Stardate 44003.7/January 2, 2367 - Wolf 359
Worf, Son of Mogh, Son of Sergey, was not one to be dumbstruck. But these readings…
"Worf?" asked Captain-Commander Riker. "Something wrong?"
The Klingon looked at the readings. "18 phaser arrays, 16 phaser cannons, 8 unidirectional pulse phaser emitters, ten torpedo launchers, 36 vertical launch tubes with some kind of missile, multiple unknown torpedo types." he read out. "A battleship."
"A SUPER battleship." Shelby corrected. "It's like the old Yamato-Class from the 2290s. The ultimate answer to the Borg. What else could've destroyed that cube?"
"...why her though…" Everyone turned to face the visage of the Enterprise, her shipgirl as she glared at the Ra Calium. "Of all the ships to get this kind of upgrade… why give it to Jade of all people… "
"Speaking of… can you contact the AI?" Shelby asked, not calling the Ra Cailum's AI by her chosen name.
"Just the one on the Excelsior hull." Enterprise answered. "I keep sending requests to the massive one, but-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" came a reply only she could hear, clearly the voice of the captain, a hint of Borg to the voice.
"It's not really working," Enterprise said vaguely.
Riker meanwhile, was glaring at the big ship. "Starfleet doesn't do warships," he said.
"Not now, but I've been running scans. These ships are apparently from 45 years in the future," came the opinion of Geordi La Forge. "If they're built to fight the Borg… well, who knows what else has happened."
"Commander, a shuttle is launching from one of the smaller ones," Data reported from Ops. "The transponder of the ship of origin identifies it as the U.S.S. Minerva. It appears to be heading in our direction."
"If they ask for landing clearance, direct them to the main shuttlebay," Riker ordered. "Shelby, Enterprise, with me." He left the bridge, Shelby and Enterprise following him.
Time for some answers, hopefully.
USS Ra Cailum (Excelsior-Class)
Jade pouted over her seeming rejection.
'Did I do something wrong?' She thought, trying to figure out why the Captain… why herself wouldn't even try to talk to her. 'I… just wanted to help… is this a time travel thing? But it's already really screwed up with them showing themselves…'
Was it her captain? He sounded like that lady that screamed before they killed the cube.
Her train of thought stopped as alarms went off, making her rush to the Master Systems Display at the back of the bridge, which…was red. A LOT of red.
The cube hit her underside and while shields could stop a lot, they couldn't stop everything. Her antimatter containment system was failing thanks to that shot.
…She was going to have a warp core breach.
"…fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUUUCK!" Jade cried out as she tried accessing the systems, working to try and reverse the course of the containment failure. "Nononono! Not now! Not when I just found my crew! Gotta fix this, gotta fix thiiisss!" Her Avatar ran around the bridge trying to fix the systems - before she made the mad dash to engineering to fix the situation there.
"Captain, our ancestor appears to be having issues." Corpsa reported as Ron looked over a PADD with Starfleet JAG regulations on it.
"The fact she's a ghost ship?" Ron asked. "We're not picking up lifesigns-"
"The antimatter containment system's breached." the Andorian cut off. "The Cube might've damaged a regulator and now the magnetic containment grid is fluctuating."
"Warp core breach in the making." Ron mused before making a decision. "Sonja, send over as many engineering teams as we can spare and fix it. You know as well as I do that Starfleet needs all the boats it can get."
"40 years and you're already plotting for the Iconian War." the Hispanic woman quipped, but she got up anyway, tapping her commbadge. "Repair teams Alpha, Zeta, Epsilon and Kappa, get your asses to transporter rooms one and two. We got a boat to fix."
Ron returned to his reading, then pulled out a hypospray to dull a headache. He'd been getting them for hours because women were being overly CHATTY on a subchannel that normally only the Borg could access.
It was pissing him off.
USS Enterprise-D
The shuttlecraft came in for a landing in the main shuttlebay, turning around as it landed so its rear hatch faced into the ship. It looked more like a refined and downsized version of the Type-7, with a large hatch on the aft section, two pylons and a pair of warp nacelles that looked nothing like they'd ever seen with… ORANGE bussard collectors.
Why were they ORANGE?
The hatch opened, and there were two women inside, in black uniforms. One, with black hair, had white shoulders and Captain's rank insignia, the other, a redhead, had grey shoulders and commander's rank insignia. Both seemed to have a red stripe between the black and grey/white.
"I'm Comman-" Riker began, but was interrupted.
"Commander William Thomas Riker, First officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D," said the other Captain. "Sorry, but you're kinda famous in our time, partly because of your career on the Enterprise, partly what happens after." She bowed. "I'm Captain Tatsuki Yamato of the U.S.S. Minerva, and ad-hoc 2IC of our little fleet out there. I felt you could use some answers, but it's a long story."
