Mist of Shadows
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Mist's Jumps Part 19
🕑 Added 2017-09-17 23:53:41 +0000 UTCTom sighed as he looked out of the ‘window’ of the ‘puddle jumper’ at Voyager. Even though his version of Voyager had taken a lot of battle damage over the last couple of year, it still felt strange abandoning her. He knew why they were doing it but that didn’t change the fact that it felt wrong to abandon his home. “Let’s go.”
Ranma looked up from studying the picture of the Srivani vessel that Hermione had printed off for him. “Hopefully they won’t detect us.”
Hermione set her hands on the orbs that controlled the jumper. “Even if they can, I doubt they’ll realize we can see them.”
“If we can see them,” Ranma muttered.
Hermione adjusted her glasses that let her see invisible things then triple checked to make sure the cloak on the jumper was working. “If the glasses don’t help, the ship’s sensors should be up for the task. The cloak is working, we’re good to go.”
Tom shook his head. “I still can’t believe you’re planning on stealing their ship.”
“They sort of deserve it.” Ranma replied as he opened a door large enough to fly the puddle jumper through with room to spare.
Hermione flew the ship through the door then headed to the left of where they could see a Srivani ship attached to a ship docked at a large alien station. “Looks like the sensors work.”
“That’s better than we ever managed,” Tom admitted.
Ranma smirked as he closed the door. “Good to know.”
Hermione absently pulled a snow globe out of her inventory as she used her copy of Mist’s magic eyes to look into the alien ship and search it for the Srivani crew. She would have felt worse as she remote orbed the Srivani one by one into her ‘empty’ snow globe without their clothes or gear except they’d been perfectly willing to conduct horrifying experiments on Voyager’s crew merely because they might learn something that could help them. “That should do it.”
“Do what?” Tom asked.
“I teleported the Srivani scientists into a snow globe which means we’re free to steal their ship.”
Tom shivered slightly as he thought about how easy it would have been for her to just teleport them off the ship anytime she wanted rather than deal with them fairly. “It still feels like cheating.”
Ranma snorted. “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”
“How are you planning on flying their ship?”
“I’m not, I’m planning on shrinking it,” Hermione replied as she flew the jumper closer to the Srivani ship.
“You have a working shrink ray?” Tom asked in disbelief.
Hermione brought the ship in closer then held her distance from the ship steady. “Something like that.” She slipped out of her chair then pulled her magic boosting sword out of her inventory.
“I’m looking forward to learning how you do that.”
Hermione resisted the urge to explain the inventory spell as she stepped back and smiled. She brought her weapon up a couple of inches as she cast her shrink spell on the alien ship.
Tom stared as the Srivani ship shrunk until it was a touch smaller than a shuttle. “Tuvok would be sputtering right now.”
“Probably.” Hermione put the snow globe that contained the Srivani ‘scientists’ in her inventory then pulled an empty globe out and orbed the shrunken ship into it.
Ranma smirked. “And that is how you steal a ship.”
Tom shook his head. “It shouldn’t be that easy.”
“Life is almost never fair,” Hermione pointed out as she stuck the other snow globe back into her inventory.
Ranma set the opened a portal to a stable timeline where no one had destroyed the graviton catapult that he remembered from the show. “Let’s go before everything resets.”
Hermione flew the ship through the door.
Tom stared as they exited the door and he saw a familiar looking space station. “Is that the graviton catapult we used?”
“It’s an alternate version of it.”
“Are you going to shrink it?”
“It’s a bit too large for me to to shrink without my friends being here to help. That said, I should be able to scan the station and download their files so that we can recreate them.” Hermione focused on her yellow power ring and brought up her environmental shield. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so, get something to eat.”
Tom shook her head as Hermione vanished in a shower of black orbs that quickly vanished. “One of these days, I’ll get used to that.”
“Best of luck with that.” Ranma pulled a bowl of soup out of his inventory and held it out for Tom, “Soup?”
Tom accepted the soup happily. “That smells so much better than the shit that Neelix cooked.”
“I’m still surprised that no one shot him then tossed him out of an airlock for attempting to poison everyone.” Ranma pulled out two sets of utensils, handed one of them to Tom then pulled out his own bowl of soup.
