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X

Odyssey out of Time.

A New Hope.

The Tactical Room at Starfleet Command was used whenever the Federation went to war with a different enemy. Built underground during the hostilities with the Romulan Star Empire during the war with the Romulans when the Empire's attacks resulted in a great deal of damage to Starfleet's planetary infrastructure and modified heavily over the later decades as technology improved although it retained its original layout and its original purpose, the Tactical Room was built underground to protect its workings from any planetary bombardment.

The Tactical Room had not been used for a long time since many of the conflicts the Federation had been fighting over the last 80 years had been small skirmishes although there were exceptions such as the recent Klingon war, and the Cardassian war several years before that and the technology was outdated. The threats of the Borg and the Dominion had resulted in the room's technology being updated, such as the powerful subspace antennae which were used by the Room's master computer to pick up on fleet movements.

"We've managed to attack and destroy six Dominion shipyards in the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants after we capitalised on the destruction of the sensor array near the Argolis Cluster, and the hit against the Ketracel White facility," Commander Turner was presiding over the meeting, not bothered by the admirals and Federation officials standing nearby while he showed them the displays on the operations table. "In the Gamma Quadrant, our ships are just striking at the Dominion with little pinpricks, but we're doing our best thanks to the capture of a Dominion fighter to find their bases and inflict as much damage as we can do."

Admiral Paris listened to the report. As the head of the Odyssey project, he was responsible for the integration of the advanced Asgard technology into Starfleet, and he knew they were going to expect reports on the progress they had made. But he was an officer with a lifetime's worth of experience.

"Have we located the Founder's new homeworld?"

Turner nodded. "Our ships are looking for it now, sir; the Founders have managed to hide it from their own people so there will be no possibility of them being attacked as they had two years ago. At the moment our SI operatives working with our people in the Gamma Quadrant are trying to track down Dominion transmissions in the hope we could pick up a pattern and use them to track the Founders down. But the Dominion seems to have anticipated that since our first attacks in the Gamma Quadrant, and they've put their messages in a cypher of sorts. Starfleet Intelligence is trying hard to work on the cypher as we speak, but it's slow going. Our predictions the Dominion would be taken by surprise by our attacks were spot on; they know we have a faster-than-light drive which doesn't need the Bajoran wormhole, and we managed to inflict a serious amount of damage by attacking shipyards and Vorta cloning facilities, and Jem'Hadar birthing creches. But now the Dominion are fortifying their planets and the worlds under their control, our ships are facing increasing levels of resistance."

Admiral Ross studied the map of the Gamma Quadrant thoughtfully. "On the last report, we learnt there were Dominion worlds where there was a strong resistance movement which wanted to throw off the Dominion yoke, and there were plans to contact them. How is that going?"

Turner sighed. As a member of Starfleet Intelligence assigned to the Gamma Quadrant front, he had seen first-hand the results of the Dominion occupation. On the surface, it appeared to be peaceful, with the Jem'Hadar enforcing things like curfews, no littering in the streets, stuff like that, but there were worlds which didn't want the Dominion anywhere near them, and so they had formed resistance cells. To say it had been a boon to hear of this had been an understatement.

They had allies.

The tricky part was trying to work with them. The resistance cells in the Gamma Quadrant on worlds conquered by the Dominion were totally different from what you'd find during the Bajoran occupation days.

"Badly," Turner didn't bother being politically correct or dress up the news like some of his fellow operatives would have done. "We have heard of the groups, the trouble is finding a way of contacting them without being open. We have found evidence on some of these worlds the Founders themselves intervened when all efforts to squash them by the Vorta and Jem'Hadar fail; we haven't gotten anything definitive - the Vorta made sure the actual stories of those cases were stamped out completely so we weren't able to get anything more than a few scant rumours and legends - but we can guess some of the changelings infiltrated the cells and betrayed them to the Jem'Hadar where they were slaughtered. With that kind of response, resistance movements would have either folded, or they would have gone into hiding."

"So we have little hope of finding them?" Ross summarised.

