Star Trek: TNG

Episode 5.1: Where No One Has Gone Before?

Stardate: 41263
Earth Standard Date: April 6, 2364
Location: U.S.S Enterprise-D

"Tyson's Log stardate, whatever. You would think I'd have a handle on how stardates work by now. Anyway. It's been a week since the Lore episode. After getting healed by Doctor Crusher, she was very thankful for me taking that phaser shot. So much so that she ordered Wesley to their quarters, then came to mine to show her appreciation. The only disappointing part of the experience was I didn't get a bonus adult perk even though she was the first human I'd been with since coming here. Things with her were reasonably normal afterward, if a little distant. I got the message. It was a one-time occurrence. I did manage to get a reputation increase and a level in Perform, so that's something."

Increased Reputation with Beverly Crusher (Amiable - Kindly)
Perform skill has increased! 20 - 21

"Surprisingly during the week, two episodes happened. That one with the Antican and Selay, and the one where Wesley gets put on trial for killing the flowers causing Picard to break the Prime Directive to save him. I didn't get involved in any of that. Not directly anyway. First of all, noone tells me when things are happening around here. The downside of being an Ensign. I only get quest notifications if I'm present for the episode beginning. I did manage to pickpocket the Antican who was creeping around the Selay quarters. They happened to be staying in guest quarters on my deck. He had that hunting knife that looked eerily similar to a pocket-sized lightsaber. I only took it because I had those scans from the Ligonian homeworld of their plasma projector. That's two different technologies that both look and function like a lightsaber. I just need to sit down and analyze it, see what can be combined and what I can come up with."

Thievery skill has increased! 1 - 2

"What I actually did all week was… schoolwork. I avoided sleeping, episode shenanigans, duty shifts, skill grinding, and daily quests. Just schoolwork. But I'm done. I passed all the exams, demonstrated the competencies in the holodeck, and now I'm a genuine Ensign. I monitored my energy credits to see if I'd get an increase in the daily boost from the increased rank. It turns out the daily energy credits were just a noobie boost or similar. I stopped getting them a while back, it must have ended once I reached a hidden requirement. Oh well. No use crying over lost credits. We're supposed to be working for the betterment of ourselves and mankind… I'll keep that in mind."

"I haven't been reassigned a duty shift yet. Not sure if it's because I was more efficient when I was a floater or because the crew has been moving from mission to mission and Riker just forgot about me. I'm not going to bring it up though. No reason to. I wouldn't get much out of working a shift, the credits aren't much, and most of my skills have out-leveled daily tasks. My time is better spent tinkering or cheesing engineering daily quests and pocketing the broken supplies to fix for free stuff. But that's it, for now, I'm off to engineering, components aren't going to gather themselves. Computer, End Log."

~~Star Trek: TNG~~

Tyson was in the process of replacing a magnetic coupler in the EPS relays of Main Engineering when he heard a raised voice.

"Inform the Bridge I shall begin the first test in precisely fifteen minutes. Why is that child here?"

A man in an engineering uniform with a receding hairline was being rude to the on-duty Chief Engineer and Wesley. Riker was escorting him but didn't seem to be doing much to reel in his antics. It was the other man in his entourage that grabbed Tyson's attention and made him realize what episode was occurring. It was the Traveler.

The gamer shrugged and kept working. He already had the attention of one ascended being. He wasn't sure exactly what the traveler was, or if he would have a reaction to Tyson's presence. He knew the man was here for Wesley, the teen had done Tyson a solid by distracting Captain Picard after the Lore incident, so Tyson wasn't going to interfere. But, if the opportunity presented itself, Tyson would still use Power Eater.

The bossy engineer continued in a raised voice, "In order to save myself time, let me ask those questions for you. You received the information which Starfleet provided, you fed it into your computer as precisely as humanly possible, then you did a controlled test. And then, to your astonishment, nothing happened. So you said, what's going on? This doesn't work. Kosinski's a fraud. You see, I have had this conversation on other Starfleet vessels before. They didn't understand it. why should you?"

Tyson saw the Traveler was interacting with Wesley now. He still didn't care and was just glad it wasn't him.

"I'm saying I'm not a teacher, nor do I wish to become one. I have neither the inclination nor the time."

It seemed Riker finally tired of the man's antics and began throwing his rank around. There was a back-and-forth between them that lasted several minutes. Everyone in Engineering was listening but trying to make it look like they were working. Seems the love for workplace drama translated into the 24th century.

"I don't think you understand. This has already been approved by Starfleet Command."

"But it hasn't been approved by the Chief Engineer or by me."

"I didn't know that was necessary."

"Now you do."

"Perhaps I should speak to Captain Picard."

"If you like. It won't change anything."

"How basic shall I be?"

"I'll leave that to you."

The group moved over to the large table console in the middle of the adjacent engineering room.

Tyson tuned out the remainder of the conversation. With things between Riker and Kosinski less heated it just wasn't that interesting. He went over to the defunct isoliner chips and started repairing them. In the past he'd returned them to the active Chief Engineer for credits, now he just held on to them in his inventory. Since they were being recycled anyway, noone noticed or cared when they went missing.

His attention was stolen when Kosinski loudly announced, "Do this one just like the last time. Nothing changes. Commander, I'll make my preliminary adjustments at warp one point five, and complete them as we achieve warp four."

"Engineering to bridge, did you copy that?"

