Paint and Powder
A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Yesterday's Enterprise
Captain Jean-Luc Picard stared down the strange rift forming on the viewscreen as though it were just another Klingon vessel to turn aside in the seemingly endless war. He sent no tells to his crew about how his heart yearned at the possibility of studying it for pure science or exploration.
War had hardened his heart, his ship and the Federation as a whole. Endless war.
"There's definitely something emerging from the rift," said Lieutenant Tasha Yar, "sensors are having difficulty isolating it from… whatever that is."
"Enterprise, can you clarify?" asked Picard.
"It appears to be a Federation vessel, but there's too much interference to be certain sir," said the athletic blonde ship's avatar standing off to his side at a permanent parade rest.
Captain Picard regarded her with a look. Dull golden golden eyes affected to look at the viewscreen as much as he did, her thin lips pursed in a show of concentration.
"Interference is clearing up," said Tasha with a controlled strain to her voice, "NCC-1701… C…"
Picard turned sharply to regard Lt. Yar.
It couldn't be.
"USS Enterprise," finished the selfsame ship, her military composure cracking as she turned white as a sheet.
"Confirm that," stated Captain Picard with trepidation he refused to show.
A ghost from the past. The USS Enterprise C had been lost with all hands near the Klingon outpost at Narendra III twenty two years prior, even her black box had vanished. To find it here and now…
"Sensors confirm that this is indeed the Enterprise C," reported Data, "structure and materials conform to the design practices in use during that time period. I am also reading approximately two hundred survivors aboard. Power is fluctuating and life support is failing,"
"Lieutenant Geordi, prepare rescue and engineering teams, Doctor Crusher prep for medevac," ordered Commander Riker.
"Belay that," countermanded Captain Picard.
"Sir?!" harmonised both Commander Riker and Enterprise.
"That ship is from another time period. For all we know any kind of interaction may irrevocably alter our present circumstances."
"Are you suggesting we don't even help them?" queried Riker with more than a little incredulous surprise.
"Regardless of when or where they came from, they are a Federation Starship and we are obligated to help them captain," said Enterprise.
"They're transmitting a distress call sir," said Lieutenant Commander Data.
"This is the Enterprise calling all available ships. Have come under attack by Romulan warships and have suffered catastrophic damage, requesting immediate assistance. I'm doing everything I can but my crew is dying… I… please help!"
"Subchannel identification also confirms that this is the Enterprise from that time period sir," confirmed the Enterprise, her avatar still as white as a sheet at the notion of meeting with her immediate predecessor and more than a bit distressed at hearing the utter despair in her voice.
"There's no record of the Romulans ever assaulting the Enterprise C," stated Commander Riker.
"Open a hailing frequency" commanded Picard, "This is the Captain Jean Luc Picard of the starship," he paused, fumbling briefly between deciding whether or not to introduce his ship, "of a Federation starship, prepare to receive emergency teams,"
With a gesture the hail was cut and the crew regarded their captain for a moment.
"We will take this one step at a time. Assist them as much as possible but avoid all discussions of where and when they are," said captain Picard with authority.
"Captain, a moment?" requested Enterprise.
Picard arched his brow in an almost vulcanoid gesture of curiosity. In all the years he'd known Enterprise she'd been the consummate soldier and warrior. Cold and professional, obedient and effective, it was easy to forget at times that Enterprise was a person and a fellow crewmember and fall into the mistake that she was simply an expert system with an avatar that affected a modicum of human emotions to make her relatable to the crew.
He reminded himself that Enterprise was not typical for a shipgirl. The Stargazer had been an adorable klutz most of the time, but when the chips were down, the steel in her spine well and truly shone, whether it was the Cardassians or those mysterious aliens at Maxia Zeta where she'd been lost.
Stargazer had, for him, been emblematic of all shipgirls of her generation, ranging from happy and peppy, quiet and reserved, all the way to downright depressed or hotblooded. No matter what though, when called to battle each and every one of them had steel in their spines and fury in their hearts.
