"Captain, I'm picking up interesting readings 1 million kilometers starboard" HK said, looking at his console.
"What sort of interesting readings Ensign?" Janeway asked, looking over at him.
"It looks like some sort of subspace eddy, perhaps a wormhole."
"Lieutenant Paris, change course to get us within short range sensor abilities," She ordered, "HK, Harry, start running active scans of the phenomenon."
"Captain, we are in position," Paris said a few moments later.
"My scans are complete, it shows some interesting results," Harry said, "It's definitely a wormhole, however there's a temporal aspect to it."
"Can we at least know where it leads before we pass it onto Starfleet?" Janeway looked at Harry, curiosity in her eyes.
"Of course. Potter to Kes, please report to the bridge."
"You're calling in Kes for this?" Tuvok said, "I thought your scanners would have been able to tell us about this wormhole."
"They can tell us it goes into the past, however I would rather us not mess with the space-time continuum as much as we can."
The turbolift doors swished open and Kes stepped out in a Starfleet science uniform, she walked down towards Harry, and sat down on the seat next to him.
"Kes, we have a temporal element to the wormhole. I need you to look into other realities to see where this leads to."
Kes's eyes closed, the bridge crew looking on expectantly. After a few moments she opened them, looking at the Captain.
"It leads into the past, approximately 20 years. We would have come into contact with a Romulan vessel. Interestingly, in this alternate timeline half of the crew were called Maquis, some sort of resistance fighters and the crew were forced to work together. Chakotay was their leader," she looked pointedly at Harry.
He took over. "We've seen this before while exploring alternate realities with Kes Captain, there seems to be one dominant alternate reality she can tap into which doesn't have any wizards, and Voyager is trapped in the delta quadrant instead of in this reality where we have a way both forward and back."
"That's fascinating. Is there any way we can contact them? Have we learned anything from them?" Chakotay asked, leaning forward.
"In that reality Voyager was flung into the Delta quadrant by accident, not by design. They were chasing some freedom fighters called the Maquis into the Badlands. The freedom fighters were federation citizens who were fighting the Cardassians after a treaty put their colonies on the wrong side of the border." Kes said.
"Unlike here, where the Federation had wizarding input towards their laws and ideals," Harry picked up, "in that reality they abandoned the colonies across the Cardassian border. This lead to a lot of strife in that area, leading to the formation of the Maquis, a splinter group of Federation and Starfleet citizens dedicated to freedom of their colonies from Cardassian rule. Apart from that, interestingly a lot of other events in history played out the same, or very similarly. It's like there's some sort of cosmic rubber band, pulling realities on the same path, it's something my people are looking into in conjunction with Starfleet and the Ocampans."
"In that reality, Voyager," Kes started, "has no contact with Starfleet, they had to destroy the Caretaker's array so it didn't fall into the Kazon's hands, and they were unable to cure him. In that reality he was dying of old age, and not radiation poisoning like in ours. The Maquis and Voyager crew joined up to travel back to earth, a 70,000 light year journey."
"It's a fantastic power, but it has its limitations like mine, Captain." Harry said. "She can only see into the immediate present, which includes a little of the past and future but not much. That's why we aren't really able to warn of much more than what may happen immediately."
"I think in time Kes may be able to inhabit more than one reality at the same time. Perhaps even get the ability to do more than just view what happens there. Really, the Ocampan's powers are different to ours in a way we've never encountered before."
"Fascinating." Tuvok said.
Outside of Voyager there was a shimmering of space, and a vessel emerged from the background. It was a sleek ship, spear shaped, with the typical nacelles on the rear of the spear head."
"Red Alert!" Janeway said as she saw the ship decloak on screen. "Shields up."
The bridge was awash in the red light of the alert and the noise of the sirens washed over everyone before it pulled itself back down to background noise.
"Report." Janeway barked out.
"Captain, the power output from the vessel is massive," HK said, "It's on a starbase level or higher."
"Captain, we're being hailed." Tuvok said.
"On screen."
