Madness (part 3)

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 5864

...fascinated with the concept of 'first') was to explore the end of linear beings. Entities such as 'Jennifer Sisko' exprienced the ending of exsistence.

Her shift over, Wildman left engineering.

The demon swooped in to try to possess Samantha Wildman, and instead ran face first into another of Scott's strange birthgiths. Scott has a probability sink within him. In some circles, he's be called a weirdness magnet. Meaning the most unusual and least likely things keep happening to Scott BECAUSE of his strange birthright. The sink's strange powers caused the Par Wraith's course to be altered and instead of possessing Samantha Wildman, it possesses a small dragon hatchling that Scott's family has adopted. The baby dragon that had used to be the other Seven of Nine is now possessed by the Par Wraith, much to it's surprise. The demon is too disoriented to immediately be able to de-possess the dragon....so is stuck for the moment.

The Pagh'Wraith (or the Par Wraith if you are from the furry universe) gets ready. Waiting for an event to happen was a fascinating thing in it's self, but the Wraith after a while began to experience something it had never really experienced before, impatience! Why wouldn't she hurry up?! The Pagh'Wraith had experience many things while in it's own time continuum, but this was another thing entirely.

Because the Wraith had never experienced the feeling of impatience, it went in hot and fast. If it had been going slower, perhaps what happened next could have been avoided. However, it was VERY impatient, and so it couldn't slow down fast enough.

**************************************

"Hun, I am SO glad that the shift is FINALLY over!" furry Samantha says, hugging Scott.

"Tell me about it!" Scott said back, rolling his eyes. "This ship was NEVER intended to handle this many people."

She smiled and nodded in agreement. Sometimes stating the obvious help alleviate frustration. With her being in the Engineering pool, she felt like she could use all the alleviation she could get. Having a husband like Scott didn't hurt matters either. Sometimes he could be very annoying, but he always meant well. In all, both considered themselves lucky to have each other and their daughter.

Suddenly, as their daughter comes around the corner with her . . . . pet fluttering around her head (the dragon had shrank back to tricorder size with the death of the Scott Collective), she feels a cold draft of air pass over her left ear. She feels her husband shiver and hears her daughter cry out in surprise a blast of cold air passes them.

Borgee cries out in shock, and falls to the ground, stunned and disoriented. It feels so . . . . cold.

The little dragon shakes it's little body, and then jumps back into the air, little wings flapping furiously to get back up to where it was.

"What is wrong with Lockheed?" Scott asked as they walked down the hallway.

"Would be our luck that Enviromental is acting up again," Samantha sighs. "I swear, if it isn't one thing, it's another."

Samantha relaxes as she listens to her daughter tell about how she and her analog are coming along in their quest to become part of the Bridge crew. She thought it was cute. So did Scott, for the matter. However, neither he nor she would laugh at their daughter's dream.

The discussion soon drifts to what they hope for, in the future. Samantha tells how she hopes to get back to the Alpha Quadrant (either her's or her analog's . . . . . she'd be happy with either, really). Scott doesn't act surprised when Naomi doesn't act as happy about the idea of going home as Samantha.

"Sam, why are you surprised?" Scott asked. She looked at him in confusion. "I mean, she was born and has lived out her entire life on the Voyager . . . . . this is her home."

"I . . . . just never thought about it," she said in a thoughtful voice. She sees the worried look in her daughter's eyes. "Hey, it's okay. I understand."

Naomi smiles, and they go off down the corridor to their quarters.

****************************************************

The Pagh'Wraith open's it's/her eyes, and shakes her pounding head. She takes an involuntary breath in through her snout, and is stunned by it's diversity . . . . it's sheer number and texture. It's almost too much much to take !

She shakes her head (noting that it doesn't feel . . . right). She remembers the last few seconds of what had happened. That man . . . . the husband of what was SUPPOSED to be her conveyance . . . . was some type of probability sink! He had to be, because . . . . .

"Meep." the Pagh'Wraith sighed. She spread her wings and waddled over to her food tray, hungry. A terrible mistake had happened, for she was in the body of that damn "dragon." The REALLY frustrating things were that: she had to keep a constant reign on things, or Borgee kept popping back up and took control (and how a supposed animal could do such a thing . . . .).

