Star Trek: Voyager--the rewrite (updated 25 October)

[Satori]

I always wondered why cannon ST seemed to have forgotten the existence of Duct tape.
It solves so much.

[RedImperator]

The replicators were working again. Janeway was taking advantage with her third cup of black coffee in a row. She was sitting in the science department's conference room with Tuvok and Tom Paris.

"So you're the civilian expert Bujold brought on board," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"What were you doing in the brig?" said Janeway.

"Bujold thought I was yanking her chain, so she sent me there."

"Were you?" said Tuvok.

"Of course not," said Paris. "What do I care what happens to Chakotay?"

"Did you know anything about this?" said Janeway to Tuvok.

"I did not. My last contact with Captain Bujold was three days before we left the Alpha Quadrant. I find the logic of using Mr. Paris as a guide...interesting."

"You don't trust me, either," said Paris.

"Your history demonstrates that it is usually unwise to do so."

"I should just get ear extensions," said Paris. "If everybody's going to treat me like a Ferengi, I might as well look like one."

Janeway drew a finger across her throat, silencing the budding argument. "Well, however trustworthy you are or aren't, I'm too shorthanded to have you sitting in the brig wasting oxygen. If I even had a working brig. Do you have any useful skills?"

"I'm a great pilot," said Paris.

"That's not very helpful right now. What else can you do?"

Paris shrugged. "On New Senegal, I was a trustee in the hospital for a while."

"Good," said Janeway. "Get down to sickbay, talk to the Doctor about helping him."

"Sure," said Paris. "What's his name?"

"He doesn't have one. Dismissed."

Paris, blinking and confused, got up slowly and left. Janeway tapped her communicator as soon as he was gone. "Mr. Gombe, have someone make sure Mr. Paris doesn't get lost on his way to sickbay."

"Yes, ma'am."

Janeway sighed, pinched her nose, and hung her head. For a minute, maybe two, she zoned out, thought of nothing. She snapped out of it and reached for her coffee. Her hand was shaking slightly; she focused on the muscles in her wrist and arm and it stopped.

Tuvok was still in the conference room, watching her the whole time.

"What do you want?" snapped Janeway.

"Commander Janeway, may I make an observation?"

"Feel free," said Janeway.

"You are exhausted," said Tuvok.

"I'm fine," she said. "I've pulled plenty of all-nighters before."

"With respect," said Tuvok. "The stakes today are considerably higher than they were when you were cramming for your Astrogation 401 exam, and you are fifteen years older now then you were then."

Janeway cracked a smile. "I never took Astro 401," she said.

"The point stands," said Tuvok.

"Mr. Tuvok, I appreciate your concern, but I have too much work to do. This ship needs a commanding officer. I'll sleep when we get home."

"Commander--"

"The discussion is closed, Tuvok," said Janeway. She tapped her commbadge again. "Ensign Wildman, I'm ready for you now."

The doors hissed open and Ensign Samantha Wildman entered. She was human, of medium height and build, square-faced, blonde, twenty-three. Not yet due for a promotion to lieutenant (j.g.). Practically a baby in diapers, running an entire department in a dire emergency.

She hesitated as she approached the table, unsure where to sit. Janeway gestured for her to take a seat next to her. Tuvok shifted so the three of them were clustered at one end, and could all easily see Wildman's PADD.

"All right," said Janeway. "Report."

"Do you want to hear the report on the station first, or the planet?"

"The station," said Janeway.

Wildman frowned. "We don't have much. Our sensors can't penetrate more than a few centimeters beneath the surface. We're still trying to get a handle on the material composition, but nobody seems to know where our quantum spectrometer is and--"

"It's on DS9," said Janeway. "If you can't find it, that's where it is. Bujold left most of our lab equipment behind because this was supposed to be a quick mission." She took a sip of her coffee and reminded herself there was no point being angry at a dead woman.