A woman appeared on screen, wearing a similar uniform to the Captain's. Red stripe on the top, and black below, bordered with a soft grey. Pips on her collar the same as Starfleet. Behind and around her was a normal looking bridge.
"Hello, Captain Janeway." She said, a small smile on her face. "I'm Captain Acanit of the Federation starship Continuum." She looked at Harry, and smiled, splitting her face. "Hey Harry."
Janeway turned to look at Harry, "You know her?"
"Yes," He answered, looking at the screen. "She's part of the temporal bureau of Section 31. We've worked together before."
"I've known him for a while Captain, let's just say that. We'll take over the wormhole from here. It will be collapsed due to its potential impact on the timelines."
"What do we put in our logs, and our official report?" Tuvok piped up from the tactical station, a frown on his face.
"Put what happened in your logs. I will transmit a verification code to you to put there so that Starfleet can verify what you say. This is nothing new, Lieutenant Tuvok, we've seen you before, in the future."
"So we will see you again. What sort of time manipulation happens to get your attention?" Janeway asked, a curious look upon her face. "Do you always come before the matter, or after? How do you know where to go?"
Acanit laughed, "Aah Captain, you know we have a saying about you in our line of work. Suffice it to say that we get there when we get there, and not a moment too soon or late."
"We'll see you yesterday." She said, as her image cut off the screen, and the viewscreen showed the ship fading into the aether.
The Captain looked at Harry, "Do all meetings with her go like this?" She inquired, looking put out.
He smiled. "Yeah, pretty much. You get used to the confusing nature of their interactions with those of us in a normal timestream. I've seen her when she's old, and when she's very young. Their encounters with us, and ours with them are rarely linear."
"Captain, the wormhole is gone." HK said, looking up from his console. "It is no longer registering on my scans."
"On screen." Janeway said, and looked as the image of the wormhole evaporating into the surrounding space, sending out blue tendrils from the location where it used to be.
"Did we get any scans of what happened?"
"Yes, but all they show is the wormhole simply dissipating." HK said, looking down.
"Harry, did your scans reveal anything about the denaturing of the wormhole?"
"Yes Captain, but unfortunately I can't tell you what they were."
"Why?"
"The temporal prime directive."
She frowned. "Very well. Continue on our course Lieutenant Paris." And she sat down on her chair heavily.
o~o~o
"So tell me Kes, how are your studies going?" Joe asked as Kes sat opposite him in his office.
"Very well. I've passed everything up to second year according to the tests the computer gave me."
"Already? We knew your people were fast learners, but to learn that in just seven months is astonishing. Your people have immense potential, Kes."
She blushed and looked down, then back up again. "Doctor, why are you giving me this training and not Agent Potter? I thought he had gone through the same training and passed it."
"You're right, he has. I'm doing it because I'm one of Starfleet's foremost medical experts. I have access to gigaquads of data on everything medicine related, both wizarding medicine and non-wizard medicine. I can also generate spells due to my unique physiology, so once your theory is more rounded we will go onto the practical applications of what you've read. I'm also part of a large research group whose aim is to combine the higher dimensional energy of magic, and particularly its healing spells with traditional medicine to improve the abilities of both, so I'm uniquely placed to give you the best well rounded training in medicine. It's also because Agent Potter is extremely busy, and he has learned to delegate responsibility."
"That makes sense," Kes said, nodding her head. "Do we have to wait to do the practical elements of medical care until after I've learnt the theory? I feel like I'm ready to jump in now, Doctor." She said nodding eagerly.
"Unfortunately, yes Kes." The doctor's face was solemn. "What humanity and many other species have found over the years Kes is that starting practical medicine before getting a solid grounding in theory leads to reinforcing of wrong ideas. Because things are a certain way you might get the wrong idea in your head about why they are that certain way, which makes it harder to learn the right way, since you have to unlearn the wrong way first."
Kes's eyes uncrossed. "So what you're saying is I have to wait?" She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout, and crossed her arms. "Well, poop."
o~o~o
A gas giant with a ring of asteroids around it filled the viewscreen. The blue and orange shades of the planet filled the bridge with a cool light, illuminating the crew as they watched the approach.
