With a flash of her warp engines, Voyager started the long journey into the Delta quadrant. On the bridge, the air was that of excitement. They had been patrolling the Ocampan system for the last six months, and the crew was anxious to be out exploring.

The destination planet for their first mission, was one from the joint federation and caretaker database. The planet was deemed to have life, possibly a pre-warp civilization which had some interesting energy readings.

Harry walked into the mess hall and looked around. He saw Tom and Harry Kim at a table eating and walked up to them. "Hey guys, What's good on the menu today?" he asked.

"I'm having tomato soup," Tom said. "Neelix has outdone himself today, it has some sort of spice in it that's out of this world."

Harry K smiled and poked Tom in the ribs. "Everything's out of this world, we're in space!"

"OK you two, wait right there," Potter chuckled as he walked off to get his food.

"Hey Neelix, Chell," Harry greeted the two voyager Chefs. "I hear the tomato soup is good."

"Yes, I took the liberty of changing it up with some Talaxian spices," Neelix proudly said.

Harry smiled amusedly, "And how are you liking your new assignment, crewman Chell?" he asked the blue Bolian.

"I'm enjoying it. I came into Starfleet to try and push real food back into the limelight, none of this bland replicated crap," he said passionately. "I'm just glad we have to save power for our mission out here so we have to cut down on replicator use."

"I'm must say, I'm enjoying it," harry said. "I grew up on real food, and while the replicator does make good approximations of food, I don't find it's anywhere near as good as real food. Well, the tomato soup does look good so I'll leave you both to it."

With that Harry carried his soup back to the table with Harry Kim and Tom in it. As he sat down, he got accosted by Harry Kim. "So, Harry, what's it like working for Starfleet intelligence? I've heard you have to train for over 5 years after your starfleet training just to get considered."

"I'm normally not allowed to say Ensign," Harry said as he sipped his soup "But the classification guidelines have been lifted a little for the duration of our mission. I'm -"

The ship shuddered causing all conversation in the mess hall to quieten. After a second or two, the crew began rushing to their duty stations. Harry, Harry and Tom made their way towards the main turbolift that was reserved for bridge officers. "All crew report to your duty stations," the captain's voice rang out over the comm. As he thumbed the button to open the turbolift Harry quipped "It's not like we didn't know we should go to our duty stations!" The other two chuckled as they followed Harry into the turbolift.

As they entered the bridge, Captain Janeway looked up from her computer readout. "Gentlemen, take your stations" she ordered.

As Ensign Kim got to his duty station, he looked at the readings. "Captain, it looks like we crashed through something," He said. "But there's no sensor data on what that something is."

"Thank you, Ensign," Janeway said. "Put us on our previous course Lieutenant Paris."

Harry looked over the sensor readings as the ship zoomed away from the point of impact with the unknown object, and knew something was wrong. He reached out with his aura and began to 'feel' the interdimensional energy around them. He pulled his aura back as he knew where Voyager was, and started searching frantically through the database for the last time this had been recorded. "Captain, I think we should come to an all-stop," he said as he sent the mission reports to her console. "As you can see, with these reports a starship came across this phenomenon a hundred years ago, and we lost the whole crew. It was pure luck we found them afterwards and were able to analyze their sensor readings."

"So what are we looking at Harry?" Commander Chakotay asked.

"We're looking at Voyager being trapped inside a quantum singularity. That shudder we felt before was the ship penetrating the event horizon and getting trapped inside. I suggest that we backtrack to find the entrance."

Ensign kim piped up, "I've found our warp trail readings and have fed them into your con station Tom."

"Following the course now," Paris said as he used the navigational data to follow Voyager's previous trail.

After a few minutes of following the warp trail they detected the opening and also a ship near the opening of the singularity.

"Hail them, Ensign," Kathryn ordered. The channel open sound beeped. "This is captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. You are trapped inside a quantum singularity. Do you require assistance?"

After a moment or two they received a reply. "thi... cap…way...ship.. ger...ass…"

"Can we clear up the reply?" The Captain asked Ensign Kim. "Attempting now," He said as he typed in commands on his console. The message played back and was slightly less garbled than before.

"Lieutenant Torres, what do you think?" Janeway asked.

"If I work with Commander Potter I believe we can set up a localised dampening field around the sensor array," the human-klingon hybrid said.

