~Strange New World~
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Gene Roddenberry's creations nor those referred situations that belong to Paramount and anything inclusive. I also do not own anything recognizably Tolkien related and anything that is unrecognisable is either post LOTR and must be researched, or is undoubtedly mine. This includes Original Characters, situations and Tolkien characters' pasts that were not clearly defined within the books and I have taken minor liberations with. This is science-fiction and fantasy only and I have tried to stay as true as possible to the original works.
Rating: R for future violence and some disturbing themes, not for the young and those prone to weak stomachs.
Archive: Yes, but please ask permission first.
Spoilers: Plenty, for Lord of the Rings. Everything post TTT for movie watchers, just warning you now if you do not wish to be disappointed by certain discoveries.
Warnings: Future violence, mental anguish and some disturbing themes. Minor slash sometime in the future but this barely plays a part and is not detailed, only warning those who have absolutely no tolerance for such things. Sexual themes are imminent but because romance is not a major part of the plot, it does not really need to be mentioned now but I will warn you nonetheless.
Story Summery: Star Trek/LOTR crossover. Set approximately 28 years after the War of the Ring and an undeterminable amount of years after Season 7 in Star Trek TNG (the next generation). No references to the movies of either are mentioned, is purely bookverse in Tolkien's part, and TV series based in Roddenberry's. AU. Wesley Crusher never took part in the cover-up before an inquiry board that regarded a stunt crash that proved fatal to a team member, Cadet Joshua Albert, therefore never really disgracing himself in front of his family and friends. His choice to leave the Academy was purely based on self-discovery and naught more. There was no Nemesis and nothing that is mentioned outside of the series that is not taken by me and used with literary licence, any complaints may be emailed to me regarding this and not included within reviews. In Tolkien's world, almost everything remains the same up until this point in time; all that is not familiar in the following timeline is obviously AU and my own creation. As said before, purely bookverse so this means Haldir survived and was not even at Helms Deep for that matter, he now is a personal guard and friend to Lord Legolas. Frodo has long left for the Undying Lands, as has Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond. Legolas is Lord of the Ithilien Elves, his father still resides as King of the northern reaches of Eryn Lasgalen (The Wood of Greenleaves, formally Mirkwood) and the southern reaches are now called East Lórien. Lothlórien is no longer a residence of the elves as has been mentioned in Appendix A of the Harper Collins edition of the unabridged version of Lord of the Rings. Elesser has been King for 28 years, he has three older daughters and one younger one who is about 4 here…none take a major part in the storyline so names shall not be mentioned as of yet. Arwen is early with another child and all hope for this to be the long awaited son.
Chapter Summery: This is a type of backstory and prologue to what comes later. As this is archived within the Lord of the Rings section, most will not understand the terms contained as it is mostly from Star Trek and you may ask me any questions about this in reviews. But to put it roughly, The Borg have attacked the Enterprise and Guinan has escaped with three others, the third dieing almost immediately. All mentioned within this chapter are Canon characters. To make it easier, Whoopi Goldberg played Guinan in Star Trek TNG, Wil Wheaton played Wesley Crusher, Paddi Edwards played Anya (even though she barely appears here) and Jaime Hubbard played Salia.
Author's Note: Please aim all bricks, knives, water balloons and other implements of destruction and pain at my four muses if you want to punish me for not updating my other stories. Does anyone here know of Writers Block followed by a dam bursting in your imagination? If you have, then you would understand. Thankyou, and please hurt them as much as you can, I too am not very happy.
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Chapter 1: CrashedIt wasn't anything spectacular. Just a blink, a slight tremble and it was all over, just like that.
She didn't like opening her eyes to anything new and strange, it had happened too often in her life and the fact that every time it happened it caused great emotional pain, was something she never wanted to repeat. She wasn't soft, just too experienced and too old. It could have been a simple flaw of being too compassionate for her own good, it was what she had been hired for, her compassion. She listened to everyone and took whatever was thrown her with an ease as to be envied; it was probably the main reason she was in this situation.
She hurt all over now and could distinctly feel a rather bad twinge in her neck, a pinched nerve that would cause more irritation than real discomfort. Her right arm felt sore and she knew her face must be pretty banged up. After what they had been through, she was quite astonished that she was even alive. Keeping her eyes tightly closed, the El-Aurian mentally went through everything that had led up to this moment, where she was not even sure if there was anyone else left alive. They had come down hard.
