Augment Gothic

Part 12

Quark's Bar. Deep Space Nine.

Dabo was a roulette-style game of chance developed by the Ferengi in the 23th century and was the gambling game of choice in Quark's Bar on Deep Space Nine. When one won, it was customary to shout "Dabo!" thereby creating a communal sense of victory and driving up interest in the game by giving the impression that they too could win big. I certainly wasn't yelling that, however other people were every time I won. Which wasn't to say that I won every round. I probably did better than most, knowing when to bet high and when to bet low, but it was all about chance at the end of the day. My augmented physiology had little effect on the objective laws of probability.

Given the near ubiquitous "profit at any price" philosophy held by most Ferengi, though I had found and continued to work with the few who were the exceptions, the laws of probability were often artificially tilted in the house's favor and it was not uncommon to find that a dabo table had been rigged to deal out bad luck on command. I knew that this one certainly was, but I already knew where the control was, and I was making damn sure that no one's hand got anywhere near it, which frustrated the hell out of Quark.

Invariably, beautiful dabo girls were specifically instructed by their Ferengi employers to distract players into losing as much as they could, especially when the player had already had a few wins under their belt. A common bit of wisdom in dabo was, "Watch the wheel, not the girl." Thankfully, I was a Khan-era augment, as such I could both watch the wheel and check out all that delicious flesh on display. Getting lightly handsy with the dabo girls was similarly part of the experience.

Not that I did this all the time as Dabo was not a simple game, even when you could prevent the house from outright cheating. There was more just the wheel; there was a pot that built up over time. That was the real prize, and unfortunately it didn't look as if I was going to win it this time.

After a while I came to realize that all I was really doing was exchanging Federation Credits for gold-pressed latinum without making enough profit to make it worthwhile, certainly not enough to risk so much money on a bad spin coming up through simple bad luck.

I quickly left the table a bit ahead, taking my minor winnings with me, much to the disappointment of the growing crowd who were hoping I'd keep trying for that big pot. Instead I booked a holosuite so that I could continue working on my latest holonovel. Quark had given me a significant permanent discount to rent his facilities in exchange for allowing him access to some of my works. We both came out ahead on that deal. It would have been infinitely preferable to use my own much more sophisticated holodeck and hololab on the island, but when on the station my options were limited to Quarks who had the only holosuites on the station.

I felt the lure of the big win as much as the next guy, but sometimes being an augment with an enhanced mind really sucked the fun out of things.

(Line Break)

Holosuite. Deep Space Nine.

"So, who am I again?" Jadzia asked.

I may have made a big mistake when I'd requested her aid in this project. She had done a great job fine tuning some of the background details when it came to the Mass Effect tech, the bad side of this was that now she wanted to know all about the story. Hence why we were here, running through the Eden Prime mission at the start of the holonovel to test for bugs in the story or the holomatrix. The computer had been set to note any irregularities that popped up for later review and correction.

"You're Ashley Williams," Doctor Bashir answered patiently. "A marine in the Earth Defense Force."

Julian was here because he was a huge fan of holonovels, as fans definitely saw frequently in the show, and thus a rather discerning consumer. The Mass Effect mythology was right up his alley since he specifically liked holodeck programs that had a bit of action in them. In fact, I found out that he was already quite a fan of several of my previous works. He was also here because he had correctly pointed out that my hand eye coordination was vastly superior to that of a baseline human's, as such what might be an easy tactical simulation for me could be too taxing for others. Of course, he was an augment himself with enhanced hand eye coordination, so I privately thought that his participation didn't particularly help in that regard either, but he didn't know that I knew that.

His point was valid, though, and I hadn't actually considered this. It hadn't been an issue for my other holonovels because those had all been 'single player,' so to speak, and like all my programs that involved combat the difficulty level could be player adjusted at any time. In a multiplayer setting, however, this was something to consider because if the difficulty was lowered too much for the entire group, it would be no challenge for humans with the right training, or for species that had superior combat prowess. Thankfully, this was sorted out by allowing the difficulty level to be personalized for each individual player. You'd think that'd be an easy change, but it had required a significant increase in the complexity of the novel's holomatrix. This resulted in most of the Geth trying to shoot me and their aim and tactics being better, at least when it came to attacking me, since I had set the difficulty to the highest level of all three of us. It could get a little silly if one person in the party had their experience set to an easy level 1 difficulty, while someone else set it at the maximum level 10, but there really was no way to easily work around that. Hopefully huge disparities in the chosen difficulty, at least within the same party, wouldn't happen often.

"And she's Shepard's romantic option," I explained to Jadzia, "if the main character, who I will play today, is set to be a man. The doctor is playing the female Shepard's romantic option, Kaiden, he's what is called a biotic."

Bashir had actually been a great help to me when perfecting the biotics in the game, not only coming up with semi-reasonable explanations for the abilities, but also coming up with an intuitive way for the player to use their biotic abilities in a holo setting. In the game, you just pressed buttons on the controller, in the holonovel I was writing the player was given a special holographic glove that when activated responded to specific hand gestures in order to use the powers. It was brilliant and yet so simple. Having another augment to work with was a pleasure at times.

"Now, our objective during this 'tactical simulation' is to fight our way past the robots known as the Geth," I told the two Starfleet officers. "There are people to save, bombs that need disarming, lest we all die, and then we need to find the 'beacon.'"

The visions the Prothean beacon would give had been easy to include for a single player situation; I just had the holodeck program show the oh so mysterious images I created to the player, making it seem as if the apocalyptic vision was all around them and being projected directly into their mind. In a multiplayer setting, this would make absolutely no sense since the beacon's vision was meant to be received only by the one person who touched it. The solution was to have the holodeck visually isolate the main player from the others, and then display the images around them in a smaller area, the other players not being privy to the images. Much like how holomaze programs worked. Very tricky to program actually, but it was worth the effort given how important the visions were to the game's overall plot long-term.

"No girl-on-girl action?" Jadzia teased with a lascivious smile.

The Trill woman most certainly preferred men, but she liked women too. People in this century didn't care much about labels such as gay, straight or bi. However, this didn't lead to things like orgies as often as you might think, though luckily, I had had quite a bit of luck on that front. I was still working on making an orgy with my Bajoran babes, Jadzia, and myself a reality. It was only a matter of time.

