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War Sage

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Augment Gothic 5

Hotel. Risa

When night came I found myself outside another hotel, one that was not too far from the place I was currently staying in. I had surveyed the area earlier, during the light of day, and found nothing odd, but spy girl was certain that this was the right hotel so here we were trying to break into it.

I kept my eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. Which was easy as one of the benefits of my genetic enhancements involved an increased perception of my surroundings, so I was able to easily tell that there was no special security here such as armed guards or advanced security sensors. This appeared to be just another hotel, on a planet already practically littered with them. But I knew that it really wasn't.

A whispered exclamation, one which defied the universal translator's ability to pick up and translate, made me quickly turn around to face Natalie. Immediately I noticed that she had a pronounced frown on her pretty face. The woman then shook her head and straightened up.

"This is going to take longer than I thought," she muttered. "It's not a normal lock; it's a pretty complex bit of technology".

The lock itself was a dead giveaway that this was no ordinary Risian hotel, even if in every other way it looked to be perfectly normal. No one on Risa ever closed or locked a door unless they wanted privacy, certainly never using a complex lock like this, their building design reflecting that, and typically a door was only closed because the Risians' alien partner requested it, because everything the natives had was free to take. Telling people as such was even part of their standard cultural greeting! It had been a pretty fascinating experience overall to find room doors wide open in my hotel with the sounds of wild sex taking place inside. Being as shameless as I was, I had, of course, stopped outside and looked in, the Risians inside often inviting me in to watch or participate with big smiles on their face. The experience was so surreal I said 'fuck it', and had taken a seat to watch for a bit, really getting a kick out of this fascinating planet and culture. Admittedly, I was tempted to join in, but if there was going to be an orgy my dick would be the only one in the room.

Anyways, a lock this advanced was not normal on Risa and was almost certainly an add on by an alien. It suggested that the people staying at this hotel did have possessions that were valuable enough to risk breaking the law on this incredibly peaceful planet in order to obtain.

"I could break down the door," I offered, "but someone would likely notice. Though I can probably break the lock without making too much noise. It might be high tech, but that doesn't mean its sturdy".

Breaking the lock itself was something I managed to do once the spy lady had given me permission to try.

"If you were trying to impress me, you've certainly succeeded," the agent said once we were inside. Whether she was impressed by my physical strength, or my outside the box thinking, or both, was unclear to me.

I supposed I was trying to impress, though, as I had come to Risa to get laid and have a good time, so impressing the females around here was definitely a priority for me. Not that I really needed to, as this was a pleasure planet, and finding willing bed partners was as easy as expressing even a slight interest, but I still felt the desire to show off around pretty women. That was just part of my personality.

"Glad to hear it," I replied.

That was when something struck me as odd.

"No alarm," I commented, my paranoia rising as I scanned my surroundings for dangers.

At least not an alarm that I could hear.

"There wouldn't be," the intelligence officer replied calmly, "alarms attract attention. The people here don't want everyone to know that they're here".

Natalie put her future tech lockpick back in her bag, and then she pulled out a phaser which she passed to me. Weapons were, of course, illegal on Risa.

"It's already set on stun," she explained to me. "So don't fiddle with the settings; just point it at the bad guys and press the activator".

Perhaps I should have been insulted by her dumbing things down for me, however one look at the phaser showed me just how complex a weapon it was. I might have figured out most tech I had reason to encounter by now, but since I'd never even held an energy weapon until today, I was wary of pressing any buttons. Of course, like most things that were designed to be used by people with varying levels of knowledge, the designers had obviously attempted to make it pretty intuitive in its usage. It likely wouldn't be that hard to figure out given a bit of time without the true need to use it in actual combat.

Later I'd have to devote some time to studying the design, operation, and maintenance procedures for the more common energy weapons around, both hand weapons and rifles. It was rather important to know if I was going to go out into the galaxy and do dangerous things. I would have done it already, but there had been so much for me to learn while on the Enterprise and certain training programs had still been locked to me.

"Follow me," Natalie instructed as she moved on stealthily.

I kept my gaze sharp as we entered the hotel and headed directly for the lobby. We moved as slowly and as carefully as we could, in the hopes of minimizing the sound of our footsteps. The thick purple carpet helped a lot with that.