Turner chuckled. "Not necessarily, sir. There's still a resistance movement on some of those worlds; the only problem is getting to them and making them see we are on their side."

Paris interrupted when he realised they could be here all day trying to work out means and ideas of reaching through to these resistance people. He was sure Starfleet Intelligence had an idea of what they were doing. "Continue trying; one idea you could try is if you seek out and destroy Dominion targets. That might get their attention."

Turner was in the throes of pondering the idea when a Starfleet ensign rushed in.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Admirals, but we've just gotten word about the USS Prometheus. The ship was hijacked by Romulans, and they destroyed a Nebula-class starship launched from Starbase 223; apparently, the admiral in command wasn't informed of the capacities of the ship."

The admirals in the room shared looks of concern with each other. The Prometheus had been on the design drawing boards for a while, now. Designed as a long-range, deep space tactical vessel, the Prometheus was under construction when the Odyssey's technology was uncovered and much of the earlier findings had been installed on the ship although the installation of a hyperdrive had been scheduled for another time as Starfleet wanted to continue with the hyperdrive research despite it being fitted to a small number of starships, a number that was growing every day. But one of the ship's most fascinating properties was the multi-vector assault mode, a separation procedure where the ship would break off into three sections and attack multiple enemies at once. The idea had always been there since the days when hull separation was understood. While some starships like the Galaxy and Sovereign classes could separate and attack an opponent, the Prometheus class was designed to do it. The idea the ship had been hijacked by Romulans made it clear the Romulans wanted Starfleet's newest weapons and defence technology, and what they had learnt from the Asgard.

"Go on, Ensign," Admiral Ross said quietly as the implications struck him.

"A small group of starships tracked the Prometheus down to the border," the ensign went on, "when they got there, they found the Prometheus surrounded by 3 Romulan warbirds. The Prometheus suddenly attacked the warbirds, and when our people got on board to subdue the Romulans, they found two EMHs online. They'd apparently fought off the Romulans."

"What?" Paris breathed in shock. He had always had a love-hate view of Emergency Medical Holograms; on one hand, he could understand the logic that had gone into the idea, and he could even appreciate the design, but the problem was he was never sure about their programmed personalities; like many people, he found them obnoxious. The idea an EMH could tackle a Romulan shock team was incredible, unthinkable and unlikely, but he knew the ensign was serious.

"That's not all, sir. One of the EMH's is an old Mark 1…. From Voyager," the Ensign paused for dramatic effect as they dropped this piece of news.

"Voyager?" Paris felt his blood pressure starting to spike, but he calmed himself down enough to ask, "Where are the ships? How did the EMH come to the Prometheus?"

"They're heading back to the location where the EMH's program was transmitted along with an ancient alien communications network, sir. Voyager discovered the ancient communication network where stations are scattered across a wide expanse of space; every single station is connected, and they extend to the Alpha Quadrant. From what we can determine, Prometheus had detected a part of the network thanks to the Asgard sensor technology, and the Romulans hijacked the ship at the same time. The EMH from Voyager recruited the Prometheus EMH to help retake the ship, and contact Starfleet Command. They'll be in range soon."

Paris exchanged looks with the other admirals, and they prepared to leave the Tactical Centre. They would need to go straight to the main offices of Starfleet Headquarters.

"Ensign, do we know where Voyager is, in relation to the communications relays?" Admiral Harker asked.

"Yes. The ships with the Asgard sensors have picked them up, and they have the sensor technology to scan thousands of light-years," the ensign replied. "They've found the one where the EMH's program was transmitted from, but none of our ships is anywhere nearby within a few light-years."

