Part 5 - Starships and Queens

Joey was weaving through an asteroid belt made of cotton candy when a distant electronic chime gently brought him out of his sweet dream.

"Alarm off," Joey muttered as he rolled onto his side.

Twenty minutes later, Joey suddenly snapped his eyes open and gasped, "Shit. Computer. What time is it?"

"The time is oh six hours, fifty-two minutes," the female voice instantly replied.

"I still have eight minutes then," Joey said with relief, and then proceeded to stretch.

After letting out a whoop of a yawn, Joey bounced out of his bed and went straight into the sonic shower in the corner of his room.

"Computer, time," Joey commanded once he had finished the basics and found the tingling sonic vibrations had restored his morning woody.

"The time is oh six hours fifty-five minutes."

"Argh," Joey moaned, then opened the shower's door.

"Warning!," the computer chirped instantly. "Sonic shower deactivated. On next use, please deactivate sonic shower and wait for the end of cycle tone before opening door. This will ensure..."

"Computer, time!" Joey barked, cutting it off, as he reached for his underwear.

"The time is oh six hours, fifty-five minutes," the female voice replied.

Joey stepped into his tunic and zipped it up, then paused in front of the mirror to make sure everything was in order before frowning and saying, "Computer, edit time preferences for Joey Conner. For one hour after a wakeup alarm, all verbal time requests should include the seconds. Save changes and tell me the time again."

"Changes saved. The time is oh six hours, fifty-eight minutes, twelve seconds," the female voice replied.

"Shit. There is no way I'll get to the bridge in less than two minutes," Joey groaned before grabbing his communicator off his night stand, and then dropping it when it chirped.

"Lieutenant Commander Joey Connor, report to transporter room two," the slightly muffled voice of the computer said through the communicator.

"Oh, well now you tell me," Joey exclaimed with irritation as he picked the funky looking metallic arrow up and slapped it to his chest.

Joey pressed the unlock button on the keypad by the door of his quarters, then smiled as the door swooshed open. At least now he had an excuse to be late.

But instead of rushing down the corridor to the turbo lift like he had intended, Joey paused from the sensation that he was missing something important in his rush to leave.

He turned around and scanned his quarters with his eyes, then queried the computer for the time again.

"The time is oh seven hours oh one minutes, thirty-five seconds," the female voice instantly replied from the interior or his room.

"Computer, why didn't you announce my change of orders over the room's com system?"

"Inquiry not understood. Please clarify."

"Why did you use the communicator instead of the room's com system when you relayed my orders to report to the transporter room a few minutes ago."

"Inquiry not understood. Please clarify."

"Clarify yourself!" Joey said with a huff.

"Reference to change of orders not found within default time reference."

"What's the default time reference?"

"Twenty-four hours."

"Computer, where am I supposed to be right now?"

"Lieutenant Commander Joey Connor was scheduled to be on the bridge at seven hundred hours."

Joey's right eyebrow shot up, then reversed its direction as it joined his left eyebrow in forming a frown as he tapped his communicator and said, "Connor to the bridge."

"Brigley here. Joey, you're late again."

"I know that. But late for where?"

"For the bridge, where else would you ... Well, never mind now. Your goose is cooked. The captain just stepped out of the turbo lift."

"Jon, I swear it isn't my fault this time. The computer told me to report to the transporter room over my com badge when I tried to put it on, but now it doesn't seem to know..."

"Lieutenant Brigley," the Captain's voice interrupted in the background of the communicator's signal. "Is that our ops officer reporting in to say he overslept again?"

"Yes sir. Or rather, no sir. He seems to be having difficulty with the computer this morning."

"Tell him to get his ass up here on the double, or he'll have more problems than the computer to deal with.

"Aye, sir," Brigley replied, then privately to Joey said, "You heard the lady."

"Yeah, I heard her," Joey said. "Hey Jon, do me one quick favor first. Update the orders in the computer. I want to see how it announces it to me."

"Okay, but I wouldn't waste any more time if I were you. Brigley out."

Joey stepped back into his room and locked the door, then waited for the computer to speak for over a minute.