“Believe me, we considered it but technically the shit was supposed to be edible.” Tom dug into the bowl of soup, savoring the taste of something that wasn’t bits of crap with alien spices.
“Technically lima beans and liver are edible but I’d rather not eat crap.” Ranma worked on eating his bowl of soup as he watched Hermione fly around the graviton catapult scanning it.
0o0o0
Admiral Paris glared at Mist across the large conference table. “Do you have any idea how many regulations you’re asking us to break?”
Mist looked the man in the eyes. “No idea, I’m not a Federation captain or an admiral nor do I care about regulations that limit travel to other dimensions. Technically speaking, I think we’d only be guilty of a couple of counts of interfering with the timeline and jumping to other dimensions but Starfleet isn’t currently in a condition to care.”
Hermione spoke up, “Technically speaking, you’re not an Admiral in this dimension Mr. Paris.” She pointed toward Captain Data. “Technically he’s the highest ranked person here.”
‘Captain’ Data looked at Picard and his alternate. “I am choosing to uphold Captain Picard’s rank as the Enterprise is his ship.”
Picard said, “Thank you but Doctor O’Shadows has a point, the chain of command is a bit fluid right now.”
“That is one way to put it,” Captain Janeway complained as she thought about the various duplicates of crew that Ms al’Vere and Granger had collected.
Quark spoke up, “Typical Federation, you’re looking at it wrong.”
Sisko looked at Quark. “What do you mean?”
“You’re thinking in terms of being upfront and public when you should be thinking in terms of a smuggler,” he glanced at Kira, “or a resistance fighter.”
Kira winced as she realized Quark was right. “As much as I hate saying this, he’s right. We should be looking at places we can hide a fleet, somewhere on the other side of the wormhole perhaps?”
Scotty started laughing as he noticed Mist’s smirk.
Geordi asked, “Something you’d like to share?”
Scotty managed to get his laughter under control. “I know the perfect place and judging by the smirk on Mist’s face he already thought of it.”
Picard smiled slightly as he realized what Scotty was talking about. “The dyson sphere. Mr. Scott’s ship was sitting on the outside of the sphere for 75 years without anyone finding it.”
Mist nodded. “Technically speaking, he never made it inside the sphere which means we could go back further but I’d rather avoid screwing up this world’s history just in case someone looked inside the sphere before he crashed, realized the sun was slightly unstable and left.”
“Agreed.”
Admiral Paris shook his head. “Leaving aside the ethical questions of time travel, you’re talking about building a shipyard, that’s going to take years.”
Hermione spoke up, “My friends and I should be able to get a shipyard built in a couple of days or weeks depending on how large of a shipyard we’re talking about.”
“How?”
“Exceptional talents that let us basically assemble material using schematics.”
“In that case, what do you need from us until we’re ready to fight the Borg?” Picard asked.
Hermione glanced at Mist then looked back at Picard. “We could use help looking through everything we acquired by trading.”
Janeway spoke up, “I’ll talk to both Sevens about it.”
Geordi glanced at Picard then looked at Hermione. “I’ll help.”
Commander Data spoke up, “As will I.”
“Thank you.” Hermione was just glad that everyone was working together.
Picard was hoping the cloak would allow them to sneak past the Borg without a confrontation but he wanted a couple more aces up his sleeve, just in case. “I’ll tell Riker to set a course for the Dyson Sphere. Geordi, see what you can do about upgrading the weapons, everyone else, get started analyzing everything, meeting adjourned.”
Mist idly wondered what it was about meetings that made him tired even though he should be immune to fatigue as he left the conference room and headed back toward sickbay to talk to Amy and Amelia about a couple of projects.
Hermione walked next to Mist. “That went about as well as we could expect.”
“Better than I was expecting,” Mist admitted as they walked toward sickbay. “I half expected Janeway to complain or try to take charge.”
Hermione dropped her voice to a whisper. “Ranma actually opened a portal specifically to find the best version of Janeway he could.”
“Good to know. Did you get the flower that lets us fuse people together with a transporter?”
“Several crates worth. I can’t see most of the crew agreeing to be copied and mixed together.”
