Ship of the Valkryies (Part Five)
A Star Trek crossover fanfic by Lt Taya 17 Janeway (TaTTooGaL™)
Torres wasn't in the most excellent of moods, but that was excusable, considering that her boyfriend had been kidnapped, she was on some crazy mission to herd dragons, and shed just been publicly insulted in front of a group of people who otherwise knew nothing about her. And all of it was the fault of the same egomaniacal superbeing. She trudged in a line with the other competitors down the dirt path leading to the arena. It was a sunny day outside on the planet they were orbiting, warm and balmy. They were in some kind of suburb or the other. The path they trod on was dusty and unpaved, but around them were concrete paths and carefully manicured gardens. The trees by the side of the dirt path provided some shade from the glare of the sun as Torres looked upwards, trying to see if she could identify the bright speck of reflected light that would be Voyager. She couldn't, of course.
The arena loomed large on the horizon, a vaguely ovoid, dome-topped construction which easily could have swallowed the whole of Voyager. The path towards it was nearly a kilometer, and Torres was feeling vaguely flushed by the time they'd reached the foot of the arena. The competitors were ushered into the waiting arena by the bouncers. The wrought iron gates clanged shut behind like the herald of the world's end.
Their team was fourth on the list. Behind them there were another sixteen teams- it was a grueling competition. She shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to think of the best way to direct a dragon without sustaining serious bodily harm. Could she talk to them? Would they understand? Would they be given anything to work the dragons with? She gazed around the polished gray marble of the waiting area, looking for inspiration, and found none.
The first team was called, and the marble gates at the front of the waiting area swung open, revealing the interior of the arena to them. The sound and presence of the sheer mass of sentience out on the spectator stands hit Torres like a physical blow to the ribs.
And then she saw them.
They were huge, long and sleek and lethal, all polished scales and serrated edges. They ranged in a spectrum of dark colors from earthly brown to emerald green. They soared in the open space of the colossal arena, propelled by powerful beats of sinuous wings. Torres thought she smelt something quite like a wild animal, musky and mysterious. Dragons.
The first team was led into the arena and the gates slammed shut.
Kira gave Torres an alarmed glance. "Damn. They're bigger than I thought they'd be."
"Well," said Guinan cheerfully, "we're the fourth on the list, so maybe they'll be less hungry by the time they get to us."
"I doubt it," responded Kira. "There are six of them."
"Well, lucky us," muttered Torres.
They sat down to wait.
Interminable hours later, it was finally their turn. Each team had been called in intervals of nearly one hour, testimonial to the scale of the task. Torres didn't know what had happened to the other teams. Probably in the dragon's stomachs by now, she surmised. What a great footnote that would be on my memorial plaque, she thought. Born on Nessik, served on the starship Voyager, got eaten by a dragon. Why? All because it was some sadistic omnipotent idiot's idea of a good time. And he had the cheek to call me barbaric!
As she headed for the door she suddenly realized she wasn't quite ready to die yet, not here, and not now. There had to be some other way to get out of here alive… humans had been shepherding sheep since time immemorial, after all.
But then again, sheep don't bite, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her.
They stepped into the sudden light and clamor of the arena. Overhead, the six dragons dove and spit angrily, agitated by their lack of freedom. The spectators were protected by a thin forcefield which glowed blue every time a plume of fire hit it. The floor of the arena was already scorched black in several places.
Torres was glad to see that the Voyager crew had managed to secure front row seats. They waved down at her, some of them mouthing suggestions, but she couldn't make head or tail of any of them. But their moral support was better than nothing.
She assessed the dragons. Each one of them was four or five feet long, with a wicked spiked tail that they seemed to enjoy flicking back and forth. Their wingspan was gigantic- in excess of twelve feet, it's width spanning the whole of its body. Truth to tell, they looked like a cross between a pterodactyl and a plesiosaur, giant extinct creatures she remembered from her paleontology crash course at the Academy. With maybe a few crocodile genes thrown in. Who knows, it may actually be possible to genetically engineer a dragon.
"Hello?" She called out. "Excuse me, would you mind moving to the side a little?"
The dragons ignored her.