"Affirmative, Number One. Are you ready?"

"We are."

"Engage."

Tyson was actually watching the happenings now. He knew what the Traveler would do, so he moved as close as was inconspicuously possible to observe.

Kosinski said, "All right, here we go."

The Traveller made adjustments on his console, then turned to smile at Wesley.

"What are you doing?" Kosinski asked in an excited tone.

The warp core began racing. Tyson had been in Engineering while the Enterprise was beyond maximum cruise speed. That wasn't even close to how fast it was cycling now. The quickly beating whoom-whoom of the warp core reverberated off the walls of Engineering. The Traveller whose hands were on the console began to partially vanish. He was fading as if phasing out of this reality, his visage becoming ghostly. The inertial dampeners couldn't compensate for the incomprehensible increase in speed the Enterprise experienced as it was launched quickly through the Milky Way Galaxy. Tyson was one of the few standing crewmen who was able to maintain his footing. Without his enhanced strength and knowing what was coming, he would've been on the deck like everyone else.

Suddenly, everything stopped. Not in that we just traveled across the galaxy and are now slowing as we reach our destination kind of way. Nor the inertial dampeners have compensated kind of way.

Perk activated: Q and You

It was the time is frozen and everything except for you is affected kind of way. Q was standing looking over the Traveler's shoulder. The Traveler still had his eyes closed, focusing on the console.

Q glanced up at Tyson, "Don't worry, he can't perceive what's happening between us. He's too busy for that now."

"Makes sense. Didn't think you had a hand in this one."

"Oh, I don't. I'm just getting dreadfully bored."

Tyson raised an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that. You've just been sitting there studying. It's dreadful. And most of this is filler anyway."

"But, I remember when Kirk went past the galactic barrier they all got psychic powers. And here they can manifest their thoughts in reality."

"Yes, it's all quite neat."

"You're being awfully quick to dismiss what's about to happen. Manifesting thoughts seems close to what you can do."

Tyson let what he just said on a whim linger, then he squinted at Q. "Are you worried about what I'm going to do if I gain an ability like that?"

"No no. You lack the knowledge for me to explain it completely but put simply, the manifestations in that galaxy are limited to that galaxy. Anything you created would disappear when you returned. There's nothing to be gained."

Tyson looked over the omnipotent being but found no signs of deception. "So since this would just be boring for you, and pointless for me, you came to what? Spice things up? Maybe direct us to the Borg early?"

"Nothing so crass. Come now, Tyson, you know how important that will be. Some things are meant to happen when they're meant to happen."

Tyson nodded, conceding the point. There were many theories on why Q flung the Enterprise into the path of the Borg. The general consensus was that it was meant to prepare the Federation for what was to come, mainly the Dominion War. Further down the rabbit hole, it led to a significant weakening of the Borg by Captain Janeway. Some even believed that this may have indirectly protected the Q - The Q continuum is theorized to be a layer of subspace. If the Borg were digging around in subspace trying to find it, they may have stumbled upon fluidic space instead. In searching for one powerful species, they ran into another, Species 8472. So much conjecture, but there's a certain sense to it. Q forces the Enterprise to meet the borg, Janeway is prepared when they are encountered, they defeat species 8472, and ultimately the Borg is left severely weakened and warned off venturing into subspace dimensions.

But Tyson refocused, his thoughts were spiraling into Trekkie conspiracy theories that even if true, were years away and not currently relevant.

"So what now?"

Q tapped his chin with his pointer finger in a mock thinking pose. He raised his tapping finger in an exaggerated eureka moment. "I've got it. Since the Enterprise is being sent to another galaxy, that's where I'll send you!"

Without a preamble, Q snapped his fingers and Tyson's consciousness was flung from his body.

~~Star Trek: TNG~~

Tyson crossed having a genuine out-of-body experience off his bucket list thanks to Q. His consciousness, essence, spirit, whatever it was just hung there in the star-dotted void of space. Some intangible force held him in place, that or, he wasn't able to move in this form.

Before he started panicking, music started playing. It was unmistakable. As if to take away from the moment, Q was standing in the void next to Tyson. The omnipotent being began humming and mouthing out the sounds along with the music, like a mock conductor.

Tyson was swept up in the moment and joined him.

Blue text appeared in front of him. He might have laughed or squealed in excitement if he wasn't humming along as the text began scrolling upward.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.…

AN: Just a little teaser, next update will be Wednesday. Confession, after I wrote Episode 4 I was disenchanted with this story. So much so, that I dropped it for a few months and wrote a second Tyson story (Marvel/DC/CoH). Episode 5 is the first one I started writing after posting Star Trek TNG. I had sooo much fun writing this one and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Posting schedule is still 5k words/week. Some chapters are shorter, like this one, so you'll get 2/week or a double chapter depending on how much I like where it ended. Later parts of the episode are longer and it may be 2 or 3 weeks between updates to balance it. Ep5 is by far the longest ep I've written, and I'm still working on the last part.

+1 Collar Pip for shypunk for catching the error on the character sheet. That was a genuine mistake (not a copy-paste error like most) and without your correction, would've affected rolls in the upcoming episode.

+1 Collar Pip for Mandalore The Survivor for correctly guessing the episode!
Ret'urcye mhi, ner vod

Bonus Questions for Reviewers (+1 Collar Pip)
Which Star Wars will Tyson be going to?