Star Trek: Phoenix

by Dewdrops on the Grass

Season 2 Episode 6: "Simple, Clean, and Anything But"

STAR TREK: PHOENIX

S02E06

“Simple, Clean, and Anything But”

“First officer’s personal log, Stardate 51145.3. The Phoenix has returned to Starbase 375 and is awaiting the arrival of the Enterprise-E, carrying Admiral Nechayev. Captain Liang, myself, Commander Williams, Lieutenant Zhidar, and Lieutenant Hill are currently awaiting their arrival aboard the starbase. Hill is with us as a stand-in for Lieutenant Wattson, who is still laid up in Sickbay ICU following her accident with the magical converter last evening.

I will admit there’s some tension and anxiety, especially from me. I've never trusted Nechayev, and I never will. The last time I saw her, she nearly sentenced me to a life as Starfleet's number one lab rat. Now with the Sirens here, I fear the Admiral may see them as nothing more than a second bite at the magical experimentation apple. And after spending several days with them aboard the Phoenix, I can tell they aren’t the least bit deserving of whatever fate she has in store for them. I’ll be working to protect them as much as I can.”

Standing aboard a Starbase after weeks at warp never failed to leave me feeling just a bit unsettled, what with the lack of proper movement and momentum under my hooves. The station’s antimatter reactors were devoted to shield grids and weapons banks, not warp engines, and that meant the familiar feeling of power thrumming beneath me spiraled around in circles seemingly without a purpose. No movement. Every time it threw me off.

As I rocked back and forth on my hooves, Liang glanced down at me and chuckled. He tucked his cane under his arm so he could pat me gently on the shoulder. “Relax, Number One.”

“Trying to, sir,” I replied, quietly enough that the various people passing us by couldn’t overhear us. “It's a bit difficult though.”

“I don’t blame you,” Williams chimed in. He leaned against the wall next to the docking port, arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve run into Nechayev a few times. Never cared for her.”

“No one does,” Zhidar growled, baring his teeth. “It’s no secret that she is the most hated Admiral in Starfleet. But I respect her. She gets things done.”

“I-I’m still not sure why I need to be here, sir,” Hill said, sticking a finger into his uniform collar and pulling at it. “I should be working on integrating the new converter with Ensign Sparkle.”

Liang pointedly coughed as he shot Hill a momentary glare, then his gaze softened. “Neither do I, but Nechayev asked for my chief engineer to be present for this. No need to worry, young man, we’ll do all the talking. Though do keep in mind much of what we have to discuss is classified.”

“It could always be worse,” Zhidar chimed in, grinning toothily at Hill. “We could be wearing full dress uniforms.”

“Oh good grief, Zhidar,” I said, shuddering. “Don’t remind me. I hate those things.”

“What’s wrong with the dress uniforms?” Hill asked, a tentative look in his eyes. “I like them. They’re really nice.”

“Maybe for you Lieutenant.” I said flatly, pointing a hoof at my mane and what was exposed of my coat. “Have you ever seen me wear white with gold trim, even off duty? Doesn’t exactly go with my colors.”

“Funny you mention that, Mr. Hill," Liang said, his voice rising with amusement. “I've been considering tightening the dress code on board, especially for key positions. If we're going to be on the viewscreen all the time, we may as well look our very best, wouldn't you say?”

The others all chuckled as a looming sense of dread bubbled up in my chest. “Sir, please tell me you’re not serious.”

He stared impassively at me for several long moments, just long enough for me to start fearing for the rest of my career aboard the ship when he broke into grins. “Good to see I haven't totally lost my bartender's humor.”

I breathed a sigh of relief even as everyone else broke into laughter at the sight. “Don’t scare me like that, sir.”

Liang reached out to pat me on the shoulder again.

“Enterprise now arriving at Docking Port 3C.”

We all stiffened to attention. “Here we go, chaps,” Liang said.

After a moment or two of still, tense silence, the docking port opened up. First out was actually Captain Picard, who gave me a quick, tight smile and nod. Following him was Commander Riker, Commander Data, and, to my delight, Commander La Forge. Unlike Picard, his smile stretched from ear to ear.

But I had no chance to say hello to any of them because right behind La Forge was the woman herself, Nechayev. Sporting the newest iteration of Starfleet Admiral uniforms, identical to our own save for a belt with an oval belt buckle bearing the flag of the Federation, and her pips encased in a box surrounding them, she cut an impressive figure. Her eyes took each of us in, nodding to us all, till they fell upon me. “Commander Shimmer,” she said in an ice cold tone. The way she stared down at me, head cocked a bit to one side, reminded me of a Timberwolf that had spotted its prey in the open.

I matched her glare, refusing to let her intimidate me for even a second. “Admiral.”

Liang cleared his throat. “Admiral Nechayev, Captain Picard, a pleasure to meet you both.” He stuck his hand out.

“Likewise, Captain,” Picard said, shaking Liang’s hand in earnest. “May I introduce Commander RIker, my first officer, and Commander La Forge, my chief engineer.”

“Charmed,” Liang said. He gestured to me and the rest of my fellow crewmates. “I believe you are familiar with my first officer, Commander Shimmer. And this is Commander Williams, my chief operations officer, security chief Lieutenant Zhidar, and Lieutenant Hill, assistant chief engineer.”

“Hill?” Nechayev asked, arching one severe eyebrow. “Where is Wattson?”

“Lieutenant Wattson is currently indisposed in Sick Bay,” Liang explained, his diplomatic smile tightening to the point of vanishing altogether. “We will explain. If you would all follow me, please.”

As we entered the conference room, we all sat down together at the large table prepared for us. I was especially happy to see they’d thoughtfully included a chair suited to my form, which, given how long we’d be sitting here, made my whole body appreciative.

“So, before we begin,” Liang said as he spread out his hands, “how much have you and your crew been briefed about the situation, Captain?”

Picard straightened up in his chair and adjusted his uniform. “Admiral Nechayev has kindly given us a full explanation. We understand you’ve taken aboard several other beings from Equus, Commander Shimmer’s homeworld. A trio of beings called Sirens.”

“Indeed we have,” Liang replied as he stood back up. “They’re–”

“I will take it from here, Captain,” Nechayev said with that smug little fake smile of hers. My tail lashed as she stared Liang into sitting back down. “Thank you. Now, the first order of business is, in fact, the sirens. I’ve read your report on the rescue. Your officers took substantial risks with a plan that assumed the sirens would cooperate, despite the damage and destruction they did to the Dominion base. Why?”

Liang drummed his fingers together then inclined his head to me, allowing me to speak up. “Because, Admiral,” I said, “we looked into those other options, but they all risked too much death or destruction. We wanted to win their trust, and we weren’t going to do that by appearing hostile. The Sirens, they don’t know the Federation. They had no reason to believe we’re different from the Dominion. But me? They know ponies. We might have a complicated history, but they’re a lot less likely to start blasting us to bits if they see me. We’re both from Equus and neither one of us belongs out here, so we assumed that would make them more curious than hostile. And it worked. They’re friendly… to a point… and they’ve done nothing to cause any problems aboard the Phoenix since they arrived. If anything, the crew has taken a liking to them. They’ve even begun volunteering in Ten-Forward–”

Nechayev whirled on me, her face colder than the icy poles of Andoria. “By your own admission, Shimmer, these are dark sorceresses who use a form of magic that, to use your own words, ‘twists their very souls.’ I allowed you to keep them out of the brig, Commander, not to give them free rein over your ship.”

“They do not have free rein, ma’am,” Williams said.

“T-That’s right,” Hill chimed in. “They’re forbidden from accessing Engineering, the bridge, or any vital systems, just like any other civilians.”

“But that’s my point precisely,” Nechayev said. “They are not just ‘any other civilians.’ How do we know they haven’t been using their powers to control the minds of the crew, or quietly alter ship’s systems?”

I knocked a hoof on the table for attention. “Firstly, we already have a demonstrated limit to their powers from my report. Secondly, I would know.” I tapped my horn. “I’ve kept a close watch on their use of magic. I can count the number of times they've used magic on four hooves, and none of it has been dangerous at all.”

“So far.”

I cleared my throat and sat forward, giving Nechayev a piercing look. “With respect, ma’am, Adagio, Sonata, and Aria are not our enemies. I wouldn’t call them friends, at least not yet, but they don’t want to hurt anyone just for the sake of it. They’re just as far away from our original home as I am, but they’re not interested in finding Equus again. They just want to find a safe place to live, same as the rest of us.”

“I’m afraid I must agree with Commander Shimmer, Admiral,” said Picard. “They are sapient beings, and as such they should be accorded the same rights and freedoms as anyone else in the Federation's care. We cannot treat them as hostile merely because they have powers that might be used for harm.”

“When I want your opinion, Jean-Luc, I will ask for it,” Nechayev snapped. “As for the freedom of these Sirens, I shouldn’t have to remind you, Liang, that it is contingent upon them meeting with me. Then I will decide what we’ll do with them.”

I flashed Captain Picard a sympathetic look across the table while Nechayev focused on Liang. It filled my stomach with a sick feeling to hear Nechayev browbeat Picard of all people like that. The man deserved more respect than she was willing to show him.

“There is one other matter regarding the Sirens specifically that I wished to discuss,” Nechayev continued. She picked up the PADD in front of her and sent its contents to the 3-D display in the center of the table, revealing a familiar object. “Commander Shimmer, you said this… obelisk was the object the Siren’s enchanted with their nullification spell, correct?”

My heart sank a little as I saw where this was going. “Err, yes ma’am, it is.”

“Then why was it left behind? The whole purpose of this mission was to retrieve any and all magic to keep it out of the Dominion’s hands.”

Liang coughed for attention. “That was my decision, Admiral, as I stated in my report. Extracting the Sirens and the Dominion shuttlecraft was more than enough to rile up the local populace, especially the large contingent of guards around the palace. Going back to retrieve the obelisk presented unacceptably high risks, and would have required me to bend the Prime Directive far more than I am comfortable with.”

“If I may, ma’am, I understand your concern,” I added, “and I raised the issue with the Sirens after we left orbit. They told me that only their magic could power the enchantment. Without them around it might as well be a big hunk of rock for all the good it’ll do the Dominion.” All of that was in my report as well, but I knew better than to mention that.

