Madness (Part 2)

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 5863

polled and says "Honestly, we should try and make contact with the inhabitants. I am positive some are on board."

The inhabitants contact them. Their intentions -are- peaceful but the method of contact cripples the ship, leaving only life support and basic systems running. The inhabitants are remorseful.

Remorseful or not, the fact is that the Voyager is still crippled and the space station inhabitants won't go and help Voyager.

Well, sorry about what happens next, but it's typical of what happens in many of Addventure's story threads. I write myself into the story. Crossroads Man, my alter ego, steps in with Q in tow and forces him to explain to the Voyager

Yes, and since all that happened, the inhabitants are remorseful, but STILL are unwilling to leave the confines of the station! Something to do with their religon.

"So, we're stuck here." furry Janeway mutters.

"At least for a month, but . . . ." human Janeway begins.

"But radiation from the solar flares from a nearby star will cook the Voyager and anyone aboard within the week as you both know." a voice says behind the backs of the assembled department heads. Everyone turns and sees Q, and another guy standing behind him. Q looks steamed, but also keeps casting fearful glances at the short guy who's dressed in an archaic US Navy uniform (the uniform is working blues, with the rating badge of a Missile Technician on the left shoulder of his uniform). The voice who had spoken had not been Q's. Everyone then notes that the . . . . sailor is toting a shotgun!

"Intruder alert!" a half dozen voices say together, slapping combadges and (the Tuvoks) phasors are drawn. The combadges don't make a sound to acknowledge they are working, and . . . the Tuvoks find that they are holding buns, instead of phasors!

"Let's keep this peaceful, folks." the sailor says. "I didn't come for trouble, but if you rile me up, there WILL be trouble!"

"Crossroads Man?" squeeks Scott.

"In the flesh, sorta. Often imitated, but never duplicated . . . ." the author says. "Here to bring you up to speed. And my bombastic friend here has a few things to say . . . . and do! Don't interrupt him." He glances at Q meaningfully. The humans and furries find that they can only wait.

"Right." mutters Q. "Let's first get you back in order here." The ship shudders, and a quick scan by human Janeway reveals that the ship's back in shape. Everything is "A-okay."

"Fine, may I go now?" Q grouses.

"No." Crossroads Man says in a patronizing voice. "When you said that the Continuum had banished them here, you forgot to mention something, didn't you?"

Q grumbles something, and . . . .

"Hey, can I help it that they're slow?" Q says. Crossroads Man taps his foot, waiting. "Okay, have you guys checked you're quantum signatures recently?

"No? Well, you should!" Q says, glancing nervously around.

"For the love of Mike!" Crossroads Man mutters. "Stop beating around the f@#ing bush! Tell it to them straight!."

In a rapid fire confession, Q tells how the Continuum, over Q's objections, had reset the Voyager's (and the crew's) quantum signature to that of the universe that they had been banished to.

" Was able to restore your ship to operational condition, but certain files . . . ." Q begins.

"Have not been restored, or absent." Crossroads Man finishes. "Namely, the records of your original quantum signatures. Q, as you know, was at least able to get the Continuum to spare your lives. But what with his shaky position with them for past . . . . incidents . . . . that was the ONLY thing he was able to do. So when they banished you guys here, they did it in STYLE! The Continuum wants you HERE!

"Don't bark at him for being the bearer of bad news." the author finishes up. "He's annoying as Hell at times, but at least THIS time, he was on your side. If anyone is to blame for you problems, blame the Continuum for THIS! It's THERE fault, everything! Well, I guess you could blame Baldy, also, but . .. .she's kinda dead."

Q looks pained at the revelations, and a bit humiliated, but . . . .

"I'd . . . .like to tell them one more thing before I leave." Q says to the author. The author nods, and waits.

"Furry Janeway, I think you'd like to know that your universe was able to overthrow Baldy's cohorts." Q whispers. "They're free. Now, for some bad news. The Preservers are the only natural humanoids, all other humanoids trace their origins back to their tinkering, it's just not widely known." Q vanishes, and then . . . the author is nowhere to be seen.

