Detox
A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Andrew J. Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation et al are the property of CBS Television, Paramount and the creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Yeah, I know. I go on hiatus from fic writing for one month and this is the monstrosity I cook up. Well, least it's short.
- - - - - -
There's a simple way to explain all of Voyager's various crap and lack of sense or continuity...
- - - - -
"Doctor? You had better have a good explanation for bringing me down here," Janeway stated flatly as she strode down into Voyager's sickbay. The Doctor was standing next to the scanner biobed, an unconscious Neelix restrained on it. The captain raised an eyebrow.
"And for tying Neelix to the table..."
"Indeed, I do Captain," the Doctor said cheerfully. "If you would indulge me and come over here...?"
Janeway grumbled and walked up to him. "Fine... What's all this-Ah!" The Doctor had whipped out a hypospray and injected her with it right in the neck. She gasped, and held the spot. She blinked a few times, her head... Clearing.
"Wh-What...?" She groaned and rubbed her temples. "Oh God my head..."
"Yes, unfortunately that's a side effect of the cure," the Doctor said. "It turns out that Talaxians produce mood altering pheromones."
"Mood altering?" Janeway asked in disbelief. The holographic doctor nodded.
"Indeed, though they have repeatedly different reactions in numerous humanoid minds. On humans it can run the range of causing memory loss to... Psychotic breaks with reality."
"Captain?" Kes asked. Janeway jumped, and looked to see the Ocampan nurse standing nearby.
"Kes?! You're here?"
"I've been here, the whole time captain," Kes said, looking relieved. "You actually remember this time!"
"But I thought you evolved and..." Janeway trailed off. "Threw us ten thousand lightyears...?"
"I did that, but it was actually a side effect of interacting with Species 8472 and it wore off soon after," Kes explained. "It was causing me to warp reality all over the place!"
"Which, combined with the Talaxian pheromones have made things a bit... Problematic," the Doctor said. Janeway blinked.
"How problematic? Aside from me forgetting one of my own crewmembers is still around and not ascended to a higher plane of existence?"
The Doctor coughed. Kes looked uncomfortable. Janeway frowned.
"... Well?"
"... You might want to look at the logs, Captain," the Doctor said. "It took me a long time to figure out the cause of all this strangeness..."
"How long?" Janeway asked. "I mean, sure, Neelix was onboard... When I destroyed the Array and stranded us here and..." The redhead felt her headache get worse. "Oh God..."
"At least a year," the Doctor said. He motioned to Kes, who smoothly moved a chair behind Janeway. The captain fell onto it, looking shocked and dismayed.
"So... What you're saying is... We were all high?!" She gasped.
"A very crude descriptor but accurate enough for our purposes," the Doctor agreed. Kes shook her head.
"I just thought it was what you people did..."
"Like what?" Janeway asked. Kes shrugged, embarassed.
"Making believe about how you made a shuttle that can go to infinity... And Tom and you turning into salamanders and having... Um... Children..."
Janeway covered her face with her hands. She didn't think she was ever going to remove them. "And... I sent our logs to Starfleet..."
"Last week," the Doctor said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder.
"The fact you survived even while... Impaired," Kes said carefully, "is still a great testament! Might even make for a wonderful series of fictional stories..."
"Well, at least some good has come out of this... How soon can you cure us all?" She asked. The Doctor smiled cheerfully.
"A matter of hours. The senior staff has all been cured."
"Harry too?" Janeway asked.
"He was my first test subject, actually."
Janeway managed to reconcile a few of her conflicting memories of Harry from the past few years... And winced.
"How did he respond...?"
- - - - -
In the Astrometrics Lab, Seven of Nine was working on analysis of stellar phenomena while her data compiled from a previous survey. She considered the information carefully, paying only a bit of mind to the doors opening behind her. She looked over her shoulder, seeing Ensign Harry Kim.
"Ensign Kim," she greeted. "Is there something you desir-Mmph?!"