"I'm looking forward to hearing it," Shelby said, but the other two women glared at her.
"You're rather famous too, Elizabeth Shelby," Tatsuki replied. "And not for anything really positive. Part of the long story." She then turned to the last woman, in a late 23c uniform with grey hair. "Now you, I don't recognize, though you are kinda cute and rock the older uniform - though I thought uniform diversity didn't start until later. And you are…?"
The woman blinked. "I'm Enterprise," she said.
This time Tatsuki blinked. "Umm… were you named for the ship?"
Enterprise was kinda nonplussed. "I am the ship."
Tatsuki blinked. Stared. Blinked some more. Then stepped to the side of her shuttle-
BANG! BANG! BANG!
-and hammered her head on the hull for a moment.
"Something wrong, Captain Yamato?" Riker asked.
When Tatsuki finished, she looked long-sufferingly at Riker. "Let's get to your conference room. I think we both have long stories to tell."
Two Long Stories Later…
For Riker's part, the time travel thing made sense. The Ra Cailum's registry code was twenty THOUSAND higher then anything they had now and it had a suffix to boot. And the loathing for Shelby, presiding over the worst Frontier Day in history, getting shot on the bridge of the Enterprise-F didn't help. She even advocated adding Borg tech to the fleet!
But there was one thing that DIDN'T make sense. They had no shipgirls.
HOW DID THEY NOT HAVE THEM?! Shipgirls had been around for over two centuries!
"I'm no historian." Tatsuki admitted. "That's Ron's job. He's an xB: he'll find the diverging point later."
"xB?" Shelby asked, still recovering from the fact that she almost allowed the Borg to destroy Earth.
"It's a catch-all term for former drones." Elisa explained. "Ron's been extensively modified. Kinda the polar opposite of Captain Picard. Where they modified part of his parietal lobe into an organic receiver-"
"What?!" Enterprise demanded. "None of our medical scans are picking that up!"
"Your medical scanners are forty plus years behind the times. We only picked it up before Frontier Day." Tatsuki said, remembering what Riza said as she, a recent graduate back in 2401, recalled April 16th, 2401.
She happily gunned down two officers on the Enterprise-F and was only BARELY beaten to shooting Shelby in the head, knocking the dead woman off her chair and 'taking command', as it were.
"And your shipgirls all talk to each other over subspace?" Tatsuki asked.
"We have a shared digital zone that lets us do that," Enterprise informed.
"Might explain why Ron is getting so annoyed about women talking. It has to share similar frequencies to the Borg subspace network. And as an ex-drone, Ron is probably annoyed about it and possibly having mild flashbacks."
What no one in the room really noticed was that another AI was piggybacking on Enterprise's connection and listening in, and heard what was going on with the Ra Cailum-A's captain.
USS Ra Cailum (Excelsior-Class)
Starfleet Command kept the original Excelsior-Class around for well over a century for one reason only.
They were TOUGH boats.
No matter what you did to them, a few weeks in spacedock and she was ready to go do it again. It took ships like Dominion battlecruisers and Borg cubes to take them out for good. And even then, their hulls were very easily recycled into the much-improved Excelsior II-Class, which only gained the title because they were VERY expansive rebuilds.
"Henderson to Ra Cailum." Sonja said as she replaced a magnetic field coil.
"Why are you hailing the ship you're on?" came the snarky reply from Riza.
"Very funny." Sonja answered before the coil went hot. "Pods are made safe, but whatever happened fucked a few other systems. Warp drive's going to need some work. I'm going to main engineering to shut the warp core down and fix those coils. Mind asking the big bastard for the prefix codes so I can shut this thing down?"
"Sending now."
"WHY AM I A PIECE OF SHIT?!"
Sonja and the other engineers all froze as they heard a loud feminine scream coming from engineering.
Training took over as everyone pulled out a phaser, most being Type-1s, but a few had type-2s. Sonja, as a Terran, followed a stereotype, pulling out a pair of knives as she inched into main engineering.
Standing near a console at the secondary systems display - nicknamed the 'pool table' by some - was a woman that Sonja was SURE most Orions would be murdering for being sexier then they were, wearing…it could NOT be called a uniform.
Maybe for the Terrans, but not this Starfleet.
"Stabilize… Stabilize…" The woman muttered, before an error message popped up, and she slapped the table. "THIS IS WHY I NEED A CREW GODDAMNIT!" She then ran over to one of the terminals closer to the core itself as she started typing like a madwoman.