Well, it had been worth a try…
Guinan, however, seemed to be on the same track as she was. "They have such passionate emotions… it's almost as if I could feel them. Deanna should be here, not me… she might have a better chance of reaching out to them."
"What do they want?" Torres asked, curious. "They're not hungry, I hope?"
"No… more like frustrated. They've all been captured and incarcerated here against their will, and people keep trying to force them to do things they don't want to."
Torres suddenly felt a deep sense of empathy with the dragons. "Well, maybe we should tell them that they're just prolonging both our miseries by being stubborn. If they get into the holding area without us having to goad them then we'll all be out of the same predicament faster."
"I don't think they can hear us… they're too far away. And I don't want to aggravate one down to the ground. We just might not survive it…"
Torres racked her brains. "We've got to get up there. But how? On flying broomsticks?"
"Magic," affirmed Guinan.
Kira paused, then her eyes widened. "Can I apply the Suspension of Belief Clause over here?" she asked.
Torres recognized the phrase meaning that she had a suggestion which was more than slightly insane. "With Q around, anything's possible. Go ahead."
"About flying broomsticks… what if there was a way to get one?"
"Now you're talking Complete Suspension of Belief. How do you get a flying broomstick, Major?"
"I don't think it'll work… but… we're desperate…so. We put our hand out like this, and shout 'Accio broomstick!' And the broom will come magically flying out of nowhere."
Guinan gave Kira an odd glance. "Where'd you get that idea from?"
"Oh, some silly children's holoprogram called Harry Flotter, or the other. It might work. After all, Q does have a perverse sense of humor…"
"I had no idea Flotter had a first name… but we don't have any other bright ideas, so… Guinan?"
"Ready whenever you are."
"So, hands out like this? Okay, here goes…"
"On mark… three… two… one… mark!"
"ACCIO BROOMSTICK!"
The three women waited in suspense.
And nothing happened.
"Oh well," said Kira, shrugging, "I never really expected it to work anyway-"
Then Torres spied something on the horizon. "Look!" she exclaimed, as she pointed to the far end of the arena, where three blurs were heading towards them.
Kira's eyes widened. "Are those really flying broomsticks?"
And they were.
The three incongruous objects stopped before the women, bobbing gently in the air at waist level. Kira let out a whoop. "It worked! I don't believe this! It actually worked!" She grabbed one slender broom and clambered onto it. Torres and Guinan followed suit.
"Let's see if I remember how these things are controlled…" She kicked off and let out a cry of delight as the broomstick swooped upwards in the air. Taking her cue, Torres and Guinan followed her upwards, weaving in and out amongst the dragons. They were huge, fast like predatory birds and menacing like targs.
And mighty annoyed by this sudden intrusion into their airspace. They hissed at the three women, and dodged their approaches. At some subtle signal from the deep ruby red one, the six dragons converged on the three broom riders and attacked.
Torres found herself besieged by angry fire from all sides. She yelled and dove downwards to avoid a huge infernal plume, racing towards the ground. The emerald dragon followed on her tail, folding its massive wings to drop behind her. She jerked the broom's handle upwards just in time before she collided with the ground, pulling into a steep decelerating ascent. The dragon followed, sweeping so close to the ground she heard its claws scrape the dirt floor of the arena. A swinging spiked tail swiped before her face, and she barely ducked under it in time, twisting the broom sideways so that the world tilted at a crazy angle. In front of her waited a dark ochre dragon with blazing onyx eyes. And the green one was still behind her. In desperation, Torres did a quick left turn and the two dragons nearly collided into each other. "Guinan!" she called out. "Try to talk to the leader! The red one!"
Unfortunately Guinan too was being trailed by two huge dragons, one a sapphire blue so dark it was nearly black, and the other a blazing maroon creature with a pair of magnificent long horns. The El Aurian was dodging them fine, but she couldn't maintain eye contact long enough to get their attention. Guinan needed a diversion.
Heroically, and perhaps quite stupidly, Torres drove her broom between Guinan and the dragons. "You can't get me!" She taunted them.
This seemed to irritate the dragons, who broke off pursuit of Guinan and joined the green and brown dragons in hounding Torres. Guinan took advantage of the reprieve and dove off to help Kira, who was struggling with a fierce obsidian dragon and the monstrous red leader.
