Sfdebris.net

Here’s a little experiment for a bit of fun for everyone. I’m sure many here enjoy fan fiction and some may even dabble in writing/drawing/otherwise creating some themselves, so here’s a little ‘game’ that everyone can take part in, collaborating to create a story.

Rules are simple:
1) I’ll start the story and give four options for how to continue it. The next poster selects one of the options and continues the story for a bit and then gives four options for how to continue it. The next poster selects one, continues, gives four options and so on.
2) copy and paste the option you pick at the top of your post to make clear which you’ve chosen
3) try to write a few paragraphs. Please don’t just write one line as your continuation.
4) try to avoid random, nonsensical things appearing from nowhere and try to keep things in tone with what’s going on. For example, if this was a Star Wars story, don’t do something like Jar Jar appearing from nowhere and decapitating the main character with a rubber dildo and then disappearing again.
4.1) Likewise, for Trek avoid ‘Computer End Programme’ unless the characters have explicitly gone into a holodeck, or things have been settup that they could have entered one offscreen or put into one by Romulans or whatever offscreen.
4.2) Similarly, don’t do something like, if it’s a Doctor Who story have the companion wake up and turn out to actually be a character in a Bab5 story and all the Who stuff being just a dream.
5) no double posting. If you’ve posted you can’t do so again until someone else has posted.
5.1) the exception to this is if no one has continued for three days, then you may go again.
*


Okay everyone got that? Then let’s begin.





“Space, no longer the final frontier...These are the voyages of the Timeship Acheron, it’s once and future mission to explore strange old worlds, to seek out old life and ancient civilisations...to boldly go, where men have gone before!”

Captain Alistair Stewart leant back in his chair with a grimace at the cringeworthy lines he’d just spoken. He’d been working for an hour to try and come up with suitable words with which to begin his official log and that was the best he’d come up with so far. Pinching the bridge of his nose he continued “It is the dawn of the twenty-seventh century, Terran Callander. The wild frontiers of the galaxy have been tamed and long since mapped; now Time Itself is the next adventure. With nothing left to explore in the Now, Starfleet has turned its eye to the Then and the Yet To Come. Having perfected time travel, our mission is now to explore the time stream, discretely observing and recording events for historical posterity, and to police it for anomalies and protect it from those who would use time travel to pervert history and twist it to their advantage.”

Stewart paused, dwelling on what he’d just said. Undoubtably whoever would listen or read his log would know all this, but part of his orders had been to reiterate these things for posterity, in the event they became required reading at the Accademy like those of Kirk or Picard had been when he had been a cadet. He was saved from having to continue by the chirp of the comm unit.

“Bridge to Captain,” came the voice of his Bolian First Officer “We are coming up on our first anomaly shortly.”

“Thank you Commander Lott,” replied Stewart, standing and tapping the pause recording button on his desk. Walking out of his Ready Room into the bridge he called out “Tactical: raise stealth fields. Viewscreen: let’s see what we’ve got.” Taking his seat he braced himself as the bridge lurched and rotated and he cursed whichever idiot shipwright decided it’d be a good feature to have the entire bridge rotate to face whichever direction the viewscreen was looking in. At least it didn’t tilt up or down as well. Leaning forwards he watched as the viewscreen rippled and the image resolved to reveal:

A ) the Enterprise NX-01
B ) the remnants of a Borg cube split in half
C ) a Romulan Warbird docked with a disabled Daedalus-class ship
D ) two Klingon battle cruisers squaring off against the Enterprise NCC-1701


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* rule 6) if you want to add any out of story comments, append then to the end of your post after a row of asterix to keep them seperate from the story

C ) a Romulan Warbird docked with a disabled Daedalus-class ship

“Romulans,” Stewart muttered, leaning forward in his chair. “And an early Federation explorer...?”

“Confirmed,” the ship’s tactical officer replied. “D’Deridex class Warbird, 24th Century circa Romulan re-emergence and Dominion War. The other vessel is Daedalus class, Starfleet 22nd Century. No known contact between the classes in our records. The Daedalus is heavily damaged.”