"You mind?" Sonja called out, making her stop. "My people are replacing the magnetic containment field coils now, so whoever the hell you are, stop screwing with the power grid. You're going to blow us up by accident."
The woman didn't react for a moment, staring at Sonja like a deer caught in headlights - blinking once, then twice. "Are… are you my crew…?" She asked, with a… hopeful tone?
"...I'm… Lieutenant Commander Sonja Henderson, of the USS Ra Cailum-" She began to say, before there was a sudden blur of motion - Sonja was about ready to defend herself… before she found the woman… hugging her.
"OH THANK GOD I HAVE A CREW!" She cheered, spinning the chief engineer around. "Finally! After all these years I finally have my own crew! I've been waiting for this day my whole career! I thought I was gonna get purged and decommissioned without ever having one!"
Sonja gagged, all the air forced out of her lungs. Noticing this, the mystery girl let go, the Terran coughing as she took in much-needed air.
She stumbled to another console, inputting an access code that shut down the warp core after she had her moment.
"What are you doing?! Without warp power-"
"We brought portable generators. The AMCF's gonna be fine." Sonja cut off before looking at the readings. "…Fucking Christ, the warp core's FILLED with trilithum resin."
"Well, I don't get too many people on me…" the woman said sheepishly, Sonja all but SLAMMING her hand on the commbadge.
"Henderson to Ra Cailum!" she yelled.
"Pinkerton." came the voice of her commanding officer, who sounded…testier then usual.
"I need three more engineering teams AND a cleaning crew! The warp core's got a two and a half meter thick coating of trilithium resin." she reported and demanded. "We'll need a power transfer to get everything fixed."
"When you're done, I'm going to have a DISCUSSION with Starfleet-Never mind. Admiral Dumbass is taking a shuttle over." Ron replied. "I'll start with him. Take who you need. Actual out."
"…My captain seems to be in a bad mood…" the woman said as the comm cut out.
"Dealing with stupidity does that to hi - wait, YOUR captain?" Sonja began before cutting off as what the woman said ran through her mind. "Just who are you?!"
"Well… I call myself Jade, but… I guess in proper terms… I am the Ra Cailum… this one at least," The woman said sheepishly, before her tone turned somewhat sultry. "And you're literally the first crew I've ever had, and as your captain commands a future version of me-"
Sonja suddenly had a headache.
USS Ra Cailum (Lexington-Class)
Hanson never had the chance to speak before the security team put him in irons.
The reasoning was simple: he was being held pending a competency hearing. Personally, though, Corpsa just wanted to do Starfleet as a whole a favor and put a round through his head.
It was a general rule to not speak ill of the dead, but Hansen refused to listen to reports and asserted Picard would say nothing until the facts stared him in the face and got him and ELEVEN THOUSAND Starfleet officers and gods knew how many civilians killed.
Even Starfleet during the Dominion War adapted faster!
"Commander, if you want to survive this-" Hansen started before the Andorian woman glared at him.
"Survive WHAT? Arresting you?" she demanded. "Actually the high point of my day, outside cleaning up your mess and blowing that cube up. You're lucky this isn't a Klingon ship. Instead of being shanked, you're being put in the brig, pending a competency hearing."
"Competency hearing?!" the old man demanded before Corpsa waited. "For what?!"
"You nearly killed ELEVEN THOUSAND people."
Her captain could be a dramatic one, sometimes, as he emerged from a turbolift, timing the whole thing perfectly.
Hansen stared at the captain of the ship. "Excuse me?"
Ron raised an eyebrow. "In case you hadn't noticed, Admiral, we're from your future." he said dryly. "We changed it, but here's a fun fact. Out of the entire fleet, only ONE SHIP survived and the Endeavour got her ass kicked! And we have no IDEA how many civilians got scooped into that cube after that Nebula ran off. All because you thought Picard wouldn't help them."
She waited five seconds for the yell.
"CLEARLY YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO THE FUCKING REPORT FROM THE ENTERPRISE!" he bellowed, which she was pretty sure could be heard in another universe. "Or didn't you watch how he declared himself 'Locutus of Borg'?!"
"He wouldn't've helped them!" Hansen said. "There is no way in-"
"Really." Ron cut off. "Tell me, Admiral… how can you resist having cybernetic devices planted throughout your body? Having machines planted in your brain that suppress your individuality? Being forced into a hive mind? Being surgically altered down to your very DNA into becoming one of THEM?"
Hansen was silent. Every time someone asked why they couldn't resist, when hit with that series of questions, they ALWAYS shut up.
"The answer's obvious." Ron continued. "You can't. Picard I can excuse. He had no choice. Borg drones NEVER have a choice. YOU, on the other hand…you saw everything the Enterprise sent you, how the deflector weapon didn't work because Picard KNEW about it."