“I see.” Nechayev sat still for a moment, her brow wrinkling as she thought. “Very well. You mentioned a power source, Shimmer, and that is a perfect segue to the next portion of this meeting.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said. “The converter.”

“Yes.” Nechayev’s eyes flashed as she glared over at Hill. “I had hoped to speak with Lieutenant Wattson, as she was the one who helped you construct it, along with Ensign Sparkle. What precisely happened to her?”

Liang pressed his lips together while I did my best to suppress the cold chills running through me. “To be specific, Admiral,” he said as he gently tapped the top of his cane against his palm. “Last evening, for reasons yet unknown, Lieutenant Wattson attempted to modify the converter, without the assistance of Ensign Sparkle or Commander Shimmer. The converter suffered a malfunction that destroyed it and left Wattson requiring multiple hours of surgery to save from permanent injury.”

Nechayev’s eyes narrowed to mere slits, the temperature in the room dropping by at least five degrees. “The converter was destroyed?”

“The original one, yes ma’am,” I said, summoning my Mother’s meditative techniques to keep my voice from trembling. “But Ensign Sparkle and I rushed to create a new one this morning. She should be finishing up on the construction as we speak.”

“And if I may interject, ma’am,” Hill said, his voice shaking, “Lieutenant Wattson wasn’t involved with the design of the device.”

“That’s right,” I said with a nod. “The actual primary designer was Lieutenant Cadeneza, our chief science officer.”

Nechayev’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought her speciality was xenobiology.”

“It is,” I said, “but that’s exactly why she was involved. Her previous work testing Ensign Sparkle's magic gave us the key to understanding how the sensors could be adapted to interface with magic, and design a converter to make it all work. I helped, but she was the principal one behind it.”

“I see. I’ll want to meet her once we board the Phoenix.” Nechayev smacked her PADD against the palm of her hand, then leaned in to look at me. “Let me be clear: these converters are going to become very important pieces of technology. Whatever the reason this first one exploded, you will need to find it and fix the problem so that it won’t happen again, understood?”

“Yes ma’am, that’s something we’ve been investigating,” I said. “But… what do you mean, they’ll become important?”

Nechayev pulled away from me and gave the whole room a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “That question involves the true purpose of this meeting, and why I have brought you all together. You see, Starfleet Intelligence has picked up some disturbing reports from deep inside the Dominion hierarchy. It seems that between Shimmer’s capture aboard one of their ships and their imprisonment of the sirens, the Dominion is refocusing the bulk of their research efforts to detecting and exploiting magic in any way they can, including weapons..”

“Curious,” Data said, his blinking face impassive, with just the slightest hint of a smile to his lips. “My understanding from reading the reports by Commander Shimmer and Ensign Sparkle is that any technology that runs on magic needs to produce its own magic to function. That is why the sensors used aboard the Phoenix required the converter, to allow the Phoenix to use magic made by its warp core.”

“Data’s right,” La Forge said as he interlaced his hands on the table. “Starfleet tried for years to duplicate Shimmer’s abilities before she even entered Starfleet and we never got anywhere. Is there something the Dominion knows that we don’t?”

Nechayev’s lips curled into a pout as she nodded. “You are both correct, and that is something Starfleet Intelligence is attempting to ascertain. Which is one of many reasons why I need to interrogate the Sirens as soon as this meeting is over.”

“I hope you will not mind my insisting on being present for such an ‘interrogation’,” Liang said, giving Nechayev a beady eyed glare. “I will not allow their rights to be compromised.”

“Nor I,” I seconded.

Nechayev sneered as she replied, “They don’t have any rights, they’re–”

I saw Picard start to rise, but Liang was faster. “Yes they do!” Liang interrupted, slamming the palm of his hand on the table as he shot up from his chair. He pulled out his cane and pointed it directly at Nechayev. “Don’t you dare tell me that they don’t have rights, Admiral. The Federation Charter guarantees the right of habeas corpus to all sapient beings regardless of citizenship, among many other rights. And don't try to tell me they're prisoners of war either, because they most certainly are not! They came willingly aboard the Phoenix. They have cooperated with every request, and have done nothing to break any of our laws. You have no right to treat them any differently than any other being, legally or otherwise.”

Before Admiral Nechayev could even open her mouth to respond, Liang rapped his cane against the table. “If you think I'm somehow exaggerating, need I remind you of the fate that befell those Cardassian refugees the Fletcher saved? Cardassians, yes, but refugees! They were innocent civilians caught up in the middle of a war, and every last one of them was treated as a threat by Starfleet Intelligence. Every single one was interrogated, subjected to rough treatment and then thrown into the most pitiful refugee camp the Federation has ever run, with them half-starving by the time the war was over. That treatment was intolerable! Not again. Not this time. And not on my ship!”

“You…” Nechayev worked her jaw and glanced over at Picard. “Jean-Luc–”

“Not on my ship either, Admiral.” He gave Nechayev a steely-eyed glare. “I will not allow the Enterprise to be used as an off-the-books internment camp.”

Nechayev, for just a moment, turned a shade of red so like a tomato I thought she’d burst into paste. Then it passed, with a simple deep breath on her part, replaced by her usual cold smile. “Very well. You may be present. Now, shall we move on?”

Liang sat back down in his chair, interlaced his hands and flashed Nechayev a winning smile. “Of course, Admiral. Please, continue.”

Nechayev’s own fake smile intensified for a moment, then dropped. “Given the Dominion’s interest in pursuing this magical technology, and given the Federation’s desire to win this war as quickly as possible, Starfleet Intelligence is willing to pursue similar channels.”

“Meaning?” Riker inquired with a frown.

I didn’t need to hear Nechayev say it. I said it myself, letting disgust color my every word. “They want to use magic to develop weapons.”

“Not just weapons, Commander,” Nechayev corrected, raising a finger. “Shields, sensors, power systems, enhanced warp drive… any possible application for this technology. Shields and weapons will be most important for the war effort, but I expect this technology to go far beyond just this one war.”

“Not without my cooperation and the cooperation of my sister, you won’t,” I objected, raising up from my chair. The fact I had to position my rear hooves on it and my forehooves on the table just to reach the same height as the others burned at the back of my mind, but I tried to ignore it. “We’ve told Starfleet many times. Magic is not a weapon. We are not weapons.” I raised a wing and gestured to my horn. “My sister and I are not pretty pastel phaser rifles you can cart around and shoot at every Dominion ship you find. We developed that converter so we could find the Sirens, to help them.”

“And you are also Starfleet officers,” Nechayev countered. “You will follow orders or you will be court martialed for insubordination. And don’t even think–” she said as my horn glowed and a similar glow surrounded my combadge “–that we will accept a resignation like that during wartime, because we won’t.”

I snorted. “Fine. Toss me in the brig then. Because I’m not going to let you pervert the abilities of my species for mass murder.”

Nechayev smiled back, one full of malice. “As you wish.” Her hand raised to tap her combadge. “Nechayev to–”

“Admiral, before you do that,” Liang said, “would you mind giving us the room? Let us discuss this among ourselves before we take any hasty actions.”

Nechayev glanced down at the PADD still in her hand, made a small note, then nodded. “Very well. I will give you fifteen minutes.” She sauntered out the door.

The instant the doors swished shut, we all seemed to decompress at once. “You know, Sunset, it’s great to see you again and all,” said La Forge as he chuckled, “but I’m not ready to see you behind bars.”

“Certainly not,” Picard agreed. “I admire your conviction for the principles of you and your kind, but talking back to any Admiral, let alone Nechayev, can backfire drastically. I believe I can speak for Captain Liang as well in saying that we might not be able to bail you out of such trouble.” He favored me with a warm smile. “But it truly is good to see you again, Miss Shimmer. I never did get the chance to thank you for saving my ship.”

“Half of it, sir,” Riker added with his typical sarcastic grin. “For herself no less.”

“Hey, I had no idea at the time it would become part of my ship,” I said, chuckling. “But thank you, all of you. It’s good to see you too.”

“Yes, well, not to rudely interrupt this reunion,” Liang said with a similar smile, “but I’m afraid we have little time to discuss the matter before the good admiral returns.”

“More like fishwife,” Williams muttered.

A round of snickers went around the table. “Well, if you will allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment, Miss Shimmer,” Picard said, clasping his hands together, “The admiral is right to some degree. When at war you look for anything that can give you an advantage over your opponent, no matter how small. The potential gain from implementing your abilities in our ships could be the difference between saving trillions of lives and condemning half the galaxy to slavery under the Dominion.”

“I understand that, sir,” I replied. “But like I said, Cadeneza and I didn't build that converter just to see it weaponized. To your point though…” I looked around the room briefly, then focused back on Picard. “Let's say magic did make the difference and we do win the war on the back of my kind's abilities. What will the Federation do with it afterwards?”

“She’s right,” Riker agreed. “Frankly, depending upon how powerful this technology can make ships, it could completely upset the balance of power. And unlike a certain incident a few years ago, this one can’t be swept under the rug and quietly forgotten.”

I knew precisely what he was referring to, even if my fellow Phoenix crew all frowned in confusion.

“On the other hand, imagine what we could do with warp drive,” La Forge said. “Energy thresholds have long been the largest hurdle towards us developing transwarp technology. It’s what doomed the Excelsior program in the late 23rd century. But from what I've seen, magic is entirely different in that regard. It acts almost like a magnifier, producing incredible output with very low energy consumption, relatively speaking. Even a ten percent increase in warp efficiency would be a game changer, war time or not. Scale that up across the warp chart and you could send entire fleets from one end of Federation space to the other in a mere fraction of the time.”

“Not to speak for you, ma’am, but I don’t think even Shimmer would deny there’s some good that could come from this technology,” Williams said, rubbing his chin. “But I’m pretty worried about what those weapons could mean too. Commander Riker's right that the balance of power could be entirely upended here, putting the Federation at an overwhelming advantage relative to every other power in the Alpha and Beta quadrants.”

“Exactly, which means we could crush any opposition!” Zhidar roared, smashing his fists together. “I see no reason to worry over what others might think. If the Federation can make other powers bow down to it, so be it!”

