I wrote a big preamble that explained the divergences from the established universe, but it made the post too long and I decided it might be more interesting for you, the reader, to figure out the numerous divergences.
This could probably be a much longer piece, but I wasn't very sure about how exactly the longer story would get to the point of discovery about the Caretaker. So it cut a few corners.
The Caretaker
Captain Elizabeth Shelby felt the deck of the Enterprise rumble, the brilliant plasma storms of the Badlands casting supernatural light on the faces of her command crew after the lighting flickered out.
With the new navigational package and the bio-neural computer system, the Enterprise was more than equipped to navigate the plasma storms, but even Shelby was comforted by the sight of Lieutenant Thomas Riker at the helm.
Commander Data to her right and Counselor Deanna Troi to her left, with Sito Jaxa at Tactical and Sam Lavelle at Operations rounded out the rest of her command crew.
It came down to one thing - Worf had vanished whilst on a covert mission to infiltrate the Maquis and the Enterprise had been tasked with tracking both him and the cell he had been infiltrating down.
Before the Cardassians did it for them, she added.
Shelby caught Lavelle doing a double-take at some information on his console, stood and moved closer so that she could take in the information too. She also completed a double-take -
"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing, Sam?"
Lavelle nodded.
"A planet in the middle of the Badlands and free from the ravages of the storms," said the young Canadian. "It's a theoretical impossibility but ... there she is ..."
Shelby blinked.
"Feed the coordinates to the Helm," she ordered. "Mister Riker, when you get the coordinates, lay in a course for that planetoid ..."
"Aye, Captain."
Both the Alaskan and the Canadian went about their duties and, within moments, the Enterprise was on a new heading towards the mysterious planetoid that the sensors had revealed.
It came out of the plasma storms, resplendant in its simple beauty. Obviously a more arid planetoid from its hues, but there was plenty of water and enough signs of fauna that suggested the planetoid was capable of supporting humanoid life.
"Data, what do you suggest?"
Data cocked his head. His recent decision to use the emotion chip that he had previously avoided had given him some unusual emotional ticks as he struggled to comprehend his emotions.
"Are there any life signs?"
"Numerous," revealed the Canadian Ops Manager. "Representatives of several Alpha Quadrant races and some the sensors don't even recognise."
Shelby was interested.
"Anyone we know?"
"Actually, there's a good chance one of the Klingon life signs is Commander Worf," explained Lavelle. "It's a seventy percent match with the life signs we have on file for him -"
Lavelle worked at his console.
"I just matched several other life signs with personnel and civilians lost within the vicinity of the Badlands within the past several ..." and Lavelle blinked. "Within the past several _decades_, Ma'am."
Shelby and Data looked at each other.
"Are they being held against their will, Deanna?"
Troi shook her head.
"Not that I can ascertain, Captain," explained the ships empathic counselor. She would have been able to pick up levels of stress or agitation that would have been indicative of the people below being imprisoned.
Shelby ran her avenues of decision through her mind.
"I'll be damned if I'm going to let you have the fun on this one, Number One," she said, a smile flickering across her face. "Sito, Lavelle, you're with me. Number One, you have the Bridge ..."
Shelby turned up the ramp, heading to the turbolift. The ships Acting Security Chief and the ships newly assigned Operations Manager following close behind.
Data coughed.
"Regulations indicate that Captain's are _not_ to lead away missions into any potentially hostile situation," the android recited. "In this situation, I would like to suggest that I myself lead ..."
Shelby held her hand up, the android halted.
"Log it as an official complaint if you feel the need to, Commander. But, right now, I have an away mission to lead ..." the blonde haired Captain said, stepping into the turbolift and letting the doors shut behind her and her companions.
Counselor Troi and Lieutenant Riker exchanged an amused look at the android as he settled into the centralised commanders chair. Elsewhere, Captain Shelby and Lieutenant's Lavelle and Sito had met up with Doctor Selar in Transporter Room 3 where Chief Salazar beamed the foursome, alongside two security guards, down to the mysterious planet that the ship was orbiting.
Shelby took in the almost tropical landscape as the team materialised on a beach on which the gentle blue waters of the ocean gently lapped. Lavelle and Sito had their tricorders out straight away.
"What have you got for me, Sam?"
"The lifesigns we picked up are thattaway, Ma'am," the Canadian announced, indicating into the jungle.
Shelby lead the team through the jungle. It reminded her of tropical islands back on Earth that she'd visited when she'd been involved with Vincent Wexler during her Academy days. Soon, she heard people talking and heard the sound of a waterfall cascading over cliffs and into a plunge pool.