“Considering all of the magical abilities we can trade, I can.” He had no problem offering immortality or various other magical abilities for the right to clone people with the potion that didn’t copy personalities. Between the flowers and the group’s biokinetics to sort through any genetic issues, he was looking forward to seeing what type of interesting species they could produce.
“I’ll let you pitch it to the crew, I’m going to be busy looking through the data we picked up.”
“Sure, I’ll grab Sin, she’s good at convincing people to go along with crazy ideas.”
“That’s because she’s a succubus,” Hermione muttered.
Mist chuckled as they walked around a corner. “Probably. Do you want to hear my latest crazy idea?”
“Worse than fusing people together at random?”
“I’m not fusing people together at random, I plan on being rather selective in who I fuse together.”
Hermione shook her head. “You and Hagrid would have gotten along great.”
“Probably. But yeah, I’m thinking about combining the intelligent vehicle factory pattern with the shipyard pattern you picked up.”
Hermione stopped walking as she tried to figure out if Mist was joking or not. “You’re serious?”
Mist turned and smiled at Hermione. “Nope that’s Harry’s godfather but I’m not joking about making them intelligent. Picture forty or fifty adamantium Delta Flyer type ships zooming around blowing up Borg cubes then docking on the outside of the main ship.”
“You’re talking about carrier ships.”
“To an extent. The Federation doesn’t really have a military worth the name. Considering everything we know is out there, we’re going to need one.”
“Or we just go back and destroy the Borg and not worry about the rest of the threats.”
Mist glanced around to make sure the corridor was empty and lowered his voice just to make sure, “Picard did a great job with what he had but there were points when things would have went a lot better if he’d had an actual military he could call in. Being able to call in a fleet of ten thousand ships each with twenty to thirty smaller ships packing weaponry that can obliterate most capital ships in a single shot would have helped against the Borg and the Dominion.”
“Do you even know the meaning of the world overkill?” Hermione asked with a touch of amusement mixed with a lot of exasperation.
Mist smiled at Hermione. “Of course, it’s when your weapon causes excessive collateral damage.”
“Right.” Hermione shook her head as they headed down the hallway.
“If nothing else, it’s an interesting experiment.”
“So was the monster from Frankenstein, everyone knows how that turned out.” She orbed them to the hallway outside of sickbay.
“Depends on the version,” Mist pointed out as he glanced around to try to figure out where Hermione had orbed them.
“Fair enough. We’re going to need to find a place to build minion trees.” Hermione started walking toward the door to sickbay.
Mist smiled as he realized where they were. “The Dyson sphere is massive, I’m sure we can find a location where we can create a forest of them.”
“What happens when the sun goes critical?” Hermione asked warily.
“In the online game, the sphere had a teleportation function that used Omega particles which means we might be able to teleport it without the sun. If we can do that, we can probably tweak the environmental controls and keep things working with enough mana generators… at least in theory.”
“And if we can’t teleport it?”
“Then we find a method to stabilize the sun. Either way, the sun isn’t going to explode within the time period we’ll be here.” Mist walked up to the door then walked into sickbay once it opened all the way.
Hermione followed him in then glanced at Julian, Riley, Amy and Amelia who were sitting around reading data pads. “Anything interesting?”
Riley grinned. “The augment process is rather fascinating.”
“Also illegal,” Julian pointed out.
“Only in Federation space,” Amelia pointed out smugly.
Mist winced slightly. “Picard doesn’t care for genetic engineering other than to fix defects so that can probably wait until we’re off his ship.”
Amelia pouted. “Fine.”
Julian asked, “How did the meeting go?”
Mist turned his head slightly and looked at Julian. “About as well as expected. We’ll be going back in time as soon as Leet and Egwene can jury rig the time machine to work on the Enterprise.”
“Back in time?”
“Basically the plan is to set up schools, shipyards and homes in the Dyson sphere then jump forward in time a couple of times until we’re ready to crush the Borg.”
“Are you planning on augmenting people?” Julian asked warily.
“I wouldn’t mind getting some genetic samples from the telekinetics and telepaths at Darwin Genetic Research Station before some idiot got stupid and tweaked their immune system.”
