One of One

by zArkham

As the USS Voyager becomes embroiled in the war between the Borg & Species 8472, a strange anomaly is detected on the Borg Cube where Captain Janeway is negotiating for the life of her crew and maybe for all life in the Delta Quadrant. Within that anomaly hides a centuries old secret. A being who found that resistance was not futile and will continue to resist till the end.

20. Gravity - Pt 4

PRIME DIRECTIVE: Space may be the final frontier, but I'll never get there by any monies derived from this as Harry Potter and all properties of such are owned by the Dark Lady JKR. All content, characters related to Star Trek are owned by Paramount Pictures, Inc....except maybe some of that stuff that ended up being used in Starfleet Battles which is owned by the Amarillo Design Bureau who used much of their content via the Starfleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt and published by Ballantine Books.

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CHAPTER TWENTY – GRAVITY – PART FOUR

(Episode: Very AU version of ST: VOY Gravity)

XxXxX

PITHY STATEMENT RELATING TO THIS CHAPTER: "Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory ... we are all kings in exile." (The Thing: Why I am a Catholic) – G.K. Chesterton – English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary & art critic. He has been referred to as the prince of paradox – 1874-1936

LAST UPDATED ON: 02-04-2024

(NEW) ARRAKEEN, TARTARUS, SECTOR 366, DELTA QUADRANT – 3 MONTHS, 10 DAYS AFTER THE CRASH

Tom shook his head as he watched what looked like something out of one of his Captain Proton holo-novels. The Vaartig was being walked from the old site to their new one via a carriage with six large 'legs' which Harry had transfigured from the copious amount of ship debris found in the area. These legs moved slowly, mostly one or two legs moving at a time. Still, this technique was a lot less magic intensive to Harry then levitating the wreck like he'd done the first time. Now that the ship rested on the carriage, the legs bore the weight of the Vaartig and Harry's magic was mostly going into animating the motions.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Maria said next to him.

Tom nodded, "It certainly is. I was not looking forward to a decade without Harry. Now I feel we can actually make this place a real home while we wait for Voyager and the rest to catch up to our time frame."

Tom looked over to where Tuvok, Treana, Noss and Gazali waited around the area the Vaartig would be placed. The other Skurk were onboard monitoring the ship and ensuring there would be no problems with the cryostasis pods. Getting the Vaartig hooked up to the Trell and its power supply was critical to keep the pods from malfunctioning.

He looked around their new home and nodded. He could see how, even in the dark, Harry saw how this was a better place to lieve. Beyond being much more open, the large ridgeline to the south-east broke sandstorms up in a way which caused most of the sand to be shunted to the sides. Certainly, this created large dunes which were a hazard. Still, Harry had a plan for that due to an off-hand comment from Maria about glass-making. The idea was through magic and/or technology, transmute the sand into glass and then form them into a kind of faux-Lego bricks. Tom smiled at the memory of Harry's surprise that kids of the 24th Century still played with such toys, still made on Earth and shipped throughout the Federation.

The bricks didn't need the exacting specifications real Lego bricks needed. All they needed to be was portable and be able to be linked together. And with Harry's magic, portable meant they could be very large indeed. Tuvok felt that over time they could add to the ridgeline protections. It would clear up more space, help keep sand out of the basin and function as a defensive wall. Although that last part wasn't really felt to be needed. One of the first courses of action after getting things set up was to start making First Contact type missions and hopefully bring all the various refugees to live in Arrakeen.

Tom leaned down and gave Maria a kiss on the cheek, "Well I need to go check on the Verne. I'm still not convinced the current location is the best."

Maria shrugged, "Okay but it's not like we don't have the time to get it right. I'm betting the 'before' and 'after' pictures of this place will be quite a sight by the time we get rescued in a decade or so."

Tom snorted, "Samantha has got this idea to log it all for a paper to Starfleet on possible new training for how to deal with being stranded on hostile planets. Can't say I blame her. Given everything that's been happening, I wish Starfleet had taught me how to use a sword and knife in combat. All our tech and we still sometimes have to go with the basics, I guess."

Maria laughed, "Maybe that should be blazoned over the survival studies classroom. 'It's 5 minutes to beam out; do you know where your combat knife is?' or something like that."

Tom laughed as well, "Works for me!"

XxXxX

ARRAKEEN, TARTARUS, SECTOR 366, DELTA QUADRANT – 4 MONTHS, 5 DAYS AFTER THE CRASH

The double moons cast a pale glow on the surrounding wasteland which turned the harsh landscape into something of beauty. The biting chill of the desert night couldn't take away from that even as the cold seemed to sneak through every possible opening in Tuvok's clothes.

Even so, Vulcans were used to the desert cold as much as they were to the scorching heat of the day. Stoically ignoring the night's bite, he simply continued his meditation even as he continued to scan the area. It helped to map out an area at night just as much as day to help embedded the lay of the land in one's subconscious. It was a trick that the mental abilities of Vulcans allowed. It would take a lot for Tuvok to get lost after he had completed this mental task. This could be life-saving if he were caught outside in a storm and couldn't see well enough to get his bearings.

His sharp hearing, however, caught the fact that he would soon be interrupted by a visitor. Tuvok did not make any overt sign of irritation at the intrusion as he was relieved that it was Harry Potter and not Noss or Tom Paris. He'd already had a painful discussion about the Terkellian with Tom earlier in the week.

Also, unlike Tom, Harry did not immediately begin to speak but instead was content to sit on a nearby rock across from where Tuvok was sitting. This allowed Tuvok to 'save and shut-down' his mental work as it were. Tuvok appreciated the courtesy and was reminded, once again, that while not a Vulcan, Harry did have a modicum of mental powers and thus probably had a sense that Tuvok had been doing mental work.

When complete, Tuvok turned his head slightly to Harry, "Is there a problem, Mr. Potter?"

Harry chuckled at this, "So Starfleet; assuming there is a problem. However, in this case, I think less of a problem and more that we need to make some decisions soon. Hard decisions. Given it's pretty obvious everyone looks to you to be our leader, I felt it was time to point this out."

Tuvok nodded, "Agreed. With the completion of the basic necessities of this site, our strategy must be to begin collecting supplies, assets and begin to make contact with others out there."

Harry shook his head, "That's not what I'm talking about, Tuvok. I'm talking about the future. I hate to keep harping on this but we can't just think that the Equinox and/or Voyager is just going to warp in, do a few scans and figure a way to get us out of here in under an hour. I realize our ships have a lot of tech that few in the Delta Quadrant have. That being said, we're not that far advanced and it's obvious this phenomenon has been going on for a long time. The lack of any warning beacons around this area of space is worrisome."

Tuvok nodded, his lips in a tight line, "Indeed. It does seem to imply that ships sent into to investigate disappearances also get trapped or worse, destroyed."

Harry grimaced, "Hell, for all we know, this whole system is used as a sort of trap by the neighboring systems to keep other races and the Borg away. My point is while I have faith we can expect the fleet to try and rescue us, we have to plan for the future where either this takes longer…or doesn't happen at all."

Tuvok turned so, while still seated, he was fully facing Harry. The light of both moons was enough that an artificial light wasn't needed to see each other's expressions, "So what is it you are proposing?"

Harry was silent for a while, "The way I see it is we have to start acting like we are never going to get off this planet in our lifetime. Because if we don't, we run the risk of just staving off disaster for a decade or so. We need to start taking certain actions as if we were settlers intending to stay forever. Because if the fleet can't rescue us, then the only way off this planet is to do it ourselves. We can't do that with a bunch of salvaged components and population which, charitably, could be under a 100."

Tuvok thought about this for a moment before nodding, "Logical. As you humans say, hope for the best but plan for the worst."

Harry snorted and gave a self-depreciating toss of the head, "As if we humans actually did that most times. Anyway, unless there are a lot more refugees out there, we have three humans, a Vulcan, an Orion and a Terkellian to work with given the Skurk aren't genetically compatible. Odd that."

Tuvok shook his head, "It is not. It has been confirmed that multiple races have seeded the galaxy with various genomes for various reasons of their own. The Skurk, unlike the Terkellian, are obviously a race outside the scope of that seeding. However, as you say, it does show we're up against a genetic wall so to speak."

Harry was silent long enough for Tuvok to prompt him, "You appear troubled. What are you not telling me?"