“Uh, no offense, Lieutenant,” Hill spoke up, raising his hand, “But I didn’t join Starfleet to engage in imperialism.”

“I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that Starfleet or the Federation would become an imperialistic state, Lieutenant,” Liang said. “And believe you me, I’m well acquainted with what imperialism can do to a family tree.”

“If I may,” Data interjected, “I believe we are all making a false assumption. We do not know whether or not these weapons will be more powerful than existing technologies, or even feasible to create. It may very well be that we can only create defensive technologies, or it may be that the offensive technologies we do create are easily countered. Or that we can create no such technologies at all.”

“Yes, exactly, Mr. Data,” Picard said. He turned to me. “I understand your moral and ethical objections, Miss Shimmer, and I realize we have not addressed them directly. However, I also feel it would be a mistake to overlook the potential positives that could come from this research. Perhaps there is some form of compromise we could reach.”

“Maybe so, sir,” I admitted, smiling gratefully at him. The truth was I had no desire to be locked up in the brig, no matter how jail-happy Nechayev was. And I’d known this was going to happen as soon as we developed the converter. Sooner or later, Starfleet would wander by and have us craft weapons with magic… it was inevitable.

There were plenty of good points made by everyone in the discussion. Perhaps Captain Picard was onto something. The idea of creating magical versions of shields, enhanced warp drive… None of that bothered me. It was the weapons research I didn’t care for. Maybe we could stymie that research, or come up with something non-lethal.

“I think I see where you’re going with it, Captain,” I said. “All we can do for now is try.”

The doors hissed as Nechayev returned. “Well, Commander?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you through wasting everyone’s time?”

Despite the rising aggravation in my heart I gave no outward sign of it, successfully using meditative techniques to control it. “We will do the research, if that’s what you’re asking, Admiral.”

“Good.” Nechayev turned to leave. “Then we’d best depart for the Phoenix immediately. I want to see this new converter.”

“Actually, Admiral, may I speak with you? Privately, that is,” I said, raising a hoof.

Liang bent down to whisper in my ear, “Are you sure, Sunset?”

I nodded to him then gazed at Nechayev, awaiting her response.

“If you’d like. The rest of you head for the Phoenix,” she ordered. “We’ll be along shortly.”

I could feel the air in the room weighing down on me as everyone filed out. A chill ran down my spine the moment the doors swished shut. Nechayev laid a stony glare upon me as she tapped her PADD against the palm of her hand. “What is it, Commander?”

I grimaced and asked, “Permission to speak freely?”

One corner of Nechayev’s mouth curled up. “Granted,” she said, her voice dropping in register to sound anticipatory.

My lips pulled back, showing my teeth as I growled, “You don’t like horses very much, do you?”

“If you mean the Earth species, no, I’ve never cared for them,” Nechayev replied.

I made a point of rolling my eyes. “I can tell. Because the first time we met you tried to turn me into a lab rat, and now here you are trying to turn me and my sister into weapons of war. So much for that apology six months ago, I guess.”

Nechayev pursed her lips, set her PADD down, then splayed her hands out on the table to lean towards me. “I apologized then only because I made a mistake in front of other admirals, if you must know. Stripping you of your rank would have been short-sighted and foolish. Had you and your sister not come to the Phoenix we wouldn't have such a golden opportunity in front of us right now.”

“A-are–” Gaping, my face screwed up in disbelief. “You know, First Rinak’tlan told me that horses were simple beasts to be used up and then discarded. Funny, I never would have imagined you'd share an opinion on something–”

Nechayev rose up from the table and slammed a hand down upon it with a meaty thwack. “How dare you–”

I swept a forehoof disdainfully in front of me. “So, what, you gonna do the same thing to the Sirens? Turn them into lab rats instead of me? Harness their singing into some kind of sonic cannon?”

Nechayev’s scowl blistered with rage. “I will do whatever it takes, go through whoever I have to, to win this war. I will crush any enemy who stands in front of the Federation's principles.”

I broke out laughing hard enough it nearly caused me to double over. “Do you even know who the enemy is anymore, Admiral? Is it just the Dominion? The Borg? Or is it anyone you can't control? Any technology you can't bend to your will?” My mirth vanished as I slammed a hoof into the floor with great force. “You speak of the Federation's principles so warmly yet you're rather quick to force others you've yet to meet to fight and die for you.”

I flared my wings out as I stepped around the table to get right up in her face. My voice dropped in volume to a near whisper. “You're scared. That's your problem. You're scared because you know deep down you can't control who I am, who my sister is, who the Sirens are. Just like Rinak’tlan and his Vorta Yukarin, you want so badly to use us all up then lock us away like some sort of collective freak show the minute this war is over. But you can't, because we can think and talk and you hate that because it means if you push us too far, we can say no.”

“Enough!” Nechayev thundered. “Permission to speak freely retracted. One more word out of you, Shimmer, and I will have you in irons for insubordination. Is that clear?”

A solid wave of control, like a series of stone gates, closed down over my sense of outrage. I found myself stiffening to attention, a frisson of brief fear trickling down my spine and into my tail, which lashed out at the table. “Crystal, ma’am,” I muttered.

“Good.” She pointed to the door. “Now, go.”

I swallowed and trotted out ahead of her, a light gait meant to allow her to keep up with ease. As I walked, my mind churned over what had just happened. There was more to what Nechayev was saying than her actual words.

I’d been guessing when I suggested she was afraid. Turned out my guess was right on the money. It took most of my control just to keep quiet as I walked with her, the sheer hypocrisy bleeding off of her in thick sheets that reeked, burning my nose. No, more than that. It sank a dagger in my chest and left a festering wound.

She spoke of principles that she broke without a moment’s hesitation. It reminded me far too much of the various nobles that influenced Celestia’s rule, or of some religious fundamentalist. In both cases they’d claim to uphold values of peace, friendship, honor, charity… fundamental goods that they would happily trot all over and spit upon if it means accomplishing their goals.

Worse, what really caused it to fester within me was how easily I could’ve ended up this same way, without Mother and Mom’s help. I’d been little more than a power hungry jerk whose life had been so out of control thanks to the death of my biological parents that I was eager to do something, anything to be better than I was. I assumed I was destined for greatness, and I would’ve happily espoused any belief if it meant it could get me what I wanted.

But not anymore. Not now, not after sixteen years to get over myself. I wasn’t about to compromise principles. And if she tried to make me, well… she wouldn’t get very far.

---

As my magic prodded the freshly constructed converter with tweezers, moving some last bits into place and aligning the dilithium crystal just right, the whole thing sparked and sputtered, causing me to jump back despite the welding mask I wore.

“Whoa there, Sparkie,” said Cadeneza as she rounded the table to check on me. “You okay?”

“Jeez,” I breathed, my heart hammering a kilometer a minute. I flipped up my welding mask to get some air. Sweat ran down my face and into the front of my uniform, staining it ever so slightly. “I thought it was going to explode.”

Cadeneza frowned and peered at the device, then ran a tricorder over it. “No, no I don’t think so. I don’t see any energy buildups.”

“Whew,” I murmured, wiping my brow. We still didn't have a clue what caused the last converter to explode. A check of the sensor logs showed no sign of a buildup before it exploded; it simply brewed up all at once. One minute Amelia was fine and the next she… She…

“Hey, hey, relax, Twilight,” Cadeneza said, giving me a strong squeeze on my withers. “I know how you feel. I'm fu – err, I'm worried as shit about Amelia. She still hasn't woken up despite what the doc said and…” Cadeneza's grip weakened as she trembled, her whole body shaking from a shuddering breath. “We just gotta have faith in her.”

Ignoring the looks of the engineers around us I nuzzled Cadeneza's side, for once feeling like we were in complete agreement on something. “Right. Faith.”

“Attention! Captain on deck!”

I didn't see who barked the order, but I stood immediately at attention all the same, and good thing too, because not one but two captains entered Engineering: Liang and Captain Picard. I hadn't met him in person since the memorial service for Sunset almost three years ago now, and his stern face was much more grim than it had been even then.

A bevy of officers from the Phoenix and Enterprise both followed him in, and they all came directly to us. “As you were.” Liang ordered. “Captain Picard, I'd like to introduce Lieutenant Cadeneza and Ensign Twilight Sparkle.”

“We’ve met before, actually,” Cadeneza said as she nodded to Picard. “Though I doubt you remember me, sir.”

Picard’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he raised a finger. “Ah, yes, you were present at Miss Shimmer’s memorial service. A pleasure to see you both again under much better circumstances.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, bowing my head. Thinking about the memorial service brought back bad memories… mostly of my own actions that I now deeply regretted.

Especially the drinking. I never should’ve set hoof in that stupid bar.

“What can we do for you, sirs?” Cadeneza asked.

“We’re waiting for Admiral Nechayev,” Liang said. “In the meantime, get back to it, Lieutenant.”

Cadeneza flashed me a quick irritated look and nudged her shoulder in the direction of the converter. “C’mon, Sparkie.”

Sighing, I pulled my welding mask down and returned to guiding the final set of wires into place. Once they were all set I applied basic voltage to each circuit in turn to verify they were functionale. “Okay,” I breathed as I set my tools down. “Now comes the hard part.”

“And what would that be?”

I nearly leapt out of my skin as I turned and stood at attention, seeing Admiral Nechayev looming over me, her hands on her hips. “A-admiral!” I spluttered. “I, er, I didn’t see you… standing there… ahehehe…”

Nechayev continued with her icy stare. “Well, Ensign? I’m waiting for your answer.”

Sunset poked her head out from around Nechayev and flashed me an apologetic look. Seeing her there gave me just enough strength to refocus on the matter at hoof. “I’m about to enchant the converter, ma’am,” I said, proud of the fact I managed to speak without my voice trembling. “I’m going to overlay the dilithium crystal with a conversion spell that changes electricity to magic. It’s the key to the whole device; without it, it’s just a box of circuits and crystal.”

“I see.” Nechayev glanced up at Cadeneza. “You must be Lieutenant Cadeneza.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cadeneza said, stiffening to full attention.

“I understand you’re the one behind this device, is that right?”