"And there's me down the line." a spectral voice whispered.

The Pagh'Wraith turned, fully in control of the dragon body, and nearly looses control of it's bladder (another novel experience . . . . along with the racing heart and shortness of breath) In all, this was a day full of new experiences (many of which the Wraith could do without)!

The Wraith catches a glimpse of something that looks like . . . . a skeleton in a dark cloak and armed with some type of sharp . . . . thing that is used to harvest crops!

"Little one, almost all who come to linear time must meet me in the end." the skeleton whispers. "It is not often someone like yourself is . . . . foolish enough to bind themselves to a mortal form. Careful, or you might become . . . . a customer."

The skeleton laughs hollowly, and disappears.

The Pagh'Wraith jerks awake, and feels her heart pound within her small chest. She looks down, and still finds herself in the little dragon's body. Was that what the mortals call a nightmare?! She shivers, because it seemed . . . . so real.

The Wraith, finding that she's stuck in the body of the dragon for the moment (some of her powers seem to be on the blink), decides that what she had set out to do is still "doable" but will be harder to do. She shrugs, looking forward to a challenge.

****************************************************

In the morning . . . . .

Samantha notices that the little dragon seems to be acting strangely. Maybe it was time to take him in for the Doctors to play the role of Vet.......

The demon now is far enough away from Scott to be able to manifest, and goes out and possess the EMH. The Doctor is able to deactivate himself, but the Par Wraith is now possessing the Voyager's computer system. It knocks out almost everyone onboard with sleep gas. It then passes the time by recreating the crew of the Voyager on the ship's holodeck and proceeds to enjoy the joy of the hunt...and kill!

Meanwhile, a small group of people are down in Engineering, reviewing what has happened, and planning on how to get the Par Wraith out of their computer.

Scott, noticing the entity that is possessing the computer has a disturbingly similar reading that he knows that the Wormhole Aliens of Deep Space Nine have . . . . . puts two and two together. The radiation burst that worked in Deep Space Nine that drove the Aliens out of Benjamin Sisko's son and Major Kira should work here, also.......So, with Tuvok's permission.....

The radiation is set out, and the Par Wraith is painfully expelled.

The angered demon then goes out to try to possess another vessel, sub reference "Borg." The Borg Queen of this universe takes exception to this, and the demon and the Queen fight it out mentally. The Borg cube that the demon wants is won, but the Queen takes away from the encounter some means of how to deal with this pesky energy entity.

Meanwhile, the idea of taking a short cut through the center of the galaxy is raised....by a off hand comment by Scott. A way is discovered to breach the Inner Great Barrier of the Milky Way, and we also have....

"Okay, folks, here's what I'm talking about." Scott says, calling up a picture of the Milky Way that both furry and human Voyager crewmembers are familiar with. "As you can see, much too our frustration and chagrin, the Bajoran Wormhole was much nearer to the Voyager than initially thought when the Voyager popped into the Delta Quandrant."

People give off a frustrated groan as yet again they see how close they were to a way home! It had been a BITTER pill to swallow when more detailed long range scans of the Delta Quadrant revealed how close the Hole was over in the Gamma Quadrant.

"As I told you, I had a strange dream, a rather disturbing one that I'd rather NOT go into....." Scott continues. "Now, it very well be some type of transdiminsional telepathy at work, or just a very overactive imagination on my part. Whatever that near death experience actually was, it was enough to solve a vexing problem."

"What Scott means is that we were following a course that was basically going more or less around the perimeter of the galaxy," human Torres says. "Yes, we would have approached energy sphere, or whatever you want to call the Inner Great Barrier, but the Voyager couldn't actually breach the Barrier successfully." (Author's Note: in one of the Star Trek movies, their was another Great Barrier--opposed to the one that Kirk originally encountered in his first five year mission--that was acting as a prison cell to some type of evil energy being).

"This Barrier is so huge, that it was basically WHY we had to follow a roundabout way home," Scott continues. "Why the Voyager would have to take seventy plus years to get home! However . . . . I saw a few things in that dream that gave human and furry Torres enough information on just HOW to breach that Barrier safely......."

