Paint and Powder

A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon

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

Voyager: Valentine's Day

Rigging Cargo Bay 3 into an extra holodeck, Harry reflected, was the best idea he'd ever had. A Pacifican beach under triple moonlight. Musicians playing gentle, romantic music. A table for two with candlelight. And his date: The beaming Voyager.

She'd kept her pink hair, but had gone for a beautiful white Cheongsam embroidered with golden swans. It showed off her long legs and athletic figure, instead of her usual, slightly demented attire. She gazed at him lovingly over the table, their food provided by Neelix all but forgotten.

"So," Voyager said, "what's the occasion?"

"Come on, you know," Harry admonished her gently. Voyager hummed.

"I've got parts of my memory blocked off for routine maintenance and debugging."

"It's Valentine's Day," Harry chuckled, pulling out a small gift from his suit jacket pocket. Voyager groaned.

"Ohhh! I forgot!"

"It's okay, it's okay!" Harry said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. She calmed, a blush on her pale cheeks. With his free hand, he handed over the gift. She took it into her hand, and studied it.

"What is it?"

"Open it, find out," Harry teased. She pouted a bit, but eagerly unwrapped the small present. She saw it was an isolinear chip, and she looked questioningly over at the young ensign.

"Remember when we installed those portable holographic emitters in your gynoid?" He asked.

"How could I forget?" Voyager asked, "I rode you after until you couldn't walk~!"

Harry barely kept a blush off his face, but nodded with a lazy grin.

"Well, this is a program I wrote especially for you," he said. "Go ahead, try it out!"

Voyager popped open a panel on her breastbone, and inserted the isolinear chip into the appropriate slot. Her gynoid eyes lit up blue/green, as she smiled.

"Oooh... It looks great!" She said cheerfully, "how did you know I'd like it?"

"That anime marathon we went through," Harry deadpanned. Voyager's eyes widened in alarm. Harry frowned.

"What's wrong-?"

The deck shook violently. The program ended, and both of them stood up as red alert klaxons screamed.

"Red alert, all hands to battle stations!" Captain Janeway shouted over the intercom.

Voyager's gynoid went idle, as Harry ran out and to the turbolift. In a few moments, he was on the bridge, and took his station as Janeway was arguing with a masked, reptilian figure on the viewscreen-A Hirogen.

"If we intruded on your territory we can leave-!"

"You do not understand," the Hirogen growled, "we are hunters-You are our prey! You've become known to us, and now you are in our sites! Make it interesting for us!"

The signal cut off, and more weapons fire hammered their shields.

"Shields at 60 percent!" Harry shouted. Janeway sat back in her command chair, holding on tightly. Voyager's holographic avatar appeared next to her, as Tom Paris's fingers danced over the helm to keep the ship out of the line of fire.

"Return fire! All weapons!" Janeway shouted.

Voyager fired all of her phaser emitters, as Tom Paris tried to evade the fire of the four Hirogen warships. Her phaser fire hit on the port-most vessel's shields, concentrating all her blasts on it.

"The port vessel's forward shields are down!" Tuvok called.

"Torpedoes! FIRE!" Janeway ordered.

Voyager unleashed a furious salvo of five photon torpedoes. The portmost vessel tried to turn to evade, get their starboard shield to take the salvo. Two of the torpedoes were absorbed by the vessel's shields-The rest slammed into its forward hull section. The antimatter explosives detonated against the armored hull, tearing through it and ripping the forward section apart. The Hirogen vessel tumbled, out of control-Its fellows evaded and continued their fire on Voyager herself.

"Shields at 40 percent!" Harry reported. "They're targeting our engines!"

"Tom! Go to warp, get us out of here!" Janeway shouted.

The stars streaked to infinity in front of them, and they leaped to warp. The Hirogen followed.

Harry looked despondent, but Voyager appeared next to him and squeezed his shoulder. She smiled gently.

"We will have other Valentine's Days," she said. She lowered her tone, making it sultry.

"And I haven't given you my present," she purred.

Harry returned to his duties very vigorously, even as Ayala and even Tuvok eyed him a bit.

For eight days, they had fought and evaded the Hirogen. There was no sense in fighting superior numbers to the death, and Voyager had the advantage of speed. But these Hirogen weren't stupid.

Voyager had to stop for some fuel in a solar system with several gas giants, all of which were fantastic Penning Traps for antimatter. That is where the Hirogen struck: Six ships engaged them from all sides.

Harry was on duty again, and quickly worked with Voyager to divert and adjust their shield power consumption. The deck shook hard, and some panels sparked.

"Aft shields are down! We have boarding ships inbound!" Harry shouted.

"Intruder alert!" Chakotay barked, "Hazard Team! To the shuttle bay!"

"Captain," Voyager said to Janeway, "I'm deploying my gynoid to the shuttle bay. Permission to engage Limit Control Zero."

Janeway stared intently at Voyager.

"The last time we did that-"

"I know what happened last time, Captain," Voyager said firmly, "but I'm better now. Really."

Janeway took a deep breath.

"Voyager... Set for Limit Control... One," she emphasized, her gaze meeting Voyager's evenly. "That's as low as I'm going to go."

Voyager shrugged.

"That will work well enough here," she said.

The Hirogen hunters used their blocky shuttle to smash through the shuttlebay doors and landed hard on the deck. Magnetic grapples buzzed to life, sticking to the deck even as the Alpha Quadrant ship vented the atmosphere and disabled the artificial gravity. Basic anti boarding tactics any race would use against intruders.

But the Hirogen were more experienced. Four more shuttles landed, and hunters in their armor charged out, sweeping the deck with eyes, sensors, and their tetryon disruptor weapons.

They charged forward, following their Alpha. They burst into a corridor... Then paused.

At the far end of the corridor stood a female humanoid. Pink hair, blue, white and black clothing. She smiled broadly.

"One chance!" She called out over comms, "turn around and go back."

"We are the hunters, you are the prey!" The Hirogen Alpha snarled back over the radio. The female... Tittered, her smile becoming unsettling.

"But what happens when the hunters... Become the hunted?"

Her head... Morphed into a gigantic chainsaw, her mouth now full of razor sharp teeth. Her hands similarly turned into long chainsaws. All of which, despite the vacuum, revved loudly and ominously. She licked her metallic lips with a huge, almost obscene tongue in anticipation.

"FUNTIIIIIME~!"

The Hirogen opened fire, pelting the thing with their weapons at full blast.

They lasted for six seconds.

Janeway and the crew watched in horror as Voyager's gynoid, cackling like a madwoman, proceeded to dismember, disembowel, and disassemble the screaming Hirogen. One actually ran for a shuttle, but was caught by a holographic chain. He was then pulled back into the roaring, revving maw of death. Harry watched, fascinated.

"Huh... Glad she's making use of my present," he mused.

All eyes slowly turned to him. He shrugged, no longer sheepish.

"It was Valentine's Day..."

Hope you enjoy yours...