Cadeneza nodded. “It wasn’t an instant process. The real focus was on creating a thaumometer, which is the sensor that lets us pick up magical energy specifically.” She reached for the tricorder-mounted mini thaumometer and briefly ran it over me before handing it to Nechayev. “See? You can pick out every bit of Sparki – ahem, Sparkle’s mana channels. This took quite a while, but with a little help from Su–” Cadeneza deliberately cut herself off with a flutter of her eyelids and a deep breath “–Commander Shimmer, we worked out the kinks.”

Nechayev’s cold demeanor melted somewhat as she cradled the thaumometer in her hands. “Fascinating. A way to detect a source of energy we never knew existed before Sparkle and Shimmer came to Earth.”

“Admiral,” La Forge said quietly, holding out a hand hesitantly. “Do you mind if Data and I take a look at that? We’ve had a chance to examine the specs, but not an actual device yet.”

Nechayev stared at it for a moment longer before placing it in La Forge’s hand. “Very well.”

“Err, if you need a space, sirs, there should be some over here, next to the warp core,” Hill interjected, showing the two over.

“Don’t forget it’s only going to work for so long, sir,” Cadeneza spoke up as La Forge and Data weaved through the consoles occupying the middle of Engineering.

Nechayev’s eyebrows rose. “Why is that?”

I saw Cadeneza’s eyes flash momentarily, the corner of her mouth tugging, as if she longed to snark about how Nechayev must not have read her report. Fortunately for all of us, she channeled her sugary sweet voice instead of her sarcasm when she replied. “Because the thaumometer needs magic to function. We can make them but we can’t power them without magic. So there’s a little crystal embedded in each one that stores the magic.” Cadeneza glanced my way and twitched her eyebrows.

“It’s called a mana battery,” I said, picking up on the hint. “It’s able to pick up on ambient magic and store it to be used as power for the device, in this case the thaumometer. Because these batteries are produced by the ship's replicators they can only accept this specific ship's magic, which we have been storing in a larger version of this battery located in a cargo bay on deck 28. This is so that in the event of some kind of overload we can jettison it in a hurry.”

“And that battery drains real quick without the warp core feeding into it,” Cadeneza added. “This converter isn’t exactly that efficient either. The math ratios work out to be, what, ten percent?”

“Closer to five,” I countered. “Devices like these exist in Equestria, but they use a much more robust version of the spell… at least, that’s what I remember from my reading.” I held a hoof to my muzzle and coughed. “And those were only used for very specific tasks where it was impractical to have unicorns feeding magic into a system, like the Cloudsdale weather factory. Electricity doesn’t really want to be magic, but magic is very happy to turn back into electricity, so it becomes very difficult to accomplish anything and do it efficiently.”

“But it is an accomplishment, ma’am,” Sunset said, stepping forward to stand next to me. “A converter this small was considered absolutely impossible by Equestrian standards.” A small smile tugged at her muzzle. “Then again, so was a lot of what we take for granted.”

“Not only that, but the way we're using the converter upends entire generations of Equestrian scientific theory,” I continued, smiling back at Sunset briefly. “To apply magic power to any movable object it must be channeled through the pony using the object. In other words, if you want to use magic to move an object you need a pony to make it happen. It's one of the first things any pony is taught in magic kindergarten. Yet here we've made magic a part of the object - in this case, the Phoenix herself. It's completely unprecedented in Equestrian science.”

“So it would seem,” Nechayev said, giving us a smile that not only didn’t reach her eyes, its cold lack of kindness drove our own off our faces. “Very well, Ensign, proceed with your spell.”

“Aye, ma’am,” I murmured as I lowered my head and closed my eyes, tapping into the magic within. Like a second sight, the ambient magic in the air became visible in the darkness, whips and currents of light swishing and washing about. A huge, dense cloud of it in the shape of an alicorn stood nearby, lighting up almost every bit of Sunset’s body. If I’d chosen to glance down I might’ve seen the same from my own. But instead I focused, drawing in the magic surrounding me, weaving it, twisting it into a set pattern, like assembling a mold. It felt like it took ages, especially with a bevy of senior officers watching my every move.

Enchantments like this were less like a typical one-layer spell and more like a matryoshka doll. The security spell was nestled inside the basic safety ward, which itself nested under the first of many layers of mathematical formulae, all of which underpinned the master spell that converted incoming electrons into thaums. Weaved together, it formed a perfect, textbook spell matrix, which I laid ever so gently atop the dilithium crystal, encoding it in every last facet. Once laid in, I gave the whole device one last burst of energy from my horn, then stepped away and opened my eyes.

My vision swam as my body shook, causing me to stumble against Sunset. “S-sorry,” I murmured as a dizzy spell overtook me, nausea twisting my stomach.

“Relax, Ensign, sit down if you need to,” Sunset ordered, gesturing to one of the nearby chairs with her wing.

I flopped my way over to sit down, sighing in relief. “Thank you…”

“That was incredible to watch,” Riker murmured, rubbing his chin.

“I’ll say,” La Forge chimed in with a quiet whistle. “Is it normally so exhausting though? I don’t remember reading that in the report.”

“No, sir,” I said with a quiet chuckle. “But I was… injured last night, and even with Sickbay speeding the process, it takes a lot of magic out of a unicorn when she’s hurt like that.” I carefully left out the details about how much of that magic was consumed in fruitless attempts to beat the stuffing out of Maia. My ex-roommate really had been toying with me those times I beat her.

Oooh I’d show her though. It only made me far more determined to defeat her next time.

“Was your injury related in any way to Lieutenant Wattson’s?” Picard asked.

“No, sir, it was unrelated.” I pursed my lips, struggling to think of the best way to put it. “I... overexerted myself during some martial arts training.”

“How much magic does this converter produce?” Nechayev asked, her eyes fixed upon the now functional device.

“It’s a little hard to say, Admiral,” Cadeneza answered. “Thaums, as Sparkle and Shimmer call it, don't convert to our measurement systems in any meaningful way. So we’ve been trying to develop our own method of measuring it.”

“Right now, we’re using an unnamed unit,” Sunset said. She stepped over to a nearby console and brought up some schematics. “The unit is based upon the number of thaums it takes to power a tricorder sized thaumometer for one second, and projected out from there.”

“Well, we have been considering some potential names for it…” Cadenaza said in an almost sing-song voice.”

“Ahem,” Liang grunted, pointedly clearing his throat. “I believe that I firmly rejected your name for the unit, Lieutenant.”

“Respectfully, sir,” Cadeneza rejoined, a slight smirk pulling at her mouth, “I don’t see what’s wrong with calling it Caddies. I invented the unit, shouldn’t it be named after me? Even cochranes are named after Zephram Cochrane.”

“Oh my god she actually said it, in front of Nechayev even,” Sunset whispered, just loud enough for me to hear.

I barely resisted the urge to plant my face in my hooves even as a chuckle rose from the group around us. “I believe I speak for all of us, Lieutenant,” Nechayev said, scorn heaped atop every word, “that while we respect your contribution, that name is… not acceptable.”

“And we’re not calling them Jackies either,” Sunset shot back, glaring at Cadeneza. “If we're going to go down this road right now, then I'll just say that if any name should apply, it should be one from Equus. Because it’s still our magic that powers it.”

Cadeneza groaned, doubling over with an expressive sigh. “Fine, fine,” she said, twirling her hand. “We’ll call ‘em Sparkies.”

“Sparkles,” Sunset corrected. “The meaning of the name in Ponish relates to magic anyway, so we might as well use it properly.”

As all eyes turned to me, my face heated up to an almost unbearable degree. “Err, ma’am,” I stammered, barely able to look at Sunset, let alone anyone else, “I-I thought I said we weren’t going to–”

“Sparkles, huh?” La Forge interrupted. He nodded a few times. “Yeah, I like it. It’s a little different, but it fits.”

“Hmm.” Data glanced in my direction, then back down at the thaumometer in his hand. “I believe the word is more aesthetically pleasing than Lieutenant Cadeneza’s suggestion.”

Nechayev let out a loud snort. “That’s enough foolishness, everyone. Sparkles it is,” Nechayev declared, putting an end to the debate and, simultaneously, sealing my doom in Federation and Equestrian history. “You were talking about the converter’s production capacity.”

“Right,” Sunset said. “Right now, the converter is theoretically capable of producing approximately anywhere between 2.5 to 5 thau – err, I mean, gigasparkles a day. In practice, however, we’ve barely been able to crank the thing to 30%, so it’s been limited, at most, to 600 to 700 megasparkles a day. And usually much lower, which was why we had to pause so often while searching for the sirens, to let the ship build up enough power.

Nechayev’s enthusiasm dampened considerably. “I see. What has kept you from running it at full capacity?”

“Apart from safety considerations,” I said, “we’ve had some storage capacity issues as well. We’re working on making more storage batteries, but the cargo bay was never meant to serve as a power core, so we’ve been having to use makeshift connections to the rest of the ship.”

“And we can’t just force it directly from the converter into the sensors,” Sunset added. “That’d be like trying to plug a tricorder into a warp core: it’d explode from the level of amperage running through it. So that slows things down too.”

“But we’re going to work on that, ma’am,” Cadeneza said. She scanned the area for a moment then grabbed a loose PADD and brought it up, showing off some schematics. “I’ve been working on a few designs for better transmission cables, stouter infrastructure. Instead of a massive battery in the cargo bay, imagine lots of little storage batteries spread all around the ship, kind of like the bioneural gel packs on the Intrepid-class ships.”

Nechayev snatched the PADD out of Cadeneza’s hand to scan it. “I see… I see, so this could be scaled up, then.”

“Potentially,” Cadeneza said. “Not sure what for yet, but I’m thinking we can probably reengineer the converter too. This thing,” she patted the box, “was always a prototype. Sparkle and I have already begun documenting improvements we can make on the next batch. Biggest limitation is gonna be how much dilithium we’ll have to use.”

“Assuming we can’t find some substitute crystal,” La Forge said, tapping at his chin. “Something we can replicate.”

“Well we’re already using a different kind of crystal for the mana batteries,” Cadeneza said, glancing down at the converter. “It’s something Commander Shimmer programmed into the replicator.”

“What sort of crystal did you utilize, Lieutenant?” Data asked.

“Uuuuh, well,” Cadeneza said, scratching her head. “When I asked her what it was called she neighed at me.”