"Er, right," said Wildman. "We have learned a few things by examining the surface."

"Such as?" said Janeway.

"It's really old. And battle damaged. Look." Wildman tapped her PADD, calling up a slideshow of visible-light photos of the surface of the station. Each photograph showed obvious battle damage; pits and divots, trenches, faded scorch-marks, hasty repairs. The entire planet-facing hemisphere of the central station was scarred with metal patches and the melted stumps of some kind of support struts..

"Any idea who did this to it? The Kazon?"

Wildman shook her head. "This damage is old. Look at this picture. See this patch? It obviously melted and re-froze. It looks like a lunar maria. Well, just like a lunar maria, you can tell how old something like this is by counting craters and comparing to the known rate of meteoroid bombardment--micrometeroid, in this case."

"Forgive me," said Tuvok, "but how could you know that?"

"We took a census of the sub-millimeter debris in the inner solar system and estimated based on their orbits. It's not perfect, but we can say pretty confidently that these battle scars were made at least ten thousand years ago. Almost certainly longer. The maximum age is one hundred thousand years."

"Assuming it's been here that long," said Janeway. "For all we know, it could have come from some other solar system; maybe a younger one with a lot more debris. Or it could have spent time in an asteroid belt."

Wildman nodded. "Yes, that's a possibility. I'd like to get a surface sample so we can do an isotope comparison between the local solar wind and interplanetary medium and the surface deposits on the station. Then we'd know for sure if it's a wanderer."

"Send a probe to do it," said Janeway. "No EVAs anywhere near that thing until we understand it better."

"Yes ma'am."

"Can we figure out anything else from those battle scars? Any signature left behind by the attackers?"

Wildman shook her head. "If they did, it decayed a long time ago."

"OK. Anything else on the station?"

"No ma'am. Not yet."

"Fine," said Janeway, not feeling fine at all. "What about the planet?"

Wildman perked up. "That's more interesting." She tapped her PADD, bringing up a long list of facts and figures about the planet. "Class N terrestrial; atmospheric composition 96.5% Carbon dioxide
3.5% Nitrogen, 0.015% Sulfur dioxide, miscellaneous trace gases. Atmospheric pressure 90 bar. Mean surface temperature 735 kelvin. Surface completely obscured by sulfuric acid clouds."

"Sounds like a typical class N," said Janeway.

"That's where it stops being typical, ma'am. We made a radar map of the surface. Look at this." She tapped on the PADD and turned it so Janeway could see.

Class N planets--like Venus, a typical example--had distinctive surfaces. They had liquid mantles with active convection, like class-M planets, but without oceans to lubricate tectonic plates--impossible at such surface temperatures--the crust was too rigid for tectonics. Instead, the heat and pressure built up in the interior until the crust failed entirely, and the entire planet was resurfaced in a planetary-scale volcanic event. It had happened to Venus in 2330, undoing a century and a half of terraforming efforts and generally embarrassing the Federation Geological Survey, which had claimed the next resurfacing was thirty million years off. The resurfacing events created a distinctive, easily-identified surface of vast basaltic plains, with a few continent-sized volcanic uplands, riven with cracks and faults, randomly splotched about the planet.

This planet--nicknamed Planet Hell by Voyager's crew--did not look like that.

Janeway wasn't a geologist by training, but anyone who had ever looked at a topographic map of a class M planet would have recognized these features--oceanic basins with central spreading ridges and subduction trenches along the edges, continental shelves, river valley systems and fan-shaped deltas, upthrust mountains, earthquake faults, glacier scars and glacial lakes at high latitudes, even identifiable sedimentary structures. All of it dessicated and baking at temperatures hot enough to melt lead--the high mountains even had deposits of lead oxide "snow" at their peaks--but very obviously formed by familiar class-M processes.

"This is a ruined class-M," said Janeway. "Not a natural N." She nodded. "Was it inhabited?"