Harry sighed but was silent for a bit longer before continuing, "Well it's like this. If we think in terms of a colony, we need people. Lots of people. To do this we're going to have to throw out a lot of normal behavior. That's a given. Yet even if we do nothing but keep the gals pregnant from now till they can't crank kids out anymore, it's still long odds. And that's making the big assumption that the women would go for it. So, we need another avenue…which we have."

Tuvok simply waited for Harry to continue. He knew that the wizard had a plan but felt there would be resistance to it. Why else would he seek out Tuvok alone rather than bring it up during a meeting?

Harry turned and made a gesture to the south-west, "I did a scrying the other day. Just a basic one to help give me a jump on where to look. I never gave much thought to Divination when I was in the class. Didn't help our teacher was a drunk. Still, over the years I found that if you're just asking for a hint, if you will, it works pretty well. Well, I got such a hint so I went to check it out."

Tuvok couldn't help but let out a sigh, "Mr. Potter, I thought we'd agreed that we need to stick together. You going off on your own and potentially becoming a casualty risks everything."

Harry nodded and did look bashfully contrite, "I know, but the thing is the scrying had a hint of danger to it. So I took out the hover-bike prototype to check it out and I quickly realized why. You see I found a crashed Borg scout sphere. Not one of the big ones; just the smaller pod sized ones."

The only reaction to this was for Tuvok to raise an eyebrow, "Interesting. I expect it to be fully disabled otherwise they would have assimilated any and all of the refugees by now. That and the Skurk obviously do not know of them given how they would have attacked any surviving drones."

Harry made a 'so-so' gesture with his right hand, "Yes and no. Yes, the sphere is wrecked. However, it's obvious that it's going through a very slow repair process. It had a crew of five of which three are dead. The other two are in stasis. I think the reason repairs are going so slowly is the ship has to maintain the stasis fields. So, ironically, the Borg are in the same bind as the Skurk are. They have power but so much of it is tied up in keeping stasis chambers going."

"Something the Skurk will not have to be using soon as our efforts come to fruition," Tuvok pointed out.

Harry nodded in agreement, "Agreed. The point of all this is I'm not worried about the two drones. I can jack in and slip them some of my modified nanites. It'll be easy and it's not like I haven't done it before all those years on the Cube. True, it's going to take a long time to get them to the point like the former drones back in the fleet. In fact, unless things radically change, they probably would be ready right in time for rescue. But again, the point isn't the drones but the technology inherent in the sphere which could be used to solve our problem."

Tuvok frowned, "I do not follow your logic."

Harry made a face and was silent for a moment before going on, "The problem is, as I said, we have a small pool of genes to work with. Luckily, it's a very diverse pool of genes. Still, if we do things naturally, we don't have enough variety to keep our descendants from having issues if it takes generations, if ever, to escape. The fix, however, is easy if a bit distasteful. It doesn't help that anyone with half a brain is going to jump on the fact that it uses Borg tech and I knew Khan Noonien Singh."

It immediately clicked in Tuvok's thinking of what Harry was proposing and why he felt it wouldn't go over well, "Agreed. However, regardless of the genesis of the idea, it is the most logical path away from disaster. Yet do we have the knowledge to make this achievable?"

Harry shrugged, "Hard to say. Zim seems to think so. Apparently mapping the genome is something you folks have got down to an artform even if you rarely do more than prune certain nasty aspects of one's genes. I'm thinking that the Eugenics War has made many leery of too much fiddling around with one's genes."

"For most races, yes. We Vulcans have done extensive gene alterations but this was done long ago and is only modified today as needed. Of course, the Klingons experience with racial gene therapy is taken as the latest example of why it is best not to play God as you humans would say," Tuvok explained. The stark difference between the older Klingons like Korath and Ventrys to Warg was startling. B'Elanna had mentioned another reason a lot of Klingons didn't like her was that not only was she a hybrid but that she looked like a Klingon with the augment virus. It was still a prickly subject to the Empire.

Harry threw up his hands, "Well regardless, my point is Zim seems to think we have the necessary instruments and his knowledge retained from his EMH lineage to do the research to ensure each child has the right mix of genes. Even for those babies to be born outside a maturation chamber."

Tuvok was silent himself for a moment, "And you believe you can fabricate them from the wreckage?"

"Oh I know I can. In truth, to create one isn't much different than what I made to maintain myself and the other drones. I think can also do something magically or technologically which beams sounds and like from all of us to the various chambers to simulate what they child would hear in utero. I think it's important to try to mimic as much of real birth for these potential kids as possible," Harry said in a clinical way. It helped distance him from how cold the process was even as it was necessary.

Tuvok simply nodded but didn't say anything more. Finally, Harry spoke up, "I don't like this plan. Worse, when I was…elsewhere when I sort of died, I even was told that doing just what I'm proposing would be necessary. I didn't like it in my vision, or whatever it was, and I don't like it now. However, there are a lot of things I don't like but that never stopped me from having to do them. You can bet I didn't like killing a lot of the run-of-the-mill soldiers during missions during the Eugenic War. We can pretty it up anyway we like but unless we decide that it's best to not start any families and just stay committed to being rescued, well this plan is the best options to create a viable population."

Tuvok nodded slowly. The logical was unescapable, "Agreed."

Harry sighed again, "You do realize that you can't keep putting Noss off any longer. If anything, she and Maria are the ones I'm sure would not agree to just putting everything off till we know more from the other side of the subspace barrier. She wants you now."

Tuvok glared at Harry who grinned in the lopsided way of his, "Look, Tom can be a pushy wanker but, in this case, he's right. Besides, of all of us here, you are the one who is going to be biologically driven to breed. I know it's a sensitive topic to you Vulcans on top of you being married. Yet where is the logic in ignoring that Noss has feelings for you and you and T'Pev already have a plan to go along that same route? Just like your wife, T'Pev will see the logic of your actions under the circumstances. If this is going to work, you're going to have to deal with your prickly sense of Vulcan propriety on the issue just like the rest of us will have to do with ours."

If anything, Tuvok's glare got colder, "There is a difference between being circumspect and denial, Mr. Potter."

Harry laughed, "Oh so that's what you're calling it? Circumspect? Pull the other one, Tuvok. It has bells on it. Regardless, everyone looks to you to be the leader and if you, as that leader, aren't behind this then it's not going to work. Besides, Noss isn't some love-struck teenager. She's a hardened spacer who has survived under some really awful set of circumstances. Maybe your resistance is less about her and more about you."

Tuvok fumed for a bit more before he finally closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath, "You are correct, Mr. Potter. This has, indeed, been about me. Personal issues dating back prior to me taking on the Kolinahr as well as residue issues stemming from my unwitting bonding with Mr. Suter. Still, as you say, logic dictates that we must presume a failure to be rescued as our only workable way forward. To do otherwise puts undo strain on those we would leave behind."

Harry stood, "Great. Now we just have to sell it to the rest. Of course, we can always hope that with either more hover-bikes or the cargo flitter Tom's been planning allows us to find more refugees with compatible genes. Then again, it will also be better when we can support more of the Skurks being out of stasis. At least they have the people and stored genetic material to make this work regardless of what we do. That will help in the long run no matter what happens. Just let me know if you want to look at Zim's numbers or whatever else before we spring this on everyone. I'm going to hit the sack."

"I do believe that it be best that this is broached soon. As you said, we are making opening moves which will need to be radically different depending on what avenue is chosen," Tuvok said as he turned back to the vista he'd been contemplating before Harry's arrival.

OoOoO

Harry grunted an agreement as he left the Vulcan to his meditation. He was gratified that Tuvok had been so accepting. Maybe the heated discussion over Noss that Tom had mentioned he had had with Tuvok had been more persuasive than Tom had thought. Harry hummed to himself slightly as he way back to his room. He hoped Tuvok would move soon. Sometimes Noss reminded Harry of how Ginny used to look at him and it was a bit off-putting given Noss was not some Diary-addled teenager but a crack pilot and nasty with a knife to boot.

After he had opened and locked the outer hatch, Harry began to get a feeling. One which grew as he got closer to his room. He sighed as he stopped outside of his door. Noss hadn't been the only one Harry had noticed checking someone out covertly. It didn't surprise him. It made sense that if Tom was with Maria and Treana and Noss was with Tuvok that left one last pairing.

He opened the hatch to find, as expected, Samantha Wildman in his bed.

Harry simply nodded to her and began to get undress, heedless of the blonde. He went into the fresher unit and then came out naked and climbed into bed. Seeing that Wildman had put away the PADD she'd been reading from when he came in, he doused the light.

A full minute went by before Wildman whispered, "You don't seem surprised."