"Go ahead," the captain said, and the two started working, crowding around B'elanna's console conversing away with techno babble.

After a few minutes Harry signalled to ensign Kim to try again, and as they listened they heard the captain's initial hail.

"Ensign Kim, can you magnify that ship on screen now," Harry asked, looking towards the main viewer. He watched as Voyager came into focus, with a large purple and blue pulsating rip in space next to it.

"Captain, we have to get out of here now," he said as the screen showed the rift closing.

Harry threw himself at the seat of his console, fingers flying over the screen as he furiously typed. "Tom, I'm sending you coordinates now," he said urgently.

"B'elanna, modify the shields to the following modulation and expand the coverage to make the front pointed," as Voyager rushed towards the opening.

From outside the anomaly, in normal space Voyager burst into existence, the shield shimmering angrily. The nose of the shield, normally spherical, glowing like it was suffering from reentry.

Inside the ship it was finally calm again.

"All readings good Captain, we are back in normal space," Ensign Kim stated as the bridge sighed in relief.

Curious eyes now point to agent Potter as he furiously typed away on his console. "Captain, I am releasing a probe to warn people about the anomaly. It will scan the singularity to find the borders and embed itself in the nearest system's star using the shields that enterprise D was able to test when hiding from the Borg within another star. If detected it will self-destruct."

Captain Janeway nodded, lips set together as she regarded Harry in another light.

"Captain, I also need to request a meeting with the senior staff at a suitable time to discuss this. As of this moment you are all sectioned under special order 31 and you cannot discuss this with anyone nor enter this into the ship's logs. I'm sorry Captain," Harry said, looking right at her with his piercing green eyes, "But I'm under orders here which I will explain to you and the senior staff." He looked around the bridge, feeling gazes ranging from cool (Tuvok) to incredulous (Kim) to impressed (Paris). The captain and Chakotay looked at him as if under a new light, sizing him up. B'elanna just looked amused at the whole thing.

"Captain, I need to leave to prepare for this meeting. Permission to depart from the bridge," Harry stated formally, looking at Kathryn.

"Permission granted."

With that, he exited the bridge and headed for his lab.

o~o~o

Later that day...

"Thank you all for coming" Harry said while looking around at the senior staff in the meeting room.

"I'm sure you are wondering about special order 31 and the repercussions. I know many of you looked this order up only to find that the contents of the order itself is classified. I know it's a little unorthodox but I'd like for you all to tell me what you know before I get to explaining."

"From what I heard," Tom said as he leaned forward conspiratorially. "Order 31 only happens when interesting things start happening. It's used to keep captains and crews quiet about new and exciting technologies and information coming to light."

"That's similar to what I heard," Ensign Kim stated, "the rumors are that there's a secretive part of the federation, an organization behind the organization which runs everything. Nobody's been able to get a name though."

"I got a name, funnily enough where the order gets its number - it's from a department of the federation called Section 31," B'Elanna said, looking satisfied. "I also figured since you're asking Harry that you're not just part of starfleet intelligence then?"

"Are you a part of this rogue organization Agent Potter?" Captain Janeway asked, her face impassive. Chakotay looked on, curiously.

"Before I answer that, I need to let you know all of your clearance levels have been updated to Omega level," Harry said, sliding the pads that were in a neat pile in front of him to each member of the senior staff.

"Yes Captain, that includes that information," He said as he saw the shocked expression on her face appear. "Although they won't get that particular information yet, they are cleared for it now"

"So what you have here in front of you is a basic rundown of Special Order 31. You won't be able to show anyone, you won't be able to interface the information on your padds to the computer systems, you won't even be able to take photos of it. It's protected by a very advanced AI which is also part of every system in Voyager. This has been done to protect this information. It can't get out until we are ready for it to."

"The organisation I work for is called Section 31. We have existed for well over a millennia in one form or another, and were there for the founding of the federation. We are there as the protective overwatch over the Federation, working to assist in expansion, wars and peace efforts as well as technology growth, espionage, anything really to help the federation remain stable and prosperous."

"My race of people started out on earth, in the same way as humans did. At some point in the evolutionary process a gene mutation caused the ability to access higher dimensions. Through this access comes powers and abilities. My kind were called wizards and witches. Now we are simply known as magicians. What we can do is similar to the Q - we shape the universe around us according to our wills."