"Ensign Kim, have we been able to pinpoint the source of the new element?"
"Affirmative Captain, the sensors show it's in many of the asteroids."
"Excellent." Janeway smiled. "This is the 247th element to be discovered by the federation, let's find out what it looks like. Commander, take an away team to discern the element's nature, and do bring me back a sample would you? I'd like to have a look at it."
"Aye, Captain." Chakotay said as he stood up, and motioned towards HK and Tuvok. The three got off the bridge onto the turbolift.
"Harry, are you able to determine anything more about this element from here?" Janeway looked over at him questioningly.
"At the moment I am running scans. I'm getting interesting readings from the asteroids themselves, but also there's also some sort of energy permeating the rings of this planet the asteroids are in Captain, my scans aren't making much sense of them at the moment however. I'll get back to you once I have more."
o~o~o
Inside a dank cave on the asteroid, a blue and white glow appeared in three sections, and the cave walls lit up in response. Out of the glow Chakotay, HK and Tuvok appeared, holding phasers.
The cave was lined by a spider web-like substance, stuck to every surface.
"There doesn't seem to be any immediate threat Commander." Tuvok stated, looking at his tricorder.
"Commander, I think I've found what we're looking for." Harry said amazed, looking around and then back at his tricorder. "It seems to be that the webbing all around us is made of the new element."
"OK. Be careful. Let's have a look and see if we can't determine what's causing the webbing. Take active scans of everything. We'll grab a sample once complete."
The three wandered around the cave system. Room after room was the same, webbing across all surfaces. Interestingly, none of it stuck to their boots, it was like it was attracted to the cave surface.
"Uhh, Chakotay, you'd better come look here." EK said as he stepped into an archway leading to a new room.
They walked over. "Bodies." Tuvok said. Decomposing bodies, oddly with no smell were lined up on the floor of the cavern. All faced the same way, flat on the ground.
The three of them walked over to the nearest body, webbing was starting to form on the being's skin.
Kim crouched down and waved his tricorder over the alien. "Commander, it looks like the webbing comes from these aliens. This one is in a state of decay where its skin seems to be turning into the webbing. Doesn't that mean?" He looked up at the commander and Tuvok.
"Yes, it appears we're in a burial ground." Chakotay said. "We've also been stepping on their remains." He said grimly as he tapped his comm badge. "Chakotay to voyager, Captain come in."
"Janeway here." Her voice crackled through the comm.
"Captain, it looks like we've come across some sort of alien burial ground, perhaps a tomb. It looks like the aliens bury their dead here. From what EK's scans show, their bodies break down into a webbing made of the new element we detected."
"With your permission Captain I would recommend we leave now, and don't take a sample back. I would hate to disturb a people's burial site."
"Permission granted. We will beam you up now. Stand by."
The comm went dead, and there was a swirl of light as the transporters engaged and the three men beamed out of the cave."
Back on Voyager, in the transporter room the operator smoothly handled the controls as the pads lit up and the beams of light engaged. Once the beaming procedure had finished however, they knew something was wrong.
"What happened?" Chakotay asked, looking at the ensign, then back down at the body dressed like the aliens on the surface. Where's Harry?"
"I don't know commander," Seska said, frantically tapping their controls, "I'm running a diagnostic now. It looks like the sensor lock worked fine, there's ensign kim still. Then the beaming emitters fired up and, oh." she looked up at the Commander, confusion on her face.
"Between when the sensor lock confirmed and the transporter emitters lit up Ensign Kim was lost from sensors, and someone else took his place."
"I've never heard of that happening before, have you, Tuvok?" Chakotay asked.
"No." Tuvok raised an eyebrow. "I have never heard of this happening."
"OK, let's see if we can't get some answers." Chakotay said as he and Tuvok walked back to the transporter pad. "Three to beam to sick bay."
o~o~o
Janeway confidently walked into Sick Bay, Agent Potter in tow. She glanced at the alien in the main biobed and raised an eyebrow, looking at the Doctor, Chakotay and Tuvok crowded around the biobed. "Gentlemen, report."
