Myst in DC part 34 (Patreon)

“Captain Riker and Chakotay are at the door,” the computer stated.

“Open the door,” Sabrina said, having seen the two captains approach with her invisible drone.

Riker blinked as the doors opened, revealing Dawn and Sabrina sitting on a couch sans clothes with Deanna sitting across from them in a chair. “Ah, sorry to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding, come in and have a seat,” Sabrina gestured toward the other chair, taking some amusement in the fact that the men were trying to be polite and yet certainly appreciated the view. 

“What can we do for you?” Dawn asked.

Riker kept his attention on Sabrina’s face as he walked into the VIP quarters. “One of Chakotay’s crew members is apparently a Cardassian.”

“That sounds a bit suspect,” Sabrina mused.

Chakotay did his best to keep his gaze focused on Sabrina’s eyes rather than the rest of her or Dawn despite the fact that both of the young ladies were gorgeous, a fact made harder by the fact that they were sitting down. “Riker mentioned that you’re a telepath, I’d rather not accuse one of my crew of being a Cardassian spy if I can avoid it, but I have to be sure. I’d also like to discuss upgrading my ship with Myst.”

Sabrina glanced at Riker. “I’m willing to check your crew member. As for upgrading your ship, what are you willing to trade?”

“What do you want?” Chakotay asked, not sure what he had that the strangers would want.

“You’ll have to ask Myst but he’d probably want you to stick around for a couple of days to make sure the Ocampa world doesn’t get swarmed by Kazon until we can set up some type of defense.” She smiled as Myst, B’elanna and Kes appeared in the hallway. “Computer, open the door.”

Myst glanced between Chakotay and Riker as he walked into the VIP quarters with Kes and B’elanna following behind, making the room feel a bit crowded. “Captain, Chakotay?”

“B’elanna?” Chakotay asked in surprise as he recognized his chief engineer. “What happened?”

B’elanna focused on Chakotay. “I was tired of being half Klingon, so I took the upgrade.”

“What species are you?” Dawn asked.

Myst grinned. “She’s a dark elf, on average they’re generally smarter and more dexterous than humans and live for six or seven hundred years. They also have some interesting abilities, like seeing in perfect darkness and creating clouds of darkness.”

Riker glanced at Deanna then focused on Kes. “Did she lose her mental abilities?”

“No, I wouldn’t have made the change permanent if she’d lost her abilities.” Myst shrugged. “I would have just boosted her lifespan.”

“Just like that?” Chakotay asked.

“Pretty much,” Myst replied as he conjured a cupcake. “This can reset a person’s age to twenty two and let them live forever barring death from injuries. I’d have to tweak things a bit for Ocampa but it’s entirely possible that I could have figured out a version that would work. Thankfully, I didn’t have to because the Ocampa life cycle is a bit of a pain.”

“You’re claiming that a cupcake can give you immortality?” B’elanna asked, wondering if he was joking or if he’d upgraded some type of retrovirus or if it contained a swarm of nanites. 

“Yep,” Myst replied with amusement as he stuck the cupcake in his inventory.

“Not a bad way to make sure everyone lives long enough to get back,” Dawn piped up.

“Speaking of upgrades, what would you want to upgrade my ship?” Chakotay asked, wanting to ask about the cost of the cupcakes but knowing his ship was more important at the moment.

Myst glanced at Riker then focused on Chakotay. “That depends on Riker, you’re technically criminals as far as the Federation is concerned. Let me be clear, I think the Federation made a bunch of stupid choices over the years, the deal with the Cardassian ‘empire’ was certainly one of them. That said, I have no idea how many of your crew are freedom fighters and how many are straight up criminals.”

“Meaning what?” Chakotay asked, willing to admit the man had a point about his crew.

“Meaning, I don’t trust your crew,” Myst said as he walked over and sat down next to Sabrina.

“And you trust a completely unvetted Starfleet crew more?” Chakotay asked as he glanced at Riker, thinking he probably did as well, but trying to interject enough doubt into the conversation to gain a more favorable bargaining position. 

