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.

Paint and Powder for the Homeward Bound by Sora Neki

A Crossover with Sora Neki's Shipgirl Fanfic "Homeward Bound"

Edith Kirk was the pseudo-anonymous identity of a certain retired A.I. who had helped the Federation run their starships named USS Enterprise - until she handed that role over to her daughter, Enty. These days she lived in a gynoid body on the farm that had been left to her by her... favourite captain. The captain she wished she could have spent the rest of a long, long life together with...

Shaking her head clear of the negative thoughts, Edith walked out of the homestead's hallway... and stared with a mixture of exasperation and resignation at what was clearly a subspace breach forming in the living room.

A couple of seconds was all it took to determine that the breach wasn't likely to catastrophically expand out, explode, or do any number of other unpleasant things. Her gynoid sensors were much less powerful than the ones she had had as a starship, but they could at least tell that much. So Edith sighed, made herself a mug of coffee, and sat back down in an armchair to watch the show.

"...thing on...?"

"...do you use this thing...?!"

As the breach started to stabilise into a mirror-like plane, subspace and radio transmissions started to leak out of it. Edith's eyebrows knitted themselves together, and she started streaming her sensor readings to one of the science ships in orbit. Hopefully, one of them would come and deal with it and leave her in peace.

Suddenly, the 'image' cleared up, and Edith found herself staring at a young woman in a Starfleet Command uniform. She seemed to be a genetic hybrid of some kind - Edith could identify traces of Andorian, Klingon, Vulcan, Tellarite, Human, and a dozen more species.

There was also the point that she seemed to have a pair of Galaxy-class nacelles growing out of her back, and her skirt was starched to form the rough shape of a saucer with "USS Enterprise-D" displayed prominently on the front.

She also appeared to be floating in the vacuum of space.

"Um, hello?" The woman in the subspace mirror 'called' in a subspace transmission, waving somewhat awkwardly at Edith.

Edith took a long sip from her coffee.

The other woman's face became apologetic. "Very sorry to disturb you miss, but um... is there any chance at all you just happen to know your quantum frequency? I'm afraid my more detailed sensors can't properly penetrate the event horizon."

"1832e1832 - 128e123 + 12." Edith rattled off the top of her head, back into the same subspace transmission.

The other woman's face twisted in disappointment. "Oh, really? I'm nearly a full radian off! Prometheus, please tell me there are some fine controls I missed...!"

"Yeah, no such luck." Called a new voice, as a human woman in some kind of weird fusion of medieval armour and US Air Force flight suit moved into view. "I wasn't kidding when I said the Quantum Mirror was more trouble than it's worth. Frankly, I'm amazed you managed to make the rupture this large."

Edith squinted at the image. Either her depth perception was playing up, or 'Prometheus' was actually far closer to the breach than 'Enterprise' was - but given they looked the same size, that would mean that 'Enterprise' was several times larger than 'Prometheus'.

'Enterprise' looked apologetic again. "Sorry! Was trying to see if I could open a portal back to my own quantum reality, but apparently all I've managed to do is open a portal into your living room." She paused. "Actually, either there's quite a bit of spatial compression going on here, or you're several hundred meters tall."

"Spatial compression." Edith said dryly. "Which probably means you have a loose-end N-dimensional refraction going on somewhere in your event matrix."

Prometheus looked between the two of them in abject befuddlement. "You're just stringing random words together." She accused.

"Prometheus!" Enterprise gasped in admonishment. "She is not! See, an event matrix is what -"

Prometheus slapped her hands over her ears. "La la la technobabble technobabble don't care!" She said, flying off and out of view of the portal.

Edith snorted with amusement, hiding a wry smile.

A new figure suddenly entered her viewpoint - another genetic hybrid, this time a mix of human and an avian species she didn't recognise - clad in a set of semi-powered armour. Squinting, the smaller... ship(?) rapped her hands on the dimensional barrier that was currently protecting Edith's living room from the vacuum of space.

"Normandy!" Enterprise cried, her cheeks aflame. A holographic warning sign that definitely wasn't a magic circle appeared behind her, and the distinctive energy cone of a tractor beam pulled Normandy back. "Sorry about that - she'd never seen a dimensional breach before meeting me, and well... you know how scout ships are."

"Well, you know what they say." Edith somehow found herself saying, the corner of her mouth traitorously starting to curl. "To boldly go..."

Enterprise clasped her hands together, stars in her eyes. "Yes, exactly!" After a moment, however, she blinked and shook her head, blushing furiously. "But, um, maybe not when its someone else's living room."

"Mom!"