"And . . . . get us home within twenty instead of the fifty something years . . . . it would before," human Paris says in a dazed voice. "And it's just our luck that that we NOW know where the Wormhole is . . . . . and it would take Voyager just as long to get back to it as it would to slug it through the galaxies center......."

Fine details are hammered out. Scott explains that, while Kirk was able to broach this Barrier one time, when his ship got hijacked (that was a plot of one of the Star Trek movies, folks), travel to the center of the galaxy was still considered almost impossible. to reach . . . . . so dangerous that the Voyager . . . at least in this story . . . . . never seriously considered trying to cut through it to get home).

"It's just too bad that we can't modify the warp core to push the ships speed up to where this journey would only take two and a half years at maximum warp." human Janeway says at the end of the jab session. "But like the Torresses said, what caused those Silver Blood clones to . . . er . . . . melt could have been done by a million side effects from warp core emissions!"

The Bridgecrew leave to get ready to set course for the galaxies core, but the Janeways stick around to talk with each other.

"Well, what do you make of all this, Katherine?" human Torres sighs, sipping on her coffee. "What is your take on all this?"

"Well, I would have said things would be exceedingly strange, but considering all that has happened even before . . . . all this," furry Janeway shakes her head. "I mean, things always were strange out here in the Delta Quadrant. Both our Kims aren't the ones that came from our original universes. They are actually survivors from analog Voyagers. We've both met suicidal Qs. Why, when Baldy came in and conquered my universe, I knew that NOTHING would ever be normal again!" A look of sorrow passes through furry Janeway's face.

"Hey, I'm . . . . sorry if I brought up painful memories." human Janeway says, truly sorry.

"I know." the vixen says. "When I rescued your crew and then went off and had my Torres throw this ship through thousands of universes . . . . I pretty much had given up all hope of getting back to MY Alpha Quandrant."

"But....." human Janeway blinks, not quiet believing this. Her furry analog holds up a restraining hand.

"I want to get my crew back to an Alpha Quadrant, Katherine." the vixen says. "You know that Baldy was brutal . . . . without even a trace of real mercy. She destroyed pretty much everything I know and loved in my universe. What was left . . . . well, let us just say that if my crew ever got back . . . . it would be like they had never left the Delta Quadrant. THAT is how alien things has become there! Baldy took special pleasure in rubbing THAT in my face."

Human Janeway places a reassuring hand to try to ease the hurt that her analog was obviously feeling.

"So, you might NOT want to return home?" human Janeway finally asks. "Is that what you are saying?

"All of the furries know what Baldy did," the vixen mutters. "I and my crew want to go home, but it looks like the best home might just be YOUR universe. I just don't know what we'll do, once we get to the Guardian. But, you know, that's for the far future."

"That's true enough." human Janeway, patting her analogs shoulder reassuringly as she changes the subject (this was NOT something she had really wanted to bring up at all). It brought up bad memories for her analog that hadn't totally been . . . . put to rest.

Now, with that, furry Paris sets a more direct course to the Alpha Quadrant.

Meanwhile, there are forces about......

In the meantime, we see that some of the holodeck characters that the Par Wraith has recreated has broken free and taken possession of the Doctor's mobile holo-emmitter. Suder attacks.....

Ensign Scott walked with Furry Janeway down the corridors of the ship. They were planning to enter Holodeck One and play target shooting. They never reached it. A crewperson ran around the curve of the hallway and clotheslined Janeway. She bounced off the wall and dropped to the floor. Scott spun and kicked the attacker in the small of the back. Nothing. The assaliant turned around. Scott's eye widened. It was Ensign Suder, back from the dead! Impossible! He was killed by the Kazon while saving the ship! And he was a cold blooded killer. He had murdered crewman Darwin for looking at him wrong. But he reformed. Or didn't he? Suder's eyes were now wide. Madness lay behind them.

"Suder?" Scott said. "Is that you?" "Yes. It is me." Suder said. "The real me. The right me. Darwin was just the first. Are you next?" It was then Scott spotted the holoemiteer on 'Suder's' left arm. This was bad. The only way to shut off the program now was to phsically press a button on the device.