“The D’Deridex class utilised artificial singularity engine cores,” Lieutenant Areka spoke up, paging through holographic screens on her science station at a dizzying pace. “The technology was capable of producing unintended temporal disruptions. However energy readings from the Warbird are consistent with normal operation.” The Deltan paused at a particular screen and frowned. “Romulan energy readings also originating from the Starfleet vessel. And over seven hundred lifesigns - human, and Romulan.”

“The Warbird?” Stewart asked, turning his chair to face her. She double-checked her readings, then gave a frustrated sigh.

“Inconclusive,” she reported. “Sensor resolution being degraded, source unknown. There are lifesigns, but difficult to pinpoint individual sources. I believe no more than one hundred, though.”

“The Romulans took out the Daedalus, and now they’re moving in?” Stewart mused, turning back to the viewscreen.

“Damage on the Daedalus consistent with combat,” the tactical officer put in. “But not Romulan disruptors. Type unknown.”

“Hulls identified,” Areka offered. “The Daedalus is USS Pilgrim, launched 2157 - last contact 2171. Listed by Starfleet missing with all hands. The Warbird is IRW Caithlin Dar, launched 2360, listed...” She looked up at the captain. “Destroyed in action, 2374 - the Dominion War. Multiple Starfleet and Romulan records confirming.”

“She’s not supposed to be lost here,” Commander Lott noted.

“Our first encounter, and she’s a fixer-upper,” Stewart quipped. Seeing Lott perplexed at the joke, he went on: “Commander, note in the ship’s log Temporal Integrity protocols are in effect. I am authorising cross-timeline contact, to attempt to correct an apparent historical divergence. Recommendations?”

“Interphase probe,” the tactical officer suggested. “Romulan experiments in phase technology in the Warbird’s era were primitive, unlikely we’ll be detected.”

“Not impossible,” Lott added cautiously. “But we can’t proceed with no data.”

“Very good, make it go,” Stewart nodded, with a slight inward grimace at the nagging thought he’d misremembered that particular turn of phrase from the Academy required reading all those years ago. The crew watched the imagery from the probe relayed to the viewscreen, as it neared the two ships, passed by the Warbird, and phased effortlessly through the hull of the Starfleet ship, near the docking tunnel connecting the two.

“Zhennta,” Areka swore under her breath, as the probe’s view revealed what was inside:

A ) Romulan crew repairing the ship’s systems, while the Starfleet crew appear frozen in time around them.
B ) Romulan/human hybrids descended from the two ships’ crews.
C ) Both crews working together to barricade the docking tunnel, to keep anything from leaving the Warbird.
D ) The interior of the ship swarming with ‘Conspiracy’ neural parasites.

C ) Both crews working together to barricade the docking tunnel, to keep anything from leaving the Warbird.

As they watched the two crews hastily constructed barricades using whatever they had on hand, with some having even gone as far as prying wall panels and deck plates from the air locks of both ships to use as building materials, and even now they were working together lugging canisters, crates and anything else that wasn’t bolted down from the Pilgrim. Starfleet security officers and Imperial shocktroopers stood shoulder to shoulder in optimal positions to cover the barricade builders.

“Pan left,” instructed Stewart, leaning forwards in his chair. The image panned to the left, into the darkness of the Romulan air lock. “There!” he said “Are those flashes weapons fire?”

“Readings indicate energy signatures consistent with Dominion War-era Romulan disruptors,” replied the tactical officer.

“Only Romulan disruptors?” chimed in Lieutenant Groghm, the unusually debonair Nausican Security Chief.

“Only Romulan weapons,” confirmed Areka, frowning at her display.

Stewart swivelled in his chair to look at both of them. “Why would there only be Romulan weapons fire?”

“Perhaps whatever they are fighting doesn’t use ranged weapons or uses weapons we are not familiar with,” suggestested Groghm.

“Or something has caused the Romulans to turn on each other,” added Areka, tapping commands into her console to search for such things in the database.

“Sir,” grunted Lott, “We have incoming.”

Everyone’s attention turned back to the viewscreen and they watched as two Remans ran out of the darkness, turning to fire wildly at whatever was pursuing them. Then out of the dark came:


A ) a Romulan lurching forwards, slack jawed and wide-eyed.
B ) a snarling Reman firing a disruptor rifle wildly.
C ) a strange six-limbed alien, it’s body armoured with chitinous plates.
D ) an ethereal wraith-like creature that the weapons fire passed straight through.