"Perhaps a small demonstration is in order here," he said as he looked at the disbelieving faces around the table.

With no discernable movement or anything on Harry's part, the table started turning into a tree, its thin trunk providing no obstacle to the view of the changing room. Roots wove themselves around all of the chairs, and the tree grew towards the ceiling, hitting it and growing out towards the corners. Vines grew up the walls and flowers popped out intermittently. As leaves began to fall from the tree they turned into butterflies, and glowworms. water started to pool around the base of the tree and its mirror like surface reflected the new stars that were shown above the tree as the ceiling turned into nothingness.

"That is but a small fraction of what I can do," Harry smiled, looking around the room at his colleagues. "Doctor, hand the captain your medical tricorder." He ordered, and the Doctor passed her the object for her to open it and start scanning.

"Doctor, you've seen this before, what do you think of it this time?" Harry asked the doctor as new shock showed on the faces of the senior staff.

"Yes, thanks Harry" he said, smirking a little. "It was nice to see someone see this for the first time. My creator Lewis Zimmerman was a magician, so when was activated for the first time I got treated to a similar display from Harry here, but everything was new, not just magic. It's great to see this sort of thing again - I have a sort of limited magical ability but it's to do with spells, not will applications like this."

"It's real!" Heads turned to the Captain as she looked amazed at the Tricorder the Doctor handed to her. "How can it be real?" She looked at Harry, amazed, and handed the tricorder around the room. There was silence from the staff as they took turns crowding around the tricorder, necks craning to see the readings.

"This is the purest form of magic, and the one that takes the longest to master. Around half of all magicians won't be able to do this, or will only be able to do a small part of it. Most can only do spells. There are a few which are magical but can't tap into the higher dimensions properly who can see magical places and wards, can use magical objects, but can do little magic themselves. Magic exists in a bell curve just like intelligence across normal humans."

"Also," Harry said, looking around, "Wizards can be born to non-wizarding families depending on their parent's genes - the mutation required for this is still happening in the human race, and is slowly happening more frequently. It's enough so that in a few hundred thousand years, all humans will be magical."

"That's quite a lot to take in, so I will take questions now. Oh, also before I forget. Normally you shouldn't be able to discuss this with people not in the know however there's been a breakthrough recently on the secrecy spell which we have to use a lot. It's placement on this ship means you can talk about this to each other and anyone who overhears conversations between you all will make up what you're saying in their heads."

"So, any questions?"

With that, the room exploded into noise.

o~o~o

Harry laughed, booming chuckles out of his lopsided grin as he regarded everyone "Ok, ok you can stop now!" he breathed out as the rest of them fell silent. "One at a time. Harry?"

"How could you do all of this? It defies the laws of physics?" he was almost hyperventilating "What are you?"

"I just told you Harry. I'm a wizard. As for how it's possible, I take the energy from higher planes of existence, like those the Q live on and even beyond, and use that to fabricate items, plants, beings and whatever with my will." Harry looked pensive, and his eyes unfocused.

"One thing that may help you understand is that the reason why a direct application of will is difficult for most wizards is because you're using your brain to make a pattern of matter that doesn't have a spell matrix already created. With a direct spell the spell matrix is already in the correct dimension, and it just needs a word, phrase or application of will to activate it. The wizard's power opens a small fissure allowing some energy to leak out of the higher dimension through the spell matrix which then performs the effect. Sort of like a computer algorithm."

"When using direct will you're not only opening the fissure, you're also creating the spell matrix or matrices in order to direct the energy into the correct form. In some cases this uses the energy to create matter, in others it uses energy to create movement. There are numerous applications. And depending on the wizard's control and power they can open greater and greater fissures and depending on their mind they can make more and more complicated spell matrices. It's why beings like the Q are so powerful, they have had milenina to perfect their control and increase their power."

"So just how powerful are you then? In comparison to the Q I mean?" B'Elanna asked, looking curiously at Harry with something akin to a pleased look on her face.

"I've never come up against one," Harry said, "so there's really no way to tell - however I definitely don't have their eons of experience, simply a measly 500 years."

That announcement caused the members of the room to look around at each other disbelievingly. "Harry," Chakotay started, "Your record stated you were only 28."