Myst shook his head. “No, but I’m not dealing with Starfleet, I’m dealing with Captain William Thomas Riker, a man that Captain Picard speaks very highly of and Captain Picard is someone that I trust to do the right thing or at least the best he can, which is really all that anyone can ask.”

Myst gestured toward Deanna. “I trust Riker to listen to his empathic counselor when she tells him that one of the alien races isn’t trustworthy, I trust him to know when to trade technology and when not to.”

“And you’re saying that the Maquis aren’t trustworthy?” B’elanna’s asked, easily keeping her cool at the insinuation and somewhat surprised at that.

Myst turned to look at B’elanna. “I’m saying that you’re used to getting supplies from anyone that would sell them, no matter how much of a bastard they are. I’m not Starfleet, I don’t actually care if you trade technology to a group of friendly aliens that won’t cause untold amounts of death and destruction, but I’m firmly against selling game changing technology to insane alien warlords which is what the Kazon are.”

“You don’t think we can tell the difference?” B’elanna demanded, a bit of heat in her voice.

“You? Maybe yes, maybe no? How many of your crew are cultural anthropologists or were in the command track? Without having some idea of the native’s technology and culture, it’s hard to judge what they’ll do with the technology. Even if you think you have a decent handle on a culture, there are always factions that are willing to do things they shouldn’t, like most weapons dealers.”

“Fair point,” Chakotay admitted, knowing that most of his people cared more about results than the method they used.

B’elanna sighed as she realized that he had a good point. “If you’re not willing to help, why upgrade my abilities?”

“I’m unwilling to upgrade your ship without some agreement with Captain Riker because the ship can be salvaged if it’s destroyed. Depending on how much I upgrade a ship, the best way to get rid of it to avoid spreading tech well in advance of Starfleet itself is by parking it in a convenient sun and forgetting about it. You’re a decent person which means I don’t mind helping you personally. Not to mention Captain Riker is going to need the help, you’d make an excellent chief engineer.”

“You’re suggesting I jump ship?” B’elanna asked, glancing between Myst and the two captains.

Myst shook his head. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying that Voyager is down to little more than a skeleton crew for the size of the ship and your ship isn’t nearly powerful enough to make it all the way back to Earth without help and upgrades, either from me or Voyager. It’s all about the right person for the job. If I want someone for a diplomatic mission with a lot of social issues, I send someone like Deanna who can use her empathic abilities to figure out what everyone wants and what they’ll live with. If I want to cheat someone in a deal, I’d send Quark to talk with them then send someone like Jadzia Dax to make the deal after Quark twists their head around. They’ll be so relieved to be away from Quark that they won’t even realize she’s arguably better at fleecing people.”

Riker smiled as he thought about Quark and Jadzia, having met both of them before. “In other words, you think their perspectives would help?”

“The Maquis are good at ground fighting and gathering supplies in the ass end of nowhere, which is basically where we’re currently stuck. I’m not suggesting we abandon common sense or anything, but there is nothing wrong with a bit of creativity. Not to mention most pilots in the Maquis will put up the shields when someone comes to attack rather than waiting for the captain to tell them to put up the shields or start evasive maneuvers when the aliens start shooting without having to be asked.”

“I’ll have a chat with Mr. Paris and make sure he knows he has the authority to put up the shields when anyone charges up their weapons and to use defensive maneuvers when people start firing rather than waiting for my command,” Riker said, knowing they had to err on the side of caution if they wanted to get the ship home.

“The point I’m trying to make is, you’re going to have to figure out which rules to break, which ones to bend and which to ignore. You’re also going to have to come to terms with the fact that you’re supposed to be hauling Chakotay and his crew back home to stand trial, which is pretty unreasonable all things considered.”

“Mostly the fact that we barely have the crew to run two shifts and we’d need to keep them in the brig for seventy years which would eat up resources,” Riker said sardonically, knowing they lacked the crew or resources to do so for a single decade much less seven of them.

