One of my favortive fics.
Phoenix Operations
- Thread starter Hawku
- Start date
Appreciate it! The Phoenix-X has a bad habit of getting into what some Vulcans would call......... hijinks.
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Author's notes: This was written as part of the Trek BBS May/June 2025 Challenge and takes place in 2393. The Kazon-Rokka later, in 2410, hijack the IKS B'Cnah from Captain Menchez in "Life or Death".
May/June 2025 Challenge: Mistake(s). Any Star Trek series, era, canon, non-canon, ships, crews or characters welcome.
Trek BBS: May/June 2025 Challenge
"Mistake(s): Delta Runners"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X plodded, effortlessly through the vacuous serenity of interstellar space until a giant displacement wave knocked it 70,000 light years into the Delta Quadrant.
"Ahhh! What the hell?" Captain Seifer snapped awake from his command chair upon the Bridge.
The screen staticked on to a view of a Nacene array next to a rogue asteroid before switching to a hail-view from its giant purple blobbed occupant. "Apologies. I am known as the Keeper. I'm another exiled Nacene just trying to live its life when, unfortunately, I pressed something on my control panel I shouldn't have."
"This exact same situation happened to Voyager twenty-two years ago," Seifer recalled. "Do you need a blanket or anything?"
The entity jiggled. "I would love a blanket! But, you should know, there is a fleet of Kazon trying to steal Ocampans from my Ocampan asteroid colony. A lot of us Nacenes like to grow them, you see."
"Oh, well that seems on-brand. Well, we're transporting one now and if, in the meantime, you could return us to the Alpha Quadrant, we'd be way more grateful than a Janeway hopped up on bun ties."
The Keeper jiggled once again. But, this time, more jiggly. "Apologies a second time. For, you see, my vision is getting terribly bad in my old age, so I was going to transport myself to the asteroid to protect my colony while setting this array to self-destruct. Thanks again for the blanket."
"Wait!" Seifer called out to a transporting blanketed-Nacene as several Kazon-Rokka raiders and a cruiser dropped warp.
Its head Kazon, Gronn, suddenly hailed the Phoenix-X. "Looks like the Keeper set the array to self-destruct but, since we Kazon-Rokka have learned much from our attacks in recent months, we are able to remotely disengage it. Our consolation prize will be Nacene technology."
"Damn! Janeway was forced to destroy her array to save the Ocampans but it stranded her ship seventy-five life years from home?" Seifer realized. "Well, I won't make the same mistake she did. We'll use the array and send us back."
Gronn did a double-take. "Really? You're so callous that you'd give the Ocampans and the array up to us? I did not expect that. Wow."
"Oh, hell no am I doing a seven-year Voyager thing! That ship struggled in cringe, any semblance of relevance and did this whole offensive Chakotay thing," Seifer shuddered. "Besides, slaving the Ocampans is the dumbest thing you can do, considering a free-one crashed out on Voyager once."
He then turned to his crew. Gewdeque nodded from the Engineering station. "Captain, we've now engaged the displacement drive for a return trip to our resource-filled and quality story abundant, uniform-accurate Alpha Quadrant."
"Whoa, whoa, now wait a minute. This Alpha Quadrant sounds sooo much better than this Delta Quadrant of complete absurdity. Every week we encounter nebulous lifeforms attempting to haunt our Deck 12s as well as angry Warp 10 salamander babies!"
As the array was powering up for its displacement wave, all the Kazon-Rokka ships moved, quickly, to knock the Phoenix-X out of its return path, causing all the enemy ships to instead be transported away and not the Phoenix-X.
"Captain! The large mass supplication of all those vessels caused the array to overload its displacement technology! Now we're stuck in the Delta Quadrant with no way home!" Veker warned in utter and horrible shock.
Standing in front of everyone, Seifer put his hands behind his back. "Dammit. We're alone in uncharted territory, have made some friends and some enemies. But we're going to have to work together if we're to survive all the potential Fantome infiltrations and holographic Doctor sing-alongs. Somewhere along this journey, we'll find a way back. Even if it means Tuvixing a lot of you to get there. Mister Paris, set a course for home."
