Eek… It's been a while. Life caught up to me.

Prussia was having an off day.

He had accepted that being dissolved wasn't exactly going to be a walk in the park. He didn't want to leave and disappear. But if you had told him a few hours ago that he was going to be mysteriously transported to a fabricated reality, have to run and try to escape from crazy Americans with seemingly impossible technology, and on top of all that, accept the fact that there are aliens after all? He would have told you that you had a little too much to drink.

The blaring klaxon alarm and the flashing red lights only added to the nation's anxiety. Prussia lengthened his stride, dodging around yet another uniformed person. The man gave a startled noise and tapped the arrowhead badge that Prussia had noticed everyone else was wearing.

"Intruder's in Section A, corridor 12!"

Prussia swore under his breath as he ran on. His eyes flickered around him. All of his instincts screamed at him to get off this main corridor, now. Where could he get away?

Spotting two men in yellow and black uniforms ahead, Prussia quickly dodged down the nearest hallway on the right. Not a moment too soon. Twin beams of light struck the spot he had been standing barely a second before with a vicious hissing sound. The nation's eyes widened in shock and he chanced a glance over his shoulder. A faint, acrid smell of burning material met his lungs. There were two smoking and blackened holes where the weapons had struck the metal of the walls. Where the hell had this technology come from?!

"If America has had this stuff all along," Prussia thought grimly. "Then we should be glad he just decided to drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan." A deep pain throbbed momentarily in his chest at the reminder of wounds recently healed.

Focusing once more on where he was running too, the nation skidded around another corner. Taking it at full speed, Prussia let himself slam shoulder first into the opposite wall, rebounding off the wall to abruptly change the direction of his momentum.

Taking another swift glance behind him, he noted that he had gained quite an amount of time and space on his pursuers. Prussia allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. Almost nothing could catch a nation when they got going.

This satisfaction vanished in a flash, to be replaced by irritation and trepidation at the sudden sight of three more men stepping out into the hallway before him, all armed. Prussia rapidly backpedaled, dropping a vehement oath in German. It was the inhuman from earlier. The nation ducked as the now unfortunately familiar beams of light shot towards him, flattening himself on the wall. Another set of weapon fire greeted him from the opposite side, and he cursed his bad luck. Great, now he was pinned down from both sides.

Prussia's hand met some control panel on the wall he was clutching, making a strange beeping noise. Prussia almost didn't notice the unknown sound. He was promptly startled by the wall behind him giving way. Suppressing what would have been his second yelp of surprise that day, he fell into an easy and practiced backwards roll. Coming to his feet a second later, the nation lunged forwards and smashed his booted foot into the delicate-looking technological panel on the side of the recently discovered door. It practically shattered under his frenzied nation strength. A flurry of sparks filled the air as the now-destroyed and blackened panel gave a screech of stressed metal.

Prussia stood for a moment, breathing hard. From the noises his attackers were making on the other side of the firmly shut door, he had bought himself a few seconds. The nation gave himself a quick rundown. Nothing injured. He turned sharply, taking in the rest of the room. Prussia caught his breath again in shock.

"The universe really does feel like screwing with me today, doesn't it," he muttered. He could practically hear it out there, giggling at him.

A majestic spread of deep black peppered with gleaming diamonds of unearthly light met his gaze. He stared at it, not entirely believing his eyes. The vast emptiness was right there, just outside the window that stretched across the entire side of the room.

Prussia shook his head. There it was. Space. He was in space.

"Why am I in space?" Prussia grumbled, feeling that nothing could possibly get weirder than it already was. His eyes searched the rest of the room, noting the tables and the bar that indicated that this was a mess hall of some sorts. He froze as he saw that he was not alone in the room after all.

The man-or alien, rather- that was crouched behind the bar was a riot of color in an almost garish suit and a long plume of feather-like hair running over his head. He held a frying pan with a determined scowl, looking thoroughly unintimidated by the nation's sudden entrance. Prussia's eyes fell behind the figure, and it was with a pang of surprise that he noticed just what the other man was protecting.

