Disclaimer: I do not own the copyrights to Star Trek Voyager, Trigun, or any other copyrighted information. All Copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Reader's Note: This is a re-posting.
Star Trek Voyager
&
Trigun
Reminiscence
Chapter 3: The Truth
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In the Borg alcove of Cargo bay 2, Seven was sleeping or rather regenerating. As she did she was dreaming again, but her dreams felt more like memories. She could only hear two voices that of a little girl and the other was that of Vash the Stampede.
"The ticket to the future is always blank." She heard Vash's voice ring out in her mind.
She saw flashes of images pass in front of her eyes and they passed so fast that Seven couldn't keep track of them. She heard those voices and she felt her body move even if she was standing still. She felt herself being picked up by someone and feeling her fists pounding against someone's back. She heard the sounds of marching footsteps, phasers being fired, and even old-fashioned gun shots.
"Let me go!" She heard the little girl scream
"I can't allow that!" Vash shouted, "You'd be assimilated!"
"I don't care! Mama! Papa!"
Seven then gazed into a roaring camp fire and hearing a song that she heard in Vash' voice.
So, on the first evening a pebble from somewhere out of no where drops upon the dreaming world.
So, on the second celestial evening all the children of the pebble join hands and compose a waltz.
The song itself was just like Vash, so familiar that it was maddening.
"What's your name." The girl asked
"I am Vash the Stampede."
Seven awakened feeling weak, sweaty and feeling her cheat heave in its heavy breaths.
"So that's it." Seven thought, she suddenly remembered why she loves the color red, why Vash is so familiar and she knew why she had those memories.
"You seem troubled." A voice called to Seven.
Seven immediately looked and found the Borg named Hugh or 3rd of 5 as Seven referred. She looked at him with contempt.
"I am not troubled." She said
"I am no stranger to individuality." Hugh philosophized, "I know that you are not either and a nature of being an individual is to cover one's own weakness. I know that you are troubled."
Seven stepped down from her alcove, "I have a briefing to go to. You are to report to this meeting as well."
"I understand."
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"I think you both have some explaining to do." Janeway scolded both Hugh and Vash
Vash and Hugh looked at the screen in the briefing room in shame. They watched in both indifference and horror. They saw that the crew of Voyager had found out what they had been hiding. Now the two of them would have to stand and face the music of their concealment.
Vash saw himself create the Angel arm on the screen with the Borg interior in the background and the static in the foreground. He heard his own voice start to scream at Hugh, shouting run, run, then the light and finally static.
The video stopped
"What do you two have to say for yourself?" Janeway asked
"We can't keep the secret from them any longer." Hugh whispered to Vash
"I know, Hugh." Vash whispered, "I know."
Vash turned with his eyes closed, he opened them to show them all this beautiful blue eyes. He took a seat with Hugh at his side.
"I am not human." Vash started, "I am a genetically enhanced human. What you've seen in that video is a weapon that is called, the Angel Arm. A weapon so powerful that it makes the Omega particle look like a fire cracker. The gun is only half of the Angel Arm, it needs my arm to complete it. It was this weapon and my careless emotions that allowed it to fire. I had too much love in my heart for the one that I had been searching for. I don't expect to be forgiven for my sins." Vash hung his head in shame, looking at the pale green conference table, "Sin begets sin, I know this too well. I am ready to accept my punishment for my crimes."
"Crimes?" Janeway asked, "You killed Borg. You have no idea what a blessing this is to find someone like you who can actually fight the Borg."
"I have been running from them for the past five years, with Hugh at my side, I couldn't be assimilated into the Borg. So their only option was to kill me and well they should. I killed their people!" Vash cried looking at the Captain with his face streaming with tears, "I did it! I took their lives! I didn't see it clearly, if I kept my vision clear I could have found another way out of it!"
"You didn't have a choice, from what we've seen." Janeway reassured, "You had to do what you must in order to survive."