Harry chuckled in the darkness, "Human nature, Samantha. It's boy meets girl, both go on a mission and are stranded. Boy and girl aren't going to act like the other has cooties for long. Plus, Tuvok doesn't seem your type and I don't think Tom could take on three gals at a time. That and you're a married woman and I know what it's like to sleep alone when you've been married for years. This was inevitable as the tides so why fight it?"

Samantha was silent for a moment, obviously taken back at the pragmatic response. Finally, she breathed out, "But are you okay with it?"

Harry reached out in the darkness to find Samantha's hand. He guided it under the covers to his very erect penis, "I think that is enough of an answer."

"Oh my," Samantha said as she began to slowly stroke him. Harry was much thicker than her husband. "Well, I'm feeling some physical proof but I think I need more in-depth experiments before making a judgement."

Harry slid a hand over to find that Samantha's sex was just as ready as his was, "I think that is a capital idea!"

XxXxX

TALAX TOWN, TARTARUS, SECTOR 366, DELTA QUADRANT – 8 MONTHS, 14 DAYS AFTER THE CRASH

It was a far cry from his Firebolt, but Harry loved every minute he was on the Tub.

Regardless of Tom's nasty nickname for what he was flying, Harry loved the wind in his hair after all this time. It didn't matter if the ship had all the beauty of a garbage scow or that the wind going through his hair was mostly due to it being windy than from speed. He was airborne and Harry loved it.

Being able to sweep in larger and larger circles from both the old and new Arrakeen sites had paid off as expected. The area had been littered with ships or at least pieces of them. With his magic, nothing was wasted as dense hull alloy wasn't something he could magic up. But using scraps as the base, transmuting it wasn't too difficult.

It hadn't been long before they had been able to cobble together a working engine, some thrusters and the hull which was little more than a flat plane to put cargo on. It was a cumbersome looking thing and reminded him of some of the later Star Wars material or some of the steampunk stuff Neville's son Andrew had gotten into with Teddy. Still, while not polished, the Tub worked and the many containers filled with fish lashed to the hull proved it.

While they had yet to go farther than a few thousand kilometers, Tartarus had shown not to be completely barren. There were a few rivers and what was either a very large lake or sea of which he was returning from. Farther explorations could wait till they were settled in more. Even so, the need to stay next to the spatial anomaly that had brought them to the planet kept them tied to Arrakeen.

This, of course, didn't apply to everyone. Especially to the Talaxians whose home Harry was coming up on rapidly.

Talax Town had been founded by a group of Talaxians fleeing the oppression by the Haakonian Order which had subjugated their planet. Of course, they didn't call it Talax Town. However, the name was hard to say and without the universal translator, Harry and his contacts made do.

The Talaxians had been part of a larger fleet of refugees fleeing Talax but had gotten separated from the rest in an ion storm. They had been on Tartarus for over 2,000 years by their frame of reference. The refuges had fled the harshness of their landing point and had traveled over 150 kilometers through the harsh terrain to finally come upon a river which led them to a marshy delta of the lake/sea Harry was flying over.

They had prospered and grew in size. So much so that they had had a civilization stretched up the river and had numbers of hundreds of thousands. Stretched along the river like a Talax version of ancient Egypt, they had thrived till religious issues caused factionalism to grow. The group farther up the river whose land became harsher and harsher, had wanted to break away and go exploring. They argued Talaxians needed forests and green spaces and the even the better conditions along the river were hardly lush. Harry could see their point. The foliage along the river was stunted compared to the Nile which Harry had seen multiple times back on Earth due to various Auror missions and later during the Eugenics War. The sea/lake wasn't teeming with life either even if Harry had caught plenty on this trip.

The ruling body, however, felt they needed to stick to the river for longer as they still had to contend with the occasional famine and diseases their low technology level was hampered in dealing with. Their refusal was seen by many as not wanting to give up control. Whatever the reason, it led to a ruinous war made worse by the age-old companions to war: disease and famine. The civil war had broken the river empire from a population of almost half a million Talaxians to a measly 500 or so. Tartarus was harsh and once the Talaxians had started down the path to war, it had started a chain reaction which neither side had thought possible.

Except for the odd hermit or two, almost all of them lived in the ruins of the old capitol trying to survive and rebuild their shattered civilization. Famine and disease were still making that difficult but Harry was sure that, given time, the plucky Talaxians would persevere. They had started with less than 50 and had grown that to hundreds of thousands in a resource poor environment. He figured given they'd done it before (and much of the infrastructure was still there if only in pieces) they could do it again.

Still, their tales did give Harry pause. While Noss had said none that she knew returned from leaving the crash area, the Talaxians hadn't found anyone either. Or more worrying, none of the long-ranged scouting missions the Talaxians had sent out ever returned. That being one of the reasons the old Talax leaders hadn't wanted to waste more people in exploration especially since they would have to make much bigger group to help protect it. Yet if they did that and they were lost as well, it would make the loss that much worse.

So while Harry was eager to explore farther afield in the future, he knew that caution was in order. That almost half a million Talaxians (admittable barely Bronze age ones) had been confined to one long river valley wasn't something to be taken lightly.

On the horizon, Harry began to see mountains so he thought it a good time to check in. He touched the comm-badge which had been integrated into the control console. Like everything, it was a slap-dash affair. In fact, the cockpit wasn't much more than just a seat and the controls. Not to different from a lot of the driver's compartments in large work vehicles Harry had seen growing up in Surry.

After a bit, the comm-badge finally beeped. "Harry here. I'm about 5 minutes out from Talax Town. Any changes in what we need from them?"

A few minutes went by as the mostly ruined city came into view. Finally, Maria's voice answered him, "We're good, Harry. As long as we can get that fabric, we'll be okay for now. Of course if you accidentally bring backs a bit more of their sweet breads, I'm sure no one outside of Tuvok would complain."

Harry laughed, "I'll see what I can do. I'll send a Patronus before I leave if there isn't anything worthwhile to report or if I end up staying the night. Potter out."

He slowed the ship and flew over the few fishing boats out on the water. Harry sometimes felt that Tartarus might as well be a prison planet since the if felt almost designed to be hostile. While the mouth of the river delta was lush (if one could say that about the lackluster environment) it still was low in bio-diversity. Worse, its strong storms and winds made venturing past sight of land very dangerous to the point the Talaxians had given up on it. So the larger, deep-water fish Harry was bringing in had enormous value to them as much as it did to those back in Arrakeen.

As he made his final approach, the tolling of bells could be heard. Harry knew it was just the alarm the people used to denote various things. The rhythmic tolling once used to alert the town folks to arriving ships or caravans from up-river and so rarely used till Harry had first shown up.

He carefully maneuvered the Tub to the landing pad the Talaxians had cleared for him after his original First Contact. After touching down, Harry did a quick systems check and was glad to see the ship was holding together just fine.

He dismounted and went over to clasp forearms with Jevex, the Talaxian who was in charge of managing materials for the remaining Talaxians. He was one of the three co-rulers of the settlement with the 'king' Torax and religious leader Deetryx. He rarely met with them, however, as Jevex had picked up Paroli the quickest. Paroli was rapidly beginning to be the dominant language between groups. As much as it would be nice to use Federation Standard, the flow of Paroli was easier for all the groups they'd met to use.

Even so, a lot of the interaction was done with a small, hand-held whiteboard which made it easier for both parties to haggle in pictures. Having a pictorial list of what you wanted made it a lot easier to establish how much was needed to match it. Luckily for Harry and the rest, the basic stuff Harry needed to pick up wasn't that hard for the Talaxians to create more of to trade compared to getting access to a food source always denied them.

These necessities were needed as the population of Arrakeen continued to grow. Ten more Skurks had been brought out of stasis and in the process of scouting the area via hover-bike had found other crash survivors. This included a family of Devore (two quite elderly and their three children who had been infants when they had crashed) along with a small group of Brenari who had ironically escaped Devorian space as well as an equally small group of Entabans. That older races had seeded the galaxy was very clear in the form of the Entabans. They seemed to have ears more like a Vulcan, cranial ridges like Klingons with the augment virus and the skin 'tattoos' of a Trill. Luckily for the long-term health of the group, all of them were genetically compatible with the non-Skurks. Which was just as well given the Talaxians weren't compatible either.

