บท 1: Welcome to the Delta Quadrant
My eyes opened and I stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling. I was disoriented, but slowly, my memories fell into place. Katye was nestled in my arms just as she had been when we went to sleep and was also starting to wake up. Suddenly, I realized that Raven and Echo were nowhere to be found nor could I sense them, but I also realized that my senses could not extend past the walls, which was unusual.
"Where are they?!?" I demanded as I climbed out of the bed.
"Rebecca, relax. Tori wouldn't have given them mana too if he was just going to leave them behind. Computer, how many people are onboard the ship?" Katye asked in hopes of calming me down.
::There are four Vazukuru onboard:: The computer chimed with the same voice that every Starfleet vessel had, which belonged to Majel Barrett, the wife of the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry.
"Vazukuru? I don't remember that race in Star Trek, even Voyager," I said.
"Computer, please explain what is known about the Vazukuru," Katye sighed while giving me a look to which I could only chuckle wryly at.
::The Vazukuru is a heavily classified race believed to be the Descendants of the Q, which requires Captain-level clearance. They joined the Federation stardate 41153.7 as refugees, escaping the destruction of their home world which they claimed was attacked by the Q Continuum, after they had decided to eliminate the experiment which created them. Starfleet has kept them hidden and used them to handle unique missions that involve the influence of any Q...::
"That's enough, computer. You were right, sorry for jumping to conclusions," I sighed. "I guess that's Tori solution to my demand that we were not placed as members of the Voyager crew, but making us the 'Descendants of the Q' is going to make things tricky with Janeway."
"At least it will explain away our abilities. Come on, if I know Raven, she is on the bridge if she isn't here. Let's do some exploring," Katye said with a light smile.
Our clothes had been changed to Starfleet uniforms similar to the ones in Voyager, but with one difference. Instead of the traditional red, blue, and yellow accent colors which relayed all through the franchise, ours were the color of our mana, stormy gray for me and a bright violet for Katye. On Katye's collar, there were three pips, marking her rank as a Lieutenant commander, while mine had four, meaning that I was the Captain of our ship.
The room that we were in definitively had a Star Trek feel with silver walls and a small window on the wall behind the headboard which showed the stars streaking by. The bed was on the larger side and there were a couple of dressers, but what drew both of our attention was the large screen that had a collage of pictures. Kane and Abby, Clark and Niylah, Diyoza, Hope, and Madi... It was all of the people who we had been close to throughout our journey through 'The 100' and, in the very center, there was the same photo that was on our nightstand of Katye and I with Raven and Echo flanking our sides.
We kept walking and found that the next room was a living space and dining area. There was a small kitchen pushed into the far corner, complete with what looked like a replicator and a small stove, and a set of stairs that led downwards, in the other far corner. To our right, there was a table that could easily seat eight people for a meal while, on the left, there was a lounge area with four couches arranged around a short coffee table. The entire ceiling was a dome-shaped window which gave me mixed feelings since the last time that I had been in space was not the best experience, but it was an amazing view.
We kept walking and headed down the stairs. The room below was larger than the one above and was multi-purposed. I recognized a transporter pad setup in a corner and several stations and workbenches along the walls. In the center of the room was a giant, electric green mana crystal. Katye and I could create something similar, but that was no larger than a finger while this monster was over fifteen feet tall and seven feet round, and it was packed with mana.
"That's one hell of a mana crystal... Do you think that it powers the whole ship?" I asked as I walked up to it.
"Probably. From what little I've recovered from Alkatyenia's memories, I know that Magic Items can do practically anything, so the whole ship is probably a magical item, designed to work like a Starfleet vessel," Katye replied.
"Then the bridge should be that way," I said, pointing towards the set of doors that were in the direction of the front of the ship.
"Captains first," Katye teased.
I chuckled and headed through the doors. There were two women with their backs to us in similar uniforms, but one's accent color was a deep maroon while the other's was an icy blue. Despite the uniforms, I knew those backsides well and their voices as they talked only confirmed it; they were Raven and Echo.
"We were wondering when you two would wake up," Raven chuckled as she and Echo turned around to face us.
"How long have you been awake?" I asked.
"Since we got here a few hours ago. Someone needed to fly the ship and the power that Tori gave me is needed since I've never seen anything like this ship," Raven replied.
"So, what did the all-powerful god grant you for your first ability?" Katye asked with a chuckle.
