421 Deployment Status
As soon as I stepped out of the meeting room, I wasn't surprised when the world came to a stop and turned to grey. A popup appeared giving me the choice to move on and I ignored it for now. I was once again back in the space between worlds and felt a familiar presence appear nearby.
Hey, reading buddy. I thought and felt them snuggle up to my side as I hugged them with one arm. I can't spend too long here. I have others that depend on me back there.
There was a feeling of disappointment and acceptance, which made me chuckle.
I always come back here, remember? I never leave you alone for long.
Amusement and acceptance was my answer and another book appeared in front of me. I paid the cost without looking at it and we settled down to read Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard, the book Neo had in the Matrix that he hid his illegal programs in.
This isn't a blatant hint of where I might go next, is it? I asked.
A soft giggle whispered into my ear and a feeling of mischievousness.
Heh, fine. Don't tell me. I thought with a laugh and opened the book.
When we finished a relatively short time later, I felt a kiss on my lips and chose to go back.
*
My visit with Guinan happened just as I suspected. Jeanne Picard showed up as well and I had a great time chatting with them and sharing the latest gossip, some of which I starred in, and Jeanne looked impressed and then she laughed and called me a fool for accepting the promotion. She liked being a starship captain and didn't want to be anything else.
I couldn't quite agree with her, not after all of the different lives I had lived through. I left the bar and then stepped from Earth to Romulus to the living room of Spock's house. She greeted me like an old friend, just like I had always treated her, and we shared a chaste kiss and a gentle hug.
I spent the first week of my vacation with Spock and pretty much became her hidden assistant. I helped pilfer the Romulan databases for every bit of technology and information, then she used everything she could to convince the people she met in secret that finding a common middle ground between the Vulcans and the Romulans was the best way to go.
Not surprisingly, we only had sex once, just before I had to leave. Spock actually seemed surprised that she enjoyed it as much as she had when she was horny for it. I didn't tell her I had used my powers to enhance her sensitivity back to the same levels it had been when she was in her Pon Farr, because that would have made her feel bad.
For the next week, I spent it with Odo on Deep Space Nine. I also became her hidden assistant, giving her backup when she needed it, a shoulder to lean on for support, and I was there when she confronted Kiro about his betrayal of their years long friendship. The guy had made an offhand comment about how silly she was being about such a simple thing and Odo calmly argued with him about his hypocrisy and insensitivity.
The entire Promenade Deck heard how Kiro was all for his own religion and his people's ridiculous practises that didn't make sense, and how Odo had fully accepted them because he respected the Bajorans as a people; and yet, Kiro completely dismissed the Vulcan's own religious practises because he didn't understand them and he disrespected her by betraying her involvement with a Vulcan as they performed a sacred rite.
Needless to say, the story about the epic argument had spread quickly across the rest of the station. It set off a string of meetings between a Federation representative, a Bajoran representative, one of their religious leaders, and the station management, which included the command crew and the Bajorans running the rest of the station. Odo was there as well, since she was the wronged party.
As her assistant, I provided a copy of my own inquiry's recording and stayed invisible as everyone in the large meeting room paled when they heard my threat, just like they had in the original meeting. Kiro Nerys was immediately relieved of duty and temporary lost his rank in the Bajoran Military, pending review of the rest of his record.
Violating a person's religious beliefs was anathema to the Bajorans, especially after the Cardassian occupation, and now Kiro was finding out exactly how much he had screwed up. He wasn't ostracized by his people, since they did understand what he did. However, no one would ever trust him again with anything, let alone personal secrets. Not even Odo.
It was the end of their long time friendship and the end of their working relationship. Even if Kiro's rank was restored, his services on a Federation run station were no longer required. They had to distance themselves from the fallout and his career was the casualty.
When my vacation was over, I reported for duty at the massive installation where the main array had been built. Since I had been in the Delta Quadrant as it was constructed and then finished, I hadn't actually seen the thing before.
Unlike the compact space station Commander Crusher's teams had built in the Delta Quadrant, the main Array Starbase was a massive three mile long docking station that had shipbuilding facilities and several squadrons of ships being prepared and loaded with the things they needed to build sister stations to the one in the Delta Quadrant.
Since I was now in overall command, I met with the current staff and the Commodore that had been running the place until they found a Vice Admiral to give the program legitimacy. I kept the man on as my first officer and stepped back from the every day operations to handle the more important things, like ship deployment and where the Array Space Stations should be built.
With my knowledge of the different alien races in both the Delta and Gamma quadrants, thanks to all the alternate timelines I had witnessed inside the Bajoran Wormhole when I visited the Prophets that both Spock and Odo had helped me work through, I laid out the coordinates for the safest places to build the initial incursions of Federation expansion in unknown space.