As the Talaxians joyfully went about singing some working song as they man-handled the tanks of fish off the flitter, Harry stood quietly and just soaked up the ambiance. For all that Talax Town was sort of in ruins, it was still very impressive. He thought it must have been similar in feeling to those living in Rome after the Empire fell into ruin. To grow up surrounded by works you could no longer accomplish. At least in the Talaxian's case, they knew they just needed to grow their numbers again and the city would come fully alive again.

It was even more remarkable since the city of brick and mortar was very much at odds with the Talaxians themselves. Neelix had shown Harry pictures of his homeworld and other colonies and it made Harry think that if the fantasy version of elves from so many stories back on Earth had become a star-faring people, they would build cities so integrated with trees and plants as the Talaxians had done. Seeing all the impressive stone works around them, Harry could help but think that the Talaxians were like a bunch of wood elves suddenly having to become dwarves to survive. It made the civil war that had crippled their people a little more understandable. The Talaxians were literally living the opposite life than they had left. No wonder so many had wanted to take a chance to find new forests for them to settle in.

The question was, were there any on Tartarus? The lack of migratory birds and the like seemed to imply there weren't and that saddened Harry. If they never got rescued, it seemed the descendants were going to have to try and boot-strap themselves off this world under really harsh conditions.

Harry dismissed such pessimistic thoughts as Jevex called out to him, hoisting up a jug Harry suspected to be filled with a fermented mead-like drink which was sweet but potent. Just the thing to chase away such dark thoughts.

XxXxX

ARRAKEEN, TARTARUS, SECTOR 366, DELTA QUADRANT – 1 YEAR, 4 MONTHS AFTER THE CRASH

"I don't like it. It's terrifying every time they go by. I will never get used to them," Samantha Wildman said with an angry look at the two robots which had just walked by.

Maria looked up from the loom she was working on. While it was true that Harry could magically create a lot of things from base materials, they all had found that in doing so left all of them with a lot of time with little to do. So the colony (if one could call it that) had begun to do a lot of tasks the old, low-tech way using tools bought from Talax Town. She frowned at her friend who had become increasingly moody as her pregnancy went on.

"Why? Because they used to be drones? It's not like you can tell anymore since Tom got Harry to make them look like some of the robots out his Captain Proton serials," Maria pointed out as she went back to the blanket she was working on.

"They are like walking coffins! A reminder of those who the Borg murdered to make them," Samantha said heatedly. Even her knitting needles seemed to click with an angry sound.

"That might be true, but frankly I'm happy to have them. Let Zim direct them to clean out the privies and the like. Better them than me. Besides, it's not like Harry had to scoop out the insides. Tartarus had done that for him long ago," Maria said in a placating voice. Again, she was a bit bemused by Wildman's dislike of the robots. They all had quickly learned not to let anything go to waste and the three dead Borg drones were no exception.

Harry and Tom had worked on replacing what used to be organic to create a full-on robot. These then were directed remotely by Zim to do various tasks. Maria wondered if Wildman was actually angry over the idea that Zim had broached the idea of downloading a version of himself into one or all three former drones to make them fully autonomous and further work on evolving himself. That sort of thing was directly counter to Federation law and public perception of sentient machines. Sometimes Maria wondered how it came to be that she was the more liberal of the two considering her home planet was sort of seen as a back-water planet back in the Federation. She'd seen plenty of that prejudice while at the Academy with her being cast as the provincial hick in the big city.

"Well, I don't care. I don't like the idea of my kids growing up around them. They are abominations," Samantha said.

Maria sighed and turned to her friend, "Sam, are you upset about those robots or are you still obsessing over the Baby Factory?"

Of all the crash survivors, Samantha Wildman had been the most vocal in her opposition to the use of altered maturation chambers to help raise a larger generation of children. Maria didn't like the idea either but she knew that if the two children growing in her womb at the moment were going to be able to survive if no rescue came, they would need more genetically compatible people to make it work. All four of the unborn children in Maria and Samantha's wombs might be born naturally, but Zim had worked to genetically insure they had the best genes of the two parents. This had been done so regardless of whether a child would be naturally born or from a chamber, their genes would be as diverse as possible.

Samantha scowled, "That's an abomination as well. How will those children react to learning they were created and grown like some carniculture vat on a long-range starship? Or about the children of Tom and Harry? What will the two girls think when they learn they have no mother, just two fathers?"

Maria sighed, "Oh come on, Sam! Genes are genes. There is nothing intrinsically unnatural in taking X chromosomes from two men and putting them together. It's done all the time for gay and lesbian couples going back a century or more. To me it's a lot less of an ethical issue than say how someone like Ambassador Spock was conceived. It's one thing to do genetic work to ensure we have the right diversity. It's another to create a hybrid which can't be created without technological help."

Samantha's scowled deepened but then softened. The blonde looked away and then sighed, "I'm sorry. You're right. I think it must be the hormones. I guess we just don't realize how much drugs and other therapies we have available makes pregnancy so much easier than how women throughout history went through. Even with all the tech we have, well I'm worried about the birth. A lot of women died in childbirth back in the day."

Maria got up and laid a hand on her friend's shoulder, "And a lot of that was a lack of medical knowledge. Try not to worry. Between Zim and Harry, I'm sure everything will be fine.

Samantha reached up and gave Maria's hand a squeeze, "Thanks. You're a good friend. I'm sure you're right."

XxXxX

ARRAKEEN, TARTARUS, SECTOR 366, DELTA QUADRANT – 4 YEARS, 9 MONTHS AFTER THE CRASH

Tuvok looked out from his perch along the south-east ridge wall which had been reinforced with bricks going back to the founding of the settlement. A few months ago, he had constructed a gazebo type structure to meditate in as it held a commanding view of the surrounding area and was quite beautiful in the early morning light.

So much had changed since they had crashed. As each month passed, their routine continued to evolve to meet new challenges or opportunities. With all of the Skurk out of stasis and many of them breeding, they had helped push the settlement into a population over the century mark with the addition of the children of the other survivors.

From his perch, Tuvok could clearly hear the childish squeals of the oldest children who were just coming out of their 'terrible twos' even as their other 'natural born' siblings were just learning to stand with support. There were fewer natural children from the Devore, Brenari and Entabans but they too had children in the maturation chambers Tom had dubbed the Baby Factory.

Raising so many children at once was tiring but rewarding in its own way. So much of their time was now simply taken up with rearing so many children. The plan was to have a generation of chamber-borns between each generation of natural borns. Although Tuvok did not think that there would be another after this. Giving birth to three sets of twins, even with magical assistance wasn't something Tuvok felt the women involved were willing to do. Indeed, Samantha Wildman had refused after her initial two children with Harry Potter were born. She felt it more important to focus on raising the chamber-born. Tuvok knew she had been against that part of the plan from the beginning so her wanting to mother such children properly in her yes was important to her.

It was fortunate she had at least allowed more of her eggs to be harvested for future chamber-borns even if they might not be 'activated' till after it seemed rescue was considered unlikely. Tuvok being out this morning was due to it being four years after the initial nine months. Thus, outside the spatial anomaly, it was now two days after they had missed their schedule call-in. They had entered into the first part of their exile where it was probable that the Equinox or Voyager was moving towards where they had hit whatever had sucked them into this pocket of subspace. So they had two more years before they could even begin to hope of contact, let alone a rescue.

With no one around to hear him, Tuvok sighed. It had been difficult to be the leader of such a diverse group on top of having to at once keep up hope of rescue all the while working towards that not happening. Still, having the children seemed to have at least kept the adults busy and away from brooding. Having raised three children already, Tuvok had fallen back into that comfortable role. It helped that the Terkellians had a stoic tradition which was similar in many ways to the ancient beliefs which brought about the path to logic of the modern Vulcans. Thus, Noss was perfectly willing to go along with decisions he made with their children. That they would probably have some form of Tuvok's mental gifts made it imperative they not be allowed to run wild.

If he'd been human, Tuvok probably would have smirked given he was sure the running wild would most certainly come in the form of the children of Tom and Treana. Orions were not noted for playing by the rules and Tom's genes seemed to run with energy. Tuvok felt those children would probably prove to quite…interesting when they hit their teen years.

Before he could sink into a deeper meditative state, Tuvok's comm-badge beeped. Over the years, they had finally gotten a better handle on the interference inherent in this pocket of sub-space. While their phasers were still a poor imitation of their true potential, their comm-badges at least worked properly again.

"Tuvok here," he said after a quick touch to the comm-badge pinned to the Vulcan styled clothing which had become the standard dress for all at Arrakeen, tailored to the species wearing them.