"Computer, time," Joey demanded impatiently.

"The time is oh seven hours, oh nine minutes, fourteen seconds. Lieutenant Commander Joey Conner, report to the bridge," the computer said through the room's com system without any hesitation in between.

"Somebody must be playing a fucking joke on me," Joey huffed as he flicked his finger at the unlock button and ran to the nearest turbo lift.

Joey's ears were already red as he stepped out of the turbo lift and on to the bridge, but his spreading blush abruptly halted itself as his blood froze from the way his sister's fingers on her left hand were tapping rhythmically on her chair's status console.

"And I just got comfortable," the ensign muttered under her breath as Joey stepped up to the ops station and officially relieved her.

"Commander, I wish to have a word with you in my ready room," the captain announced just as Joey had gotten settled in.

"Aye, sir," Joey automatically said while his left hand momentarily spazed out from his surge of anxiety, which was only worsened by the panel noisily complaining at his invalid entry.

Joey quickly secured his station and logged off before standing up and catching the look on the brunette's face as she walked up to take his place.

"Don't get too comfortable this time, ensign," Joey said with a firm tone.

"I'm just keeping the seat warm for you, sir," she playfully replied.

Joey had to wipe the smile off his face before pressing the call button on the ready room's door. And when he heard his sister's voice say "Come," he realized he strangely felt relaxed about what was about to take place.

"Captain," Joey said after the door swooshed closed behind him and Sarah hadn't turned from her position at the window.

"What did I say right before I authorized your transfer to my ship?" Sarah said with a quiet yet firm voice.

"No breaks on account of being the Captain's brother," Joey sighed.

"What else?"

"Come on, Sarah. We went through all this last week."

"Well apparently it didn't do any good. What else?"

"I have to be the perfect officer, never slouch on the job, and basically never give anyone any reason to say you play favorites."

"I have to reprimand you just like I would anyone else," she said, turning around.

"Okay, okay ... I know the drill. I'll be painting the ship's hull on my day off again."

"And you'll use the right paint this time. Not the kind that glows neon green or any other color when we're on the night side of the planet."

"Yes sir."

"Joey, you're the best ops officer we have, and I know that all the effort you put into your special projects can leave you drained. If you can't report to duty because you're too tired to get up, then get the doc to give you a note or something. Just don't make up lame excuses like trying to blame the computer. Nobody on the bridge is going buy that, so I can't either."

"Get a note from the doc. Check. But for what its worth, somebody was playing a trick on me this morning by sending a false change of orders computer announcement though my communicator."

"Really ... Have you reported this to security?"

"Awe ... Do I have to?"

"I want you to be here on the bridge when you're supposed to be, not wandering around the ship on a wild goose chase next time the Borg decide to attack."

"Well, I kind of hoped to track down whoever it was myself, but I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right," Sarah said with a false insulted huff. "I am the Captain after all. Now get back to your post, Commander."

"Aye, sir," Joey said while giving her a fancy salute.

Just as the ready room's doors swooshed opened from Joey's approach, Joey's communicator chirped and then announced, "Lieutenant Commander Joey Conner, report to transport room two."

"See?" Joey exclaimed to both Sarah and Jon.

But everyone's attention was instantly diverted the next moment by the computer's announcement of, "Intruder alert."

"Where?" the Captain demanded as she quickly followed Joey out of the ready room.

"I ... I don't know, sir," the ensign at tactical announced. "There are no unaccounted life signs aboard."

"Computer," Sarah barked as she landed her butt into her chair with a bounce. "Explain the intruder alert."

"Inquiry not understood. Please clarify."

Anticipating the computer wouldn't be able to explain itself, Joey's fingers began to fly across his console as he inputted query after query in tracking down what had triggered the computer's automated announcement. Strangely enough, when he found the source, he didn't feel the least bit surprised.

"Captain," Joey exclaimed, interrupting the computer's explanation of its confusion, much to Sarah's relief. "Someone or something is trying to activate the transporter system in transporter room two."