She picked up her speed, pushed through into a clearing where several men and women and some persons of indeterminate gender were playing in the pool. It was almost as if the Enterprise had stumbled onto a primite pleasure planet that had managed to remain off the charts.
One of the revellers turned to her.
"Have you just got here?"
Shelby nodded.
"Captain Elizabeth Shelby of the USS Enterprise," Shelby said, by way of greeting. The well-built man with mottled shoulders - a Trill if she wasn't mistaken - pulled himself from the plunge pool and Shelby realised, for the first time, that the revellers were completely naked.
Shelby averted her eyes whilst the man wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped over to them.
"I'll take you to the settlement. You're the second new arrival in the past week. Last week we had a group of people arrive including," the man paused, "A Klingon of all things!"
Shelby and Sito exchanged a look.
Worf? mouthed Sito.
Shelby nodded in response.
"That would be great," Shelby told their newfound guide. "And perhaps we could meet this Klingon fellow. I think he could be a friend of ours that we're looking for."
"I'm sure that would be most agreeable," said their guide. "By the way, my name is Jamal. I found my way here with my girlfriend, Ursa, when my freighter was forced to take a turn into the Bloodfield."
"The Bloodfield?"
"It's what my people call this area of space."
Shelby took this information in, storing it for future use. As the short trip through the jungle from the clearing to the settlement proceeded, Jamal explained that he and his girlfriend had been on the planet for two months. But things didn't match up - his references to historical events were out of synch by almost two hundred years.
Her own tricorder yielded some clues about the nature of the planet and of Jamal, Ursa and the other residents of the planet. She showed the chronometric readings to Selar, who raised her eyebrow.
"Most interesting," the Vulcan medic volunteered. "A Tumnus Paradox."
Shelby nodded. She wasn't particularly experienced with temporal anomalies but she knew that a Tumnus Paradox occured when the passage of time was different from one place to another - the name of the paradox had been culled from an ancient childrens novel in which the situation occured.
If Jamal believed he had arrived two months earlier from his point-of-view but had been there for two hundred years from her point-of-view, then Worf, who had arrived only two weeks ago from her point-of-view may have only been missing for an hour or two from his.
They'd been on the planet for just over an hour but several days might have gone past back on the Enterprise.
This could probably be a much longer piece, but I wasn't very sure about how exactly the longer story would get to the point of discovery about the Caretaker. So it cut a few corners.
The Caretaker
Captain Elizabeth Shelby felt the deck of the Enterprise rumble, the brilliant plasma storms of the Badlands casting supernatural light on the faces of her command crew after the lighting flickered out.
With the new navigational package and the bio-neural computer system, the Enterprise was more than equipped to navigate the plasma storms, but even Shelby was comforted by the sight of Lieutenant Thomas Riker at the helm.
Commander Data to her right and Counselor Deanna Troi to her left, with Sito Jaxa at Tactical and Sam Lavelle at Operations rounded out the rest of her command crew.
It came down to one thing - Worf had vanished whilst on a covert mission to infiltrate the Maquis and the Enterprise had been tasked with tracking both him and the cell he had been infiltrating down.
Before the Cardassians did it for them, she added.
Shelby caught Lavelle doing a double-take at some information on his console, stood and moved closer so that she could take in the information too. She also completed a double-take -
"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing, Sam?"
Lavelle nodded.
"A planet in the middle of the Badlands and free from the ravages of the storms," said the young Canadian. "It's a theoretical impossibility but ... there she is ..."
Shelby blinked.
"Feed the coordinates to the Helm," she ordered. "Mister Riker, when you get the coordinates, lay in a course for that planetoid ..."
"Aye, Captain."
Both the Alaskan and the Canadian went about their duties and, within moments, the Enterprise was on a new heading towards the mysterious planetoid that the sensors had revealed.
It came out of the plasma storms, resplendant in its simple beauty. Obviously a more arid planetoid from its hues, but there was plenty of water and enough signs of fauna that suggested the planetoid was capable of supporting humanoid life.
"Data, what do you suggest?"
Data cocked his head. His recent decision to use the emotion chip that he had previously avoided had given him some unusual emotional ticks as he struggled to comprehend his emotions.
"Are there any life signs?"
"Numerous," revealed the Canadian Ops Manager. "Representatives of several Alpha Quadrant races and some the sensors don't even recognise."
Shelby was interested.
"Anyone we know?"