"There's a homosexual romance option for both genders, which the player can select or change at any time," I informed the two officers, while chuckling. "There's a sexy blue alien who shows up later on in the story, and for guys I made sure Kaiden swings both ways."

Which might be an issue in multiplayer mode. Maybe I'd make Joker gay? Or Garrus?

"Sexy blue aliens?" the doctor asked with a smile of his own, sounding intrigued. "Tell me more!"

I'd rented the holosuite for a few hours so there really was no rush. I took the time to explain as much about the characters as I could.

"Hold on, they're a single gender species that reproduces using a mind meld equivalent?" Julian asked when I'd gotten to the bit about the asari and how they made babies. "That doesn't make any sense."

Of course it didn't. That was just a way to justify the existence of an entire race of sexy and promiscuous female aliens and I think the game worked around this by suggesting the child doesn't actually get any genetic material from the 'father.' They served as a catalyst only. But I think they even tried to muddy the waters on that too later on.

"Well, can you suggest something to make it seem more plausible?" I wondered.

The doctor told me he would give it some more thought.

"Okay, let's move on to the Citadel," I decided.

I ordered the computer to skip a couple of chapters ahead and the scene changed accordingly. Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to do justice to the Citadel in Mass Effect. I wasn't an artist, which would have been very helpful in this instance. I hadn't been in my old life either, and being an augment didn't improve everything. Perhaps it was something I could learn with time, but I had no passion for it. I much preferred stories over pictures, which I suppose was ironic given that I was a successful holonovel author now. Maybe Commander Data would like to take a crack mocking something up based on what I remembered from the game? He'd probably give me a hundred options in a few hours.

"Right, I've limited the places you can go on the Citadel so that the players don't get too distracted," I told the officers. "And this is where people wanting to bring in more friends into the story get their chance. There will be a member of a warrior race who is after a bounty and an engineer character from a race of space nomads, who incidentally created the Geth and were driven off their planet after a long war with them that they pretty much lost. Plus another alien, who is a space cop of sorts, and also a romantic option for women playing Shepard, or will be when I finally get around to writing that part. Figured a little inter-species loving would spice things up nicely."

This would have been discussed in even more detail, however that was when Sisko called for his underlings, AKA, his senior staff, which left me all alone. I would spend the rest of my reservation in the holosuite trying to make the Citadel look more impressive.

Which wasn't going to be easy. Commander Data was looking better and better as an option. Or maybe I could just hire an artist; the thing didn't need to be real or functional. There were plenty on Bajor who would be happy to take a paid commission. Decisions, decisions.

(Line Break)

Flashback. Island Fortress. Bajor.

"Oh, wow, it fires anti-protons," I quietly mused to myself after looking over my latest scan results from a few test fires on a sensor laden target specifically designed to analyze directed energy weapons. I remembered how La Forge and Data had used a similar device in an episode of TNG in which they'd discovered that the supposed Federation Phaser Rifles showing up on a Klingon planet had actually been produced by the Romulans to cause unrest between the Federation/Klingon alliance. It had been an extremely expensive and hard to come by piece of diagnostic equipment, but these scans were worth every credit since it was helping me reverse engineer this bad boy.

Ro walked into the lab just in time to hear me say that. I knew it was her without even turning around to look. It was the way she walked. Her footsteps, her breathing, her heartbeat; all together it was a unique signature of the person. If I listened closely I could hear them all and recognize individuals I knew well by them.

"What does what?" she asked, clearly interested in what I found so interesting.

From her angle she couldn't see me leaning over the badass Collector rifle I was studying. It was part of the cache of weapons we'd looted from the Collector ship, but had held back from Section 31. I'd been meaning to take one of these bad boys apart for a very long time, but until now I'd lacked the proper equipment and scientific understanding to do the job properly.

Now, though, my super-secret 'man cave' was pimped the fuck out and I had a full design and fabrication workshop and holo-lab with full sensor suite, which allowed me to study, design and make all sorts of fun things. Imagine creating a fully 3-dimensional, high resolution holo image of the weapon and then being able to manipulate it tactilely and virtually disassemble it in mid-air. Imagine Tony Stark in Iron Man to get the picture. And let me tell you, I was learning all kinds of things about the weaponry and tech used by the modified Hur'q. As we'd seen a few times already, their tech base was extremely advanced in some areas, well beyond the technology currently available to the Federation and others.

"This is one of rifles I took off the Collectors," I explained to Ro, who in the past had boarded one of their hive ships with me. "Though this is still fundamentally a directed energy weapon, it's not a phaser or a disruptor and does not correspond to those scientific principles. As you know, a Phaser releases a controlled stream of nadion particles, which are subatomic particles that cause instantaneous disruption of the bonds and strong nuclear forces holding any material structure together. These particles convert the matter into neutrinos, thus making sure the matter is not broken down into photons, which would cause it to release nuclear level energy in the form of gamma rays and heat".

Ro moved closer to me as I spoke and I took a moment to notice how her militia uniform, which was black like mine, hugged her curves more than other Bajoran uniforms I'd seen did. Clearly, she'd taken the time and money to get it tailored. I heartily approved!

"The stun effect is a setting of the phaser in which all the living target's neurons are directly overcome, causing a non-lethal shutdown of consciousness," I continued to explain. "Disruptors are considered less 'elegant' than phaser-based weapons; their effects are described as thermal shock and blunt force, as opposed to the 'rapid nadion effect.' As a result, disruptors inflict more damage to matter, but less damage to shields, than phasers do."

I then gestured to the Collector weapon.

"This rifle, however, fires a very focused, direct, and coherent beam of anti-protons," I then told Ro. "Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived in the natural universe, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy. That is why Collector weapons were able to cut through their advanced armor so easily, while our phasers had trouble, requiring multiple very high energy shots to accomplish the same result. I figure disruptors will have a bit easier time of it, but the Federation doesn't use those."

Ro soon saw the problem.

"As does the militia," she realized.

Yes, that was a problem. During the Resistance we had no standard weapons, frankly we used any weapon we could get our hands on. After the Occupation had ended, though, the military of Bajor had switched to phasers that were designed and manufactured by Bajorans. They were more civilized weapons for a more peaceful time. I understood the reasoning, of course, phasers could still stun and kill, just like a disrupter, but were also versatile enough to be used in many other ways.