A pair of wide blue eyes peeked out from under the alien's arm. The young redheaded girl, looking around ten, stared at Prussia in fright. Prussia stared back, the warrior part in him going into instant survival mode. If he had a hostage, then it would be much easier to get around, and get out of wherever this was…

No. Prussia viciously squashed that repellent idea in his mind, angry at even considering it. What was he, one of those damn SS men? He would get out of this on his own terms.

There was a crunching noise from the door as it was forced open a few inches. Prussia snapped out of his reverie and promptly bolted for the door on the opposite side of the room. It swished open when he was still a few feet away from it, letting him through easily. He took the left and continued his flight to freedom.

Although now he was uncertain whether or not that was actually going to be a possibility for him.

It was very common for things on Voyager to get a bit slow. It was inevitable this far away from home. Sometimes it felt like they were never going to get any closer; and weeks and months would pass by uneventfully. Today, however, was not one of those days.

Captain Kathryn Janeway was very, very worried.

She tapped her console on the back of the bridge again, calling Engineering. Torres's familiar aggravated expression popped up on screen. Janeway nodded towards her.

"Lieutenant. Has anything changed at all?"

"No, not yet." Another engineer walked up and handed a PADD to Torres, which she quickly checked. "The force fields are still in place around all vital systems." The engineer's voice hit a particularly frustrated pitch. "I'm still not finding any evidence of him anywhere."

"Well, not finding anything is still better than finding him after he blows out an airlock or something." Paris chimed in wryly, looking up from where he was stationed. Janeway shook her head.

"It's been an hour and a half since the security detail completely lost sight of the intruder." Janeway turned, rubbing the back of her neck tiredly. She gestured a hand in exasperation. "Why hasn't he done anything yet? He could have caused immense damage by now, with his hiding in access conduits and Jefferies tubes." She sighed.

The main turbolift swooshed open, drawing most of the bridge staff's attention for a moment. Tuvok entered the bridge, his Vulcan mask looking even stonier than usual. At Janeway's question-laden look, he barely shook his head.

"My security teams have not found anything new evidence of the intruder's whereabouts." The Security Officer's voice was icily calm. A heavy silence filled the air.

"I think we might be going about this the wrong way." Chakotay spoke up. Janeway turned to her First Officer, eyebrow raised.

"What are you suggesting?" Janeway's tone made it clear that any suggestion would be welcome. Chakotay shifted on the spot, brow furrowed in thought as he crossed his arms across his chest.

"Well, for one thing, a lot of the facts don't add up." Chakotay spoke slowly, evidently turning the situation carefully over in his mind. "We have a temporal anomaly that yields an unknown humanoid on the Holodeck." He gestured in Paris's general direction. "But you didn't notice him. He blended in."

The attention of most of the bridge crew turned to Paris, who shifted uncomfortably under the sudden scrutiny. "Yeah, well…" He shrugged his shoulders in an absentminded gesture. "He acted completely in character for the time period. He was even speaking in German, although it didn't get translated a few times." He stopped, puzzled for a moment. "They knew him." Paris looked up, a new realization dawning on his face. "Chakotay is right, that doesn't add up. That level of genetic engineering wasn't around until the beginning of the 21st century! How could Beilschmidt have been around and known in the 1940's?"

"And that might be the reason that Beilschmidt hasn't done anything yet." Chakotay turned back to Janeway, posture serious. "Maybe he doesn't know how to." Janeway blinked. She shifted, crossing her arms in mild incredulity as she too thought that over.

"Are you suggesting that he's not an Augment?" Janeway asked. Chakotay sighed and glanced around.

"I don't know exactly what I'm suggesting," he admitted. "But it looks like he actually is from the World War Two time period."

"That is highly unlikely," Tuvok interjected. "The intruder has shown physical capabilities that were not available for that period of human development." Janeway nodded in agreement, recalling the ease in which Beilschmidt had thrown the Vulcan off of him.

"Maybe he's an earlier version of an Augment?" Paris suggested. "Homicidal psychopath 1.0?" Janeway mouth twitched upwards at that piece of dark humor before coming back to the problem at hand.