"Yes," said Wildman. "We've detected concentrations of refined metals, disturbances to the landscape indicative of agriculture and mining, and the ruins of structures."

Janeway closed her eyes. Starfleet had discovered worlds like this from time to time--worlds inadvertently ruined by their own inhabitants pushing the climate into greenhouse tipover. Sometimes the species survived in space, living in habitats and asteroids. Sometimes...they didn't. Whoever lived on this planet hadn't.

Maybe Wildman had guessed what she was thinking. "It wasn't their fault, captain. Look." She played another slideshow on her PADD. Radar and subspace images of ruined structures, enhanced by the computer, flipped by. All of them were masonry, heavy, rough, primitive. No flying buttresses, no domes, not even any arches. The styles were subtly different, but most were variations on "big pile of rocks" like Egyptian or Mayan pyramids, with the most sophisticated structures looking vaguely Egyption or Minoan; thick stone walls and massive columns. "Captain," said Wildman, "the only refined metals we detected were bronze and very little iron. No steels, no aluminum."

"The acid in the atmosphere," said Janeway.

"It wouldn't have eaten it all away," said Wildman. "Most of it never reaches the surface. It's so hot down there it disassociates. No culture on this planet got past the iron age. They didn't ruin their world."

Janeway steepled her fingers. "You wouldn't be bothering with all this buildup if it were natural, would you?" she said.

"No ma'am," said Wildman. "Look." She called up one last picture on the PADD. It was a tower, more than a kilometer high. "It's made of the same stuff as the station. There are thirty more just like it still standing, and more which have collapsed." She highlighted a ruined structure near its base. Janeway thought it was small, until Wildman zoomed in and a scale indicator appeared. It was an enormous building, set at the nexus of a dozen radial avenues lined with more ruined buildings. "What do you think that is?"

"It looks like a temple," said Janeway. "They worshipped these towers." She turned to Wildman. "So which came first, the people or the towers?"

"We don't know," said Wildman. "We want to launch a probe."

"Do it," she said.

"I should report this to Chakotay," said Tuvok.

"Yes, fine," said Janeway.

Gombe's voice came over the intercom. "Bridge to Janeway, he said.

"Janeway here."

"Ma'am, you'd better come up here. Long range sensors just detected another ship entering the system at warp. He's on his way to the inner system."

"Yellow alert," said Janeway. She popped up out of her seat and finished her coffee in one swig. "Let's go," she said.

[The Romulan Republic]

Very nice. You seem to be making Ensign Wildman a more prominant character in this version. I quite liked her discussion with Janeway; they both seemed smart and competent. I like the characterizations.

Also some interesting changes to the original here, the most notable being just how much worse off the Ocampa's world appears to be. And the existing battle damage to the Array; I hope this is foreshadowing something interesting. Oh, and I liked the reference to the failed attempt at terraforming Venus; it was a nice bit of background information as well as perhaps a little funny.

[TabascoOne]

One thinks that 'oops' just wouldn't cover something like losing 150 years of time and treasure.

I like the implications for Janeway's character that her sleep depriving has. Its a classic sign of inexperience and someone way beyond their capability, and I'm interested to see when its going to come back and bite her.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Thanks for keeping this story up, Red. It's one of the few here I can find genuine pleasure in reading to the point where even when I don't really have the time for my own stories or much of anything else I still carefully check the fanfics forum for it.

[Edward Yee]

Very nice. You seem to be making Ensign Wildman a more prominant character in this version. I quite liked her discussion with Janeway; they both seemed smart and competent. I like the characterizations.

The reason I saw for this is that not only are they commanding officer and department head, they're previously chief and, subordinate from the same department. Also, the field of discussion doesn't seem very far out of Wildman's field of expertise, or she got a very good briefing beforehand, and Captain Janeway knows it enough not to need "layman's terms."

I just hope Ensign Wildman doesn't make Janeway her model for how to be a department head... if Chakotay's a no-go, then Janeway's priority should be finding a new XO.