"Captain." Joe started, "The female alien who took HK's place in the transport was recently deceased, from a brain aneurism. I performed the standard class-5 resuscitation procedure, and replicated replacement neural tissue for her. I have kept her sedated as we run further tests."
"And what of the transporter accident? What happened there?" She asked, looking at Chakotay and Harry.
"It looks like the sensor lock onto Ensign Kim was actually a lock on a subspace vacuole Captain. The vacuole deposited the female alien while taking EK through the rupture at the same time." Harry paused. "We've run further surface scans, and it appears vacuoles are appearing all over the asteroid belt in irregular amounts. We've seen more happen closer to us recently however."
"Are you saying we're attracting these vacuoles, Agent?" Janeway said, looking towards Chakotay in concern.
"Yes, that's correct. B'Elanna and I are looking into it, and we have a theory which we need to test."
"So where's Kim then?" The Captain asked, frowning.
"It looks like he's wherever these people are coming from." Chakotay said. "It's fascinating that these people seem to appear here on the moment of their death. It's almost like this is their afterlife."
"Yes, fascinating," she said primly. "How do we get Kim back?" She asked.
"Unknown at this time, Captain." Harry answered. "I'm running scans with the array and Kes has tried to access the other dimensions' timelines to see if any answers are there, but we have nothing so far but rumor and guesswork. I am attempting to scan any vacuoles however considering the random nature of the anomaly we can't guarantee the when we will get a good solid scan."
"OK. Keep looking then. Dismissed." With that, Agent Potter left the room, overhearing, "Now Doctor, can you wake her? I'd like to get answers," from the Captain
o~o~o
In an unknown location, Ensign Kim appeared in a small room. He looked around at the smooth stone walls thinking to himself 'this isn't Voyager.'
As he completed the thought, one of the walls split into two and opened up into a yellow and silver decorated room with a single person in a grey robe and a greyer hat on their human-like head.
Their eyebrows disappeared into their hairline as they saw Kim in the room, walking out. Harry looked at the woman as he walked into the unfamiliar room.
"Where am I?" he asked, looking around the room. There was a single computer console in the room, which the woman stood in front of, gripping the edges of, her knuckles turning as white as her face.
"I mean you no harm." Harry said, raising both hands in a placating gesture. "I should be somewhere else. Do you know how I got here?"
She shook her head, eyes wide.
"Could you please contact someone who might know?" He asked gently, slowly reaching for his tricorder. Grabbing it he asked "Do you mind if I scan with some of my equipment to see if I can get an idea of what happened?" She shook her head, and looking away started furiously tapping away at the console. He walked back into the room, starting scanning to see if he could work out what was happening, furious whispers coming from behind him.
A few minutes later, and no closer to answers except that the small grey room was some sort of transmission and receiving station for people, with some medical functionality built in he heard the doors of the brightly lit room open, and people came in.
He turned around to see a woman in white robes, but still a grey hat with two men flanking her, carrying weapons. The technician at the station in the center of the room looked relieved at the reinforcements.
"Who are you, and what are you doing in our cenotaph?" She demanded.
"My name is Harry Kim, from the starship Voyager. I appeared here instead of on my ship while investigating a new element found in an asteroid belt around a gas giant."
The woman walked up to Harry, looking up at his face. "Are you here from the next emanation to judge us? I won't have your appearance here cause unrest amongst my people." Her face was hard as stone. "Take him away until we decide what to do with him." The two guards grabbed Harry and disarmed him as they dragged him towards the door.
"Wait, what do you mean the next emanation?" He asked as he was pulled towards the door while struggling, his voice fading as the doors closed on him.
In the room, the woman in white looked at the technician. "Speak of this to no-one." She said as she swished out of the room.
As the doors closed the woman in white missed the technician reach for her console again, and start whispering.
o~o~o
On board Voyager, the alien woman was given a hypospray by the Doctor, her eyes fluttering awake to see Janeway, the Doctor, and Chakotay standing over the bed.
