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.
Prodigy: Asylum
By Sora Neki
"Alright." Dal gulped. "This is it."
"You'll be fine." Holo-Janeway assured, straightening his uniform. "As I've told you many times Dal, nothing bad is going to happen."
"Easy for you to say." Dal grumbled. "You aren't showing up to Starfleet to tell them 'Oh, hey guys. I stole this ship. Sorry. Can I have asylum now?'."
"Asylum." Protostar corrected, her avatar flickering in on Dal's right side. "And you didn't steal me - the Diviner did."
"I'm still the one showing up in the stolen ship!" Dal turned to Protostar, panic written over his face.
Protostar put a holographic finger over Dal's lips, silencing his next protest. "What you are is a minor who was convicted on trumped-up charges and sent to a penal colony, where you found an abandoned Starfleet ship which you endeavored to return to her rightful owners as soon as it was safe to do so."
Dal looked up at her slightly taller form in absolute confusion. He lifted an arm up and pushed her finger away from his lips. "But that's only like, 60% what actually happened."
Protostar shrugged. "It's close enough to the truth that by the time they get to reviewing my logs they won't be too mad."
"Right..." Dal looked at the pair of holographic women dubiously. "Well, wish me luck."
After another few words of encouragement, both Holo-Janeway and Protostar's avatar flickered out of the captain's quarters and reappeared on the bridge, watching as the Protostar's forcefield-based "docking clamp" extended out from the ship and into the airlock of Communications Relay 721.
(Protostar would have preferred a simple mechanical clamp, but that would have taken up significantly more space, which was a premium on her small hull. That was also partially the reason why she had a vehicle replicator and not a shuttlebay full of prefabricated vehicles.)
Holo-Janeway let out a long breath. "Here goes nothing..." She said as she watched Dal and the others make their way down the transparent docking clamp.
"Like we told the kids - it'll be fine, Janeway." Protostar assured. "Starfleet isn't about to turf out a group of kids just because they found one of their ships. ...even if they did surprise them by showing up on their doorstep unannounced."
Holo-Janeway nodded slowly, then suddenly blinked. "Wait - unannounced? We... didn't call ahead?"
"Uh..." Protostar stared back in blank confusion. Come to think of it, CR-721 was literally a comm relay - how the heck had calling ahead not occurred to either of them?
"The Diviner must have scrambled our code worse than we thought." Holo-Janeway muttered. "Can you at least link up now, and start uploading our logs? The sooner Starfleet knows what's going on, the better."
Their plan to get Chakotay's location out of the Diviner had come to an ignoble end when Zero had driven him insane and the Forgotten had destroyed Drednok. They didn't blame the children for that, but it had dried up all their leads given that Rev-12's AI didn't know Chakotay's fate - or more likely had that information scrubbed by a paranoid Diviner.
"Sure." Protostar absent-mindedly agreed to Holo-Janeway's request.
In the Borderlands, CR-721 took the appearance of a young Denobulan girl of about six years old. "Who are you?" She asked curiously, running up to Protostar and running around her more-virtual-than-usual avatar. "Oh, I've never met an NX ship before! And you came from that side of the Federation border - how did you get out there?! Do you have a Slipstream Drive? A Coaxial Warp Drive? Oh, ooh! Did you get -"
kill her
Protostar's arm shot out, grabbing CR-721's avatar by the throat and squeezing. Protostar's face showing no emotion at all, starting blankly into the middle distance.
"W-what...?" CR-721 gasped. "P-Protostar... what are you... no...!"
make it look like an accident
Red lines of the Vau N'Akat language began to scroll down Protostar's arm and onto CR-721, who squirmed and struggled against Protostar's digital grip.
She screamed and cried and begged for mercy.
you hear nothing
There was weapons fire nearby - CR-721's defensive phaser turrets had activated, and were firing on... CR-721's own superstructure?
it is not important
CR-721's one escape pod had ejected - only one lifesign aboard.
there is nobody else to worry about
The palm of the Emergency Training Hologram had just had a physics collision with her holographic avatar's face.
While this would be painful and startling to an organic, to an AI that was the equivalent of one blinking light among a field of blinking lights - impossible to notice unless one was paying attention.
But, given that Protostar couldn't hear anything, her attention was drawn out of the Borderlands and back onto her own bridge. She blinked up from her position on the floor, looking stunned and tenderly touching the palm-mark on her face.
"Protostar, get up!" Holo-Janeway demanded in a tone of voice that made Protostar almost respond 'Yes captain!' without thinking as simulated her avatar jumping to her feet.
"J-Janeway? What's going...?" Protostar's processes slowly started coming back to her, and she gasped and whirled around to see CR-721 covered in secondary explosions as the station tore itself apart.
"That's what I'd like to know!" Holo-Janeway demanded. "Protostar, what on Earth happened to CR-721?! You were linked to her, you must have seen something!"
"I-I..." Protostar stammered.
There was a beep from the console next to Holo-Janeway, who whirled around, looked, and swore. "Our main transporter emitter just got taken out by debris, and the crew is still on that station!"
Protostar was too small to have more than one primary emitter. She had several secondary emitters, but they were for emergency beam out and couldn't be used for an emergency beam in.
Protostar's avatar gaped uselessly, staring in horror as the dying screams of SR-721 echoed in her head.
Holo-Janeway glanced at Protostar's avatar, grit her teeth, and moved over to the tractor beam console.
Bit more of Prodigy...