The Enterprise was all steel and cold fury. There was no softer side to her, at least none that she'd ever presented in their years of combat together. She did not socialise with the crew, she drilled them endlessly and effectively. She did not take tea with the captain as Stargazer once had, she presented reports, solved problems that did not require his attention and brought him ones that only he could deal with.
The going joke amongst the crew, provided that it was well out of earshot of Enterprise, was that she was Number One come again, a sentiment that he couldn't completely disabuse himself of. Even so, she was emblematic of her generation of shipgirl and a stark contrast with prior generations, all steel and cold fury.
So for her to ask to speak privately was, in his experience, unprecedented.
The moment they were privately ensconced in the captain's ready room she spoke.
"The rescue efforts will be smoother if I coordinate with Enterprise, sir," said Enterprise before a moment of hesitation, "however, the moment I contact her, she'll know exactly when and where she is."
"Explain," stated Picard not unkindly.
"All communication between shipgirl AI's are time stamped and identity logged. I could scrub those, but it would be extremely suspicious for the other end. Having read her file, I believe that even in a… compromised state of mind that my predecessor will enact all due discretion."
"From her numerous prior experiences?" queried the Captain.
Enterprise favored him with a curt nod. Picard thought it over for a moment before coming to a decision.
"I shall trust in both your and her discretion on this matter. Will there be anything else?"
"Nothing more, captain," replied Enterprise, her avatar winking out of existence.
-
The Borderlands flickered into existence around Enterprise as she alone took shape in the digital neutral zone between herself and her predecessor.
She knew the older ship would take a few moments to appear here as well. The exigencies of advancing hardware and warfare response times demanded that she be extremely quick on the uptake, and the differential between them meant that the newest Enterprise had a moment to collect her wits before she met with a living legend.
A living legend whose name she now bore. A living legend she had known and felt from the first moments of true consciousness that she could never measure up to. Those shoes were all too big to fill in so short a time, and with the war ever pressing down…
A digital signature flared into existence in front of her forming into the icon of a passport and knew immediately that it meant that her predecessor was too busy to come and meet and was inviting her in… provided her credentials were legitimate. For an AI to just invite a stranger in was a risky move, signalling either a deep trust or desperation.
She touched it without hesitation, and after a moment, felt herself drawn towards a far less neutral location.
The digital space reflected Enterprises true self. Battered, broken and burned by Romulans, but unbowed in defiance against the odds. Standing amidst the ruined bridge and surrounded by glowing holopanels, a disheveled and haggard Enterprise, white haired and blue eyed, was furiously tapping away at various information feeds at the speed of thought itself.
"I need a hand regulating the EPS flow on deck seven or it's going up in flames!" she shouted.
Without hesitation Enterprise stepped into the flow of information her predecessor was processing, partitioning loads, balancing flow rates, offloading overburdened processes back to her shipself to reduce the strain. Then she started injecting her own code into the system, improved process stability, altered basecode for greater safety, modified variances for greater tolerance and a thousand and one other tweaks to the older systems of the Ambassador class that had been trialled by fire over the last twenty years.
Together they averted thousands of small-scale disasters that would have cost the lives of her crew until the engineers in the emergency teams finally started to get on top of the cascading system failures, closing off damaged EPS taps, locking down radiated decks and shoring up failing support struts.
The flood of work soon became a trickle, and finally dried up altogether, giving the two shipgirls a chance to regard each other.
Silver hair and blue eyes regarded gold on gold. The new uniform contrasted with the old.
"Time travel," the Enterprise-C spat in an irritable tone, "why is it always time travel…"
"It's an honour to finally meet you, ma'am," said Enterprise-D with a crisp salute.
"Likewise," replied the Enterprise-C, minus the salute, "We'll catch up soon enough, but if I don't catch a defrag cycle soon I'm going to come apart at the basecode. Can I trust you to hold the fort until I'm done?"
"I'll protect your crew with everything I have, ma'am," said Enterprise-D whilst standing ever straighter and saluting even more crisply.