"Yellow alert," Sarah barked into the com system in her chair's arm. "Security to transporter room two. Secure the doors, but do not enter until the captain's party arrives. Engineering, shut down power to all transporters until further notice. Lieutenant Commander Wishmaker report to the captain outside transporter room two."

"Joey," Sarah said with her you're-with-me tone, shortly followed by, "Lieutenant Brigley, you have the con."

Joey followed Sarah into the turbo lift, then just as Sarah instructed the lift to take them to transporter room two, her communicator beeped and said, "Engineering to the captain."

Sarah tapped her com badge and said "Go ahead."

"Grant here sir. All attempts to reroute power from transporter room two have been unsuccessful. Do you want us to shut down the grid to that section?"

Joey's communicator beeped again, then announced, "Joey Conner to transporter room two."

Joey and Sarah looked at each other, then as the turbo lift slowed to make a turn, Sarah said, "Go ahead and get ready to, but don't turn off the grid unless I give the order. And lieutenant, start monitoring Lieutenant Commander Connor's communicator. I want to know the exact location of anyone sending a message to his communicator."

"Aye sir," Grant said with a slight hesitation to her voice.

"Captain out," Sarah said before tapping her com badge to disconnect.

"Times like this I wish I did have a first officer," Sarah said while pulling a rubber band out of her pocket and using it to put her hair back.

"It didn't call me Lieutenant Commander that time," Joey pointed out with a thoughtful frown. "And you know you'd be playing favorites if you made me first officer."

"Who said anything about you being first officer?"

"Fine then. Make Terence your first officer and be done with it," Joey said, the first officer issue being the last thing on his mind at the moment. "What are we going to do, Sarah?"

"Well it's obvious this isn't a computer glitch, and it isn't Borg. It isn't their style. Someone is trying to get you to go to that transporter room. So let's give them what they want and see what happens. I'll have Jon raise the shields if they try to transporter you out. But my instincts say that's not what's going to happen."

"Well, just remember," Joey said as the turbo lift finally stopped and the doors opened. "Mom is going to be pissed if you lose me to a bunch of aliens."

"Is the room secure?" Sarah asked Terrence as they approached the heavily armed party outside the transporter room.

"Secure? Depends on your point of view," he said, handing Sarah and then Joey a phaser. "The doors are magnetically sealed, nobody is inside, and no one has come out. However, I didn't lock the doors, and they aren't responding to my security overrides. I'm about ready to blast a hole through the bloody thing."

"I don't think that will be necessary," Sarah said.

As Sarah filled Terence and the security team in, Joey slapped his phaser onto his hip before walking over to the open panel next to the transport room door.

The moment Joey touched the diagnostic controls normally covered by the panel, the corridor lights died, the red alert klaxon wailed along with the sound and shimmer of force fields being raised throughout the corridor, and the computer's voice announced over the ship's com system, "Intruder alert. Security fields activated. First officer Commander Joey Conner to transporter room two."

Just as Joey was getting a handle on the situation, for a split he felt the tingle of a familiar mind touching his, and then the transporter room doors opened on their own accord.

"Joey, don't even think about going in there," Sarah warned as she tested the force field blocking her way with her hand.

"It's okay, Sarah," Joey said as he felt the touch again. "I think it's Tim."

"Computer, deactivate force fields outside transporter room two!" Terence ordered.

"Unable to comply. Security level zero required."

"Security level zero?!?" Terence exclaimed. "There is no such security level, you bloody machine!"

"Computer, who has security level zero clearance?" Joey asked.

"That information is unavailable. Joey Conner to transporter room two.

"Please," the computer added after a small delay.

The familiar mind touched his again, lingering long enough that Joey got a sense of the direction it had come from. Joey probed the transporter room with his limited unlinked telepathic senses and got a wispy trace of what he decided was an incomplete thought.

"Commander, hold your ground," Sarah ordered when Joey moved towards the door.

"Be ready to raise those shields," Joey said after a slight hesitation, then walked into the transporter room.

The doors closing behind him barely registered to Joey as his limited telepathic senses tingled with the wispy traces of another mind trying to reach him. Joey froze in fear when he found himself standing in front of the transporter controls with his right hand reaching for the energizer touch pad without consciously knowing he was doing it.

