Author Note.
Two longer than normal chapters for your enjoyment.
Jump Chain 12 - BTVS 4
Part 9
The Phoenix. Halloween Universe.
Since the ship would not be going anywhere for a while, it was waiting to meet with another vessel, this meant that Tali and Gothic were alone on the bridge. She'd been intending to run something by her captain, a proposal she had, but he had other ideas of what they could get up to this quiet evening.
The Jumper had wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered something to her.
"What do you think?" he asked the combat engineer "Want to do it on the bridge?".
The feeling of his body pressed against her back made feel her good. It was rare for the command centre of the Battlestar to be so empty even during off-hours as there were a few crew members on duty, so if they ever were going to do it here it would have to be now or never.
"You want to have sex here?" she asked, a little surprised "On the bridge?".
This wasn't what she would have expected, and of course, she didn't mind, she always did what Gothic wanted as it felt good, it had just been a bit of a surprise.
"Only if you want to," he told her as he planted a firm kiss on the side of her neck.
She wanted to do it so she giggled in that silly way Gothic found so adorable and pushed her ass back against his crotch. Once her initial surprise had worn off, the idea had become oddly thrilling to her, maybe someone would walk in and catch them in the act. She couldn't recall if something like that had ever happened before, although it could have given how many years they'd spent on Jump Chain involved living on one starship or another.
"Anything my captain wants," she whispered back.
Gothic had always been in authority over and while she teased her lover as part of an effort to make sure that his ego didn't grow too big, she had always enjoyed it when he used her body for his own sexual gratification. He always made sure that she felt good as well even before he'd gotten the ability to drive people insane with the most intense pleasure.
Rather abruptly, he pushed her forward and forced her to lean over one of the consoles. Before long the trousers of the consortium uniform she wore these days were pulled down to expose her purple ass and to show that under them she only wore a set of t-string panties, they covered up very little, and weren't comfortable, but wearing these tiny panties made her feel sexy and her man seemed to like them.
Tali barely reacted as her beloved captain started spanking her, he often did this, and the alien babe didn't mind, it was part of her service and she accepted it as a reminder of her position. Plus it made him happy. In more recent years he'd not done it enough for her liking. There were times when she'd worried that her lover had stopped finding her attractive.
Before long the Jumper was inside her, having not bothered much with foreplay beyond on some more neck kissing, and thanks to his powers he didn't need to do much as he could make her feel the most intense pleasure with just the power of his mind.
When he started to fuck her the sensations she was feeling began to become even more intense. She had to hold to the console as Gothic began to really plowed into her. She kept her hips moving as best she could and her ass as high into the air as possible so as to make this feel as good as possible for both of them. Not that she meant to do this as she could barely think at all at times like this so her body moved on its own, or at least seemed to.
It took her even less time to come than usual and it was an intense orgasm that made her legs shake so much that she was briefly worried she'd collapse on to the deck as little more than a drooling mess with a patch of wetness between her legs.
As she came down from the high, and Gothic stopped using his powers on her, she leaned heavily against the console, her breath coming out in gasps. She felt her lover back off, but she had expected him to keep going. He delighted in making her come over and over with his powers. There had been times when she'd needed to beg him to stop.
She yelped in surprise when he penetrated her again, but was not at all displeased by what was happening now. The sudden penetration of her asshole was painful, but Tali had made clear to Gothic long ago that he could treat her as roughly as he wanted in bed, or to be precise when they were having sex.
He certainly didn't hold back, pounding her like they were animals in heat. Tali was sure that his hands would be leaving bruises her hips, but he would heal them with enough ease that they wouldn't be a problem, and she liked him being so rough with her at times such as these.
Within moments she came again, crying out her enjoyment so loudly that someone other than Gothic must have heard her. If so then Tali simply didn't care.
(Line Break)
The Phoenix. Halloween Universe.
Not long after saving Buffy Summer from those tentacle faced fuckers known as Mind Flayers I'd left Sunnydale and had returned to captaining my Battlestar. This was an activity not as much fun as blasting demons, and while there was plenty of technology for me to study, and there would be plenty of time for that sort of thing in a later Jump, I still had to acquire that technology and other things for study so I had to be out here.
Currently, Padme was out there busy setting up a base in the rather busy Epsioian Eduri System on one of the habitable planets so that we had an extra place to store goods and somewhere for people to go if they wanted to hire us and couldn't reach one of the Battlestars via subspace.