"Guinan?" a feeble voice called out and her heart gave a leap. He was alive!
She opened one eye now and almost instantly regretted it. The escape pod's interior was a mass of flying sparks and cables, the wires swinging in deadly arcs from the vibrations that had shook them only moments earlier. A body lay next to her and she bit her lip, trying to hide a sob as she saw who it was.
The Daledian, Anya, lay as if she were just asleep; if it weren't for the blood covering her entire torso it would have seemed so. She was already becoming white and insubstantial, her true Allasomorph form coming through as her body became cold before the light gave a final wink, and she vanished.
Guinan let a tear trickle down her cheek as she sat up slowly, carefully avoiding the wires before looking around for the remainder of the survivors. A young man lay on his side a short distance from her, his tear-filled brown eyes staring at her in shock and sadness. A large gash lay open on his forehead and the blood flowed freely down his face, a small pool already collecting around his head as she noticed with alarm.
"Wes!" She made her way over to him as fast as she could on her hands and knees, slamming her fist into a metal panel to open it and retrieve the kit of analeptic compounds to treat him with. He groaned slightly as she checked the gash as tenderly as she could and, not sparing another minute, whipped out a cortical monitor and placed it on his head, making sure he was still with her.
"I'm fine, really." Wesley's optimism made her smile as she checked his vitals and finally relaxed, the blood was clotting and everything else seemed fine. He was just going to need to be sutured.
"You're ok. I'm just going to use this…er…"
"Delta wave inducer?" He offered. She nodded and helped him as he sat up slowly, holding his head and blinking as he looked around. "What happened?"
Guinan sighed. "We crashed, Anya is dead."
Wesley gasped and winced at the same time, his head was possibly feeling like it had explosions running through it. Then his eyes widened in fear. "Where's Salia?"
She started and looked around in panic. If the young leader of Daled IV was dead as well, the repercussions could be catastrophic. Salia had been appointed Leader of her planet when she was but sixteen. Guinan and Wes had both met her on Enterprise-D when she was being transferred from Kladia III, where she had grown up, to her actual war-torn homeworld. Being a planet that revolved only once in a solar year, Daled IV had a side that was always in light, while the other eternally in dark. These two hemispheres were ever at war and when Salia was born from parents of both sides, they sent her to the neutral Kladia III to be raised and hopefully bring peace to her home later in life. It was widely known that Wesley had fallen in love with her, but Anya, as her appointed guardian, would hear nothing of it and much confrontation had evolved. It was during one of these arguments that the crew of the Starship found out they were shapeshifters, or Allasomorphs to be correct. Wesley Crusher and herself had become fast friends with her after that, even if the boy's first romance had dimmed down somewhat.
In the years that followed, Salia had worked hard in bringing the two sides of her planet to a relative, if uneasy, truce. If she were dead, then they would immediately blame each other and there would be nothing left. Or even worse, they would blame the Federation and all out war would ensue, with definitely no winners.
"Salia!" Guinan called, ducking as a particularly live wire came darting at her head, sending sparks in all directions. "Salia!" She repeated, and then heard a banging, coming from the back of the pod. Suddenly, some fragments of wreckage moved to the side and a mussed brown head came up, the human face of the Daldian peering up at her in confusion and fear.
"Anya's dead." She whispered and Guinan nodded, smiling grimly as the young woman thought about it for a moment before getting up, getting things done in other words. "Where are we?" She asked firmly, making her way cautiously to the control panel and peering down it, obviously having no idea how to use the thing.
"Here," Wes called and slid himself up the wall, hunching over with the pain in his head even though the Inducer was already doing its work, "let me do it."
Neither Salia nor Guinan argued as he got to work, his hands moving deftly in unseen calculations before there was a pop, and the thick shields that had protected them on entry into the atmosphere opened, revealing the world outside.
"It's beautiful." Salia smiled.
"It's an M class, breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere with a gravity of…wow."
"Wes?" The elder of the trio raised an eyebrow at his face of amazement.
He looked up at her. "If I wasn't mistaken, I'd say this is Earth, if a lot more wild and uninhabited."
"That's your home planet, isn't it?" Salia looked at him and smiled again when he nodded. "Well, this would be just like coming home then." And with that, she turned and started searching for supplies and gadgets that they might need. There was no mistaking it; she was efficient, ruthless and unyielding. Just the leader she should be.