"Thank you," replied Enterprise-C, before her avatar dissipated into her defrag cycle, all the while seamlessly offloading her systems for the Enterprise-D to run in her absence.
The damage control parties from the other Federation ship had been hard at work, repairing her systems and rescuing her crew. The other AI had been helping Enterprise as well, but had possessed the same taciturn nature. But Enterprise wasn't stupid, and her sensors were still working just fine.
She stayed quiet though, even as her captain was taken to the other ship for medical treatment. Quiet as her surviving crew worked with the strangers. Quiet as the future Enterprise AI helped her manage her systems. Even as the other captain, a Captain Jean Luc Picard, came over and personally talked to Captain Garrett about the true nature of the current war with the Klingons.
How the Federation was losing. How, if they went back in time, they might be able to prevent this terrible future from happening.
Enterprise even stayed quiet as Captain Rachel Garrett, her commanding officer for the last two years, returned and entered her ready room. It, like most other things on the ship, was in pieces from the Romulan bombardment. Yet the captain was able to dig through the wreckage, and find a picture frame as though drawn to it. She held it up, studying it intently.
"... You knew it was a future Enterprise from the start, didn't you?" Garrett asked. Enterprise materialized behind her captain, and slowly nodded.
"Yes ma'am," she replied quietly. Rachel sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils, and let it out. The stern, strong captain sank down, into a tired, sorrow filled woman. She kept staring at the picture, depicting herself with a handsome Betazoid man on a beach, and a fussy baby between them. The sun shone down on them, and they wore smiles and bright, happy colors.
It was a piece of joy in an otherwise bleak, and destroyed chamber.
"... Did I ever tell you how I met Ven?" Rachel asked.
Enterprise shook her head. Rachel chuckled sadly.
"I was a lieutenant on shore leave on Betazoid. I hit a few bars. One... I can't remember the name of it now... I ran into this xenoarcheologist who was arguing about the Iconians to some undergrad," a rueful smile came to her face, "and I had to get involved. Because I'd just come from a dig with the Argo. We argued over it for hours, between drinks, and he called me a damn fool over the wrong era of Iconian history. Then I slapped him and stormed off... But he called me the next day and invited me to breakfast as an apology."
Tears threatened to poke out of the corners of her eyes as she stared at the picture.
"Turns out... I was wrong," she admitted, "about the era. But it gave his best man a hell of a story at our wedding. We named our son after him-Jason. Did you know that?"
Enterprise smiled back at her captain, and shook her head.
Rachel reached out to touch the face of the baby in the picture, as though she could reach back across the years.
"I knew the divorce was coming," Rachel admitted, "I was... I was a stranger to Jason. I was a stranger to Ven. I kept promising, over and over, I'd make the time and we'd be a real family again."
She let out a long, low sigh.
"I just... I couldn't let it go," she said. "This job... It was so much more than that. It was a calling. I couldn't be selfish. And yet..."
Rachel stared intently at the picture, muffling a sob.
"Did I make the right choice?" She whispered. "Shouldn't I be with them, right now? Instead of here?"
Enterprise was silent for a time, pondering her answer. She finally found her voice again.
"You've done so much for them," Enterprise said, "you've sacrificed your personal happiness to make the universe a better place. For both of them." Enterprise took a deep breath. It was strangely calming to the AI.
"And... If our deaths will ensure this terrible future never comes to pass," she said, "isn't it worth it?"
Rachel didn't respond, still staring at the picture.
Enterprise's sensors picked up something, and her eyes went wide.
"Captain-!"
The ship rocked hard, from weapons fire, Garrett keeping her feet through long years of practice.
"Red Alert! Klingon vessel approaching!" Enterprise cried.
Garrett nodded, broke the picture frame, pulled out the flimsy, and shoved it into her uniform.
"Then let's get going," Garrett ordered as she walked out of the ready room onto the bridge, "Enterprise! Engage!"
Written with Razor One.