"Tali'Zorah vas Phoenix reporting for duty, Captain," said the eager young quarian
Like the quarians of the Mass Effect universe, the quarians of this one were a nomadic species of humanoid aliens known for their skills with technology and synthetic intelligence. Since their homeworld Rannoch was lost to them, the quarians live aboard the Migrant Fleet, a huge collection of starships that travel as a single fleet.
In their home dimension, they weren't so vulnerable as a collective race as they had the largest fleet in the known galaxy filled with experienced crews, however in the Halloween Universe they been struggling to survive more than ever and had mostly managed that by running away and finding places to hide, such as uninhabited systems in less populated parts of this galaxy.
The Tali'Zorah standing before me was a part of the quarian civilization belonging to this part of the vast multiverse and would for a time be taking the place of my companion Tali'Zorah as chief engineer of this ship while my companion stayed with the Migrant Fleet which was badly in need of some upgrading if it was going to prosper in this crazy universe.
I wasn't happy about so much of my technology ended up in the hands of the quarians, but one of Tali's original reason for becoming a companion of mine was to obtain technology to take back to her people, and in a sense, she was doing just that. Besides I trusted her judgement, she wouldn't give them anything too dangerous. She was smart enough to focus on helping them survive in this universe in the long term rather than simply giving them more powerful weapons.
While she was much younger and far less knowledgeable than my Tali I felt certain that my Tali would not have exchanged places with her younger self without ensuring that she could do the job. We had the technology to transfer memories and that combined with training sessions in the holodecks allowed us to quickly teach others.
"Welcome on board Miss Zorah" I greeted.
Upon reaching out with the Force I was able to sense this females eagerness to please me as well as nervousness. Which made sense as captains were very important people in her society and she was rather inexperienced to be a chief engineer on starship even if she was a quarian, and a talented one by the measure of her own people. As such, she'd been even more eager to make a good impression.
Unlike my Tali this alien babe needed to stay inside her suit so as to avoid infections, but while she was under my command I could do something about that.
"Thank you, Sir" she replied, "I look forward to serving under you in every way the other me does".
While my Tali had never stopped being totally adorable this version of her was more innocent and likely she didn't understand exactly how the older Tali served me. That or she did and my Tali wanted me to give her younger self the benefits of my experience in a few different ways. It wouldn't surprise me if this was the case.
"Did the other you explain all of her duties?" I asked.
Knowing my Tali as I did it would not surprise me at all if she'd told this version of her all of what we got up to around here.
"Oh yes, Captain," she said, "You have a lot to teach me, but some of it will have to wait until I get this suit off, and I'll need a couple of weeks to get settled in. I have to learn about other cultures".
Fixing her immune system would take a few days in a pod while the alternations took place. However, now was a good a time as any since I wasn't doing anything important right now. Then I'd been fine waiting a few weeks before ordering this Tali to my quarters. It wasn't as if I had a shortage of willing females around here.
"Follow me to my lab and we'll get started on fixing your immune system," I told the young alien babe.
"Yes, Captain!" she said as she saluted me.
Any version of Tali was adorable.
(Line Break)
The USS Enterprise-E. Halloween Universe.
"Our orders from Starfleet Command are clear Number One," said Jean-Luc Picard as the two officers discussed their latest mission in the Captain's Ready Room "We are to send a group of officers to a ship called the Battlestar Phoenix and travel on that ship to the Delta Quadrant so that we can make contact with the USS Voyager, and then attempt to bring the crew of that ship back to the Federation".
Riker stroked his beard as he thought about what such a mission would involve.
"I assume you'll want me to lead this team," he said.
This was indeed the case.
"According to command, this Battlestar has a hyperdrive that can make the journey across the galaxy in a matter of days" Picard was now saying "But we don't know the exact details of the Battlestars capabilities as the organisation the vessel belongs to contains people who aren't in the habit of sharing that sort of information. We can barely detect their vessels and we don't know how sophisticated their sensors are".
The First Officer considered this.
"We could be gone for weeks, maybe even months" he soon realised.
Picard sipped his cooling tea before speaking further.
"We need those officers, Will," the Captain said "Without the academy to supply us with new officers we're suffering storages in terms of crew. The new training centres which have been set up on member words and our major colonies will be able to pick up the slack, but that will take time, and you know how badly we need to keep our ships running".