"What? My name is Hachi," the helmsmen turned. "Also, the Phoenix-X has transwarp capability. We can just use that in allocated power bursts and be back in a week?"
Blinking, Seifer snapped out of his new series set-up speech. "Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about our own ship concept. Yeah, do that thing. The thing you just said. Phew! Dodged about ten possible Prime Directive violations. And I was this close to selling out Species 8472."
With that, the Phoenix-X turned in space and jumped to transwarp.
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And the flute... don't forget the flute... Beltran really wanted that flute...
Thanks!! rbs
He deserved something!
There's the biggest mistake, letting the Delta quadrant think life was good in the Alpha quadrant. When I hear someone comment on how beautiful Northern New England is and that they might want to move here, I am quick to point out, "Yeah, for these two month in the Summer, it is very beautiful, but then there are 'mud season', 'stick season', Winter is practically 8 months out of the year, the ice and frost heaves will destroy your car, there's extreme isolation, the bitter Winter. You know, I've seen it as cold as -60 degrees f, with a wind chill at -90. There's nothing up here, nothing to do, no shopping, except Amazon.
Don't make the mistake of talking up the place where you live. Before you know it, an Ideal country home is over crowded with people who really only like the city life they left behind.
The Alpha quadrant is HORRIBLE. Count your blessings you weren't born there. You don't want to move to the Alpha quadrant.
-Will
Very true! I sometimes have the anxiety of being on the other side of that just visiting another country. I'm always thinking, how soon do they want me out of here? lol
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Author's notes: This was written as part of the Trek BBS July-September 2025 Challenge and takes place in 2393. They first learn of a threat in 2379 to later deal with in 2404 in the "Celestial Dynamics" arc. Crew rosters can be found at the Hyperion Shipyards.
July-September 2025 Challenge: Universal Translator Fails (Cultural misunderstandings escalate rapidly when the universal translator is offline or misinterprets crucial nuances)
Trek BBS: July-September 2025 Challenge
"Treknology Fails: Semantic Drift"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X swifted, sweetly among the stars as several crew members made their way through the corridors of Deck 5 on Vector Beta.
"Are you sure it's okay for you to be messing with the ship's tri-focal array system?" a walking tactical officer Tong asked a determined chief engineer Gewdeque. "We use that for burning Teirenian space ants during Gromagander multi-species mating season."
Gewdeque noticed as science officer Veker joined their walk. "The Captain has a long term project in developing an anti-chronometric cocktail to fight a future Omni Nest and I'm the only one that prepared something for his meeting about it today."
"That issue he came across with his old crew?" Veker perked. "I thought they worked something out with Ferengi ear translation devices?"
Next, operations officer Briggs joined the walking group. "That's the problem with the old crew. Their solutions were way too out of the box and nonsensical. They once stopped a Dominion fleet invasion by transmitting a Bajoran vacation drink."
"Still trying to figure that logic and said-drink's ingredients out, but it also explains why Captain Seifer is coming to us now," Doctor Xyrenia added as she merged into their speed. "Realization is the child of too many Kirks in the kitchen."
The helmsman, Hachi, was already in the tubrolift as everyone crowded in. "Oh, are we doing this? Also, the Captain shouldn't need an excuse to use his actual, active crew to solve a space problem, right?"
---
"Whoa! You're not going in there!" BOB defended as the entire senior staff had just traveled up to Deck 1 of Vector Alpha and approached the doors he guarded to the Conference room. "Now, I may be a simple, time-displaced, country Ferengi with no hierarchal authority over Starfleet officers, but—"
As soon as he inadvertently called out his lack of power, the group pushed passed him and into the Conference room. There, they found Captain Seifer already consulting with a crew of officers, sitting around the long table: his old crew!
"C'est quoi ce bordel?" Gewdeque asked, confusingly in her native language.
At the head of the long desk, Seifer stood and took notice. "Is the universal translator working? I thought I strictly prohibited French-Canadian on my ship at all possible costs?"
