Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 22:37:08 -0800 In: alt.startrek.creative From: "Jay P Hailey" JayPHailey@comcast.net Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@yahoo.com) Series: MISC - TNG OCs Codes: None Part: 10/335 Rating:[PG] Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where. Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters and Situations for me. Webpage: http://jayphailey.8m.com The Holly Hop Incident By Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn "I am also talking too much. It's time to take action." Flagg raised the phaser towards me and took a step forwards. I yelled "No, Flagg! Wait!" Flagg fired anyway. He missed me, because as he took his step forwards, he stepped in a puddle of lubricant which had leaked from an open panel. It should have been secured but I had rushed all the engineers out of the place too quickly. I couldn't feel my legs clearly, and I was shaky. Nearly being killed does that to me. I finally got the message and tried to move to try to take the phaser away from Flagg. Flagg was still too quick. He knew I would try to run, or take the phaser. He rolled into an upright position and covered me while laboriously climbing up on his damaged leg. Flagg was nearly erect when he stepped on a tool that had been left lying on the floor next to the panel. Again it was inexcusable sloth, but I hadn't given anyone time. Flagg stumbled across the engineering section and landed against another open panel. I cringed as he flailed about, grabbing an exposed power converter for balance. The Power converter sent a minute portion of the power than was running the USS Harrier through Flagg's body. Flagg screamed as several thousand volts of electricity arced through his body. His spasmodic muscle contractions threw him across the section, where he fetched up against a bulkhead with a solid, bone wrenching impact. I turned, with some effort away from the industrial accident and back to the drive. I turned on the plasma cutter and made my adjustments. "Wait!" Holly said "It's still not too late!" "What are you talking about?" I said irritably. Holly moved between the drive and me. "We know the dangers now! We can control them much better!" "No!" I said "It's far too dangerous!" "Please!" Holly was beginning to sound desperate "We can put together a committee of responsible scientists! It doesn't have to fall into the hands of military morons like Flagg, (No offense, Captain.)! Think of the opportunities for science! Please don't destroy my work!" "My decision is made!" I said as I started for the drive. "You can't! I won't let you - OOP!" This last Holly said as I belted him in the mouth. Hurting him was becoming harder to avoid. Holly sat down and held his mouth that was now bleeding. I approached the drive and was about to destroy it when Holly said "Mook Ouwf!" "What in the world does `Mook Ouwf!' mean?" I thought. "MOOK OUWF!!!!" Holly shouted. I turned to find out what his problem was, and I was way, way too late. Flagg had me centered nicely in his phaser sights and was pulling the trigger as I saw him. Flagg's phaser made an agonized warble and gave off pretty, but harmless blue sparkles, then beeped its annoying malfunction beep. Flagg groaned inarticulately. I looked at Holly, who was still holding his mouth. He moved his hands and said "Oh, yeah, life's fair." He bled all over his shirt. I looked at Flagg stunned. "That's the worst luck I ever saw." Flagg continued to groan. I don't even know if he was conscious. Holly looked at Flagg. "Yeah, he was unlucky, I was unlucky..." "No, but really." I said. "That was more bad luck than you might expect in a life time! He was really unlucky." "That's it!" Holly yelled, spraying blood across Engineering. The Macmillan improbability vector! Why didn't I see it before?" "What in the world are you talking about?" I yelled. "The drive! It causes trouble!" "It's taken you until now to figure that out!?" Without any further delay, I took the plasma cutter and melted the Holly Hop drive to an unrecognizable heap of slag. Suddenly I was back on the bridge. I looked around for a minute to reorient myself. Everything appeared to be in good shape, but we were now at red alert. "Report, all stations!" I said Li'ira looked behind me and then ran to the Tactical station. Flagg was not there. Spaat looked readings at his panel, and reported "We are presently in Earth's' solar system. We are near the edge of the system, at approximately the same position as when we started the test." "Scan for ships, please." I said "Scan complete." Varupuchu said. He had evidently started scanning as soon as we had moved. "Scans show Starfleet and civilian traffic. None of it is within a billion miles, Captain." "Is it our Starfleet or the other one?" I asked "It appears to be ours, Captain." Li'ira said "I'm getting reports from all departments now, Captain. No damage reported, no casualties." Then she said "Captain, we're being hailed by Starfleet Command. They inquire as to our status, and ask why we haven't started the experiment, yet." Eventually we got the whole thing worked out. When I destroyed the Holly Hop drive, we had reappeared in the same position we had held when the jump was started. From outside, it seemed as though no time had passed at all, although we did give off a blast of Taylorons. Flagg was not on the Harrier. There was a Lt. Colonel Flagg discovered as a part of Starfleet Intelligence, but he had never been anywhere near the Holly Hop project. Holly was nice enough to try to explain it to me. When I said that the Holly Hop threw causality right out the air lock, I was correct. On a fundamental level, the Universe is elastic. A certain amount of time travel and paradox and be adjusted to. Holly's drive had taken that elasticity and stretched it past the breaking point. Holly said that according to his analysis, the drive had pinched itself off into a causality loop of it's own. Once it was there, it set up an improbability field, which caused the worst possible things to happen to the drive, and the vehicle using it. Flagg's whole time war was just a reflection of the drive and the universe working together to destroy the paradox caused by the drive. "When Flagg decided to fight for the drive, he became a force in that micro-universe to preserve the drive. The micro-universe fought back. That's why Flagg was so unlucky!" Holly was excited. He even showed me the equation, where Flagg's decisions and mine were described in arcane mathematical terms. I didn't understand a bit of it. Frankly that made me rather happy. The biggest surprise, to me, came after we had put back into Spacedock and had gone through a post mission debriefing. I received orders to make the USS Harrier ready for a patrol. This wasn't a mission for an experimental vessel, it was a job for a ship of the line. When I asked why we were given these orders, I was told that due to a short fall of available ships, the Harrier was being activated to cover until the fleet was rebuilt following Wolf 359. Evidently Starfleet wanted to get their moneys' worth out of the refit they had given the Harrier. I was confirmed as Captain of the Harrier. This was also a surprise. It meant that, after a review of the Holly Hop incident, Starfleet Command trusted me to command in the field. I Insisted that Li'ira be transferred to the Harrier as my real First Officer. This caused an immediate problem. Fortunately, Admiral Quinn was able to help me there. "Why her, Jay?" Quinn asked "It's not because she's ah... Orion, is it?" Quinn asked. I knew what he meant. Was I letting my hormones run loose? Was she trying to sleep her way into the command track? "No." I said. I explained to Quinn how Li'ira had come to Starfleet, and how much she valued our occasional tolerance. I told him how much she was committed to upholding the ideals of the Federation. I felt that she was potentially a valuable officer out on the frontier where the ideals need to be put into action. I was afraid that if she was left in the Intelligence branch, that she would turn into another Colonel Flagg. I told the Admiral that we were cheating ourselves if we let her be wasted that way. "Okay, Captain, you have convinced me!" Quinn said, and Li'ira was transferred straight over to the Harrier as a Lieutenant Commander. After a start off like that, I figured a quiet patrol would be just the ticket... --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.564 / Virus Database: 356 - Release Date: 1/19/2004 -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ Yahoo! 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