"Where am I?" She asked groggily, rubbing her eyes as she sat up. "Is this the next emanation? It's different from what I expected. Where's my brother?" She looked around wildly, as if to try and find him.
She was stopped by the Doctor resting his hand on her shoulder, "You're onboard the starship Voyager. We found you on an asteroid and revived you." He said gently. "What is the next emanation?" He asked.
Chakotay said, "The afterlife," at the same time as the woman. Janeway looked at him for a few moments before looking back at the woman.
"My name is Captain Kathryn Janeway. I am the captain of this ship. I'm sorry to tell you this isn't the afterlife, we found you as the Doctor said on an asteroid and revived you. What's your name?" She smiled gently, trying to put the alien at ease.
"Ptera." The woman said, looking down. She looked up again, directly at the Captain. "If this isn't the Next Emanation then how do I get there?"
This question caused the three Starfleet officers to look at each other, not knowing what to say.
o~o~o
Harry sat in a small cell on the bench seat, looking out of the bars. As far as he could see, even though it wasn't a force field holding him but metal there was no way out. He was interrupted from his thoughts of escape by the door opening and the technician from earlier coming in.
"Quick, come with me, we don't have much time," She said as she motioned towards the door and took off.
He didn't think, just acted and followed her. She led him through many corridors, turned numerous corners, up and down and all over. All his attempts at questions were sushed aggressively.
After a while of running they came across a craggy grey stone wall, and they paused in front of it before she activated a small device she pulled out of a pocket and the wall disappeared. She entered the new doorway and Harry's eyebrows raised as he followed her. After a few minutes of walking instead of running through an extensive cave system they came across another door which she opened with the same device.
Inside was another woman with most of the same features working on a similar console to the one in the first room Harry had seen in this place. She looked up and smiled. "Aah, come in, come in. You must be confused," She said, looking at the question on Harry's face.
"Yes ma'am, I am. Why did you break me out of that holding cell?" He turned to the technician, who was standing slightly away from him, looking at his face. "You seemed so shocked earlier, and you have such confidence now, what happened?" He asked, a blush slowly forming on the woman's face.
"I was surprised. I have only seen people go into the cenotaph, not come out of it." She said. "Then when the intendant came I had to act cowed, else I'd blow my cover."
"Your cover?" Kim asked as he sighed. "What have I gotten myself into here?"
"Your coming has presented us with a unique opportunity. You can tell us what lies beyond the cenotaph, in the Next Emanation. What's on the other side?" The woman at the console peered at him, as if she could digest knowledge better with her eyes furrowed.
"We were exploring a region of space when we detected a new element. We came across an asteroid belt around a gas giant, and went to investigate. While on the surface we saw what looks like your people covered in webbing. We beamed out so as not to disturb your possible burial rites and customs. After that, I appeared in the grey room." He said professionally.
The two women looked at him, then at each other. "You mean to say there's a world behind the cenotaph that isn't the afterlife?" The technician asked, eyes wide.
"Well, as far as I can deduce from my scans and what you've said the cenotaph transports people from your world to the asteroids we were investigating. Considering your name for the device it transports your dead?" He asked, looking at each of them.
Stunned, the woman at the console said, "Yes, the device is used to euthanize people before transporting them to the Next Emanation."
Harry paused and looked intently at the woman. "Could you please repeat that?"
o~o~o
"The cenotaph euthanizes people before sending them to the Next Emanation, or the afterlife as you said." Ptera said to the shocked looks of the three Starfleet officers surrounding her.
"Ptera, your brain aneurism wasn't treatable by your people, correct?" Joe asked her, a frown on his holographic face.
"That's right. In our society if we know we are to die we go to the cenotaph to be transported to the next emanation."
"So it's only your sick then?" Chakotay asked, leaning forward.
"And our elderly." She paused, "And people who don't want to live any more."
As her two officers looked at her with horror on their faces Katherine couldn't quite hold her own look of disquiet off her face. "You, you allow people to commit suicide? And they are guaranteed a place in the afterlife?" She asked, trying to keep the judgement off her face. She obviously didn't succeed as a flash of anger came over Ptera's face.