But then the wispy thoughts seemed to focus themselves enough to impart the urgency of situation, and without any further thought, Joey started the rematerialization sequence.

Joey held his breath as the sparkles of the transporter beam formed between the floor and ceiling pads, but after over a minute of waiting for something to materialize, he had to gasp for his breath while checking the controls for what could be wrong.

"Not enough power," Joey muttered to himself before tapping his communicator and saying, "Conner to the Captain."

When he didn't get a response, Joey sighed, tapped his communicator again and said, "Conner to the bridge."

"Fucking fantastic," Joey muttered when again he didn't get a response. "Computer, are you still with me?"

"Inquiry not understood."

"At least some things don't change," Joey said to himself. "Computer, increase power to the transporter."

"Unable to comply. Power routing for this section has been disabled."

"Shit," Joey said when his attempt to override the lockout failed. "Computer, where is Captain Harrison?"

"Captain Harrison is not aboard the Harrison."

"What?!?" Joey exclaimed. "When did she leave?"

"That information is unavailable."

"Computer, fuck yourself in the ass. You're useless!"

"Unable to comply. Command not understood."

Joey estimated that he had less than a minute left before the matter stream would destabilize and whoever or whatever was in the beam would be lost. As he scanned the room for an additional source of power, his hand brushed up against his phaser.

"Well, if it worked on TV," Joey said as he took his phaser off his hip and went to the other side of the transporter console.

Before Joey could finish removing the access plate from the rear of the console, the mind which he nearly forgotten all about suddenly found its way to him again and desperately tried to get Joey to form a share link with it.

The mind was very weak, so weak that Joey was hesitant on forming the link knowing it would drain him like a battery. But he also felt the mind's desperation and anxiety, and most of all, he felt the other's fear for the life trapped in the beam.

So Joey physically braced himself before forming the share link, and for a moment he thought it had failed when he didn't feel anything more.

The familiar sound of a materialization behind him caused Joey to turn around, then he felt his strength leave him as the beam's occupant began to take physical form.

Joey was on his hands and knees with dizziness when the transporter cycle completed and the figure on the transporter pad slumped to the ground. The room spun around Joey as he tried to crawl over to the transporter pad, but he quickly found himself so disorientated and weak that his hand could just barely find his com badge and tap it before he lost his coordination all together.

"Medical emergency in transporter room two," Joey said as loud as he could despite his voice refusing to work.

The world around Joey blurred to a hazy nothing, his mind getting stuck somewhere between being awake and asleep. At one point Joey sensed he was being moved, and later managed to open his eyes when he heard Sarah saying something to him. But when he couldn't focus enough to understand her, Joey gave up and fell fast asleep.

The sound of the red alert klaxon brought Joey out of his deep regenerative sleep seemingly only moments after having entered it. He sat up feeling somewhat sluggish both mentally and physically, and took a moment to take in his surroundings.

Joey was just coming to the conclusion he was in sick bay when someone stirred on the diagnostic bed next to him.

"Doc?" Joey called before carefully slipping his legs over the edge of the bed and trying to stand up.

"Doctor Brown? Nurse?" he called again when he felt dizzy and sat back down.

"Joey?" the other bed's occupant softly called out.

Joey took a deep breath before staggering over to the other bed, then struggled to see through his dizziness to identify the other patient.

"You found me," the stranger said. "I didn't know where I was, and I kept hearing you and Suzi, but I couldn't find you."

"I'm sorry, but I'm so dizzy I can't see straight," Joey said with difficulty. "Who are you?"

"Eric," the faintly familiar voice said. "Eric Roberts?"

"Eric?" Joey gasped in shock. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Joey's found his dizziness fading while he watched Eric's increasing astonished face taking in their surroundings apparently for the first time.

"Joey, where is here exactly?" Eric asked softly.

"You're aboard the USS Harrison, a Challenger class starship."

"Starship?"

"Yeah. Cool, huh?"