Julian shook his head. “I’m still amazed that they could get that concept past a review board.”
Amelia frowned slightly as she realized that it would be a great weapon of war if they had a way to turn the twisted immune system on and off. “If you could turn it on and off it would make a rather nice weapon of war.”
Riley stared at Amelia in surprise for a couple of seconds then said, “She needs a mad science jar.”
Julian shook his head. “Let’s not.”
Mist shook his right index finger at Amelia. “Yeah no, I like mad science as much as the next doctor but I’d rather avoid playing with plagues.”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say I thought it was a good idea, I was just saying that being able to turn the effect on and off was about the only way I’d consider their style of immune system a good idea.”
“No playing with plagues outside of laboratory conditions,” Riley piped up.
“On sealed ships that we can send into the sun,” Hermione added.
Mist sighed. “Joking aside, have you found anything interesting in the medical files?”
Riley nodded. “Cures for various diseases that might help with Federation diseases, various machines to scan genetics and a handheld transporter that can harvest organs which is pretty cool.”
“Why is the special transporter a good thing?” Hermione asked warily.
“In order to transport something, you have to scan it. If you can scan it, you can replicate it. Imagine scanning a heart then replicating one without the defect or without a stab wound through it. They also have the ability to store organs in a buffer which means that you could scan and extract someone’s brain then grow them a completely new body if it got critically damaged.”
“Ah…” Hermione trailed off not sure what to say. Being able to replicate organs was useful but teleporting someone’s brain out of their head was a bit creepy.
Julian said, “I can think of a few times in the Dominion war where it would have been useful.”
Mist looked at Amy as he asked, “Any luck figuring out why Ocampa basically self destruct once they hit nine?”
Amy shook her head. “From what I can tell, it’s a natural part of their life cycle, the other Ocampa had some workarounds but it left them rather aggressive and unbalanced. I’ll have a better idea once Kes comes in for a check up. If nothing else, we can look at teaching her how to brew youth potions.”
“I don’t suppose I can get one of those to study?” Julian asked hopefully.
Mist pulled a potion out of his inventory then duplicated it with his Diablo trick. “Here.” He put the original back in his inventory then held out the copy. “Test away.”
Julian took the potion bottle. “Are you sure you aren’t a Q?”
Mist laughed. “Yeah, they have phenomenal cosmic powers and a bunch of rules they ‘have’ to obey, I just have some rather impressive abilities.”
“What other abilities do you have?”
“Enhanced strength and durability as well as abilities you’d consider magic. I also have the ability to give people certain enhanced abilities.”
“Like what?”
“Enhanced sight, smell and hearing, telekinesis, healing and a force field for starters.”
“You can give people a force field?” Julian in disbelief.
Mist brought up his force field. “Sure.”
“What do you want in trade?” Julian asked half seriously.
Riley spoke up before Mist offered the upgrades for free, “Donate to a sperm bank and teach a couple of semesters at the school we’re going to have to set up.”
Julian blinked. “What?”
“You’re genetically augmented and you’re sane, do you know how rare that is?”
“Sarina is sane,” he defended his friend though he knew what she was getting at, most of the augments he’d met had something wrong with them ethically, socially or physically.
“And we’ll probably try to get a blood sample from her as well,” Riley admitted.
Mist sighed as Julian looked at him. “She has a point, we’re going to need a lot of ships to defeat the Borg which means we’re going to need a lot of crew.”
Julian looked at Mist intensely. “As long as you guarantee they won’t be used as lab rats.”
“They won’t be. Not only would it be unethical but treating highly intelligent people as lab rats is stupid and you deserve what you get when they kill you.”
“In that case, you have a deal.”
“In that case, I’ll grab the powers. Spend some time analyzing the potion of youth.” Mist teleported ‘up’ to his pocket heaven to grab his power containers so he could ‘upgrade’ Bashir.
Julian blinked as Mist vanished in black sparkles. “Does he do that often?”
“Often enough,” Hermione admitted.
“Can you explain the process for acquiring the abilities or how strong they are?” He was still half sure they were joking or playing some type of prank but he was willing to take the chance considering what he’d already seen them do.
“I can do that.”