Well, that was a lot to take in . . . . . . . . . to say the least. Yes, there are one or two ways that the author knows that can get them home, but . . . . one has to wonder if the Q Continuum will allow it . . . . .After all, they BANISHED them here as a form of punishment (just or unjust as it is). They just might want them to stay banished . . . . .

Later on, after a close call with a planet who's inhabitants want to capture the entire Voyager, we things things begin to change. After an impromptu counseling session between Chen and Janeway (she wants to just why the bridal bouquet had landed on her.....). After we find out that Scott is working down in Engineering with his wife..... We see that somewhere along the way, a few data packets from the Raven (the ship that a young Seven of Nine had traveled in with her parents before being assimilated into the Borg Collective) had been descrambled a bit....and that it showed Scott having tea with Seven's parents and talking about the Borg.

"I was having TEA with the Hansens?" Scott asks nobody in particular. He then shakes it off. "Or was it one of my analogs?"

"Human Seven says it's probably one of your analogs." his daughter says, smiling.

"Furry Seven wasn't taking it so well as the human Seven was." human Naomi says in a subdued voice. "I think it had something to do with seeing her parents." Scott mulls that over, and nods. It would figure that the data packs in question are from the furry universe, what with the fact that little of the human Voyager got beamed aboard (people had been rightly deemed more important than things).

"Could be that it wasn't quiet as . . . . real to the human Seven as to her furry counterpart.." furry Samantha says, patting her daughter. "It could just be that."

Scott shrugs. He wasn't a counselor, and really didn't want to try to be one. His wife was probably right, though. Human Seven probably could convince herself that the furry figures on the screen are just strange actors. Easier for the human Seven than the furry Seven, since the furry one can see more of herself in people on the screen, physically, than the human one can. A thin, frail thing, but probably enough.

"Dear, what was I . . . . the other Scott talking about with Seven's parents about the Borg?" Scott asked his daughter gently.

"What? Oh." furry Naomi blinks. "He was saying that it was a bad idea hanging around the Borg cube, studying it. Said that they were just asking for trouble."

"But Seven's parents were dismissive about that Scott's warnings, saying that they had things under control." human Naomi chimes in. "I don't know exactly what was said next by the other Scotts and Seven's parents because the picture and the sound kept going in and out."

"But what we DID see was strange." furry Naomi says, excitedly. "Seems that this other Scott was shouting at Seven's parents about being stupid . . . . and something about . . . .'Dark Frontier.' Then we saw this other Scott moaning, and popping out of existence, and then something about the shields that prevented the Raven from being detected cutting out."

"'Dark Frontier' . . . doesn't ring a bell." Scott says, thinking aloud. "Could be an episode that I hadn't . . . . never mind. It doesn't matter."

Goodbyes are said, and daughters are put to bed. Wives are cuddled in the bed, and people, after a bit of . . . . playing, go to sleep.

Next day, Scott and furry Wildman are called into Sickbay to see the Doctor about something.

But it turns out that the people who are down in Sickbay are a bunch of Scott analogs who want "our" Scott to join with them to form anew a Scott Collective...similar to what the Borg have. The Scott analogs are chased off the ship at phasor point. However this leads to another question on whether or not Scott is somehow related to the Borg. Turns out that WAY back in the mists of time, a Scott Prime developed a way to produce a mass mind. It had impressed the woman who would eventually become the Borg Queen, but the Queen decided to pursue the cybernetic route to perfection...when she saw the strange side effects that afflicted Scott. The bottom line was that Scott had been drained of his chaos energy, the key component to making this mass mind work for the Scott Collective. Scott Chen didn't want to join, for he had too much to lose (and little to gain by rejoining).

He did want to warn other freed Scotts about the dangers of the loony Scotts who wanted to set up a Collective, and thus...

"You want to do WHAT?" human Tom Paris asks in shock. "Didn't you say that doing that was a bad idea?"

"Indeed, Lieutenant, we did say that." furry Tuvok say in the general direction of the newly refrocked officer (both of the Parises had regained their old rank due to some fancy foowork).

"However, that was before Scott had 'lost' his chaos energy." human Tuvok continues.