The original Federation had been built with Earth serving as perhaps its single most important planet, certainly, it had been for Starfleet as it had been the location of their leadership, and with Mars unavailable due it being such a mess Starfleet had been forced to rebuild its support network while trying to stabilise the Federation. This included new shipyards, supply depots, and training centres.
While all the other worlds of the Federation all existed in this universe, including many of the colonies, it had been a trail to keep it all together, new leadership had been required, and there had been so many threats to deal with, and still were really, but things had become somewhat more peaceful recently.
Captain Picard, and as well as the other versions of him, there were a few, had been run ragged trying to protect all the colonies and member worlds, many of which had hostile neighbours they weren't used to, and keeping the peace hadn't always been possible. Picard greatly wanted to explore this odd galaxy but hadn't had much chance to since his diplomatic skills and tactical abilities were needed much more than his role as an explorer.
"The Battlestar should be able to bring the entire crew home" Jean-Luc was now saying "and it has enough internal space for Voyager's shuttle as well as anything the crew wish to bring back".
It was a shame that they'd not be able to bring the whole vessel back with them, as Starfleet needed every ship, but that wouldn't be impossible, at least as far as they knew.
"I'll ask for volunteers," Riker told his captain "We should only send a few with me in case we don't come back for a while".
Picard agreed with this.
"The Enterprise is needed elsewhere" the Captain informed his first officer "So once you have your team ready we'll meet with the Battlestar".
Riker got up and left the office, intent on getting everyone and everything he needed together as quickly as possible.
(Line Break)
The Phoenix. Halloween Universe.
The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E (or Enterprise-E, to distinguish it from prior and later starships with the same name) is a fictional starship in the Star Trek franchise to most people and a very real vessel in this universe. The Sovereign-class starship appears in the films Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis, where it served as the primary setting for the movies.
It is the sixth Federation starship to carry the name "Enterprise". The ship's Captain during the 2370s and early 2380s was Jean-Luc Picard. He transferred to the Enterprise-E after the Enterprise-D was destroyed in The Next Generation spin-off movie Star Trek: Generations. In this universe, the Enterprise-D still existed as did the NX-Enterprise, the original Enterprise, Enterprise-A. Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C.
The Enterprise-E, a Sovereign-class starship, that was launched in 2372 from the San Francisco Fleet Yards under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and most of the key officers from the Enterprise-D and that ship also existed here in the Halloween Universe with its own complete crew, with many doubles existing on both vessels.
According to the non-canon novel Ship of the Line, the originally planned name for the vessel was USS Honorius, and Montgomery Scott was part of the team of engineers that designed the Enterprise-E. I didn't know if this was true in this universe but I could well believe that Mr Scott helped to create such a vessel.
In the film Star Trek: First Contact, the Enterprise participates in the Battle of Sector 001, destroying a Borg cube, and subsequently travels back in time to stop the Borg from interfering with Zefram Cochrane's first contact with the Borg hijack and almost assimilate the ship until Captain Picard and Data reclaim it.
In Star Trek: Insurrection, the crew stops a Son'a attempt to forcibly relocate the Ba'ku people from their homeworld. In Star Trek: Nemesis, the Enterprise is heavily damaged while stopping Shinzon from using a weapon of mass destruction to destroy all life on Earth. The ship returns to spacedock to undergo extensive repairs after that battle.
From just a casual scan, which the crew of the Enterprise didn't object to, I could tell that this vessel had been recently upgraded its phaser banks and torpedo launchers. No doubt this had been done because of how dangerous this universe could be.
I saw that the warp nacelles had been moved upwards and forward slightly from the original design. This design and the power readings I was getting from the scans suggested that the top travel time was somewhere about Warp 9.997, but even that wasn't fast enough for this mission.
"Any idea how the Voyager signalled the Federation and let them know that they were in the Delta Quadrant?" I asked Samatha Carter, who was currently on the sister ship of the Phoenix "Did someone have episodes of Star Trek Voyager in their computer files?".
Samantha commanded the Battlestar Artemis along with Seven and Nine, and while they focused on scientific missions they had done some work on the new job we were about to start, which was to find the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, and then bring as much of it home as possible to Federation space.