Riley said playfully, “Uh oh, lecture mode, run for the hills.” She snickered then dark whisper teleported up to the slice of heaven.
Hermione sighed.
Julian resisted the urge to laugh. “Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.”
“Thanks. As I was saying…” She launched into an explanation of the powers the team were willing to offer.
0o0o0
Guinan smiled as Worf walked over and sat down at her bar. “What can I get you Worf?”
“Prune juice,” Worf replied.
Guinan grabbed the bottle she kept under the counter for Worf and poured him a glass “You look troubled.”
“I’m trying to figure out if Mr. O’Shadows has an ulterior motive for offering the crew strange and new abilities.” Worf took a drink of his prune juice as he glanced at the attractive blue skinned young woman with purple hair sitting at the end of the bar with Mr. Scott having some type of drinking contest that involved shot glasses and a bottle of green liquid. He couldn’t place her but they’d brought a lot of people onboard from alternate timelines which meant she was probably one of the Voyager crew.
“What makes you think he has an ulterior motive?”
Worf set his glass back on the bar as he turned his attention back to Guinan. “I asked about the enhancements he offered to several other crew members and he said that he wasn’t interested in my blood. I’d assume it was because I was a Klingon but I heard Sin talking to B'Elanna Torres about new abilities.”
Guinan asked, “Did he explain why he wasn’t interested?”
“No, he just walked off.” Worf frowned slightly as he heard a groan. He glanced back at the end of the bar and saw Mr. Scott passed out on the bar with an empty seat next to him. “How much has he had to drink?”
“More than bit, he got into a drinking contest earlier,” Guinan replied as the door opened and a young lady in a silk dress that clung to her curves almost glided into Ten Forward.
Worf muttered something in Klingon under his breath about drunks then took a drink of his prune juice.
Guinan smiled as the smoking hot woman walked over to her bar. “What are you having?”
Sin glanced at the various bottles of alcohol on the shelves behind Quinan. “I’d ask for firewhiskey but I doubt you’d have it.”
Guinan smiled. “Sounds interesting but you’re right, I don’t.”
“I’ll see if I can find you a bottle at some point. I’ll take a root beer float if you’ve got it.”
“I’ll replicate some ice cream.” Guinan walked over to replicate some some ice cream.
Worf glared at Sin’s clothes, they were a hair’s breadth from being completely indecent. “Is there a reason that you’re not making trades with Klingons?”
Sin turned her attention toward Worf. “It’s not a species thing exactly, it’s just that you don’t have any skills we consider worth trading for and Klingons tend to have aggressive natures either because of genetics or culture.”
“I’m a warrior.”
“So are most of my friends. Tell you what, if you beat me in arm wrestling before Guinan gets my drink, I’ll consider it.”
Worf stared at Sin. “Are you serious?”
Guinan shook her head as Worf fell for the obvious bait, she wouldn’t have offered if she didn’t have a trick up her sleeve. “She’s stronger than she looks. Take it to a table.”
Sin flashed Guinan a smirk then headed for a table. She sat down and set her elbow on the table as some crew walked over to watch. “Ready?”
Worf walked over and took a seat opposite her and took her hand. “Ready?”
“Sure.” Sin smiled slightly as Worf tried his best to move her hand. He might have been strong compared to most humans or even Klingons but she had supernatural strength and years of playing around in item worlds and Disgaea abilities. Other than her friends and possibly Data and Odo there wasn’t anyone on the ship that even came close to matching her strength. She noticed his muscles twitching as he tried and failed to move her hand. “Feel free to start whenever.”
Worf glared as he put his all into moving her hand which barely shifted it an inch.
Sin casually moved her hand back into the starting position from the inch she’d given him. “You’re going to have to try harder I’m afraid.” She slowly pushed his hand down toward the table. “You can give up any time you want.”
Worf screamed as he pushed harder, ‘forcing’ her arm back toward the starting position.
Sin absently gave ground as Guinan walked over with her root beer float. “Thanks.” She picked it up with her off hand and sipped it as she went back and forth with Worf.
“Are you even paying attention?” Worf demanded with frustration and annoyance.
Sin brought her hand back up then casually pushed his hand to the table then opened her mouth and let the straw fall out as she let go of his hand now that everyone was cheering her victory. “No, I’m enjoying my float.”