In the Delta Quadrant, I knew where the Hirogen homeworlds where. I also knew where the various worlds and transwarp hubs that the Borg occupied, the location and frequency to open the rift where Species 8472 resided in Borg Space, the unnamed species of out-of-phase scientists that had tortured and in some timelines outright murdered the crew of the Voyager, and every other dangerous species that existed.
In the Gamma Quadrant, I finally figured out where the Founder's homeworld was, that contained an eternal sea of changelings all formed into a mass that covered the planet's surface. Odo actually whimpered when she 'saw' the place in my mind and what happened to so many of her counterparts.
I also knew where their Dominion production facilities were and their starship construction yards. I also knew their soldiers and warriors were all genetically identical, because they were cloned, and all of them were female and sterile. Of the millions of them that existed, there hadn't been one single male birth from their cloning programs, not even by accident.
In any case, I put my plans into the computer's database and called for a meeting with the commanders of the ships preparing for the next distortion wave. I would be sending them into the Gamma Quadrant to a relatively open space in a solar system that didn't have any life-giving planets, just gas giants and asteroids.
No one asked me where I came up with the coordinates and assumed someone from Starfleet had told me about them, probably from one of the many reports from the vessels travelling through the Bajoran Wormhole. I didn't enlighten them and we worked on adding an actual fighting squadron of ships to help them defend and scout as they worked to bring their Array Space Station online.
The command crews looked relieved I was altering their orders that way and were fully onboard to have even more protection as they built a starbase in hostile territory. I also approved more communications satellites to extend their sensor range, just like I had set up back in the Delta Quadrant. I was in charge of the entire program, so I didn't need to seek approval from Starfleet Command about the changes and only had to file reports about it, and that was that.
My next chosen site for the station after that one, was another one in the Delta Quadrant. It would be set up about three year's travel from the current one and in a space near where the Hirogen territory was located. It was a little risky, so I would have to arrange sending three squadrons. It was a huge command for somone to undertake, so I would have to consult with Starfleet Personnel to find someone appropriate to handle it.
My thoughts went to the USS Defiant, a ship that DS9 had available and that Lieutenant Worf had taken a liking to. That alone was a good recommendation for the ship's weapons systems, so I checked with the Design Bureau and the wait list for ships was eight months long. I checked for smaller versions, onto to see that I had to wait for three months for the smaller runabouts.
I sighed at that and really started to miss the things I did with Voyager and using a Kazon ship as a base to make a federation approved ship. That brought my thoughts to the many wrecks available from the scrapyards and I dove into searching for any intact hulls.
With access to an entire shipyard for repairs, which were intended for the ships of the Array Program, it wouldn't take much to refurbish older ships or enemy ships. It would give me the fighting ships I needed as soon as possible and with only a minimum of fuss. I'd have to get approval from the Design Bureau and that was easy, thanks to the two examples I had already had built and were now fully commissioned, Forerunner and Retaliation.
Yes, this was the path I needed to take, in order to take care of future problems long before they became actual problems. Plus, I had the backing of Starfleet behind me this time, instead of trudging across the Delta Quadrant alone, in a single ship, trying to get back home.
I smiled as I found fifteen smaller hulls, similar in size to a Kazon ship, that could easily be reworked if I could get them here. A quick search found a large civilian cargo ship that could carry three of the wrecks inside their hull. With a few magnetic clamps and tractor beams, four more could be attached to the outside hull and within the thing's large warp field bubble.
I sent off the request to have them fly over to the scrapyard I had found with the derelicts and contacted the scrapyard's command officer to arrange the transport. It would be the start of my own massive exploration and protection fleet and I couldn't wait to get them redone and put into service. I just had to come up with appropriate names for them and I would be all set.
*
The highest officers of Starfleet Command had noticed the changes happening around them. The paranoia was high, thanks to the discovery of the changeling among their ranks. More stringent security protocols were enacted and everyone was checked, both electronically and physically.
It was a pain in the ass how much a small security change could slow everything down and caused delays in meetings and appointments all across the federation. No one complained, because no one wanted to take the chance that another one could infiltrate them again.
The biggest change was the recently promoted Admiral Janeway's personal campaign to eradicate the Dominion and the Borg. He was reclaiming and refurbishing smaller and faster ships, almost every month, as he built an armada that would make any Starfleet officer proud. No one was worried that he was planning an insurrection or anything, either.
The best part about it, were the medical advancements Janeway was producing as he used the Vidiian medical techniques to rescue Borg drones from the Collective. Small swarms of his fast ships easily disabled Borg cubes and they transported out the drones in waves until there was none of them left to operate the cube.
