Future's End, Final Part
Katye beamed Starling out of the time ship and then locked a tractor beam onto it. With Voyager's comm systems down, there was only way one to tell them that things were under control, and that was by one of us boarding the ship. Since Katye had her own tasks, I slowly flew over to the Voyager and shrank to my humanoid form, then teleported myself onto the Bridge.
"Rebecca! Is Starling…?" Janeway started when I appeared, but stopped as I collapsed to a knee due to the pain of the massive wound compounding in my smaller form.
"Son of a b..." I cursed.
"Tuvok, get the medkit," Janeway ordered as she approached me and knelt at my side.
"Don't bother. None of your drugs can affect me, and will in fact only slow my natural regeneration if it has to purify my bloodstream," I groaned, standing up slowly. "Starling has surrendered, and Katye is towing the time ship this way with him in custody. How are things here?"
"No damage, only the warp core is offline and communication systems are locked out. It will take us two hours to regenerate the dilithium matrix, and Raven should have the comm systems online in another ten minutes," Janeway replied with a look of concern in her eyes.
"That's not too bad then. I'm going to wait for Katye to return, unless there is anything else you need of me, Captain," I said.
"Tuvok and I will accompany you," she replied.
I nodded my head and started walking towards the turbo lift with Janeway following behind me. Tuvok joined us as I stepped inside and leaned against the wall with my left shoulder, since my back was out of the question with my wound.
"How badly were you injured?" Janeway asked after telling the computer to head for the Shuttle Bay.
"I took a direct hit from the time ship's phasers, and it seems that the Vazukuru upgraded Federation technology sometime in the future, since the beam was infused with an Element that I have a weakness to, but I'll be fine after I can heal myself. The main problem is that I took the damage while I was in my Dragon form, so the injury compounded when I took this form, meaning it hurts a lot more after I shifted. It's not as bad as our final fight with the Vidiians, but the residual mana is like salt in the wound," I replied.
"Then I guess I can forgive your lack of decorum," she said with a teasing smirk.
I chuckled. Swearing was not exactly appropriate for Bridge Officers, though it was no court martial-able offence either. It seemed that I had not fully lost the casual friendship between us. The doors opened a few moments later, and the three of us made our way to the Shuttle Bay. Although Voyager's comm system was down, my headset could still link to the Fae Dragon, so I opened the large shuttle doors for Katye and helped coordinate moving the time ship into the hanger. The Fae Dragon landed in its usual spot, and Katye and Starling walked off the ship.
"Hello, Mister Starling. I feel like this is our first proper introduction," Janeway remarked.
Starling sneered and said, "I guess it is, Captain."
"Captain Janeway," she corrected with a smile. "Welcome aboard the Voyager. Mister Tuvok, please escort Mister Starling to the Brig."
Tuvok nodded and approached Starling, but he raised his hands in surrender, so Tuvok ushered him in the right direction.
"Where is Echo?" Janeway asked once Starling was out of earshot.
"I sent her to find Braxton, since I believe that he can fix this whole situation," I replied.
"She reported in after we had taken Starling, and said that she was about to extract Braxton," Katye said.
Janeway gave me a raised brow, so I assured her, "Echo was a spy before she joined our group, so she will be able to ensure that this looks like nothing more than a 'normal' problem. The police won't report the disappearance of a missing homeless man with everything else that has been happening in the city."
"We'll see, won't we?" Janeway retorted.
Right on cue, Echo relayed, "Braxton is secure, and the police have no idea that he's gone."
"Good job, Echo. Find a place to hide for a couple of minutes and we will come to get you two," I replied, touching my visor. "Katye, can you pick them up?"
"I can, but..." Katye started and let her words die off as she looked at my right shoulder, which was where I was wounded.
"I'll be fine. I wanted to look at the time ship before I go to heal myself back in our room on the Voyager," I replied.
Katye sighed, "As you wish."