"Of course we do," her face contorted, "It's their choice, and they are a blight on society anyway," She spat, "The elderly take up valuable resources, and if people don't want to live any more then they should move on to allow others opportunities."
o~o~o
"So what about disabled people, and people who have accidents where they don't fully recover - are they 'encouraged,'" here Harry threw up air quotes, "to be euthanized as well?"
"Yes," the technician said, looking uncomfortable, but she looked towards the woman manning the console, "but that's what we're trying to stop here" she blurted out emphatically, "and you can help us."
"Help you do what? Reshape your entire society? We're not supposed to interfere with another civilization's development, even if it is allowed in extreme cases." He said, still standing uncomfortably straight.
"Harry, don't you understand? Not all of our society want this. We don't want to be discarded or euthanized because we're less than perfect. People are being talked into this, when we get old or sick our families encourage travelling here, to end things the," she spat out the word, "dignified way. We are a burden, a curse." She stepped out from behind the console, Harry's eyes immediately drawn to her stump of a leg, supported by a crude metal limb.
"Please, help us Harry. There's many more than just us, living in areas where we can't be found, in facilities like this, in the wilderness. We feel like we're forced into death."
Harry stared at her, a blank look on his face. He looked over at the technician, his first encounter with these people and saw someone defeated.
"Why did you," he started, looking at the technician, "man the station in the cenotaph room if you disagreed with the very principle of what you were doing?"
"We wanted to try to find a way of disabling it, of stopping the process. Maybe visiting the world behind without the killing being necessary. Maybe bringing someone back who lived over there who everyone knew." She looked at him intently. "It was better than doing nothing, gathering information."
Harry nodded. "If you can get me back my tricorder I may be able to get back, and if I do I will talk to my people about your plight. I would do more here, but it feels wrong somehow, and I'm only one man."
The smiles of the two women let Harry Kim think he was doing the right thing.
o~o~o
Back on Voyager, Harry Potter was looking at his sensor array distrustfully. He was in his lab, with Kes next to him, both of them connecting their magic to the scanning array trying to diagnose what the energy field around the asteroid belt was, where the vacuoles were coming from, and how to get Harry back.
He jumped in surprise as a triumphant yell came from next to him, Kes turned to him with bright eyes. "I did it! I figured it out Harry," she laughed.
He looked at her and smiled, the information snaking into his head through the connection to the sensor array. As it did his eyes widened to their maximum, his eyebrows comically dancing with his hairline.
He looked at Kes again, this time a serious look on his face. "We have to see the Captain, now." He said as they got up and raced towards the Captain in sick bay.
o~o~o
The discussion with Ptera over, the Captain, Chakotay and the Doctor were conversing in the Doctor's office. "So what's your opinion on this Chakotay, I know you have the most background in anthropology than anyone here." She asked, leaning back in her seat.
"Given her words, inflection and mannerisms I'd say she comes from an extremely ordered society. People generally follow orders, there is probably a sub-group within their people with opposing views, but she didn't say about those - they're potentially religious, indoctrination from birth, but that's not really different from any other culture." He thought for a moment. "They are technically less advanced than us, at least medically considering we easily treated her ailment, but in transporting technology much more advanced considering they get their dead here somehow. Given her lack of surprise at us looking different from her maybe they have met aliens either in the far past or more recent, but I'd say they're pre-warp."
"Surely a lot of that is speculation, Commander?" The doctor asked, looking between Chakotay and the Captain.
"Yes, of course it is." Chakotay sighed. "The problem with anthropology is you can pretty much only make assumptions, even with compelling evidence. We would need to question Ptera more to find out what her society is like to be able to draw any actual conclusions, and even then they are biased towards her point of view."
Janeway raised her hands. "Thanks Chakotay, I think that was a good synopsis for now. The question is, what do we do with her?"
The two other officers were saved from answering by Harry and Kes's entrance into sick bay, they immediately beelined towards the three, sparing a small glance to the now sleeping Ptera in the biobed.
