Heading For Home Faster

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 17726

"So," Neelix said, putting down a drink in front of Scott.
"We could have gone home faster but we didn't?"
"True. True. You see, when we first popped into the Delta Quadrant, that wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant was closer to us then the Alpha Quadrant was to us."
"So why didn't we use it?"
Scott huddled over his drink as if he was frawing stength from it. "I don't know. I don't know. That's the way it was supposed to be..."
"Well, Scott. Here's my theory. A combination of your nasty reality-altering energy floating around and the fact that this is another dimension, well, changed things a bit."
"Move a wormhole throug light years of space?"
"Why not? Those Ferengis traveled through such a wormhole themselves. Maybe all this reality-hopping we did changed the nature of things and we'd just. I don't know. Didn't remember!"
"Neelix. You're goofy. If that's the case, we wouldn't be able to tell!"
"There you go. Simply explanations courtesy of the morale officer."
Scott laughed.

Unfortunately the same sense of mirth did not spread to other corners of the ship. In sickbay, a Par Wraith re-created program waited and watched. After an indertermiate amount of time one of the holo-emitters was exited. It was placed on a nearby table.

A portion of the table's surface cracked. The sound of this was covered by human Harry Kim's breathing as the furry Doctor gave him his required checkup. A thin tendril, only wide enough to carry information through, lopped over to the emitter and adapted itself to one of the input ports. All lights on the device glowed green, then the tube detached and slid back into the table.

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.

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

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11/15/2001 10:12:42 AM

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