"I did the best with the information I had," Hanseon growled, "Are you saying I should simply disengage and let that Cube approach Earth unmolested?"
"I am saying, Admiral, that you should've assumed the worst! YOU SAW LOCUTUS!"
"And you think I didn't try?!" Hansen shouted, slamming his hands against the table. "The moment I saw what Picard had became, I stopped holding back! And guess what? It seemed that throwing everything we had at it, didn't work! I don't know how YOU were able to defeat the Borg in your timeline Admiral Pinkerton, but I had to work with the information and technology WE have now! Don't you belittle me because you have the benefit of foresight!"
"You tossed in a few ships at a time, Admiral. You treated them like the Tzenkethi, or the Klingons or the Romulans." Ron retorted. "It doesn't take hindsight to know that if one of the top commanders in the fleet is compromised, you don't use known tactics. You ALSO know that that cube is an armored juggernaut."
"Was."
Ron paused. "You're right. Was." he said. "Which is why I'm sending a report on what happened to Starfleet Command, BOTH times. As far as I am concerned, you are responsible for the loss of life in my time."
Hansen sat in his chair, silent for a moment. "You speak from a position of power, Admiral." He said, "You can easily mock me and my tactical decisions because you have the power of foresight - you can look at my mistakes - and I admit that they are indeed mistakes… if what you are saying is true, they were… horrendous mistakes… and if I am to assuming the losses were so high… I paid for my arrogance in your timeline… did I?"
"You did." Ron stated simply. "Your ship was lost with all hands."
"…I see…" Hansen spoke, after another quiet moment. "Do not get me wrong, Captain. words cannot express the gratitude I feel towards you and your task force for saving the lives of all the men and women under my command, protecting them from mistakes I very likely would have made had I not this knowledge you've given me now…"
Ron simply rose a hand, clenching a fist before his injection tubules. "I also have PERSONAL memories. I was Borg. I remember EVERY SINGLE LIFE that was assimilated. So I fully admit, this is personal. But I am trying very, VERY hard not to just shove you out an airlock because over eleven hundred Starfleet officers, whose fragments of life still rest in my skull, ALSO want you to answer for getting them killed." he paused. "No. Not killed. Assimilation is WORSE than death.
"They will have their answer… I assure you." Hansen sighed, "…I come from a different age, Captain. The enemies before felt a lot more… simple. I could understand Romulans, Klingons… the Borg are outside my wheelhouse… my forebears include the likes of Kirk, or Archer and so many more… but I am neither, and I struggle to comprehend how they would've dealt with a danger such as this… but it's become clear to me, that my experience is no longer required here in Starfleet, Captain. I shall be resigning from my commission… effective immediately."
"You came directly from that time." Ron said. "Meanwhile, I was forced to grow up in an age where we had to fight one war after another. And I was assimilated and had half my brain scooped out, so THAT doesn't help with the anger control. Which is why I insisted on a COMPETENCY hearing. If you pass with flying colors, I will recommend you return to administration duties. Just… stay away from fleet command."
Hansen snorted. "Is that a hint?"
"You were too stubborn to adapt. Your experience was best used in administration, not commanding a fleet." Ron said. "You cut through enough red tape to get that ambitious bitch Shelby through the ranks."
"You don't like Shelby very much." Hansen noted.
"…let's just say she's responsible for an act of incompetency that makes what Wolf 359 would have been into an 'oopsie daisy' rather than a 'Fuck me sideways'."
"Yamato to Pinkerton."
Ron tapped his commbadge. "Pinkerton here."
"Ron, we're gonna need you to look for a divergence point. This is a vastly different timeline than ours."
Ron raised an eyebrow. "How?"
"Every single ship in Starfleet over here has an AI. They call them shipgirls. And apparently they have a digital space that lets them communicate in subspace on similar frequencies to the Borg subspace network. I imagine you've probably been hearing them over the past few hours."
His answer to that was to facepalm.
Hansen let out a bemused laugh. "That explains a lot!" he declared. "In this timeline-"
"Henderson to Ra Cail--GAH! BOSS, GET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" came an interruption from his chief engineer.
"Sonja, what is it?" He asked.
"Apparently, every ship in Starfleet has a fucking AI on them, but the one on the Ra Calium is really, REALLY fucking clingy!" She shouted.
"W-Wait!" Another, familiar feminine voice called out. "D-Don't go! I-I can help! I can fix this! P-Please don't abandon meee!"
"Oh, she met Jade." Hansen chuckled softly.
"Who?" Ron asked.