[Themightytom]

I can hardly wait for the next chapter, because if thats who i think it is cruising into the system, this will be for me the most important characterization since janeway's reboot. I predict either he will be a stupendous debacle with a short life span, or he will be a magnificent recreation of a clusterfuck of a cahracter. The former is the way most fanfics handle him, and I'm sure Red is sorely tempted, but the latter is how I suspect he will do it.

Great work Red!

[Jans]

Its been so long since I saw the pilot for Voyager that I don't necessarily remember what was included in it, was the geo-science analysis a part of that or is it your work?

[RedImperator]

Its been so long since I saw the pilot for Voyager that I don't necessarily remember what was included in it, was the geo-science analysis a part of that or is it your work?

In the original pilot, the Ocampa homeworld had been stripped of its "nucleogenic particles" which in Trek science, are necessary for rain to form, so the planet had been turned into a giant desert. This makes...well, I hate to hurf hurf about bad Trek science, but this is pretty ridiculous (where did the water go?). So I changed it into the Ocampa homeworld getting Venus-ized, which is the natural end-state of a desert planet anyway (sorry, Tattooine). The geoscience interlude was from me.

[Surlethe]

Is that a quantum spectrometer or a mass spectrometer?

[Jans]

That's what I thought and I'd like to say it was terribly enjoyable. I have an amateur enthusiast's love for all things geology and anthropology, this snippet was an absolute treat to read.

[Simon_Jester]

Is that a quantum spectrometer or a mass spectrometer?

Hmm. Good question. A quantum spectrometer could plausibly be a semi-technobabble device designed to do the job of a mass spectrometer remotely, without need to scrape off a sample, and with the name getting transferred because they serve similar purposes.

Or, of course, they could just mean "mass spectrometer."

I like the implications for Janeway's character that her sleep depriving has. Its a classic sign of inexperience and someone way beyond their capability, and I'm interested to see when its going to come back and bite her.

Though in this case she's in a very real bind; she has no one she can trust to manage the ship as a whole while she's asleep (hell, she can't trust herself to manage the ship, even when she's awake).

[RedImperator]

Is that a quantum spectrometer or a mass spectrometer?

A quantum spectrometer is like a mass spectrometer, just better. Because of quantum.

Couldn't help myself. This is a Star Trek story.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I can hardly wait for the next chapter, because if thats who i think it is cruising into the system, this will be for me the most important characterization since janeway's reboot. I predict either he will be a stupendous debacle with a short life span, or he will be a magnificent recreation of a clusterfuck of a cahracter. The former is the way most fanfics handle him, and I'm sure Red is sorely tempted, but the latter is how I suspect he will do it.

Great work Red!

Make Neelix into Delta Quadrant Mudd?

[Vehrec]

You know, the galaxy is a big place in the 24th century. Which means there's plenty of room for multiple 'The Most Interesting Man in the World' types. If even half his stories are true...

[FaxModem1]

We could have Neelix as a Sacajawea, a navigator who leads them from planet to planet while those he guides argues with each other, all the while carrying his baby child. Although the idea of Neelix's offspring gives me chills.

He could also be the Delta Quadrant version of Jeremiah Johnson, now wouldn't that be neat?

Then again, we could get Delta Quadrant Captain Jack Sparrow.

[Solauren]

Make him a retired Guide/Mercany that went into merchantile stuff.

He knows his way around locally, and would be useful once they get out of his 'sphere of knowledge'.

He should also be the 'strong, silent' type.

[TabascoOne]

Then again, we could get Delta Quadrant Captain Jack Sparrow.

That right there gave me cold chills.

Voyager would never be the same.

[Simon_Jester]

Is that a quantum spectrometer or a mass spectrometer?

A quantum spectrometer is like a mass spectrometer, just better. Because of quantum.

Couldn't help myself. This is a Star Trek story.