"Yeah, that's always necessary. Enter in code HarryPotterIs500 under my personnel file and you'll be able to see certain things like my unclassified service record which covers most of my life. Through the judicious use of charms to spell people to secrecy people don't question my service record always showing me as a 28 year prodigy. It makes it easier to get me onboard whichever ship or place I need to be for my assignments."

The senior staff all entered the code in on their padds, some of whom had their device passed back to them by a moving vine, turned into a hand.

After some moments of silence Tuvok looked up and frowned. "Agent Potter, it states here that your birth date is 1981, however it's currently 2371. That means you should only be 390. Why are you so much older?"

"Aah, that's what time travel does Tuvok" Harry laughed "Many years spent in time dilation or as part of the temporal bureau or just plain simple dimensional or time travel gave me a lot of extra years."

"Mr Potter," Captain Janeway looked up at him, "I don't understand why you ever told us this? From what you said there's no real reason to reveal this to us."

"Well it's quite simple Captain," the ancient mage said. "I was trying to keep a low profile here. After the caretaker was cured and we got the technology to travel vast distances my orders have changed. Once command realized that we could quite possibly explore both new quadrants - between us and Deep Space Nine - they ordered me to not keep as low of a profile."

"There's also the matter that three hundred and ninety years after my birth the wizards are finally ready to come out to the universe as a whole. There's been a lot of fear about this over the years, but given the Vulcan's mind magic and the Q and the galaxy's general acceptance - and the fact we have wizards everywhere now - they feel a little safer about coming out in the near future."

"What do you mean they have wizards everywhere?" Tom asked, pointing his padd at Harry.

"What I mean is that considering that education has been keeping the dark wizarding population down and there are checks and balances put in place with the wizarding leadership so that it can't get too corrupt there's been a population boom of massive proportions in the last few centuries. It's enough that we have wizarding colonies on every federation world. We have officers on every Starship, not through espionage or anything!" He said to their concerned looks "It's through them going through the academy like normal people. We wanted to reassure people we could do the same things as them, which includes service in Starfleet."

Here Harry looked at the staff, "I'm sure all of you think being in Starfleet is an excellent way of serving the Federation, and its citizens, that's all my people are doing is showing that we can serve in the same way as all of you."

"We have already come out to the Starfleet and Federation leadership which went well otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. They've said they'd like for some time to get the senior officers in starfleet, and local leaders and governments up to speed first before releasing this information to the rest of Starfleet and the Federation."

"What you've said is backed up by the information on this padd Agent," Captain Janeway said. "What I don't understand is why aren't you in a larger leadership position, like say the captain of this ship rather than its intelligence officer?"

"I have found through my long life that it's much better to be a leader of a small group rather than a large one Captain. Power corrupts, and i've taken out my fair share of Evil governments and individuals and that's just not the life for me." He ran his hand through his hair, looking right into Katherine's eyes. "There are a lot more reasons, such as it would be a lot more threatening if I was the captain of a ship coming out to you all rather than just another officer coming out to their crewmates."

"The position of leadership of a large group has never been my goal anyway. People have so much to offer. If I was a leader for my whole life then how would others be able to step up?"

He looked at Tuvok "Would it be logical to deny people the opportunity to be the best they can be? If I was always in charge everyone would get used to relying on me for help. That's fine in the short term, but in the long term it's not good - for them or for me."

"I understand your logic Agent" Tuvok stated. "If you however help us here in our mission won't we become reliant on you and your skills as well?"

"When I help I am training people, Tuvok. Section 31, the wizarding leadership has determined that the Ocampa are a people who have the ability to wield this power in the same way as we do, and they all have a lot of potential. I realized that when I saw the Ocampa for the first time, and the wizarding world have been helping them realize their powers over the last 6 months as we've been touring the system."

"With them, and other wizard agents on board, when I leave Voyager it will be with people capable of solving any of the problems I could. The wizarding world does know how to contact me if there's an emergency and nothing can be done to solve it - it's part of my job as a Hero to help people in need of course!" With that, Harry's eyes shone, and the others heard the determination in his voice.

"I think I'll leave it there if you don't mind," Harry said, and the forest in the room started to wilt and die, the leaves, branches and the butterflies falling to the ground and decomposing, all ending up as dust which swirled into the center of the room and turned back into the conference table.

"Ayala to the Captain," a male voice buzzed through the communicators. "We are approaching the system."