It was a novel way to whittle down such an overwhelming enemy that had caused more headaches and sleepless nights for Starfleet than any other enemy. The battles Janeway conducted also stopped the Borg from encroaching into Federation space through their transwarp conduits and kept their focus on his efforts in their own space.
The best part about it was that Janeway also spearheaded adapting any new technology his people found to make federation technology that much better. Most of the different races had incompatible technology, so it was surprising to find someone that didn't listen to the naysayers claiming it couldn't be done, then he got it done somehow.
New replicators, new warp core engine designs, new styled ships, Janeway produced it all and had earned his promotion. They couldn't put him any higher than admiral, because it would take him right out of where he was doing the most good... and then he called in some favors and officially retired.
It was a shock to everyone, especially Starfleet Command, when they found out the reason was because his changeling daughter had finished gestating in her regeneration pot and had finally woken up after ten years. Janeway wanted to be there for both Odo and his daughter as the girl grew into a productive being that both he and Odo could be proud of.
That wasn't the most shocking thing the people of the United Federation of Planets had heard, either. Almost right after Janeway's sudden announcement, Ambassador Spock also released her own statement of also retiring. It wasn't for the same reasons, however. No, she announced the creation of a combined colony of Vulcans and Romulans on an unnamed planet that reunited their long ago separated people.
Outrage from the Romulan High Council was ignored in favor the the Vulcan Elders praising Spock for achieving her lifelong dream of Reunification, even if it wasn't with the approval of the rulers of their two peoples. The disapproval of the leadership on both sides did more to have their people turn against them than anything else could have done it, and their citizens left for the new colony in droves.
Admiral Kevin Janeway enjoyed his retirement, with both of his wives, and both of his children, and lived his life for them as much as for himself. He had found a life he wanted to live personally and not just absorb the memories.
With all the time in the world on his hands, he easily found workarounds for his copy power, then eventually figured out how to alter it and fix its deficiencies. Since he knew solid conjuration, and the copy power made a copy out of nothing, it was almost simple to use his powers to combine their aspects and now his copy power produced another original item instead of an identical copy.
Janeway lived the rest of his life with his family and he stayed with them until both of his wives refused his chronomancy and healing powers. They had lived long enough and let their bodies age and grow old, said their goodbyes to their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and passed away in the arms of the man they had loved with all their heart.
*
I appeared back in the space between worlds and was very grateful for everything I had gone through. My life really had become the best one I ever had, living in a utopia, playing with technology beyond reason, and dealing with the threats to keep everyone in the federation safe. Raising my family was the icing on the cake and made the entire trip worth it.
I felt the presence at my side hug me and I hugged them back. I told you I'd be right back.
Lips pressed to my cheek and I felt happiness from them.
Although, it felt both odd and satisfying to live it out to the end once more. I thought and reclined back to relax. I must have gotten used to just having the memories added to my head.
Agreement came from my reading buddy and I nodded.
So, just relaxing for a while or should we read another book? I asked and I felt them shift slightly and rest partially on my chest. I hugged them close and closed my eyes. Resting it is.
I woke up sometime later and felt fully refreshed. The sleep had been wonderful and I had a great dream where I was back in high school and spent time with my ex-girlfriend before she cheated on me and broke my heart. I really missed those days and didn't think about them often, since I couldn't go back and relive them. That time was passed and that was that.
A brief kiss on my lips had me smile and I pulled them back down to kiss them properly. A soft giggle sounded in my ear again and I laughed, too. I let them go and they rolled off of me as I sat up. They hugged my side again and I nodded at them silently supporting me like that.
I brought up my interface and looked at my options, onto to see the previous one, my chosen William Riker story in Star Trek The Next Generation, and it had 'pending' amended to it instead of being crossed out or deleted. That meant my points were still there, as was the option to go there. But, and this was a huge but, I didn't want to get kicked out by Q again.
That was when I remembered the book I read before going back to the Voyager universe. I glanced at the invisible presence beside me and felt curiosity from them.
“Schrodinger's Cat.” I said and entered into the details of the thing and changed being Riker when he finished teleporting, which would have put me a couple of years before canon, to when Riker comes back to the planet in Season Six to recover the database that researchers had left in their haste to leave the planet.
You see, the second Riker doesn't actually exist until someone observes him, which doesn't happen until the away team beamed down to the planet through a break in the distortion field. That gives me a perfect opportunity to step into a similar role to the one I had planned, only much later in the story.
I would have to tweak a few details, like my looks, and that was okay. I had already spent the points, so it would be a waste to skip it completely. It would hopefully not annoy a certain omnipotent being, either. I wasn't replacing his supporting character and I would avoid interacting with more of the main cast, if possible.
I finished up changing things just enough and closed the menu. I felt another kiss on my cheek, which I appreciated, and everything faded to black.