"Tuvok, we need you down in Greenhouse #3 right now!" came Tom's voice in a hurried tone. "Sam's having a right melt-down and I don't think I've seen Harry so angry and yet so rattled at the same time. If I didn't know any better, I'd think Harry might lose control of his magic. Nobody is hurt…yet, but the kids are scared."

"Acknowledged," Tuvok said in a clipped tone. He tapped his comm-badge off and quickly made his way towards the Greenhouse area. Of course, they were built less to keep the plants warm but to protect them from the harsh surroundings. Tending them was a duty that took up much of the settlement's time. While much was traded with the Talaxians, having their own bit of greenery, even if indoors, helped make their exile among the harsh environment around Landing (what they had come to dub the area where crashes occurred) a lot more palatable.

OoOoO

Harry struggled to master his emotions and again mostly failed. He took a series of breaths to try to calm down since he was so rattled that his occludemension wasn't having much of an affect. Still, after a bit more deep breathing exercises, Harry got himself back under control. It had been so difficult to keep it together while bringing Cedric up to the Tower and getting him bedded down. Luckily, the boy was too young to really understand why his parents were arguing.

Harry clung to the edge of the wall of the balcony and looked down at Arrakeen. It had grown so much in the four and a half years they'd lived here. Tartarus nights came on quickly and already the various lights of the village were coming on. Down there was the home he had helped construct along with the woman he'd lived with for 4 years and had two children with. He wondered if Anthea had taken as long as Cedric to get to sleep. Of course, she was sleeping in her own home, in her own bed. Cedric was bedded down in the bed Harry used if he couldn't leave the Tower for some reason.

For various reasons, Harry had constructed the tower over the years. Tom had joked that of course a wizard needed a wizard's tower. In truth, a lot of was nostalgia from his time in Gryffindor tower along with it being a good lookout and a place to deploy their weather balloon. It later became a place that Harry kept any Borg tech in. Samantha hadn't been the only one not to like his use of technology from the downed scout sphere. While most had gone into the Baby Factory, safely underground below the tower, it did house the two Borg drones who were still years away from being able to be taken out of their pods returning them too normal. It is also where Zim housed the three robots he directed.

He and Zim had decided that it was causing too much hassle for Zim to try and download a special copy of his matrix into one or all of them. The Delta Quadrant races didn't like the idea of sentient machines running around anymore than their Alpha Quadrant counter-parts. That they did a lot of the worst chores of the settlement kept them in use, however. Harry couldn't understand the issue given how much difference would it be if the programming running it was housed in the robot or in-directly through Zim in the master computer?

Harry shook his head at those thoughts. He was just trying to ignore what had just happened. He knew Samantha had been having problems for quite some time. He didn't blame her. Being thrown into the Delta Quadrant and possibly never seeing her husband again was bad enough. But issues had been growing for a while. In retrospect, Harry had to wonder if she was still suffering a little bit from the 'anti-Harry mania' Arturis had inflected on the crew to turn them all against Harry. Arturis' manipulations had been subtle and Dumbledore worthy. So maybe they had been too quick to assume the effects of that manipulation had been treated properly.

Still, Samantha had become more and more against using Borg tech. When a disease had threatened to destroy them, she had been the most vocally against about the potential cure. Harry had felt that injecting everyone with the modified nanites all the former drones had to help keep them fit would knock the disease back till they could cure it. Samantha had been irrevocably against it and certain comments she made implied she was suspicious of Treana given she had them. That she was less affected by the disease bore out Harry's point of using them. In the end, nobody had died while the disease had put most of them in their sick bed for days on end due to a cure Zim adapted from an herbal remedy the Talaxians had been using for the last 1,000 years. It was still a sore point to Harry given the nanites would help keep all of the colony a lot healthier. However, Samantha's arguments had resonated with the majority, the Skurk especially.

Even as she mothered their children and the first round of chamber-borns, Samantha seemed to fall more and more into herself. Still, it had been a shock at her reaction when Cedric had a burst of accidental magic.

"He's a freak! A freak just like you are!"

Harry took another deep breath as his magic swirled dangerously around him. He was over 400 years old and had died twice and yet those words had cut into him like nothing else. In that instant, Harry felt like he was four or five again, staring up at his Uncle wondering if he was going to get a beating.

Before Tuvok had finally ended the shrieking tirade with a Vulcan neck-pinch, Samantha had even declared that Naomi wasn't her daughter. She was a fake copy from another universe just as Harry Kim was. Her real daughter was dead and Samantha seemed to think it was likely the Dominion had probably killed her husband by now given his job in Starfleet would put him at the forefront of that war.

Harry shook his head. For whatever reason, Harry had managed not to go crazy from all the craziness in his life. Maybe crazy was his default so how could it make him any worse? Still, it was a stark reminder that while he had seemingly shrugged it off, things like being attacked by a horde of acromantulas had messed with Ron badly. Being possessed by Voldemort had left a mark on Ginny, a mark Harry hadn't totally realized ran as deep as it did till well into his marriage.

The crew of Voyager had already gone through their own horror inducing adventures and potential life-exile on Tartarus wasn't going to make that any easier. Plus, while magic made things easy, his time in the Magical world had been an ersatz, low-tech life. In many ways, it was mirrored here at Arrakeen. They were living an Iron Age life while having a few bits of high tech which smoothed things out but still was a far cry from the high-tech life the rest of them had grown up in. Spinning pottery and weaving blankets by hand was not something Harry felt that Samantha had ever contemplated she might have to do when she joined Starfleet.

"Harry? Can I come up?"

Harry was startled by Tom's voice coming from the comm. Even more surprised that he had missed feeling Tom cross the wards Harry had around his Tower. Harry quickly sent a Patronus down to Tom, "Yes, but for Merlin's sake keep it down! I just got Cedric asleep!"

When Tom finally made his way up the long, winding stairs, Harry couldn't help but think of all the changes in Tom during their exile. While he'd never be burly, he was muscled in ways he was sure the women back in the Fleet would freak out over. Although his long, braided beard and similarly braided hair down past his shoulders might be a bit much to them. Throw some chainmail on him and give him an axe and Tom looked like he could jump on a Viking ship and no one would give him a second glance.

Of course, Harry's hair was similar. His beard wasn't very long (even if he did sometimes wonder about beard curling) but he had let his hair grow out. At first both had kept their hair short to help clean it from all the dirt and grit. They rapidly found that hair was really good at keeping your face and head warm and it was not warm when one had to be out in the Tartarus nights. Something both men had had to do more often than not. If Tom could go unnoticed among Vikings, Harry knew he could probably have walked into the medieval Hogsmeade and fit right in. For that matter, he probably could have strolled into Hogsmeade of his Third Year and still not be given more than a token glance.

Tom came in and sat on the chairs on the balcony with a weary sigh. "What a frakkin' mess."

Harry made a gesture, "Okay, I've put up a silencing ward. We can hear Cedric if he wakes up but he can't hear us."

Tom began to shake his head, "I can't believe she said that about Naomi. Sure, calling you and Cedric a freak is over the top but at least one could sort of see the fear there."

Harry nodded, "I was thinking that I don't think we did as much purging of what Arturis did than we thought."

Tom thought about that for a bit, stroking his beard as he did so. Finally, he nodded, "I can see it. It's not like he was mind-controlling us. He just used our own words, fears and biases against us. Hard to treat us from being us, now is it?"

Harry nodded as well, "That and it's not like we have access to any sort of trained counselors. The Doctor and Thelan can only do so much."

Both men were silent for a moment, lost in their own thoughts. Tom finally broke that silence, "Harry, I want to apologize. I think I sort of enabled this."

"How so?" Harry asked.

Tom tugged on his beard and made a face, "You know Sam's been having…issues for a while now. Well, she and Maria have always been tight from the beginning so I didn't realize till now how much time the two are almost constantly together. Worse is Maria comes from a planet that has a bit of a reputation for being backward in a lot of ways. I'm betting you could drop her off in your time and she'd have no trouble fitting in."

Harry nodded. He'd noticed that it seemed Maria mouthed the right words to the Federation line but privately had beliefs which bordered on bigoted. Harry felt that once again, the human heavy compliment on Starfleet ships helped keep a level of xenophobia going throughout the Federation. As Harry kept harping on, for all their advances, Harry still saw a lot of the same prejudices and the like from his time simmering under surface. A lot of the prejudices and bigoted things to harp on had just been ported over from humans to the various aliens.