"On our way," Janeway stated, as the senior staff departed the conference room directly onto the bridge.

o~o~o

If you were orbiting the planet, you'd see a streak of light approach, and Voyager emerge from the lines of light as she dropped out of warp above the green and blue planet below.

"On screen," Kathryn ordered and Ensign Kim put the image of the planet up on the main viewer. It showed a mix of greenery and industrial lines crisscrossing the continents, white clouds swirling around, no pollution, a picture of an advanced species and a clean planet.

"Ensign, scan the planet, what can you tell me about their energy source?" the Captain said as she looked at the planet.

"It's Polaric energy captain, a very unstable form of plasma that is nonetheless very efficient at generating and transporting power. It generates levels of radiation that are detectable, but not harmful to humanoid life. It looks like that's what our long term scans had picked up."

The turbolift opened and Kes came out. The young female Ocampan had not changed much in the 6 months they had been in the Caretaker's system, however she carried herself now with a surety, as if on a mission.

"Captain, may I speak to you," Kes spoke, looking at the Captain with intense blue eyes.

"Of course Kes,"

"I had a vision that the planet below was destroyed by an explosion. It was horrible, thousands of people crying out in help, we have to help them!" Kes pleaded with the captain.

"I, uhh" The captain looked around the room, eyes finally landing on Harry. "Harry, can you tell if this is true?" she asked. He nodded and stood up. "Kes, come here," he said.

She walked over and he pulled her into a hug. "Are you able to show me what you saw?" He asked, looking down at her in his arms. She nodded, looking up at him. He felt a presence at his mind barriers, and let her in to show her vision.

Images of the planet below and the people walking around, a marketplace that was wiped clean, bodies dissolving in the energy released in the catastrophe. Burning rubble, and a planet uninhabitable and uninhabited afterwards.

Harry cut the vision off once he'd seen enough.

He released Kes, and spoke. "Captain, I know what this is. As I said in the meeting, Kes's people are the closest to us and their abilities may even exceed ours in certain areas. Kes's people are more sensitive to alternate timelines than ours, even though most of them haven't begun to tap into their powers."

"What she saw was a bootstrapped timeline that fizzled out where there was an explosion on the planet, Voyager investigated, crewmembers got caught in the past, and by getting them back we caused the explosion on the planet."

"How could you know that?" Kes asked, looking curiously up at him, "All I saw was death, no more."

"When you gave me your visions it came with the resonance frequency of the sub-dimension you experienced the vision from. As I told you my people, and especially me are experts in dimensional manipulation of all sorts, so while you gave me the memories I went there and lived it out to see what happened"

"OK, so we've established the veracity of Kes's claims" Tuvok stated "So logically we should leave this place so that we don't cause the very catastrophe that Kes warned us about."

"Captain, may I please have a meeting with you and commander Chakotay in your ready room?" Harry asked, gesturing towards the captain's room.

Chakotay and Janeway looked at each other and silently walked into the ready room.

"Agent, I hope there's a good reason for pulling us off the bridge like this," the Captain said as she gave looked at him impassively, possibly trying to divine the reasons he had. Chakotay simply stood there hands clasped in front of him as he regarded the wizard with a small look of amusement on his face, as if he knew what was coming.

"Captain. Yes. There is."

"The commanders of Section 31 and Starfleet are considering rescinding the prime directive in cases like this, where the planet could be in danger from some technology an alien species is developing, or has developed."

The captain looked at him in shock. "But that goes against the very principles of Starfleet-"

"Captain." Harry interrupted, with a sad look on his face as he sat on the steps. He looked very old as he looked up at her imploringly as he said "as a woman raised in the sciences, you know of the scientific method don't you?"

"Of course" indignation spewed from the captain as she responded.

"If a scientific theory has been proven false by evidence then the new reigning theory is the new fact, correct?"

"Yes, but I still don't see how this relates to Starfleet-"

"Starfleet has been growing stagnant, and complicit in numerous atrocities relating to multiple species in the time it has operated. The most recent of which is the Bajoran situation. Do you think it's morally right" Harry's eyes blazed as he looked at the Captain and Chakotay "to sit by and do nothing while an entire people suffer under the rule of an oppressive people? Starfleet should have gone to war to defend the Bajoran people, and forced the Cardassians to withdraw. Doing nothing meant Starfleet was complicit in the occupation Captain. The new theory had yet to effect the old theory, too many people had too much riding on the prime directive to give it up."

