The Meat of the Situation

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 15398

".....the second temporal anomaly caused a wormhole to swallow and incapacitate my ship," human Janeway finishes up. "We finally arrived, after a long period of time floating through the wormhole, to crash near where our guest was...who will now explain why we have...made contact."

"And broke one of Star Fleet's most cardinal of rules," she adds under her breath, "The Prime Directive."

You then..........nod and get down to presenting.

"Basically, the crew of the Voyager's resources were already stretched pretty thin going through that wormhole thingy," you begin.

Thingy? the vixen Janeway blinks, surprised at such a....so non-technical term.

".....everything bypassed, patched, and jury rigged," you go on, using a little humor to lighten a rather dire situation, "And with no way of being able to replenish food supplies on any class M planets....or the local 7-Eleven AND what little they had left over getting ruined by the crash....which I'm rather amazed that nobody got killed in....."

You point at an image of the wreckage done to the Voyager, and pause while several of the Nantucketers swear or whistle in awe.

"Lucky too that the antimatter pods on this sucker didn't breach....or we'd be talking to each other in our afterlives," you say, nodding.

"Bottom line," you finish up, "The Voyager still has some useful things....like the ability to generate electricity in your powergrid, cure that rampant cold virus you all accidently unleashed, but.....a lot of them could well die from hunger. They just don't have the means of feeding themselves sufficiently for a long period of time.....at least not before......some die.

"And also the reason why they are making contact with you instead something else that wouldn't break the Prime Directive," you add, mostly for Lisketter, "The Voyager is still a rather big object to disintegrate with what phasors and such they had left. No matter what, the Prime Directive was doomed to get broken here. Best for all if the Voyager and you profit from it, eh?"

"I....think I can see that," Pamela says softly, "That I can see."

And they can do that much in saving the Native Americans, she goes on, seeing a future where the machine wasn't something that would ruin everything in the end.

"But there is one little thing I'm afraid I'll have to ask you," you whisper softly, so only she can hear. "Understand, some sort of sick symmetry has happened here. You know of the fact that though you and your fellow Nantucketers know probably all about the Voyager, though you never met them in the flesh. But....."

"They....our lives are some sort of TV show in their past or something?" Pamela whispers, turning white, "You know about....what.....I and....."

"Yes, something like that," you say softly....without a trace of pity, "Now, do you tell the others.....or do I? Chances are that you'll come out better if you put a good spin on it. Politicians....and you are a politician....being part of the Council...despite not being very good at it. I rather doubt you'd like the way I'd present it!"

She shoots you a dark look, but crumples when you add....

"Isn't like your Walker is out for the greater good," you finish, "He'll screw you. I'll promise you that if you go down that gilded path. Hell, just ask about that lie he told you! Ask Alston about that sailor who got dragged behind the Eagle out near England!"

And so she did....and so after a rather long pause Marion Alston tells about how one Seaman Rodriguez tried to drag a fellow female crewmember down to the "paintlocker" of the ship and attempt to force her. The look you see on Pamela's face tells you that she believes....and is getting more and more horrified at how.....easily she'd been fooled. How much of a fool she'd been.

So quietly, she whispers what Walker brought up in a few meetings at her house with her group.

She added that she hadn't taken it seriously, at least not yet.

"Ayup," Jared Coflin says softly, "But I'm sure that if you'd continued to not have any luck at Council with isolating ourselves from the Indians....."

"Native Americans!" Pamela corrected, only to clam up at the dark looks she gets from many around her.

"Okay, Indians...." she backpedals, "Uh, do you mind that name, Mr. Chakotay?"

"Not at all," the Voyager's second in command (who just happened to be a "Native American" as Lisketter called his ethnicity, "What is in a name?"

"A roseby any other name would smell just as sweet," you mutter, completing the quote.

A quick murmur from the others of the Council soon has it that Pamela was duped by Walker....and Walker bore some close watching (and appropriate actions if he made a move that they didn't like). However, much to Cofflin's and Lisketter's surprise......Pamela's position on the Council isn't voted out of existence.