"Captain, Commander, Doctor. We know what the energy reading around the asteroids are, and what the vacuoles are as well."
"Go on, agent," Katherine said, looking curiously at Harry and Kes.
"Do you?" Harry gestured, looked at Kes. She nodded.
"The energy readings around the asteroids are souls, Captain." She said as the three officer's eyebrows took a vacation to hairline land.
"What we detected was a soul matrix comprised of potentially hundreds of millions of souls, using the gravitational energy from the gas giant as an anchor point."
Harry took over. "While we were scanning a few vacuoles formed, three to be precise. I focused on those. What I saw is the aliens arriving dead, their souls slowly seeping out to join the matrix of souls."
"Now that we have the readings we can open a vacuole from our side and step through into Ptera's world. We should be able to find Harry, and return Ptera to her family."
He paused at the looks on the three faces around him. "What's happened?"
Joe spoke up. "It seems their people regularly practice euthanasia, the vacuoles depositing their dead is doing so after these people are euthanized."
"Of course Doctor, they have to be dead to join the soul matrix. What's the problem here?" He looked around before saying "oh", a sheepish look on his face.
"I sometimes forget I'm not in the wizarding world," He said to the curious looks on their faces. "You need to remember in our world we have the ability to determine intent and truthfulness. That's essential to our mind healers, our court system, police, etcetera. We have much longer life spans than you, wizards living to 250 years old is common now, back when I was born it was around 180 years."
"To a wizard, the afterlife is seen as the next great adventure, to quote one of my old teachers." He smiled fondly. "But even with magic there are curses that resist even the most ardent healer. There are people who resist the treatments of the best potions, the most zealous mind healers. Some people want or need to die. Long ago the wizarding world put in laws, checks and balances to ensure this could not be abused."
"But it's their choice at the end of the day, even if there are some who are against it and would never be euthanized, raging against pain and agony until they are dragged kicking and screaming into the aether, some don't want that pain, they don't have that fight in them. It's considered a right, but not a duty to be euthanized in our society."
"So, can you help Ptera get back, and get HK back for us?" Katherine asked quietly, shocked at Harry's revelations.
"Yes Captain, opening a portal will be simple enough. I will go right now." He turned and walked towards the biobed, the air warping around him, tinging purple around the edges. He reached the biobed and touched Ptera and the two exploded into a purple nothingness, the room stretching back to normal in the wake of the spell he used.
"Kes." Katherine looked at her, "Do your people think like Harry's do?" She asked.
"No, our people would never dream of wasting our 10 years of life, but remember Captain the Caretaker looks after my people, and our medical science is advanced. Maybe if we lived longer we might have considered it, but I think it never came up like it did for the wizards." She shrugged, and grimaced. "To be honest, it freaks me out, the idea of taking your own life rather than fighting for survival. I think it goes against our very nature as beings, and given what I've read of medical text from the federation it goes against the nature of pretty much anything alive to choose to end their own existence."
The Captain nodded. "I'm... glad that it seems distasteful to more than just me. Gentlemen?" She turned to the two officers. "What about you?"
"Well, I was created by a wizard but I don't have an in-depth repository of their laws, I didn't know about this before today." The doctor said with some hesitation. "I don't know what to think really. There's a reason why Starfleet allows it but only in extreme cases and under heavy review before anything gets done. I don't know Captain, I just hope I'm never in that situation."
"My people are for it." Chakotay said reticently, to surprised looks from the others. "Some members of my family have chosen their death days, but the deliberations on their choices are great. I personally would like to choose my death day, but Ptera's people." He sighed, "It seems their modus operandi is to cut people down as soon as they are no longer useful. Better to replace than repair. I think their society is flawed."
Their discussion was interrupted by a compression in the biobed room as the walls curved inwards. After a moment they popped back out, green light streaming from the center point leaving four people looking no worse for wear.
"Aah, Captain, hello." Harry said jovially, HK talking quietly to the two woman with him. "We need to talk with Starfleet with these two lovely ladies. I've gone and interfered with their society." He said happily.