“What are you?” Worf demanded as he got to his feet.
“I’m just a girl trying to enjoy my root beer float.”
“Humans aren’t that strong. I demand a rematch.”
Sin glanced up at Worf. “No, you weren’t even close to a challenge and I’m drinking my float. Unless you have some legitimate ship business, leave me alone.”
Worf snapped, “I’ll get to the bottom of your group’s scam.”
“You’re coming rather close to insulting my honor, I suggest you quit while you’re ahead.”
Quinan spoke up, “Your drink is getting warm Worf.”
Worf scowled at Sin then stalked back over to the bar.
Sin smiled as she looked around at the crowd. “And that my friends is why having supernatural strength is awesome.” She waved to Quinan then teleported back to sickbay to check on Julian and see how he was doing with his upgrades.
Julian’s shield sprang up as he stumbled backwards as Sin appeared floating in mid air in a seated position holding a rootbeer float. “Crap.”
Amelia snickered. “We’re going to have to work on that.”
Mist turned to look at Sin. “Why are you sitting while floating in the air?”
Sin floated up then straightened her legs and set her feet on the floor. “I was harassing Worf, he confronted me about empowering people and then I beat him at arm wrestling which pissed him the hell off. He called us scammers so I left.”
Julian asked, “You beat him at arm wrestling?”
“We have enhanced strength. I’m far stronger than vulcans let alone Klingons.”
“Which is pretty awesome,” Riley admitted.
Mist frowned slightly as he studied Julian’s shield. “Let’s hit the holodeck and see if we can get your powers under control while.”
Julian nodded slightly. “Sounds good, we have enough doctors to go around right now.”
0o0o0
Geordi stared in horror at the modified components attached to the ‘glass’ of the warp core with a rather thick grey adhesive strip. “How sure are you that this will work?”
“There is a small chance that we’ll burn the warp core out and die in a rather spectacular explosion of plasma but I’m willing to chance it,” Leet replied with amusement.
Egwene scowled at Leet. “Ignore him, if something goes wrong, the safeguards should kick in and drop us out early.”
Riker’s voice came over the ship’s speakers, “The Borg cube has changed heading, three minutes until the Borg cube is in firing range at current speed, how close are you to being done with the modifications?”
“We’re as ready as we’re going to be.” Geordi was really hoping things didn’t go catastrophically wrong with the jury rigged system.
Picard said, “Make it so.”
Leet pushed the button on the time drive then grabbed a rail as everything lurched and the warp core turned funny colors. “Is it supposed to do that?”
Egwene frowned as she studied the reading on the computer. “I don’t know…” She trailed off as the duplicated time machine caught fire. “Shit!” She gestured and orbed the device into space. “Did that work?”
Data’s voice came over the intercom. “Is there a reason you’re transporting explosive devices?”
“The time drive caught fire, I didn’t want to leave it attached to the warp core. Did we make it back?”
“According to stellar drift, it appears we have traveled backwards in time sixty nine years with a margin of error of a couple of months either way.”
Leet cheered, “Hell yeah! It worked!”
Geordi asked, “Any sign of the Borg?”
Data answered, “No sign of the Borg on long ranged sensors.”
Picard spoke up, “How is the warp core?”
Geordi checked the computer display. “It looks fine but I’d like at least an hour to run some tests to be sure.”
“We have the cloak, call me when you’re done.”
“Of course Sir.” Geordi ended the call then looked at Egwene and Leet. “You’re lucky it didn’t explode and take out the warp core.”
“Sometimes you have to take a chance,” Egwene pointed out.
Geordi knew they were right but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “Help me run the numbers.” He wanted to make sure the warp core hadn’t been damaged by the trip through time.
0o0o0
Guinan walked over and set a root beer float on the table next to Mist. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Mist reached up and moved his shipyard design out of his field of vision, he could see through it but it was a bit distracting. “I’m just working on the design for the shipyard.”
“You’ve been working on the design off and on for the last two days, what are you stuck on?”
“I’m not exactly stuck, I’m just working on two different space station ideas, one I can use for prototypes and one I can use for intelligent starships.”