Torres was only vaguely aware of Guinan's voice as she tried to reason with the dragon. The rest of her mind was focused on flying the broom. She thought of Tom and his dexterity at the helm of Voyager, and tried to emulate his movements, his tactics. The crowd cheered as she flew around the circumference of the arena at an angle nearly parallel to the floor. The wind whistled wildly through her ears as the broom accelerated and the space between her and the four dragons increased. The crew of Voyager waved madly at her as she zoomed past, but she was clinging to the broom like a lifeline and couldn't wave back.
Then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, it ended. With a mighty roar, the dragons broke off pursuit and headed after the red leader as it flew towards the open doors of the herding area. As the sixth dragon crossed the line, a green forcefield snapped into place. It was over.
As the crowd rose raucously to cheer and stamp, Torres raced back to the center of the circle to join Kira and Guinan. The former was saucer-eyed. "Diplomacy with dragons- don't even try."
Guinan smiled at Torres. "That was some flying, by the way."
She grinned. "Well, it had to be good… my life depended on it." A thrilling feeling bubbled up in her: they'd all done it, made it out alive, and within twenty minutes, no less! So Tom's the best starship pilot around, and I'm a star broom pilot. She could live with that. Laughing, she grabbed Guinan's hand and pulled her to join Kira in the victory lap.
******
The excited mood in the Mess Hall was infectious. Their team had won, defeating the other teams by an embarrassing margin of forty minutes, twenty-seven seconds. Janeway shook each of their hands warmly as the team arrived. "That battle is going to go down in the history of dragon herding," she told them. "It's apparently a world record… and no-one's ever thought of using brooms fitted with antigrav units before. It was a brilliant idea, by the way… something out of a children's book, I surmise?"
Kira nodded. "It's from the Harry Flotter books. I've heard of the Flotter holoprograms, of course, but I never tried them. I will now, though."
Janeway laughed. "You mean Harry Potter. It was a series of children's books from Earth's twentieth century. The holoprograms are a different thing."
"Oh." Kira smiled at her mix-up. "It was Naomi's and Molly's idea."
"Very imaginative. I wonder who put the broomsticks there, though.."
"I know who did," said Naomi, sidling up to them. "It must have been Cassandra… Quinlan is her daughter, after all."
"Cassandra has a daughter?" asked Janeway.
"Shhh!!" whispered Naomi. "Don't tell… she's playing hide and seek with her parents. She told us about the broomstick bit."
Janeway smiled. "I won't… just as long as she keeps dropping hints."
"Okay. I'll tell her that." Naomi ran off to join Molly.
"Cute kid. She's how old, six?" asked Kira.
"No… three. She's part Ktarian… they develop faster in the early years."
"Ah. That explains it." Kira laughed and headed out to mingle with the celebratory crowd.
Cass arrived, smiling at them. Over the past few days the Diocese had calmed down from being flustered and insecure, and now she carried herself with a calm air which nearly rivaled Guinan's. She held a sparkling gold ovoid object in her hand. "Congratulations," she said, handing Janeway the object. "This is your reward."
Janeway held the object up to the light. "What's this?"
"It's up to you to figure out," said Cass. "Do you want to hear about your next venue?"
Troi came by, and paused. "The next station?"
"Yes," replied Cass. "For the victors." She handed Janeway a clear piece of display plastic. "This is the clue for the next venue."
Janeway took the piece of plastic and studied it. On it were written a set of numbers and symbols which Troi couldn't make head or tail of. Yet Janeway seemed to recognize it. "It's a coding system of some sort…" She paused and consulted with Seven of Nine. The Borg drone seemed to understand the letters and pointed something out to Janeway. "There's a binary star system five light years from here," Janeway said. "Is that our next station?
Cass nodded, pleased. "I hope you have some really innovative thinkers in your team… it's on the fourth planet of the Cogita system. We call it ThinkQuest… a Quest of the wits."
Janeway and Troi exchanged a big smile. "We should have no problem with that."
"Excellent. I'd like to have the team specifications in a few hours."
"How many people on a team?" asked Troi curiously.
"Three… one for each thinking task you will encounter."
"Sounds simple enough." Janeway patted Cass on the shoulder. "I'll discuss it with my crew, and I'll let you know."