I could feel the embarrassment radiating off Sunset. I turned and saw her face glow redder than her mane. “Err, yeah, sorry about that,” she said. “The universal translator didn’t know what to do with that one.”

“Well, if we’re using sparkle for the unit, why not call it a Shimmer crystal?” Riker suggested, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

“Commander,” Picard began in a warning tone.

“No, wait, sir, I think that’s a good idea,” La Forge said. “It keeps it consistent.”

“And crystals do indeed… shimmer,” Data provided.

I saw Hill and Williams slap their hands to their faces as the whole room seemed to groan at once. Finally, Cadeneza broke the awkward moment. “Yeah, sure, Shimmer crystals, whatever. Point is they’re very similar to a kind of crystal found on Equus.”

“It’s not exactly the same,” Sunset interjected with a sigh. “They’re…” As she trailed off she descended into little snorts and nickers that forced me to slap a hoof to my mouth to keep from laughing.

“Sunset,” I whispered, “language!”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Equus is a nexus of magic… magic is in everything. Gemstones grow in the ground all over the place, with some places so dense you can barely stick a shovel down past a meter without coming out with a big shovelful of shards and pieces. And unlike gemstones on every other world, these even come out looking pristine, like they’d been processed by jewelers for days.”

She brought up a picture of a perfectly shaped diamond on one of the screens and pointed at it. “You could find these for a dime a dozen, to the point that in some parts of Equestria they’ll even take gemstones in lieu of bits, then convert them in bulk later. The only reason they have any real value outside of aesthetics is the magic they can be used for. Each kind is valuable for different applications.”

“But we can’t just replicate the same exact thing,” I pointed out. “It’s like trying to replicate dilithium or latinum--the replicator just can’t do it. But we can replicate something with a similar structure. It’s enough to be able to store the magic with at least.” I brought up a picture in turn of a crystal shaped roughly like a candle, rounded along all sides and tapering to points at both ends, shining a myriad of colors.

“Have you attempted to use a Shimmer crystal in place of the dilithium?” Data asked.

“Yes, but it won’t hold an enchantment,” Sunset said. “That’s why we have to use dilithium. Whatever quality makes a crystal able to hold an enchantment, it’s beyond our replicators… for now.”

“Sourcing dilithium will not be a problem,” Nechayev stated, drawing everyone’s attention back to her. “If that is what is needed for these converters, so be it. Starfleet Intelligence will see to it that you get as much dilithium and any other resources you need.”

Cadeneza blinked a few times, her face screwed up. “Um, ma’am, why are we getting these resources?”

Nechayev smiled, one that chilled me to the bone. “Because as of this moment I am altering the Phoenix’s mission. The Phoenix is hereby a testbed for magical technology. You will be the center of a small fleet of ships dedicated to testing and creating various applications for this magic, with a primary focus on weapons and defensive technologies, given the war. The Enterprise will also be involved with this project, albeit independently.”

“Admiral?” Picard spoke up. Though his voice hadn’t become any louder, I practically shook from the level of command authority in his tone. “I believe the demonstration that Ensign Sparkle gave us made it clear we would get nowhere without natural magic users aboard our ship.”

“And we had a deal, Admiral,” Liang chimed in, folding his arms across his chest. “You won’t take Sparkle or Shimmer from my ship.”

“I don’t have to,” she said, shrugging. “We have three others we can use.”

Everyone fell silent, with Sunset and Liang shooting Nechayev equally hostile glares. “You can’t be serious, ma’am,” Cadeneza said.

“Of course I’m serious.” Nechayev straightened herself up and tucked her arms behind her back. “There’s no need for one ship to contain all five magic users in the Federation, is there?”

“With respect, Admiral, you still have yet to even meet these sirens, let alone speak with them and ask what they would like to do,” Picard pointed out, sounding surprisingly calm despite the clearly growing anger in his expression. “And if I may raise my own objection, the Enterprise could be far more valuable to the war effort on the front lines, even presuming the Sirens’ magic functions in the same way as Shimmer and Sparkle’s.”

“He’s right, ma’am,” Riker added. “All due respect, a Sovereign-class starship simply isn’t as geared towards research as a Nebula-class. It’s a warship.”

“I’ll admit, I wouldn’t mind getting a chance to play around with some of this technology,” La Forge said, “but... we don’t need the Enterprise just for that.”

“Your opinions have been noted,” Nechayev said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Captain Liang, I would like to meet with these Sirens now. I see no reason for further delays.”

If Liang had magic he’d be glowing with the fury I saw shaking within him. “We’ll see about that,” he said, his voice tight. “Mr. Zhidar, would you be so kind as to see if our guests are willing to meet with the good admiral?”

Zhidar, who I’d forgotten had even been standing there in the first place, jumped to attention with a sneaky grin on his face. “Aye, sir,” he said before tottering off.

“Very well,” Nechayev said. She turned to Picard. “Jean-Luc, you are more than welcome to join me, though we won’t need the rest of your staff for now. They may return to the Enterprise at their convenience.”

“Splendid,” Picard muttered through nearly gritted teeth. He let out a quiet sigh. “Commander Riker, please return to the Enterprise. Geordi, Data, I would like the two of you to remain aboard the Phoenix and continue to study the converter. With your blessing of course, Captain.”

Liang nodded. “No objection. Admiral, Captain, if you’ll follow me. Number One!”

I watched Riker and Sunset pivot on their heels at once and come to attention. “Yes, sir?” they said in unison.

Liang’s eyebrows shot up as he glanced over at the bemused Riker, then back to Sunset. “We’ll be in the conference room. Feel free to join us at your leisure,” he said with a wink.

Sunset, to her credit, simply nodded. “Aye, sir.”

“We may have some imposters among us,” Riker muttered to Picard.

“Certainly appears that way," he replied with a small chuckle.

Nechayev gave them all one last cold stare, prompting them to hurry out. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to the bridge,” Williams said.

“And I’ve got a thing to do… with the… stuff,” Hill mumbled as he disappeared into Wattson’s office.

Riker meanwhile faced Sunset and held out a hand. “It’s been good seeing you again, Commander Shimmer,” he said with a big grin. “You’ve earned every pip on that collar and more besides. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up a Captain before me.”

“I dunno about that, sir,” Sunset said, shaking Riker’s hand eagerly. “You’ve had your pick of ships for ages now.”

“Maybe,” Riker allowed. “But you’re reminding me an awful lot of Elizabeth Shelby, and last I checked, she’s one step away from being a captain herself. Making me feel slow as molasses.”

“I’m sure you’re comfortable where you are, sir,” Sunset said. “I don’t think anyone can blame you.”

Riker shrugged. “Well, take care, Shimmer. Geordi, Data, don’t hang around here for too long.”

As he stepped out, Sunset turned to La Forge, who was grinning up a storm at her. “I know I already said it, but damn it’s good to see you again, Shimmer,” he said.

“Please, Commander, I think you can call me Sunset now,” Sunset said with a chuckle. She held out both forehooves to take his hand and shake it enthusiastically.

“Then call me Geordi, Sunset,” La Forge replied. He let out a heavy sigh, his grin fading just slightly. “I know we’ve been corresponding, but it’s something else to see you in person, since the last time…”

Both of them glanced in the direction of the warp core and shuddered simultaneously. “Trust me, er, Geordi,” Sunset said, “I’m not keen on repeating that experience. Ever.”

“Still.” La Forge shook his head and laughed. “You know, we had a second ceremony honoring you a year after we thought you’d died. It was our somber way of christening the new Enterprise, since none of us would’ve been around to see it if it weren’t for you.”

I shifted on my hooves, feeling a bit of cold anger bubbling up from that dark place I’d shoved it all into. The bitter jealousy I’d felt over how Sunset was treated, the hurt from losing her, all began to show up again.

Then Sunset, glancing over to me, rushed over to wrap a wing around me. The physical closeness managed to banish most of that anger back into the dark hole it crawled out of, though a small part of me was still a bit annoyed about being held in public. “Well, I’m back now. I had to come back. I wasn’t going to leave my little sister hanging alone,” Sunset said. She knelt her head down enough to whisper, “Love you, Twilight.”

“Love you too, BSBFF,” I whispered back, feeling the last bit of pointless anger vanish.

“Commander,” Data spoke up, eying Sunset. He held up the thaumometer in his hand. “May I?”

Sunset raised her eyebrows, then shrugged. “Uh, sure, go ahead.”

Data wasted no time running the thaumometer over the both of us. “Intriguing,” he said. “Your wings, they…”

Sunset flared her wings, glancing at each in turn. The sudden lack of winghug left me feeling a bit chilly. “What about them?”

“Oh, you should’ve seen Data’s face when I first got your message that you were back,” La Forge said. “He had his emotion chip on and he couldn’t stop gaping and gasping over how ‘impossible’ they were.”

I glanced back at Data in time to see him crank his neck in an odd way, producing a chirping sound. Then his mouth spread in a smile. “Geordi,” he said, his voice filling up with amusement. “You must admit, it is unusual.”

Geordi laughed. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny seeing your face.”

Data chuckled in response. “I suppose it was quite amusing, in retrospect.” He finished scanning us and tapped a few keys. I heard the briefest of beeps from his pocket.

“Oh wow, so you figured out how to control your emotion chip, huh?” Sunset said. “That’s great, Data! I remember feeling a bit worried for you there for a while after uh, well…”

“Indeed I did,” Data acknowledged. He gave Sunset one more smile, then jerked his neck again, the smile vanishing instantly. “However, I do prefer to keep it off while I am on duty, most of the time. If you will excuse us, I believe Geordi and I should return to studying the converter.”

As they moved away, I turned to Sunset and said, “So, I’m guessing Nechayev’s going to be waiting a while for them, isn’t she?”

“Oh yeah,” Sunset said with a giggle. “Zhidar had this look in his eye like Christmas came early.”

“Hearth’s Warming,” I corrected gently. Holidays weren’t big in the Federation, but if there were two our family always celebrated together, it was Hearth’s Warming Eve and Nightmare Night, to honor Sunset and me. A little piece of our old home, as it were.

“Yeah yeah,” she said. “Anyway, I’m going to stick around here with Geordi and Data. Why don’t you and Cadeneza go check in on Wattson. Last I heard May was trying everything she could to wake her up.”