Scott tapped his commbadge. "Intruder alert." he said.

"Suder, I'd rather not," Scott says in a calm voice. "And of COURSE your the real Suder! Why wouldn't you be?"

"Because . . . . . I need THIS to walk about!" Suder grinds out, pointing at the holo-emmitter. "Ever since I awoken a few days ago, after I awoke to being hunted by that Par Wraith . . .. . ever since I found out that the demon had borrowed it's idea of hunting from some silly twentieth century video game . . . . ." The madman goes on a while in this vein. Scott smiles when Suder winds down, because the fool just gave his weakness away. Scott knew exactly which game Suder was talking about because . . . . Scott had gone to great lengths at setting up a holodeck program based on Doom. The program degradation that he had observed this morning could only be due to an unauthorized accessing of his program!

"You mean the one that if you said: IDDQD it puts you in or out of God Mode?" Scott chuckled.

"Exactl . . . .oh no." Suder says just before Scott slams his fist into his jaw. He staggers back, and then counter attacks. Suder keeps trying to say the magic words again and again, but Scott keeps interrupting Suder with a blow to the chest or face. Finally, Scott manages to land a kick that deactivates the holo-emmitter. It clatters to the floor. Scott staggers over to furry Janeway, who is still out cold. Scott is bleeding from dozens of scraps and cuts, and his shirt is in rags.

Both Tuvoks round the corner as Janeway groans and wakes up.

"Scott, Captain!" human Tuvok says. "What happened? We got a call about intruders."

"It was a holographic recreation of Ensign Suder." Scott says, wheezing while he leans against the wall for support. "It was from that . . . damn holographic recreation of the Voyager that the energy being had made while most of the crew was out. Suder called it a Par Wraith, the furry universes name for the demons from the Bajoran Wormhole."

"But how were you able to overcome Suder?" furry Janeway. "Suder, no matter which universe you talk about was accomplished at physical attacks!"

"First, the Wraith wasn't too picky where it got the matrix for the holoprogram it had running," Scott says. 'It borrowed from that first person shooter I and furry Captain Janeway were going to practice in. It was called Doom, and it had a few cheat codes that . . . . . makes the user invulnerable. Lucky for me, I knew what the code word was to turn God Mode off!"

Scott and furry Janeway go to the Medical Bay to get their wounds looked at while the holo-emitter's unwelcome guest gets forcibly evicted into a portable memory unit for the holodeck. Then, Scott takes great pleasure at tracking down the surviving members of the Par Wraith's holodeck program, and confining them in another memory unit (they all showed signs of being psychotic).

That done, furry Janeway, Scott and furry Wildman spend the day down in Holodeck One, practicing their shooting skills and their evasion skills in the modified Doom program.

The Voyager gets near the Inner Great Barrier, and somebody finally remembers that in this universe....the evil being that was locked away behind this barrier hasn't been defeated by Kirk. After a close encounter with the creature, and barely escaping through a bluff made by Scott (he's somehow rigged the computer to simulate the warp core going into a destruct sequence....reasoning that if Kirk had been able to destroy the creature by ships weapons...that the threat of destruction by a ship explosion would drive it off).

A way is found to counter the creature, and the Voyager goes into the core of the galaxy. Once there, they find....it's incredibly dull in there!

Cabin fever sets in!

It's a long night of half baked theories, bad coffee, and frustration. Everything that they seem to try does not work. Finally, a frazzled human Captain Janeway stands up.......

"Wait a minute," she says in a tired voice. "We've been trying to come up with ways to make handheld weapons WORK on, and been having no luck whatsoever. Even if we could pump up the output power of the and phasors and any other energy weapons we could can manufacture....... we still have to worry about the destructive effects it would have on the Voyager......to put it mildly."

"So we can't go on the offensive . . . . .," Scott sighs. "Sure we can blast the monster to atoms with the ship's weapons, we have to be able to detect it. And the only way to do that, is Mulcahey and a few others."