Tom made a gesture going back to their time together on the holodeck doing their Garage sim. Harry summoned a pair of sealed jars filled with a honeyed mead made from a bee-like insect found along the Talvex river. Unlike the name for Talax Town, their main river had an easy to pronounce name.

Tom popped the wax seal and took a long pull of the mead. "I think the problem is I felt that Samantha just needed a sympathetic ear. Looking back now, I think Maria went from being a calming influence to start buying into Sam's views and even help bolster them. Treana has felt for over a year now that Maria has changed and our dynamic isn't what it used to be. I can't help thinking that Sam's view of the nanites got Maria thinking."

Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes, "That and I know Maria might not complain while in bed, but Treana's frivolous nature is so much at odds with her own upbringing. That and her habit of calling things as she sees them."

Tom gestured toward Harry with his mead jar, "Exactly! That's what I'm saying. Treana for a while was calling Maria out on things, I think. I had tried to stay out of it given I didn't want to look like I was playing favorites. Now? Now I think Treana was right and me asking her to drop it just made today possible. For that, I'm sorry Harry." Tom took another long drink and looked sad.

Harry took a deep breath before shaking his head, "We're all to blame. We all had our reasons…or excuses not to rock the boat. Things here have always been tense, even when things are going so well. Trying to keep the peace between the Brenari and the Devore, dealing with all the weird idiosyncrasies of the Skurk."

"Is that what we're calling those weird rituals of theirs? Idiosyncrasies?" Tom harrumphed into his jar.

Harry sighed, "Tom, trust me when I say when a group gets hammered down as they have, it's no wonder they turn to religion or old customs. You can be snide when the Borg has assimilated all but a few hundred humans in the universe. That being said, yes, they are a trial at times. Worse is while Tuvok is very good as our leader, he's a dispassionate one. I think if we had someone like Chakotay or Tahl here, we'd be better off. They both seem to just ooze leadership vibes without really trying."

Tom shrugged, "True but at least with Tuvok, everyone knows he's fair and not playing favorites."

"Which has saved us I think," Harry agreed.

After a moment of silence, Tom looked up, "So now what? We can't just ignore today. She said things you can't take back."

Harry got up and turned back down at the village, "No…no you can't."

"What are you going to do with Cedric?" Tom asked.

"The best I can. For now, I will raise him as best as I can but I think it might be best to foster him with Jevex's family. They are getting as good with Paroli as we all are and having Cedric learn Talaxian from a young age will be helpful in the long run. I can apparate there so he doesn't feel all alone. Plus it's not like he's going to be alone for long. The Talaxians seem really happy with the idea of fostering many of our chamber born. Beyond that, I think it's time I become more of the secluded wizard of legend."

"Come on Harry! You can't let Sam drive you away! We all need you!" Tom scoffed.

"Do you? Sure, I make things easier but the village can do without my constant help. No, I think it best if I withdraw a bit. Besides, I'm the best suited to do more of the long-range scouting which we need to do. If anything, your plan of sending up a manned probe into orbit to map the world from there is something I can do safely as I can apparate away from any ship failure. This should eat up enough time to hopefully let this calm down or at least eat up more time before we are hopefully rescued."

Tom scowled at that, "That's another issue. Both Sam and Maria seem to be turning away from the plan. It's like they've given up on reality about the real chance that the Fleet won't be able to figure a way to get us out of here. I keep trying to point out how so many things could delay both ships from immediately coming to look for us. I mean, we split up as we did for damn good reasons. I tried to convince Maria that we could add a day simply because Voyager might send Hugin or Munin to look for us while they wrap up their trade mission. It would not surprise me if in two years, one of those ships crashes through."

Harry turned back to Tom and took a long drink of his own, "That's a good point. I'm just thinking that you folks have gotten lucky a lot here in the Delta Quadrant. Hell, the crew spent like, what, a day marooned by the Kazon? You usually manage to do some scans, fabricate a widget or two in a few hours and then be jolly well on your way. The facts that were literally on the ground here show that this phenomenon has been around for a long time. I just can't see the Fleet zipping in and somehow have someone like Seven pull the answer out just like that."

Tom chuckled at that, "That's the thing I keep trying to get through to Maria and Sam is that even if the Fleet took just a week to break us out of here, that would be an amazing feat. As a pilot I know a lot of anomalies back in the Alpha Quadrant which have been studied for years and we still keep ships out of the area because we're not sure how to transit the area safely."

Harry sighed, "And even that amazing week is 10 to 15 or so years here."

"Right! Thinking we're somehow going to get beamed out of here in two years is just frankly expecting in a miracle and I'm like you, I'd rather trust making my own miracles even if it takes longer."

Tom looked away and then growled angrily, "What really pisses me off is over the issue of your nanites. We're not back on Voyager anymore and even with all of Zim's knowledge, we're back to staring at the mortality rates of Old Earth. I'm going to be 40 next year. Back in the Federation, I can reasonably expect to live another century. Now? Now I'm worried I could be dead in 25 years or so. Something as simple as skin cancer might do me in even with all of your magic. Having those nanites would go a long way to ensure we'll be better shape for rescue or live a longer life to pass on as much as we can to our kids in hopes they can get off this rock."

Harry nodded. Sadly, while the nanite treatment was similar to what he was doing to the drones, it needed some down time to accomplish properly. It certainly wasn't something that could be done on the sly without everyone asking questions. The ironic bit was Samantha already had some nanites in her due to all the sex she'd had with Harry over the years. Still, it wasn't enough to give the better immunity the full nanite treatment would provide.

"Another reason I need to leave. I think perhaps we can just put our foot down and I'll offer the treatments and Sam and Maria can just deal. In return, I'll draw back," Harry mused. He frowned as a thought hit him, "You know Tom, in the interests of keeping the peace and maybe putting things off for a bit, I think you should distance yourself from me. I'm not saying agree with Sam or Maria, but just go neutral. I'm thinking you could help by just doing a lot of, 'I don't want to talk about the wizard; we have the future of our family to work on!' or something like that."

Tom looked unhappy but nodded, "Yeah…I was thinking the same thing. Still, if we haven't been rescued in the next decade, I don't care what Sam or Maria think. They can get a pass for so long under the 'it's best for all' umbrella. You're a part of this settlement too and will have plenty of kids besides Anthea and Cedric in the long run. They shouldn't dictate that you should play the exile."

Harry snorted, "Sadly a role I've played many times."

Tom's face darkened, "You had to be One-of-One because of the Borg, Harry. Sam and Maria's feelings shouldn't force you back into it."

Harry held up his hands, "Calm down, Tom. I'm not going to go down the martyr route. I did that, got the t-shirt and wore that t-shirt out. I'm just saying that I'm used to being mostly a loner and relying on myself. In this case, for the good of the rest, I'm willing to take it on the chin for a bit. Besides, not to be unkind considering your worries but I'm going to outlive all of you so I can afford to take a bit of a time out."

Tom's face went from angry to sad again, "You will, won't you? If things go south, how many generations will you bury before you can build up a civilization which might at least get off Tartarus and explore the other planets in this sub-space pocket, let alone break back into the greater universe?"

Harry's face took on a haunted look, "I hope it won't come to that. I've buried too many people or sent them away enough as it is."

XxXxX

ARRAKEEN, TARTARUS, SECTOR 366, DELTA QUADRANT – 8 YEARS, 2 MONTHS AFTER THE CRASH

Since he was alone, Tom ran his fingers through his long beard. Both Sam and Maria found it an irritating habit as it meant he messed up the work they liked to put into braiding it. His kids called him Hobo-Man when his beard was free flowing. Tom gritted his teeth at that nickname that he knew Harry had started. Probably in revenge for Tom tagging him as Mr. Wizard back in the fleet.

Tom was feeling antsy and that was before Harry had sent him a Patronus message about staying alert. He had done a scrying recently and said the portents said something was coming soon. Nothing dangerous but Tom couldn't help but think that something might be coming through the anomaly. They were close enough in time for either Voyager or the Equinox to have finished up their mission and gotten to this area. Tom hoped that was the case. He worried that if the Marianne got caught up in the same thing they had, it would just mean more people marooned here for the foreseeable future.

Tom looked out towards the horizon. Not that he could see it well. While Tuvok's gazebo shielded him from the direct sun, it was mid-afternoon and the heat created haze made visibility spotty at best. Still, Tom sometimes liked to come up during such times. The heat mirages had a mesmerizing quality too them. It was soothing in a way similar to watching the unedited view during warp travel and right now Tom could use some soothing.