Guinan could see it though, the grief of losing her life-long companion hung heavy on her shoulders, but she hadn't been raised to cry at any given situation. Anya had brought her up with a stern hand and allowed for none of that, she would grieve properly when things would permit it.
"Hmm, strange." Wesley's voice cut through her thoughts and she stared at him worriedly. He only ever used that tone of voice when something was terribly wrong.
"What is it?"
"I can't send a signal out, not even a beacon. There's something blocking the transmission, I can't tell them we're here…we're stranded."
Guinan saw something then that plagued her mind for quite a while afterwards. Wesley's eyes held a myriad of emotions, horror, guilt, despair and…was that, hope? She didn't know what to think. It was almost like he was reliving everything that had happened to him the last few years, evaluating it all and then coming to a conclusion in one moment. This was what he had been working towards his whole life, trying to find a niche where he could just do things how he felt they should be done. Now he could possibly start from the beginning, a totally clean slate with barely a thing to lose.
He had quit the Academy only a few years before, going on his search of self-exploration before coming to rest with the Indians and Tau Alphan (dubbed, The Traveller) on Dorvan V. The planet was under Cardassian jurisdiction though and at the tender age of 23, he came back to see Picard, hoping for some answers as to what to do next. That darn stubborn captain had sidestepped nearly every rule of the Federation for that boy in the past, and now he was doing it again. He took Wes on as an assistant engineer for Geordie, putting him into his element while he mulled over his choices for the future, which weren't many. He was an unrealised genius; it just took a lot to get even him to realize that. For that, he continually went to Ten-Forward and promptly unloaded everything onto her, spilling his deepest secrets and hoping against hope that she could provide him with answers. She simply let him talk.
He had 'mulled' for so long after, that it started taking its toll on Starfleet protocol and they had confronted the captain, demanding that he hand the young man over and let them handle his future. What Jean Luc had been doing for years was bordering completely illegal and he knew this well, but he demanded more time and had virtually fled their scrutiny by taking on an excess of missions that would take quite a while to complete. His feelings of the man being the son he never had, were firmly established and made public on the ship by this event, and damn near everyone agreed with it. It made her feel proud to have Picard as a friend.
Then they came to Dalad IV on a stopover mission, Salia had requested permission to board and be taken to the next port of call, whatever that may be as she was seeking solitude from the pressures of government for a while. And only one week later, they were here, stranded, alone and unsure if anyone else got out alive. Yet the boy was still hoping, trying to grab hold of something positive to keep himself on track.
She had yet to find out exactly what her own purpose was here, she had none as yet and it bothered her.
"Guinan, should we go outside and scout the area? Maybe there is some kind of civilization around that might be advanced enough, maybe they could send the message." Salia stood off to one side, three survivor packs hanging off her arms as she looked to the eldest for guidance.
'Ah, so that is my purpose. I am the eldest, therefore it is necessary to take control.' Guinan had never felt so young. She may have been toeing 600, but at that moment in time, all wisdom and knowledge failed her and she resorted to simplistic answers and views to the situation.
"Let's go then."
* * * *
It was hours later, and they were utterly and thoroughly lost. Maybe they shouldn't have tried to explore the forest, it didn't look too big at the time but as night started to fall and weird sounds made themselves present, they realized the huge mistake they had made.
There had been some strange gullies they thought they could follow, it seemed logical if they were types of water-catchments and that could only mean they led to some kind of sentient life. But they had led to nowhere except dead-ends and many scratches and bruises. They had no idea what to do.
"Guinan, we need to stop." Wesley's tired and strained voice revealed that he was still injured, and they all needed rest. She sighed and nodded her head, dropping to the ground where she stood and messaging her feet. Somehow, when she had got up that morning, she hadn't expected to be trudging through wilderness on a strange planet with two virtual children under her care. Her shoes and loose clothing did nothing to keep out the elements and she shivered, hoping her feet could withstand the pressure and her body could hold against the cold.
"Stand back." Salia shuffled away from the sticks that she had compiled and fired her phaser, the sticks catching straight away and soon a merry little blaze was helping warm them up considerably. But Wesley still looked sick.
"Oh man. I think I'm gonna…" He groaned and dashed behind a tree, making the two females press their lips tightly together as the sounds of heavy retching reached their ears. He had done that twice already, he probably had a concussion and the trekking they had done today hadn't improved his condition one bit.
When he shuffled back to them and sat down, his face held a sickly pale pallor that signified something more then just the head injury (though all that was left was a dark red line spreading from left temple to just above his eye).