Paris nodded gravely. Starfleet had much of its resources diverted to war production and fighting the Dominion on different fronts within their home territory within the Gamma Quadrant, and here in the Alpha Quadrant. They were also busy fortifying the rest of the Alpha Quadrant and defending the Klingon Empire, even if Gowron deserved a lot of the blame for what was happening right now. Only a few hyperdrive capable ships had been despatched to the Delta Quadrant when word of Voyager's existence reached Starfleet, and by a few only 8 ships had been spared although they could have been pulled back and put onto active duty at any time, and they were still hunting for Voyager right now along all routes calculated from the different trajectories near the region where Odyssey encountered Doctor Pel and the location of the Caretaker's array. The good news was when Voyager's route was worked out, Starfleet hadn't found it very hard to find traces of where the ship had been; Janeway and her crew had left one hell of an impression on many, a lot of it bad since they did interfere.

But the trail had gone cold very close to a region of space where the Borg Collective was finally discovered, and Starfleet had taken steps to try to avoid the Collective as much as possible, although they had travelled cautiously into Borg Space in the hopes of learning what had happened, they had found the Borg had been in the throes of a gigantic war that the Collective were recovering from, but they had no idea if the Voyager had been assimilated along with all hands, and it was too dangerous to find out.

Starfleet had given strict orders to the ship commanders not to attack the Borg under any circumstances with their new Asgard based weapons, in fear that they could be assimilated by the Borg, which was the last thing they wanted.

But this was the best lead they had ever come across.

X

As the Doctor returned to Voyager and he reorientated himself when he found himself back in his sickbay (the Prometheus sickbay had been pristine and highly advanced, and it was something the fastidious hologram approved of, but this sickbay had been his 'home' ever since he had been activated during that mess with the Caretaker) and he told Captain Janeway, and Commanders Chakotay and Tuvok about his time on the Prometheus where he'd defeated that pack of Romulans with the help of a fellow EMH, that he had spoken directly to Starfleet Command.

But he had yet to tell them what he had learnt.

"Captain," the Doctor began slowly, with the two humans becoming concerned by the serious tone in his voice, "I personally travelled to Earth to meet with Starfleet Command. A short time ago, a strange ship emerged from the Bajoran wormhole and it was found this ship had come from an alternate universe where humans had allied with powerful aliens, and on the day their people died out, they gifted the human race of that world with advanced technologies contained within a highly advanced computer database. The aliens also possessed a highly advanced propulsion technology, one that bypasses the laws of warp drive, one that allows a ship to travel across the galactic void in a short time."

As the Doctor expected, looks of amazement and hope visibly appeared on Janeway and Chakotay's faces. Even Tuvok, with his Vulcan calm, looked interested.

"Starfleet is going to save us?" Chakotay whispered.

"They are. Starfleet has known about Voyager's survival within the Delta Quadrant for some time, ever since they met…Danara," the EMH stumbled across the name of the Vidiian doctor he had been involved with, and the others didn't question or comment on it, knowing the Doctor's feelings only too well, "and they have been looking for us since. They've found our trail, but they lost it near the Nekritt Expanse."

"Did they say anything about the Voth?" Tuvok asked. Janeway and Chakotay shared a dark, hard look as they remembered the encounter with the powerful Saurian race. Both of them remembered the threat levelled against Voyager should they ever return, at the same time they had no doubt the threat was to be shared with all humanity, all of Starfleet. If any ship had encountered the Voth, unprepared…

Janeway remembered her own encounter with the Voth. She had not liked them and she found them arrogant, which was one of the reasons why she had gone with a belligerent course of action, one she regretted ever so slightly because the Voth possessed the power to smash Voyager into pieces like a hammer striking an eggshell. She only hoped nobody else had paid for it.

"No, they didn't. Starfleet has only been sending small squadrons of ships into the Delta Quadrant, looking for us; they've certainly encountered the Vidiians and the Kazon, and they've given the Vidiians help with the Phage by giving them Klingon DNA and other medications which have garnered an ally in the Vidiians," the Doctor replied.

Janeway grimaced at the mention of the Kazon. The moment she had met that race of savages she had immediately disliked them, saw them as untrustworthy. One glance at Chakotay's hard face and she knew he felt the same way, especially after what he had gone through thanks to Seska.