Every day the village got a little bit bigger in a way, a little bit better and yet tensions still simmered. The fallout from the day when Samantha Wildman had broken down and denounced Harry and his son (and her own!) Cedric as a freak still simmered in whispers and guarded conversations at Arrakeen. It hadn't helped when the Devorians of the settlement had found out about the fate of Galaron III. Even the Brenari had been shocked especially since over 3,000 of their kind had died along with everyone else on the planet. It was hard to try and paint Harry as a good guy when he had killed an entire planet.

Tom took a drink from his canteen. It didn't help that it seemed Harry was always bringing bad news. It was Harry who finally got a cobbled together vessel into orbit. From there he was able to map the entire planet. So it fell to Harry to dash everyone's hopes. There were no other civilizations on the planet. The Talaxians seemed to have been the only ones able to make a go of it. Worse was learning more about the planet itself.

Tartarus had a minimal axle tilt and thus most of the planet had the same hot and harsh climate. Besides a few large lakes or small seas, Tartarus sported one large, shallow ocean. Even so, Talax Town and the entire Talvex river valley and delta was one of the lusher areas on the planet.

Much of the planet was flat and thus the wind scoured everything down. So much of the planet was more like Landing than anything else. The Talvex river valley existed mostly because it was surrounded by one of the few mountain ranges on the entire planet. There were only two others and one of them was completely locked in with ice near the southern pole.

The other was worse in a way. The mountain range fed various rivers which might not be as lush as Talvex, covering more area. It also sported a huge butte-like area that rose up like an island in the clouds. There Harry had found an area that was the closest thing to a wooded area on the planet. Sadly, this entire region was inhabited by an ecosystem dominated by a 30cm long wasp-like insect. Not only was the venom in their stingers intensely potent, but the insects themselves were unrelentingly aggressive. While most of this aggression was against other hives, it had kept all the other species small and mostly adapted to hiding from these killers. Harry said they reminded him of the Asian hornets which had invaded North America. The global pandemic raging at that time had made taking out these so called 'murder-hornets' difficult. As a result, they had spread and had cut a terrifying swath throughout the continent before tailored bio-weapons stopped them in their tracks. Sadly, this was followed almost immediately by the use of other bio-weapons as the Eugenic War heated up so the bio-sphere went from bad to worse anyway.

Harry had said that without his magical shielding, he was sure he would have been stung to death before he could have gotten back to the ship. Unless they were willing to wipe that entire ecology, that area might as well have been on one of Tartarus' moons for all the use it would be. Still, Harry had said that he at least could take samples of plants and the like and see if they could be grown along the river.

Tom remembered how down the village had been when Harry had returned with this news. There had always been hope that somewhere else on the desolate planet was more than just them. Now they knew they were alone and pretty much what they had was about all they could hope for. Even the few temperate areas closer to the poles weren't much more than wind-whipped grasslands were nothing larger than rabbit like creatures lived. Except for ocean/lake life, there was nothing on the planet larger than a small dog. Even the largest trees were more like giant bushes, low to the ground with huge root systems to help keep the safe from the wind.

Tom remembered back in his Academy days there had been a class where the professor pointed out humanity arose during a brief (brief in relation to the life of the planet) sweet spot with low tectonic and other geologic activity and where the various continents helped keep things broken up. Here on Tartarus, Harry had spotted and tracked a storm while in orbit which hit land with the force on the order of what would have been a Category 6 or 7 hurricane back on Earth. It was still going strong enough to be considered a hurricane thousands of kilometers inland.

As bad as things were, they were all lucky the anomaly dumped them out in one of the best places on the planet. It was a bitter pill to swallow when one was hoping for trees and large, domesticable animals.

One of the main hurdles the Talaxians had struggled with and the people of Arrakeen were all working on was how to boost their protein intake. Traditionally, most proteins had come from insects as the Talaxians had always been careful not to overfish. Most of the time famine had happened when a crop failed at the same time fishing had to be curtailed to build stock back up. While the range of the Tub and follow her follow-on sister flitter, the Angry Scow, had increased, they primarily fished from what had turned out to be a large in-land sea beyond the delta of Talax Town. So, they had to be careful and not over-fish that as well until they could find out the carrying capacity of that ecosystem.

It frustrated Tom because he knew that if they had gotten dumped on more bio-diverse world, they might have to dodge dinosaurs or something for a while, but they'd rapidly be able to get up to a technological level which would allow them to tame the planet. They would be able to do that here but it would take longer. With the wind in so many places, they might as well be living in space given so much of the living would have to be underground.

Tom sighed and leaned back in the chair he kept up here given Tuvok sat on a rock on a cushion he'd bring with him. All around him, there was little sound other than the ever-present wind and the creak of the many windmills around the village. That and the eerie sound, like breathy chimes, of the various moisture vaporators which trapped the dew which formed as the temps went from cold to hot and then back to cold.

They had been crucial early on to help keep up their available water. Now, they had an underground cistern system in the cave system Harry hard found when he first came to the area. With the flitters, Harry could go out, freeze ice and then levitate it out of the water and use the flitter to tow it back. They had a sand filtration system in place that would purify the water as it melted and collect salt and other minerals at the same time. Still, they kept the vaporators up as the moisture they gathered went directly into the greenhouses and thus still served their purpose. Water was not something you stopped gathering simply because you felt you had enough. Sandstorms lasting weeks had almost totally depleted most of their water reserves twice before they were able to bring in frozen water from outside the area.

Tom turned and looked up at the Tower. He wondered if Harry was home. He was rarely seen in Arrakeen most days. When he did show, it was usually in closed meetings or among large gatherings of the children. This would keep any of the disgruntled adults from voicing their issues. As they had planned, Tom had adopted a neutral position regarding Harry, which had worked for the most part.

Even so, the triad between Maria, Treana and himself had collapsed. Treana had finally had enough of what she felt were conspiracy type theories regarding Harry that both Samantha and Maria clung too. She mostly hung with the Skurk or with Harry when he was in the area. Tom had taken Samantha in as a sort of a replacement. Not because he wanted to but he felt he might be able to reign in both women. He had had mixed success. Still, for the most part, Samantha never made any scenes in public again. Tom grimaced at some of the loud tirades she did in private. Still, after her original refusal, she'd actually allowed herself to go through another round of pregnancy, both children being with Tom.

Tom smirked at this. It was odd how while Starfleet was heavy with humans, base-line humans would be the minority in the coming years. Most of the children were hybrids. There had been a lot of discussions about whether to just continue mixing genes or whether it might be best, in the long run, to create small 'sub-races' of the like of Human/Orion and Vulcan/Terkellian.

A loud sound above him broke Tom out of his revery. He was instantly on his feet as he grabbed his binoculars. Just as Harry had predicted, something had come through the anomaly and was in the process of crashing to the north-east. He tracked it till it impacted before hitting his comm-badge. "Paris to Tuvok! I just tracked something coming out of the anomaly. I've got coordinates for the general area where it landed."

There was a small pause before Tuvok responded, "Understood. Get to your hoverbike. I'm sending you and Harry out to investigate."

"Acknowledged," Tom said as he hustled towards the garage which kept the four hover-bikes they had cobbled together from the wreckage of the area. Over the years, they'd kept improving them so they look less like something made in a scrap yard. Even so, they weren't pretty but they were rugged. With the terrain as it was, anything faster than a trot was to be cherished.

He wasn't surprised to find Harry had beaten him to the garage. With his ability to teleport, Harry might have been in Talax Town with Cedric when Tuvok called him. Or he might have been at the Tower and seen the same thing Tom had.

They gave each other a quick nod as they finished getting the bikes ready. Traveling in the heat of the day meant taking a few more precautions to keep the bikes from overheating. Finally, Harry put on his goggles and looked at Tom, "You know where we're going?"

Tom nodded, "That I do."

Harry made a gesture towards the open door, "Then led on, MacDuff."

Both bikes roared away from Arrakeen, Harry following behind Tom. What had taken the aged Harry almost two days to cross to, the pair did in under 10 minutes. The went first to the old Arrakeen site with the intent to start with the old, circular search pattern they had used almost a decade ago. But the dust from the impact made it easy to see where they had to go.

As they got to the crash site, Tom's heart seemed to jump into his throat. He had worried that what would happen if they sent out some of the old shuttles to search for them? Tom felt they would crash just as badly as everything else had prior to the Delta Flyer and thus probably kill the crew.

But that wasn't what he was seeing to his relief.

"What the hell is that?" Harry asked as he popped his goggles up to get a better look.

