Star Trek: Phoenix-X
"Triple Phoenix, Part I"
Out in the flashy, bright, Antares sector, two engineers on the Beta Antares Shipyards took in the starship-bay-entering, well-used Nebula-class U.S.S. Phoenix.
"The number of adventures and illegal border crossings this Phoenix has been on is quite impressive," Fenwick realized while prepping the next, ready-to-be-named Sutherland-class starship. "Now it's time to retire the old and launch a brand new letter-affixed Phoenix ship."
But the console beeped in error during their registration process, prompting Engineer Tegarian to stop. "Wait a minute. This says there already are other Phoenix-ships in current, simultaneous service?"
"What!? How dare they disregard the one-at-a-time naming conventions of Starfleet?? Who came up with that, a bunch starship writer's room scribes with an incomplete grasp of reality?" Then, realizing his short existence, digressed, "Well, we still need to birth a Phoenix ship, per Beta Antares' struggling quota, so just patch up the old Nebula-class and punt her back out again. The exit fob will still count it."
Nodding, the two engineers quickly band-aided any border-caused hull fractures and tractor-repel-kicked the Nebula-class U.S.S. Phoenix back out into cold space: its cloth-swiped shell, momentarily twinkling off in the distance.
---
Meanwhile, out in the far-off Celes sector, the Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X was shoved into unsolicited patrol. There, Commander Seifer sat diligently upon the Bridge.
"Look at us. Existing, despite all odds that recommend we don't," the Trill puffed in self-appreciation. "Briggs, have all cease-and-desist letters jettisoned out the airlock."
Briggs sifted through a giant sack of folded paper. "These are all addressed to the Captain of the Phoenix-X? But you're just a Commander?"
"I'll field that mismatch," came the transmitted reply from Admiral Cloud who was already on the view screen. "You see, even though any ranked officer in command of a starship is referred to as Captain, I enacted a court martial penalty directive that ensured Seifer was referred to as Commander at all times." After a beat, he erupted, "It's not that he doesn't deserve it, it's just that I don't know how to finish that sentence."
Seifer shrugged. "To be more specific, my genetically modified symbiont committed heinous violations and, independent of my body, tried to take over the ship with the old crew on several occasions."
"But, joined, you've proven excellent command and professional success," BOB interjected. "Curing the Traveling Link, suppressing the Fabrini Oracle, out-swindling Ardra's crew and stopping the interdimensional Hiss whose motivations and origins remain unexplored to this day."
Veker added, "Don't forget, restoring Covalescence, dodging Cardassian hunter probes and scaring off the Children of Khan in the most aggressively progressive cadence possible."
"What the hell, Commander? You haven't been submitting your reports!" realized the medium-heavy weight human. "I'm trapped in another Jellico 'get it done' conference but, when I'm out, I want your self-assessment for rank-up right away— and don't be a Riker-rank-stiff copycat!"
After the screen clicked off, the Phoenix-X's long-range sensors alerted everyone to a distress signal. "It's from the planet Arloff IX. They're in a civil war and are asking for Federation assistance, but," Lieutenant Tong winced in mid-report, "I can sense their enemy?"
"Phew. The perfect distraction from my thing," Seifer relaxed. "FYI, I always turn down Betazoid transfer requests because I know you have us covered in the extrasensory department." Then, switching, he ordered, "Hachi, set a course. Transwarp!"
---
A few moments later, the Phoenix-X dropped back out into normal space and took orbit of Arloff IX. An away team beamed to a variably clouded surface, to an open field between two towns, with an Arloffian group on one side facing an Omni group on the other, and several men and women, from both, hand-to-hand power-fighting in the middle.
"Thank you for coming, Commander," the Arloffian leader, Remmel, greeted during the commotion, whilst wrapped in highly infused cybernetics. "Our world has been illegally joint-colonized by a group of Omni, claiming borders and sovereignties aren't relevant." He then scrambled, "They're totally relevant!"
Seifer did a double-take. "Wait— what? What the hell did you do to your bodies?"
"Upgrades in order to match the existential threat of an invasive supernatural jerk-people," said the Arloffian Defense Chief and lead fighter, Lesandra, bearing a mechanically coiled abdomen and arms as she used them to suddenly deflect and power-knock an enemy away. "Being chock full of strength is my weakness now."