"Well, whatever Beilschmidt is, we need him contained, and to do that, we need to find him." Arms akimbo, she glanced out at the silent assembly of officers. "Any ideas?"

"Well, I don't know much about Earth history, but I do know that whatever section he's hiding in, it must be shielded because our internal sensors aren't picking anything up," Torres chimed in grumpily from the screen. "They aren't built for that kind of fine-tuned searching. The life signs are all mixed up. And he's obviously not wearing a communicator, so we can't track him that way."

"Wait, I have something that might work." Paris stood up, the beginnings of an idea glimmering in his eyes. "Maybe to catch a 20th century man, we need to think like a 20th century man." A pause filled the air.

"Explain," Tuvok inquired. Paris came up the ramp to the back of the bridge and peered into the screen Engineering was projected on.

"B'Elanna, do you think you could rig a low-frequency energy pulse to run through the ship?" Paris asked. Torres frowned, head tilted to the side as she contemplated the necessary adjustments and calculations in her head.

"Yeah, that shouldn't be too much trouble. I'll need a bit to modify the emitters, though. Why?"

"Mister Paris?" Janeway looked in askance to the Lieutenant. Paris a deep breath, a now-familiar signal to his friends and commanding officers that he was about to go on one of his Earth history rants.

"In the 20th century, since we didn't have anything of the same technology of our scanners, they relied on a primitive form of detection known as sonar, or radar, depending on what they were using. Sonar was used in submarine warfare and radar was in above ground conditions." Paris gestured ones of his hands in an exaggerated wave motion. "By using sound and normal space radio waves, they could detect moving objects when they bounced off them." There was a silence as those around him processed that.

"And you think that this will work inside Voyager?" Janeway asked, taking the unorthodox idea in stride. Paris paused as he thought it over.

"In theory, that just might," Torres interjected. She inputted a few modifications into her PADD and nodded at whatever answer she received. Glancing up, she grinned and shrugged. "We'll need to make some modifications to the internal sensors as well because they're not equipped to pick up that kind of pattern reading, but I think we may have just found an answer to our missing intruder problem."

"I can help with that," Chakotay said. Answering the unspoken question before it was voiced, he explained. "When… we were in the Badlands, we did something similar when our subspace communications couldn't cut through the interference." Janeway raised an eyebrow.

"Well, get on it, Commander." Janeway descended the slope on the bridge back to her chair. "Collaborate with Seven in Astrometrics." She settled back into the seat and nodded at the assembled officers. "I want this done as soon as possible, before our mysterious Mr. Beilschmidt decides to do something drastic."

"Yes, Captain."

The soft metallic clinking of Prussia's heels against the rungs of the ladder echoed around the cramped space of the maintenance shaft. Coming to a momentary halt, the nation slid off the narrow ladder into an adjacent tunnel. A quick crawl and hop later, he was in another room. The multiple tunnels splitting off gave the space a bigger feeling than its actual dimensions.

Prussia gingerly lowered himself to the floor, suppressing a wince as a wave of dizziness struck him at the motion. Sighing, he wearily rested his back against the side of the tunnel. The burst of adrenalin he had been running on in the beginning had worn off. Whatever he had gone through to get here, it had taken a toll on his body. Figuratively, Prussia was running on empty.

The nation grumbled under his breath, dragging a tired hand down his face in annoyance. How long had it been? Around two hours now, he thought. Two hours since everything familiar had been completely turned around. Prussia heaved a deep breath and set both hands down.

"Okay, so this is ridiculous." Prussia held up one finger. "First off, I have no idea where I actually am, but I am nowhere near Earth and I can't feel anyone." Another finger rose. "Also, I am on some strange ship swarming with crazy Americans." He was certain this was a ship now. The faint rumblings, the structural layout- it made sense. Prussia made a face. "Normally, I like Americans." Alfred was pretty okay, as nations went. Sure they had their unfortunate moments, (two world wars did that) but there no real animosity between the two of them. "But this technology is years of anything we have, and it came out of nowhere." A tense fist clenched in frustration. "How were you hiding this from the rest of us, America?"