"We're going to have to issue disruptor style rifles to all off-world militia members to be used in case of a Hur'q attack," I said to Ro. "I doubt I'll be able to get the militia stationed on Bajor to do the same, but it's certainly worth trying."

As for the Collector weapon, it was a very impressive and advanced piece of technology that somehow combined the versatility of a phaser with the deadliness of a disrupter. The race they had initially stolen this design from must have been extremely advanced. The amount of power required to keep the antiprotons stable was similarly impressive, and currently impossible with Federation science and technology, especially in the context of a portable man-carried weapon. The Federation had only ever been able to create ship or installation mounted antiproton weapons, with huge dedicated reactors, and they didn't use them much because current designs weren't effective against standard shields. However, the Hur'q were a very old race who could travel to many realities. They'd had the opportunity and time to steal and perfect this tech to overcome those limitations. They'd been out pillaging the galaxy in this dimension with warp powered ships as far back as the 14th Century and Prophets know how long in other dimensions.

They'd even conquered the Klingon homeworld, and the Klingons themselves had acquired warp technology from the Hur'q by capturing and reverse-engineering some of their ships when they resisted their incursions. This explained how the Klingons, despite not being at all focused on technological research and development, had managed to make the huge jump to interstellar travel.

A big part of what made all this possible, among other technologies, especially in a portable man-carried weapon system, was the weapon's revolutionary power cell, something the Federation was a long, long, long way from being able to naturally develop on their own. It seems the Collectors had gone with a theme, since the same power source that allowed them to move planet-sized objects at FTL speeds, also powered their hand-held weapons. Of course, the scale was vastly different in each application.

The power cell for a Collector rifle actually contained an artificial micro-singularity within. While the singularity was microscopic, and obviously nowhere near powerful enough to move a ship, it still produced a ton of power constantly, more than enough for a hand weapon, and would likely produce power for centuries more before entropy set in. Since the micro-singularity was just that, microscopic, the bulk of the power cell's systems was dedicated to harnessing the singularity's incredible power and directing it towards containing the effects of the singularity.

It was actually a pretty ingenious design, as it harnessed the singularity's own released power to power the containment system which leashed it. The excess power left over after containment was fed into a series of advanced capacitors for storage and eventual usage, the power stored in these capacitors is what is actually used to power the item, or fire the weapon.

In the case of this rifle, the power cell supplied the incredible power demands of the weapon's antiproton generator and the magnetic containment system used to collimate the antiprotons to be used as a controlled discharge of deadly energy. It was a supremely lethal one-hit, one-kill weapon on unshielded personnel, which was pretty much everyone these days besides myself, who is a proudly paranoid fucker.

Thankfully there were safeties built in to prevent the failure of the containment system and allowing a naked singularity from being exposed and sucking in everything with the power of a black hole. In fact, I determined that if the power draw from firing the weapon depleted the amount of excess power stored in the capacitors and its recharge rate, thus putting the singularity's containment system in danger, then the power cell was designed to stop working temporarily to enter a 'recharge cycle' to refill the capacitors.

The user could override to get an extra shot or two, but once the containment system was in imminent danger of failure the cell was designed to collapse the singularity permanently and simply stop working. Probably for all time. So while this didn't exactly mean infinite ammo, with judicious use so as not to overtax the power cell's capacitors and recharge rate in a single session, it'd be more like "shit-ton" ammo that could last for centuries. Well, the power would last, the components that made up the rifle would probably fail long before that.

Needless to say, I wanted these small Collector power cells to supply the power needs for my own power-hog designs. Thankfully I had several already in hand from my looting and could easily replace the cell's housing and capacitors without risking a containment breach, since it was designed for that kind of swapping. That would work for now.

Though I had examined these cells closely and understood how to recreate the support systems, artificially creating the singularity itself was the real trick and well beyond Federation science, though I knew that the Romulans themselves had a closely guarded secret method to produce the singularities that powered their engine cores.

Section 31 might be doing exactly what I'm doing now, trying to reverse engineer these weapons, but even they wouldn't have the knowledge to artificially create the micro-singularity at the heart of these power cells.

After a good deal of thought I realized that I had already seen how a singularity could be artificially created. In the Star Trek reboot, Ambassador Spock, who had knowledge from more than a hundred years in the future, used red matter to create a singularity. I even knew how red matter was created, as in my previous life I had gone onto Memory Alpha and read that it was manufactured from a substance called decalithium, a rare isotope that could be mined.

That alone obviously wasn't enough to create it, but with that key bit of information to help focus my search in the stolen Collector database, it was only a matter of time before I found some reference to the process, perhaps even the location of where I could mine the isotope found in other similar realities which may be the same here. Considering how long the Collectors seemed to be using this technology, information on the process may even be in their historical records.

With that out of the way, my attention turned back to the Collector rifle design. The funny/ironic thing about this weapon and even its super advanced power cell, was just how simultaneously impressive and shitty it all was. The materials used in its construction were sub-standard, even by Federation standards, and the engineering tolerances and overall quality were atrocious.

Sure, it fired pretty impressively powerful blasts, and had a power cell that would last for centuries, assuming it was properly made, but this rifle felt slapped together without much care and was obviously never intended for hard prolonged use. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. The Collectors viewed even their soldiers as easily disposable and replaceable assets, why would their weapons be any different? This thing had not been designed with long-term durability and repair in mind.

The good thing was that this left a lot for me to improve and room to personalize the design. I could take the base tech here and holographically design a much more robust and functional weapon system, including using what I learned from the rifle to design a pistol version. Thankfully, with a complete holo design in place, everything besides the power cell itself could then be carefully replicated.

A list of potential improvements was already forming in my mind. First, I'd start with using much better materials. Second, it could be much more user friendly if I added an advanced scope for a longer range shot. Then a visual indictor on the cell's current power levels, its recharge rate, and how close it was to going into a recharge cycle. A selective fire switch for semi-automatic or full-auto and to adjust the power levels were a must have too.

Believe it or not, the Collector designed weapon didn't even allow an adjustment in the power output of the discharge. Why was I not surprised that the Collectors had their weapons permanently set to maximum discharge with no ability to change it? A bio metric and DNA reader in the grip of the weapon would be another great addition to prevent it from being used by anyone but me. Maybe I should have it render unconscious anyone unauthorized who gripped the rifle? The grip, incidentally, also housing the standardized power cell casing itself, which was removeable like a clip in gun from my time, so that it could be swapped between the rifle and pistol easily. A self-destruct by command, or if the casing is scanned too thoroughly or opened up would be smart too. Well, the list was long, but it would be an amazing weapon when I was through with it.