Guinan had missed something.
"Wes, how do you feel?" Salia asked, deeply concerned by the looks of it. She took his chin in her hand and made him look into her eyes as she scrutinised him.
"Like I've been hit with a class two phaser on high stun. Throw in a couple of Borg and you have it." He took a small sip of water from his flask as he said this, totally missing the open wince Guinan made when he mention the Borg.
She had had a personal grudge against the Collective, the locusts of the universe as they scoured and pillaged whatever race of being they came across. She hadn't been present when they had scattered her people thousands of light years from their home so many years ago, but the pain and anger from it stayed strong in her heart well into her hired services as a 'Civilian lounge hostess' aboard the Enterprise. The grudge had been raised only recently into a fiery ball of hate that threatened to consume her, Salia too by the looks of things as she chewed her lip contemplatively.
"Wes," said the young woman, "do you remember how you got like this?"
He frowned. "I remember a lot of noise…someone screaming…then I woke up in the pod feeling like Klingon Gagh." He looked at them both, quite confused. "I've never really thought about it. We've been walking for so long that I just never bothered to think about it. What happened?"
Guinan schooled her face to look as impassive as possible. To break the news to the young man after so long of thinking that he simply already knew and was hiding it rather well, would be close to damaging for him. She didn't want to hurt him, but from the signs of things, he would probably hurt more then the rest of them anyway.
"The Borg." She said simply. Being more of a listener and quite closed to conversation apart from giving metaphorical advice, this was not the easiest thing she had ever done. It was downright torture.
"Borg?" He squinted his eyes.
"Yes," Guinan continued, "they attacked and…"
"We think they took the ship, they were on us before we knew what was happening…I think we're all that's left." Salia finished, giving her a meaningful look.
Wes looked strained as he searched his memory. Then something dawned on him and his face dropped into helpless shock and grief. "Mother?" Guinan shook her head slowly, taking the young man in her arms as he broke down sobbing. "Mummy! Oh Mum…No!" He cried. She knew he was reverting back to his childhood habits due to the shock, this was perfectly understandable but it still tore at her heart, knowing that it felt a hundred times worse for him than her.
She cooed softly. "It's ok, baby. Everything's going to be fine."
"No it isn't," Salia muttered matter-of-factly, chewing on some tasteless emergency rations with slight detachment. "We're stuck on a possibly deserted planet somewhere, Borg are probably still a roaming and we barely have enough supplies to last a week. And if my suspicions are correct, Wes needs medical help and fast. The auto-suture only closed his wound, but I think it got infected anyway, not to mention the previous blood loss and all. Nothing is going to be fine until we get home, safe and intact." She brushed some crumbs off her dress-robes, before standing up and started to make some kind of camp for them so they could sleep.
Wes just kept on sobbing, hardly listening to the cold emotion free voice of his friend.
Guinan wasn't surprised at all, she knew that Salia had to be moulded into a leadership position and to do this most of her softness had been stripped away, baring an unyielding soul that most took as being unfeeling and 'witchy'. She shook her head, the Daldian was rarely understood, but her hardness ensured that decisions were made with logic and without interfering emotional attachment. Grieving was almost a new thing to her and would take its time before coming out. Guinan only wished it would come out soon, coldness in such delicate situations as this one was hazardous, especially on the emotional point of view. She should know. She had been an unofficial councillor for too many years not to know, it was part of her.
She stayed awake long into the night, long after the two young ones had fallen asleep, simply staring at the stars through the intertwining boughs of the trees as she thought deeply. Mostly it was about the stars, how she had lived amongst them for a time and had seen more about them then she ever could have thought possible. She thought about Jean Luc, the friend she knew she would never see again, the one that had made her feel whole and accepted. She had once told somebody that their relationship ran deeper than friendship, deeper than love, it was on a level that only they could reach together…and now that was gone. Emotion bubbled up inside of her when faces of people she had grown to love flashed before her eyes, causing her to choke on soft sobs she hadn't dared to show in front of the others. She thought about the happier times they had had together, the memories of many events seeming as clear to her as if they had happened only that day. The curse of being long-lived in her race, it caused the mind to hold onto every thought as though they were the most precious things in the universe. Which to her, they were.
But no matter how much she tried to grasp the happy moments of her life with her fingertips, the events of the previous days came rushing back in full force, making her gasp at their intensity. It was too much, and she was reliving every minute of it.
