Captain Elric - Earth Spacedock
The Prometheus-class I.S.S. Amaterasu dropped warp at Earth Spacedock and Elric met with Admiral Quinn in his office, outside Operations. "And, so, the El-Aurian Artifact appears to amplify the effects of the medallion, even modifying space itself, to what end, I don't know. But the El-Aurians aren't afraid of Q. It's possible this thing could be a neutralizer for their kind, possibly a more powerful Q kind, or Super-Q."
"We'll need to make use of this," Quinn replied. "In the meantime, assist in command here at Earth Spacedock in case we have any more surprises from the Mirror Universe."
---
Admiral Nat - U.S.S. Mephiles
The commander of the Firestorm-K, another Admiral Nat, was brought up to present Admiral Nat's ready room. He, Captain Nat, Captain Jim Dennison, Captain Sarah Walker, and Rear Admiral 11 of 14 were all already there waiting for him.
"So, admiral, you've already told me the story. From a doomed future, Starfleet built your Firestorm as a last resort and sent it to my time to prevent the Alliance War that would lead to galaxy-wide destruction, etc. etc. We'll have to use your futuristic technology to our advantage, no doubt. Word has it that changeling me might be trying to free the Dominion from a certain secret armada, so we might be able to get them to listen to reason..."
Sarah sighed. "Wow, I had nearly forgot about the peaceful option, after hanging around with all these hot-heads."
Admiral Nat continued, turning to Sarah. "Of course, I suspect that Captain Jade might already being trying that, if our suspicions are true. We should head back to Earth Spacedock and meet up with this Captain Elric you told me about."
---
Earth Spacedock, Operations
They arrived at ESD, requesting permission to beam down. When Admiral Nat and the others arrived, a number of security officers, along with Vice Admiral Nakari and Vice Admiral Ma'tol, were already waiting for them.
Elric stepped out from the perimeter of security officers. "Admiral Nat," he greeted by way of confirmation. "So, you're not the guy who controls the Alliance, huh? We have two large factions about to go to war, and I intend on sticking with you until I can reach your Changeling doppelgänger. His future Na'khul agents cost me my ship."
Admiral Nat replied. "No, I'm not that guy, and believe me, my crew briefed me on everything."
Nakari spoke up turned to his future descendant, then back to Elric, and spoke up. "We've got a bit of new info you'll probably want in on, Captain."
Vice Admiral Mat'ol, evidently content with this Admiral Nat presumably being the actual Admiral Nat, and not some changeling or Hyper-Q doppelganger, motioned for the security to return to their usual posts. He then turned to Elric. "Do you have the medallion with you?"
Elric nodded and held up the medallion. "Yes, Admiral. I learned that it is El-Aurian-created, and I discovered a second artifact in an underground city on Leora IV. When both are joined, it acts as a massive amplifier for the medallion's space-time altering effects. What troubles me, is that my Mirror Universe double helped me find it."
Admiral Nat walked over and examined it more closely. Vice Admiral Mat'ol seemed content now, especially since a hyper-Q Nat wouldn't be so willing to get that close to an anti-Q medallion, so he walked away.
Admiral Nat turned to Elric. "Actually, word has it that the mirror Alliance may be trying to force the Terran Empire to launch an all-out invasion against us, so we'd have no choice but to give in to mirror me's conditions when we meet with them later. Chances are, mirror you probably wants to avoid an all-out Federation-Terran war just as much as we do."
"Well, I also don't want an all-out war, so he's doing a really bad job of being the opposite of me," Elric realized. "Anyway, all I have to do is get close enough to that Changeling and execute the artifacts. As for the Mirror Alliance, I'm not sure how to deal with them. But I did notice the artifacts also modified the space around Leora IV. I wonder if they'd have any effect on the weakened-space near Earth Spacedock."
Admiral Nat thought, and replied. "Might be worth a shot, although we have other problems. If we take out changeling me, then what happens with the Alliance in our universe? Besides, we think we might have the changeling's motives narrowed down nicely. It might actually be possible to get them to work with us, although I doubt it."
The admiral paused for a moment, then continued.
"That said, if it's true the Terran Emperor is being controlled by the Infamous, and that he has been turned into an Alliance agent, then working with the Alliance might be our best option, despite how little any of us would like doing that. Besides, we can always deal with our universe's Alliance later."
*Chirp!* Zeta, regenerating with his legs in, on Elric's upper arm, appeared to be talking in his sleep.
Elric thought about the people he lost to the Na'khul attack; enemies that were agents of a future Alliance. "I don't trust omnipotent beings, especially that shapeshifting mad man who was also willing to put Earth at risk. It's a wonder he isn't able to defeat the Mirror Alliance with his power to begin with. Anyway, if working with them makes a difference, then I'll follow my orders. But I won't turn my back to them."
Admiral Nat nodded in agreement. "Me neither, and even so, I want you to keep that medallion handy, and safe, for if and when we need it."
Sarah turned to Elric and the admiral. "Is it possible that the Mirror Alliance have anti-Q weapons of their own?"