Fair enough. But I think it's at least semi-plausible to imagine a quantum spectrometer as being a device for working out elemental compositions at range, by sending out some kind of sensor pulse that gets bounced back differentially by different atomic nuclei and analyzing the signal. Hence it interacts with the nucleus, hence "quantum."

It could be using some of the same technology we see in tricorders.

To me, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing a science-oriented Starfleet would love to get their hands on (because it can measure the composition of objects it's not practical to get a sample from)... and exactly the sort of over-elaborate gizmo Starfleet would put on its ships without regard to whether there's a cheaper, more reliable, almost-as-good alternative.

[Edward Yee]

The geoscience interlude was from me.

No need to apologize for the geoscience interlude, it gave me a great characterization of Janeway and Ensign Wildman's characters and relationship going forward just by how their discussion worked, details aside. Bravo.

[Gil Hamilton]

A quantum spectrometer is like a mass spectrometer, just better. Because of quantum.

Couldn't help myself. This is a Star Trek story.

Hah. The part of me that knows exactly how mass spectrometers actually work may hate you, but quantum makes it all better.

Fair enough. But I think it's at least semi-plausible to imagine a quantum spectrometer as being a device for working out elemental compositions at range, by sending out some kind of sensor pulse that gets bounced back differentially by different atomic nuclei and analyzing the signal. Hence it interacts with the nucleus, hence "quantum."

Actually, there is an instrument that does something vaguely similar to what you are describing. It's called an Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer, called an NMR for short, which exploits nuclear spin while inside a magnetic field to tell you about the environment the nuclei you are target exists in. What you do is ping a sample suspended in a magnetic field with a burst of radiowaves, which causes them to jump up and then relax down again, coughing up energy of specific resonance based on the magnetic field it is in. Calling it "quantum" is kind of silly cause most analysis method are based on quantum mechanics.

I'm sure someone could bullshit up an analytical instrument that works at range that does something similar to NMR without the sample actually being in a solenoid magnet (which is true whether or not you are analyzing a sample in a tube or a human being in an MRI) and without the selection rules that govern what nuclei will resonate in a magnetic field*.

*The selection rule that comes to mind is that for a nucleus to be NMR active, it has have an intrinsic magnetic moment. This is why you can have carbon-13 spectra, but not carbon-12, which is 100 times more abundant in nature.

However, if I were going to make up a bullshit instrument, I would make the worlds most badass X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscope. How XRF works is that it has a radioactive source that fires a beam of x-rays into a sample, which causes a core electron to be ejected from the electron cloud of atom. This leaves a hole, which an electron from a higher energy level drops down to fill it, causing fluorescence characteristic to the specific element. This is detectable and can be readily used to identify any atom above a certain atomic number (it naturally cannot do hydrogen or helium even theoretically).

What's cool is that even today, these instruments are EXTREMELY accurate. Thermo (who gobbled up Niton) sells a beauty of an handheld XRF that looks like a raygun and is coupled to a database, so that you can press it against any surface, pull the trigger and it will not only tell you every detectable element in there, its present concentration, it will do a database lookup and tell you exactly what alloy of metal you are looking at should the sample match its database. Oh, to repeat, it looks like a phaser.

Given that its virtually science fiction cool in its own right, blow it up at large and mount it on a starship, then get a REALLY sensitive detector, and you've got something that can do elemental analysis. Of course, on that scale it would involve a pretty vicious x-ray beam, but I'm sure that can be quantum bullshitted.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm sure someone could bullshit up an analytical instrument that works at range that does something similar to NMR without the sample actually being in a solenoid magnet (which is true whether or not you are analyzing a sample in a tube or a human being in an MRI) and without the selection rules that govern what nuclei will resonate in a magnetic field*.

Or, for that matter, not bullshit the selection rules; that makes it more fun.