“I’m willing to upgrade Deanna’s telepathy to the point where it’s usable to send and receive thoughts which is technically against the rules in Starfleet as far as I know.” Myst focused on Chakotay. “So, long story short, before I upgrade your ship, hash things out with Captain Riker.”

“I suggest letting one of the telepaths look over your people,” Sabrina said cheerfully.

“In fact,” Myst cut in before Riker could do more than open his mouth. “I’ll toss in immunity to fire, lightning and cold for everyone that gets a clean bill of mental health, that one isn’t genetic so Starfleet shouldn’t care.”

Chakotay glanced between Myst and Captain Riker. “I’m willing to work together.”

Riker glanced at Deanna then focused on Chakotay, knowing she’d always wanted better telepathy, even if she was mostly ‘content’ with being an empath. “We have a lot to discuss.”

“Can you help my people?” Kes asked hopefully.

Myst briefly considered trying to talk to the Ocampa elders in an attempt to convince them that they’d have to do something drastic like leave their underground city before their power ran out and they died. The problem was that even if he could convince them that the Caretaker was dead, five years to an Ocampa was basically fifty to a human and all of the leading council were at least six or seven years old which meant they’d be dead before the city ran out of power. “Probably not.”

“Why not?” Kes asked.

Myst shook his head. “They’d have to want to be helped.”

“None of the leaders believed us when we told them that the Caretaker was dying,” Captain Riker pointed out.

“Second, even if your people wanted to, living on the surface isn’t remotely reasonable because of the environment and the Kazon, which means they’d have to leave your homeworld and travel somewhere else. I can’t see any of them agreeing to do that in a reasonable timeframe.”

“I can’t either,” Kes admitted, knowing how much the council had objected to people leaving the city to farm.

Riker shook his head. “Sorry, a few days would be one thing, maybe a week but he’s right, it would take weeks at best to convince the leaders that they need to consider evacuating and at best we’d only have enough space to transport a few hundred at a time. Not to mention we’d have to find a suitable location before we could start relocating people. Even then, we’d need to transport enough plants and equipment to make everything work. It’s basically a logistical nightmare considering we’d have to find a safe planet before we could even start relocating your people.”

“Not to mention most of my people wouldn’t want to leave,” Kes admitted.

“The best we can do is probably placing a magical cabinet in a tunnel, near one of the gaps in the shields and drop the other cabinet on a habitable planet outside of Kazon territory,” Sabrina offered. “That should let the more adventurous among your people start settling the planet and provide an evacuation point for the rest when the power finally does fail.”

“I have friends that aren’t in the main section, they’d be perfect,” Kes suggested.

“What is the range on the cabinets?” Riker asked.

Myst frowned slightly as he got a precog flash of getting lost between dimensions if he tried the cabinet that went to Hogwarts. “They should work anywhere in this dimension.”

“We still need to figure out a way to deal with the Kazon,” Riker said, not seeing a problem with stopping on the way out of the system for a few hours or days to help the Ocampa.

“I have a nasty idea,” Sabrina said cheerfully.

“What are you thinking?” Riker asked.

“We’re basically hopelessly outnumbered, even if we aren’t outgunned by the Kazon. We don’t have a fleet of Federation ships backing us up and the Kazon are a warlike tribe, perhaps the best way to deal with the Kazon is a show of force,” Sabina explained.

“As in destroying one of their ships?” B’elanna asked, figuring the Kazon would leave them alone if they could prove that it wasn’t worth fighting.

Sabrina smirked. “Nope, something even more demoralizing. If Myst upgrades the transporters and sensors we might be able to beam everyone off their ship.”

“Into space?” B’elanna asked thoughtfully.

“While that’s certainly one option, I was thinking we could transport them to the brig and recruit some of their engineers. Someone has to keep the ships running, even if most of them are hunters and lunatics,” Sabrina glanced at B’elanna, “engineers have to be somewhat sane.”

