Episode 130: “Hitting the Road, Part II”

Written by “Krenim”

Published March 18, 2006

The evil Admiral Janeway shot her patented death glare through the evil Excelsior’s evil viewscreen and straight at the Progeny vessel. “I’ve been waiting for this moment ever since you smug golden sickos made me spend quality time with Captain Dimwit! Prepare for torture on a level hitherto unknown!”

To which the Progeny responded over the comm system, We have no qualms with you, Janeway. Your detention with... how did you put it? “Captain Dimwit”? It was necessary complete the temporal profile needed to undo the effects of the Plah D’Viz on his personal timeline. For him to cheat fate in this manner is the highest aberration imaginable. Besides, your vessel is archaic even by Federation standards. How exactly do you intend to carry out your revenge?

“Easy. You see, the Federation is mostly composed of what we like to call ‘good guys’. Good guys follow the rules and play nice with one another. I’m what we call a ‘bad guy’. We bad guys, not constrained by idiotic concepts like morality or ethics, can think outside the box. Whereas Starfleet couldn’t come up with a way to stop you, I have.”

And with that, Janeway turned to Hawk. “Fire the multikinetic transphasic Omega particle Genesis device!”

Hawk paused. “Are you sure we should do this? Last time we hooked a whole bunch of superweapons together, it didn’t exactly turn out so well...”

“That’s because you imbeciles detonated them while they were all still onboard your ship! I mean, really, that’s the kind of thing I would expect Braxton to do!”

“It was Braxton. Just the evil version.”

“Just shut up and fire the weapon!”

Hawk pressed a few buttons, and a single torpedo shot out from the Excelsior. Seconds later, it impacted the Progeny’s shields.

And then spacetime threw up.

The entire Excelsior crew was momentarily blinded watching the explosion on the viewscreen. When it finally subsided, the Progeny vessel was nowhere to be seen.

Janeway smiled a gigantic evil smile. “And that is why you don’t mess with Janeway!”

Before anyone could even think about celebrating, the Progeny vessel blinked back into existence. It had taken some minor damage, but was otherwise intact. Alright, now we’re pissed.

Janeway’s jaw dropped. “Somebody tell me what the heck just happened!”

Although Janeway was clearly directing the question towards her own crew, the Progeny answered anyway. You blew us into the Charmed universe! Do you have any idea how inane that universe is?! Do you?!?! Seriously, how bad does a show have to be to make Shannon Doherty look like a genius for getting fired from it?! Things would have looked really bad for us if we didn’t already possess interdimensional capability! Now things just look really bad for you!

The evil crew of the evil Excelsior had only enough time to eke out a collective “Uh oh” before the Progeny ship fired on them. The first strike took out the ship’s evil shields and caused critical damage to the ship itself.

Janeway shouted, “All hands abandon ship! Repeat, abandon ship!!! Women and evil admirals first!!!”

The Progeny vessel fired again, and this time, the USS Excelsior NCC-2000 exploded in a spectacular fireball. It then engaged its transhyperwarp engines and resumed its pursuit of the Relativity and Captain Braxton...

“Captain’s Log: Under the influence of Admiral Crusher’s Traveler powers, the Relativity has exited the Milky Way Galaxy and is hurtling through the intergalactic void at fantastic speeds towards parts unknown...”

Several members of the senior staff had gathered together in the Observation Lounge. The Relativity itself occasionally shuddered, taxed to its limits even with most of the ship’s power diverted to the new inertial dampeners and the structural integrity field.

The Observation Lounge doors opened, and Captain Braxton entered, looking rather annoyed. He spotted his subordinates and walked over to them. “So this is where all of you have been hiding out! Shouldn’t you all be doing something else? Like, I don’t know, trying to save me from the big scary aliens that are out to get me?”

Kes rolled her eyes. “That’s what we’re trying to do. With the exception of Damar and Xaronna, who are down in Engineering trying to smooth out our ride, we’ve been trying to examine every aspect of the situation.”

“Such as?”

Dax took over the conversation. “These aliens call themselves the Progeny. The big question is the progeny of what?”

“Yeah... That question might make a whole lot more sense if I knew what the word ‘progeny’ means.”

“It means offspring or descendants. Like children or grandchildren.”