"Dad, are you almost done?" Naomi asks. People turn in surprise, they hadn't heard the little girl entering the room (which just goes to prove how tired they all are). Naomi is wearing some type of silver skullcap. Scott chuckles a little bit, remembering that Naomi stumbled across a recording about space aliens and the unusual, gaudy outfits the human heroes wore in early scifi flicks. Naomi had taken Scott's advice, and began to replicate tinfoil to make all types of interesting costumes. "Hi, pumpkin." Scott smiles tiredly. "How's the defense against those microwaves from the Evil Empire?" Scott scoops her up onto his lap, and Naomi's tail flicks about as she kisses Scott goodnight.

Tom Paris, the human one, looks thoughtful as he seems to be remembering something about how madmen on the streets had put tinfoil on their heads to block the mind control lasers of the Russians. He suddenly shouts, and the others look at him.

"I've got it!" human Paris shouts. "Doctor, you have the data from Mulcalhey's exam, right?"

"Of course I do," the furry Doctor says. "Why?"

"If we can isolate the wavelengths that suppressed those centers in Mulcahey's brain, we can modify the shields to block them!" furry Paris says, catching on. "And . . . . maybe we can modify some equipment to make portable shields for away missions for the crewmembers who go down onto the planet!"

This gets a flurry of excited discussion. They all feel like cheering when test via computer show that the modifications could be done. As for personal forcefields, a less elegant solution is found. They borrow a suggestion from Naomi, and special helmets with special minerals found to block those nasty little wavelengths from effecting the crewmembers mind. The only complaint about the helmets is . . . . helmet hair . . . . .

That done, with scanners looking for tell tale signs of malignant energy beings reaching out to touch the Voyager, the Voyager head back to the barrier.

Defiantly they pass through the barrier, and find the . . . . . Defiant of Kirk's time?!

"So, now we know what happened to the old Defiant," sighs human Janeway. "After disappearing from my universe, it ended up here."

"Yes, and apparently the journey here was a touch rough on her," furry Janeway sighs. "She lost hull intergrity, and any useable components, like the dilithium crystals, were pretty much a wash."

"At least we could give an eulogy for the dead of that ship." human Janeway says. "It was the least . . . . the only thing we could do for them."

The human and the vixen sit in silence for a few minutes.

"Your bored out of your mind, too?" asks the vixen.

"Yes," sighs human Janeway. "I mean, I never thought I'd be sorry something bad or something isn't happening, but . . . . ."

"A month has gone by since we crossed the Great Barrier, and not a peep from that creature that wanted to destroy the Voyager. And even my holo-novel program is . . . getting dull to me."

"Same here," sighs the vixen. "I'd have thought that there'd be more . . . well, interesting things to see in the core of the galaxy . . . but so far it's been just a bunch of . . . . boring planetary garbage. At least we're able to mine what we needed from those asteroids."

The Captains then turn to other items of interest. With things being as queit and uneventful as they have been, the discussion is very trivial indeed.

"So, how are things going with you and Chakotay?" the vixen asks coyly, tail swishing.

"Nothing . . . really interesting, Kathrine." human Janeway mutters. She hadn't made a move, nor had Chakotay. It was almost like . . . . they were reluctant to do anything.

"Aye, same here." sighs the vixen. "I . . . just don't want to ruin the way things are right now. You know what I mean?" The human nods in agreement.

"So, how many people have joined in on that strange game that Scott found in the computer archives?" human Janeway asks. "That 'Sir Toby' game?"

"Seems like more and more, each day." the vixen says. "One branch in particular took a really strange twist. It involves this knight . . . . a Lord Fred who ran afoul of a mad dragon who cursed him with lycanthropy. It turned him into a werefox. Then it gets REALLY weird when offworld aliens come in and a superplague REALLY makes things go to pot for the regular humans of that world . . . ."

As the Captains chat about the latest weirdness of an old test based "Choose your own adventure" computer game, other's are suffering from cabin fever.

Well, now what?

"You know what, Neelix?" Scott said, hovering his drink at a table in the Mess Hall. "It's not the fact that we're going to be stuck in this ship for months on end, it's the fact that we're going to be stuck in the WRONG UNIVERSE FOREVER!!" Scott swung his arm, sending his drink flying. It scattered against the wall. Neelix walked over. He thought "At least we're the only one's here." "Scott." he said. "It's not as bad as it seems. There are literally dozens of ways of getting back to your own universe." "Name one, you hairy-eared Talaxian!" Scott shouted. "Our quantum signatures are screwed all to hell, our dimensional hopper is a useless piece of junk and creepy aliens are screwing with our minds anyway!"