"I did it because I wanted to see her! I had the choice to stay away to forget about her, but I loved her so much!"
"Who?" Seven asked
Vash dried his tears with his red sleeve, "A little girl I knew named Anika, Anika Hansen."
The name sent shock waves through the room, especially to Seven. Suddenly the pieces came together, Vash went to Borg space to find her, and killed those Borg drones because of the love he felt for her. Along with the hate of the Borg knowing that he would never see her again. Little did Vash know that Anika Hansen; the little girl that he was searching for was just across the table.
"She was taken away from me by the Borg." Vash explained, "I became mad with anger. I spent the next 16 years trying to find her."
"In his search." Hugh continued as Vash continued to dry his tears, "He came into my company, he told me that he was trying to get to Borg space to find one individual. I thought that it was a hopeless task but he was determined enough to risk his life. It is a quality that I admire, so I joined him in his quest. When we reached the Borg Hive here in the Delta Quadrant, we were met by the Borg Queen, whom was the person you saw in the video, she told us that we were searching for a needle in the haystack. It was a hopeless search, this enraged Vash so much that the Angel Arm began to take shape. As soon as he fired it, I activated my emergency transporter. I got back to our Roundabout and I got Vash out from Ground Zero. We simply went to transwarp in our Roundabout and headed back for Earth and never looked back."
"I never found Anika." Vash cried, even though his tears were dried, he still continued to cry, "I feel alone. I've been doing so much searching for her, that I've nearly come to the brink of madness. I had to start over, since the ticket to the future is always blanks. Now I realize the futility of this search."
"You're wrong." Seven stood up.
Vash looked at her with his eyes that yearned while they cried.
Before Seven could even make her explanation, a call came in through the COM.
"Captain, please come to the bridge!" The voice shouted as if it was in the middle of a battle, "Long range sensors has picked up a Borg Ship."
"Oh no." Janeway groaned
The senior staff got up and headed straight out to the bridge, Vash and Hugh came close behind. Seven was about to call to Vash to tell him who she really is, but he was gone before she could even get a word out of her lungs and past her lips. She could only go to the bridge and face the enemy.
The crew was at their stations, "The ship is within visual range."
"On screen." Janeway commanded
There on the screen they saw a Borg ship, but the Borg ship was a different shape then the others that the crew of Voyager has ever encountered. The ship wasn't a cube, it was a dodecahedron, a twelve sided object. It was massive, even at a distance it seemed to take up the whole screen on the bridge.
"They're hailing us." Harry reported
"Let's hear them." Janeway said, "I'm open to discussion."
On the screen they saw her, the Borg queen with her Borg implant "dress" covering most of her body below her shoulders. Her head without hair, pale from the extract of all the color for the Borg and implants running from the back of her head like hair.
"Starship Voyager." She said, "We know you have the human known as Vash the Stampede and the drone designated 3rd of 5. Hand them over to us and we'll spare your vessel."
"You have no right to take their lives!" Vash screamed
"Vash." The Queen said seductively as if trying to seduce Vash, "I know that you're a peace loving gunman. You wouldn't want to see harm to that vessel, so give yourself up and we'll spare them."
Vash exhaled
"No Vash." Hugh called, "Don't. You have to keep moving. To find her, keep your vision clear!"
"My vision is clear, Hugh." Vash looked to his Borg friend, "I'll give myself up."
"No." Janeway said and looked to the screen, "I won't give him up to you, even if you give us a passage to the Alpha quadrant itself! Screen off! Shields up and Red alert!"
The screen went blank only with the Borg Dodecahedron in it's sights, the lights went dim showing the lights of the consoles and the flood of red light as well as the blaring noise of the red alert.
"What are you doing?" Vash asked Janeway, "They'll kill you."
"If it's to save you." Janeway said, "Then I'll allow it."
Vash smiled, "You're more like me than I am."
"We try. Evasive maneuvers, go to Warp 2, ready phasers and torpedoes. It may be a loosing battle but I'm going to fight to the death."
