Legends of the Phoenix
- 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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Almost forgot. Posted!