I spent the next few days in my lab tinkering with the design and continuously running simulations as I added in my wish list of design improvements. Thankfully pretty much everything I wanted was already available, so I wasn't reinventing the wheel here. In fact, all the functionality and components I had long wanted to add to a weapon, I already had the designs and replicator patterns for. An extensive database of restricted replicator patterns had been part of my requested compensation for the Collector tech and database I had gotten from Section 31.

That was a huge deal considering I now had an industrial replicator and could produce all of this stuff now. Section 31 didn't care, but Starfleet would flip their shit if they knew I could replicate tons of weapons and other restricted stuff now. Unfortunately, larger weapon systems had many non-replicable components so I couldn't just replicate a phaser canon, for instance. That kind of thing still needed to be purchased.

After several days hard work I leant back in my chair, looking up and admiring the holographic image of the rifle and pistol I'd designed, based partially on what I'd learned from the Collector technology, languidly rotating in mid-air.

These were supremely deadly and versatile weapons, but it was still using the same Wild West point and shoot at a visible target philosophy while you exchanged fire with the enemy. How could I surprise my enemy? Kill them without them even seeing me?

Then I remembered a great episode from DS9, where someone had already figured that out, involving a crazy Vulcan who had replicated an experimental weapon called a TR-116 rifle that was even capable of being replicated. That weapon had been developed by Starfleet Security for use in dampening fields or radiogenic environments where conventional energy weapons would be useless.

It was designed to fire a chemically propelled tritanium bullet. That crazy Vulcan, though, had taken that weapon and made it infinitely more dangerous by adding a micro-transporter to it. Using an exographic targeting sensor he could look through walls and kill people anywhere on the station by transporting the fired bullet to hit and kill a target.

"Computer, remove pistol holo image for now. Access the restricted replicator pattern database and load design schematics for the TR-116 rifle designed by Starfleet Security and display holographically next to the Gothic type anti-proton rifle," I commanded the computer.

Moments later the TR-116 was displayed, floating languidly next to the other rifle.

The TR-116 rifle was a handsome weapon but was actually pretty damn large. But did I really need all this shit? No I needed a rifled barrel and bullet and a means of firing it, the rest of the needed components were already on the other rifle. The barrel didn't even need to be that long since I was never planning on shooting a bullet from point A to target B by it traveling the distance conventionally through the air.

"Computer, mount the TR-116 barrel underneath the discharge aperture for the Gothic type anti-proton rifle. Reduce barrel length to match" I ordered.

The requested changes were made moments later by the computer. It was rough as hell at the moment, but I could tweak it later to make it pretty and functional.

If I added a micro-replicator I also wouldn't need to add in the ammo clip. The micro replicator would only need to produce one Tritanium bullet with propellant at a time. The question was, with the micro-transporter and replicator would the power and space demands be too high? I didn't think so, the anti-proton discharge was the power hog, not the other components and the micro transporter and replicator were both quite small pieces of technology.

Opening the casing holographically with my hands, I integrated the transporter to the end of the barrel and added the replicator to the beginning. Imagine the Iron Man movies and how Stark designed his fun toys.

After a few minutes of tweaking and connecting the barrel components to the rest of the rifle, it looked like it'd fire properly. Thankfully I remembered to enlarge the exhaust ports to vent the gas from the bullet. It was a chemically propelled bullet, after all. With all the power I had to work with I could have tried to mock up a magnetically accelerated firing mechanism, but that would require way more time and patience to figure out.

Right now I was working with an already established and proofed design and smashing it together with my anti-proton rifle. Making a change that significant would essentially mean I was designing yet another new rifle from scratch.

"Computer, run simulations with current design parameters, multiple firing scenarios and speeds. Determine viability. Determine power demands for this weapon given power output of the power cell" I commanded the computer.

"Simulations complete. Current design viable. Power demands of current design well within power cell output levels," the computer concluded several minutes later.

There it was. I had just designed a hybrid weapon. It looked like an ugly piece of shit at the moment, but it worked, which was what I cared about right now; I could pretty it up later. The TR-116 design would let me reach out and touch my enemy even when I couldn't see them and the power demands of the micro transporter and replicator were tiny, in comparison to the power required to fire a beam of pure anti-protons. Some more tweaking was required to pretty it up and make it more efficient, less prone to break down, but I was incredibly proud of what I'd accomplished.

"A hybrid anti-proton weapon like this could beat any kind of armor given enough time," I mused.

Dense materials would slow down an anti-proton weapon, because density was just a matter of having more tightly packed atoms, and all atoms had protons, but even the toughest metals would only resist a Collector weapon for a certain amount of time. And there it was, that was the key to a power sword and knife, since I couldn't yet build a light saber and probably never would. An anti-proton edge would let me cut through anything. But how to make it work? That was the question.

That was when I looked over to my current armor sitting nearby and the rifle and hand pistol still floating holographically in the air and remembered the vision the Orb had given me. It all made sense now. Back when I received that vision I had no idea how I was going to make all that tech I saw actually work. The miniature, but incredibly powerful Collector power cell, was the key, otherwise it was impossible.

The armor and its systems, the rifle, the power sword, power knife, and all the goodies attached to the armor itself. I had long had great ideas on what to include in the design, but no way to even meet the incredibly high power demands of the thing in a way that didn't require me to carry a huge backpack sized power source all the time.

Now, though, I'd have all the power I could want. The Collector armor I'd stolen was also likely the key to adaptive camouflage systems. The combination of my personal shield and advanced materials in the armor meant that very soon, energy from weapons, be that kinetic or plasma energy, would be either stopped by the shield or spread out over a larger area. Even if I was stabbed with something like a knife, rather than end up with a small hole in my body I'd just have a big bruise. Which would clear up quickly thanks to my superhuman healing ability.

"Computer, end display of the Gothic type hybrid anti-proton rifle and pistol. Load design for the Gothic type Personal Armor System."

Moments later the computer holographically displayed an empty set of armor in midair. It was a hodge podge of ideas that I had mostly designed during my first few weeks in this dimension and hadn't really changed much since then.