He... Was kissing her... He was kissing her?! And, as Seven's Borg augmented memories suggested based on the memories from billions of humanoids interacting in such ways, very well. Enough her heart began to pump faster, her endocrine system peaked, her hormones flooded her blood stream...
He broke the kiss, breathing hard. Her own respiration system was taxed, as she panted.
"Dinner? My quarters? O' six hundred?" He asked. Seven blinked.
"... What?"
"Would you, like to, have dinner with me? My quarters? O' Six hundred?" Harry explained. Seven blinked again.
"... On what pretext did you-?"
"The pretext that we can continue kissing in there if you'd like after having dinner and talking about work," Harry said with a smile. "We don't even have to kiss but it would be nice."
Seven blinked for a third time, considering that maybe she should alter the routines that governed the rate.
"... Very well?" She said. Harry nodded, released her, and walked out the door. He stopped, and looked over his shoulder.
"By the way, you might want to try wearing more clothing," he said. "Just a suggestion." He smiled, and left. Seven stared after him for several more seconds than necessary, before looking back over her consoles.
The situation was unexpected and strange. Baffling might also work. On the other hand... It was... Intriguing.
- - - - - -
It was some time later that Neelix was awakened. And he was, understandably, very upset to learn what exactly he'd caused.
"I'm so, so sorry Captain Janeway!" Neelix blubbered from behind a forcefield in sickbay. "I-I had no idea...! I mean, I didn't think...! I wouldn't...!"
"Neelix, Neelix, calm down," Janeway said, sipping some particularly strong coffee. Once again she cursed the fact she couldn't have brought along some coffee beans before the Caretaker flung them across the galaxy - It would have made things a lot more bearable and she wouldn't have wasted so much energy. Voyager was a tough ship but viewing her with clear eyes it was clear they needed some vital repairs done. They'd taken refuge in an asteroid field and were mining it for vital iron, beryllium, aluminum, chromium, carbon, duranium - Real elements and minerals which they would transform into needed alloys and composites to fix up the hull.
Apparently they'd been making repairs with a succession of elements and materials that were absolutely fictional: Antonium, Bolomite, Tellerium... The list went on. Unfortunately, most of it was just made up names for already existing materials or things that had nothing to do with fixing the ship. Tellerium was particularly embarrassing - It was a fruit pulp that they thought would fix their plasma injectors.
How the hell she was going to explain that to Starfleet... Well she'd figure something out. For now, she had the priority of calming down Neelix and getting some answers.
"I didn't know it would... I hadn't the slightest...!"
"Neelix! Start at the beginning!" Janeway growled. "You're a crewmember aboard this ship - Act like it! We can't fix anything if you can't give me important information!"
"There there, Neelix," Kes said gently, "you can tell her."
"Well..." The hedgehog like alien sniffled, and slowly pulled himself together, "you know, the Talaxians were in a large war with the Haakonians about two decades ago."
"Right, right, I remember," Janeway said with a nod. "I mean... I think I do."
"Well, that was just the last war of the Talaxian Empire," Neelix continued mournfully. "Once, our influence spread across the entire Delta Quadrant."
"Now there's a terrifying thought," the Doctor muttered nearby. Kes shot him a dirty look. Janeway nodded to Neelix to continue, and the self appointed morale officer did albeit with sniffles.
"But we began to collapse a few centuries ago thanks to the Borg, the Hierarchy, and many other powers. Talax was basically the last of our worlds," he said.
"Maintaining such a massive empire at warp speeds..." Janeway shook her head. "That's incredible."
"Oh, it wasn't that hard. It was mostly based on trade, with the trade having to be more amenable to us than to rival factions," Neelix explained. "We had large generation ships that crossed the Delta Quadrant, trading vital technologies and maintaining control over them so that when they burnt out, the races in question had to buy them again from us. They had to wait for one of our ships to pass by."
"A hydraulic empire?" Janeway asked. Neelix nodded.