Raven stirred the mana inside of her body and one of her eyes turned a dark maroon color. "He called it the 'Eye of Analyzation'. It may not sound amazing, but it allows me to understand any piece of technology or magical item that I can see at the price of mana. I also got something called a Soul-Construct, but I don't have enough mana yet to manifest it for more than a few seconds which also comes with a nasty headache. It will evolve to suit how I develop my abilities, but this whole ship is run off of the mana we create, so I'm going to have a lot of fun figuring out how it all works."
A bark, of sorts, broke up the happy reunion and we all turned our heads towards the source of the sound. A white fox with icy blue markings jumped up on the console next to us, but more striking than its coloring were the three tails flickering from side to side. There was intelligence in her gaze as she sat and looked over Katye and me.
"Umm… when did we get a fox?" I asked, making Raven chuckle.
"Nyka is my Soul-Beast which Tori gave me to help develop my unique power," Echo explained.
"And what did he give you?" Katye asked.
Echo stirred her mana like Raven and one of her dark green eyes turned the same icy-blue as the fox's markings. "He called it the 'Eye of the Hunt'. It gives me the ability to track anything, no matter what method is used to hide the trail."
"I feel like that was very pointed at us," I chuckled.
"It was," she retorted dryly.
"Don't think that you two have been forgiven for leaving us behind when you went after the Disciples," Raven added, jabbing me lightly in the stomach.
"We barely survived. If you had come along, you would have been killed," I said firmly.
"We know… Tori let us see your fight against them, both in Sanctum and on Bardo. But you won't be able to use that excuse again," Raven replied.
Before I could reply, the screens all displayed the image of Tori in his room of white. "This is just a recording, so don't bother trying to talk to me or ask questions. The identity that I've established for you and your ship is that you are Vazukuru, the Descendants of the Q. Only Janeway will know of your race as your race is classified, but your ship will still be identifiable as Starfleet to Voyager's sensors. Although it will make things a little difficult for you to join their crew, it will make things easier once you start changing things like I know you will.
"I know that you all faced a number of difficulties during your last 'life', and you are bound to face more in this one and the others that will follow, but I do hope that you can find happiness within them. The strength that you both need cannot be given, only refined through trials and hardships. Everything within this universe is based off of the same principles of the Endless Firmament, so learn what you can and grow your power. You will also be able to bring others with you after Voyager returns to the Alpha Quadrant by having them join your crew, but they will be bound to you just as Raven and Echo are, so take the chance as they will be able to help you understand new things just as Raven and Echo will as their abilities develop.
"Unless you want things to spiral out of control in this universe as things adjust to your changes, you will need a moderator, and I have provided several to monitor everything closely. A few of my Pantheon have placed Avatars within the Q Continuum and will pop in at various points of your journey to help prevent the crew of Voyager from being caught up in the Chaos that your disturbance will cause. You'll still have to deal with the Q that would have appeared in the show, but they will also know you as Vazukuru and that their powers can't directly affect you. I hope that you enjoy yourself, Becca, because this is for the little sister that I remember playing Voyager in the backyard."
While the others chuckled at the rare bit of information from my original life, that I had memories of, my jaw clenched at the mention of Chaos. It was the root of my power, tied directly to my True Soul, but it was also the reason why all of us were forced to live through these adventures. My past life, the one that birthed my True Soul, had been a powerful Dragon of the Chaos Storm, but during a battle against ancient enemies, my power advanced to a whole new level that nothing could match, but that also turned me into a source of danger to the Endless Firmament.
I became the living Embodiment of Chaos, but that threw off the balance of the Laws that formed the entire Plane of Existence. It is a lot of fancy words to say that I had the potential to destroy, well, everything. Because Chaos could not be controlled, only matched by the Embodiment of Order. Before that new power corrupted my Will, my past self removed her Soul and entrusted it to someone that she had trusted for trillions of years, Istar, but 'I' knew him as Tori, my older brother.
He had died when I was sixteen and I thought that, that would have been the last time that I would see him, but it turned out that I was wrong. After I died twenty years later, I woke up in his room of white and saw that teasing smile on his face. He did not explain it then, but instead, threw me into the world of 'The 100' with nothing but an old bedtime story to figure out how to use my new powers and in the body of one of the characters.
'The 100' was not a happy show, to say the least. Multiple wars, an AI taking over people's minds, and several 'end of the world' situations... Compared to the show, the majority of humanity got a far better ending than what they would have gotten without Katye's and my meddling, but it had come at a heavy price. I had to compromise my principles and use people because I was too scared to not have their support, I had to watch friends die because I had put them in harm's way, and I had killed more people that I could count.