"That, my friend, is a modified Class 5 probe," Tom said with relief evident in his voice. "It looks to be the type we'd use to send into gas giants and the like. They are tough. As you can see, it's not even damaged even though I'm sure its engine cut out as it came through. It might even be in better shape than the Flyer." Not that the Flyer would ever fly again. It had been mostly dismantled and served mostly as the main computer and power-plant.

Harry ran a hand over his bearded chin, "So…is that a good thing? I mean that it's the type of probe that it is?"

Tom nodded, "I think so. I think it means the Fleet knows enough about the anomaly to try and send us something that has the best chance to survive. A standard probe wouldn't have made it in anything but pieces and even most Class V probes aren't that tough. They are built for longevity. So, I think this is a good sign that maybe the Fleet can scan into this sub-space enough to know what to send."

Harry shrugged, "Sounds good to me. Well, how about you head back and bring back a flitter? I don't really want to use any magic on this if I can avoid it. Who knows how damaged it is or whether my magic might make it worse?"

Tom nodded, "I'll bring a hoist and a work party. Are you going to be okay out here?"

Harry laughed, "I've got cooling charms and maybe I can find some snakes to talk to."

Tom shook his head at that, "You're weird, Harry. You know that right?"

Harry just laughed again as Tom sped away.

OoOoO

The minutes ticked by slowly. After waiting more than 8 years, these last few minutes seemed to be agonizingly slow. None of the children were present but the air was heavy with anticipation from the adults as it was.

Finally, Zim spoke up via his speaker built into the wall of the Trell, "Alright, it looks like mostly decent news. Still, it may take me a bit before I can get the information out of the probe and out into your tricorders. I can give you the broad summary though."

A collective breath went out. It seemed everyone had been holding their breath.

Zim went on, "The good news is while Voyager had a dicey bit when they arrived, the Fleet has mapped out the system and knows exactly where the anomaly is, where it exits and everything in it. There is some pretty good data regarding all the other planets in this system."

Tuvok spoke up, "Are they aware of the time issue?"

"They are," Zim replied. "As we expected, the Astrometrics lab was able to map things out pretty easily. That being said, as of when they sent the probe, they had little in the way of any sort of a plan. Commodore Janeway felt it was better to send something right away to reassure us that they were aware of our plight to give us hope. The only thing, at this time, that Seven has come up with is the potential method to send targeted messages through the anomaly. There looks to be a schematic for a system which can help us with that. Obviously, the message may take weeks on our end to fully download. Even then, fluctuations of the anomaly imply they will only be able to transmit during certain windows. Unfortunately, those windows are in order of months for us."

There was a lot of muttering at that before Tuvok stood, "None of this is anything but good news for us. They have made contact two full years prior to when I myself expected them to do so. Regardless of how slow, any continued contact with the Fleet is something we had little hope for."

Tuvok paused as he gazed around the room. He then spoke in a tone he used when he wanted everyone to know he was speaking as their leader, "However, I must remind you that regardless of the capabilities of Voyager and the Equinox, spatial anomalies are complex things. While Seven may be able to scan us, being able to bridge the gap between the time frames may prove very challenging. We must remember again that time works against us. Just the time a crewmember takes to take time off to eat their mid-shift meal is a month to us. Yes, the Fleet is out there. But even as I'm sure they will work on our rescue throughout every shift, science takes time. Additionally, I know Commodore Janeway. While we are not living in the lap of luxury, we are in a stable condition where we can only expect our condition to improve. Therefore, the Commodore will err on the side of caution. Even if it means taking another day or so to be sure, she is not going to jeopardize our lives on risky attempts to rescue us. Even then, while I do not doubt the Fleet will work tirelessly, we must also remember they cannot stay in the area for too long. We all know much of our success has been due to always been on the move. By the time certain elements might field the ships to attack us, we've moved out of range."

While this meant little to most of the adults, Tuvok saw Maria, Samantha and Tom nodding at this.

"With the ever-present threat of the Borg, we must not forget there are threats to the Fleet Commodore Janeway must consider. I estimate that the Fleet could safely stay on station a month before having to move. Even if this only means moving away to return, this just increases the time for us here," Tuvok said gravely.

"Increases? Damnation, most of us will be dead by the end of that month," Kell, one of the Brenari pointed out. The group began to mutter louder this time.

Tuvok raises his hand and it was a measure of the respect everyone had for him that it quieted down. "I understand that. However, while we might not be alive for it, we must hold on to the fact that even if the Fleet has to move away temporarily, they will continue to work on our issue. I have no doubt that the Commodore would fly back at the highest warp factor allowable the minute they have a safe and effective way to rescue everyone who remains."

Harry stood up and the room went quiet. Whether from respect or fear, it didn't matter to Harry. "You know, I don't think we've really thought about this before. Okay, we keep going on, building our budding civilization here just like the Talaxians. So, say in 10 or 20 years we get a message saying, "Hey we can rescue you now!" we have to start thinking of how are we going to get all of us out of here? I know almost every Talaxian will jump at the chance to get off this planet. In twenty years, well we're looking at closing in on 1,000 people we need to not only get off the planet but keep them alive in space. While maybe the Equinox is warping off to get us something to live in, we have to see what we can do from our end. Again, we can't keep from working on the assumption that the Fleet can't crack the problem so we can't just stop with our breeding plans. Nor will the Talaxians for that matter."

Tuvok face was an unreadable mask, "Indeed, this does present a challenge. Yet everything on this planet is a challenge. We will meet it with the same tenacity as we have met every other challenge with. We will survive and overcome this together just as we will all leave together. This has always been my pledge to you. I will get us back to the Fleet and to freedom."

This generated a round of cheering and clapping. Regardless of the reality of the time left in front of them, the Fleet knew where they were. Janeway had gotten Voyager out of worse before. With this contact, the hope of rescue had been rekindled and they were glad for it.

For Tuvok and Harry, however, they two stared at each other. Both acknowledging they knew making good on Tuvok's pledge was going to be a lot tougher than Tuvok's speech had made it out to be."

XxXxX

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Entabans: To see what this race looks like; they are the same race as Daelin as seen in the ST:VOY episode Vis à Vis. Again, simply taking the name of one race mentioned but never shown and marrying it up with a race shown but never defined.

More Stuff About Ships Than You Care to Read: I had this huge bit about ships planned for this chapter. However, it kept getting bigger and bigger to the point where it was the size of an entire chapter. If you find my comments about Star Trek ships and their tech interesting and you aren't flagged for all my content, head over to my home page and check out Chapter 23 of my Pernicious Story Bunnies.

Continuity Issues of Captain Will Riker: I realize that moving Riker out of continuity in Season 6 of ST:TNG throws a few monkey wrenches into things. Still, for the most part, just replace Riker in those episodes with Commander Shelby from the ST: TNG episodes Best of Both Worlds 1 & 2. While I'm sure there are many episodes which have Riker are critical, without laboriously going through each one, I'd contend that most wouldn't be changed (or you could easily fan-wank changes) to have Commander Shelby other than Riker.

WTF Moments: Any TV show is going to have certain elements which just wouldn't happen because unless part of the show from the beginning was going to be a vehicle to move people in and out, you generally want to keep the familiar. However, for a series like Star Trek, this brings up things which, when you think on it, makes you go, "WTF?" As much as I feel Riker needed to take a command (or else) the REAL change that should have happened is that there is NO WAY Starfleet would have allowed Captain Picard to remain as Captain after being made into Locutus. Even with him being made whole again, we later see the Borg still have a tie with him enough that he uses against the Borg in later episodes. Think of it in Harry Potter terms; even when saved, he basically has a 'scar horcrux' to the Borg Queen.

No, if anything, in a real navy, Commander Shelby would stay on as XO, Riker would have been told, "Okay, we gave you one right of refusal. Now take the command we're offering you or we're kicking you off the command track." So really, after Best of Both Words Part II, you probably would have had Captain Jellicoe and CDR Shelby being his XO.

Frankly, the entire premise of ST:TNG was off in the sense that it mirrored (sort of ) the original show. Okay, when the Enterprise is off doing it's "Five Year Mission" I can see everyone staying together. Yet when the ship comes back and starts doing more mission inside established borders, it is the PERFECT time for Starfleet to start moving personnel around to the point that you have a whole new command staff and a new captain to start off the next "Five Year" mission away to mostly uncharted space. If you could redo all the episodes to reflect this, a lot of characters would start to leave after Season 5.