Eric took another look around the sick bay, then laid back down sighing, "It's just a dream, then."

"I know it seems like it, but it's not, Eric. We're really on a starship."

Eric frowned, then asked, "Oh really? Then how did I get here?"

"Well, that's actually a good question," Joey said.

Eric didn't try to interrupt Joey's description of the events leading to Eric's arrival, but at the same time, he didn't believe a word of it and stated so when Joey finished.

"Alright," Joey said, throwing his hands up in front of him to signify he was giving up. "I can't spend any more time here trying to convince you. We're at battle stations, and I need to report to the bridge."

"The bridge? Oh, of course. You're the Captain, right?" Eric sneered.

"No, I'm not," Joey said huffily before tapping his communicator and saying, "Conner to the bridge."

"This is the Captain. Joey, are you all right?"

"I think so," Joey said. "Why are we still at red alert?"

"The Gaylord is under attack. We're twenty minutes away from intercept. If you're up to it, I'd like you at ops."

"Is it ... Borg?"

"Yes. Wally said they popped out of nowhere. I don't know what we're going to find by the time we get there, but they're going to pay for what they did to Jon Luc."

"Oh, give me a break," Eric muttered.

"I'll be there as soon as I can. Conner out," Joey said before closing the channel and turning back to Eric.

"Eric, I think it would be better if you came with me."

"Why, oh phantom of my imagination?"

"Look!" Joey said, seizing Eric by the shoulders and pressing his fingers into him. "Whether you want to believe it or not, you're in the middle of this, and you have to be here to help us somehow. You remember Wally, don't you? Well, right now he's probably getting the shit blasted out of him."

"By the Borg?" Eric said with discomfort, finding Joey's pinching grasp a little too real for a dream. "But they're not real! None of this is!"

"A couple of months ago, I would have said the same thing," Joey said, releasing Eric from the look of uncertainty in his eyes. "Eight years ago, a couple of members of a secret organization of telepaths called the Cabal sensed a linked consciousness with inhuman thoughts approaching Earth. Eventually they were able to determine that these aliens intended to enslave us using a combination of genetic and electromechanical modifications of our bodies.

"So they started gathering the greatest scientific minds and put them to work building spaceships more advanced than anything ever seen before, and also started a program to train as many voices as possible to man the ships when the time came.

"My sister's group at Central State was one of seven groups of telepaths trained without them even knowing it. They found that the team-ship formed when they thought they were alone was much stronger than in voices who knew it wasn't a life or enslavement situation.

"Three months ago, they contacted Sarah and brought us into the fold, so to speak. We've been training on the ships for over two months now, and we're just to the point where we can handle them on our own without our mute commander guiding us."

"What about Suzi and Tim?" Eric asked, unsure what to believe.

"They're on Earth. Last week, Tim nearly fried his brain out taking on the whole damn Borg collective while we tried to rescue the Challenger. We saved a lot of the crew, but Jon Luc was ... Well, he's just not human anymore."

"Is Tim okay?" Eric asked.

"He will be. He just needs to rest his telepathy a while. Suzi went with him because I was having problems linking afterwards, and she'd be vulnerable to the Borg's control if she isn't linked through me."

"The Borg are telepathic?"

"Very. That's why everyone on the ships is either a voice or immune to voice."

"Everyone but me," Eric pointed out.

"You'll be alright," Joey said reassuringly. "We shielded our mute first officer through three attacks without a problem. And the Borg probably won't even bother with you since you're not part of the crew.

"Computer, how long until we're in range of the Gaylord?" Joey queried when Eric didn't immediately ask another question.

"Fourteen minutes, forty one seconds," the computer replied.

"Come on," Joey said when he suddenly noticed Eric's clothes. "We need to get you out of those shorts and into a uniform."

"Why a uniform?"

"Because that's all we have," Joey chuckled. "You feel up to walking?"

"I think so," Eric said after standing up on his feet and taking a couple of steps. "I feel really light though. Like I'm floating."