The last question echoed around the tunnels. The walls did not answer. That was perfectly fine with Prussia. He sounded crazy enough talking to himself here…

"And then there's the aliens!" Prussia threw up his hands, and promptly winced as the shout rattled around uncomfortably in the confined space. "Why are there aliens?"

As the last smatterings of sound faded away, Prussia became aware of a new change in the atmosphere. He frowned, taking a moment to place what was changing. The rumblings were quickly fading, accompanied by a faint whistling sound that reminded him of a fighter plane diving in reverse, if that were possible. The ship was stopping. Wary of this new development, Prussia cautiously got to his feet. Change did not spell anything good for him. Maybe they had found a way to locate him?

Captain Janeway paced in front of her chair, hands behind her back. She watched the starscape on the main viewscreen gradually shorten as Voyager dropped back into normal space.

"Report."

Side by side with Chakotay in Astrometrics, Seven responded. "Astrometrics is ready, Captain."

Janeway nodded, tilting her head. "B'Elanna?"

"We're ready here too, Captain."

"Alright." Janeway looked around the bridge. Tuvok looked up from his station and met her gaze.

"The Doctor has informed me that the canisters are in place," the Vulcan Security Officer stated impartially. Janeway inclined her head in return and stood up straighter. She clasped her hands behind her back, spine professionally upright.

"Begin the scan."

Prussia was on the verge of beginning his climb back through the tunnel when he felt the barest shift in his senses. He froze, clinging to the ladder. There it was. The faint humming swelled and fell in a consistent wave pattern.

Prussia tilted his head, thinking furiously. That pattern was very familiar. Far too familiar. The uneasy feeling grew inside his chest. He had noticed this before, and the outcome had not been a pleasant one.

A quick memory of a dark, cold passage much like the one he was currently in flashed to the front of his mind. A different noise, but the same arrangement. Ping… ping… ping…

A great shuddering, screeching sound, and freezing water pouring in.

Oh, no.

"Captain, we are receiving a scan from the energy pulse." Seven's forehead creased ever-so-slightly in concentration as she watched her screen. Chakotay wordlessly modified the data as it came in.

Across the black screen, superimposed with an electric blue outline of Voyager's layout, the green wave representing the pulse sailed from one side to the other in a consistent fashion. All over the screen, small yellow blips, each representing a person, flickered like hundreds of tiny fireflies.

"Okay…" Chakotay typed in a new code before looking up at the former Borg drone. "Let's narrow the field to signs not registered with a communicator." Seven nodded, already working on it. A few tense seconds passed.

In the Jefferies tube, Prussia stayed completely still, barely daring to breathe. Sonar depended mostly on the movement of incoming objects, so maybe if he waited it out…?

In the aft section of the ship diagram, a new, red light flickered in warning. Seven immediately widened that section of the scan and narrowed the field down to the immediate vicinity of the signal change. There was the barest hint of satisfaction on her face as she confirmed the reading.

Glancing back over to Chakotay, she straightened up and tapped the arrow-shaped badge. "Captain, we believe we have found the intruder. Aft Jefferies tubes, floor 9, section C."

"Understood."

Back on the Bridge, Janeway pivoted, entire demeanor calm and business-like.

"Mr. Tuvok?" The Vulcan verified his response on the Science Station's console before replying.

"Engineering has informed me that the restriction force-fields are in place. The neurozine is ready to be released."

"Good. Do it." Janeway swung back around. "Have your security teams ready to secure Beilschmidt as soon as he's out in the open."

"Yes, Captain." With a nod to the waiting yellow and black clad men, Tuvok entered the turbolift.

The humming was abruptly cut off. Prussia didn't move from where he was, holding tightly onto the ladder. Had they given up?

A faint hissing sound blew that theory out the window.

Prussia whipped his head around, wide eyes searching for the source. Above him, a small vent was leaking an almost invisible gas. The nation swore harshly under his breath, coughing as the sickly sweet smell was drawn in with his inhale. The hazy effects of whatever chemical they were using was already encroaching on his senses, making the world around him flicker.