"Something like that, yes... But when we tried to make it into, ya know, an empire kind of empire the vast distances and the fact alien races were figuring out their own technologies made it fall apart. Among the defenses my people had, that allowed us to have this empire were genetically engineered pheromones that would affect different races in different ways. Some fell into homicidal rages at the merest scent of us, others were confused... Others kind of went... A bit insane..."
"Like us?" Janeway asked. Neelix coughed.
"The thing is, nearly every race in the quadrant is immune now! They developed it through contact with us over time. By my time, it was just a fairy tale! Something to encourage young Talaxians with self esteem issues. I had no idea it was still working with me, believe me Captain!"
"I do Neelix," Janeway said. "Really... But until we can stop this, you're going to have to stay here."
"Ah... Will you allow me to address the crew with my show in order to apologize for everything I've done?" Neelix asked. Janeway smiled and nodded.
"Yes you may, Neelix. Besides... Might be safer, until we can sort out which memories actually happened... And which didn't."
"I swear, I didn't mean to give everyone catastrophic heartburn! Or hook the cooking system directly into the plasma conduits! It worked on my ship, I thought it might work here!" Neelix cried.
"Well, that's a few things sorted out," Janeway said dryly.
"Still, who knows? Maybe I affected myself, and Kes didn't actually break up with me," Neelix said hopefully. Kes stared at her former boyfriend.
"... No, that really did happen Neelix. Believe me, I remember," the Ocampan said flatly. Neelix sighed.
"Nuts..."
- - - - -
"So, the Borg baby's been able to survive all this time?" Tom Paris asked in shock, rocking the little baby in his arms in the messhall. Torres shook her head as the baby grasped at Tom's PADD with a powerful grip. She sat across from him.
"Yes... Apparently it has a subspace power link. It just sapped power from nearby conduits automatically, and it just kept crawling on," she sighed. Tom holding the baby stirred up some primal maternal instincts in her, which she decided to save for later. Yes, much later, she thought happily as she eyed her boyfriend in appreciation.
"So, what exactly are we going to call him?" Tom asked. The baby whined a bit, and Tom turned the PADD onto a lullaby. B'Elanna smiled and leaned across the table.
"Us? Since when did we adopt him?"
"Well, it's not like Chakotay is going to be a good choice," Tom said flatly. "He's too easily distracted."
"True," B'Elanna admitted. "On the other hand, he's not going to bore it to death with his stories since he's not stoned out of his gourd anymore..."
"Speak of the devil," Tom said as the first officer entered the mess hall with a scowl. He raised a blonde eyebrow at the tattooed former Maquis. "Everything all right, Commander?"
Chakotary silently handed over a glass. Tom held it, holding the Borg baby in his other arm as he examined the cup. On it was emblazoned "SACRED SMOOTHIE".
"Care to explain this, Lieutenant?" Chakotay asked flatly. Tom looked up at his first officer, the picture of innocence.
"Now how do you know you didn't do that when you were on Talaxian Pheromones? Like the sacred baby lotion, or the sacred Hawaiian shirt, or the sacred bath towel..."
"I didn't mention those," Chakotay said in a growl. Tom coughed and looked over at his girlfriend.
"B'Elanna? Sweetie?"
"Sorry Tom, you're on your own," the chief engineer chuckled.
"I could bring up that killer android race... The one with the tripolymer plasma?" Tom said wryly. B'Elanna adopted a dirty look.
"You're really gonna hit me with that, Mr. "Infinite Warp Speed Made Me Have Salamander Sex with the Captain?'"
"You were just as much to blame for that as me!"
"It was a hallucination! It wasn't my fault!"
"Then it wasn't mine, either!"
Chakotay, now ignored, sighed and took the Borg Baby from Paris as he and B'Elanna argued furiously. He carried the gurgling baby away, rocking him gently.
"Yeah, I don't think we need to be in the middle of that," he told the child. He smiled down at him. "So... How would you like to hear a story, little one?"
The baby made a face, and blew a raspberry. "Pbbbbhtttt!"
The first officer sighed. "Everybody's a critic..."