Scott got to his feet. He picked up a nearby chair and raised it over his head. Neelix backed away. Scott swung it at his table. The force-resistant materials caused the chair to bounce away and slam into Scott's face. He dropped like a rock.

Both Ensign Wildmans stood in Sickbay, one on each side of Scott's sleeping, drugged out form. The furry one held his left hand in both of hers. "Doctor?" she said. "He needs sleep, Ensign." he replied. "Sleep, rest and a little therapy. I'll need to study up on Voyager's psychological texts. Now if you'll excuse me." The Doctor entered his office. "Oh, Scott." whispered furry Samantha. "I'm sure she'll be okay." said human Samantha. "How about we go get a drink at Sandrine's? I hear Paris challenged one of the Tuvok's to a game of pool." The furry looked up. "Pool? Tuvok? Impossible." She coughed, then with a deeper voice said, "Pool is illogical. Besides, with my super-duper Vulcan brain I'll defeat anyone with it. After all, it's all a matter of angles, rebounds and bar wenches." They both chuckled. "Yeah." continued the furry. "Let's go."

Five minutes later, Scott's eyes snapped open.

Meanwhile, in engineering, both Torres's had punched each other's lights out.

They are beamed away to Medical for treatment, and Ensign Solomon, both the human and the raccoon morph, collect the replicator ration chits for the betting pool they'd set up for this predicted event. Since this event was the third of it's kind in as many days, steps are taken in trying to distract the crew from the situation they were in. It wasn't working, so a holodeck simulation was set up for something of a vacation for the crew.

The Love Boat is taken up, and the furries and humans enjoy it....until some type of space probe begins to interfere with the holodeck....

Some of the characters start to act strangely...and characters from other stories start to show up.....

Hours later... Scott was the first to enter the holodeck. A sun shone down on a busy, busy dock. Ahead of him was a green felt ramp leading up to an extraordinarily large ship. "Greetings!" someone shouted. Scott turned to see a gaily attired, natural blonde in some sort of naval uniform. "Welcome, Welcome, Welcome." she beamed. "Allow me to welcome you to the 'Love Boat'."

"Come aboard. We're expecting you. And you. And my goodness, you have a tail!"

The gathered assembly of Voyager crewmembers, both human and furry just look at the greeter in confusion. The blonde woman blinks, and quickly recovers.

"Oh, silly me, it's all the fashion these days," the blonde laughs nervously. "I . . . never mind. Welcome aboard."

The blonde smiles, and greets the rest of the oncoming passangers. Scott frowns a bit, looking at "Kathy" (as called by her namebadge) as he and his family is escorted to their room. He can almost swear that the blonde's smile is almost . . . . forced.

That thought passes, and soon Scott and the rest of the crewmembers who are on break enjoy themselves in the recreation of a 1970's show that has had various reincarnations in latter years. The biggest topic of discussion, afterwards, is the bartender, Isaac. The guy seems to always be at every bar, tending customers, wherever they go. Heck, the guy never seems winded, but he's always there!

****************************************

"What do you mean, there's something strange about our guests?" the Captain of the Loveboat asks Kathy, puzzled. "I saw them, and the only thing that I noticed is that they seemed to have been in real need of our vacation package."

"You didn't notice that some looked like . . . . humanoid animals?" Kathy asks, not believing the way that this is going. She was sure that the CAPTAIN, of all people, would have noticed something so strange! Everyone else she had approached . . . . .

The captain looks down at her strangely, sniffs her breath, and sighs. There's no hint of alacohol on her breath, but . . . .

"Kathy, I'll overlook this incident . . . . once, but I suggest that you lay off the booze." the captain says, leaving.

Kathy stares, stunned, after him. She then wonders off, going to her next assignment, not knowing what else to do to say. She knows what she knows. Why can't the others see what's WRONG here!

  1. In that train of thought, she almost sees too late the danger one small person is in before it's too...

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