The Enterprise couldn't do this alone as you couldn't just slap a hyperdrive onto an existing ship and expect it to fly. Even if they could do that the antimatter reactor of the Enterprise wouldn't be able to produce nearly enough power to get to the right part of Delta Quadrant in a reasonable time frame.
Sam and Seven's part in this mission was to use our logs and charts from my group's time on the USS Voyager back during a long-ago Jump, to figure where the USS Voyager of this universe would be, and then to perform some long-range scans so as to help narrow things down during the search.
"I have no idea," she said "We don't even know if Starfleet and this Voyager are in contact. Padme handled all the arrangements, and Starfleet is only sharing what information they have to for this mission, they don't know if they can trust us, I'm certain that the only reason we were selected for this mission is because Padme is very good at getting people to agree to things".
The former Senator was off in her own ship and she was supposed to be finding me work. She'd gotten me this job which involved taking some Star Fleet officers with me into the Delta Quadrant so as to find Voyager and then bring it back. This sounded easy enough, but the Delta Quadrant of this galaxy was not the same as the one I'd travelled through while serving on a different Voyager. Sure some of the same races and dangers would exist, but also there would be many more possible threats.
"For now I want you and Seven to do some long-range scanning to help pin things down, just as planned" I ordered, "There's an awful lot of Delta Quadrant for Voyager to be in and I'll need help narrowing done its location. Keep track of this ship as best you can in case we need to call in back up".
We made us of Quantum Entanglement technology so as to be able to contact each other despite the wards and with this tech it was also possible to track the other ships. Not that I did this much as I watched Sam and Seven to be free to explore as they saw fit without me looking over their shoulders.
As for Voyager, sure I could follow their course, from the Caretaker Array to the Alpha Quadrant, but even that would take a lot of time without some help.
"Will do, Captain Gothic" said Carter, sounding very military for a moment.
I closed the channel and focused on what was going on in this part of the galaxy.
"Captain the Starfleet officers are ready to beam onboard" I was told by an Asari crewmember.
Soon a new 2D hologram showed me that Commander Riker, and some people I didn't recognise, were now inside my Battlestar. He hadn't brought any of the female cast members with him, that was a shame, perhaps they were just busy, the Federation was a big player in local politics and that must keep the different versions of the Enterprise rushing about the quadrant.
"Acknowledge that we have them and then set a course of the Ocapama planet" I instructed.
Before long the Phoenix jumped into hyperspace and started to make its way across this rather messed up example of a galaxy.
(Line Break)
Somewhere In the Delta Quadrant. Halloween Universe.
The starship known as the USS Voyager was launched in 2371. The crew's first orders were to track down a Maquis ship in the Badlands. This didn't go well as an alien force called the Caretaker transported both Voyager and the Maquis vessel across 70,000 light-years to the Delta Quadrant, damaging Voyager and killing several crew members, including the medical staff, helm officer Stadi, first officer Cavit and the chief engineer.
Because of the actions of its captain, the USS Voyager and the Maquis ship ended up stranded in the Delta Quadrant thinking that it would prevent a genocide of the Ocampans, a species on a nearby planet who had been under the Caretaker's protection. Janeway had wanted to stop the Kazon, an antagonistic race native to the Delta Quadrant, who were seeking the resources of the Ocampa from using the Caretaker's technology.
Captain Janeway ordered the destruction of the device that could transport Voyager and the Maquis vessel home, thereby protecting the Ocampa, at least for a time. This resulted in the starship becoming stranded, and with the Maquis ship also destroyed, both crews were forced to integrate and to work together for the anticipated 75-year journey home.
While this was as true as it had been the Star Trek Voyager show, after leaving the Ocampa planet things had progressed differently. For nearly two years the starship had been forced to run, hide and fight its way across lightyears of space that was filled with hostile species and other kinds of danger.
Captain Janeway looked around the bridge and while the crew had done their best to keep the ship in full working order there were signs of neglect due to hastily done repair work, but the biggest clue as to the ship's state was the stressed crew. They had looks in their eyes that spoke of some of the horrors they'd seen over the last couple of years.
Janeway found that at times like this she greatly missed Engisn Kim and his youthful optimism. Sadly he'd been torn apart by some savage creatures known as Magog who'd started eating him even while he'd still be screaming. That memory kept her up a fair number of nights.