Veker interjected, "Since I was a sheltered lower decks Ensign on one of those upper-lower-middle Parliament-class starships during the Omni rise, can someone please explain to me what the Omni are?"
"The Omni are random mortals, plucked throughout the Milky Way by former Q, who were momentarily given and taken away partial omnipotent power, and now grow it independently within themselves," Seifer explained. "Like they were impregnated in the most Trip Tucker way."
BOB nodded. "Like the previous scheme, it's their hope now to gain enough of their omni power to join their own non-corporeal Continuum."
An energized Omni named Muko was speed-knocked, from the distant battle, over to them before interjecting, "Exactly right! Some would equate us to a religion, except our beliefs are verifiable fact as you can see by the energy flowing from my fist." The enhanced human then clenched in demonstration before engaging said fist in hand-to-hand combat with Lesandra. "That, and our Talarian leader and Risen One, Rein, actively awaits us in our velvety-roped ethereal realm."
"So, you guys can actually control your powers?" Tong approached as Lesandra was knocked away into the distance. The Lieutenant then clenched his own fist and showed his own flow of strange energies. "I got mine years ago, differently, through illicitly forced means, and have been trying to understand it ever since."
Muko nodded as he accepted the fight invitation and engaged Tong in an exchange of punch after block after kick. "We work, every day, through meditation and combat practice to accomplish level-ups and various key achievement unlocks to our personal advancement. We're not there yet, but the Arloffians are correct in their assessment of our Omni border indifference as we don't see the Universe in pedestrian terms."
"I may not be the same type of powered-individual as you, but maybe your success means I could achieve the same control, albeit without the megalomaniacal disregard, through my own foundational training?" Tong realized as he was power-kicked back several meters. "Just no training ships like the Prodigy, Valiant or Enterprise-refit, please."
The Omni smiled before blasting a beam of energy at Tong. "We love training! But not with you." After Tong was flung even further back, Muko realized his own body began to involuntarily energize. Then every other Omni on the battleground did the same. "What the—? Clearly, the opposite of control happens when a powered-individual's specter is interfered with by foreign anomaly."
"I get it! There have to be caveats," Tong pleaded, scrambling off the ground as Muko was reflexively floated away. "Things get wild when one or more Worfs parallel in the same Type-6 shuttle!"
As Muko next clutched his head in struggle, the aura of energy around all the Omni intensified enough to divert them all from their individual fistfights, allowing the cybernetically enhanced Arloffians and Starfleet away team a moment to observe the unwarranted extravaganza.
"This is why we're as border czar-zy as the Romulans who, for some reason, became as such after keeping to themselves for five decades," Remmel argued at the display before them. "This unforeseen, highly energized state of Omnis poses an intensified threat to anybody who's anybody."
BOB stepped up, intervening. "As a cybernetically-integrated individual myself, I can tell the power within your artificial enhancements has, by extended proximity, now amplified the Omni."
"It's throwing their balance off, as well as mine?" Tong observed as energy began to flow from his arms. "I'm like a Kelpien with no Ba'ul."
Remmel checked his data bangle. "I am not seeing any issues with the negative energy we use to power our cybernetic upgrades." He shook it and stopped. "Perhaps this is an inherent Omni defect many should be wary and xenophobic towards? Xenophobia for everyone!"
"The only wary people should be is to your enabled bigotry," Seifer countered. "Leave it in your quarters— if your housing is structured that way— There's no room for it on the Bridge— if you think of this wide-open field as a type of land bridge."
Veker walked over with his tricorder. "What the Commander is trying to say is, negative energy appears to be a clear catalyst for powered individuals. You're causing this whilst immersing into cultural hostility."
"We're the problem? The we who were just sitting here until illegal settlement became apparent?" Remmel criticized. "This is our world, so why can't we power our cybernetics the way we want while burying ourselves in nationalistic bias? If I start walking and swinging my arms like this, and you get hit, that's your own fault!"
Seifer rolled his eyes as everyone slowly side-stepped out of the Arloffian's way. "Being encroached does not give you a terrible person pass, nor the right to also set up negative energy amplifiers around the battlefield," he revealed.