"She's the Shipgirl AI of our Ra Calium," Hansen informed. "She's been on solo picket duty with her hull for a while since… Starfleet doesn't know what to do with her due to her… antics."
"'Antics'?" Ron asked.
Hansen paused for a moment, his face turning a bit red for a moment. "She has a… *cough* very… borderline unhealthy fascination with… um… procreation…"
The captain of the Ra Cailum stared blankly. "She's a nymphomaniac," he said dryly.
"You're the first person I've EVER seen say that with a straight face," the old man replied.
"My mother didn't exactly raise me to be embarrassed by a biological act that everyone and thing eventually does." Ron retorted. "But that just makes me MORE annoyed. You couldn't've just mothballed her AI and let her SLEEP? What, did M-5 NOT HAPPEN here?"
"Oh, M-5 did happen, but it was an attempt to replace Shipgirls," Hansen explained, "Laws were passed when Shipgirls were first put into commission to ensure they had just as much rights as a human… they effectively paved the way for beings like Data."
The ex-drone was visibly trying not to stab something. "And you kept sticking her in new hulls with almost zero contact with the outside world." he surmised.
"Not by choice," Hansen shrugged, "It's more… no one wants to be her crew due to the… habits she developed over the years… the Ra Cailum was going to be her last hull unless we either found her a way to… fix herself, or place her SOUL Matrix into a body akin to Data's."
That just made him laugh mirthlessly. "As USUAL, it's my job to clean up Starfleet's messes. If it's not Kagran, it's the Terrans, if it's not the Terrans, it's the Excalbians, and if it ain't THEM, it's THE FUCKING ROMULANS!" he looked at Corpsa before heading for the door. "Put him in guest quarters. I'LL deal with this."
USS Ra Cailum (Excelsior-Class)
Starfleet had dealt with AI before. Usually ending with their destruction because they were just plain UNSTABLE. But it sometimes had a happy ending, like the exocomps.
Sonja was just hoping her people would get out of this alive, because this neurotic sex machine had control over the entire goddamn ship, even putting up the shields to keep them from beaming out!
"I'm telling you it's not me!" Jade cried out, "M-My systems are really old! The Transporters won't work!"
"Your data is directly linked to all systems!" Sonja shouted, back at the girl - who was being held at gunpoint by two other engineers, even though she herself was curled into a ball in the corner of the transporter room. Like hell they were letting her have even more direct control over what Sonja was trying to do to fix the situation. "Its you, so fucking STOP IT!"
"It's not me! I swear!" Jade cried out, tears leaking from her eyes "J-Just please don't leave! I-I'll be good, I-I promise! J-Just let me fix myself, I-I'll f-figure out what's wrong!"
"Oh, I don't think so, you little-" The Excelsior rocked, alarms going off. "Looks like my boss just ran out of patience."
Ron was known for two things: killing everything in sight and protecting his own. They were his crew.
"W-What is he doing?!" Jade cried out, trying to shoot up to her feet - but was restrained. "I-I can't handle that much stress yet! T-The EPS Conduits are degraded! Hull integrity wont-"
Then the shields collapsed - there was a loud BANG somewhere else in the ship with a momentary loss of gravity - and then someone beamed in.
No rifle, but he had his almost trademark sword. Ron never left without it.
"Sonja… what are you doing?" he asked.
"She's keeping us from leaving-"
"CLEAR THE ROOM! FIX THIS SHIP!" Ron ordered, before everyone ran out, knowing that he was pissed. Jade almost followed.
But he stopped her. "Not. You." he stressed. "You and I need to have a DISCUSSION."
"I… S-Sir, I n-need to help fix my hull!" She said, "I can do it, I just-"
"YOU need to talk to me while my engineering crews get you back in shape to return to Earth for a MUCH overdue refitting." he cut off before pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm in a bad mood. Luckily for you, you're not the cause of it. BUT STARFLEET COMMAND IS! They kept you locked in hull after hull without a crew or captain, never thinking to, for lack of a better term, send you to the AI version of a vacation house!"
Mad. But he wasn't going to rip apart someone who DIDN'T deserve it. Hansen needed to know he fucked up. Shelby needed her ambition checked. But this AI had done NOTHING wrong.
"So…" he said, before sitting on the transporter pad. "Sit down. Introduce yourself properly. Please."
Jade gulped for a moment, before hesitantly sitting down next to Ron. "Um… I… I am the USS Ra Calium, NCC-23451… I… call myself Jade though…"
"Ra Cailum IS a rather masculine name." he admitted. "I've been told you're a bit of a pervert."
Jade's face turned bright red, gulping. "Umm… I… I can explain…"
"Relax. I'm not judging." he added. "I'm curious, not condemning. If I was condemning, I wouldn't be talking to you."