It had served me well and had saved my ass several times over, but it was time to make some much needed improvements. I was actually pretty excited now to get to work. With all of the resources and equipment this island possessed and the spare Collector power cells I had in my possession, suddenly all of those long-shot ideas were now viable.

The Iron Man armor from the movies and comics was actually a source of inspiration for most of those long-shot ideas. That fictional armor had so much functionality I wanted to replicate and was a great source of ideas. Sustained flight might be a pipe dream at the moment, but jump assist thrusters in the boots was doable, like I'd seen. After that a built-in sensor suite, a holo-tricorder built into the back of my hand, a retractable helmet with air recycler to protect against being gassed or spaced, a transport inhibiter coupled with a personal site-to-site transporter in something like a utility belt, and a heads up display connected to the built in sensors, all were doable now too…now that I had power to spare!

Two weeks later I had a workable prototype armor system rotating languidly in midair. This armor system was far more complex than even the rifle, especially in the integration of it all, though many of the systems I had wanted to add to the armor, like my holo-tricorder, I had long ago designed. It had taken a while to finish, but the end product was worth it.

Analyzing the Collector armor I'd recovered had given me the breakthroughs I'd needed in materials technology, like the under armor kinetic gel barrier to reduce impact and energy damage, the artificial muscle fibers to increase speed and physical power, and the neural linkups based on my ship's neural interface. The armor's outer layer also used the same fluidic alloy materials the Collector Scout snipers used to blend in with their environment. Whether passive energy from sensor scans, or directed energy discharges from weapons, the fluidic alloy had the ability to refract and dissipate energy that hit its surface.

Just like with their rifles, though, I had found numerous ways to improve upon the base technology and it could now operate as a personal cloaking field or even mimic clothing. I got a kick out of the idea of wearing my full armor all the time yet appearing to be dressed in my normal Bajoran Militia uniform.

Unfortunately, two systems were still a work in progress, those being the heads-up display integrated into the headpiece, providing an augmented reality view of my environment, and my idea for built in miniature stealth sensor drones, which relied on the heads-up display working. These two tiny 3 inch discs would be mounted one on each shoulder and could detach and fly silently according to my will, using anti-grav tech that was so common now, reaching a maximum range of 20 miles. The US Army of my time had used aerial drones to great effect scouting enemy locations using advanced sensors to get a full picture of the battlefield. It had made no sense to me that with 24th century tech I couldn't do far, far better than that.

Some of the sensor technology in these drones was based on the Section 31 stealth drones, but significantly reduced because of size limitations. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I'd be going to Commander Data yet again to get his help in programming a heads-up display operating system. Really needed to do something nice for that guy.

Besides those 2 systems which still required work, my armor was ready for use, or live testing in a combat simulation on my holodeck. Like the Iron Man armor, for quick entry and exit I had designed it to stand upright on its own and be stepped into and out of. Once inside, the armor would constrict to form a near skin tight bond with my body. Around my waist was a Batman style utility belt with multiple compartments, which was covered by the same material as the rest of the armor.

In the compartment directly in the middle, where a belt buckle would be (and also where the shield strength was highest), was the Collector power cell which powered the entire thing and made all this possible. The power cell powered all the armor systems, but also transferred energy along the utility belt to each compartment which had its own power port and currently contained my redesigned personal shield generator, the transport inhibiter which could be turned off in an emergency situation, and a small, hand-held site-to-site transporter device I remembered Tom Paris once using in an episode of Voyager.

This was an incredibly expensive and hard to come by piece of technology, given how complex it was. It would allow me to transport from one site to another without a transporter pad on either end. Of course, power limitations meant it had nowhere near the range or longevity of a traditional transporter, despite having a dedicated Federation power cell of its own.

It's lack of full sensors also limited the locations a person could be beamed to. I had reduced those limitations by supplying it with additional power from the Collector power cell, so its range was increased significantly. It would first use power from its dedicated Federation power cell, then from the armor's cell, if needed. My armor's dedicated sensors could similarly be tied into the site-to-site transporter, but my armor systems could also link up with my ship's computers and sensors or DS9's systems, since I had the access codes.

There was still a lot of work to do to finish it, but it was usable now. With the full design schematics in my computers, I should be able to soon conduct a combat simulation to test the armor and work out any kinks that would inevitably pop up. Once the testing phase was over, I'd carefully replicate what I could.

Now I needed a well-deserved break. First, though, I had some groveling to do with my girls. These past few weeks of rampant design had been exhilarating and wonderful, but it had kept me away from my girls and I found I really missed them.

They thought I was being ridiculous spending this much time and energy designing weapons and armor, especially since the Occupation was over and we weren't going into combat all the time like before.

Of course they didn't know about the war to come and I didn't tell them. Nonetheless, they supported me anyway, making frequent visits to bring me food and ensure I was taking care of myself. Even forcing me into a sonic shower a time or two after letting myself get so carried away I started to smell rather rank. In the end it showed me just how lucky I was to have them in my life.

(Line Break)

Current Day. The Flighty Temptress. Bajoran System

I could already be docked with the station by now, but I wanted the chance to get a good look at Deep Space Nine before I got distracted by following the docking instructions. Sure, I'd seen the station before, but I wasn't really looking at its physical structure now, rather I was seeing the station and its place in history, both now and in the future to come. I was seeing what it offered, all the adventures that would take place there, the wonders it would support, and the incredible dangers it would both guard against and inflame.

The traffic in the area was higher than expected, even with the recent discovery of a stable wormhole, the only one of its kind in the known galaxy. By the looks of things an entire convoy was passing through the system on the way to exploring the gamma quadrant.

As I sat in the cockpit I looked over the data my sensors were recording and as I did I suddenly felt tempted to just fly my ship through the wormhole and leave all this responsibility behind. The Gamma Quadrant was only moments away, and on the other side of the galaxy lay the kind of freedom an augment such as myself would never know in the Federation.

Once there I could spend my days charting systems, making contact with new races, and then when I wished to I could return to DS9 to sell the information I had gathered to interested parties. However, I knew that such a life wouldn't last long due to the threat of the Dominion.

Sooner or later I'd run into some of their warships and get myself killed, or worse, captured, so it was best to stay in the Alpha Quadrant for the foreseeable future. Besides, if I stayed at Deep Space Nine then the Gamma Quadrant would eventually come to me, and I would get plenty of tech to upgrade my ship with, and more toys to play with.