Voyager had found a few safe havens among the stars, worlds and space stations that had been welcoming to them, but they'd never stayed in one place for very long as the crew had been driven homewards despite how little progress they made towards that goal.
Janeway had come close to giving up more than once. She'd considered adding Voyager to one of the fleets of friendly races who kept their ships close to any secure port they could find. These little pockets of civilization were much like the groups that made up the Federation as they worked together, to share resources and to protect each other.
Perhaps if they found another such safe harbour they'd stay, at least for a few weeks, the crew needed some rest, the Captain simply wasn't sure that they could withstand any further attacks.
(Line Break)
Battlestar phoenix. Halloween Universe.
While within the galaxy map room I worked to update the map of this version of the Milky Way galaxy, and despite all the probes my group had sent out, the star charts we'd purchased or traded for, and the deep space scans each of the Battlestars had performed, we still had very little knowledge of this galaxy. The star charts I'd picked up during the Mass Effect, Stargate and Star Trek Jump as well as some others were of limited use here with so many settings having all been fused together.
What little we did know was worrying enough. There were hostile alien empires out there like the Covenant, who controlled many worlds, Borg space, what little we knew about it, appeared to be vast, Other powerful races like the Forerunners, Prothans, the Voth and the Protoss had all claimed their own bits of the galaxy as well.
The Vorlons and the Shadows, destroyed anyone who poked around their planets, as did a few other powerful races that wanted to make it clear to all that they were to be left alone. There were other sectors of the galaxy that ships entered and never returned from and no one knew what races if any claimed them.
Clans of Predators roamed the stars looking for interesting creatures to hunt. Cylon fleets moved between the stars and attacked any humans they detected. Kig'yar ships tried to board any ship or space station they could so as to loot them. Roaming bands of Orks were an extreme hazard to anyone who encountered them and they weren't the only raiders about.
I'd even seen reports about the insane Reavers who liked to eat people while they were still alive, and that was truly messed up. But some of the aliens out there like the xenomorphs and Magog were even more. So much so that most people nuked them on sight.
There were other things to be careful about too. Necrons had awoken on their Tomb Worlds all over the galaxy. The Peacekeepers tried to police as many planets as they could. Scarrans were conquering whole systems. Slavers and pirates, both of the Aeldari and their darker kin plagued trade routes, and they were far from the worst things you could run into out here in space.
While I'd found evidence that the Magog existed in this galaxy, and perhaps in others, thankfully there had been no sign of the Magog world ship and what was basically a mobile artificial solar system is not something that can be hidden. I suspected that the Spirit of the Abyss had somehow been dealt with, contained somewhere or otherwise neutralised.
Aside from somewhat friendly star empires, alliances and federations made of single races or unions of races that were trying to keep some sort of order out here. There were worlds of magic scattered around as well. A few of these, such as Azeroth and the worlds of Game of Thrones as well as Dragon Age could be visited by me. I felt sure that there were many more such places just waiting to be found.
While our scans of space outside the galaxy had picked up no traces of the Reaper fleet or the bulk of the Nids there were more than enough Splinter Fleets inside the galaxy to worry about.
"I wonder where they went?" I heard Tali say once I'd told her about the Reapers and Nids.
Once I'd finished sorting out her immune system, something I'd done while we jumped across the galaxy at a reasonable speed for my vessel, I'd brought the Tali of this universe here so that she could get a better idea of what sort of scale we were working with. For the Migrant Fleet, this chaotic universe was much smaller and far less well known, they'd put together some impressive star charts, but they were more focused on staying alive than on exploring.
"They didn't go anywhere they never existed" I explained to the young alien babe, who still wore her suit out of habit if nothing else "The spell that altered this universe into the madhouse it is now somehow rearranged all forms of matter on the subatomic level so as to create everything that exists now. And it didn't just affect the physical universe, it altered things spiritually, magically and in every other way imaginable".
I knew this to be the case as it wasn't the Tali in this room with me would be lacking a soul and I would be to sense that absence. She was very much a presence in the Force, and my mystical sense raised no alarm bells when she was around and this supported the fact that she was a real person with a real mind and body as well as a soul.
"But outside of the galaxy, there is no physical matter to be reordered" I went on to say "So the Reapers, Nids, and anything else that existed in the void between galaxies wasn't made".