But compared to some of the stuff Star Trek has to have just for its ships to fly and its crews to survive, a remote-analysis device that operates by nuclear magnetic resonance spectra (or, hell, "quantum spectra" if you translate from the Gibberese or whatever) is... actually quite reasonable. It's soft sci-fi, but not hopelessly squishy.

What's cool is that even today, these instruments are EXTREMELY accurate. Thermo (who gobbled up Niton) sells a beauty of an handheld XRF that looks like a raygun and is coupled to a database, so that you can press it against any surface, pull the trigger and it will not only tell you every detectable element in there, its present concentration, it will do a database lookup and tell you exactly what alloy of metal you are looking at should the sample match its database. Oh, to repeat, it looks like a phaser.

Given that its virtually science fiction cool in its own right, blow it up at large and mount it on a starship, then get a REALLY sensitive detector, and you've got something that can do elemental analysis. Of course, on that scale it would involve a pretty vicious x-ray beam, but I'm sure that can be quantum bullshitted.

Or not, which is more fun.

Actually, that's much better. I like it, and will pretend it's canon until given specific reason to believe otherwise.

[Gil Hamilton]

Doing the remote version of nuclear magnetic resonance could be made feasible by some use of exotic forcefields that could be projected (which, incidently, could remove the selection rules, NMR has the rule because not all nuclei have magnetic moment). The basic principle of "put something in a field that causes the atoms to line up with it, ping the something with electromagnetic radiation, and then take spectra of resonance within field" can be used. NMR is something I'd throw out because people are familiar with it; the use of the effect for medical imaging in extremely famous.

However, it is admittedly not the best when dealing with really heterogenous environments if you want detailed information more than "thar be hydrogen"; frankly, there are better ways to doing elemental analysis. But the basic idea of projecting a field around something, ringing it like a bell, and seeing what happens would be a valid thing, even if all the details were made up. Conceivably with sufficiently advanced technology, you could utilize something like that to gain not only targeted composition information (IE: "thar be hydrogen" signals), but how it is arranged in matter.

X-Ray Fluorescence, of course, with sufficiently advanced technology, will tell you all about what's in the volume you zapped and might even be feasible be remote. However, it DOES have the problem that X-rays are of limited utility when projected into an atmosphere. High energy photons tend to be very rapidly absorbed, which is fortunate for life on planets but unfortunate if you want to fire X-rays. This is one of the limiting factors of XRF.

Keep in mind that difficulty may vary. Doing spectroscopy on atmospheres from a distance is "easy"; we can do that today, though its nice to actually have a sample of it. When it comes to scanning condensed phase material from a distance, however, you start encountering problems. I'd avoid the whole thing entirely, because when you are trying to apply modern analytical techniques to remote sensing from starships, you very quickly get into precarious positions where what you are trying to apply doesn't make sense. For example, mass spectroscopy usually requires a sample to be ionized and shovelled through a velocity selector before you can detect the ions mass-to-charge ratio. Doing this by remote is silly.

[RedImperator]

Voyager

"Hail him," said Janeway. Let's hope he has subspace comms.

"Hailing frequencies open," said Gombe. "Audio only."

"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. Identify yourself."

There was a pause. Then came a gibberish burst of alien speech. Janeway wondered for a moment if the Universal Translator would catch up--and then it did, like always. "Go away," it said.

Janeway looked back at Gombe. At least he's not shooting at us, she thought. That's progress,

"Unidentified ship--"

"My name is Neelix, my ship is the Baxial, and I paid the Kazon Ogla for salvage rights in this field, so you can just scram. Take it up with them if you don't like it."

Janeway put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. She made a "mute" gesture at Gombe.

"Hostile little booger, isn't he?" said Chakotay.

"If he were hostile, he'd have shot at us already," said Janeway. She gestured for Gombe to turn the comms back on. "Mr. Neelix, we're not interested in jumping your salvage claim. We're a long way from home and we're just looking for some information."