"I've heard of the Bajoran situation of course, but we didn't know about it until the withdrawing of the occupation right?" Chakotay asked, looking concerned as he looked between Harry and Kathryn.

Harry sighed and looked down.

"Unfortunately that isn't the case. Starfleet intelligence along with Section 31 knew of the situation, and tried to present this to the Starfleet leadership getting them to interfere, to declare war on the Cardassians, or at the very least to attempt to broker a treaty with them. They even attempted to get the Federation leadership "

"But I don't understand Harry," Chakotay said "Starfleet defended the border colonies along the Cardassian borders when they tried to seize them, then when they later tried to grab them in a peace treaty. Surely at the same time they were defending their borders and signing treaties they would have tried to peacefully resolve the Bajoran occupation."

"Certain politicians" Harry sneered "were still dragging their heels on repealing the prime directive. It was only after the Cardassians unexpectedly withdrew from Bajor that we sent in relief efforts - led by Commander Sisko if you remember Captain" Harry said looking up at her. They had stopped at Deep Space Nine before departing.

She nodded, looking troubled "Yes, I remember the Commander. So what led Starfleet to consider repealing General Order One? And why haven't I heard about it yet?"

"When Starfleet went into Bajor to assist they found essentially a dying world. The Cardassians had raped the land and the people for sixty years, and if we had only given as much assistance as we could normally in that situation because of our non-interference policy they would have gone through much hardship for many years to come. The Federation and Starfleet leadership sat down with Section 31 to consider options. What they came up with is what's happening now."

"Part of the reason why I gave you so much background about myself and Section 31 Captain, is so that when you type in password GeneralOrder into your mission brief about the exploration of the Delta Quadrant, you would believe the order that will come up."

The captain looked at him, then walked behind her desk immediately. Sitting down, she pulled her terminal towards her and typed rapidly. Her eyes widened as she read what was on the screen, and turned the terminal towards Chakotay, looking up at him as he begun to read, then at Harry.

"The Prime Directive, also known as General Order One has been rescinded. Instead, the circumstances for interference or assistance must be judged at the time by an informed party. All incidences of this will be reviewed by a joint Federation, Starfleet and Section 31 panel, spelled to be fair by the wizards. They will decide if the actions were just."

"The assistance we have provided Bajor under the watchful eye of Commander Sisko and his first officer, Kira Nerys, a Bajoran, is things like providing them industrial replicators, weather control plants, soil reclamators to rejuvenate their ruined soil. On the wizarding side we have provided them with psychiatrists, botanists and doctors, all trained in both the normal way and the wizarding way of doing things."

"This is a damaged people and world Captain" Harry said. "Our psychiatrists can use spells and potions that assist in the curing of the mind. Trauma after being essentially in chains for sixty years is no small feat to overcome. That's why we're doing this, it's to help people like them that would have had to struggle before. This way at least they know they have someone out there to help them."

Harry looked straight into Janeway's eyes. "Being forged in the fires of pain and suffering, struggle and torment is not a way to live your life Captain, and I should know. If people are able to offer a way away from the struggle then they should, so that those they help can help others."

There was a few moments silence as the three of them reflected on the conversation. Harry looked around the spacious office wondering how many important talks like this would end up taking place in this room while he was here, and how many after besides.

"Given our new orders, and Mr Potter's impassioned talk, I'd say we have a job to do, Gentlemen" the Captain said as she stood up and walked to the door. "Coming?" She said with a smirk. Harry smoothly got to his feet and grinned as he followed her and Chakotay to the bridge.

"Ensign," Janeway said looking towards Kim "you have been scanning the planet, correct?"

"Yes ma'am, scans show a pre-warp planet. They do have a communications cluster that operates in subspace, and they have active sensors that we've been avoiding."

"Stop avoiding them" she ordered. "It's time to introduce ourselves to these people."

"Captain, might I remind you that this violates the prime directive?" Tuvok asked, a slight confused look on his face.

"The prime directive has been revoked. Instead a new policy put in place that it's up to the judgement of people knowledgeable of the local situation whether to interfere or assist in matters."

"Indeed" Tuvok stated, a surprised look on his face.

"Open hailing frequencies Mr Kim"

"Hailing frequencies open."

"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway aboard the starship Voyager, orbiting your planet. We come in peace."

