathering figure on whom the spotlight shone the brightest. "If you can't speed yourself up, at least put a muter on yourself!"

"Okay, point taken. Let's put me on fast forward, shall we?" Q mimed pressing a button on a remote control and his identical counterpart's movements became hyperaccelerated, fading into a blur. "Stop."

The duplicate Q disappeared, leaving the original Q speaking in his normal hyperbolic style of delivery. "Last, and definitely least, we have a delegation representing the United Federation of Planets!" Q gestured to them, and the hall was filled with a mixture of scathing laughter and jeers. Janeway rolled here eyes. He HAD to do that.

Torres wasn't as amused. "We're not here for your entertainment, Q, we have a job to do and we want to start on it as soon as possible!"

Q ignored her and continued. "Treasure hunting! The term brings forth so much subtle danger and intrigue within it! It reminds one of hardy pirates and their loot, foolish young men, and of course, beautiful women…" he angled a hungry grin at the Starfleet delegation as he said this. He flexed his arms briefly. "Today your quest will be similar. Each group is given a map and a clue to solve the mystery of where the next clue will be, and so on and so forth until you reach le grand prize. Along the way, you may receive aid from me, of course, depending on the weather, how well you performed at the last obstacle and of course, my mood at that time." He gave the assembly a devilish grin. "Simple enough?"

A Ferengi from his homeworld guild stood up. "Just what does the grand prize consist of, by the way?"

"Oh, It depends on who you are, of course. It might be a lifetime's supply of latinum, or-" he gave the women and evil look- "some boys for you to play with."

"What's the time limit on this game? How long do we have to complete the quest?" asked Keiko O'Brien.

"Only as long as the next best team," replied Q wickedly, and then he snapped his fingers.

******

It was all dizzyingly confusing, all this abrupt hopping from one place to another. Troi was having a hard time keeping all her thoughts together, much less the thoughts of those around her. She sensed weary annoyance from Kira, overwhelming frustration from Janeway, and utter confusion from just about everybody else.

But this time there was another new addition to the room, this time a small young woman with large blue eyes hovering on the edge of unease. She was dressed in a simple flight of a white gown, and held a large blue clipboard, pencil and all, in one hand. "Group 9c?" she asked somewhat nervously.

"Who are you?" Janeway demanded of her.

She backed up a little. "I'm Cassandra, the Diocese in charge of your group for this game." She attempted a smile and got nine scowls in return. "I'm here to make the job a little easier for you?"

Deanna suddenly felt a rush of sympathy for this poor child, who was probably feeling highly intimidated by now and not really up to doing any leading of the game. "Why don't you tell us more about what we're supposed to do?"

"Right… right." She smiled at Troi, thanking her for the reminder of her purpose in the game. She flipped through the stack of paper attached to her clipboard. "There are seven stations, and you'll be starting at station three- that's the Maze of Alderaan." Then her expression fell. "Oh no, not the Maze…"

"What's the Maze?" asked Keiko cautiously.

Cassandra rubbed her forehead with one hand. "I told Q I couldn't do this job, I'm too sympathetic towards the contestants, but does he listen? Nooo, he has to put me with you on purpose." She addressed the crew apologetically. "I'm going to make such a terrible Diocese."

"It's alright," said Troi soothingly. "I'm sure you'll do a great job. Why don't you tell us more about the maze?"

"Thank you, Counselor, but I believe I have a lot of administrative work to do before that." She flipped through a checklist. "Registration, yes, briefing, yes, ordering…" She glanced up at the women. "You all have a hierachial order to follow, I suppose?" When all she got was blank stares, she patiently elucidated, "Your ranks and posts?"

They nodded. "Excellent," she said, sounding just like a schoolteacher. "Now, let me just record all your ranks and positions down… Captain?"

"That would be me, I suppose," said Janeway.

"Alright. Captain…. Kathryn Janeway… First officer?"

There was silence in the room. Cassandra glanced up. "First officer?"

Kira glanced around the room, realizing everyone was waiting for her to speak. "Me? Not again… alright, alright, put me down for it." She sank deeper into her chair, muttering.

Cassandra scribbled some more. "Kira Nerys… Engineer… would be Lieutenant Torres, I suppose?"

Torres nodded. "Well, can't exactly assign me as a doctor, can you?"

Cassandra chuckled, then pointed to Crusher with the nib of her stylus. "Doctor?"

Crusher made a gesture of acceptance, pursing her lips slightly.

"Okay… counselor… that's a little redundant, actually." She glanced up at Troi. "Sorry, no offense, but emotional repair doesn't really play a very big part in this game- that comes after. Do you want to select another post, or shall I do it for you?"

Troi smiled at her. "It's all right. Do you have an Operations post available?"

"Yes. Okay, now that we've got it settled, it gets a little tricky." She gestured to Jadzia and Seven. "One of you are going to be a science officer. Decide now."

Jadzia glanced at Seven. "I'll fly the ship, you handle the Console Playground we arrived in."

Seven tilted her head. "Acceptable," she conceded.

"So… Science officer, Seven of Nine Tertiary Adjunct to the Unimatrix One-Zero- nearly ran out of writing space there… Helm officer… Jadzia Dax. I hope I'm not messing up any of the calculations." Then she glanced helplessly up and Keiko and Guinan. "Bartender and botanist… I have no idea what to put you under."

"Auxiliary operations," suggested Guinan with a smile.

"Precisely. Now that should settle it… oh, wait. We need a security officer."

Janeway glanced around the room. "We don't have one present, unless you want to consider Ayala…"

Cassandra shook her head. "It's alright; you don't need any one at tactical as yet for the first station. We'll do it this way: if you succeed at first in this quest, I'll get you some security personnel. Fair enough?"

Janeway nodded. "So what is the first station about, again?"

"It's the Maze of Alderaan. Self-explanatory title, get to the end of the Maze where the clue to find the next quest station will be. And a little prize for you at each stage, just for encouragement." She smiled at the crew. "My idea."

"Sounds exciting," said Guinan with a smile.

Janeway spread her hands. "Let's do it."