D ) an ethereal wraith-like creature that the weapons fire passed straight through.

“What is that?” Stewart asked, as a ghostly form emerged from the gloom, a mass of shifting colours with a void like a mouth in its centre, and translucent tendrils reaching forward. The Remans backed away step by step, pouring fire into the entity, but their disruptor bolts, and the phaser and disruptor beams of the Romulan and Starfleet crews firing over their heads, passed through the intruder with little visible effect.

“No visual match in database,” Areka reported. “Telemetry shows temporal and interphasic flux.”

“Active power conduits along the docking tube,” Groghm noted. “The Warbird’s systems have been linked to the Pilgrim.”

“Must be why they haven’t cut loose already,” Lott said.

On the screen one of the Remans signalled to the other, who hesitated, then nodded and tossed his weapon to his comrade before retreating, shouting something to a Romulan officer among the defenders. The shipside hatch began to close, while the lone Reman remained in the tube, standing with both rifles clutched to his chest as the entity advanced on him. Its tendrils curled around his body, partially phasing through him, then he contorted in agony, and before the crew’s eyes withered in seconds to a dessicated corpse and then to dust, which swirled into the creature’s maw.

The hatch closed, and an instant later the porthole in it lit with a blinding light, and the visual feed from Acheron’s probe cut out, the viewscreen reverting to its perspective of the two ships. The docking tube between them was cut in two, debris spiralling off into space.

“He overloaded the disruptors,” Groghm said quietly.

“Did that blast take out our probe?” Lott asked sharply.

“Uncertain,” Areka frowned, studying her screens. “A standard weapon overload should not, but sensors registered an energy discharge concurrent with the blast, matching readings from the creature - possibly a defensive reaction, or caused by damage to it.” She looked up at the captain. “It is possible our probe was dephased, as well as disabled.”

“Not the way I wanted us to introduce ourselves,” Stewart said, still staring grimly at the viewscreen.

“Status of the Pilgrim?” Lott asked.

“Drifting,” Areka replied. “Repairs are obviously incomplete; without power from the Warbird, critical systems are barely above baseline.”

“Sporadic weapons fire still coming from within the Warbird,” the tactical officer added. “None from the Pilgrim.”

“Last pockets of Reman resistance,” Lott muttered. He glanced at Stewart and raised an eyebrow. “But they did their job - it doesn’t look like those things can cross open space. Undocked, the other vessel is safe.”

“So long as their life support holds,” Stewart mused. “But that still doesn’t get the Warbird and her crew back where history records them being.”

“Orders, sir?” Lott asked.

A ) Attempt to make contact with the Pilgrim.
B ) Beam over to the Pilgrim.
C ) Attempt to make contact with whoever’s alive on the Warbird.
D ) Prepare a tactical team to board the Warbird.

D ) Prepare a tactical team to board the Warbird.

I want to know more about these...whatever the hell they are,” he instructed. “Mr. Lott, I want you to lead the team. Take Ensign P’Sephnii, she might be useful,” he added referring to his half-Romulan, half-Vulcan helmsman.

“Personal interphase shields?” asked Lott, signalling for P’Sephnii and Groghm to head for the turbo lift.

“No, better not,” replied Stewart, looking back at the viewscreen “No telling what effect the UALs will have on them.” He paused and thought for a second “We should play it safe though; go under the guise of Pilgrim security officers - if any of the warbird’s crew are left alive, say you’re Pilgrim crew sent to assist.”

Lott nodded and double tapped his comm badge, speaking a command word to activate the multimorphic molecules in his uniform, which rippled like a sheet of iron filings with a magnet passed under it, and reformed into a period accurate representation of Starfleet security officers. Micro-holographic filters in the collar and cuffs flickered into activation giving Lott and Groghm the appearance of humans as no Bolians or Nausicaans had served in Starfleet at the time.

The trio entered the turbo lift and took it to Transporter Room 1 where a security team was waiting for them. Lott glanced over the trasporter console and jabbed a finger at the display screen indicating where he wanted them to beam into, selecting an area far from any of the energy signatures matching the ghost things; no telling what a transporter beam would go around them.

The team stepped into the pad and were beamed:

A ) onto the bridge
B ) into a cargo bay
C ) into a small room off of main engineering
D ) into the airlock on the opposite side to the Pilgrim