No, as much as I sometimes craved a wandering lifestyle free of limits, restrictions, and responsibility, I liked the life and relationships I had built here. The future might be dark and filled with death and violence, but it would end eventually. It was time to return to the station.

(Line Break)

Replimat. DS9

"And how are you this evening, Mister Garak?" Greeted the ever jovial Doctor Bashir, a fellow augment, as he passed by the table the station's enigmatic tailor was sitting at.

Of course, Garak was only a tailor in the same sense that I was only a holonovel author. He was a spy, and a pretty damn good one given that everyone essentially knew he was a spy and yet no one felt threatened enough to do anything about it. He projected an aura of harmlessness, while I tried to project an aura that told people that I was really dangerous. Which I absolutely was.

"Excuse me. Just plain, simple Garak, you said," the doctor then corrected himself.

"Plain and simple," agreed the pleasantly smiling spy before he made a request. "Join me, Doctor. Enhance my evening."

The doctor did just that.

"Keeping an eye on the ebb and flow of things, are you?" Bashir asked.

Like me, he'd noticed that Garak was keeping a close eye on things. He was waiting for something to happen. As was I. I wasn't sure what he expected to happen, specifically, but I was waiting for an event.

"As a clothier, I do have a keen interest in what the station's population is wearing from day-to-day," the alien explained. "Klingons have an odd sense of style, don't you agree?"

For a warrior culture, the crinkle heads seemed to embrace uniformity. They carried the same weapons and dressed the same for the most part. A trained eye could pick out the subtle differences, badges and such, especially ones that told you which House they belonged to, but to the casual observer there didn't seem to be all that much variation.

"Oh, yes, they do I suppose," commented Bashir idly.

The Federation had a policy of viewing other cultures in the best possible light, and when people couldn't, in good conscience, they tended to try and say as little as possible. Plus, it was wise not to insult a Klingon as they were three times stronger than baseline humans and didn't have much problem killing anyone they wanted to as long as they could find a way to justify it with their rather flexible code of honor.

"But intriguing, nonetheless," Garak then remarked. "I would say that those two outfits, in particular, are worth studying closely."

The outfits in question belonged to Lursa and Be'tor, otherwise known as the infamous Duras sisters. They were highly sought after renegades from the Klingon Empire at the moment and if my memories about this episode proved correct they were going to meet up with a Bajoran terrorist, and that interested me.

However, this wasn't the time or the place to make my move. I had a very rich bounty to collect, but I had no authority to make an arrest here on the station, as they weren't actually wanted by the Bajorans yet. If they had been I was sure that Odo would have already beaten me to it. Unfortunately, even my rank and technical command of this space station wouldn't allow me to just take them into custody. Well, I probably could, but Sisko would be in the right to protest it and only my reputation and relationships with the Ministers of the Provisional Government would make the outcome uncertain.

So, I would bide my time for the moment and strike at the right opportunity. In unclaimed space, I'd be free to do what I wanted. The delay was all right, I would at least be able to finish this rather nice Vulcan broth I was having for dinner. For such a joyless people the Vulcans didn't have such bad taste in food.

(Line Break)

The Flighty Temptress. Just Outside the Bajoran System

After having my meal I'd headed back to my ship and departed from the station, heading out into free space in order to wait. I didn't remember exactly what happened in this episode, but seeing it in person was bringing back memories and I had my super human augment brain to help me plans things out.

Which meant that this part should be rather simple. A Bajoran terrorist, who had quite the bounty on his head thanks to the Cardassians, was going to hijack a Starfleet Runabout and then meet with a Klingon Bird of Prey. When that ship decloaked for the rendezvous I would strike.

My ship was running in what I called 'stealth mode,' which made it near impossible to detect my ship on long-range scans and much more difficult to detect normally. This was not to be confused with a cloaking device, although I soon would have one if everything went to plan. If I'd been tracking a state-of-the-art starship then there would be no way for me to be this sneaky as I would have been immediately detected on short-range sensors, but a small Runabout and an obsolete Klingon Bird of Prey didn't have the means to detect me as long I was clever and cautious. This meant operating at low power, restricting ambient emissions, and keeping the propulsion systems completely offline. Thrusters were ok, but anything else and I significantly increased the chances of my detection.

I was making sure to use all the tricks I'd learned from my pirate days to hide my presence as well as taking advantage of the fact that this area was full of space/time oddities that only locals really knew about. Even the distant wormhole was giving off all sorts of crazy readings which would further confuse sensors. If you knew the right spots to hide in, and I did, a warship that wasn't specifically looking for you could fly right past you and they'd never know you were there.

The stealth systems were just one of the features of this amazing vessel that had mysteriously arrived one day. It was totally unlike anything Starfleet had, and were it not for me being allied with Section 31 I was pretty sure that some overreaching admiral would have already found some excuse to take it from me even though that was against the law. Even my affiliation with Section 31 didn't seem enough to protect me in my opinion. I'd long decided that there was something intangible and mysterious going on, since nothing else made any sense to explain it. Even intrepid explorers from the Enterprise, whose unending curiosity was legendary, who had even been onboard my ship, never asked a single question about it, its origins, or expressed incredulity that I somehow had such a ship with such advanced capabilities. Capabilities I had increased greatly over during my time in this galaxy.

The ship had pretty decent defenses for its size, which were two independently targetable disruptor cannons and two micro-torpedo launchers I had added to the 'wings.' Sadly, I only had 6 photon torpedoes, one in each external launch tube and two in each of the launcher's attached magazine, as they took up quite a bit of space and my ship was not huge. Unfortunately, Starfleet didn't even give their allies quantum torpedoes. They might be liberals in some respects, but they weren't stupid. I had it on good authority, though, that a comparable copy might soon be available for purchase from the Ferengis so I might just have to splurge in the near future, at least for my ship.

Torpedoes themselves were comparatively cheap and easy to come by so my island fortress would be fine just firing off a lot of them to destroy targets the canons had softened up. It certainly worked well for that episode when DS9 was attacked by the Klingons. In this case, though, I wasn't really going to need that much firepower, the disruptors and a hefty dose of surprise would be quite enough.

"There you are," I whispered as the Runabout I had been expecting finally left the station. I was still pretty far from the station, in order to stay in free space, but my Section 31 stealth sensor probe was sending me back all the information I needed.