She walked back onto the ship with a hint of melancholy. I had to resist the urge to laugh, since I knew that she was playing up her concern to distract Janeway. One of us needed to get onboard that ship since the mobile emitter had yet to be seen.
"Rebecca, if you are too injured..." Janeway started.
"I'm fine, Kathryn. Second-degree plasma burns across the middle of my chest and back connecting over my right shoulder, but I've had worse," I said dismissively.
"You should be in Sick Bay!" she snapped.
"I can heal these myself and sleep off the drain," I retorted. "But I need to check something first."
"Check something? What are... the Chaos Storm?" she deduced.
I sighed, "You're right. My power is rooted in the Chaos Storm that birthed Dystina, my Dragon side. Braxton mentioned a Chaos Storm that engulfed the Gamma Quadrant, so I need to know if I'll lose control, and if so, how much time do I have. We can still leave this dimension if we return to the Alpha Quadrant, and prevent whatever destruction that I may cause."
"That's a violation of the Temporal Time Directive!" Janeway argued.
"And we haven't already violated it by saving the twenty-ninth century?" I retorted then asked soberly, "Could you stand wondering for the rest of your life if you destroyed nearly a quarter of the galaxy?"
"No... Fine, let's go," she sighed.
"Thank you," I replied.
We walked over to the time ship and used the small control panel to open the door. The inside of the ship was tiny, barely big enough for the two of us to move around without bumping into each other. It confused me how the ship could store the exo-suits, until I found a large cabinet built into the wall with a display screen. It was similar to the storage rings that Raven had made for us, only able to hold far more, and the screen meant that it could be used by a normal person. I scanned through the remaining items in storage and found exactly what I was looking for, the mobile emitter.
"Rebecca, over here," Janeway said from the main computer console.
I moved over and looked at the screen. Sure enough, 'I' was the cause of the Chaos Storm that engulfed half of the Gamma Quadrant, but there was more to it than the powerful storm. Anything that had been within the reaches of my clouds had been corrupted rather than consumed and created these Dragkies, as the Federation had named them, out of any intelligent being. They took on appearances similar to my Dusa form without the wings and horns, incredibly strong, durable, resistant to most forms of mana, and mindless other than following their urge for violence. Although they could not use magic, the vacuum of space meant nothing to them, and they could propel themselves through space at low impulse speeds as long as they were inside the Chaos Storm. Surprisingly, Katye, Raven, and Echo were all mentioned as the Vazukuru keeping my storm in check, so that meant that this must be Tori's prediction of when I would lose myself to the Chaos within me at my current rate of development.
"Another twenty-three years, huh? Nothing like a ticking time bomb inside of you to make you work harder," I remarked with mild annoyance.
"I'm sorry, Rebecca," Janeway said quietly.
"It's fine. Strange as it may be to you, 'his' history is nothing more than a possible path for me, and one that I am well aware of. With the information, I can talk with some of my people, when we make it back to the Alpha Quadrant, and see if there is a safe dimension that I can be placed in should I start losing control. Thankfully, there are plenty of warning signs before I cross the point of no return," I replied.
"Like getting swept up in your emotions?" Janeway asked.
"Perhaps, though I tend to worry once strong emotions start unconsciously tapping into my power, which I should be safe from for the next few years."
"You can take all the time that you need for your training, Rebecca, even if it means that you have no duty shifts," she responded.
"The training that I need is not something I can receive holed up in programs, learning about my magical abilities. I need to strengthen my Ego to match the strength of my True Soul which can only be done through life encounters, challenges, set-backs, struggles... I need to live and overcome if I want to remain 'me'," I said with a half-hearted smile.
While Janeway said nothing, her silence spoke volumes.