Before long we arrived at an elevator. I watched as Natalie pushed something on the control padd and then flinched when a ding noise echoed across the lobby.

After a minute of complete silence we breathed a joint sigh of relief. No one had heard the lift, or if they had they didn't care that was someone was using it so late at night.

When the doors opened the agent and I rushed inside the lift. When the doors fully closed, Natalie pulled out her tricorder and consulted it for a few moments. I'd never used one of those before so I had no idea what she was using it for. Like the phaser, it was unknown to me, as it wasn't something most civilians got to routinely use. It was definitely another thing I needed to familiarize myself with given how often they were used in the shows to save the day.

"Are you scanning for lifeforms?" I asked.

Natalie frowned at her device in concern before looking at me to answer.

"There's nothing," she told me. "I can't detect anyone".

Which didn't mean the hotel was empty, by any means, as there were plenty of ways to hide lifesigns in the shows. So it stood to reason that criminals who wished to hide could easily find a way to shield their lifesigns using technology. However, they would only do that if they thought someone was going to scan for them.

"They know they're being watched, don't they?" I asked.

She nodded, and put the tricorder away. Then she changed the settings on her phaser. I couldn't be certain if she had set it to kill, but my gut was telling me that she had. That action alone, beyond anything else she'd said and done so far, convinced me that she was unlikely to be a Starfleet Intelligence agent. The odds of her being a Section 31 agent were going way up with that action alone.

"The good news is that they won't know how many of us there are," the agent told me. "Whatever they're doing to shield from scans is hiding our lifesigns as well".

That was something at least.

"Be ready," she said, a cold game face coming up, making her appear far more dangerous and deadly. Those were the cold, dead eyes of a killer. In that moment I just knew that this chick was no stranger to combat and killing.

Natalie pressed the button for the subbasement and we both moved to stand at either end of the door, and for a moment we met each other's gaze. The lift soon reached the subbasement level. Another ding sounded and I raised my weapon as the doors began to open.

When they finished opening I saw at least four humanoid shaped beings. They had obviously noticed the open lift as a mere heartbeat later a bright fluorescent green beam shot out and hit the rear of the lift, melting the metal. That weapon was definitely not on stun. Spy lady and I responded in kind by opening fire, she shooting high while I went low. Through a combination of surprise and our combined fire we quickly dropped the beings.

"Spread out," the agent ordered. "We need to clear this whole floor".

This turned out to be pretty easy as there was no one else here. Once I had confirmed that we were alone, I took the time to surreptitiously loot the bodies of the humanoids we'd killed/stunned. Their bodies provided a nice haul, finding several dozen strips of latinum, even a few bars, a few alien tricorders, I think, and their weapons. Since I wasn't a ridiculous hippy wearing a unisuit, I had plenty of space in my pockets for my victory loot. It'd be fun to learn all about the tech I'd picked up and figure out how it all worked. Anything that wasn't really useful enough to keep on hand could be taken apart for spare parts or sold later on.

When I finally returned to Natalie's side I found that she was scanning one of the computer consoles with her tricorder. After a few moments of interpreting her scans, she knelt beside it, and took a panel off the machine so that she could rummage around inside it.

"What are you doing?" I inquired.

There had only been fours guards on this level, but there could be dozens more on the others. We had no time to mess about. That might have been a bit hypocritical on my part since I had spent a minute or so looting bodies, but hey, waste not, want not!

"Just stand guard," she ordered, not taking her eyes off her current task. The shy, novice Intelligence agent persona was long gone.

I would have talked to her more, but suddenly I was ducking to avoid a disruptor bolt. I rolled into the room like a freaking acrobat and returned precision fire. This action stunned a person who looked like a bald human only he had green skin.

Then eight more such people suddenly appeared and I fired off three shots in quick succession, dropping three targets, the other five scrambling for cover, obviously unused to combat fire this fast and precise. All my memories from various firefights in the show told me that I was definitely doing things a bit better than was normal. With my incredible hand/eye coordination and fast reflexes, I was shooting back much faster and more precisely than a baseline human ever could.

"Whatever you're doing, do it fast!" I yelled to the agent over the sound of more disruptor fire.