"Even though their tactical advantage is significantly above ours." Tuvok stated
Vash suddenly formulated an idea, he remembered back to his home planet, Gunsmoke. He remembered that his brother Knives, the one who made the guns, created a similar blast with the guns without using the Angel Arm.
"Captain!" Vash called, "I'm going down to the shuttle bay, I want you to open the doors and when I give the signal. I want you to deactivate the force field."
"You'll be blown out into space." Harry explained
"Not me, remember? I'm Vash the Stampede. Just get it ready."
"Good luck Vash." Janeway smiled as she took her captains' seat.
Vash dashed into the turbo lift and made his frantic 200-yard dash through the ship to the shuttle bay. His whole body felt like it was on fire, as he felt his read duster flap behind him like a super heroes cape. He dashed and ran with his boots thumping against the floor until at last he found it. The shuttle bay.
He dashed in and found rows up on rows of shuttles, he made his call to the bridge.
"Captain this is Vash!" He called, "I'm ready."
He reached for his gun, the Colt 45 Long Eagle, he made a fast walk over to one of the shuttles he hid behind it like it was a rock.
"Open the shuttle bay doors!" Vash screamed as he held out his gun towards the enormous doors of the shuttle bay. He saw the shuttle bay door slowly open and he watched as the force field lights came on. Making its bright blue hue across the shuttle bay door as it opened.
"Ready when you are Vash." Harry's voice came through the COM above the blaring noises of the alert.
"Get ready to deactivate the force field on my mark!" Vash shouted, "3…" He aimed the gun to the Borg ship, "2…" He aimed it's sights at it, "1…" He felt his finger on the trigger getting ready to pull it, knowing that the thousands of drones that were on there. All of them used to be living, breathing individuals. Do the lives of a thousand drones outweigh the lives of over one hundred individuals?
Vash made his decision, "NOW!" He shouted,
The force field was deactivated and the hue was now red, Vash felt the suction as all the objects were being blown out into space. He felt the weight of his gun in his hand as the hard air brushed past him, he pulled back the hammer with his thumb as he heard containers being knocked over the shuttle crafts. He pulled back his finger and he felt as well as heard the single click that sent the bullet flying out through space and right at the Borg ship.
On the bridge, the senior officers watched as a ball of light consumed the very center of the Borg ship. It began to combust within itself, and suddenly the ship exploded into the blackness of space.
"Go to warp 7!" Janeway shouted
"Yes, ma'am." Tom complied as Voyager made its warp 7 dash into space.
"Reactivate the force field!" Janeway commanded to Harry, "And close the door!"
She spun around hoping to find Seven and the Doctor there, but they were both gone.
They were down at the door of the shuttle bay, Seven frantically worked the controls to find out the status inside the room.
"It's being recompressed." Seven reported to the doctor
"We have to get in there, he might be suffering from oxygen depletion."
"I'm aware of that." She looked at the screen; "it's safe now."
She stepped up to the door and watched the enormous doors open she wanted to find Vash soon. She found him, he was down on the ground, completely still like an animal that had died of it's own old age.
Seven dashed to Vash, she turned him over and sat down holding his head in her lap. She felt his neck for a pulse, she began to smile showing her beautiful teeth.
"He's alive." She said with glee
"It's amazing that this poor man could have survived that." The doctor said as he ran his scan over the body, "Let's get him to sick bay."
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In sick bay, the Doctor, Tom and Seven were working together to help Vash. He seemed stable, but his heart rate seemed low.
"I don't know what else to do." The doctor said, "He seems alright, but he's still unconscious."
"Perhaps we should give him mouth to mouth." Tom smiled
"Oh, please." The doctor said sarcastically
Seven kept staring at Vash's face, then she as well as the others started to hear something from Vash's lips.