"Do you pity me, Kathryn? Do you fear what I could become?" I asked, walking away from her and over to the storage access panel. The mobile emitter was still the item up on the screen, so I positioned myself carefully to be able to press the button to make it appear in the cabinet. "This is my second life. I've had to kill, I've watched loved ones die in front of me, my body has been broken more times than I can count, and yet, I still can't help but consider myself lucky. I have people that I love fiercely by my side, adventures that most could only dream of, and mystical powers that I have only begun learning about. It may be greedy of me, but I want to know what 'I' can accomplish. The weight on my shoulders is heavy, but I haven't given up no matter how tempting it has been throughout my journey. I could doom the galaxy, but I have the right to exist, don't I?"
While I gave my heartfelt speech, I tapped the button to materialize the mobile emitter in the storage cabinet. Everything that I was saying to her was true, but I was acting like it affected me more than it really did, since I had accepted it all after my Heart Demon trial, or I never would have awoken from it. It was a bit manipulative, I know, but Janeway was not the type to break the rules, so I wanted her to be distracted by other things to make it easier for her to accept us taking the mobile emitter.
"One last thing," I said, opening the cabinet and pulling out the mobile emitter. "Without my, and my kind's, involvement, this would have ended up in the Doctor's hands. It is an autonomous holographic emitter that will give the Doctor the freedom to leave Sick Bay, move around the ship, and even join away missions. The mobile emitter will be essential in numerous encounters that I've seen, and I can think of a hundred more where it would be useful to have the Doctor outside of Sick Bay."
Janeway sighed then nodded her head and replied, "In for a penny, in for a pound. One more violation of the Temporal Prime Directive won't have too much of an impact at this point, especially with your warning."
"Thank you, Kathryn. It means a lot to me that you are still willing to trust me," I said.
"I've never doubted that you want the best for this crew. I just want you to be more mindful of your actions," she said with a light smile.
"I will be, I promise," I assured.
The sound of the Fae Dragon landing ended our conversation, and we walked out of the time ship. Katye, Echo, and Braxton walked off our ship, and we met them midway between the two ships. Braxton's eyes were locked on his former ship, but he reined in his excitement to speak with us, at least.
"You really did it, didn't you?" Braxton asked with amazement, looking at me.
"We did. Starling is in the Brig, along with his goons. We just need your help in figuring out how to use your ship to undo the damage to the timeline," I replied.
"Hmph, of course, you do," he retorted with a smirk before he walked over to his ship. "So many years that we have been separated my sweet Aeon."
Braxton reached out and touched his ship. Such a simple gesture, yet when his fingertips touched the ship, an explosion of Time mana that was stronger than anything that the combined might of Katye and I could achieve, erupted from that point. It was so powerful that I could not help but be pulled along with whatever was happening, and all I could see was whiteness.
I blinked a few times and realized that I was sitting in the second officer's seat on the Voyager's Bridge. There was something in my hand as I sat in Chakotay's usual seat, so I looked down and found the mobile emitter with a strip of paper wrapped around it. Scanning it, I could not help but huff with frustration and burn the note.
[Not perfect, but you did minimize the damage to the timeline. I'll give you a C- for coming up with a method that covers your exposure, but my pantheon still had to do a bit of work to smooth everything out properly. Keep training because that prediction will be right if you slack at any point.]
"Lieutenant Paris, you have the Bridge," I said, standing up.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied.
I walked over to Janeway's Ready Room and pressed the chime to enter. When the doors opened, she was surprised to see me, but the serious look on my face let her know that I had something important to say. I stepped over to her desk and placed the mobile emitter down for her to see.
"Well, Captain, I have some good news and some complicated news. This is an autonomous holographic emitter, it will give the Doctor the freedom to leave Sick Bay, and it is from the twenty-ninth century. I got it while we were trapped in a temporal paradox, and although we solved it, the device remained in my hand when we returned to the proper time," I explained.
"An autonomous holographic emitter? Time Paradox? I want you to tell me everything from the beginning," Janeway said, picking up the emitter.
"Yes, ma'am. It all started when our sensors picked up some sort of spatial rift in front of us, and a Federation ship from the twenty-ninth century came out of it..."