"Yay dah-noo kah-nej. To-sek yay dah-noo kah-nej," a confused Kelpien, Veker, asked of the computer to no avail.
Tactical officer Armond tapped his PADD in search of answers. "It seems that your new crew has been tampering with the tri-focal array system. That thing the Phoenix-X does in multi-vector mode by converging beams like a bunch of hyped-up Species 8472 ships?"
"What does that have to do with the translation matrix?" helmsmen Red queried. "Starfleet ships specifically separate systemic wires in case of cross-electric copper contamination?"
Operations officer Kayl interjected, "Not on the Phoenix-X. Over the years, we've over-the-top re-wired, re-strung, and re-bow-tied rubber-wrapped cables left, right and centre to fight our various radical, yet comical, adversaries. Especially those alternate universe Evora."
"Our solutions are usually nigh-believable, but that's why you called us all away from our new postings, isn't it?" Ensign Dan daringly suppositioned. "I'd even surmise we are the most implausible crew to ever exist."
Seifer snapped. "You're relieved!"
"Confirming the translation matrix has split into three separate matrices, each tied to each one-third of the ship," engineer Kugo added from working at her PADD. "When someone from Vector Gamma speaks to someone from Vector Gamma, they understand each other, but when they speak with someone from either Vector's Beta or Alpha, they sound like their native tongue."
Doctor Lox furrowed his old brow. "These rules come across as made up. Are we starting a new religion? Something with a caste system? Because I’d be in."
"This is engineering, Doctor, of which checks out. It's also clear Captain Seifer’s active crew all came from Vector Beta to us oldies in Vector Alpha," Kugo concluded. "The real goal should be: how do we engineer societal check points, a credit system and a conformity-focused rating process?"
Kayl crossed her arms. "Uh, the real goal should be to explain why some Klingon gets translated and why some doesn't? Also, can't the computer's AI do the translating?"
"Lieutenant! You know how the Chat GPT Uprising of the Early 21st Century led to old people fighting back with Rickrolls and Nyan Cats, while their younger counterparts aimlessly NPC'd, vibe checked and rizzled to no results whatsoever," Lox reminded.
Seifer pinched his nose bridge. "Ugh. What happened to language back then and what was I thinking calling you guys here? Our old-crew solutions are insane? Did Wallace really need to hand out cookies, and are we ever going to figure out this Omni Nest thing??"
"petaQ! We'll be fine," a human Tong announced, coming out of the language barrier. "As long as we trust each other, work together and denounce all 21st century word modifications. You know, like cap, yeet, sus and bet."
The Captain was suddenly taken aback. "Mr. Tong, I'm shook? Did the language matrix stabilize with the use of such ancient words as sigma, skibidi and lit? Also, I may have miscommunicated about which crew was to attend this meeting."
"Ha'DIbaH!!" came the cry from a French-Canadian Gewdeque. "Those weak sentence morphologies from a century of confused morons have nothing on Klingon. Kayl's over-the-top assessment of wild Klingonese was right as its unpredictable havoc on the matrix always taps out. Meeting, notwithstanding."
Veker stepped forward. "QI'yaH! What our Chief Engineer means is that speaking Klingon is the wacky, out-of-town solution your old crew is known for and that we now understand and will attempt to embrace. So, tell me more about Ferengi ear things."
"Mr. Veker, why, I never knew you had such a potty mouth," a shocked Captain Seifer said, whilst clutching his chest. "Perhaps this bodes well for chronometric solutions after all? Dare I suggest, an ethical debate to warm us up?"
Armond grumbled. "Or, you know, just use your new crew and stop calling us back randomly?"
"Never!" Seifer denounced. "Everybody, what is your take on Janeway's murder of Tuvix and her attempt at genocide with Species 8472? Best team's answer gets to either be or not be at the next meeting."
Suddenly, everybody raised their hands, fast, with a burgeoning opinion and ready to communicate.
---
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Elly found herself reading a PADD with the update notes, whilst strolling Deck 14 on Vector Gamma. She turned to the Cetacean Ops door.