I couldn't both defend Natalie and take out the enemy. Well, perhaps I could have with a gun I was more familiar with. I simply had no experience with phasers. Today was the first day I'd held one or fired one for fuck's sake! In fact I was tempted to go hand-to-hand because that way the green guys wouldn't stand a chance. I found distractingly myself wondering if I was strong enough to punch a hole in someone's chest with pure strength alone, like in a monster movie. If I got right up in their faces, my speed would likely mean they shot each other trying to get to me. However, I didn't do that, as it would mean leaving spy girl alone and right now she couldn't protect herself.

"Buy me some time!" the spy ordered.

Apparently there were dozens of the bad people in the hotel, and this was proven when someone started shooting at me from the other direction. This meant if I stepped out into the corridor I'd be cut down by the sheer amount of weapons' fire out there. Even an Augment like me wouldn't survive.

However, since I had superior reflexes I was able to keep the enemy at bay, at least for a short time. In fact, I was able to duck my head into the corridor for a split second, make note of where people were, and then shoot one of them so fast that by the time the bad guys had pulled the triggers of their energy weapons I was already back inside the safety of the room.

"Natalie!" I shouted. "I can't do this forever".

At some point they'd either charge as a group or one of them would just get lucky and hit me. If anyone in this galaxy had any brains in their fucking skulls they'd have grenades for situations just like this. Thinking that made me realize that some sort of stun grenade would come in handy in my future adventures and I should go about inventing such a thing. But why even stop at stun grenades? My time had many types of grenades for different situations, like deadly high explosive and fragmentation anti-personnel grenades, incendiary grenades, flash grenades for clearing rooms, smoke grenades for cover, chemical grenades to release aerosolized compounds, both lethal and non-lethal… The uses were many. I could even improve them with the technology available in this time. Several grenades from video games had an ability to "stick" to targets or to even self-propel and home in selected targets. It probably even wouldn't be that hard. I was getting excited!

"Just a few more seconds," sexy agent babe called out. "Keep covering me!"

I sighed in exasperation and went about shooting some more people; this was certainly getting me some experience. When I had a second of rest while they were shooting, I stole a glance behind me and saw spy lady taking something out of the console. Which she put inside her padded bag.

Then there was no time for more looking at her as now there were even more green people heading our way and they were all firing like mad, obviously aware that we'd taken something pretty damn important. I knew right then and there that I if I didn't do something then we would both die, so I grabbed Natalie's phaser and blasted the window away.

Next I grabbed the agent and jumped out the now 'open' window while carrying her bridal style. Naturally, she screamed the whole way down, she even kept screaming when we landed in a swimming pool.

Landing in the pool was no stroke of luck, though. Before setting a foot in this place I'd carefully scouted the building and its perimeter taking note of all its important features and locking them in my now perfect memory. The idea of jumping out a high window into the pool to escape from a pitched battle had occurred to me even then, but I of course dismissed that as being too silly to even contemplate! This universe was really dramatic.

"Are you all right?" I asked her as we quickly swam out of the pool.

She let out a wet cough before replying, obviously having swallowed a bit of water when we'd been temporarily submerged.

"I'm all right, Gothic," she assured me tiredly.

No one was shooting at us now, and that made sense since the people inside the hotel obviously didn't want the people of Risa to know that they were here. Blasting us out in the open would have ruined their cover.

"Good. Now we'd better get back to the resort right away," I said to her. "Can you run?"

Just because they wouldn't shoot at us in public didn't mean that they wouldn't come after us with knives or something silent like that.

"Yes, I'm fine," she assured me. "Let's go".

(Line Break)

Hotel. Risa.

Once we were back at the hotel, the one not full of people who wanted to kill us, we headed for Natalie's room and understandably I had some questions.

"So, did you get the intel you needed?" I asked.

I understood that certain things were 'need to know', but I'd been under the distinct impression that we'd gone to the other hotel in order to get data, not an item, and we certainly weren't supposed to get into a pitched battled with a few dozen aliens. Natalie had taken something from the green skin people, who I was pretty sure were the Orions.

"Was anything you told me true?" I asked. "Were the Orions even planning anything or did we just steal some bit of tech that rightfully belongs to them?"

Again she didn't answer.

"You know if I were a cynical man, I would say you enjoy keeping things from me," I said next, getting rather pissed off. After I had just risked my life, FOR FREE, you'd think I deserved some answers.