"Tell him you'll pay him," said Chakotay.

"We're willing to pay you for your time," said Janeway.

There was another pause.

"Captain, he's opened a video channel," said Gombe.

"Well by all means," said Janeway, "put it on screen."

Gombe did, and Janeway had to fight a burst of laughter. The alien on screen was short and stocky, made to look even shorter by an unflattering camera angle. He had a stiff mane on top of his head and spotted skin on his temples. The cockpit of his little ship was strewn with debris. He wore a suit of lavishly clashing colors.

He looks like a hedgehog, thought Janeway. A hedgehog crossed with a Ferengi used car salesman.

Neelix smiled at the camera, showing a mouth full of pointed teeth. "Greetings," he said. "What, um, what would you be willing to pay me?"

"Well, I doubt our currency is worth anything out here," said Janeway. "But we'd be happy to barter supplies or services."

Chakotay, who was on the viewscreen in an inset, mouthed "Services?"

Neelix seemed to think about that for a minute. Finally, he said, "How much water can you spare?"

#

"Ahhhhhhhh," said Neelix, as he slid into the bathtub of near-scalding water. The bathroom was thick with steam. Janeway, Tuvok, and Chakotay looked on. Apparently, Neelix didn't value his privacy much, or had a different concept of it from the rest of them.

He also stank like a monkey's cage. The computer automatically dispensed soap into the water.

"Gotta conserve water on my little ship," said Neelix. "Don't even have a shower. Ripped that out to make room for more cargo space. Ahhh...this is nice, forgot how nice a hot bath was." He suddenly looked self-conscious. "You know, my people are actually very hygenic. But when it's just me for weeks and weeks, there's no reason to waste water on a bath. That's what stations are for."

"And your people are...?" said Chakotay.

"Talaxians, native of Talaxia. About seven hundred light years spinward from here. I'm actually from a moon called Rinax...used to be a nice place."

"Used to?" said Janeway.

Neelix appeared somber for a moment. "Yeah. There was a...well, there was a big war. We, um, lost." Then he shook it off, and his voice and body language became upbeat again. "But, no use dwelling on the past, right? So where are you fine folks from?"

"We're from the United Federation of Planets," said Janeway. "Mr. Chakotay and I are humans, from a planet called Earth. Mr. Tuvok is from the planet Vulcan."

"If you're from Earth," said Neelix, "why aren't you called Earthians?"

Janeway and Chekotay looked at each other and shrugged. I've always wondered that myself, thought Janeway. "It doesn't sound very good in our native language," said Chakotay, which Janeway figured was as good an answer as any.

"I see," said Neelix. "So where is this Federation of yours?"

"About seventy-five thousand light years from here," said Janeway.

"Oooh, that's quite a ways. We don't see many from that far off."

"You mean there's been more like us?" said Chakotay.

"Oh, yes! It was one or two every year, for years. Lately, though, it's been one or two a month. Nobody knows why the Caretaker does it. Usually it grabs them from pretty nearby, but once in a while it reaches way out and snags somebody like you."

"The Caretaker? Who is that? Does he live on that station?" said Chakotay.

"As far as anybody knows, he is the station," said Neelix. "Nobody knows why he does it. It's been good business for the Kazon, though. And those of us living off the Kazons' table scraps." He suddenly looked embarassed. "Not that, you know, it isn't terrible for the poor people who get sucked out here."

Janeway chose to ignore the faux pas. "Why is he called the 'Caretaker'. What's he taking care of?"

"Nobody knows that either," he said. "If you ask me, there's something on the planet. But that's just a guess."

"Has it ever taken another Federation starship?" said Janeway.

"I don't know," said Neelix. "Usually we only find out about the ones Jal Jabin catches."

"Who is he?" said Janeway. "Who are the Kazons?"

