章 23: Everything that Glitters is not Gold
Raven was able to set up the resonance burst from the warp core after B'Elanna was lost in her hallucinations, so things were handled rather easily. Once the psionic field was disabled, the Botha ship, and the strange Domain, vanished. The ship had not taken too much damage, so we continued our course back to the Alpha Quadrant while we sent crews out to make repairs, including Raven.
After everything was settled, I asked Chakotay if I could be excused and then headed back to the Shuttle Bay. Echo was onboard Fae when I returned, but she did not seem to be in a good mood since I found her drinking with a darker scowl than usual on her face. She did not even notice me until I sat down next to her and took the bottle from her. I dropped the gold coin on the table before taking a long drink from the bottle.
"What's with the coin?" Echo asked.
"No clue," I said, passing the bottle back to her. "Katye and I had another visit from one of Tori's Pantheon since I wanted to face the Botha, but he wasn't strong enough on his own, so since we are taking this seriously now, he came to give us our own test. I'm not sure what Katye faced, but I have nearly a month's worth of memories of a broken wing and an icy poison with just the coin and a speech about compassion as my prize."
"At least you got a prize," Katye grumbled as she climbed up the stairs.
I looked at Katye with shock because I had not sensed her approach which could only mean one thing.
"What happened to your mana?!?" Echo exclaimed.
"Sealed for the next six months, but I can get it back sooner if I can learn a hundred new languages before then," Katye said, dropping onto an empty couch.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Mistranslated a magic text and ended up incinerating myself. Sancu was kind enough to explain my mistakes and tell me my punishment while I experienced my entire body being reduced to ash. Can I have some of that, ai hodnes?"
Echo held out the bottle and Katye took it from her, and then finished it off. I gritted my teeth at the thought of her 'death' but, instead of saying anything, I simply got up and went to the kitchen area to grab another bottle. I may have dealt with some pain over a longer period of time, but the idea of being burned alive still seemed worse.
"So, what did you have to face, Echo? Sancu said that you and Raven could gain something out of this if we chose his method," I asked as I handed the new bottle to Katye.
"It doesn't matter; she's dead," Echo replied simply.
"We've both been haunted by the dead before. It usually means that you still hold their death..." I started, but the glare she gave me, silenced me.
"Echo," Katye said gently as she sat up and placed the bottle on the table.
"That's not my name!" she snapped.
I sighed since I had my own struggles with my two names, but her issues were much deeper than my own. When she was a young child, she and another girl were given to Queen Nia, ruler of Azgeda, who decided to raise them as assassins and spies. They were like sisters for several years, but she was the weaker and more timid of the two. Nia grew tired of her mistakes and ordered her sister to kill her, but since she did not want to kill her, 'Echo' was able to kill her sister in the struggle. That was when Nia renamed her Echo and her life as an assassin and spy was sealed until she met us.
"You carry your sister's name to honor her. She would not fault you for fighting for your life even at the cost of hers," Katye said.
Echo huffed and grabbed the bottle but said nothing. She was worse than me when it came to talking about her feelings but pushing her would only piss her off. While she took a swig, I picked up the coin and tossed it to Katye.
"Any idea on what it is?" I asked.
Katye looked it over for a minute before tossing it back and said, "Try channeling some mana into it."
I shrugged and did as she suggested. As soon as I made the connection to the coin, a wealth of information entered my mind, and I could not help but curse, realizing that he had played me. This 'reward' would help all of us, not just me, but it would make certain encounters in the future a lot more dangerous, and there was no refusing this 'gift'.
"What is it?" Katye asked.
"An upgrade for the Voyager's holo-deck. It will allow us to fight with our full strength without risking any damage to the Voyager as well as let us challenge historical figures, storybook characters, videogames, movies, mangas... anything that we have knowledge of, and it's not just physical fights either. Imagine being able to learn tactics from Sun Tzu, bounce ideas off of Leonardo da Vinci with an understanding of magical tech, learning from different 'Gods of Hunting'... This can teach us things that we can't learn in the Mental Plane with Fae," I explained.
"Doesn't that mean we'll have to start requesting to use the holo-deck?" Katye asked.
I chuckled, "I doubt anyone is really going to complain these days with how much we have already done for the ship."
"You were the one who made the suggestion when we first joined," Katye shrugged.
"That's because there are a lot of character development scenes that happen in the holo-deck and I didn't want us messing them up, but this is also where Sancu's trick or trap is coming into play. The reward can only be used on Holo-Deck Two, where every single episode revolving around a holo-deck takes place, and there are quite a few, I assure you. The best part, is that the upgrade has already taken place; the coin is just a simple instruction manual and catalog of the new programs available to us."
"So basically, unless we are willing to disable Holo-Deck Two permanently, we might as well use the damn thing," Katye sighed.
"Exactly, but it's not all bad. Time can be manipulated by a factor of five to increase our time inside and it can even be divided between the four of us, meaning that we can all use it at the same time. What Raven and you will really like is that you can use the time to work on your projects and pause them, if needed without losing your work. Nothing can exist outside of the holo-deck, but you'll be able to save on replicating resources until you have your techniques perfected."
"Not that I'll be working on anything anytime soon," she complained.
::Sancu's restriction of not using mana only affects your physical body, not your mental one. You can still practice using the Mind Linker.::
"Thanks, Fae. That makes me feel a little better."
We talked for a bit longer, but nothing important. Katye replicated dinner, instead of cooking tonight, but that was better since Raven was not here. After we finished eating, Katye and Echo used the Mind Linker. I waited up for Raven to get off duty so that I could explain what had happened to Katye and me while also checking to see how she was doing. Thankfully, what Raven experienced dealt with her mother and she had been working on those issues for years, unlike Echo who suppressed most of her internal struggles.
Once I had explained the changes to the holo-deck, Raven was excited, but that did not surprise me. I handed over the gold coin since it was possible for her to look at it as well, so long as she injected some of her mana into it. The two of us ended up spending the rest of the night developing interesting programs for the four of us based off of what we understood of each other's powers.
The next day, I spoke with Chakotay about scheduling our time on the holo-deck without impacting the crew too much. He was a little surprised since none of us had shown any interest in scheduling time, but between the four of us, it was not hard to secure the hour before our duty shifts every day. With the time effects that Fae could use, plus the hour on the holo-deck everyday which translated to five hours for us, we could spend a full day's worth of effort towards training everyday and still live in the the Voyager storyline. It was not a perfect solution to all of the problems that we faced, but if we applied ourselves properly, we would still be able to make things better while growing alongside the challenges that would pop up.
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