But she was pleased Starfleet had helped with the Vidiians; one of the biggest ethical dilemmas she had ever experienced was her own pity for them as a whole. But the danger was clearly there, and she had been worried if she had offered to help, the Vidiians would just attack and steal their organs and body parts anyway.

"When I met with Starfleet Command, I travelled on one of these ships to meet with the admirals. They told me to tell you not to leave this part of space, to make it easier for Starfleet to find us. Starfleet needs all the ships they can get right now," the Doctor went on.

"What do you mean?" Janeway demanded, hearing the grim tone in the holograms' simulated voice.

"I am afraid the Federation is at war with a powerful empire from the Gamma Quadrant."

"The Dominion," Janeway breathed, shaking her head. "I'd heard of them only in passing. They'd attacked and destroyed the USS Odyssey when she'd gone to rescue Commander Sisko and his son, but war?"

"I'm afraid so, Captain. Starfleet didn't tell me all the specifics about the war, except it's on and they need all the help they can get. A small group of starships will be arriving while the rest of the ships in the Delta Quadrant are recalled, while others continue their exploration of this part of the galaxy," the Doctor said.

Tuvok was puzzled. "Why would they continue to explore this part of the galaxy if there is a war on?"

"Starfleet wants to establish distant colonies and outposts as a worst-case scenario. At the same time when they do come to this part of the galaxy they will need colonies and starbases," the Doctor explained.

Chakotay hit upon a flaw in what he had just learnt. "Why hasn't Starfleet simply contacted us? If they have ships they can keep in contact with from the other side of the galaxy, surely they would have contacted us."

"They have. But Voyager has not been in the range of any of the communication hails," the Doctor said.

"I still think we should have heard something," Chakotay replied, "anyway when they are coming?"

"I should imagine they are on their way now," the Doctor said.

The Doctor was right. No less than half an hour after his return to Voyager, Janeway gave the order for them to remain where they were rather than resume their previous course back to the Alpha Quadrant, and she explained to the senior staff what the Doctor had told them rather than inform the crew in case something went wrong, and everyone had gotten their hopes up.

When a small number of Starfleet ships appeared from the hyperspace windows, Janeway and her crew had been awed by this new technology which had allowed the Federation to travel the galaxy in moments rather than decades. To Janeway, it was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen. After exchanging knowledge of the local area of space with several of the ships, which were going to stay in order to survey the region and add the particulars to Starfleet Cartography, the ship that was going to take Voyager home opened up a hyperspace window and the two ships returned to the Alpha Quadrant.

When the Voyager crew returned, morale throughout the Federation rose. Not only were the crew warmly welcomed back, including the Maquis survivors of the Val Jean, but they were given offers to help the Federation fight the Dominion. Seven of Nine, Voyager's resident Borg drone was welcomed back by her surviving family, who did more to help the traumatised young woman than the Voyager crew ever did, and they didn't throw the young woman under the hover-bus with their constant expectations of her character.

Despite the lack of trust sent her way, Seven of Nine became a scientist of great renown, and soon she was put on the project to help with the Odyssey project. Her Borg knowledge allowed the teams working on the other universe ship to make new strides that much easier.

Many of the Voyager crew considered resigning their commissions to be with their loved ones after so long being separated; they were afraid if they left again, they would die. Their fears were understandable, and it was a growing concern; even with the Asgard hyperdrive rapidly becoming a staple of Federation technology and ship design, it was still new and there were many fears some entity, or piece of technology, would whisk a starship from somewhere and dump it in some remote backwater corner of the universe like Voyager was and the hyperdrive would not get them back home.

Starfleet was looking into designing a new generation of starships designed with the Asgard technology, instead of it being spliced in. Much of the technology was so new, so advanced, and it was all being rushed into service before any of it was ready. On top of that, the Dominion was relentlessly pounding away at the Federation and there was a constant fear of the Dominion getting their hands on a small chunk of the new technology.

With the inclusion of the Voyager crew, veterans of numerous battles despite their best efforts to not get involved, Starfleet gained another chance in the fight against the Dominion.