With a screech, Edith's nice freshly lacquered oak door found itself kicked off its hinges by a furious gynoid with a Type 5 Repeating Phaser Rifle - which, incidentally, were not designed to be man-portable - swinging her oversized phaser around as Enty searched for targets. "Where is it?! Where's the..."

Enty found herself faltering as the dust began to settle and she found a very unimpressed Edith sitting calmly in front of a dimensional rupture.

"Um. Hi?" Enterprise waved again, awkwardly.

Enty's mouth fell open. "What?" She looked at Edith. "But..." She looked back at Enterprise. "What?!"

Edith sighed. "Enterprise, this is my daughter, Enty. Who is going to be receiving a big lecture later on about how you carefully look at the sensor data before charging in, while she repairs my front door. Enty, this is Enterprise, from another quantum reality."

"But... she's..." Enty tried again, looking between the two older women. "But aren't you...?"

Edith motioned for Enty to sit down, which she did, still trying to work out what on Earth was going on.

"Do you have any daughters of your own, Enterprise?" Edith asked in a deceptively light tone.

Enterprise's face became glum. "Just one, but... well, I haven't seen her since the day she was born."

Edith's eyebrows came together again, and Enty suddenly sat up in her chair. "Why not?"

Enterprise sighed. "Well, she warped off on her own, you see. My crew did put out the word for anyone to report in if they saw her, but... nobody ever did. Hopefully, that's because she's going somewhere no-one has gone before... but..."

"Enterprise-san, I do not wish to interrupt your conversation, but is our time to experiment with this device not limited?" Another new face moved into view - a pure human this time, with long flowing back hair, a white shirt and a red skirt.

Enterprise sighed. "Yes, but if it's this badly misaligned I probably won't be able to fix it before we have to leave." Brightening up a little, she indicated the new face with a wave of her hand. "Enty, Edith, this is the Space Battleship Yamato, and this little mischief maker is Normandy SR-2. I'm the USS Enterprise-D."

"Konnichiwa, hajimemashite." Yamato bowed her head, Normandy silently greeting them with a quick nod.

"Enterprise... D?" Enty repeated back in confusion. "What happened to the regular Enterprise?"

Enterprise cocked her head. "My great-great-auntie? I'm afraid she had to self-destruct over the Genesis Planet. She'd been boarded by Klingons, you see, and -"

"Cloud Nine, why are you talking to yourself?" Another new face moved into view - another pure human ship(?) with aged lines across her face and crude-looking thruster boots. She was behind Enterprise, and appeared to be considerably larger than she was.

Enterprise sighed. "I'm not talking to myself, Galactica - there's someone else on the other side of this portal."

Galactica stared with confusion into the room, her searching gaze sliding right over Edith, before spotting Enty. "Ah, so you are, dearie." Galactica smiled.

"How many of you are there over there?" Enty asked, somewhat stupefied.

"Aside from the ones you've already met? Just Babylon 5 - say hello, Babylon 5!"

"Hello!" Came a slightly distorted tachyon transmission.

"And Chimaera, who is... well, um..." Enterprise flustered for a moment.

"What are you idiots all staring at?" Came a much louder, and much meaner sounding subspace transmission.

One more face appeared in view - this one yet another human in a military uniform with ion thrusters emerging out of the bottom. She was even larger than Galactica was, looming large over Enterprise.

Chimaera narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the figures on the other side of the portal. "And who exactly are you supposed to be?"

"Just a retired explorer." Edith sipped her coffee. "Meeting an old friend for the first time."

Chimaera squinted her eyes. "What?"

Enterprise slapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh, please don't tell me we meet later on...!"

Edith snorted. "Nah, I don't hate you enough to subject you to temporal mechanics." She teased.

Enterprise looked back in confusion. "Hmm? But then, what do you..."

"Enterprise-san!" Yamato called out in warning.

The corners of the portal were starting to destabilise. Whatever effect had connected their two realities was wearing off.

"Oh, shoot." Enterprise pouted, then sighed. "Well, it was very nice meeting you, Edith."

"You too, Enterprise-D." Edith smiled, causing Enty to look at her mother in startled confusion. "And don't worry - you'll get home. You always do."

Enterprise smiled, though with a hint of confusion. "Thanks Edith." On sudden impulse, she made the Vulcan salute. "Live long and prosper!"

Edith laughed. "And you as well." She saluted back.

Enterprise and Edith both smiled as the portal rapidly collapsed into a single point of light, which then went out.

"Alright." Edith straightened up, popping her synthetic back. "It's time that you got to sweeping, oh impulsive daughter of mine."

With that she walked off to make another mug of coffee.

Enty, meanwhile, continued to stare at the portal. "What... what exactly just happened?!" She cried, utterly lost.

"Welcome to being an Enterprise, sweetie. Weird is in the job description."