"With the lost of the energy, Scott's memories are still dangerous, especially to the Borg." the human Doctor finishes up. "However, not so dangerous that a three way mind meld with the two Tuvoks. Scott, with help with one of the Tuvoks, will establish contact with the other Scotts that are in danger of being harassed by the Borg like Scotts. The other Tuvok will be there to keep the mind meld down to short term memories, only. After the contacts are done, the Tuvoks will erase their short term memories, for further safety measures."

"When do you plan on doing this?" furry Janeway asks. "And how will the other Scotts react to this . . . contact?"

"We were going to attempt it within the next few minutes, down in Sickbay. As for the second question . . . .we're not sure." Scott says. "I'm not sure how I'll react to all this, once it starts to happen. All I do know is that I'd not be able to live with myself if I didn't at least make the attempt."

Scott and the Tuvoks head down to Sickbay, with Scott's wife coming along for support. While their may not be a real good reason for her being their, nobody is going to order her NOT to be there. Scott gives his wife one last hug and kiss before joining the Tuvoks for the mind meld, and he then finds himself elsewhere . . . . mentally.

After mentally shouting the warning to the winds, facing three other Scotts. Scott can tell that that the human is another Scott by his looks, but he only gets a feeling of "Scottness" from the others. The others look to be the furries he heard about in other people's dreams.

"Well, you gave the warning, so now what?" the other human looking Scott snaps. For some reason, this other Scott looks angry enough about something that he's ready to bite somebody's head off..

"Well, I the reason I'm here is because I'd just like to know who the heck was calling me." the African lion morph, he then gives a vicious jab into the chest of the angry Scott. "But I DID NOT come here to be snapped at, so COOL IT!"

The other human Scott visible bristles, and it almost looks like things will come to blows when "our" Scott and the fox morph Scott step between the two angry Scotts.

"Calm down, both of you." the fox morph says in a calm, rational voice. Our Scott can see that he's visibly agitated by all of this, however. His tail is thrashing about in a similar manner as furry Janeway's does when she's agitated about something. "We seem to know each other . . . heh. . . but we don't, if you catch my drift. Maybe if we tell a little about ourselves, we can at least keep things calm?"

"Hey, look, I'm sorry about snapping at you guys." the other human Scott says, looking weary. "I've just had a fun time with this one . . . . uh . . . . unusual love. It's like this . . . " The other human Scott then tells how in his universe, he had fallen for a Seven of Nine who had changed into a shuttle craft. This Seven had also fallen for this Scott, and both had gotten a ration of drek from several of the more . . . . provincial members of that universe's Voyager. A few names are mentioned.

"Hmmm, considering that some of those people had been involved in the early fist fights about . . . . misunderstanding about the nature of the furry members of the Voyager crew . . . . " the fox morph mutters.

"Seems that similar things happened on my Voyager, also." our Scott sighs. "But, I guess that since I haven't gotten any comments about my marriage to furry Ensign Wildman, they've learned a lesson, or at least have gotten enough lumps to learn to shut up! I hope that it's the former, rather than the latter. Makes it look like we've learned something in all those years . . . ."

The others nod solemnly, then our Scott notices the fox morph looking at him strangely. Our Scott waves for the fox morph to speak.

"You, actually married Wildman?" the fox morph asks in a wistful voice. "What happened to her husband back home?"

"No husband." our Scott mutters. "Just a creep who lied about protection, and . . .such as life, if you must know."

"Oh." the fox morph says, embarrassed. "I'm kinda got an eye for my version of Wildman, but . . . .she's spoken for. Anyway, my story is unusual. Well, not for us, but . . . I had that energy dampening material on, and I STILL change from a human to a fox morph. A rather good looking one at . . . uh. . . well." The other Scott laugh a little at the fox morphs little show of vanity, and smile to show that they are only laughing in a good natured way.

Finally, the loin morph steps up.

"Well, until I got this mental call about this Scott collective, I thought my life couldn't get any stranger." the lion morph says, rubbing her furry cheek. "And if I ever had this chaos energy, apparently Q or whoever took it away before I was even aware of it's existence. Can't say that I miss it. Not that life on the Voyager is ordinary, with or without that energy . . . . "As for my story, I . . . at some toast that a transformed Seven of Nine who'd turned into a toaster had toasted." the lion morph continues. "It was crawling with those funky nanites, and . . . . well, it turned me and a few other crew members into furries."