“Alright sis.” I said.

Sunset flashed me an amused, if exasperated glare. “Ahem.”

I shot back with a flat look of my own. “Aye, ma’am.”

“Better,” Sunset snickered, before bursting into outright laughter as she walked off.

I collected Cadeneza and the two of us walked out of Engineering together. “So that Nechayev is a real bitch, huh?” she said as we entered the nearest turbolift.

I snorted. “You said it. You weren’t there when she tried to order Sunset into a life of medical experimentation.”

Oddly, I saw Cadeneza’s whole body shake as if from fright for a moment before she replied with a flippant, “Eh, who wouldn’t want to experiment with Sunset?”

My stomach flipped as I slapped a hoof to my mouth. “Please don’t say that,” I murmured.

Cadeneza chuckled to herself as the turbolift discharged us onto Deck 12, but as I watched her walk ahead of me, I noticed she was shaking again. Even that crude joke she just made had carried with it a note of sorrow.

“H-hey,” I said, rushing forward to walk side by side with her. “She’s going to be okay. Amelia’s going to be fine.”

“Is she?” Cadeneza murmured as we neared Sickbay. “It’s been close to a day now. She still hasn’t woken up. I…”

I knew Cadeneza wasn’t in the best of moods. Hell, when I went searching for her just before Nechayev arrived, I’d found her in the holosuite belly-dancing of all things, like she was leaping for the absurd just to get her mind off of everything.

Though I could’ve done without seeing her in a badlah. Sure it fit her well but just... ugh.

The doors to Sickbay swished open before us. Much of Sickbay was empty, with only the occasional officer or enlisted personnel sitting on a biobed being examined, including one unfortunate soul who’d apparently broken both of his hands… somehow. But I ignored all of them, passing by the medical staff as we headed for the ICU.

We found Doctor May inside, standing above Wattson with a tricorder. “Oh, Cadeneza, Sparkle, I wasn’t expecting to see you,” said May. One look at her face showed how exhausted she was, from the harrowed, drawn expression to the bags under her eyes and the puffiness of her skin. “You know I’ll be tellin’ you if she wakes up.”

“Yeah, we know, Doc,” Cadeneza said. “Look, just give us a couple minutes, okay?”

May sighed and nodded. “As you wish. I’ll just be in me office, gettin’ some more coffee.”

I looked down onto the bed, where Wattson lay unmoving underneath a clamshell scanner, save for the rising and falling of her breath. Her face was unblemished, unmarred as if she’d never been burned, the same true of her hands and arms. In fact she looked peaceful, completely healthy.

Except she was still in a coma.

“Amelia,” Cadeneza mumbled, her voice shaking. She reached out to run a finger along Wattson’s face. “Wake up already, you lazy little shit.” She sniffled, tears running down her cheeks. “Wake up, please.”

I looked away, trying to give Cadeneza a brief bit of dignity, choosing instead to look at the screen showing Wattson’s vitals. Like always, they looked great. Steady pulse, full lung function, no sign of abnormal brain activity. “So why is she still unconscious?” I muttered. “By their standards she's in perfect health.”

As soon as I said that, a thought struck me. It seemed incredibly unlikely, but if I was right...

Leaving Cadeneza with Wattson for a moment, I wandered over to May’s office. “Doc? Mind if I ask you a question?” I asked after rapping on the side of the glass partition.

May looked up from her desk where she’d been cradling a cup of steaming coffee. “Huh? Oh, sure, c’mon in.”

I paused for a moment. “You okay?”

May flashed me a tired smile. “Oh I’m just peachy. Been a very long day. I was up far too early doing… well, never you mind. What’s your question, Twilight?”

“You’ve been trying to wake Wattson up for a while, right?”

May sighed again, her smile vanishing. “Yes, I have, and no, I haven’t had any success. I couldn’t tell you why she won’t wake up, but she’s been refusin’. Almost…”

“Almost what?” I pressed.

Shaking her head, May took a long drink of her coffee before setting it down. “If I weren’t knowin’ better, I’d almost wonder if somethin’ were keepin’ her asleep.”

I narrowed my eyes, glaring. I was nearly certain I was right now. “Doctor, have you scanned for–”

“I understand that Wattson’s your friend, and I’m your friend too, Twilight,” May snapped, scowling right back, “but don’t you be suggestin’ I’m not doin’ me job properly. I scanned for neural parasites, Vulcan, Betazoid, and Haliian mental suggestions, subspace aliens, bizarre energy fields, the works! Everythin’ in the book and plenty more besides, and there isn’t any affectin’ her. I know what I’m doing.”

Wincing, I gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, Doc, I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that.”

May clicked her tongue. “No, you best be acceptin’ my apology. It wasn’t very professional of me to snap at you like that. You don’t deserve it. I’m just frustrated.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said, sighing back. “What I'm trying to get at is, did you scan her for Equestrian magic?”

May blinked, then shot out of her chair. “No I did not!” she confirmed as she scooped up the thaumometer we’d loaned her and snapped it into her medical tricorder. “Come on!”

We burst into the ICU, startling the hell out of poor Cadeneza, who shrieked in fright, her face pale as milk. After a moment of sped up breathing she scowled at both of us. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” May muttered as she scooted past Cadeneza, “But we might be onto something here.”

“What, what is it?” Cadeneza demanded.

“Twilight reminded me I was bein’ thicker than some drunk in a pub,” May grumbled as she unfolded her tricorder and started scanning hastily. “You’d think Equestrian magic would be the first thing I’d scan for after bein’ told she had an Equestrian magic converter explode in her face, but no, like an idiot I assumed Selar already had!”

“Whoa, hold on,” Cadeneza said, holding up her hands. “You mean, no one bothered to do that? Seriously?”

May’s tricorder let out a rising, insistent beep, the sort that usually meant either distress… or jackpot. “Well, well, well,” May said as she held the tricorder’s scanner right around Wattson’s head. “Would you look at that?”

I briefly glanced at the results on the screen, nodding at the number of spots of endlessly shifting light on the otherwise plain brain scan. “Yeeep. Equestrian magic, alright. Doc, mind if I take over?”

“Go right ahead, Twilight.”

“What the hell do you mean, Equestrian magic?” Cadeneza blurted, shoved May out of the way to slap both arms onto my shoulders. “Whose?”

“Err–”

Cadeneza’s face turned purple with rage. “Was it the sirens? Huh? Is that bitch Nechayev onto something? Are they doing evil shit behind everyone’s back? Is–”

“Cadeneza!” I cried, ripping myself out of her grip. “Calm down! It’s not the Sirens. Trust me.”

Luckily for me, Cadeneza partially fell over when I pulled away rather than trying to dive at me or do something else stupid. She caught herself on the biobed just soon enough to avoid cracking her head against it. “If it's not the Sirens then...” she muttered. “It… it’s not Sunset, right?!”

I rolled my eyes. “No, ma’am, it’s not Sunset. It’s my magic.”

Cadeneza froze. “Excuse me?” she whispered. “W-what do you mean, Sparkie? Huh?”

“Before you get into another fit,” I said, rolling my eyes, “It’s nothing I did on purpose. I should’ve figured this out before now, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”

After a moment of further staring, Cadeneza straightened herself out and brushed off her uniform. “Alright,” she said, reverting to her old cold, dispassionate approach. “What’s going on, then?”

“There’s a few safety and security spells that are part of any enchantment,” I said as I gently closed my eyes, once again calling upon my magic. Once more the magic sight appeared before me, though the only light I saw in the otherwise dark room was that of Wattson’s brain, spotted with motes of magic like a glowing disease. “They’re taught from a very early age, according to Sunset. They’re supposed to keep someone from messing with an enchantment. We developed our own custom one ages ago when we first started trying to enchant things. It was supposed to be extra safe, because either of us could undo it.”

“Cut to the chase, Sparkie,” Cadeneza growled even as I focused mana into my horn, forming a new counterspell matrix.

“There’s two things that matter here. The first one disrupts the enchantment itself, rendering it useless. The energy contained within is supposed to dissipate into the environment.” The matrix took shape as I continued to build it, ever so slowly. “Supposed to. But with this being a starship and not Equus, well, it released everything violently instead.

Counterspell complete, I pressed it forward from my horn, beginning to disrupt the hold over Wattson’s mind. "The second one is a sleeping spell that kicks in after a significant delay, so it makes sense that no doctor here would think to look for it. It’s designed to keep a po– er, a person asleep until the counterspell is performed. This is the first time I’ve seen it fully work though. Usually it just leaves a pony feeling really tired instead.”

“Wait, then you’re sayin–” May began.

“That the only thing keeping her asleep was my own safety spell? Yeah.” I shot off one last burst of magical light, wiping away the last traces of magic in Wattson's mind. A few seconds later her eyelids began to flutter open and she let out a small groan.

“Amelia?” Cadeneza gasped.

Wattson’s eyes cracked open. She blinked once, twice, thrice, then sat up straight, stretching out her arms and letting out a massive yawn. “Oh goodness,” she murmured as she smacked her lips together. “I feel like I’ve slept almost a full day straight.”

“Amelia!” Cadeneza rushed forward and grabbed Amelia by the waist, giving her the tightest hug imaginable. “Oh my god I thought I lost you! Damn it you’re my best friend you’re not supposed to scare me like that!”

“What? Huh? Jacquie, calm down!” Wattson spluttered. “You’re... making it hard for me to... breathe!”

“Good work, Twilight,” May said, slapping me on the shoulder. Her hand went straight to the combadge on her breast. “May to Liang. Sir, Lieutenant Wattson’s awake.”

“On my way.”

I went ahead and paged a few more people, meaning that by the time Liang arrived – naturally with Nechayev and Picard in tow – Sunset, La Forge and Data, and even Hill had arrived as well, filling up the ICU to the point we crowded poor Wattson.

Nechayev’s presence put a significant dampener on any cheers or cries of jubilation. “Lieutenant Wattson, you’re awake,” she said.

Wattson looked over, blanched, and sat up into attention as best she could. “Yes, ma’am!” she said.