Elric nodded, but wasn't sure if he could even trust himself not to use it. "We could speculate all day about the Mirror Alliance, but we'd need intel to know for sure. Perhaps a mission to that end might suffice. Also, what about Captain Jade? If she's in trouble, we have to find her."
Scott replied. "The transporter that beamed her out was evidently a long range one, leading to somewhere out in the Iconian Sector. We already sent a ship to find the source, but it was gone. Put simply, we don't know where she is. The Alliance probably took her, but we can't know for sure."
Admiral Nat's descendant (also called Admiral Nat) spoke up. "Before we do anything, I need to have a word with you, about the future."
Elric nodded. "The mirror Amaterasu has a long range Dominion transporter on it, although it's not in perfect condition. If we could find out where she is, we could possibly make use of it to reach her." He then turned to Nat's descendant. "Yes, of course. There's a briefing room beneath Quinn's office, right over there, if you'd like."
Nat's descendant nodded. "That'll do."
"Wait out here, Zeta," Elric said, prompting the android spider to pop up on his arm and jump off onto the wall. Zeta scurried off as Elric went to Spacedock's briefing room.
Nat, Nat, and Nat followed, while the others waited outside.
---
Briefing Room
Elric sat at the long table trying to work out all the groups involved with the Alliance, Mirror Alliance and so on. When the Nats entered, he turned to address them. "What took you so long?"
Admiral Nat sat down. "What took us so long? We were away for, like, 10 seconds."
The descendant turned to Elric. "Anyway, about the future..."
"Before you divulge, I have to ask, doesn't the Temporal Prime Directive apply to all information sharing? Not that I don't want to know. The Na'kuhl were responsible for the deaths of my crew."
The descendant nodded. "It usually does; although I think my Starfleet has made an exception in regards to the Alliances. Put simply; we lost. Every one of us, and for all the wrong reasons."
The sound of a transporter came to everyone in the room. The energy started to form into a female figure wearing a Starfleet Sierra 1 uniform with red shoulders. "Hi guys! Miss me?" Krystal Jade asked as soon as the transporter let her go.
The descendant spoke up. "I'm present Nat's great grandson, an admiral, from the 26th century, and commander of the U.S.S. Firestorm-K. We came back in time to prevent the Mirror Alliance from taking over the galaxy."
"Well, I know why the Dominion was interested in me," Krystal spoke up. "As I'm supposed to be The Infamous' successor, I could free the Dominion from being a part of the Armada. I cut a deal with them. They help us out, I do everything I can to get them out of being an active member. Basically give them what they want while still keeping them as an ally."
Elric sat up. "I had a taste of an alternate future during my fight with the Na'kuhl. The Amaterasu picked up a moment of their inter-channel chatter leaked from a time-phase effect. They mentioned the Alliance in another era. Captain Jade, if you do this, you could prevent that, but you could also lose your life."
Captain Nat shrugged. "Well, what are the alternatives? I mean, would it make sense for someone else to have the Q powers? I mean, it evidently isn't anyone in this room right now..." he said, motioning for Elric to show Krystal the medallion.
Elric held up the medallion. "It's El-Aurian, and there's a second, box-shaped artifact that I recovered from an underground city on Leora IV. When both are joined, the space-time effects are greatly amplified. There may still be more pieces to it, but what we have right now appears to be quite powerful. I believe the El-Aurians from ancient times used to successfully deal with omnipotent beings."
Captain Nat motioned to Admiral Nat. "So if the changeling Nat isn't the one with the Q powers, than either he just lost his powers willingly, or there's another Nat replacement running around, which would only make matters worse."
"You can never have too many Nats," Elric said. "Assuming there isn't a probability threshold."
Nat's descendant facepalmed. "Counting me, we already have 3 of us, and the changeling, and Mirror Nat. Do we really need more?"
"I might be able to distract Mirror Nat if he has gained some power," Krystal said. "I don't know for how long, but... I'll do what I can. In the meantime we still need to focus on the looming threat."
Captain Nat rested a hand on Krystal's shoulder. "If we can get the prime Alliance and that changeling to work with us, we might just stand a chance."
Surely enough, the changeling appeared, in the admiral's form (but an older uniform) standing behind Krystal. They poked her on the shoulder.
Krystal looked back at the Changeling. "Might want to pick a different form, as... we already got three Nats. Its getting confusing," she said.
The changeling shrugged and changed into Krystal, but with a modern Odyssey uniform. "Better?" The changeling then turned and looked at Elric and the medallion, then to Captain Nat. "Get that medallion out of here."
Elric stood, gripping the medallion tensely. "Well, here's to working with the Alliance."
Elric turned to Admiral Nat and Captain Jade.
"I'm going to take the mirror Amaterasu into the weakened space near Spacedock and join this with the other artifact. If I'm right, the resulting energy compulsion will repair the area wrecked by the Borg cube and prevent a wall-breakdown between the other universe and ours. Hopefully."
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