"Actually, there's a good chance one of the Klingon life signs is Commander Worf," explained Lavelle. "It's a seventy percent match with the life signs we have on file for him -"
Lavelle worked at his console.
"I just matched several other life signs with personnel and civilians lost within the vicinity of the Badlands within the past several ..." and Lavelle blinked. "Within the past several _decades_, Ma'am."
Shelby and Data looked at each other.
"Are they being held against their will, Deanna?"
Troi shook her head.
"Not that I can ascertain, Captain," explained the ships empathic counselor. She would have been able to pick up levels of stress or agitation that would have been indicative of the people below being imprisoned.
Shelby ran her avenues of decision through her mind.
"I'll be damned if I'm going to let you have the fun on this one, Number One," she said, a smile flickering across her face. "Sito, Lavelle, you're with me. Number One, you have the Bridge ..."
Shelby turned up the ramp, heading to the turbolift. The ships Acting Security Chief and the ships newly assigned Operations Manager following close behind.
Data coughed.
"Regulations indicate that Captain's are _not_ to lead away missions into any potentially hostile situation," the android recited. "In this situation, I would like to suggest that I myself lead ..."
Shelby held her hand up, the android halted.
"Log it as an official complaint if you feel the need to, Commander. But, right now, I have an away mission to lead ..." the blonde haired Captain said, stepping into the turbolift and letting the doors shut behind her and her companions.
Counselor Troi and Lieutenant Riker exchanged an amused look at the android as he settled into the centralised commanders chair. Elsewhere, Captain Shelby and Lieutenant's Lavelle and Sito had met up with Doctor Selar in Transporter Room 3 where Chief Salazar beamed the foursome, alongside two security guards, down to the mysterious planet that the ship was orbiting.
Shelby took in the almost tropical landscape as the team materialised on a beach on which the gentle blue waters of the ocean gently lapped. Lavelle and Sito had their tricorders out straight away.
"What have you got for me, Sam?"
"The lifesigns we picked up are thattaway, Ma'am," the Canadian announced, indicating into the jungle.
Shelby lead the team through the jungle. It reminded her of tropical islands back on Earth that she'd visited when she'd been involved with Vincent Wexler during her Academy days. Soon, she heard people talking and heard the sound of a waterfall cascading over cliffs and into a plunge pool.
She picked up her speed, pushed through into a clearing where several men and women and some persons of indeterminate gender were playing in the pool. It was almost as if the Enterprise had stumbled onto a primite pleasure planet that had managed to remain off the charts.
One of the revellers turned to her.
"Have you just got here?"
Shelby nodded.
"Captain Elizabeth Shelby of the USS Enterprise," Shelby said, by way of greeting. The well-built man with mottled shoulders - a Trill if she wasn't mistaken - pulled himself from the plunge pool and Shelby realised, for the first time, that the revellers were completely naked.
Shelby averted her eyes whilst the man wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped over to them.
"I'll take you to the settlement. You're the second new arrival in the past week. Last week we had a group of people arrive including," the man paused, "A Klingon of all things!"
Shelby and Sito exchanged a look.
Worf? mouthed Sito.
Shelby nodded in response.
"That would be great," Shelby told their newfound guide. "And perhaps we could meet this Klingon fellow. I think he could be a friend of ours that we're looking for."
"I'm sure that would be most agreeable," said their guide. "By the way, my name is Jamal. I found my way here with my girlfriend, Ursa, when my freighter was forced to take a turn into the Bloodfield."
"The Bloodfield?"
"It's what my people call this area of space."
Shelby took this information in, storing it for future use. As the short trip through the jungle from the clearing to the settlement proceeded, Jamal explained that he and his girlfriend had been on the planet for two months. But things didn't match up - his references to historical events were out of synch by almost two hundred years.
Her own tricorder yielded some clues about the nature of the planet and of Jamal, Ursa and the other residents of the planet. She showed the chronometric readings to Selar, who raised her eyebrow.
"Most interesting," the Vulcan medic volunteered. "A Tumnus Paradox."
Shelby nodded. She wasn't particularly experienced with temporal anomalies but she knew that a Tumnus Paradox occured when the passage of time was different from one place to another - the name of the paradox had been culled from an ancient childrens novel in which the situation occured.
If Jamal believed he had arrived two months earlier from his point-of-view but had been there for two hundred years from her point-of-view, then Worf, who had arrived only two weeks ago from her point-of-view may have only been missing for an hour or two from his.
They'd been on the planet for just over an hour but several days might have gone past back on the Enterprise.
