STAR TREK: Where No One Has Gone Before
"The (Mis)Adventures of January McKenna"
By Michael D. Garcia

Disclaimer

STAR TREK(R) and all related trademarks and copyrights used by this game are the property of Paramount Pictures Corporation. This work of fanfiction is intended for non - profit and entertainment purposes only and is in no way assuming intellectual property for any previously registered trademarks and copyrights. This disclaimer is pursuant to US Copyright Law (Chapter 1, Section 107 and Chapter 1, Section 117). The following is a derivative work that is my only claimant. Thank you for not suing me! :)

Afterword

This novella is the product of a brainstorm session held back in February of 1998, when my closest friend on this planet said he had an idea for a fictional story set in the Star Trek universe. Having been a longtime aficionado of the series, and also having established myself as an amateur writer in the past, he held the contention that I should be the one to write that story. Though, as with all things, his ideas of what would happen and mine were a little different. If I recall correctly, his idea was to simply write a retrospective on the deaths of the Enterprise-D characters, remarking that their attempt was a successful one. Riker simply did not wait for Data and rammed the cube, thus destroying it. From there, it was his notion that an exploration of an Enterprise-less Starfleet would be in order.
I disagreed, citing that while the Enterprise probably would have done damage, the Cube would have survived. Instead of a slightly more status quo story, I chose to turn the Trek universe on its ear and examine a Borg-infested Alpha Quadrant. This idea led to the creation of an online role-playing game, which is thriving very well as of this writing, called Where No One Has Gone Before. The game started a little over six months later, in November of the same year. As the story on that game progressed, it did not actually begin until two or three years following the destruction of the cube at Sector Zero-Zero-One, when the Kyuushu-class warbirds were very common.
A few players had always brought the pre-history of the game, or the "Lost Years" between Best of Both Worlds, Part II and the moment when the timer began into question from time to time. There was an eagerness to understand how this all came to be in a dramatic setting, and then as I often do, I began to go over it in my head. The first chapter was completed on August 22, 2000, and the second and third chapters followed within a month. But then, due to personal emergencies, I was no longer able to really spend any more time on the series of stories like I used to. It was not until July of this year that I began revisiting this project and decided to write it out to its end.
With that explanation out of the way, let's start thanking all the people who made this little piece of fiction possible:
First and foremost, I have to thank Todd James. Without him, there wouldn't have been a story, and of course, due to his ability to pre-read everything before publishing, he brought a certain amount of pressure to bear on getting this project completed. Not to mention that a lot of his personality was thinly visible on one of the four main characters, and that helped me to understand how to write that character solidly.
I would also like to include Todd's little sister Teriann, for whom January was founded upon. She provided a base for the character's personality from the first chapter. It's akin to using a little Teri template and then moving on. I'm trying to soften this little revelation because I often described January as a very disturbed individual.
Further, there are the administrators and players of Where No One Has Gone Before, such as the ones I mentioned by name within the story (Mandukar'us, tr'Kheriov, Ruao), and also those who were reading immediately following an update and providing some good comments, or even just an acknowledgement of the work done.
Lastly, I'd like to thank a certain Coast Guard chief petty officer who often provides me with hours of entertainment in helping me to understand how the inner workings of the maritime military work. Without that assistance, the true limits of my knowledge would begin and end with what I've seen in Star Trek. It has always been my intention to bring a certain level of contemporary realism to my work, and keeping with the military traditions we all have come to know and love is a big part of that.

This novella is dedicated to the memory of SSgt Daniel O. Valencia, United States Army Air Corps (ret).