The Runabout wasn't heading for Bajor or the wormhole, at the moment, but as expected there were two non-human life signs onboard so I knew that it was Kira and the terrorist on that ship. The former freedom fighter, if he could be called that anymore given what he was planning, was planning to collapse the wormhole, but that didn't matter as my weapons could disable that ship.

"I have you now," I muttered as the Bird of Prey decloaked, just as expected, outside Bajoran claimed space.

My fingers worked so fast over my controls that they seemed to blur and I needed them to go quickly as I had a limited window of opportunity here. While in the process of decloaking the Bird-of-Prey was incredibly vulnerable to attack.

As soon as my sensors detected two new lifeforms on the Runabout I brought my ship out of stealth mode and beamed the Klingon sisters into the tiny cell I had pre-prepared onboard my vessel. Then I fired three double shots using my twin cannons.

Since the cannons had been calibrated and targeted correctly I didn't kill anyone. I disabled the engines of the Runabout to prevent escape and then crippled both the weapons and the engines of the Bird of Prey. My ship's computer was an incredible piece of software. It's targeting programs coupled with the neural interface allowed me to hit a ship exactly where I wanted it too, like a space-based sniper!

Still, it wouldn't have worked so well if either of the other craft had their shields up. Thankfully they had not and now I had two very high value prizes locked screaming in rage in my cargo hold. It was music to my ears.

The sensors then informed me that another Runabout, which no doubt was under the command of Commander Sisko, was heading right for me so I raised my shields and set a course away from the area.

I wasn't really concerned about him following me, since he had to rescue Kira and deal with the Bird of Prey. Even in the unlikely event he did try to follow me, I could easily escape from a craft like a Runabout, especially since its top speed was Warp 5 while mine was Warp 7. So I set a course for the agreed upon rendezvous, where a Klingon warship would be waiting, and then I engaged the engines.

It was tempting to grab the terrorist as well, but I didn't have room for him in the back, and besides, I knew what Cardassians did to criminals. That was of course also ignoring what they'd do to me if I tried to collect, since I likely had a much, much larger bounty on my head from them given my actions during the Occupation. The Klingons would just execute the Duras sisters, so the freedom fighter, whose name I'd already forgotten, could go to the Federation or Bajor for his crimes. It made no difference to me.

"Incoming hail," the female voice of my ship's computer informed me.

A female voice that didn't match any that I knew so I had always figured that whoever had sent the ship had somehow known I would respond much better to a woman speaking, and certainly better than Starfleet's computer voice, Majel Barret. I had a rather funny thought to change the computer's voice to Scarlett Johansson, and even use 'Scarlett' as an alternate way to call for the computer's attention. That chick had a crazy sexy voice that I wouldn't mind hearing more often. If I recalled, she had been an actress even in this dimension, though her career wasn't anywhere near as successful, so there may be some historical recordings of her voice I could use. When I got back to the station I'd interface with Earth's cultural archives and see if I got lucky. With a decent sized sample of her voice I could create a voice pattern for all communications. I had done similar things many times before for various characters in my holonovels so it wouldn't even be that hard.

"Ignore it," I ordered, "and increase speed to maximum. I have a big reward coming my way."

The huge sum of latinum would certainly be put to good use given all my many ongoing projects to pay for, but the real prize was the cloaking device. It was a hell of a nice bonus for bringing them both in alive. The Klingons were mighty pissed off at the idea of those two working with the Romulans, of all people, to incite a civil war. I was positively gleeful at the idea of my ship soon possessing its own cloaking device. The possibilities were endless!

"Best bounty hunter ever," I praised myself in the silence of my ship's cockpit, Sisko's Runabout still on my scanners.

It wasn't even bothering to chase me. The Bird of Prey was still dead in the water after my precision shooting.

(Line Break)

Island. Bajor.

On this part of the planet the evening weather was kind, a refreshingly cooling breeze washed over us, coming from the open sea, the salty air leaving a pleasant tingle on the skin. With this view and feeling of contentment, it was well worth being outside to take it all in. The night sky of Bajor was so much more impressive than that of Earth. This world had a sky full of moons and stars, so it was easy to understand why the Bajoran people believed the Prophets always watched over them. Their ancestors would have seen the many moons as signs of those higher powers.

It was so peaceful here. Kira had even drifted off after the delicious meal and sensual massage I'd arranged for her at my beach-side cabana, a glass and bottle of nearly empty spring wine on a nearby table, reclined on an extremely comfortable cushioned deck chair facing the open sea. It had proven to be a much appreciated apology for shooting at a runabout she'd been flying and not transporting her to my ship. As I was immediately turning over the Duras sisters to the Klingons it made little sense to bring her along and I knew she'd overpower that fool in short order. Yet as happy as we were now and no matter how idyllic our surroundings, I knew that the rest of this world wasn't so lucky. The spoon heads had really done a number on this planet over the past 50 years, going as far as to make whole provinces, that had once been this planet's breadbaskets, into places were no crops would ever again grow. Keeping the population half-starved was another method of control, after all.

That meant famine, and with that came sickness and despair, then there would come fighting as Bajorans fought over what little resources they had left. I had to do something about that. Hence why I was working on a data pad, I was planning on suggesting that the Provisional Government lease out some of the militia's captured Cardassian freighters to shipping concerns in order to bring in more money to aid in the planet's recovery, which could be spent on helping the people of Bajor rebuild.

Unfortunately, I didn't have high hopes for this plan coming to fruition and not because the Provisional Government wouldn't see the need. The ships were captured Cardassian military freighters and Bajor was quite close to Cardassian space. A legitimate company would be unlikely to want to take on the risk of being confronted by the Cardassians when they might arguably claim the ships were their stolen property and they wanted them back. Even at a discounted lease rate, that might be an impossible sell. I had a feeling I'd likely be forced to lease or buy them myself if I wanted this plan to succeed.

My finances were stretched at the moment, though I could still do it; the recent infusion of latinum from the Duras sisters' bounty had helped. A good amount of my wealth had been spent on building up this island and its facilities, which I couldn't exactly be too worked up about given how comfortable I was at the moment and the breakthroughs I had made in reverse engineering the Collector technology. An even larger amount had been invested in various companies quadrant-wide that would experience huge gains once the war started up in earnest and governments began war-time spending and procurement. Those were long-term investments, though, ones that would be inadvisable to mess with for a while, but would pay off handsomely in the future. No, in the meantime I needed to make more money in other ways.