After a beat or two the viewscreen turned on, and a man's image was displayed on the screen. He was an older man, with greying hair around his temples. He showed surprise as he regarded the bridge crew through the communication.

"Welcome to Tellor!" he exclaimed. "I must say you put the people here into a panic when we detected you amongst our satellites. How is it that you know our language? And why do you look like us?"

"We have a device which translates all languages into the user's primary language. We don't speak your language, it's just our technology. As for why we look like you, we don't know. We've only just arrived in this system."

Commander Chakotay stood up "Would you like to come on board for a meeting? We have a medical bay which can answer some of our questions about each other."

"That would be fantastic. My name is Jerran. How are you going to get me on board your ship?" he tilted his head as he regarded them.

"We have transporters which can instantly beam you up onto our ship"

His eyes widened in shock "You really do come from beyond the stars."

o~o~o

"Captain," Jerran said after he appeared in a swirling vortex of blue and white light along with one man and woman. "Greetings. That was quite the experience."

"Yes, it does take some getting used to. This is my first officer, Commander Chakotay, my chief of security Lieutenant Tuvok and my Chief intelligence officer, Agent Potter." she said, gesturing to each of the men respectively.

"I have brought my space minister, Ny Terla," he pointed to the man first "and security minister Ash" he said pointing out the woman with the long flat black hair.

"Pleased to meet you all" Janeway demurred as she pointed to the door to the transporter room. "Shall we? Sick bay is this way."

"Of course" Jerran said as they exited the room.

They walked in silence for a few moments, the guests heads on swivels as they walked around.

"It's quite an impressive ship you have here" Ash said. "How large is it and how many crew do you have?"

"We have fifteen decks, and 160 crew members" Chakotay said. "This vessel is designed for long term space missions and to literally support itself. It can perform self-repairs and even do things like repair other ships."

"That sounds like a massive advantage in space" Ash said. We haven't got there with ships this impressive, it takes too long to travel between systems. How long have you been travelling?"

"It took us three days to get here from our origin star system" Chakotay said, to the people's look of shock.

"How? It takes us 10 days to get to our nearest planet. We expected you to have been travelling for years and years to get here." Ny demanded, a serious look on his face. "The light speed barrier would mean the time dilation alone would be immense."

"We have achieved this through a technology called warp drives which folds space in front of our ship in order to break the light speed barrier without the time dilation." Janeway said, looking at Ny with respect as she recognised a fellow scientist.

"Here is sickbay" Tuvok stated as he gestured at the doors. They entered to see the Doctor waiting.

"Greetings, it's a great honour to meet you," the doctor smiled "my name is Joe, and I'll be your Doctor today."

"The doctor is a sentient hologram," Harry mentioned as Joe shook hands with all the party members.

"What's a hologram?" Ash said, looking intently at the Doctor.

"It's a combination of holograms and force fields to project the image of a regular person, while actually being a machine inside, algorithms and subroutines make up the Doctor's personality"

"And quite a personality it is too" the Doctor beamed at the greeting party. "Would you like to step this way please so I can perform scans on you all. Then we can get to the bottom of this mystery of why we all look the same."

The 7 of them trooped over to the large biobed at the end of the room. "If one of you would, could you please lie on the biobed?" Joe asked.

Ash volunteered and was soon being scanned by the biobed. A holographic version of her soon appeared standing next to the biobed. "And if you would, Captain" Joe asked politely. The Captain lied down and soon a holographic version of her joined Ash's one.

The Doctor gestured at the models and they overlayed each other. Red and green parts soon began to appear and the holograph exploded, to the delight of the guests. A veritable spread of parts began to arrange themselves in a manner only discernable to the Doctor and Harry, with a DNA comparison showing down the very bottom.

"OK, so the analysis has been completed" Joe said, turning to the members of the boarding party. "Similarities show you are 85% similar to us. There have been some interesting modifications, notably to your hair, eye and skin colour. It seems there is a more limited choice in those compared to us. Genetically you are compatible with us, however your immune systems are much weaker, I guess your viruses and bacteria aren't as persistent as ours."

"Given how closely you are related I'd say your people were abducted from our planet probably around 100,000 years ago and resettled here. I would need to run more scans to make sure but there you go."

"Interesting, thank you for that" Jerran said as he looked at his companions with an unreadable look on his face.