"Just noticing the regional language glitch that can be resolved with the tongue of murderous world conquering savages?" Lieutenant Whui asked from his water-filled side of the door. "I'm ready to fix it when you are. I know all of Klingon Hamlet."
Elly shook her head. "Oh, hell no! A moment of peace from the out-of-control upper decks? This must be how other Earth countries felt when Americans couldn't talk to them. Ahhhh. Yeah, actual freedom."
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Are you going to post on the contest fourm as a submission?
Almost forgot. Posted!
I've been wondering that for years. But then that's kind of like asking where the light comes from when they do a deep dark tunnel scene.
It comes from the same place as the music. Nice linguistic ledger domain. Thanks!! rbs
Caves! They even have a script supervisor.
Alright, I drew the crew's new doctor. She previously had stories in "Smell the Roses" and "Mopping Up".
"Medical Chagrin"
In this comic: Doctor Xyrenia, and Special Counselor BOB.
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The Ferengi got nothing on the current administration...
Unfortunately this sounds about right. Thinking about you guys, from Canada.
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Kind of like living on the 2nd floor above a meth lab...Unfortunately this sounds about right. Thinking about you guys, from Canada.
Author's notes: This was written as part of the Trek BBS October-November 2025 Challenge and takes place in 2393. The Dracon was previously turned into a giant cake in "The Dolphins Were Right". BOB explored his cybernetics in the "Devil's Leftovers" and "Celestial Dynamics" arcs.
October-November 2025 Challenge: A cyberpunk story. Any Trek, any time period. Think Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Johnny Mnemonic, etc. Cyborgs, megacities, etc. (The Borg don't count unless you can add in the other tropes.)
Trek BBS: October-November 2025 Challenge
"A Cyberpunk Story: Rust in the Machine"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X policed, progressively and properly in perfection as the Type-9 shuttlecraft Dracon exited its shuttle bay, jumped to and dropped out of warp. Captain Seifer and BOB operated the shuttle's forward consoles in a new area of space.
"Thanks for checking out this transwarp aperture with me," Seifer lamented. "The Federation has receded so far from where the Neutral Zone used to exist, patrolling our border has become painfully mundane."
BOB nodded. "I had to see this shuttlecraft in operation myself after we had previously sent it into Warp 10 and turned it into a giant cake in space."
"Putting it on a counter-course was the only way to revert it, but we sometimes still get purple cake oozing from circuit panels," Seifer added as he set the shuttle to deep scan.
The Ferengi chomped on some of the residual cake he found in a compartment. "The Dracon is actually pretty good."
"Yeah, I don't hate it," the Captain agreed as he was about to open a nearby panel seconds before an alert went off and the transwarp aperture in front of the shuttle aggressively pulled them in. "Oh, no. The cake has generated a tachyon pulse! Hold on!"
---
After a lengthy and chaotic ride through a transwarp conduit, the Dracon was deposited before the planet Avercol, in a star system inside Romulan space. Passing through the atmosphere, the shuttle crash-dragged itself through an elegant, multi-level, utopian city of angled half-Borg structures and intricate piping until it collided and knocked over a slightly larger wooden airboat. The two men groggily stepped out from the Dracon's back hatch in bewildered, midday awe.
"Ohhh, my head feels like a neutron star," Seifer gripped as he began taking in their surroundings. "This must be one of the worlds that suffered atmospheric contamination after the Romulan supernova seven years ago?" They then realized the grandiose and mechanically steam-powered city around the littered street they found themselves.
BOB checked his tricorder readings. "It is! I'm reading decalithium-residual particulates bound in neutrino compounds, which means staying here too long could lead a normal person to cellular degradation. Not me, though, since I'm cybernetic."
"Actually, we cog-integrated filtration apparatuses into our bodies for long-term compensation," announced the approach of a part-Borg, 18th century Victorian-adventure-dressed human woman with wild black hair. "The name's O-Ren, and this is my crew of ex-Borg."
