Uninspired Voyages

A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Andrew J. Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation et al are the property of CBS Television, Para creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

Janeway has come down to the armory to see a new project Shepherd has been working on with Torres and Kim.

Janeway: "So, what is this project you've been putting together, Mister Shepherd?"

Shepherd: "Well, we were thinking that our commbadges might be too easily jammed. So I talked to our chief engineer and Harry about it, and we came up with a solution: Personal forcefield generators!"

Janeway: "The personal forcefield generators?"

Shepherd: "Yes! The personal forcefield generators have deflectors and field emitter coils that could boost the signal of a commbadge easily! But then, we ran into a new problem."

Janeway: "And that was?"

Shepherd: "Well, the personal forcefield generator does provide more power, but it has another job to do. You see, while personal forcefields help keep our people alive, the amount of damage they can take before losing power is distressingly low. I mean, maybe one full powered energy blast, equal to a full power phaser shot, and they're down. So then we couldn't communicate, because there's no power and then the officer will probably be killed. That won't do! So we came up with a solution!"

Shepherd steps back, and Torres and Kim pull a sheet off of a heavily modified Starfleet spacesuit, colored in red and black.

Torres: "We decided to integrate the forcefield generator into a spacesuit, so that it could draw on the power reserves in the suit's batteries to enhance the forcefield's performance."

Kim: "Unfortunately that wasn't enough either. So we stripped the suit down to the frame, and rebuilt it to have enough capacity for a few phaser power cells."

Janeway: "But phaser power cells can be vulnerable to energy blasts, I believe. And the voltage levels are very unforgiving."

Torres: "Yes they are! Which is why we added energy resistant plastisteel armor plating, underneath which we put a carbon nanosteel weave."

Janeway: "Wouldn't that make it too heavy to move around in though?"

Kim: "It sure did! So we made sure the nanosteel weave was integrated with an artificial muscular system! Enhancing the strength and endurance of the user by up to five times."

Janeway: "All right, but what about heating issues?"

Torres: "We thought of that, so we added a microsized transporter and buffer to dump the heat into subspace."

Kim: "Which, coincidentally, let us create a kind of 'bag of holding' to allow the user to carry a lot more equipment in subspace with them."

Torres: "This also means that the power cells have more than enough devices to feed so they don't overload the system!"

Shepherd: "And by using common, easily replicated power cells, we save on logistics!"

Janeway: "... You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you three decided to create advanced powered armor that has the ability to carry multiple weapons, survive in multiple environments, and engage enemies in hand to hand combat far more easily, under the pretense of making an improved communicator for away missions."

Shepherd: "What? No! Noooo!"

Kim: "We were trying to solve one problem-"

Torres: "Which led to multiple other problems we needed to overcome-"

Shepherd: "That just happened to lead to a commbadge enhancement system that appears to be powered battle armor."

Janeway: "Uh huh. And I assume you'll be issuing these 'commbadge enhancement systems' to all security personnel?"

Shepherd: "As many as we can, captain. Nothing more important than communications."

Janeway: sigh, rolls her eyes but she's trying not to smile "By all means, Mister Shepherd. Issue the 'new commbadges' as they become available."

Shepherd: "Yes ma'am!"