- - - - -
A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Andrew J. Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation et al are the property of CBS Television, Paramount and the creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Yeah, I know. I go on hiatus from fic writing for one month and this is the monstrosity I cook up. Well, least it's short.
- - - - - -
There's a simple way to explain all of Voyager's various crap and lack of sense or continuity...
- - - - -
"Doctor? You had better have a good explanation for bringing me down here," Janeway stated flatly as she strode down into Voyager's sickbay. The Doctor was standing next to the scanner biobed, an unconscious Neelix restrained on it. The captain raised an eyebrow.
"And for tying Neelix to the table..."
"Indeed, I do Captain," the Doctor said cheerfully. "If you would indulge me and come over here...?"
Janeway grumbled and walked up to him. "Fine... What's all this-Ah!" The Doctor had whipped out a hypospray and injected her with it right in the neck. She gasped, and held the spot. She blinked a few times, her head... Clearing.
"Wh-What...?" She groaned and rubbed her temples. "Oh God my head..."
"Yes, unfortunately that's a side effect of the cure," the Doctor said. "It turns out that Talaxians produce mood altering pheromones."
"Mood altering?" Janeway asked in disbelief. The holographic doctor nodded.
"Indeed, though they have repeatedly different reactions in numerous humanoid minds. On humans it can run the range of causing memory loss to... Psychotic breaks with reality."
"Captain?" Kes asked. Janeway jumped, and looked to see the Ocampan nurse standing nearby.
"Kes?! You're here?"
"I've been here, the whole time captain," Kes said, looking relieved. "You actually remember this time!"
"But I thought you evolved and..." Janeway trailed off. "Threw us ten thousand lightyears...?"
"I did that, but it was actually a side effect of interacting with Species 8472 and it wore off soon after," Kes explained. "It was causing me to warp reality all over the place!"
"Which, combined with the Talaxian pheromones have made things a bit... Problematic," the Doctor said. Janeway blinked.
"How problematic? Aside from me forgetting one of my own crewmembers is still around and not ascended to a higher plane of existence?"
The Doctor coughed. Kes looked uncomfortable. Janeway frowned.
"... Well?"
"... You might want to look at the logs, Captain," the Doctor said. "It took me a long time to figure out the cause of all this strangeness..."
"How long?" Janeway asked. "I mean, sure, Neelix was onboard... When I destroyed the Array and stranded us here and..." The redhead felt her headache get worse. "Oh God..."
"At least a year," the Doctor said. He motioned to Kes, who smoothly moved a chair behind Janeway. The captain fell onto it, looking shocked and dismayed.
"So... What you're saying is... We were all high?!" She gasped.
"A very crude descriptor but accurate enough for our purposes," the Doctor agreed. Kes shook her head.
"I just thought it was what you people did..."
"Like what?" Janeway asked. Kes shrugged, embarassed.
"Making believe about how you made a shuttle that can go to infinity... And Tom and you turning into salamanders and having... Um... Children..."
Janeway covered her face with her hands. She didn't think she was ever going to remove them. "And... I sent our logs to Starfleet..."
"Last week," the Doctor said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder.
"The fact you survived even while... Impaired," Kes said carefully, "is still a great testament! Might even make for a wonderful series of fictional stories..."
"Well, at least some good has come out of this... How soon can you cure us all?" She asked. The Doctor smiled cheerfully.
"A matter of hours. The senior staff has all been cured."
"Harry too?" Janeway asked.
"He was my first test subject, actually."
Janeway managed to reconcile a few of her conflicting memories of Harry from the past few years... And winced.
"How did he respond...?"
- - - - -
In the Astrometrics Lab, Seven of Nine was working on analysis of stellar phenomena while her data compiled from a previous survey. She considered the information carefully, paying only a bit of mind to the doors opening behind her. She looked over her shoulder, seeing Ensign Harry Kim.
"Ensign Kim," she greeted. "Is there something you desir-Mmph?!"