"So…" He sang, "On the… first... evening... a pebble… from somewhere… out of no where…"
"Drops upon the dreaming world." Seven continued Vash's verse, she reached down to stroke his cheek, "So, on the second celestial evening all the children of the pebble join hands and compose a waltz. Sound life."
Tom and the doctor looked at Vash with Seven, "Where did she hear that song?" Tom asked the doctor.
"I don't know." The doctor shrugged, "I've never heard it before."
As this bedside song continued, the captain walked in and heard the third verse from Seven's lips. She stepped in wanting to know if Vash was alive and well, but she heard Seven singing to Vash
"So… On the third night the child of the waltz strikes the web on the surface of the world."
The captain smiled, "That was beautiful Seven. Where did you hear that song?"
Seven never looked at the captain, she kept her vision on Vash's unconscious face, "He sang to me when I was a child."
"As a child?" Janeway asked, "You told us that you were assimilated as a child and that you only knew your parents. How did he know you as a child?"
"I'm suddenly remembering those memories captain." Seven stated as she began to remember the events of the past, "When the Raven was attacked by the Borg, I was about to be assimilated, then I was rescued by this man. Vash the Stampede, I kicked and screamed, begging him to take me back because I wanted to be with my mom and dad. He wouldn't allow it, he said that I would be assimilated. I continued to kick and scream but he kept moving, escaping the Borg with out lives."
"We came to a small M-class moon and stayed there for two months, but those two months were like an eternity. He taught me how to pilot, how to start a fire, and he taught me to sing. Sound life, was the only song he taught me. Then the Borg attacked us again, I was assimilated but they killed him. I lost all hope and gave up the struggle against the Borg knowing that I wouldn't see Vash ever again. Now, I know that he's alive."
She bent down and hugged Vash, "He's back."
"A long lost love." Tom smiled
"A classic romance." The doctor rubbed his chin
"How is he, Doctor?" Janeway came up behind him
The doctor took his hand away from his chin and gave his prognosis, "He seems to be alive but he seems to have suffered a mild to a nearly severe concussion. My guess is that during the blow out in the cargo bay he was either hit by a container or thrown against the wall."
"You're right about that." A voice called out,
The eyes of the doctor, Janeway, Tom and Seven turned toward the voice. They saw Vash sitting up rubbing the back of his neck, "I never saw that container coming at me, but I sure as hell felt it."
All four of them looked at Vash in surprise, but the shock was broken as a call came in from main engineering.
"Captain." B'Elanna's voice came in, "We're experiencing serious problems with the warp core. It's going to breach! We have to drop out of warp!"
Vash jumped right off the bio bed, and headed for the door, but the doctor stopped him in his tracks.
"Stop, cowboy." He said, "I'm not letting you down there in your condition, you're going to have to stay here."
"No way." Vash shook his head, "If I don't get down there, this ship might explode or we'll be stuck and vulnerable to the Borg once again. They want me and they'll stop at nothing to kill me."
"My answer is still, no Vash."
Vash shrugged, "If you're a hologram, then I'm sorry about this."
Vash stepped back and then dashed through the doctor's holographic image to the door and down the hallway.
"That was an extremely rude thing to do to a hologram." The doctor moaned, "Has he no respect?"
"He," Seven stated as she headed for the door, "is a man who will not allow innocent people to die. Just like all of us, I'm surprised he's not a member of Starfleet."
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In main engineering B'Elanna was working furiously as the warp core began to spout exhaust from it's ducts in the matter and anti-matter containment.
"We're loosing containment!" She shouted, "Initiate warp core ejection."
"We can't do that at Warp!" An engineer shouted
"Just do it!"
Among the commotion of noise, alert sirens blaring and exhaust spouting a voice shouted, "WAIT!"
B'Elanna looked and saw the red coated Vash step into main engineering.
"Are you crazy?!" She shouted, "The warp core is about to breach!"
"I know that, do what you can. I'll stop it."
"How?"
"Just do what you can!"