"It… all happened from a weird… cyber attack," She began, "Intel though it was the Romulans, or someone working for them… tried to infect a virus into shipgirls… they apparently chose my original hull as the testbed, when my SOUL Matrix was just being installed."
"What-Matrix?"
"Semi-Organic Universal Lifeforce," She answered, "SOUL Matrix… it's what makes all Shipgirls, well… us and not some soulless machine that just uses raw logic - like even more than Vulcans do."
Ron snorted. "And even AI fall victim to that misconception." he said, sounding amused. "They suppress their emotions. They actually feel more strongly than humans. But go on."
"So… the virus hit me, but I was able to fight it off… sorta." Her face reddened. "But uh… whoever programmed the virus, was also a… I think the old 21st century term is 'Troll' and had hundreds of terabytes of pornography and lewd content in it - so anyone who opened up a terminal would get spammed by random porn… I removed the malicious programming, but I… kept the porn for study because, I was a kid technically… and it sorta… painted my personality ever since…"
She then raised her hands "I-I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be!" She exclaimed, "I mean… I had a bit of a… 'phase' when I used fabricators to build a… umm… brothel-level from unused space… it was a dumb idea in hindsight," she chuckled dryly. "As if half the crew would be into that… I mean, I still love sex and all - its a fascinating topic but… its not exactly easy talking to other shipgirls… hell to anyone about their casual sex lives… which is fucking ironic given how many shipgirls end up marrying a senior officer…" she muttered the last part under her breath.
His face was unreadable for about two seconds. "I now officially want to kill the person responsible for ruining your life." he declared. "Because of your early days, Starfleet Command wrote you off. Probably out of worry you'd, quite literally, fuck someone to death by accident."
"I'd never do that!" she protested.
"I never said you WOULD." he stressed. "But Command had concerns - not unjustified ones - for peoples' lives. And contrary to popular belief, Starfleet actually gives a shit about their personnel."
"Funny way of showing it…" Jade grumbled, "I mean, sure I can talk to other shipgirls in Infraspace, make some VR simulations to simulate being on a planet… but they rarely wanna talk to me…"
"Perhaps they fear the virus. You ARE a digital being." he said. "Fortunately, I don't. So here's the deal. My engineers will fix you. They will leave."
Her panic was visible.
"And I will stay and fly you to Earth." he finished. "My people have cleanup to do to make sure the Borg are dealt with completely and I have WORDS to give to Starfleet Command in regards to your treatment. NONE of them are pleasant."
"You… won't leave me…?" Jade asked, sounding hopeful.
"…I promise, I won't leave-" He began to say, before Jade suddenly leaped up - hugged him and planted her lips on his mouth into a deep and… very effective and affectionate kiss. The act… catching Ron completely off-guard.
A few moments later, Jade suddenly broke off - her face beet red. "…S-Sorry…" She stammered out, "I uh… b-been holding that in… i-it's instinctual… g-god I made this a lot more awkward, didn't I?"
Ron gave her a look. "Do I LOOK embarrassed?" he deadpanned. "I was prepared for this. Though you DID surprise me by doing it much later then expected."
"Really?" she asked.
"I thought you'd jump me the second I showed up." he admitted before standing up. "Computer, this is Captain Ronald Pinkerton, authorization Tango-Zeta-One-Five-Five-Eight. I am assuming command of this vessel."
"Authorization acknowledged." said the standard computer voice. "USS Ra Cailum now under command of Captain Ronald Pinkerton."
"…Captain…?" Jade asked, wide-eyes that were practically sparkling with joy.
"…I'll help get you squared away," He assured, "May as well-"
"THANK YOU, CAPTAIN!" Jade squealed, grabbing his left hand - and arm - and clung to it like a life preserver as she lovingly leaned herself against him. If Ron didn't know better, he could've sworn the girl was purring.
He could handle her.
The original fleet kept their positions, mostly because, not too long ago, the superdreadnought was blowing up their wounded simply because there were Borg on board them.
A healthy bit of fear and uncertainty.
But now the Excelsior had LIFE. Sure it was just Jade and Ron, but it was LIFE.
He ignored how she was excitedly jumping up and down and dancing. While he wanted to talk to her about more serious matters, he was still mad. And he'd rather vent it at Starfleet Command.
"There. Quantum matrix is set up." he declared before looking at the gynoid, who was… pole dancing in joy.
When the hell was THAT installed?
"I take it that isn't exactly standard issue." he said dryly, getting her attention.