Our Scott tells his story, and the others are about to leave when they hear a far off Scott give a scream of anguish, and Scott finds himself back in Sickbay, with the Doctors hovering over the Tuvoks, who look dazed.

"They are okay." the furry Doctor says after a time, after furry Samantha hugs a relieved Scott.

"What happened?" is the main question asked.

Scott reports that the mission was sucessful. This strange Scott collective has been held at bay, for now. Now is the time for life to continue. Now is the time for Scott and his family, that by marriage and by coming aboard, to continue on it's way "home."

But it turns out that Scott is still....well....not awake yet. He is only dreaming that he's awake.

Thus...the dream:

And suddenly vanishes. With the disappearance, comes a vision. It's not totally clear, but Scott realizes that all of what just happened is some type of sign. A sign of danger coming that could spell then end of his family and the Voyager! Scott doesn't understand it totally, but he knows that he's seeing . . . . an episode of Voyager that HAD not come out yet! Something called "Oblivion," of all things!! One other thing that was painfully clear to Scott was that . . . . he needed to take this opening that was coming up . . . . and contact somebody to learn more. He had to go to a Deep Space Nine that was suffering from what was called an unreality field. It would allow people and things to come together without threatening the fabric of the universe (since the field was said to be a manifestation of a god like beings sense of humor). Something warned him that . . . .

"There's my ride now." Scott says to nobody in particular as something like the Bajoran Wormhole opens up and waits for him to walk through. Scott knows that this sucker is only for him. Anyone else walking through it wouldn't be effected at all. Heck, this thing wouldn't even give him any "chaos energy" that had been plaguing him for who knows how long.

Scott appears in front of a . . . Daboo table?! Scott looks around and sees he's in Quark's bar! Scott shakes off his vertigo, and then comes up with a dirty, but doable plan! The Parises had told Scott in passing that both of their universes Quarks ran this one Daboo table, in the corner, that was rigged!! The REALLY interesting thing was that just before Parises went off with the Voyager, they had learned of a MAJOR defect in that brand of rigged Daboo table. Just apply pressure to a circuit node that was within easy reach at a certain point . . . . Funny thing was that rumor had it that Quark DIDN'T know about it. . . .

Thiry minutes latter, and a nightmare for Quark latter, Scott pulled in the last gold pressed latinum chit.

"We have a . . . . winner." Quark says mournfully. Scott knows that Quark is looking at financial ruin, or at least financial inconvenience, in the face with all the chits Scott has in his hand. Quark couldn't even go and accuse Scott of cheating because, as Quark ducked under the table to "retrieve" something, Scott had given the circuit nod a covert squeeze, and had then (under the table) hitched a thumb at the nod, then waved at the Ferengi! The Ferengi had popped up, looking like something had hit him!

"Quark, I want my money NOW!" Scott purrs. Quark looks like he wants to be somewhere, ANYWHERE, else than here! "Unless, of course, we can work something . . . . else out as payment."

Scott gets up and walks over to Quark, who looks up at Scott nervously. Scott then catches the sight of Odo walking in, and frowns. He doesn't need Odo to get into this mess. It'd be too darn awkward. And it would take too long to explain!! Scott motions for Quark to go over to a private, dark corner so that they can go and discuss things without interruption.

"I'd rather you get me something instead of breaking you financially, Quark." Scott whispers as they head off. Quark is caught off guard, and smiles. He then remembers some rule or other in dealing with a customer, and throws up a poker face!

"Look, I need a rare item." Scott says, not feeling like beating around the bush. "You deal with the Black Market . . . . DON'T insult my intelligence Quark!" Scott snaps as Quark opens his mouth to protest. "I want you to contact the Oshcar. Get them to pick up a video tape. A twentieth century video tape from a science fiction series called Star Trek: Voyager. The episode I want is called 'Oblivion.' I want it YESTERDAY, Quark!"

