Another ST:VGR Draft

[alixtii]

I'm thinking maybe this one was intended to be 7/Naomi? Or would have I been uncorrupted by the femslashing impulse at this point? The tip of the iceberg of some extensive worldbuilding makes an appearance here.

=/\=

“She was important, wasn’t she?” I ask.

The admiral looked at the hologram on her desk. The inscription on the base read only: Commander Naomi Wildman.

“Her alien genotype caused her to age at three times the usual rate. She died over a century ago.”

Naomi Wildman, I knew, was a mere child when Admiral Nine first met her. What was it like to see everyone, even the children, pass away? The Borg nano-technology traveled through the admiral’s veins, continually repairing all of the celluar damage age inevitably caused.

The decades had not passed her unscathed, of course; not even she could remain unchanged after a century and a half. I’d seen holos of the young Seven of Nine during her time aboard the famed U.S.S. Voyager, and there was a quite a contrast against the mature woman who sat across him. Even the 25^th century, people Seven of Nine’s age were rare, and they looked ancient, like the holos of the last moments of the famed doctor, Admiral Leonard McCoy.

“She was a good officer.” It took a moment for me to realize the admiral was speaking of the late Lieutenant Commander Wildman.

“But she’s part of your story?”

A sad, wistful smile appeared across Admiral Nine’s face. “She has a special place in it, yes. She was . . . family.” She paused, then leveled her gaze at me. “You wish to hear the story?”

I nodded. “My story begins as it ends . . . with an organization known only as Section 31.” I said nothing. “You refuse to acknowledge your association? Eminently logical, as a Vulcan I once knew might say. You will, however, find your efforts futile. Still, I have a story to tell.”

She leaned back in the chair of her office. “I will not insult you by telling you what you already know, how Desmond Paris and T’Leya of Vulcan founded Section 31 a century before even James T. Kirk was born. We will suffice it to say that throughout the existence of the Federation, Section 31 has plagued Starfleet . . .or guarded it, depending on how you look at it. Starfleet was not alone in containing such an organization, however. Cardassia’s Obsidian Order was organized according to similar principles. For the Romulans, there was—”

“The Tal Shiar,” I finished for her.

She nodded. “What no one even considered at the time, however, was that these organizations existed in anything other than an adversarial capacity. That they might all be secretly working together was not even imagined.

“In [----], a Romulan member of the Tal Shiar received a message from the future—in particular, from the U.S.S. Voyager. During the communication, the Romulan—knows as ---—learned that twenty years in the future, Voyager would be lost in the Delta Quadrant. Voyager was thrown into the Delta Quadrant by a member of a power race called the Nicene(?).”

=/\=

Are you familiar with the exploits of Captain Tyranna Vruo?”

Nine’s apparent non sequitor took me off guard. “A Betazoid,” I answered, “in command of the U.S.S. Laurel from [----] to [----]. I’ve read Molly Drew’s quite colorful and often fantastic accounts, of course. And I met the Admiral once quite briefly a few years before her death.”

“Then you know how the saga of the Laurel ended?”

I nodded. “It was damaged in a battle with the Borg, who had taken an interest in the near-omnipotence developed by Ensign T’Kora of Vulcan after contact with a telepathic race of primitive humanoids.”

“And so, severely damaged, the Laurel traveled back to Federation space victorious. En route, it received its orders for decommission.”

=/\=

“Is the warp drive still on-line, Ensign?”

“Aye, sir.”

Tryanna Vruo looked at the crew of the Laurel, who had been through so much together, had somehow been forge into a family. “What did James Kirk do when his ship was decommissioned, Molly?”

The helmsman smiled back at her. “Laying in course for second star to the right, sir.”

“Engage.”

=/\=

“Of course, while Starfleet may have been willing to look the other way to a pre-decomission joyride, the theft of a Federation ship would have been another matter. So the Laurel finally laid in course for the nearest starbase. The crew received their new orders: Tryanna Vruo received a promotion to Admiral and command of Deep Space Eleven. Her first officer, the Bajoran Fotin Ky, was promoted to captain and given the U.S.S. MacArthur. The rest of the crew would be divided between DS11 and the MacArthur based on the recommendations of Vruo and Fotin.”

“Which is what happened,” I answered, remembering the history from Drew’s book. “Vruo got Drew—who transferred to security—and the CMO; Fotin took the Chief Engineer.”