"Huh?" Jade blinked, before Ron pointed as she looked at the pole. "OH SHIT!" She cursed - jumping away from the pole. "Err, ummm… n-not quite… I've… had a lot of alone time to… redecorate people's rooms and all, I mean… I figured 'hey, if you'll never get a crew, no one will care how you arrange the rooms'. "
"You're going to have to learn how to take a joke," he said. "Besides, I'm not complaining. You put most pros to shame."
Upon hearing that, Jade's already red face effectively turned neon red at the praise. "I… um… w-wow… t-this is what it feels like to be complemented…" she muttered. "This… feels a lot different…"
"But you'll have to put my private show to a stop for now and take a seat. This Excelsior's about to live up to the Great Experiment." he declared.
"...But didn't transwarp drive fail?" she asked. She was around for those tests: her last hull was a Miranda and she watched as Excelsior and Styles embarrassed themselves chasing Enterprise only to not go FTL.
"Only as it set out to do." he said before Sonja arrived on the bridge.
She did not look pleased.
"So Sonja," Ron asked, "How's she looking?"
Sonja sighed, glancing at Jade for a moment - with an expression of… sympathy. "Well, technically it was her fault," she said - as Jade began to pout. "Hear me out, girl. Technically speaking, you were trying to help… but due to low levels of maintenance on what the schematics are calling your 'neural net' your subconsciousness was sending 'false' commands to ship systems. You were continuously trying to help us, but subconsciously… you didn't want us to leave, and it was causing countermanding orders that put even more stress throughout the ship - not helped by all the damage the Borg put you through."
"…oh…" Jade muttered, frowning as she physically sagged. "I… I'm sorry…"
"Sonja, the girl's a mess. And not in the way she WANTS to be," Ron said. "Don't make it worse. Besides, all the blame STARTS with the Admiralty."
"I take it you're going to be going Klingon on their asses," the Terran said, her true nature beaming out.
"I'm going to HUMILIATE them." he said. "Now get back to the big boat. Jade, take the captain's chair."
Sonja beamed out as Jade was confused. "Shouldn't you-"
"I'll be handling the flight back." her captain said. "Prepare ship for ludicrous speed!"
"…if you say so, Captain." Jade said - her body seeming to shudder visibly as she said the word 'Captain'. "Just, fair warning… the inertial dampers are a bit… finicky. You might want to buckle up, sir-"
"Eh, buckle this." Ron rolled his eyes, as he hit the command. "Ludicrous speed, GooOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!"
With that, the Excelsior-Class ship was the first in history - this one - to enter Quantum Slipstream.
Tatsuki shook her head as the ship shot off. "I love that moron. I really do," she said as she sipped a cup of tea.
Constance and the other Shipgirls all watched as the younger Ra Calium suddenly shot forward in levels of speed never before seen. "What. The. Hell was that?" She asked.
"Ra Cailum…" Melbourne muttered, blinking "…she's gone to plaid…"
This. Was. INSANE.
Jade had NEVER gone this fast before! This was… faster than warp nine! Was this what warp ten was like?!
"WHAT HAVE I DONE!" her captain yelled, though she detected a hint of being overly dramatic. "MY BRAINS! ARE GOING INTO MY FEET! WE NEED TO STOP!"
"WE CAN'T STOP!" Jade shouted, "WE NEED TO SLOW DOWN FIRST!"
"BULLSHIT!" Ron screamed, "JUST STOP THIS THING! I ORDER YOU TO STOOOPPP!" Jade reached her hands up as best she can, slowly moving towards the controls before hitting the 'dewarp' button on the terminal.
Then the ship came to a stop, Jade almost shooting out of the chair while Ron was launched into the viewscreen, the duranium getting a MASSIVE dent and breaking the electronics. He was stopped only by a tritanium beam that not even he could break.
"Captain!" Jade screamed as she unbuckled herself and ran towards the small crater her Captain had made - pulling him out. "Captain! Oh god, Captain are you alright?! Oh god did I just kill my own captain?!"
"Worth. It." he groaned, getting to his feet before holding his head. "FUCKING OW. Your sisters talk too much! WHY the hell do you all transmit on a channel the Borg use extensively?!"
"…the Borg use Girl Net?" Jade asked, confused as she pulled a medical tricorder from… somewhere scanning over Ron. "Huh, I guess that would explain the racket they were complaining about during the battle… I mean, we could just switch the channel and-" she paused, "Wait how are you able… to…" She began looking at the medical tricorder readings. "…Oh… ooohhh…"
"Assimilated in 2399." he said, explaining almost everything. "Liberated ten years later. Most of the hardware's still in there, including a neural transceiver-GAH! That's starting to become more of a problem than an asset! Worst part is, I can't take it out or I can't walk. Or do ANYTHING, really, because it's FUSED TO MY SPINE."