The agent spent a moment looking out the window before replying to me.

"Well, it's standard procedure," she told me, her tone now much different than before. It was somehow colder, smoother. "What you don't know you can't tell the enemy".

That was a fair point.

"Plus you don't trust me," I said.

She shook her head which made her red hair wave about just a little.

"Not particularly," she confirmed, not a hint of shame on her face.

That was okay, I didn't trust her either, however that didn't stop me from kissing her back when she suddenly kissed me. What did stop me, though, was the sudden pain I felt when something jabbed me in the neck.

"Hopefully you're not immune to sedatives," the agent calmly said as the room began to spin. "I gave you enough to knock out three Klingons in less than a second. It's amazing you're still even standing".

I didn't remain standing for very long, unfortunately. The last thing I saw was the very nice carpet rushing up towards me, though it did make for a soft landing.

(Line Break)

Unknown.

When I woke up I found myself in a painfully plain room that had grey walls and I was even lying on a grey bed. There were no medical things around so I assumed that this wasn't a hospital, and I also assumed the man sitting on a chair at the end of the bed watching me silently was not a doctor. He looked really familiar though.

"Hello," the man said genially, like I hadn't just been sedated and was waking up in a prison, as far as I could tell. "I'm a member of an organization known only as Section 31, and we'd like to recruit you".

That's why he looked so familiar; I was pretty sure that this man was Sloan, the very same man who had, in the Deep Space Nine series, worked with and sometimes against, Doctor Julian Bashir.

"Errr okay," I replied. Sue me, I had just been sedated.

I'd already suspected that Natalie was a Section 31 agent and that this whole thing had been one giant setup. This confirmed it, though I didn't feel particularly smug about figuring her out at the moment. She had managed to get the drop on super human me. I'll say it again, being a Khan-era Augment didn't make me freaking invincible like superman.

"All right. I…I am-" Was all that came out of my mouth.

My body didn't seem to be quite as awake as my mind. I had tried to say something a bit more complex, only it hadn't come out correctly.

"You passed our interview," Sloan was now saying, obviously ignoring my post sedation nonsense speech. "You should be proud of yourself, not everyone survives when we throw them into the deep end like we did you".

After a few more moments I found was now able to talk.

"Before you say say another word," I told this spy, "you're going to tell me exactly what happened here, where I am, what exactly it was that Natalie salvaged from that console, and exactly what 'Section 31' is".

To my surprise he answered right away, with practically no prevarication as far as I could tell.

"First off, most of what my agent told you was true," Sloan said. "The Orion Syndicate was going to tap into and take control of the weather control system on this planet. Second, you are still on Risa. Third, that device you helped recover was an important piece of technology that would have allowed them to control everything here on Risa. Now it's ours, and since they can't replace it, at least not on short notice, their plan is ruined. Not that it ever had a chance of being successful. We had several agents in place ready to do what was required of them to protect a Federation world. Finally, Section 31 is an officially-nonexistent and autonomous clandestine organization dedicated to the defense of the Federation. We were created out of the original Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31, which allows for extraordinary measures to be taken in times of extreme threat. In overly simplified terms, Section 31 deals with the threats to the Federation that others do not even realize exist and that jeopardize the Federation's very survival," Sloane explained.

Well, that was pretty much the recruiting speech that Sloane had given Bashir. I'll give him points for being consistent. I already knew that Section 31 was the organization, always hidden in the shadows, with a bloody dagger in their hands secretly keeping this grand experiment from falling apart from threats within and without. While Bashir railed at the idea of a virtually autonomous organization with practically no accountability or oversight, I had not grown up in this time. I recognized how necessary they were to the Federation's continued survival, especially when this hippy attitude persisted that everyone would get along and eventually all planets would recognize the glory of the United Federation of Planets and join one day. They were also desperately needed to combat ruthless organizations like the Romulan's Tal Shiar and the Cardassian's Obsidian Order and so on. Starfleet just didn't have the ability to fight those kinds of monsters, you needed monsters of your own.

Assuming, again, that that was all true, then I was still on Risa. Which meant that if I broke out I shouldn't find myself locked onboard a starship with practically zero chance of successful escape. Not that I wanted to break out, though. Even if I somehow managed it I knew that Section 31 wouldn't simply let me go. They had to have teams of operatives already in place if they were comfortable enough to use the situation with the Orions as part of a test for me. A test I could have easily failed.