"Amazing what a little truth can do, eh?" you say softly. "Still alive politically and not begging for a noose around the neck for treason."

Or worse, you add silently to yourself, remembering the rather bad end Lisketter met when she and her group finally got captured in the book by the Indians down in Central America who'd they'd tried to aid (and set up a counterbalance to the empire that Walker would carve out in England....that would sooner or later would come over to the America's to rape and pillage)....

Soon, the meeting ajourns and the Council is heading back in rather high spirits. Oh, not every problem is going to be solved here....and the technology level is going to be stretched all over the place, with a lot of it 19th or 18th century....mixed with 20th century and now.....a bit of the 24th thrown in....

But things are definitely looking better. Where things go from here remains to be seen (still looks like something will have to be done to aid Swindapa's people), but all in all not bad.

So, soon the Council beams back to Nantucket to deliver the news. The human seeming holo-Doctor has come along for a housecall to see if something can be done for Swindapa when she was raped by her Sun People captors. True, more could have perhaps been done in the Voyager's clinic.....but the Doctor knows that the young woman probably would be more comfortable back home in Nantucket.....

But.....


A bit earlier (centuries, minutes, or days...depending on your measure of time).....

Lord Josh becomes hypnotised by the pulsing of the computer screen.

He has no knowledge of what the computer is doing to his body, which is basically precisely what the name says. In about five minutes Josh's body was systematically equalised with that of the on screen heroine. Gradually the pulsing of the light grew and grew. Suddenly it stopped and the screen read GAME OVER.

Lady Joshine turned off her computer and went to bed.

The Lady awakes......and starts when she finds herself tied and bound....naked to her bed!

"Mornin', Sunshine!" an incredibly cheerful voice chirps, "Feeling okay?"

Joshine turns her head to look at a grinning man dressed in jeans and jean jacket. Unbeknownst to her and her capture, they are about to recite some lines from a certain Stephen King's mini-epic TV movie.

"Wha....who are you?!" Lady Joshine shouts, "How dare you do this to a Lady of High Blood!"

"Pleased to meet you, Lloyd." the man smiles, "Hope you guess my name." "What?" the naked lady blinks, suddenly nonplused by this odd man.

"Just a classical reference." the man giggles a giggle that would sound right at home coming from behind the bars of an insane asylum.

The giggling suddenly stops and the man's face grows utterly cold.

"They say that wisdom comes though knowledge," he says softly, as if speaking to himself, "Especially if one knows oneself. "I come from outside time," he continues, "I'm the king of nowhere....and I don't know myself......"

"At least until I met these three nice ladies living in a big tree!" he suddenly grins again. "They somehow came across the memories I'd lost over time after time. After each defeat and destruction....albeit a temporary thing for me....."

Joshine shudders when she sees that the man's teeth are VERY sharp pointed. She then blinks again when she look again and sees that they are utterly normal.....

But they HAD been pointed. She'd swear to it!

"I've gone by many names," he continues in a now friendly voice, "Merlin, Marlin, Marin Broadcloak....back when I was in an M mode. Back in a place called Israel I was called..... Legion. Still can't believe I got stuck in those pigs.....and was stupid enough afterwards to run off a cliff!

"Nowaday.....I'm just plain ol' Randall Flagg." the man smiles zanily, "Back with all his memories of all things. And ya' all know the ol' saw: 'Knowledge is power!'"

"And as for you," the man then comes up to her and places a hand on a breast. "You have something I want!"

"You....I'll scream!" Joshine shouts, fearing the utter worst.

"You mean like this?" Flagg smiles, suddenly breaking into ear splitting female screams that would do the most dewy eyed lady of a fairy tale justice.