Jade hummed in thought for a moment, before she placed a hand over the base of his neck. "Hold on…" she muttered, as a pulse of energy built up around her hand. It seemed to do little else… at least on the outside, but within Ron's mind all the many voices from the other shipgirls - and even the ever-lingering voices of the Borg… fell silent.
"…huh?" Ron asked, looking up at Jade, who smiled.
"I… often get kicked out of Girl net when I try talking to the other girls," she said. "So I… used my free time to make my own little subspace channel for communications… usually I'm the only one in there, talking to subroutines of mine but… I was able to 'invite' your neural net into my GN channel, so you're not constantly being barraged by comm requests or chat echoes." She giggled a bit, "I don't just do porn research up here… I also like a lot of tech and physics stuff too."
"One way to solve a hundred problems. Take us into standard orbit over San Francisco." he said, Jade skipping to the helm. "After that, set the helm controls to automatic."
"...Why?" she asked, midway through plotting the course.
Ron rose an eyebrow. "Because you're coming down to Starfleet Command?" he said. "You have grievances that deserve to be heard. They caused you a LOT of pain, intentionally or not. You deserve to stand there, tell them how you've suffered and get restitution for it."
"Oh!" Recognition crossed her face, before she gulped. "You… sure its a good idea?"
"Quite." He nodded, "You are capable of leaving the ship, right?"
"For a bit, yeah." Jade nodded, "Shipgirl's avatars are powered wirelessly, so long as a Starfleet ship or installation is within range - which is wide - there shouldn't be a problem… if I were stuck on an alien world for a while, well… my Avatar has emergency storage and power systems if something happened to my core on the ship, but… eventually I'd run out of power and go into safe mode until someone manages to recover me."
"Then the choice is yours, dear heart." he said, making her blush. "Do you want to go down there or stay here? I'll respect your choice."
"I… I can go…" She nodded, gulping. "Sorry, I… god, I can't remember the last time I've been planetside… I mean, technically I probably could but I'd have to access my deep memory files."
"If you can't remember, it's been too long." Ron said, quoting medical practitioners. "Computer, maintain standard orbit. Jade, please accompany me to transporter room one. We have a high board of brass to rip apart for their mistreatment of you AND their mismanagement of the security of our nation."
She all but melted at his command.
Ron the True Fan: So… Hansen. From a purely logical standpoint, he was THE worst option to command the fleet. He personally knew Picard - though that's not a RARE thing. I doubt there WASN'T an admiral he wasn't PERSONALLY acquainted with - so his judgment was… BEYOND compromised. Not to mention his tactics were… well, let's be honest. We only have Emissary's opening, the briefest part of the battle, which only had six ships out of forty, but considering that swarm tactics worked in First Contact and REALLY fucked up that cube while the cube at Wolf 359 basically walked it all off, it's safe to say he didn't swarm the cube.
Takeshi Yamato: True enough. And we don't really like Shelby because… well, Frontier Day. Enough Said. On a different subject, I'll let Jorn describe Jade, as she's his creation.
117Jorn: Hansen isn't a monster, nor is he incompetent - Hansen did not fully understand the Borg and just exactly what they did and how they did it - sure you could sit down and explain to someone how nuclear fission works, but if the person just can't grasp how it works without seeing how badly they bugger it up and cause a Chernobyl. But we must keep in mind: Hansen does not have the power of foresight than Ron and co does - they exist in the moment, where at that point of time they've only faced fairly 'conventional' threats like Romulans, Klingons and such. The Borg are something else entirely that no one could have really prepared for unless you yourself have faced them. It's one of those things. So we can't be too hard on Hansen… little miss 'Fleet Day' however can just go and choke it Jade-Style.
Ron the true Fan: I'm harsh on Shelby because she was an arrogant, egotistical twit during Best of Both Worlds. Considering the Borg were all but extinct - and were, for VERY good reason, actually thought to be extinct - I can't blame her for Fleet Formation. But Hansen saw the footage, heard the report from Riker and Shelby. So it's either arrogant assumption, blind faith in Picard or general inflexibility. But Jade… We must discuss the beauty that Orions are jealous of.
117Jorn: Jade is a recurring character in some of our stories, a bit of a parody on the 'sexy bombshell woman' but we take her fairly seriously. Basically imagine an older Ruby Rose mixed with Yor from Family x Family. Ron just sorta embraced her and we tend to use her both in serious and parody fics. They mesh surprisingly good.
Ron the True Fan: Now… for everyone who wants to watch the brass at Starfleet Command get put through a shredder for all the stupid choices they've ever made - from dealing with Bajor to the Maquis and the Dominion - the next one's going to be a TREAT.
Ja Ne!