"Let me guess," I said. "If I say 'no' then I won't leave here alive".

Despite being a so called 'super human', I wasn't that dangerous in the grand scheme. There were plenty of easy ways to kill me, for instance. For example, I could easily be beamed into space, or shot by a sniper from a great distance, or they could just blow me up with a bomb, etc. Being an augment would not help me survive stuff like that, though there were steps I could take to help mitigate those risks. I already had plans in mind for my advanced personal armor to protect me from forced beaming and being shot. My personal shield might help with the bomb too.

"Of course not," Sloan replied. "Letting you go poses no risk to us. You have no evidence that anything actually happened on this planet and we've already cleaned up the Syndicate presence in that hotel. Even the latinum and equipment you liberated from those men you killed in the hotel, which you're welcome to keep by the way, doesn't prove anything. And even if you did have evidence and reported all this, no one would believe you. Augments simply aren't trusted".

That did make sense. Nice of him, I suppose, to let me keep my loot too.

"Besides," he went on to say. "There's always a chance that you could change your mind later. I don't think it would take all that long really. Life on Earth must be very dull for someone like you".

Again, he made a lot of sense.

"I suspect that you'd outright reject an offer to join our organization as a full time agent," Sloan went on to say. "So the job I'm offering you is that of a freelance agent. We will offer you missions from time-to-time that you're uniquely well suited for, and you'd be free to accept or decline. You'd go on missions for Section 31 only when you choose to, completely optional, and of course we'll find ways to compensate you for successful missions. We don't use money like they did in your time, though we are capable of paying you in gold pressed latinum if you'd prefer, but someone like you might benefit more from certain technologies we have and can give you that normal citizens don't normally have access to".

That did sound awfully appealing, and he was absolutely right, I didn't want to work full time for Section 31, or anyone for that matter. I would be my own boss and go on adventures of my choice in this galaxy. If I didn't want to do something against my personal code, than I wouldn't. Section 31's psychographic profile on me was pretty damn accurate so far so I doubted they'd try to offer me any missions that I'd absolutely refuse on principle.

"And, of course, you'd be free to use your own ship," Sloan went on to say. "We'll provide certain resources to assist you on your missions and I'll ensure that you are partnered with an experienced agent who will train you. Section 31 can also use its influence to get you free travel rights throughout the Federation, licenses for your ship that will allow to have much more technology and advanced weaponry than a civilian would normally be allowed, we can also get you access to replicator patterns civilians normally can't their hands on, as well training programs and the use of a private holodeck to access those programs".

I had to admit, the guys running Section 31 were very clever. They knew exactly what to entice me with.

"Okay, I'm in," I said after a suitable amount of time spent in thought, "but if I see Natalie again, I am going to shoot her".

Or possibly shag her, but Sloan didn't need to know that, though he likely already did, the smug bastard.

"On stun," I then added. "People in my time believed in payback for being played".

Sloan didn't visibly react to what I had just said, he even changed the subject. I couldn't tell if his profile of me was so good that it anticipated me being angry with Natalie, assuming I survived, or if Sloan just had an amazing poker face.

"Either myself, or one of our agents will be in touch should we have need of you," the spy told me.

And that was it. No goodbye or anything. He just got up and left the room. I was left wondering what to do next, only I didn't have to think about it for long as a transporter beam caught me and I found myself being transported somewhere else.

(Line Break)

Cafe. Risa.

The day after being hired as a free-lance operative for Section 31 I found myself sitting at a table outside a café, along with Commander Riker of all people, who was taking his shore leave on this planet along with most of the Enterprise crew. Apparently, while the Enterprise had not had to fight the Borg, they'd still managed to get themselves into some kind of serious trouble. The Captain had ordered the Enterprise to come to Risa for some much needed R&R once the crisis was resolved.

Will Riker was a decent man, with a strict sense of duty, a love of adventure and a good sense of humor. He was also a mean poker player, so I imagined he could have a lot of fun on this planet with its many first class gambling establishments. I wasn't his biggest fan, but compared to most Starfleet types, he really wasn't that bad.

"There's Deanna now," he said. "Oh, it looks like she's picked up a new friend on the way."