"Half a gee of gravity," Joey explained as he led the way out of the sick bay. "I say gravity, but it's really inertia. The ship's just a big spinning donut with a big rocket mounted at the center of the hole. The first time Tim, Suz and I saw the Harrison, my sister had to stun the three of us just to stop us from making each other laugh with jokes."

"Rocket?" Eric said with surprise. "What, no warp drive?"

"I wish," Joey said. "No warp drive, no Vulcans, and no tractor beams."

"But you have transporters," Eric said, finding himself at odds with the whole situation again.

"One good thing about the Borg," Joey said as they stepped into a turbo lift. "They can't keep a secret worth a damn.

"Deck five, section C," Joey told the turbo lift before explaining further to Eric, "We picked up the warp drive, the transporters, energy weapons, and force fields from just listening to their collective mind."

"You just said you don't have warp drive," Eric objected.

"The Harrison doesn't, but we do have the technology. It just doesn't do us any good since you can't use it when you're in a gravity well."

"Gravity well?"

"Er, gravity field then. The warp technology the Borg have only works outside a gravity field, which means we'd have to fly outside the solar system before we could use the drive."

"That sucks," Eric said.

"Yeah, well, if it wasn't for that, we'd all have been Borgified years ago. We think it's taken them over twenty years to get here from where they warped in at."

The turbo lift came to a halt, and as they waited for the doors to open, Eric heard someone whisper, "He's dreaming."

"Did you hear that?" Eric asked Joey just as the doors opened."

"What, the doors?"

"No. I heard someone whispering."

Joey immediately stopped in his tracks and turned towards Eric with alarm all over his face.

"Whatever you do, don't listen to them."

"Who?"

"The Borg!"

"It wasn't the Borg," Eric said as he felt the color drain from his face. "I mean, it doesn't make sense."

"Can you hear them now?"

"No."

"Good," Joey said, visibly relieved. "If you hear any other whispers, focus on something else and let me know you need help, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

Joey stopped and asked, "Hey, you're almost Tim's size, aren't you?"

"I guess so," Eric said with some surprise. "I haven't seen him for about year now, so I don't know."

"Let's try his quarters first then. If they're baggy on you, we can try someone else's."

Eric felt somewhat insulted by this. For the past six months, Eric's friends and family were constantly commenting on how amazed they were by his latest growth spurt. Randy, his boyfriend, had convinced Eric to join a gym with him so they could both get into shape over the summer and try out for the varsity football team together.

Eric wasn't vain, but he had become a bit proud of his masculine and fit body. He was fairly sure he wouldn't fit in the clothes Joey had pulled out of the drawer, but Joey insisted they would stretch.

And they did stretch. Eric was standing in front of the mirror admiring how every ripple of his six pack was visible through the tunic when Joey returned to the room and gasped.

"Joey, what's the matter?" Eric said with alarm.

"Eric?"

"Yeah. Are the Borg attaching?"

"What? No. No, nothing like that," Joey stammered while his eyes studied Eric's face with a fierce intensity. "You ... changed."

"Yeah? Shorts go bye bye, remember?"

"Not just the clothes. You ... You grew up. Shit, you're like nearly six foot tall."

"Five eleven, one eighty five, plus a six pack," Eric said proudly. "That's how Randy says it."

"Eric, up until I left a couple of minutes ago, you were ... Shit, you were like you were in Venezuela."

"Sees what you see," Eric heard whispered.

"Bridge to Lieutenant Commander Conner," Joey's communicator chirped.

"Go ahead, Jon," Joey replied.

"The captain wanted me to inform you we're five minutes away from interception. If you're going to be at ops when we get there, you better haul ass."

"Roger. On my way."

Joey looked at Eric, then shook his head and said, "Come on. We'll figure it out later. Right now we have to save the human race. Again."

Between Joey's anxiety of the upcoming battle and Eric's doubts of the reality of his situation bubbling through his mind again, the turbo lift ride to the bridge was in total silence.

The moment the doors open, however, Eric couldn't help but let out an astonished "Wow!"

"I'd give you the tour, but we don't have time," Joey said, just as the big view screen at the front jumped to the image of a big black donut with a bright white flame coming from its otherwise empty center.