It was not all bad, of course. Once I accepted that I needed to take a step forward and be the protector, I was able to build an incredible life that I fought desperately to keep. Katye and I had not been placed together in that world, so I had developed a relationship with Raven first while Katye found Echo. When Katye and I did meet, we worked together to fix and stop what we could. Things really did not always go according to plan and events that never happened in the show were created, yet the four of us managed to survive through it all. Considering that Katye's destiny was to become the Embodiment of Order, it really was not that surprising that we were placed together. After everything that the four of us had been through, and the influence of our past lives, we all ended up in a relationship together that was built on trust and respect; although I had done some damage to Echo's and my relationship by not including her in the Final War of our last 'life', even if it saved her life.
After Tori's message, the screens all went back to normal except for one which started to beep. Raven slid past us and walked over to it. She tapped a few buttons and then the main window changed from the stars zooming past to a familiar ship. Just like the show, Voyager was gray in color and had an almost spoon-shape design that tapered off to the twin warp nacelles. The gold accent should be their phaser bank while the engines gave off a red glow at the front tips and a vibrant blue streak along the sides.
"Voyager," I said softly.
"Impressive ship. Fifteen decks, bio-neural circuitry, phaser banks, photon torpedoes, tri-cobalt devices… it makes the Eligius IV look like a kid's toy," Raven said, impressed.
"If we are in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway has already used the tri-cobalt devices to destroy the Caretaker's Array, but still... Voyager was built for combat and this timeline is about two hundred years in the future from a much different Earth than what we knew. Have they picked us up on their sensors yet?" I asked.
"No, I have the ship cloaked. Tori warned that the Kazon would fire on us without warning if they picked up our signal," she replied.
"Well, that's a no-no," Katye chuckled. "Federation ships aren't supposed to have cloaking technology due to a Romulan treaty, but then again, I doubt that we are going to run across any Romulans out here."
"You'd be surprised by what all we are bound to find throughout the trip," I replied, leaning on the console. "So, how do we want to handle this? Janeway is going to have her reservations about us, even if she does allow us to join her crew. If we start warning her of future events, she will start to get suspicious of us thanks to our identity as 'Descendants of the Q'."
"Couldn't you use the same excuse of having visions of the future? It worked last time," Raven suggested.
"We saw how that worked out... Iseto, the Disciples... The more we change, the more new elements are introduced, Tori just warned us about it. If we change the wrong thing, we could get Voyager destroyed," Katye sighed.
"Isn't that why he added those moderators? To negate some of the dangers that our actions will cause," Echo asked.
"You never got the chance to meet any of his Pantheon, and placing them in the Q Continuum? I believe that we would have fight the entire Continuum before we could trust any of their members to fix things. They are going to be the source of our trials and hardships throughout this journey, mark my words," Katye retorted.
I listened to them debate, half-heartedly, while I watched Voyager fly through space. To my surprise, the ship dropped out of warp and approached a large nebula of fuchsia and silver-blue clouds. I actually recognized it as this nebula was the focus of one of the first episodes, The Cloud.
Voyager had been drawn to the nebula because they detected omicron particles inside which they could use for power. They go inside, trying to collect some, but quickly find themselves in a dangerous position when they are caught behind some kind of energy barrier and their power reserves were being drained. With little choice, they blasted their way out, but by doing so, they harmed the creature that they believed was a simple nebula. Janeway, of course, orders that they go back in and help heal the damage that they did, but it cost them a lot of wasted energy.
It was a simple problem that they could manage on their own, but it emphasized the problem that I was facing. To act or not, that was the question. Would I be able to sit by and let everything unfold just as it had in the show? We faced a lot of problems because we meddled with the timeline of our last lives, but despite all of that, I never regretted acting, only when I did not.
"Raven, uncloak us and hail Voyager, now. We need to stop them from entering that nebula," I said, cutting into their conversation.
"But aren't you worried about making changes or getting Janeway suspicious of us?" Katye asked.
"Do you regret any of the decisions that we made, 'Heda'?" I retorted. "Voyager was a big inspiration to me growing up, so let's be honest. We're going to help them, so we might as well start now. Hesitating to step up led to the deaths of forty-eight kids during the fighting with Trikru; I'm not making that mistake again."