I turned and looked over my shoulder to see two women who were walking towards us while carrying bags, chatting and laughing as they walked.

The woman with Deanna looked very familiar, in fact I was pretty sure that she was Jadzia Dax, the character from the show Deep Space Nine. The memory of what she looked like was made in my previous life, so it wasn't the perfect eidetic memory of my current genetically engineered brain, but I was almost sure it was her.

"You know her?" Riker asked.

Despite the aviator style sunglasses I was wearing, the commander had been able to see me react to Jadzia Dax's presence. I must have smiled and hadn't even realized it.

"No," I lied. "But I hope to!" I said, with hopefully just the right amount of lascivious smile to sell I was merely reacting to the presence of a beautiful woman that I found attractive, rather than someone I already knew about.

Riker smirked and I knew he'd accepted my falsehood. The easiest lies were the ones we already wanted to believe, after all.

"This is Will," Deanna Troi offered in introduction, when the ladies had made it to our table. "He's the one with the beard. And this is Gothic, the Khan-era augment from the 21st Century, just not our 21st Century".

Understandably that made the Trill science officer very curious about me. She was a Starfleet geek and I didn't doubt that she'd have a thousand questions for me. Thankfully she held her tongue until there was a more opportune time and she got to me know me a little better.

Deanna sat down at the table next to Riker and ordered a round of drinks for all of us. Then she told us all about the gift shop she'd just been to, and she followed that up by showing us the presents she had brought for various people back on the ship. This took a very long time.

"So, Gothic, what have you been up to since you left the Enterprise?" Riker asked once the Betazoid woman let someone else talk. If she wasn't so damn hot…

Wisely, I decided not to mention Section 31.

"Well, I got a job at the university in San Francisco," I informed the group. "They have me sorting books from the 20th century. Which is easy as I used to work in a library before I ended up in stasis. Then a ship was delivered to me and I decided to visit Risa on its maiden voyage. I've been here for a week now".

I suspected that someone would ask about the vessel, as not many people in the Federation owned their own personal ship, unless they ran a cargo freighter, but oddly, they didn't. Again, it was almost as if the craft had a powerful spell on it that made most people simply ignore its existence, or more specifically not ask questions about it or its origins, even when I mentioned it verbally. Before I thought maybe it was just the official records that were being ignored, but even drawing attention to it in this personal setting didn't even raise an eyebrow. Instead the follow up question was about my work in the library.

"Are all the books you catalogue the same as in your dimension?" Jadzia wanted to know. "I would have thought that there would be some differences".

In fact, there were.

"A few," I answered, "some pretty significant. For example, I've found some books written by famous authors from my world that simply don't exist in my universe, though a lot of the classics are the same. Stephen King seems to be a prolific writer in any reality".

Apparently that was pretty funny, though I had no idea why.

"The history books are the hardest part," I went on to say. "It's hard to catalogue books on historical events that never happened in my world. I keep getting the dates mixed up so mostly I focus on the mid-to-late 20th century works and let my boss handle the end of the century stuff".

The timelines didn't really diverge significantly until the early 1990s, so I was able to handle everything before then easily enough.

"Do you have any dinner plans?" Riker then inquired. "Deanna and I were planning to visit an amazing restaurant we dined at the first time we came to Risa. You two are very welcome to join us".

It became clear to me then that the Starfleet geeks had decided I'd get along well with Jadzia Dax. Deanna was behind it, I had no doubt, and without even saying anything she'd somehow managed to get Riker to help her. Not that I minded a bit. Dax was extremely sexy and very open minded as I knew from the show.

(Line Break)

Restaurant. Risa.

The restaurant turned out to be a transparent dome-shaped building that sat on top of a mountain. The views were spectacular from this vantage point so, unsurprisingly, it was a very popular venue for tourists and tables were difficult to book at the best of times. Riker being the second officer of the Federation's flagship had no trouble getting us in, although I suspected it was his ability to charm women, more than his rank, that had gotten us a table.

I suspected this because the maître D, who was interestingly enough a human female, led us to our table and paid us what I thought was an undue amount of attention throughout the meal.

She had my attention in turn because she was wearing something that I could only call a liquid metal foil cocktail dress. It was short and flowed wonderfully around the curves of her body as though it was going to run off like dripping water.