If so then it made no sense that the Star Wars galaxy could here so close to the Milky Way, but the matter to make that galaxy had most likely been drawn from elsewhere, such as preexisting galaxies. I had no way of knowing for sure, it was all just a theory, and perhaps trying to make sense out of something made from chaos magic was foolish, but like any scientist, and that was a role I took sometimes, I wanted to make sense of the universe around me.
"Where's my homeworld?" Tali wondered.
I altered the view so as to show what was now Geth space. The Geth were originally created by the quarians as a manual labour force, but eventually developed sentience and rebelled against their creators, exiling them from their homeworld Rannoch and forcing them to live aboard the Migrant Fleet.
"My people are planning to re-take the planet" I was told, "That's why we need to gather as much technology as we can so we can outgun the Geth and destroy them".
I doubted that would happen any time soon as the quarians were having a hard enough time simply surviving, but I didn't debate this, and there was no time to as we'd just dropped out of hyperspace. We'd arrived at the Ocampa Planet.
(Line Break)
In Orbit of Ocampa World. Halloween Universe.
To my surprise, Miranda Lawson and Violet Parr, two of my companions who spent most of their time living a somewhat normal life back in Sunnydale, had come through the Quantum Mirror so as to spend the weekend checking out life on the Battlestar.
I had no intention of letting Violet, who'd I'd adopted as a foster daughter back when she'd been living on Halloween Earth, off the ship as she was too young to face what was out there, this ship was one of the safest places anyone in this galaxy could be thanks to how well protected it was both physically and magical. As such, I had no problem with her hanging around here.
Miranda had decided that it was time to show the girl she was raising some of what she would be getting up to the future when she was old enough to serve as crew on one of my ships. I approved of this and had let Violet come on to the bridge to see some of what we got up to.
"Tell them to scan the debris," I told Violet, who was sitting in my command throne and looking cute as she did since the chair was far too big for her "and then to scan the planet".
It was perfectly safe for her to sit in my command throne as she lacked the ATA gene required to make it work. This was good as she found the chair a little overwhelming. Someone who couldn't focus enough on the task at hand shouldn't be allowed to sit a command throne if they had the gene to operate it.
Once Violet found it within in her to issue orders, Commander Riker entered the command centre of the ship having asked to be present when we began the search for the USS Voyager. Since this place was where Voyager's journey back home would have started it seemed the logical place to begin our search.
From this world, we could send out more probes and use my own time on Voyager, as well as the starlogs from that Jump, to try to retrace their journey towards the Alpha Quadrant as best we could, but since this was not just the Star Trek galaxy, with some many other settings all fused into one galaxy our existing records were only a small fraction of the overall picture.
"Where are we?" Riker asked.
With a thought, I brought up a 3D hologram of the world below and then zoomed in to show the only signs of life on the planet, and this was a Kazon settlement, built in the ruins of some old city, that turned out to be on top of a lot of tunnels that led to what must be the Ocampa civilization below the surface. There the life signs of many races down on the planet so perhaps the Kazon settlement had become a trading port of some kind.
Without the Caretaker to watch over them the Kazon had been free to dig down and take all the Ocampa's resources for themselves. I figured that this would be what happened once the Caretaker's Array was destroyed and Voyager left. This made Voyager's sacrifice of not being able to go home rather pointless really.
I considered doing something about the Kazon exploitation of the Ocampa, but it would be too late to do anything meaningful by now, and the Ocampa wouldn't have survived for much longer even if the Kazon hadn't tunnelled down into their city. They'd been too dependent on the Caretaker.
"The debris above this planet," I said while changing the view of the hologram "This was the Caretaker's Array it was capable of transporting ships across the galaxy, and Voyager was one of those ships. From here we'll try to figure out where Voyager went next".
That would involve having to talk to the Kazon, as we needed all the information we could get, but it should be simple enough just to buy the information from them and if they tried to cheat me they'd regret it.
"Any idea how long we'll be looking?" the Commander wondered "Starfleet needs the officers on board that ship and anything we can salvage from Voyager".
I fully intended to tow the entire ship to Deep Space Nine, but I would surprise the Starfleet officers with that information later on.
"No idea" I admitted, "But no more than a few weeks at most".
While I did want to explore some more of this galaxy there was so much to do. As such if we didn't find Voyager within a few weeks I'd refund whatever payment Starfleet had made and return the Starfleet officers on board my Battlestar to the nearest Federation outpost.