"It's called eleventh-hour tactics! The elevated threat is the whole reason we called you guys— For backup as well as enabling our confirmation bias," Lesandra argued, returning, as several large, mechanized energy boosters raised from the ground, around the several kilometer-wide circumference of the conflict zone, threating the Omni. "We really got into the tech stuff, by the way. I do a regular podcast about pioneering innovation and Borg reactions if you’d be willing to subscribe.”
Commander Seifer did a double-take before waxing, "You know it was Nietzsche who said whoever fights monsters should see to it they do not become a monster??" Then, to her blank stare, he waved it off. "Could have sworn the Federation forwarded all of its philosopher material to every world."
He then went over to the cluster of suspended, hovering and glowing Omni.
"Hey, are you guys alright?" Seifer asked. "As far as invadees go, the Arloff people leave much to be desired. Can I get you trespasser-themed blankets or offender-type hot cocoa?"
"You do realize we're the intrusion, right? That victimhood belongs to the victims?" a hovering Muko inquired after snapping out of his powered-daze and menacingly descended himself to the ground. "Oh, right. Starfleet considers the enemy as moral grey areas to be Picardly understood and sympathized."
Tong then surprise-sped-forced over to deliver a return-punch unto a blocking Muko. Seifer answered, whilst observing their close-by strike-and-block exchange, "Yup! Also, our withdrawn Captain was once an Omni too. Now that we are Captainless, you can otherly-plain, remote-tap his command insight."
"Also, I will prove to you that I'm train-worthy," Tong inserted as Muko then powered up and launched jabbing fists at both Tong and Seifer; an energized left arm at Tong and a normalized right arm at Seifer. "I'm literally the perfect Nog and/or Naomi Wildman."
The Commander blocked and force-palmed Muko's right fists as much as a mere mortal could. "Not that we're here to make state issues personal ones. Oh, forget it. We totally are doing that."
Muko left-arm-blasted another energy beam at Tong who, this time, blocked with energized forearms. "Individual motivation informs group change. I get that," Muko observed. "But we Omni are aware of the territorial incursions we contract, bearing apathy for those territories' grouped mortal infestations as we look down upon populaces like bugs on hovercar windshields." Using an open right palm, Muko blocked a phaser beam from Seifer. "But as said incursions are temporary, and our several-decades-long ascent only sure, like us, you should seek the self in your rank-quest."
Tong then revved up as much Esper energy as he could, albeit fractional compared to the Omni.
"Ew! But not you. You're more like a cringe-induced Neelix to us," Muko recoiled a few seconds before the Arloffian negative energy boosters increased every Omni's power-up enough to glow-up the ground. Muko became re-entranced with the other tranced Omni to both Seifer and Tong's surprise.
An unexpected, kilometer-energized-circle of a complex alien symbol, next, began to reactively light below the battlefield and its hovering Omni, indicating an ancient structure of some kind beneath the dirt.
"This platform pre-dates the Arloffian inhabitants, Commander," came the sudden over-the-air hail from an unknown man as a cylindrical stone artifact ejected from the ground, near the team. "Sorry. I exposition when I'm mission-engaged. I am Captain Rujon Navarro of the U.S.S. Phoenix-H, and that artifact is to come with me."
Seifer did a triple-take as the highly inscribed stone cylinder energized, draining the Omni of their powers, before it and several Omni were beamed off the planet. "Hold on a second. Your ship is the— what??"
"Uh, they're warped away now. They can't temper your reaction anymore," came the second orbital hail, this time from Lieutenant Briggs upon the Bridge of the Phoenix-X. "Something about us being painfully out of the loop of ship naming conventions? Are they capitalizing on how many Enterprises there have been?"
The remaining Omni, now dimmed out of power, returned their feet to the ground, weaker than ever. "It would appear that mortals are indeed something in relation to infinity after all, despite what Philosopher Blaise Pascal said," Muko observed, looking at his drained hands near a Seifer shocked at said-Omni's philosophical output. Muko added, "We both need answers and our people back. We are now gods in need of a starship, Commander."
"Then, like the cyber-buffed Arloffians, improving the self for group change really is my rank quest," Seifer decided, slowly looking up from his misgivings with renewed drive while Tong stood nearby. "Call me Captain."