“It is good to see you up and about, Lieutenant,” Liang said, “but I’m afraid we’ve all got some questions for you.” He placed a particular emphasis on the word questions, brooking no argument over how much trouble she’d be in, depending upon how he liked her answers.

Wattson gulped, glanced around the crowd, then her eyes focused on Nechayev. “Err, well, you see... we’d been having a lot of problems trying to increase the efficiency of the converter. But I had a sudden brainwave just before going to sleep. I thought I could improve efficiency significantly with a few little tweaks, and I was so excited I rushed down to Engineering to get started. I’d helped put the thing together, so I figured I was fine.”

“Is that why you were not wearing safety equipment?” Nechayev demanded.

Wattson frowned. “We didn’t need any PPE to do anything with the converter when I checked last…”

“After your accident it became a requirement,” Sunset interjected. “What exactly did you do?”

Shifting on the biobed, Wattson replied, “My thought process was, the main thing keeping things less efficient was the circuitry around the dilithium crystal. So I powered down the converter, opened it up, and started messing with the crystal. The instant I popped it out though, it…” She winced. “It exploded.”

“And this is where it’s our fault, sir,” I said, turning to face Liang and, coincidentally, Nechayev. I briefly explained about the security spells. “There’s no way Wattson could’ve known about them because we didn’t tell her when we put it together. Not because we were hiding it but because we didn’t think about it, since they’re considered a fundamental requirement in Equestrian society with any magical device.”

“Oh my god,” Sunset muttered, slapping a hoof to her face. “I cannot believe I didn’t even think about that. I’m so sorry, sir, I could’ve figured this out a lot sooner if I’d put my head together.”

“Then it was not Wattson’s fault that the converter exploded in her face,” Nechayev said.

“No ma’am,” Sunset insisted. “If it wasn’t for our security spells she would’ve been completely fine. Twi--err, Ensign Sparkle, we should probably take those off the converter in Engineering straight away, to prevent something like this happening again.”

“Please do so immediately,” Liang said. He turned to Wattson. “As for you, Lieutenant, I am very displeased that you did not wait to consult Commander Shimmer or Ensign Sparkle before attempting to modify an experimental device. That was poor judgement on your part, poorer than I expect out of my chief engineer.”

“Yes, sir,” Wattson said, bowing her head. “Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” Liang grumbled. “I will be entering the reprimand into your personal log. In the meantime, rest and recuperate. I’m certain Doctor May will release you to light duty soon enough.”

Sunset and I politely excused ourselves as we took the turbolift back down to Engineering. “Thank goodness that’s over with,” I muttered. “At least she’s okay.”

“Still can’t believe how stupid I was not to think of that!” Sunset groused, stomping a hoof on the carpeted floor of the turbolift.

“It’s fine, sis,” I insisted. “She’s okay, no one’s hurt, and there’s no secret conspiracy or something.”

“Huh?”

I shook my head. “Just something Cadeneza started to wonder just before I figured it out. She was wondering if maybe the sirens had something to do with her actions.”

“No way, nuh uh,” Sunset said. “Their every action is accounted for aboard the ship. If they’d somehow done that, we would know. They’re not here to act as spies sabotaging the ship, Twilight.”

“I know that, but you never know,” I said as we exited the turbolift. “Could always turn out to be a Changeling on board or something.”

“Oh don’t even start with that idea, Twi,” Sunset murmured as we approached the converter. “You’ll make everybody paranoid, and we have enough of that already with Nechayev here.”

I chuckled under my breath as I focused my magic yet again, seeking out the security spells. Unraveling two spell effects from a fused matrix like this was not easy, but I wasn’t just any unicorn. I was Twilight Sparkle Riviera, daughter of Amina and T’Lona, and sister of Sunset Shimmer. So naturally my skills were like a finely sharpened scalpel, slicing out the desired parts and leaving the rest of it completely untouched.

“There,” I said, huffing as I opened my eyes again. “That’s done. That’s enough magic from me right now… whew…”

I collapsed against Sunset’s side when she nuzzled up to me. “You okay there, Twi?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, blinking past the sweat now soaking half my coat. I hadn’t even noticed it forming. “Yeah, just drained. Need to eat something. Bad.”

Sunset wrapped her magic around my hooves just enough to help me walk steadily. “Come on then, let’s go to my quarters. We can get a quick bite to eat before the sirens finally deign to speak with Nechayev.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “How do you think that’s going to go?”

“Honestly?” I nodded into her shoulder as we boarded the turbolift again. “I’m pretty worried. Nechayev has been such a… well, she’s been…”

“A bitch?” I helpfully supplied.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that. But more than that, she’s… she’s probably going to cause us some problems. You remember my report. The sirens almost killed Maia, Cadeneza, and me just because they thought we were like the Dominion. If Adagio thinks the Federation’ll do the same thing, who knows how many people they’ll hurt on their way out to a shuttlecraft? Assuming they don’t just take over the entire ship instead.”

“They wouldn’t really do that, would they?” I said with a nervous swallow even as we stepped out into the corridor again.

“If someone sane like Captain Picard was leading the briefing? Absolutely not. But with Nechayev acting like a goddamned lunatic, who knows what she might provoke?”

I managed to stand, if a little wobbly-knee’d, by the time we reached Sunset’s quarters. “She backed off from us,” I pointed out as we stepped inside. “Maybe she’ll back off from them too.”

“Maybe,” Sunset said, sounding utterly unconvinced. “But somehow, I doubt it. If we’re really lucky, the worst they’ll do is kill her. Which would still land them in prison for a good number of years…”

Pointedly I trotted over to the replicator and ordered my food, watching it swirl into existence. “Let’s not think about the possible murder of a Starfleet admiral right now,” I said as I took my plate over to the table. “Let’s just eat some food, be glad Wattson's okay, and talk about literally anything else.”

Sunset sighed and nodded. “Honestly? Best idea I've heard all day, sis.”

Author's Note:

Hey, every-reader, sorry we're upping this so late in the day. It's my fault.

Anyway, we're likely going to start toning down on the mini episodes. Instead of a mini episode on Friday, then the next one on Wednesday, we'll be having Mini 9 next Monday, and then the next episode the following Monday. Will this be the pattern going forward? Unknown. But we'd like to get Season 2 going a little bit faster... maybe we'll go back and add more minis after the fact? No idea. But that's neither here nor there...

Like always, hope you enjoy this episode, and Go Browns! :p

Thanks Blue. As for my thoughts, they're in my blog draft. I hope you all enjoyed and see you next Monday!

Comments

[Booster Spice]

The Admiral cant be a Dominion plant, because no plant of such quality would be behaving in such a manner to bring them into suspicion?

Though taking out those security checks in a war setting is really going to hit them in the rear.

That and the Dominion is going to make it priority, like the origional cavity magnetron radar, to get hold of working units so they can find Equestria for all those magical slaves to show Sombra how its really done?

[KR Chrome]

OK, Admiral is a bitch. Usually, they have an agenda and are conspiring. Or maybe she's a changeling in disguise? Who knows? The fact is that these kinds of admirals who was warmongering normally end up getting their comuppence. I can't wait for the karma but I won't hold my breath. Maybe she's an extremist and desperate. Sunset was able to analyze her and I think that her paranoia and fear being her main drive will be troublesome.

[zimmerwald1915]

I've never trusted Nechayev, and I never will.

When did Sunset have a son, and when did Alynna kill him?

[Sunset_Shimmer83]

I'm excited to see the admiral "talk" to the sirens. I'm still suspicious that she's a changeling

[zimmerwald1915]

10949060
Alynna's no plant. Only a writer as hackneyed as William Shatner would go for that - which we know because he did. Phoenix's team is of far better quality.

[X 865]

Yay for a long chapter! Happy early birthday to me!

[Misdirection]

I wonder if the admiral is going to try to asspull some kind of a civilian conscription law to compel the sirens into service. That or she’s going to be waiting for some kind of an incident to trump up charges to imprison them for, and leverage their cooperation through the promise of commuting their sentences. The way she’s behaving, I could see her even instigating such an event. Excellent chapter!

[Heavyhauler75622]

Nechayev trying to push around Adagio...

Those gals like a little cruelty...

Admiral go boom...

[Rusty Bascule]

Personally, I would be delighted with only one update a fortnight. With two per week, you're absolutely spoiling us!

[SuperSonicHeroes]

So, not only is the title a Kingdom Hearts reference, we get to see a few familiar faces of TNG crew interacting with everyone like Picard, Riker, and Data. That is awesome!

“Well, if we’re using sparkle for the unit, why not call it a Shimmer crystal?” Riker suggested, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

“Commander,” Picard began in a warning tone.

“No, wait, sir, I think that’s a good idea,” La Forge said. “It keeps it consistent.”

“And crystals do indeed… shimmer,” Data provided.

I can actually imagine them having a fun conversation like this.

The admiral is a total bitch though.

[Uncle Mike]

Wow. Nechayev hasn't been improved with time, has she? Almost like she's channeling a bad '80s movie version of a KGB agent...

I suspect Comrade Admiral Nechayeva is too clever to step over the line far enough to justify Picard or Liang disobeying an unlawful order, let alone relieving her for it. OTOH, Dagi, Aria, and Nata aren't bound by Federation law or Starfleet regulations. Worse come to worst, it's like an old ex-con remarked: "After the first felony, all the rest are free..."

This is going to end badly, isn't it?

[Heavyhauler75622]

I will admit there’s some tension and anxiety, especially from me. I've never trusted Nechayev, and I never will. The last time I saw her, she nearly sentenced me to a life as Starfleet's number one lab rat. Now with the Sirens here, I fear the Admiral may see them as nothing more than a second bite at the magical experimentation apple. And after spending several days with them aboard the Phoenix, I can tell they aren’t the least bit deserving of whatever fate she has in store for them. I’ll be working to protect them as much as I can.

Yeah...Admiral definitely go boom...

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

Admiral. I have two words for you.

ADMIRAL SATIE

[MariusIoannesP]

“When I want your opinion, Jean-Luc, I will ask for it,” Nechayev snapped. 

How dare you?! That's Captain Jean-Luc fudgeing Picard you're talking to!

Admiral Nechayev! That fishwife!

“but I’m afraid we have little time to discuss the matter before the good admiral returns.”

“More like fishwife,” Williams muttered.