"Jerran, there is something else we need to discuss." Jerran looked at the Captain expectantly. "The power source you are using on your planet is quite dangerous, and we would like to offer an alternative."

Ny's eyes widened significantly, a look that did not go un-noticed by the Voyager contingent. "What do you mean?" Jerran blustered "Polaric energy is perfectly safe, there have been a number of studies done on the matter and they all proved its safety."

"That's incorrect Jerran and you know it" Ny said firmly. Those studies were paid for by the energy institute. Our scientific studies showed the danger, especially with the conduits providing a means of disaster if anything went wrong at the stations."

"That's exactly it minister," Harry said. "One of our crewmembers has a power that shows her alternate timelines, and in one of those your planet was destroyed to an accident at one of your power plants." Harry left out the part where Voyager was the one who caused the explosion.

"Your entire planet was destroyed, because of those very conduits. We can provide a reactor technology that is safe from explosion, developed over the last 200 years to be able to provide planetary wide power. We use it ourselves on our home planet."

Ash looked at them suspiciously "Why are you doing this, what do you have to gain from it? I know I wouldn't just give away that technology."

"We are willing to give you the reactor technology and help you install it and provide instructions on its maintenance, as well as how to contact our people if anything goes wrong." The Captain said. "As for why we're doing this, we don't consider it morally right to fly past your planet knowing you are living on a knife's edge in regards to your survival."

Jerran started "We have to consider this, you understand. This is bigger than all of us, this technology could bankrupt the entire power sector."

"We understand," Janeway said. How about we escort you back to the transporter room and you can contact us with your consensus.

"That would be agreeable Captain." Here Jerran paused. "I will talk to you soon."

They went back to the transporter room without incident, and the party beamed back to the surface.

"Captain, thank you for offering this to them." Harry smiled. "Even if they don't take our offer at least we offered. If they die because of their power generators it will be a tragedy but at least we didn't do nothing."

"Mr Potter, how far should I go with this newfound freedom? We could contact the entire planet and release information about how their polaric energy is dangerous. We could beam up their entire generator system and replace it without them being able to do anything as we bunker behind our shields. How far should I go here?"

"I believe this is part of why the prime directive existed in the first place," Tuvok said. "I understand the logic of having these looser guidelines so we can provide assistance in cases like this, but it's troubling having this much power over an entire species."

"That's why good people get into command," Chakotay replied quietly. "Without people to temper decisions they can easily get out of control. It's by listening to each other and other's opinions that we temper our actions."

"Well said Commander" Kathryn said. "I hope they take us on our offer but it's their decision, their path to take.

The four of them left for the bridge, thinking about the ramifications of their decision today.

o~o~o

"Captain, we're being hailed from the surface" Ensign kim announced.

Janeway looked at Chakotay and said "On Screen".

Jerran's face filled the screen, a stony look on his face. "Captain, thanks for your offer, but we're going to decline. The vote was heavily against this decision, the people don't trust you or your intentions."

"We understand Jerran," Katherine said, "are you open to allowing diplomats to visit you to open a dialog between our peoples?" she asked, looking hopefully at him.

"Yes, we will do that" Jerran replied. "Maybe your continued presence here will change some minds about the decision. We will see."

"Have a safe journey Voyager. I am sorry our answer wasn't different."

"One of our peoples have a saying Jerran, live long and prosper. Voyager out."

The viewscreen shut off leaving the view of the planet below. Looking at it Katherine couldn't help but see it as a grenade of a planet, a ticking time bomb.

Later in Janeway's ready room.

"Captain's log, supplemental. The Tellors refused our help, and I don't blame them, my diplomacy wasn't enough to convince them of the urgency for replacing their power systems. I should have spent more time gaining their trust before telling them that."

She smiled wryly "I guess this is why we have diplomacy teams who spent months and years getting to know people on planets".

She looked out of the window, sipping her coffee.

"I hope that our failure to persuade them doesn't cost lives in the future. Time will tell to see how our interaction affected their lives." The Captain announced, looking pensive. "It would have been easier to justify moving on without helping them with the prime directive, but that can't be done any more. We have stepped beyond the hard plains of certainty into the murky waters of the unknown."

"Whether it is a step down into the abyss or a step up to enlightenment remains to be seen."

A/N: Thanks for the reviews everyone who reviewed chapter 1. Let me know what you think of this one.