“You seem to know a lot about current events for someone from another dimension,” Riker noted.

Myst shrugged. “We’ve seen the cliff notes for another version of this timeline. In that timeline, Katherine Janeway was placed in command of the Voyager.”

“She was the other choice,” Riker admitted. “What happened?”

“Chakotay sacrificed his ship to take out one of the carriers after the crew was beamed aboard Voyager, which left everyone on a Federation ship. She destroyed the array and stranded the ship in the Delta quadrant because she didn’t trust a timed explosive to make sure the array was destroyed after using it to send everyone home. Either way, she made Chakotay the first officer and drafted the Maquis.”

“That worked?” B’elanna asked, more than a little surprised.

Myst lifted his hand and shook it. “Sort of, it took a while and that was probably the last decent decision for a while. I’m not sure if she was suffering from a mental breakdown or if she was just ridgid to the point of insanity. Which didn’t help because a few of the Maquis put ‘be stupid’ on their list of things to do, but for the most part the crew eventually gelled, though I’ll never understand some of her choices.”

“Like what?” Riker asked.

“Like making Neelix the ship’s cook while they were rationing the use of replicators because Janeway never wanted to stay in one place long enough to stock up.”

“Wait, you’re telling me, she used someone that was completely unfamiliar with alpha quadrant biology as the cook?” Riker asked in disbelief.

Kes wanted to defend Neelix, but as far as she knew he hadn’t had official training when it came to cooking or xenobiology.

“It gets worse, they were using local ingredients and he isn’t a trained biologist or cook,” Myst said with annoyance, mirroring Kes’ thoughts. “I’m not sure how she avoided muttany or having everyone on the crew get sick and die from allergic reactions.”

“Pure dumb luck as far as I tell,” Sabriina grumbled. “I’m not even touching his inability to understand taste. But yeah, I’d assume if you’re that damned worried about power, you wouldn’t care if everyone had a freshly pressed Starfleet uniform, except she did.”

“That’s concerning,” Deanna said, thinking about the idiotic captain that had required her to wear a Starfleet uniform despite her casual clothes being designed to make people more comfortable and generally assist her in her postion as ship’s councelor.

Riker grinned as he thought about Picard’s reaction to someone telling him that he had to always have a fresh uniform. “That sounds like a coping method pushed too far or everyone deciding that setting up a ship’s laundry was too much work.”

Myst shrugged. “I wasn’t there, I just know that she made some very odd choices. Either way, are you going to drop people on a planet because of some stupid Starfleet regulation if I upgrade them?”

“I’m not leaving anyone stranded,” Riker said, knowing that Deanna wanted to have her telepathy upgraded and he didn’t want to sleep on the couch for the foreseeable future.

“Good.” Myst turned to look at Deanna. “In that case, do you want your telepathy upgraded before I start working on a list of things to avoid from the other timeline?”

“That would be nice.” Deanna knew it would take practice to learn to control her new abilities, but she was willing to put in the time, considering that knowing the true intentions of hostile species could save lives and they didn’t have Starfleet support systems to fall back on.

Chakotay glanced between B’elanna and Captain Riker. “Assuming Counselor Troi can clear most of my crew, would you be open to an exchange of personnel? Some of your crew comes over and some of mine fill in spots on Voyager so we can build up some trust?”

Riker took a breath as he got his thoughts in order. “We barely have enough crew to keep Voyager operational, but scrapping a raider class ship isn’t viable. We’re going to have to get creative if we want this to work.” He glanced at Myst then looked at Chakotay. “We’re going to have to come up with an altered set of regulations, who we can trade with, what we can trade and we’re going to need to recruit some replacements. If we’re going to survive in hostile territory, we’re going to need allies. Hopefully we can crosscheck Myst’s list of aliens with Neelix and find groups that are trustworthy.”

“Then it looks like we have an accord,” Chakotay said, offering his hand.

“Or at least the bones of one,” Riker agreed clasping hands with the man he had been tasked with arresting.