Katye and Raven both sighed, remembering the war against the Grounders as we called them back then. Although Raven was the only one who had been apart of those events, Katye knew the show well but could not help us, because she was too busy dealing with an Azgeda plot to assassinate her, since she had been placed in the role of the leader of the Twelve Clans. None of them blamed me for being scared of stepping forward when my powers were pathetically weak, but I still knew that it had been a mistake.
"Well, you heard the captain," Katye said with a weak smirk. "Hail Voyager."
Raven nodded her head and tapped a few buttons. Voyager looked like it would still enter the nebula, but then they stopped right at the edge of it. It took another minute, but there was a chime from the console in front of her.
"You ready?" she asked.
"What's the name of the ship, by the way?" I asked, realizing that I did not know.
Raven chuckled, shaking her head, "Some things never change... it's the USS Fae Dragon."
"Thanks," I smirked. "Put it through."
Raven tapped a few buttons and the window changed to the bridge of Voyager as seen from their main view screen. Captain Kathryn Janeway was in the center of it all in her red accented uniform and trademark high bun. Chakotay was to her left, slightly behind her, also in red with short black hair, tan skin, and a tattoo over his eye. I could also pick out Tom, Harry, and Tuvok in the background, but I forced myself to focus on Janeway alone.
"Hello, Captain Janeway if my memory serves me, it's good to see a friendly face again. I'm Captain Rebecca Cox of the USS Fae Dragon. I imagine that if you are on this side of the galaxy, you have had the pleasure of meeting the Caretaker. It's breech of protocol for me to contact your ship, I know, but my ship isn't designed for long-range missions, and we have a long journey to get back to Federation space, so I hope that you can forgive me," I said with a light smile.
"Then you really are a Vazukuru vessel?" Janeway asked with surprise.
"Vazukuru?" Harry asked in the background.
"We are. Originally, we were on a mission to investigate the disappearance of a number of ships, and while we found the cause, there was little that we could do with the information, stuck out here. I know our appearance will cause some difficulties for you, but my crew and I have abilities that I'm sure will be helpful throughout your journey... if you are willing to work with us," I explained with a simple lie.
I could see the conflict in her eyes as she looked off to the side, but by directly hailing her in front of her crew, I had forced her into a corner. An unknown Federation ship, asking for help to get home, would start quite a lot of rumors if she refused us outright. They were stranded out here, alone, so even if we were just a small ship, Voyager needed all the help it could get.
"Mr. Paris, set a course to rendezvous with their ship," Janeway ordered.
"Yes, ma'am," he agreed. "It will take us eighteen hours to reach them at warp six with their current course and speed."
"Then, Captain, I will see you in eighteen hours," Janeway said.
"Thank you, Captain," I replied with a slight bow of my head.
Voyager cut off communications with us. I let out a sigh of relief which caused Katye and Raven to chuckle behind me.
"Well, we have eighteen hours to learn how to use our ship properly. Let's hope that's enough time," I said.
"It should be. We have one last gift from Tori: a training device which includes a crash course covering our ship and general Starfleet procedures. Follow me," Raven said, heading for the door.
"You sure know the ship well," Katye remarked.
"Of course, I do. We all know who is going to be in charge of keeping this thing running," she retorted then teased, "You probably could have managed, but unless Tori used a lot of small and easy words, Becca and Echo would have had trouble understanding anything."
"Thanks," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
Raven led the three of us upstairs and over to the lounge area. We sat down on the couches while she pulled open a drawer at the small coffee table. There were four silver devices held still by a navy foam material which looked like circular disks with a series of flashing lights that spiraled inwards to a button.
"You simply need to place them on your temple and press the button. It is supposed to pull us into a mental world where we can access a number of training simulations, including our crash course and a sparring arena where we won't have to worry about holding back our strength. Time can also be manipulated, since our minds can process things quicker than our bodies can move, up to three times the normal speed," Raven explained as she handed each of us one of the devices.
"Sounds a lot more convenient than trying to figure out everything on our own, or with Ishu's help," I said.
"Definitely; now I don't need to worry about the two of you beating your brains out of each other while you fight over who's stronger," Katye teased, directing the comment at Echo and me.
"I'll be able to defeat you again once I learn how to use your little tricks," Echo stated confidently.
"Yeah, we'll see about that," I retorted then attached the device to my temple.
I pressed the button and felt my mind get pulled into a state similar to meditation, but instead of settling into my Soul Realm, I was in a new place...
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