Oh now they're getting in on calling Nechayev a fishwife too.

I'm glad to see Sunset reunite with the crew of the Enterprise. Such a pleasantly unexpected surprise. Loved their discussion about the ramifications of researching magic in wartime. So philosophical. I always loved how cerebral The Next Generation could be. (At least what I've seen of it ) As opposed to TOS where Kirk would just rip his shirt off and fight stuff.

I imagine the Enterprise being reassigned to magical research is meant to explain its seemingly lack of involvement in the Dominion War. It'd be interesting to see the Sirens end up on board the Enterprise just to see the ole' TNG crew in a minisode.

Great that Wattson is better and we got an explanation for why she did it and why it happened. Nothing as nefarious as I was suspecting.

Anywho, still looking Ten-Forward to the next installment, whether minisode or regular episode. Keep up the great work.

[Fetch]

Adagio: Admiral, I must thank you.
Nechayev: For what?
Adagio: Why, for the meal you are providing my sisters and I right now. Your hate and anger and rage is... Empowering.

Picard: Admiral, I think Captain Liang and I shall leave now.
Sonata: Yeah, you two are too much like ponies. You likely won't like how this could go if Admiral is a meanie all the way down.

[Alden MacManx]

10949134
I think if VICE-Admiral Nechayev would try to pull out a "Your revered Admiral Nogura used a little-known seldom-used reserve activation clause!", not only is she going to see what three upset, angry Sirens can do, but once word gets back to the Admiralty controlling Starfleet, and the Federation councils above that, she would be facing a RIR all the way down to Spacehand Apprentice! With both Captains Picard and Liang present, the word WILL get back, no matter what you say. Admiral's rank only goes so far.

Alynna, if in order to win a war you have to become even more a menace to all life than your opponents, do you really DESERVE to win? Think about it on your way to a gulag, if you're lucky.

[DreadedCandiru2]

Nechayev seems to be Starleet's way of saying Niedermayer. Always has been, always will be.

[badninja]

I hope you break from Star Trek canon and just do the universe a favor and have our Admiral go take a long walk off a short pier.

[Teraunce]

10949290
Absolutely agreed. The "good" Admiral needs to die.

[silvadel]

10949279

Admiral Satie was the first thing I thought of as well.

[Xawine]

I saw Hill and Williams slap their hands to their faces as the whole room seemed to groan at once. Finally, Cadenza broke the awkward moment. “Yeah, sure, Shimmer crystals, whatever. Point is they’re very similar to a kind of crystal found on Equus.”

https://youtu.be/ahrBOvz1jzA

[Lex the Pikachu]

That bit about naming the Crystals after Sunset nearly made me laugh.

It was also really nice to see Sunset and Gordi reconnect.

[Mister Morden]

I really do dislike this Admiral. But I don't see her getting karmic retribution any time soon.

[The Voice in the Water]

Yea, Nechayev is one of those characters that just screams "I have power. I'm a coward. So I'm going to use that power to make everyone too afraid of me to be a threat."

It was good to see the Enterprise crew again, even if it was under not so good circumstances. And I agree with a lot of the sentiments about the way that Nechayev was treating Captain Picard. That man's one of the greatest Federation heros since J.T. Kirk. I don't care if you out rank him, you treat the man with respect. Because without him, there wouldn't even be a Federation left for you to lord over, you miserable b***h.

[Lex the Pikachu]

Heh, you know, i thought the Phoenix was a made up ship for this story. So imagine my surprise when i found out there actually is a USS Phoenix in Star Trek.

[Ri2]

Is there such a thing as a Star Fleet Admiral who's not insane?

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

10949280
During Dw she was on another front.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

10949695
Yup but they demoted him after the whale probe

[Kevin Lee]

That's a BIG mistake to disable the magic antitampering spells. That is going to bite them in the ass very shortly. You DON'T employ a device that is vital to any war effort without the means to prevent the enemy from capturing and utilizing it!!

10949290
She wished to know how to make magical weapons--she's about to get a free demonstration of just how effective they can be....

10949352
Charge 1: Conscription of NON-Citizen refugees into a war that is not their own: Technically, the sirens are neutrals who were attacked by one side of the conflict. But it is up to such neutral victims as to whether THEY wish to ally with the other side or not--NOT the other side who gets to make the decision for them! Would she be as stupid as to attempt to draft Q to help in the war effort if he were to show up for a visit?? [answer: yes. yes, she would ]
Charge 2: Unlawful violation of sapient rights: When duty and cultural prohibitions are at odds, something has to give. A service member may elect to abandon their cultural prohibitions to do their duty--such decisions have given us in both very good and very bad results, especially in war time. But when a service member elects to leave the service because the orders are extremely repugnant to their culture, they have that right--especially when the orders from the superiors are themselves unlawful!
Charge 3: Issuing unlawful orders--as referenced above, the oath of every officer at every level of government is "to obey the lawful orders of those appointed over them"--meaning NO ONE is obligated to obey an unlawful order--indeed, we are expressly FORBIDDEN from obeying such! On the one hand, Nechayev claims to be willing to do anything to uphold the principles of the Federation, and in the same breath, says she'll violate every single principle in order to do that upholding! YOU CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS, ADMIRAL!!

[Ri2]

10949744
Why?

[Kevin Lee]

10949754
Because he stole a starship and failed to respect the chain of command.
You know--little shit

[Kris Overstreet]

10949695 Yes, but they tend to get less than a minute of screen time, even when they're part of a war-mongering conspiracy.

[RolkFlameraven]

10949087
When did he do that? I haven't read all of his Trek Books, but I don't remember her being a changeling

what she her mirror universe self? Because 'I could see that, though going by how she as back in TNG, her mirror universe clone is probably the nicest human on what ever planet she is on!

10949695
Yes, like four-six of them, but yes. Or at lest not the bad kind of crazy.

10949760
He also blew said ship up, and violated a direct order. Can't let that kinda of thing slide, so you demote him and give him a new ship, that will show him!

[zimmerwald1915]

10949454
This level of vitriol for a character really isn't justified.

[zimmerwald1915]

10949937
I was referring to her being replaced by her Mirror Universe counterpart, yes. And Mirror-Alynna was not a nice person.

And honestly, Kirk would probably have gotten away with his theft, insubordination and mutiny had his demotion not been a diplomatic sop to the Klingons and what Command knew he actually wanted.

[RolkFlameraven]

10949946
About Kirk, yes. All the yes. He wanted to be caption again, and this was not old a "gift" to the Klingons, it also put KIRK back on the bridge of a ship. Something that they would never admit to fearing, but they did.

Too bad about Alynna. With how big of a dick she is here I had hoped she would be one of the few who is better over there. Ah well, his books, while fun, do go a bit over the top.

[Kevin Lee]

10949937

He also blew said ship up, and violated a direct order. Can't let that kinda of thing slide, so you demote him and give him a new ship, that will show him!

True, but he technically didn't violate the direct order. When Star Fleet Command got his message, he was already in the time vortex, so he never actually got the message to abort...
Of course, in that same technical sense, he actually DID comply with the order (which Kirk couldn't have received)--when the President ordered him back then the windows all blew out at that moment, well--that was Kirk already arriving back there!
But Kirk was happy with the results of his punishment, so he never bothered to contest the record.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

10949754
because he stole the Enterprise to save Spock

[Fetch]

10949752
Drake: Welcome to Section 31, Admiral.

[RolkFlameraven]

10949752
Well that's an idea. Adagio would do well is Sec 31.

[PonyAmorous]

10949752
Yeah, anti-tampering security measures seem like pretty damn important element of the experimental prototype technology you're going to be banking on to win the war effort. By all means, inform all the engineering people about it and disable it is being worked on (after a proper work request is made). And make sure that if it explodes it does so in a way that doesn't cause a warp core breach. But you really don't want want changeling infiltrators able to tinker with it, or let any dominion researchers who get their hands on one be able to take it apart.

And yeah, I can sadly see this version of Nechayev trying to threaten to Q.

[PonyAmorous]

10949134
That would be one hell of an asspull, considering that they're not even Federation civilians, but neutral refugees.

[harts fire]

i had forgot just what a piece of trash Admiral Nechayev was you got her perfect.

this story is just amazing.

[peter]

10949695
I was going to say Kirk, but then I thought about it.

[zimmerwald1915]

10950274
Picard and Janeway also both get promoted to Admiral - Janeway before Nemesis and Picard between Nemesis and Picard (he also resigns during the same span of time).

YMMV if Picard and Janeway are any more sane than Kirk.

[Night_Moon60606]

10949064
even in Star Trek Cannon, that particular woman was more than a little bit of a bitch. dont get me wrong, shes GOOD at what she does and earned her rank in Starfleet, but she ALSO caused a lot of headaches for a lot of people.

10949679
she has a track record all right, more or less every time shes stuck her oar into a situation, it got worse...a few times, a VERY few times, it then got better...

10949695
yes, Admiral 'Bones' McCoy is about as far from crazy as u can get...comparatively...

10949752
Section 31...

[scifipony]

10951211
I suspected there was experience behind that passage. I am saddened, too.

[A Soul In Limbo]

“Likewise, Captain,” Picard said, shaking Liang’s hand in earnest. “May I introduce Commander RIker, my first officer, and Commander La Forge, my chief engineer.”

I only just realized Liang probably wears red instead of yellow, unless you changed the color coordination for this story. For some reason I feel like Liang would look better in the golden yellow uniforms of engineering, so I've been picturing him that way for a while now. XD

[A Soul In Limbo]

“Hmm.” Data glanced in my direction, then back down at the thaumometer in his hand. “I believe the word is more aesthetically pleasing than Lieutenant Cadeneza’s suggestion.”

Idunno. I kinda liked Caddies as a measurement name.

Also, remind me the significance of saying it in front of Nechayev?

[A Soul In Limbo]

I saw Hill and Williams slap their hands to their faces as the whole room seemed to groan at once. Finally, Cadenza broke the awkward moment. “Yeah, sure, Shimmer crystals, whatever. Point is they’re very similar to a kind of crystal found on Equus.”

You said Cadenza instead of Cadeneza.

I have been meaning to ask, why did you call her Cadeneza instead of Cadenza? It sounds like such a mouthful.