"Jal Jabin? He's the Maje--boss--of this system. He reports directly to First Maje Jal Razik. He's the boss of the entire Ogla sect. They own everything from here to about fifty light years spinward. They're the biggest Kazon sect."

"How many more are there?" said Chakotay.

"There are eighteen big sects," said Neelix. "Or nineteen. Sixteen. It's hard to remember; they're always allying with each other and having civil wars and the like. And then there are hundreds of smaller sects. Some of them are just one extended family with one ship. They fight each other all the time, unless they have someone else to fight." He eyed Janeway, Chakotay, and Tuvok. "People like you. Jal Jabin has five hundred kills, if you believe him."

"Does anybody ever defeat him?" said Chakotay.

"Sometimes," said Neelix. "Most people just try to run away, but sometimes they fight. There was one species--a 'Jam Haddar'--which actually deliberately crashed their ship into Predator--that's his ship. It took them almost a year to repair it." He looked around. "How did you fight him off?"

"We trans--" started Janeway.

"Our weapons are far more sophisticated than theirs," said Chakotay. "We smashed Predator in one shot."

Janeway expected Neelix to be impressed. And he was...to an extent. But he looked pensive, too. "Captain, you might not want to stay here too long," he said. "Jal Jabin doesn't like sharing his loot, but if the Ogla think you're a threat, they'll come back with more ships."

"Then we'll blow them up, too," said Chakotay, but Janeway could hear a whisper of uncertainty in his voice, too.

"We'd like to get out of here before the Kazons come back," said Janeway. "How do you know the Caretaker's name?"

"Well, I know because it told the Kazons."

"It communicated with them?" said Janeway. Her heart started pounding. For the first time, they had something to communicate with. If you could communicate with it, you could negotiate with it. If you could negotiate with it, maybe you could get it to send you back home.

Chakotay and Tuvok looked to be having the same thoughts. Neelix tried to let them down easy. "It was only once, years ago. It told them they could come in the system, but they couldn't build a base here and they weren't allowed to try to board the station."

"Did they ever try?" said Chakotay.

"Well, they could never find a way into the station," said Neelix. "But they tried building a space station, yes. In orbit of this planet."

"What happened to it?" said Janeway.

"The Caretaker...moved it."

"Moved it where?"

Neelix started to fidget. "Um...the sun," he said.

"The Caretaker threw the station in orbit of the sun?" said Janeway.

"No," said Neelix. "It threw the station into the sun."

Janeway, Tuvok, and Chakotay all looked at each other, none of them having anything useful to say. Like this wasn't bad enough already, said Janeway. The Caretaker wasn't just inconsiderate, it was homicidal.

The tension was broken by the intercom. "Engineering to Captain Janeway."

Janeway didn't recognize the voice. "This is Janeway. Who is this?"

"This is Ensign Vorick, ma'am. Lieutenant Carey and Lieutenant Rodriguez are sleeping until 0400."

"I didn't order them...never mind. What do you need, Mr. Vorick?"

"There is an electrical fault in grid 11, subsection C. It is a simple repair, but in order to make it safely, we must shut down several non-essential systems for fifteen minutes, including the internal communication network."

"Fine," said Janeway. "Make it fast."

"Yes, ma'am."

Vorick made a shipwide announcement, and then the comms went dead. Janeway tested it by tapping her commbadge; it only mustered a strangled "Error" chirp.

Neelix started climbing out of the bathtub. Alarmed, Janeway and Chakotay turned away; Tuvok tossed him a towel. "Well," said Neelix. "It would probably be best if I got back to my ship. You're lovely people, but all that scrap isn't going to sort itself. If, um, you feel like throwing in a little extra payment, that'd be most appreciated."

"Wait," said Janeway. "Has the Caretaker ever sent anybody home?"

"No," said Neelix. "The only way home is the long way."

[CaptainChewbacca]

Awesome. Neelix is a little more interesting, though as a writers note 'spinward' got used a bit too often for my liking.

And 'services'? *shudder*