He... Was kissing her... He was kissing her?! And, as Seven's Borg augmented memories suggested based on the memories from billions of humanoids interacting in such ways, very well. Enough her heart began to pump faster, her endocrine system peaked, her hormones flooded her blood stream...
He broke the kiss, breathing hard. Her own respiration system was taxed, as she panted.
"Dinner? My quarters? O' six hundred?" He asked. Seven blinked.
"... What?"
"Would you, like to, have dinner with me? My quarters? O' Six hundred?" Harry explained. Seven blinked again.
"... On what pretext did you-?"
"The pretext that we can continue kissing in there if you'd like after having dinner and talking about work," Harry said with a smile. "We don't even have to kiss but it would be nice."
Seven blinked for a third time, considering that maybe she should alter the routines that governed the rate.
"... Very well?" She said. Harry nodded, released her, and walked out the door. He stopped, and looked over his shoulder.
"By the way, you might want to try wearing more clothing," he said. "Just a suggestion." He smiled, and left. Seven stared after him for several more seconds than necessary, before looking back over her consoles.
The situation was unexpected and strange. Baffling might also work. On the other hand... It was... Intriguing.
- - - - - -
It was some time later that Neelix was awakened. And he was, understandably, very upset to learn what exactly he'd caused.
"I'm so, so sorry Captain Janeway!" Neelix blubbered from behind a forcefield in sickbay. "I-I had no idea...! I mean, I didn't think...! I wouldn't...!"
"Neelix, Neelix, calm down," Janeway said, sipping some particularly strong coffee. Once again she cursed the fact she couldn't have brought along some coffee beans before the Caretaker flung them across the galaxy - It would have made things a lot more bearable and she wouldn't have wasted so much energy. Voyager was a tough ship but viewing her with clear eyes it was clear they needed some vital repairs done. They'd taken refuge in an asteroid field and were mining it for vital iron, beryllium, aluminum, chromium, carbon, duranium - Real elements and minerals which they would transform into needed alloys and composites to fix up the hull.
Apparently they'd been making repairs with a succession of elements and materials that were absolutely fictional: Antonium, Bolomite, Tellerium... The list went on. Unfortunately, most of it was just made up names for already existing materials or things that had nothing to do with fixing the ship. Tellerium was particularly embarrassing - It was a fruit pulp that they thought would fix their plasma injectors.
How the hell she was going to explain that to Starfleet... Well she'd figure something out. For now, she had the priority of calming down Neelix and getting some answers.
"I didn't know it would... I hadn't the slightest...!"
"Neelix! Start at the beginning!" Janeway growled. "You're a crewmember aboard this ship - Act like it! We can't fix anything if you can't give me important information!"
"There there, Neelix," Kes said gently, "you can tell her."
"Well..." The hedgehog like alien sniffled, and slowly pulled himself together, "you know, the Talaxians were in a large war with the Haakonians about two decades ago."
"Right, right, I remember," Janeway said with a nod. "I mean... I think I do."
"Well, that was just the last war of the Talaxian Empire," Neelix continued mournfully. "Once, our influence spread across the entire Delta Quadrant."
"Now there's a terrifying thought," the Doctor muttered nearby. Kes shot him a dirty look. Janeway nodded to Neelix to continue, and the self appointed morale officer did albeit with sniffles.
"But we began to collapse a few centuries ago thanks to the Borg, the Hierarchy, and many other powers. Talax was basically the last of our worlds," he said.
"Maintaining such a massive empire at warp speeds..." Janeway shook her head. "That's incredible."
"Oh, it wasn't that hard. It was mostly based on trade, with the trade having to be more amenable to us than to rival factions," Neelix explained. "We had large generation ships that crossed the Delta Quadrant, trading vital technologies and maintaining control over them so that when they burnt out, the races in question had to buy them again from us. They had to wait for one of our ships to pass by."
"A hydraulic empire?" Janeway asked. Neelix nodded.