Prussia made a split second decision. He stepped backwards off the rungs and let gravity take hold.

"Whoa," Chakotay muttered. The red dot that was Beilschmidt had suddenly dropped almost 10 levels in a matter of seconds. Beside him, Seven was equally surprised, although she didn't show it past a slight eyebrow raise.

"He jumped," she concluded, rather unnecessarily. Turning immediately detached and professional again, she quickly moved the force fields to the surrounding levels. "He cannot go any lower, therefore this hallway"-Seven highlighted the area-"is his only escape route."

Chakotay shrugged in response. "Directing the neurozine to the new pathways… now."

The landing hurt like hell. Even though Prussia had held on to the sides of the ladder to slow his descent (giving him some painful burns across his fingers and palms), he was still practically falling full speed by the time he hit the bottom of the shaft.

He felt the fracture crack in his ankle, letting a burst of familiar fiery pain claw its way up his legs. They buckled upon impact, sending him sprawling onto the cold metal floor. Prussia groaned breathlessly, mind temporarily muddled with the combination of pain and lack of oxygen.

The approaching hissing sound reminded him of his current situation and he quickly scrambled to his feet again. Coughing, he bolted for the archway on his left. He would have to find somewhere else- but this was starting to get awfully difficult… He had made it out into a corridor again and was starting to pick up speed again when-

Prussia crashed into a barrier of nothing and was flung to the floor for the second time in the past minute.

The nation snarled with equal parts pain and ire. "Was?!"

He rolled back upright. Carefully, Prussia stuck both hands out, recoiling when a shimmering, tingling field of energy materialized at his touch. His eyes widened in astonishment. "Was ist das?!"

Whatever it was, it was blocking his way. Spinning around, Prussia made for the other direction, only to be stopped by the same translucent wall. The same situation was replicated twice more. He was stuck in this small intersection of corridors. And the gas was still coming in.

Breathing hard, Prussia slammed both fists into one of the walls, sending a ripple across its face. The wall didn't yield an inch. Frustrated, he took a few steps back and slammed his shoulder into it, suppressing a yelp as it accomplished nothing other than giving him a newly bruised shoulder and an uncomfortable pins and needles feeling.

The gas was starting to fog his vision. Prussia shook his head angrily, fighting to keep a clear mind. The smallest flickers of panic were starting to rise up in his chest. This was too similar, too soon.

Prussia wheezed with every breath he took. Through the fuzzy edges of his view, he dully noticed the familiar black and yellow clad figure just outside his trap. Shakily, he tried standing up straight in a last defiance, only to have his legs give out on him. He stumbled to his knees, still fighting the effects of the anesthesia with a stubbornness that everyone who had ever known him knew that he possessed in immense amounts.

The last thing he remembered was lying limp on the floor, plagued by memories of a place he had tried to forget.

Tuvok watched wordlessly; hand on phaser, as the white-haired intruder finally succumbed to the effects of the neurozine. Fascinating… Beilschmidt had clearly been fighting the anesthesia, if the concentrated look on his face had been anything to go by.

"Tuvok to the Astrometrics." Chakotay replied quickly.

"Go ahead, Tuvok."

The Vulcan appraised the still, blue-uniformed figure before answering.

"The intruder has been contained. It is safe to remove the force fields."

"Acknowledged. Dropping them now." After a few seconds, the sparkling barrier vanished with a high-pitched hum. Tuvok approached Beilschmidt and knelt beside him. Looking up, he nodded to Ensigns Wethers and Marks, who had accompanied him on the security detail. The blond security women nodded curtly in return, while Marks visibly relaxed.

Tuvok tapped his badge, internally the Vulcan equivalent of relieved that his job had been successfully carried out.

"Tuvok to Engineering. Two to beam directly to the brig."

German: Was ist das?- What is that? Or -What is this? I've been told it's flexible.

Gaaaaaaah. That was hard. Sorry it took so long. I actually know how this ends, so don't worry about me dropping this story. I WILL NOT.

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