The Captain facepalmed. This was going to be a fun discussion.
o~o~o
Around the meeting room sat Harry, HK, the two women from the other side of the cenotaph, and the Captain.
"Report, Captain." The baritone voice of the bearded sea-captain-like admiral on the screen rang out.
Janeway sitting up ramrod straight in her chair started talking. "Admiral, we encountered a new element in this system, and so decided to investigate. The element was found in the cave systems in the asteroids in the system, secreted from the dead bodies of a species we now know are called the Vhnori."
"When beaming out in order to not disturb their burial rites a subspace vacuole opened and transported Ensign Kim here through to the Vhnori's planet. In his place was a recently deceased woman, named Ptera. We revived her and found the Vhnori practice ritual euthanasia, through a device they call the cenotaph. Agent Potter here found out how to replicate the vacuole transport and took Ptera back home."
"Agent, could you please take over from here?" The Captain asked, looking at Harry.
"Aye Captain," he replied, glancing her way, then looking at the admiral on the screen. "When I arrived with Ptera on the Vhnori homeworld we came to in a room which had Ensign Kim and the two Vhnori women you see here. They had freed him after their leaders imprisoned the Ensign for what his presence may mean for their society. They were attempting to disable the euthanasia part of the transportation to get him back with no success before I got there."
Harry sighed. "Their society Admiral is collapsing from within due to the cenotaph. A large portion of people have been forced to choose euthanasia due to pressure from their families and society. I decided to use my initiative and put up some intent-based wards to stop this from happening. If the person in the cenotaph was forced in there involuntarily, or was pressured into it then the device won't activate."
"Then after that, we came back with them. Oh, and what Kes and I found out was there's an energy field surrounding the 'asteroids of the dead' which is actually a soul matrix containing the souls of all the dead who have died and come through the cenotaph."
"I will let Layta say why they are here." Harry gestured towards the woman with the missing leg.
"Hello Admiral" she said, nodding. "There are thousands of us who want to leave our society, we would like to request amnesty. To not be pressured into dying when disabled or what our society deems as useless is what we want for our lives, and living on our world in isolation is not living enough. The 'regressives' as they call us are hunted down and forced to go into the chamber. Thank you for listening," she nodded again, as she looked towards the other woman with hope in her eyes.
"Thank you all, I appreciate the summarizing of the report for me. I've consulted with the Federation diplomacy team about this, and we have agreed to take on however many members of your society who want to get out."
The exuberant smiles on the women's faces lit up the room.
"I am also assigning a team of scientists and Section 31 wizards to investigate this phenomenon. A soul matrix like this has a number of interesting possibilities i've been informed. We will be stationing two ships here to perform research, and also to assist in any Vhnori who would like to leave. We will set up permanent facilities in one of the asteroid's tunnel systems so that the Vhnori who decide to leave their home planet aren't stripped of their right to their 'Next Emanation.'"
"Agent, we are satisfied with your temporary measure to stop the wholesale slaughter of an undesirable part of the Vhnori society, and we will work with the leadership there to ensure they know of the restriction on the cenotaph. The USS Von Braughan will rendezvous with you in two days to take on the two passengers you have."
"After that, you will be cleared to resume your explorations. Any questions?" He looked around the room to find none. "Good work people," He smiled. "Jackson out."
o~o~o
A/N: Thanks for reading. Also thanks to the few people who have written reviews, especially Joe Lawyer who said things were a bit confusing in regards to the maquis not existing in this alternate universe. There may be inconsistencies for things that happened in previous chapters, and for that I apologize. If I was writing this whole story before posting (rather than chapter by chapter) I'd go back and edit it but this is more about me trying to be disciplined enough to write and post rather than never posting it. If you find things are fucked up or confusing in the story then please leave a review letting me know.
Also, Ex Post Facto doesn't happen because Voyager no longer need to repair equipment so they never seek out the Banean scientist who kills his wife. The husband gets charged for the crime like he did in canon, but Voyager wasn't involved.