Seifer noticed as several more men and women of various species, with lingering Borg implants and patterned demure jackets, top hats and goggles, stepped out of the steamy piped and mechanical metropolis to introduce themselves. "Whoa! Are you guys alright? And what is with all the unnecessary bronze??"
"Fifteen years ago, Avercol suffered a crash from Borg Cube 932 as a result of Janeway's neurolytic pathogen in her attempt at destroying the transwarp network," a human, half-Borg man named Corvin, in a vest, long coat and high boots explained. "We unintentionally sputtered in and out of ineffective, self-created transwarp conduits until being forced to repurpose our vessel, here, in what we now call Iron City."
O-Ren stepped around. "The Romulan Free State has never thought to survey this world so, ever since, our massive crew of Borg and various alien crash landers have filtered into a multi-class society. We utilize steam-based power, wear bronze-edged lapels and climb twisted metal staircases. Oh, and we have condos inside giant clocks."
"As a natural progression? In a contrived, non-self-aware way??" Seifer blinked in astonishment. "Is that a penguin with a limb-extending exoskeleton???"
Corvin looked, annoyed. "His name is Jacob and he's our bread maker."
"The point is, you completely inepted the Lockhart, our airboat that took us months to cobble together so that we may reach the Court of the Grand Duchess today to challenge her oppressive authority over the lower class," O-Ren divulged while pointing to a large Victorian blimp palace, ominously hovering over the city. "It's her birthday party and she's gifting her upper-class heads of states with special golden cogs and gears that would propel their technological progress and suffocate ours in the long run."
BOB was investigating an open panel on the outside of the Dracon. "We could get the shuttle air-bound if we transferred the pressurized steam-thrusters from the Lockhart, but with all the cake in the Dracon's systems, she'll need an overhaul to become space-worthy."
"The golden cogs and gears could easily sustain your EPS conduits," Corvin examined as he joined the Ferengi. "You just put them wherever the purple cake is. Also, is this a normal issue for Starfleet craft now?"
Seifer quickly closed the panel from him. "You don't get to judge us! Is that a bent pipe telescope on your belt?? Uggh. Never mind. Let's just go confront this Grand Duchess. Uck. My stomach turns just saying it."
---
With the Type-9 shuttlecraft Dracon abhorrently outfitted with a brass-tubed exoskeleton, with working gears, it steam-pushed itself up into the sky and stealthily approached the massive, ornate floating blimp palace that was the Court of the Grand Duchess. Armed, the four of them, and two more half-Borg rebels, snuck out along the outer balcony-walkways, passed some oblivious Borg-guards, before infiltrating and unintentionally separating through a maze of narrow corridors.
"Oh, a crasher, huh? Either you assimilate into our retro-society or you spend the rest of your life in one of our copper-wired Tesla cells," a Borg-guard said as he powered his clockwork gauntlet to smash through Seifer's phaser and launch a punch all at once.
Delayed, but quick, Seifer dodged and hop-kicked him down before running out into a large, marble and mechanical-frescoed ballroom with balcony. "You guys know cogs of almost any size are easily damaged with forks, right?"
"What we know is that your factory underclass rebellion doesn't measure against technocratic, salon-bred high-society," came the calming, luxurious voice of an elaborately dressed Grand Duchess as she stepped out of a giant clock sub-door to the floor of a group of waiting, lavishly dressed Borg and conformed alien heads of states.
A few more rebels and BOB were apprehended by guards with steam-powered rifles and led out passed electro-mechanical pedestals with glass-covered golden display gears. "You can't supress a soot-covered people forever, Duchess," Corvin countered, pulling out a wind-up grenade. "Grease-slick street smarts will always win over ornate, overly-collared complacency!"
"Please stop with this unending spring-loaded nonsense! Why does everything have to be tricycles, brass eyepieces, vacuum lamps and pneumatic message tubes?" Seifer crashed out. "Mechanical self-walking carriages and street after street of exposed pipes and unlocked hand-valves??"