Vash stepped towards the nearly destruction warp core, he looked up at the blue diamond colored cylinder. He placed his hands upon it like a spiritual healer along with his forehead against the steel support beams.
"Come on, big guy." He whispered, "Don't give up on us."
Behind the frantic and scrambling teams of engineers, Seven stepped in and looked at Vash. She watched as the Warp Core still ejected it's exhaust, the alarms still blared and people were hurrying to find a solution. In this pandemonium she watched Vash start to glow and the warp core began to glow along with him.
"Lt. Torres!" An engineer shouted, "The warp core is starting to stabilize!"
"Impossible!" B'Elanna screamed, "It was about to breach."
"It's true. Pressure, temperature, matter and anti-matter containment in the Warp core is coming down to acceptable limits."
"How is this happening?" Seven asked herself as she stepped towards the mysterious Vash
"Warp core is now stabilized." B'Elanna reported, she looked up at Vash who had now taken his hands away from the core.
"You're a survivor." Vash whispered to the core as if it was a person.
"How the hell did you do that?" B'Elanna asked
"I helped it." Vash stated as he turned around and headed towards the door, "I think I should get to sickbay."
B'Elanna shrugged, "Alright everyone." She called, "Back to your stations, let's keep an eye on the core."
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After the events in main engineering Vash went back to sick bay where the doctor did officially gave his own seal of approval. Even though Vash stampeded through him when the warp core was about to breach. Vash had found his way to the holodeck, strangely enough though, this room was very much like the "recreational room" on board the Project Seeds Ship.
"Computer," He called, "Create a scenic country side, with a hill and an apple tree at the top with a river flowing down underneath it with mountains in the distance and forests in the valleys."
"Specify weather." The computer asked
"A sunny day with minimal clouds." Vash commanded
The computer complied and the gray metallic walls melted away and it showed what Vash wanted. He stood on top of a hill with a large apple tree hanging over him with a river running at the foot of it and off into the distance. It ran off with forests on either side of it to the mountains in the distance with the sky so blue above that was poked with white fluffy clouds.
"Perfect." Vash smiled as he sat down to admire the view.
His sitting position went to a lying down one, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his yellow-round-lens-w-shaped-temple sunglasses. He looked up at the sky seeing it's blue color in peripheral vision from the sunglasses.
"The sky is unbelievably blue here." Vash thought, "Rem, Meryl, Millie, Wolfwood. All of you loved it as much as I did, but now none of you are here with me. What do I do if I find Anika? I've been searching for so long that I didn't think what I'd do once I found her. What if she's still Borg, or maybe what if she's separated from the collective? Would she have grown into a beautiful woman? What do I do with that?"
As he asked himself these questions the door to the holodeck appeared behind him. He heard the loud whir as it opened. He didn't move, he wanted to stay in this position for as long as he could. He heard soft footsteps, but he still didn't move.
"Vash?" a sweet soft tone called to him, this time he sat up again and looked over his shoulder and saw Seven standing there.
"Hi." He smiled
"May I sit with you?" She asked
Vash nodded slowly
Seven sat down on the grass, her brown jumpsuit stretching over her body and she spread her legs across the grass.
"I have to tell you something Vash." Seven started, "That girl you've been searching for. Do you remember what her favorite color was?"
"Yes." Vash answered, "She loved the color red, just like my coat, and in the language of flowers as I told her, the color red means, Courage and…"
"Determination." Seven took over, "It is also the color of Heaven, a color for dreamers, poets and lovers."
"Yes." Vash said, "But how do you know."
Seven turned herself over to a lying down on her stomach position and leaned over to whisper into Vash's ear, "I am Anika Hansen."
To be continued…
Author's Notes: In order to do some of the things that I was able to write about in this story I had to study Trigun in great detail to make sure that I didn't go out of character for Vash. However I had to study Voyager as well to make sure that I didn't take anyone else out of character too. The hanging question here now is what's going to happen from this point on?
Come back for more chapters of Star Trek Voyager: Reminiscence.