“Hmm... That’s a set-up for a future episode if I ever heard one. But I’ve got some better questions.”

Although they should have known better by now, the group permitted Braxton to go on. “First of all, why are we still doing 26-episode seasons when Enterprise had their last two seasons cut short? And will MinutiaeMan continue to call them ‘UPN Promos’ even after UPN becomes The CW?”

Ducane rolled his eyes. “Are you quite through with your inane questions, sir?”

“Almost. Shouldn’t Admiral Crusher have come along with us? What if the Progeny kill him just to stop us?”

“The use of the Admiral’s Traveler powers is extremely taxing. Haven’t you seen ‘Where No One Has Gone Before’? He felt that Starbase 47’s medical facilities were far more capable of monitoring and maintaining his health than our Sickbay.”

“That makes sense.”

“That, and he felt that being trapped on the same ship with you for an indefinite period of time was an unacceptable scenario.”

Braxton pondered that for a few seconds, and it almost seemed as though he finally fathomed that Admiral Crusher was not particularly fond of him.

Before Braxton could come to that realization, Ducane continued. “As to whether the Progeny would kill Crusher just to slow us down, it seems unlikely. If what the Captain told us was correct, the Progeny have gone out of their way to point out that they do not consider themselves to be evil. Even if they could detect the link between ourselves and Crusher, I don’t think they’d kill him in cold blood.”

Yar, slumped in her chair, was beginning to look less and less pleased. “That leads to another concern: Do Admiral Crusher’s powers have a range?”

Braxton raised an eyebrow in typical Vulcan fashion. “A range?”

“Yeah, a range. I mean, even if he isn’t targeted by the Progeny, how far can he propel us?”

Yar got her answer when the ship violently transitioned out of transhyperwarp. Damar’s voice came over the comm. “Damar to Braxton. We’ve violently transitioned out of transhyperwarp.”

Braxton tapped his comm badge. “So I gathered from the narration. Any damage to the ship?”

“Only trivial.”

Everyone got out of their seats and headed towards the bridge. Ducane said, “I suggest that we cloak the ship and change our heading. I doubt that’ll throw them off for long, but it’s the only strategy I can think of at the moment.”

Braxton scratched his head. “We have a cloak?”

Yar proceeded to beat the tar out of Braxton, while shouting, “Yes, we have a cloak! We’ve always had a cloak! It’s just that you keep forgetting about it!”

“Oh.”

Once the senior staff got back to the bridge, Ducane asked, “Any sign of pursuit?”

Dax checked the sensors. “Not yet, but that’s not surprising. At the distances and speeds we’re talking about, we won’t be able to detect them until they’re right on top of us. However, given our assumption that they weren’t delayed for more than a few minutes at Starbase 47, they can’t be far behind.”

Indeed they weren’t. Within a minute, the Progeny vessel dropped out of transhyperwarp beside the Relativity, and the voice of one of the aliens was heard over the comm. You should be commended for your ability to elude us, Captain Braxton. However, your ship is no longer capable of transhyperwarp...

Braxton rose from his seat with a unusually resolute look on his face. “If you hurt Admiral Crusher, I’ll...”

We have not harmed your admiral. Although our vessel detected the link between Crusher and the Relativity, we determined he would not be able to help you for long. Therefore, we did not harm him. Lower your shields and accept your fate with some dignity.

“I will never accept that fate! Never!”

Suit yourself.

The Progeny vessel fired upon the Relativity. Our heroes’ ship fared marginally better than the Excelsior in that their shields managed to absorb most of the salvo before failing. Therefore, while they had still lost shields, the ship itself took little damage.

Before anyone had time to react, Captain Braxton vanished in a golden transporter beam, surely to be taken to some alien contraption that would undo the effects of the Plah D’Viz.

The Progeny voice resumed. As for the rest of you, we would ordinarily allow you to go on your merry way, but you have proven far too intrusive as it is. You’ve managed to take down one of our ships and kill one of our own. Besides, it would be almost cruel to leave you out here in the intergalactic void, where you would surely die a slow death millions of light-years from anywhere. Goodbye.

And with that, the Progeny ship fired once more on the defenseless Relativity...

UPN Promo (Yes, it’s still called the UPN Promo!):

Season 6 will premiere at some point in the future with...

Episode 131: “Absolute Power”