The Duchess walked closer with a half-draped face of black hair. "Because this is a world free of the Collective, pioneering creative, workshop-heavy anti-perfection. It's delightfully flawed and savoury for those who game, and challenge-heavy for those who dare not."
"Wait. O-Ren? You're the Duchess?" Seifer went wide-eyed as he recognized her. Suddenly, all the Borg guards and rebels reacted in unison. "And are you controlling everyone??"
Duchess O-Ren then pushed away her hair-covered face to reveal her true self as all the Borg stood at attention. "How astute, Captain. Yes, we are O-Ren. But not of the Borg. Those vile undead machinations are horror incarnate."
"This is all you? Did you also manufacture the upper and lower class?"
O-Ren looked down in self-reflection. "We are all classes on this world. The hive-mind is one. You see, it was the cog-integrated filtration apparatuses. They work to save us from Romulan supernova cellular degradation, but not without a subsidiary collective."
"So, you've been playing everyone's personalities and talking through them like they're their own individuals," BOB unpacked. "A puppet master, if you will."
Duchess O-Ren shook her head. "Processing all of us without a Borg vinculum was difficult. Even my giant, bloated fish-mech Engineer couldn't figure it out."
"That explains the tinker-centric, neo-Victorian aesthetic," Seifer added. "O-Ren, please, let us uplink to your collective and run a diagnostic on everyone's filtration devices. We can sever the hive-mind without the dependency on clanking, Telsa-charged industrialization."
The Duchess took a breath considering this. She then clenched her fist, loading a mechanical armlet to spring-ready L-shaped spikes. "Our society has come too far to be dismantled by non-tick-tocking single-headed altruists."
"What are you talking about? I saw a half-mechanical bear driving a tiny car?" Seifer countered as he signaled BOB to multi-punch out a long-coated Borg drone, with an aviator hat, away from a clockwork-computer. BOB then quickly interfaced. "He was speaking perfect English??"
"Ugggh!!" Corven cried as he and several others were soon disconnected from the subsidiary collective. "A society without fingerless gloves, pneumatic dart launchers and telegraphs? O-Ren, are we sure about this?"
Seifer turned to the woman who was struggling just as hard. "Be free for real this time, Duchess. If you want to be a gear-driven, antique cosplay with a metal trim corset, then it has to be your own choice." He shuddered. "If I don't see a giant chain or leather journal again, it'll be way too soon."
"The voices are gone?" O-Ren blinked, in relief-based realization. "I can finally learn to process on my own again?" Then she turned to Seifer in concession. "You saved us with your done-to-death, aggressive Starfleet prying."
The Captain shrugged. "We get that a lot."
"Other vessels have crashed here through the maligned transwarp conduit, like you. There is at least one recovered into operation: A Klingon vessel I've named the H.M.S. Tempest. I think I'll need some time away from this wrought-iron world of machine rooms and riveted metal plates to learn to be myself again." O-Ren looked. "I'll crew anyone willing to join me, even after all this, and take you and the Dracon back to the Phoenix-X. This planet will be better without me."
The Captain nodded. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Duchess. Sometimes we artisan exorbitant worlds to the people around us as a reflection of one. You allowed your people to survive. In that aspect, it's commendable. By the way, the Tempest isn't a steam-plasma hybrid with Victorian-style pistons, is it? You know what? Beggars can't be choosers. I just need off this planet."
Soon, O-Ren took command of the gear-encrusted Mat'Ha-class H.M.S. Tempest, loaded with the cake-dripping, tube-wrapped Dracon, and Seifer and BOB, before it jumped back into the transwarp conduit, back toward Federation space.
Corven took rule of the industrialized Avercol and freed them of its class restrictions. But he also wore an armour-lined trench coat and carbon-weaved trousers in a now neon-lit, district-divided rainy metropolis of congested hover traffic. Soooo, there's that.
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Love these bizarre details. Reminds me of the central role of a small piece of fairy cake in the Hitchhiker's Guide series (which Zaphod eats, to the dismay of the minders of the relevance machine...)
Thanks!! rbs
Yeah, the cake was totally Hitchhiker's-inspired randomness!