* * * "Jean, what is going on?" Guinan poured him some synthahol and tried to hide the shaking of her hands as she did so. The captain looked strained and nervous as anything, and it was rubbing off on her.
"Borg." He said simply, chugging down the drink like his life depended on it. "Three Borg cubes are going to intercept us within the hour, and we never saw them before now. Riker is suspicious about this new development, but I know what it is." He rubbed his temples, trying to get rid of the tension. "I can hear them, they won't stop until we are assimilated and they have humanity under complete control. 'Resistance is futile'." He groaned softly and Guinan stared in shock, she had never seen the captain look so defeated and it scared her.
"Jean," she spoke softly, "you are possible the strongest person I know. You were amongst the Borg and yet we were able to recover you, and you survived. After that there were all those things that would have driven another person insane, such as the trouble with that Kataanan and his memory influx. If I was put through that, I seriously doubt I would be standing here before you telling you I wouldn't be standing here. You can do this, you can fight this." She looked at him sternly and he smiled a bit, hugging her across the counter.
"What would I do without you?" He whispered.
"Probably having a panic attack down in Holosuite 2?" She offered and he laughed.
"You are amazing. You do know that of course?"
She simply smiled. And then his com-badge beeped, Riker's voice coming over in an unusual panic before Jean gave a rushed thanks and ran out. It was the last time she ever saw him.***
Guinan blinked at the tears coursing down her face. It was incredibly painful for her, to know that they were probably still alive but totally assimilated into the Borg, to be reduced to mindless drones, incapable of independent thought or feeling. To be caged within their own minds and praying that death would just come, and get them out of eternal hell. It hurt to know it, especially when it was her whole adopted family, Wes's whole family, Salia's…they only had each other now and it hurt.
The Borg…Borg…
Guinan sat up suddenly, the sudden movement causing the other two to stir and Salia blinked at her lazily, the remaining embers of the fire illuminating her in their eerie glow.
"What is it?" she muttered, leaning up on her elbow and eying the El-Aurian curiously.
She searched her subconscious for a moment before she found it, the "sixth-sense" as Deanna had so delicately put it. Guinan grabbed this sense and blinked, letting the words come out even though she didn't really know where from.
"Borg, they are coming. I don't know when or where, but they are coming."
"What?" Wes peeked out from beneath his thin blanket, eyes wide with horror.
Salia kicked her own off and kneeled. "Are they looking for us?"
"No," she replied slowly, "there is life here, intelligent life. And they want to see…where…how it can improve them. I think, I can't really…no, I don't know." Guinan sighed and dropped her head, the moment of revelation passing into oblivion to await the next time its services would be called upon.
"Good, at least we can find someone and get out of here." Salia switched to leadership mode right there and then, shocking a still grieving Wes into following her orders dumbly until he snapped out of it.
"Hey! We don't even know where we're going." He dropped his now rolled up blanket on the ground and sat down on it, huffing like a deprived teenager. "And I want to sleep."
"That's right, Salia. You may not need as much rest as us, but rest is definitely what we need right now and we need this night to do it." Guinan pulled her down and the woman sat heavily, almost identical to the way Wes had done before her.
"My body clock is twisted around so tight right now, I don't think I even want to sleep." She muttered, re-spreading her sleeping roll and lying down stiffly.
Guinan smiled when the sounds of dual soft snoring reached her ears, they were so alike it was breaching the borders of reasonability. Wes and Salia had clicked so well when they first met, due to their shared stubbornness and ability to almost read each other like a book. Their love was innocent and sweet, just the way it always should be. But now they had both grown up, both had more worries hanging off their shoulders then should be allowed for such young ones. Puppy love was remembered and cherished, but they could never retrieve it and it seemed a shame, they fit together so well.
Guinan smiled and pushed her own worries aside. She was tired she knew, and if they wanted to find some of this 'intelligent' life they would all need to have a good night sleep.
"Argh, darn root." She grunted as she tried to get comfortable. This was another thing that she hadn't expected; otherwise she would have strung cushions around her that day just for this moment. The thought caused her to chuckle softly as sleep overtook her and she fell into a dreamless slumber.
TBC
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AN: Please review so I can understand where I am going with this. It would be greatly appreciated as my self-esteem needs a boost after a few events that have occurred over the last few months. Thankyou. It would also be good to get pointers and ideas for where I can improve my writing skills and long reviews filled with encouragement always make me smile…much appreciated. Vana.