"I don't know." Quark says, wheedling. "The Oshcar are really mysterious and remote. It's true that they just happen to be here, today, but . . . . It'll cost, and the time . . . ."

"Stop." Scott whispers. "I don't give a rat's ass how difficult it is, just do it! Not only will this take care of the money you owe me . . . . I will forget that you are using a series D-234 Daboo table. A table that in some circles would make . . . . business here impossible. Those circles being Odo and friends!! Now GO!"

Quark runs off like Scott lit his paints on fire, and within ten minutes slaps the video cassette down, along with a DVD player. He glares at Scott as Scott plays the cassette. As the show ends, Scott smiles.

"Quark, I suggest you give the copy you made of this sucker to Brahier." Scott says as the wormhole opens and swallows him. "It might prove to save a few lives here!"

Scott appears in Voyager's sickbay, admist the surprised Doctors! He, after explaining what happened, shows the tape to the stunned people in the Sickbay. He hugs his wife and child as they shiver, watching the ravages of the . . . whatever . . . . effect the Voyager on the screen.

The furry Doctor waves a tricorder, set on extreme settings, and yelps when he finds signs of what is happening on the screen, happening around him. He and his human counterpart, along with dozens of scared crew members, go around and counteracting the disaster in the making.

Disaster averted, Scott latter is best man at the wedding (which is taking place at Sardines on the Holodeck, of all places) and smiles as he sees that the Janeways and the Chakotays are holding hands after the ceremony.

The Janeways come up to Scott, after the party is winding down.

"Scott, I . . .. don't know whether to thank you for saving the ship, or dress you down for blackmailing that Ferengi." furry Janeway smiles ruefully. "I think I'll just thank you, and be done with it."

"Funny, that's what I was going to say." human Janeway says with a laugh. "I think the Voyager needs to thank you again! This is beginning to be an embarrassing habit!"

Scott chuckles, just thankful that this emergency, at least is over.

"I don't get it." human Torres says, nerves frazzled from what happened yesterday. "First, I go and see an old video that came from YOUR universe, Scott. It tells of a story where I was a . . . duplicate from that class Y planet that we visited so long ago. Then I'm told that the same thing that happened in the video is happening to the humans in the ship . . . ."

"Well, it's like this, Torres." Scott says, trying to keep from screaming for having to repeat the explanation to the twentieth person who asked him the same question this morning. "Another Scott somehow caught wind of what was going to happen on this ship. He sent me a message that was somewhat scrambled in reception. Besides giving me a killer headache, it also only gave me PART of the means to stop this . . . . melting problem. The message was that if I just PLAYED the #$*#* tape, I'd open up a rift that would allow that guy, Trent, to come through."

"Yes, about that man." Paris chimes in. "What was his story? And how was his staring at each human member of the crew . . . . how did that help?"

"Okay, you know that in some universes actually have magic in them?" Scott began. "You at least know that the defunct Scott Collective thought there was something like that? Well, that guy was from one of those magical worlds. A place called Xanth. There, a person has one unique magical talent. Something that nobody else has. The talent can be something small, like putting a colored dot on the wall, or something big . . . . like being able to transform a living being into another living being by just looking at them and concentrating. That is what they call a Magician grade talent. Trent owed this other Scott for somehow saving his land from utter destruction . . . . something to do with an explosive return of magic to a neighboring land they called Mundania. I don't know all the details of what this other Scott did, and Trent wasn't talking and left before I could corner him. What Trent did do was . . . undo what the Doctor thinks a Q did to the humans."

"So he . . . . magiced us back from being a creature that just looks like humans into . . . . humans and such?" human Torres asks. "That's totally bizarre!"

"I know." Scott says in a flat voice. "I don't explain why this stuff happens, I just work here. Anything else, Torres? Does the septic system need to be overhauled?"

"No, we took care of that yesterday . . . . it REALLY needed it." Torres says in a vague voice. Something about that system still bugged her. Nothing weird happened, but she had expected . . . . something! Something about things . . . . "floating down there."

The meeting breaks up, and Scott and the Wildmans spend the day crawling through the maintenance tubes and discussing how frustrating it was that the video DIDN'T tell how the warp core could have been changed to shorten the trip back to the Alpha quadrant!

