Chapter Nine

Picard walked into the room housing the Stargate with great surprise. Security personnel were everywhere, all pointing phaser rifles towards the gate. He could hear someone talking beyond the wall of security officers.

"Please, I assure you there is no need for such hostility. I mean you no harm." The voice said. Obviously, nobody seemed to believe the individual. Jean-Luc took a bold step foreword and plowed through guards so that he could get a better view. What he saw intrigued him.

The figure that stood in front of the Stargate was transparent, and had no defining sex organs. It looked like a basic template of the human body, except almost completely clear. The figure had no eyes or mouth, but was obviously able to see and speak.

Picard leaned over to a lieutenant who was observing the ordeal. "What's going on?"

"The Stargate activated and he walked through. We are waiting on a specialist to get here, but so far you are the highest ranking officer to arrive." The lieutenant replied to his inquiry. Picard could tell that the being was frightened by the way it kept fidgeting, so he decided to take initiative. He pushed his way through the security officers and instructed them to lower their weapons.

"I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard representing the United Federation of Planets." He introduced himself to the being.

"I am of the Unekran. I was sent here to find out why your planet reactivated your Stargate." Picard frowned a bit.

"How did you know our gate was activated?"

"When a Stargate is unburied, it is immediately rejoined into the Stargate network. The Unekran monitor this network."

"Ah." Picard muttered, quickly running out of things to say. The being must have sensed it, as he looked around the crowded room at all the personnel.

"You are not computer based life." It blurted out the observation.

"We are carbon based. I am curious, are you a computer based life form?"

"The Unekran are computer life. Yes." It responded. "I bring my original question back, why did your people reactivate your Stargate?"

"We found it buried on this planet. We… we were not aware of its existence."

"Then you know not of the Stargate network? Of theYa'clkex or of the Vanretna Imperial Government?" It asked.

"I'm sorry, no." Jean-Luc replied. He suddenly realized space just got a whole lot smaller.

"Interesting. We will be in contact." It replied, and raised its hands rapidly. The security officers all raised their weapons in response.

Picard stepped back quickly. "Hold your fire!" He said as he backed away from the being. Without warning, all nine chevrons on the Stargate lit up, and locked. A huge burst of energy surged through the room, as a wall of rippling blue energy appeared in the ring. The being stepped through it and as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The gate deactivated, and all was silent.

--

Admiral Janeway sat beside Captain Picard in a briefing room at Starfleet Command.

"Your sure it said Vanretna Imperial Government?" She queried.

"Positive. It also mentioned something about the Ya'clkex. Do you know anything about either of them?" He replied, noticing the small hint curiosity in her voice. Janeway stood up, and walked to the window in the room, silent. After she stared out at the golden gate bridge for a moment, she turned around.

"Back in the Delta Quadrant, Voyager encountered a space station. We later found out it was a prison station whose cloak had failed - and it was housing a group of criminals of an advanced race called the Vanretna. When we boarded their space station, it set off an alarm and notified the Vanretna. An individual named Briken Dectran who traveled to our galaxy in his warship - the Voondrek, later visited usHe told us their empire was not even located here in the milky way."

"He was able to reach your location in a matter of days from a neighboring galaxy?" Jean-Luc asked, as he stood up to join her by the window.

"We can't even be sure about days. It could have been hours."

"That is incredible. Please, go on."

"That's about it. He told us we were not advanced enough for all the answers yet, and when our civilization was ready we would begin to know more."

"And that being that came through the gate knew about them. I wonder if the Vanretna are located within the Stargate network?" Jean-Luc wondered aloud.

"I wonder how large the Stargate network really is." Janeway countered him.

"It doesn't really matter. We have established that there are quite likely no more Stargates in our galaxy; we cannot risk sending people through the gate without a starship in range for backup purposes. We don't have any ships that could travel that distance that fast." Picard said quietly. He glanced over at Admiral Janeway, who was suddenly lost in thought. "Admiral?"

"Computer, privacy mode." She spoke softly.

-Security monitoring paused.

"That's not entirely true, Captain. What I am about to tell you does not leave this room, until otherwise authorized. Is that clear?"

"Of course." He replied, now intrigued.

"Upon Voyagers arrival back to earth, Seven of Nine begin working with Starfleet Propulsion to increase warp drive efficiency. What she ended up creating was an entirely new means of propulsion. You are familiar with Omega?"

"The Omega molecule? Yes."

"Well, they found a way to stabilize it."

Jean-Luc widened his eyes. "You're kidding. I thought that was impossible?"

"Well, so did everyone else. But they did it, and they designed a way to harness its energy to power a starship."

"That is incredible. How far in development is this new technology?"

"We already built a new ship."

Picard nearly choked. "You already built a ship with the new technology in it?"

"Completely dependent on Omega as its power source. The new propulsion will retire warp drives completely. You can literally get from one side of the galaxy to the other in just under eight days."

"Why that is incredible! Why is this news not widely known?"

"Security purposes. All sorts of reasons, really. We wanted to do several field tests to make sure it is reliable. If it all checks out, we will introduce the ship into the fleet and begin mass producing the drive."

"I know it isn't my place to ask, but I would love to see this vessel if possible." Picard pushed onward.

"I'm sure I can arrange something. In the mean time, your first officer told me the Enterprise got some pretty heavy scans of the area when the Stargate was activated. Go back to your ship and see what you can make of it."

--

So, if you are confused about the Vanretna Imperial Government, I am referencing a Voyager story that I wrote a while back ago. You can find it on entitled Infection

-

If anything is unclear please let me know, and reviews are always welcome!