"Something like that, yes... But when we tried to make it into, ya know, an empire kind of empire the vast distances and the fact alien races were figuring out their own technologies made it fall apart. Among the defenses my people had, that allowed us to have this empire were genetically engineered pheromones that would affect different races in different ways. Some fell into homicidal rages at the merest scent of us, others were confused... Others kind of went... A bit insane..."
"Like us?" Janeway asked. Neelix coughed.
"The thing is, nearly every race in the quadrant is immune now! They developed it through contact with us over time. By my time, it was just a fairy tale! Something to encourage young Talaxians with self esteem issues. I had no idea it was still working with me, believe me Captain!"
"I do Neelix," Janeway said. "Really... But until we can stop this, you're going to have to stay here."
"Ah... Will you allow me to address the crew with my show in order to apologize for everything I've done?" Neelix asked. Janeway smiled and nodded.
"Yes you may, Neelix. Besides... Might be safer, until we can sort out which memories actually happened... And which didn't."
"I swear, I didn't mean to give everyone catastrophic heartburn! Or hook the cooking system directly into the plasma conduits! It worked on my ship, I thought it might work here!" Neelix cried.
"Well, that's a few things sorted out," Janeway said dryly.
"Still, who knows? Maybe I affected myself, and Kes didn't actually break up with me," Neelix said hopefully. Kes stared at her former boyfriend.
"... No, that really did happen Neelix. Believe me, I remember," the Ocampan said flatly. Neelix sighed.
"Nuts..."
- - - - -
"So, the Borg baby's been able to survive all this time?" Tom Paris asked in shock, rocking the little baby in his arms in the messhall. Torres shook her head as the baby grasped at Tom's PADD with a powerful grip. She sat across from him.
"Yes... Apparently it has a subspace power link. It just sapped power from nearby conduits automatically, and it just kept crawling on," she sighed. Tom holding the baby stirred up some primal maternal instincts in her, which she decided to save for later. Yes, much later, she thought happily as she eyed her boyfriend in appreciation.
"So, what exactly are we going to call him?" Tom asked. The baby whined a bit, and Tom turned the PADD onto a lullaby. B'Elanna smiled and leaned across the table.
"Us? Since when did we adopt him?"
"Well, it's not like Chakotay is going to be a good choice," Tom said flatly. "He's too easily distracted."
"True," B'Elanna admitted. "On the other hand, he's not going to bore it to death with his stories since he's not stoned out of his gourd anymore..."
"Speak of the devil," Tom said as the first officer entered the mess hall with a scowl. He raised a blonde eyebrow at the tattooed former Maquis. "Everything all right, Commander?"
Chakotary silently handed over a glass. Tom held it, holding the Borg baby in his other arm as he examined the cup. On it was emblazoned "SACRED SMOOTHIE".
"Care to explain this, Lieutenant?" Chakotay asked flatly. Tom looked up at his first officer, the picture of innocence.
"Now how do you know you didn't do that when you were on Talaxian Pheromones? Like the sacred baby lotion, or the sacred Hawaiian shirt, or the sacred bath towel..."
"I didn't mention those," Chakotay said in a growl. Tom coughed and looked over at his girlfriend.
"B'Elanna? Sweetie?"
"Sorry Tom, you're on your own," the chief engineer chuckled.
"I could bring up that killer android race... The one with the tripolymer plasma?" Tom said wryly. B'Elanna adopted a dirty look.
"You're really gonna hit me with that, Mr. "Infinite Warp Speed Made Me Have Salamander Sex with the Captain?'"
"You were just as much to blame for that as me!"
"It was a hallucination! It wasn't my fault!"
"Then it wasn't mine, either!"
Chakotay, now ignored, sighed and took the Borg Baby from Paris as he and B'Elanna argued furiously. He carried the gurgling baby away, rocking him gently.
"Yeah, I don't think we need to be in the middle of that," he told the child. He smiled down at him. "So... How would you like to hear a story, little one?"
The baby made a face, and blew a raspberry. "Pbbbbhtttt!"
The first officer sighed. "Everybody's a critic..."
- - - - -