Scott keeps quiet about humerous fantasy novels by Piers Anthony, and about a creeping suspicion that . . . . Q might have NOT done anything to the human's in the Voyager. How will that effect the humans getting home, when they finally get to the Guardian of Forever in THIS universe?!

But we see that Scott has been dreaming, and he had nearly died when he had delivered the messages to his other selves.

But more strangeness. We see that Scott is spending the day recovering from his wounds with his family. But we see that the entire crew has been de-aged by ten years and Scott's daughter, Naomi, is missing.....Scott closes his eyes, hoping for it to be a dream and.....

Sighs when he still finds his daughter missing, and his wife still a teenage black puma morph. Scott calms his wife down, even though he feels like running through the hallways and show a little panic himself. Samantha gathers herself, still a Star Fleet Officer, and both heads to the Bridge. Hopefully, one of the Captains will have an idea what the Hell is going on!

But, before the couple can step out of the turbolift onto the bridge . . . . the world goes even more wacky!

Furry Samantha Wildman clutches her sensitive ears as what sounds like . . . . an oil tanker getting slam dunked, goes off all around her! She screams in pain, then opens her eyes in confusion as she finds herself on the bridge . . . except the bridge has a off color, too bright color to it! Also, the people there seem to be acting strange.

"Savage." human Janeway says. Then Samantha blinks as the scene shifts to the Ready Room, strangely, it looks like when she had to tell her Captain Janeway that she was pregnant!

"Odd, but driven." furry Janeway says, puzzled. "Something that appears to be of this universe, but really isn't. Explain yourself!"

Samantha Wildman suddenly makes the connection. These seem to be this universes version of the Bajoran Wormhole aliens! Why they are doing out here and bothering the Voyager is beyond her, but . . . .

"Before I answer that, by any chance are you responsible for the de-aging of the crew, and the disappearance of my and my analog's daughter?" Samantha asks, hoping against hope. This brings on a flurry of questions that, if the Author felt like it, would take up a page and then some in words. What it boils down to is this. They ARE indeed involved in this mess with the Voyager. Samantha tells how the Voyager came here, and tells what lead up to it. The Aliens are fascinated about the Q (seems that they never met, much less heard, of the Q). They are also fascinated by the strange nature of the mortals perspective of time. Finally, after a long argument between one moderate faction of the Warphole Aliens, and another faction that Samantha thinks is the Par Wraiths, it is decided that these Voyager creatures are not at fault at disturbing the their peace. Indeed, it gave them something to do!

Furthermore, one thing happens that Samantha thought never would happen. In addition to returning the Voyager crew to normal, thus returning the Naomis back, unharmed, and the Wormhole Aliens APOLOGIZE! That was a running joke that Scott had shared with her. One of the plots that would never be seen in a Star Trek show was were godlike aliens would abduct the crew of a Star Fleet ship, and the apologize for making a mistake. Samantha knows that in Scott's universe, there was a 2D show that had the Voyager as a work of fiction . . . . That still was a matter of discussion aboard the ship (but it was concluded that, in a multitude of infinite universes, something like that had to happen).

She finds herself in her room with Scott.

"Mommy!" squeals Naomi as she rush into her mother's arms. Scott comes over and shares a three way hug between her and his daughter

The next day is kind of hetic for both Samantha's.....

Let us follow Samantha for a while, shall we?

WE see that a Pagh'Wraith (the demon equivalent of the Bagoran religion from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine...also called the Par Wraith in the Furry universe) has decided that it's interested in the affairs of the humanoids. It is especially interested in aspects of linear time...

The Pagh'Wraith followed furry Wildman's every step as she went through a shift in engineering.

It desired Samantha to leave Engineering but couldn't do anything with the warp engine running. Once it possesed this linear creature, it could bring it to the entrance of the, what they called a wormhole, and trap the 'Prophets' in it forever. This linear conveyance did have the abillity. And once the 'Prophets' were trapped, this linear conveyance could be used to explore the nature of the universe.

  1. The first thing that was desired (the Pagh'Wraith was....

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