Perhaps I could use my ship as an escort to make some extra money, both to protect and guide? My ship was both fast and strong after all. This part of the galaxy contained the Badlands and some freighters did get a little too close to that crazy bit of the universe when trying to save time on trips. A guide who knew that area well could have value.

Of course, I'd have to learn to navigate the Badlands, but there were several cells during the Resistance who had made great use of them to hide from the Cardassians. They'd speak with me about it. Beyond that, I was a superior human, it would just be another challenge to overcome. It sounded mighty boring though and a waste of my skills.

I did have an idea for something more fun and profitable. My ship was very fast ship and in addition to its stealth mode, had a genuine Klingon military-grade cloaking device now, one that I had obtained legally and had the Klingons' permission to possess and use.

As such courier missions of small high-value cargo, or transport of VIPs, or even illegal smuggling could prove incredibly lucrative. Section 31 would be eager to make use of it, I'm sure. Thankfully those guys never even haggled when I asked for inflated payments for my services.

Another data pad was full of ship designs. I didn't sleep much, and my thinking was on a different level to most people's, that combined with the fact that I had plenty of time for research meant I could excel in many fields. My enhanced mind just never stopped.

At the moment I was trying my hand at designing a carrier-type vessel, that would act much like an aircraft carrier from my time, something that could transport both small- to mid-sized fighters and bombers. Not everything needed to be a capital ship, after all.

Also given that the Dominion used mid-sized attack craft, hunting in groups, for the most part, it might not be such a bad idea for the Federation to have their own attack craft. The Defiant-class warship was actually the closest the Federation had had to that ship type, but since the Borg had never attacked the Federation in this dimension, I don't think it had ever been designed here.

That would be a huge problem, unless Section 31 had designed something as a just-in-case scenario and would release it to Starfleet. High level admiralty knew about them after all. I should ask them.

Alas this was pretty pointless as it was highly unlikely that the Federation would ever use a ship design given/sold to them by an augment, at least not this version of the Federation, not unless they just wanted to testbed new technologies. Perhaps if I worked with a respected ship designer that could change.

That wasn't really the purpose of my design binge, though, the real purpose was to come up with ideas on how to enlarge and improve the Flighty Temptress. With the war fast approaching in a few short years the time to do something like that was now, when I had the time to do it right, where resources were still affordable and available, and skilled labor was easy to come by.

If I could sketch out a rough design plan on how to improve my ship, I could then send my plans to Commander Data and see if he could come up further ways to improve it. Maybe stealing design ideas from the Defiant class would be useful? That had been a successful ship. Between the two of us we could definitely come up with something workable so that I could potentially survive the future.

In addition to these design plans, I was still looking for a source of decalithium, a rare isotope that could be mined. After searching fruitlessly for a while through the Collector database for any mention of decalithium and the process by which red matter was created, I had broken down and asked Ro Laren to assist me in my search.

She had found it a few weeks later tucked away deep in a database the Collectors had stolen centuries ago from an extremely advanced race and had included it in their historical archives, in fact it had probably been misfiled centuries ago and no one had ever caught it since they typically left that kind of specialized technical information only with the caste that needed it.

It wasn't their assimilated data, meant for their operations, so they must not have recognized it as caste specific. Without knowledge of red matter and decalithium there was no chance Section 31 would be able to find the reference and thus understand the technology or even how that it was connected to the creation of artificial singularities which was at the heart of all Collector power generation.

I was certainly not going to help them either, even with the situation what it was. In fact, I was going to great lengths to hide my desire for the isotope and would likely choose to mine it myself if I ever found any, in order to better hide my interest and activities. Luckily for me, the very rare decalithium was only found near dilithium deposits, so my interest would seem to be about the dilithium to anyone who learned about it.

Unfortunately, though I now knew how to create the red matter and thus artificial singularities to generate power, the knowledge was worthless without the isotope! Even just a few tiny microliters of red matter would be enough to create a large number of hand weapon-style power cells, but I had bigger plans than creating a half dozen backup power cells, which I also wanted, to be clear.

With a relatively larger amount, in fact just a teardrop of red matter, I could increase the size of the singularity and thus produce more power. I had even found several ingenious designs meant for a large power core in that same stolen alien database, which I had already somewhat improved upon and adapted to equivalent materials I actually had access to.

Since the designs weren't Collector inspired and thus stupidly inefficient and substandard, there wasn't as much need to improve upon them. One of those large power cores was enough to supply the power needs of my entire island for centuries, even with the shields at full power and the phaser canons constantly firing. In fact the emitters would burn out from overuse long before the power ran out.

If I found the isotope and thus could create the red matter, my plan was to create two large power cores, and place one of the large power cores in my hidden underground levels to supply the power needs of the lower levels, including the industrial replicator and holodeck which were the true power hogs, and serve as an emergency power source for the entire island if needed.

I could resell or repurpose the Federation reactor I currently had down there since there was really no comparison in terms of power output and since the Federation reactor required fuel and ongoing pesky maintenance.

The second power core would be placed on the Flighty Temptress to supply all the power needs of the ship's secondary systems, like sensors, transporters, weapons, shields, etc. Whatever 'notice-me-not' or 'uninteresting' field effect that was protecting my ship should similarly protect me from people suddenly wondering and asking how my ship's power levels were so high. The warp core would continue to power the ship's propulsion systems, though, as I wasn't even sure the ship's warp drive was compatible with another power system.

With the warp core now only powering the propulsion system, I might even be able to increase the ship's top warp speed, though I'd need to do some simulations to determine if that was viable. The warp field, hull geometry and nacelle configuration might need to be adjusted to handle a higher top speed and increased power.

Regardless of that, the secondary systems having their own dedicated power source would be a huge advantage for me. If I could further hide the power signature, and not fully rely on whatever effect was protecting my ship, it could be quite a surprise. No one would expect my little ship to have such sharp teeth!

Sighing at my grand plans, that I couldn't actually do shit about at the moment, I put the data pad away and picked Kira up bridal style to carry her back to the chateau. The night might be pleasant and warm right now, the sound of the waves incredibly soothing, but it would quickly get mighty chilly here as the night deepened. Best to get that finely sculpted bare ass inside my bed for cuddles before she caught something. I'm pretty sure I was firmly out of the doghouse now.