“Intelligent starships?” Guinan asked with a touch of surprise.
“I have a factory that can create intelligent vehicles that I want to test out.” Mist took a drink of his float.
Guinan smiled as she pictured Jean-Luc’s response to an intelligent starship, he’d be worried about the ethical concerns and about the ship wandering off. “I have a feeling that some of the captains will have issues with intelligent starships.”
“Which is another reason that I’m working on the other shipyard. I don’t want the ships to be stuck with bad captains or captains they don’t like.”
Guinan glanced at the door as Noelle and Kes entered. “Would they have rights in your new society?”
“They’d be full citizens.”
Noelle smiled as she walked over with Kes. “Any progress?”
Mist turned to look at Noelle and Kes. “We’re discussing the ethics of creating sentient ships.”
Kes spoke up, “I’d feel bad if they got damaged or died.”
Guinan spoke up, “Or lost all of their crew and had to float in the void of space for eternity.”
“She has a point,” Noelle admitted.
Mist winced slightly as he thought of the telepathic ship that the Enterprise had ran into. “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
“What can I get you?” Guinan asked as she glanced between Kes and Noelle.
Kes pointed at Mist’s float. “A float sounds good, we didn’t get a lot of choice on Voyager as we always had to conserve power.”
Noelle glanced at Mist’s float. “I’ll have the same, thanks.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.” Guinan smiled as she headed back to the bar to make another float.
Mist glanced between Noelle and Kes. “What’s up?”
Noelle glanced at Kes. “Hermione wanted to know if you could get a better scan of Kes than she could.”
Mist activated his magic eyes then focused on Kes and scanned her. He smiled as he got an advanced Ocampa pattern and an unlock for psychokinesis. “An advanced Ocampa pattern and psychokinesis.”
“Shouldn’t you get the same patterns?” Kes asked curious how his powers worked.
“Not always. It might have something to do with having different psionic gifts or maybe it has to do with the fact that you’ve had time to recover or maybe it’s just luck.” He had a feeling it was a combination but he wasn’t going to complain.
Noelle asked, “Speaking of projects, do you have any objection to making a dungeon fantasy themed town?”
“As in an adventurer town?”
“Exactly. We’re going to need something to keep people busy for almost seventy years while they wait for the Borg to show up.”
“Sounds fun,” Mist admitted as Guinan walked back over with their drinks. “Thanks for the drinks and listening.”
“You’re welcome.” Guinan turned and headed back to the bar.
Mist turned his attention back to Noelle and Kes as they sat down. “We should probably see about using the holodeck to design some of the towns.”
Noelle asked, “Speaking of towns, do you remember the Children of Time episode?”
“No, hum a couple of bars?” Mist normally didn’t remember shows by episode titles or at least not shows he’d watched before he picked up his memory boosting perk.
“Kira mentioned something about the Defiant being sent back in time to create a town then the town vanishing when they didn’t go back in time.”
“That rings a bell. I’ll talk to Lily about opening some doors once we get to the sphere. We should be able to grab a lot of people depending on which world and who was assigned to the Defiant that day.”
“How many people are you going to recruit and how are you planning on feeding everyone?” Noelle asked curious what his plan was.
“Replicators and food conjuring magical items to start with but I’ll probably build some farms for fresh food. Raiding twenty or thirty dimensions for towns would give us a decent sized population to start with.” Mist took another drink of his float.
Noelle nodded. “Toss in clones and minions and we’re looking at a good start for a decent sized population.”
Kes set her float down. “Not to mention that Ocampa generations are only a few years which means the population should increase drastically if you can supply youth potions.”
“We should be able to arrange something.” Mist was hoping that sticking a minor fountain of youth at the end of a dungeon, would result in skilled Ocampa lasting longer than lazy Ocampa. He remembered how screwed up most of the Ocampa were from the show and he’d rather avoid that level of complacency.
Noelle grinned. “In that case, let’s finish our floats, collect Umy then hit the holodeck and start designing towns.”
“Sounds productive.”
0o0o0
Paige hid a smirk as she asked her daughter, “Did you remember to grab your lunch?”