"Nobody is around to hear you," the man smiles, "But frankly what I want right now is something that somebody named Josh had. You don't know about it and don't know how to use it anyway....not without practice. However, this one guy I know back at someplace called Game 3 would just love to get his hands on Author powers.....I...could just....loan hims some of my 'juice'....but....that would.....leave too many clues to my clueless Bosses..."

Flagg looks over Joshine's prone form...and licks his lips....then shakes his head violently to clear it.

This Demon (for that is what Flagg is) is like many of his evil kin, a rather randy lot (and like to take woman and such....preferably against their will).

"Stop that!" he scolds himself, "Getting caught up right now at that will cost you again, like back during the 2,456th time.....

"Save it for dear, sweet Nadine Cross," he admonishes himself, mastering himself.

He then frowns. Nadine was going to soon come to Los Vegas....but for some reason whenever he senses the surrounding lands for those twerps who allied themselves with Abigail...there was this one annoying thing (despite having regained so much upon remembering).

"M-O-O-N." he mutters to himself, "That spells moon."

He then curses and makes a yanking motion.....and the world goes grew....then dark for Lady Joshine.

"Hmm, let's see if that little trick I learned from that one interesting mage......Tesla, works here and now," he mutters to himself, looking at the prone form, "Heck, maybe if it does I'll use that little party trick on this one knight turned belly dancer.....could be fun....."

Satisified with making certain adjustments to Matrixes permanent and irreversible, Flagg nods and smiles....then wills the clothing of Joshine to again form upon the naked and sleeping woman's unconscious form. "Forget," Flagg intones the Word of Power, causing Joshine to forget the last five years of her life before now......

"Now where to put you?" Flagg thinks aloud to himself.

A literal lightbulb flashes above Flagg's head. After all, not only was what he was about to do to that one version of Nantucket going to be fun.....the energies released by that one TARDIS he'd found floating around space would do wonders in giving that one interesting dragon (real head on his scaley shoulders.....that one Minestus Flagg had talked with so long ago) the magical little 'extra' needed to jumpstart things and make it possible to actually enter that Red Pyramid dear old Tesla put it.....where his magic using rivals couldn't touch it.

In a reality with no magic in it.....!

Flagg fiddles with a mutli-color ultra-long scarf that he'd found on the control column of that TARDIS.....and......after causing the TARDIS to tear explode and push a large chunk of 20th century American real estate (and surrounding sea) back into the past (and then "sideways") he then pushes Joshine into an abandoned house......a bit later....in Nantucket.

And the magic flows and powers out over a world who'd been magically dead.....and out into an unsuspecting universe.....

Yes, Flagg is satisfied with the results (with the extra bonus of displacing yet another chunk of real estate....from the very last world the blue box had visited....right before it's occupant evaporated)...... Fun fun fun!!! And all not so flashy as to tip certain Ones off to his little tricks and playing....

But right now, there is this rather urgent business back in that one Earth. His Nadine was on her way! At last!

Soon afterwards (er.....if you have seen the TV movie or read the story "The Stand" you'll get what happened to Nadine to understand why she says before an elevator to her "love's" hotel room: We... are... dead... and... this... is... Hell!

But that....unpleasantry is not important to the here and now story here.....and now.

"Say hello to Seven of Nine me....." Sam Macy is saying as they beam back from that amazing meeting with the Voyager....only to fade out in consternation and confusion as he and the others of the Nantucket Council sees the slumbering woman on the floor.....and an odd group of very heavily armed people with revolvers (one young man dressed....as a cowboy?)....along with some fugitives from a fantasy novel!

"Oh, that's just great," mutters Dragon Synizn, annoyed.

  1. Meanwhile, in a universe far away (where a certain TARDIS had come from).....an enclave inside a Time Barrier....flickers....and vanishes......

Add New Option

Go Back

View Forward Story Tree
View Back Story Tree


MSG

3/3/2001 6:24:04 AM

Linking Enabled

Extending Enabled

The Never Ending Quest Home

Extend-A-Story Home

21321880 episodes viewed since 9/30/2002 1:22:06 PM.

Do not click me.