"So I take it you approve?" Jadzia asked me.

She seemed to find my staring at the maitre D to be very amusing.

"I was just trying to figure out what that dress is made out of," I answered. "It's like a sexy, tin foil liquid metal".

That was also apparently very amusing, and I figured that what had me so stumped was probably very easy for Starfleet types to understand. I spent so long trying to wrap my head around how a liquid could be wrapped around someone's body like foil that the meal arrived before I eventually gave up. In the end I put it down to sufficiently advanced technology appearing like magic and decided that a wizard had obviously made the dress.

The meal itself was an experience that I would not soon forget. All the courses were perfectly cooked, the flavours blended and contrasted with each other perfectly.

We ended up finishing with some kind of chocolate puff dessert that Deanna had recommended. It wasn't like Earth chocolate, I found out. It was more like ice cream in taste, only with the texture of a rich cake. It was odd, but very nice.

A string quartet had been playing background music the entire time we had been eating. Of course it was classical music, the only thing strange about it was that the musicians weren't human. They played amazingly well, but were obviously catering to the many humans in the restaurant.

Once the dessert was finished the maître D announced, to my horror, that guests could now take to the dance floor if they so wished. I was dragged onto the dance floor by Jadzia Dax and found to my surprise that being an augment had made it easy to learn how to dance very quickly. I only stepped on her toes a few times before I figured out the moves and my enhanced memory and coordination let me do the rest. Being a Khan-era Augment really rocked sometimes!

(Line Break)

Hotel. Risa.

"I know men tend to fall asleep after sex," I said as Jadzia and I ate a lovely breakfast on the patio of the hotel, "but I've never passed out during sex".

Fainting upon orgasm was not something I'd ever expected to happen. Thankfully, Jadzia didn't seem to mind that I'd passed out. If anything she found it rather amusing, maybe even endearing, which was quite often her reaction to things that I found confusing. I'd take endearing, I suppose.

"Jamaharon with Arandis was the cause of death for Curzon Dax," she told me with a fond smile. "And you didn't faint the first three times; that's an amazing feat for someone who has never experienced it before. Arandis and I were very impressed".

Arandis, who had joined Jadzia and I in bed at her request (and my glee), could apparently fuck men to death. Not a bad way to go, not at all, and I'd survived it while also pleasuring the Trill woman with a good bit of success I thought. And I still wasn't fully used to this new body, next time I'm sure I'd perform even better, though I suspected that a normal human male would still be asleep after a night like that and would never have made it that long in the first place. If they had they'd almost certainly need the attention of a doctor…or a morgue.

Jamaharon, I learned, was more than mere sex, in fact there was nothing like it on Earth in my time. At least as far as I knew. It took years of study for a female to perfect performing the sexual rite. It wasn't purely about pleasure either, it was a sacred ritual for the locals and an important part of their culture.

"So how long are you on Risa?" I asked Jadzia.

I was in no rush to get back to Earth, so if she was going to be here for a while I'd stick around too.

"Not long," she replied. "Actually I'm leaving this afternoon".

Well, that was disappointing.

"I've been transferred to the Enterprise," she went on to say. "I doubt I'll see Risa or even Trill again over the next six months".

Transferred to the Enterprise? It appears that this was yet another one of those differences between the shows I'd watched and the reality of this dimension, since I don't remember ever hearing about how she'd been stationed on the Enterprise at some point. I'm almost certain of that, otherwise she'd have already met Chief O'Brien on the Enterprise when he'd been that ship's transporter chief.

Despite this news I was not thinking of leaving. I'd only been here a week and already so many interesting things had happened. I suspected that if I stayed even for a few more days I'd either end up with my own harem or I'd single handedly drive off an invasion of horny Klingon women.

"Well, I guess I'll have to find someone else to Jamaharon with," I said, with a sad smile, always knowing how this would end.

Really, I was spoilt for choice, all I had to do was get one of those freaky looking statues, hit the beach and then let the ladies just come to me. Since I had banged two last night simultaneously, I was curious to see if I could handle three this time.

"I haven't left yet," replied Jadzia with a wicked smile on her face, while standing and undoing her robe. "There's still plenty of time to see if I can perform true Jamaharon without any help".

She was naked under the robe so if she said anything else I certainly didn't hear it.