Pandora mock glared at her mother who was standing between two of the marble pillars in her dad’s pocket dimension with an ‘innocent’ look on her face that missed innocent by a mile. “In my inventory with my water, health potions and first aid kit.”
“I’m allowed to worry about you galavanting off to another world,” Paige replied with amusement.
Pandora snorted. “Two problems with that, you’re acting like aunt Piper and you’re implying that I can’t defend myself.”
“It’s a big world.”
“Short of the Q messing with me or flying a starship into a sun, what exactly is supposed to be a challenge in this dimension?”
Paige stuck her tongue out at Pandora.
Pandora snorted. “Real mature Mom.”
Phoenix snickered as she walked over. “She’ll be fine.”
“It’s not her I’m worried about, it’s the rest of the galaxy.” Paige smirked at her daughter.
“Gee thanks Mom.“ Pandora stuck her tongue out at Paige then orbed back to the ship to talk to Lily about getting a lift.
Phoenix laughed. “One of these days, she’s going to snap and duct tape you to a wall or something.”
“Probably but she’s having fun so I’m not worried.” Paige smiled as she started walking back toward where Faith, Piper and Leo were standing around a wooden table looking over designs and blueprints.
Phoenix grinned as she followed Paige. “Just as well.”
Faith smiled as she watched Paige and Phoenix walk over. “Care to explain to Leo why we need a couple more ways to blow off steam?”
Paige glanced at Piper who was blushing slightly. “Let me guess, strip clubs?”
“Yes,” Piper replied with exasperation.
Phoenix smirked. “I agree with Faith as long as they’re classy.”
Faith smiled at Phoenix. “Sweet, want to help me design one?”
“Might as well. Piper can design the kitchen.”
Piper’s blush got worse as her mind conjured images of topless waitresses carrying her food out of silver trays. “That’s dirty and you know it.”
“Does that mean you aren’t interested in helping?” Phoenix asked with amusement as she moved over to stand next to Faith.
“I didn’t say that,” Piper admitted.
Paige snickered. “Have fun, I’m more interested in making sure everything has a nice blend of modern safety features and old world charm.”
“Do you want help with that?” Leo asked hoping that it would get him out of offering suggestions for the strip club Faith wanted to build.
“Sure.”
0o0o0
Vista tightened her legs around Pandora as she looked down at the valley where they were planning on setting up farms. It was sort of fun riding the naked girl like a magical broom or flying horse. “I still think it would be easier to use a replicator.”
“I’d rather not encourage that level of laziness,” Pandora replied as she lazily ‘floated’ on the wind.
“It also cuts down on the number of replicators you have to build, doesn’t it?”
Pandora snickered. “Yep.”
“Now who is being lazy?”
“Hey, if they want more than the basics they can work for it. I happen to agree with Dad, most of the Ocampa from the show were lazy.”
“Considering how long they were stuck underground, I can’t really blame them.”
“True enough,” Pandora admitted.
Vista glanced at the mountain she could see in the distance. “Have you figured out what type of dungeons you’re going to build?”
“Dad wants to build a series of dungeons that slowly scale in difficulty as they get further from civilization. I have a couple of ideas but I wouldn’t mind working on a dungeon maze.”
“Sounds fun.”
“It should be if I can figure out how to have the dungeon randomly generate parts of the maze each time someone enters the dungeon.”
Vista snickered. “In other words, you don’t want people mapping your mazes?”
“It’s not much of a maze if they can just follow directions to reach the treasure at the end,” Pandora complained.
“What are you planning on baiting the trap with?”
“That depends on how many traps and monsters I stick in the maze. It might be as simple as a fountain that duplicates an elixir of magic or a treasure chest that contains orbs with magical powers in it. You might want to hold on.”
“What?” Vista tightened her legs as Pandora spread her arms and stopped using her flight power which meant they started falling.
“Wee!” Pandora giggled as she ‘aimed’ in the general direction of the rocky outcropping she was going to use for building materials for the town. She let them fall for a couple of seconds then slowed them down as they glided toward the rocks.
Vista leaned forward and hugged Pandora as they soared through the air. “You’re a bad girl!”
“Maybe but you love me anyways.” Pandora snickered as they flew through the air without a care in the world.
