Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore I would appreciate it if I didn't get sued for writing this and many other stories. I doubt whatever I wound up having to pay would cover even a fifth of your legal fees.

The Summers Home

Scotty's POV

"This is nae gonna end well," Elizabeth said as she continued to pace waiting for her mother to finish packing. "I just know it."

"You're worried over nothing, lass," he said as he tried to comfort the young woman who was to be his student in the engineering arts. "I'll admit I can understand why you want her to stay here but it's not like the Enterprise doesn't have room."

Indeed, the Enterprise could safely house up to three thousand people if need be, so there were quite a few vacant quarters for Missus Summers to choose from. Add to that the replicators for food, clothes and other necessities… all the necessities would be covered. While he hadn't had a chance yet to look over the technical specifications of the ships and weapons of the Goa'uld, he was confident that any ship named Enterprise would be able to take anything thrown at her. With him and Elizabeth working in engineering, Missus Summers would be safe enough on the ship. Besides that, he was sure that Admiral Kirk would teach Alexander how to be a proper Captain and that the lad wouldn't put ship or crew in any unnecessary danger.

He'd already told the lass all of this but it didn't do much other than stop the lass from openly arguing with her mother and start her predictions about how it'd all end.

"But look at what she's leaving behind!" Eliza exclaimed, turning around so quickly that her scarlet hair swayed violently. "Her art gallery! Her house! The rest of her family!"

"You don't seem to have a problem leaving behind your school, your house and the rest of your family, young lady," Missus Summers said as she came down the stairs, with a suitcase in each hand. "I've already spoken with my assistant at the gallery, telling her that I'm taking a trip with you to find new sources of art and clients. I've already asked our accountant to automatically take out money to pay the monthly bills 'until we get back'. As for our family, none of them are due to pay us a visit so I doubt they'll know we're gone."

He could see Elizabeth trying to come up with another argument but, when nothing but signs of frustration manifested themselves, he guessed she'd failed.

"Fine! Then let's get over to Giles' apartment so we can contact the shuttlecraft," Eliza said as she strode with frustration towards the front door.

Watching her go, there was only one thing he could say.

"The lass has a temper to match her hair and that's a fact."

"You have NO idea, Mister Scott!" Missus Summers remarked, making it clear she thought his opinion was an understatement. "Fortunately it's nothing compared to mine."

"Tha' I can believe," he muttered as he carried the proof on his back as they left the house.

Together they walked over to what he remembered to be a civilian transport common to this time period. Fortunately he remembered his trip back to the twentieth century Earth of his reality so he knew how to get into one, so within minutes the three of them were rolling down the street. It was a remarkably smooth ride but he could still feel subtle vibrations accompanied by the occasional bump. Compared to riding in a shuttlecraft or on board the Enterprise, though, it was decidedly different but not unpleasant. Seeing the houses and parked transports pass by he noted how the sun was dropping ever closer to the horizon, he found it odd now sinister the stretching shadows were looking.

I know they say that vampires and weres exist here but I just cannae bring myself to believe it, he thought with a tone of denial.

Throughout his career in Starfleet he had seen things, experienced things, that'd caused him to question what he knew about the universe on more than one occasion. However his faith in science and its ability to explain all the mysteries of the galaxy remained strong and steady. Like many Starfleet officers, they were aware of how sufficiently advanced technology or science could be indistinguishable to less developed civilizations from magic. Add to that the fact that there were records of alien races visiting or even living on Earth prior to 'First Contact' and it'd be easy for people to mistake them for demons of some kind.

It was true that he could not fathom how he'd gone from travelling the galaxy aboard the shuttlecraft Goddard to winding up in a young lass' body to being put in a body no different from the one he'd had during his first posting after graduating from the Academy. He had, of course, heard a few stories from Geordi about the powerful being known as Q so that was one possible explanation, but much like the greatest minds of the Federation, he didn't know how Q could do what he could. It was much like his Enterprise's encounter with the being who called himself Trelane because, even in the years following, neither Mister Spock nor anyone else could figure the 'child' out.

Of course that didn't stop his imagination from conjuring images of ghosts and goblins hiding in the shadows, waiting for night to fall so that they could have free reign over the small town.

It didn't take them long to reach Mister Giles' apartment and, as far as timing went, it proved to be excellent since both the man and Doctor McCoy were exiting the building. McCoy looked to be carrying a box filled with books while Giles had two suitcases in his hands. A bit much considering that it was likely that anything and everything they'd need could be produced using the replicators aboard the Enterprise. True, there'd almost certainly be some personal keepsakes and items that they would want to bring with them on what was likely to be a long journey but… this much?

Then again when you were in Starfleet you learned to limit what you took with you since your quarters were rarely spacious starting out and, even when you achieved a rank that allowed for larger ones, changing assignments made acquiring too many possessions impractical.

"Missus Summers?" Mister Giles asked upon seeing the woman exit the ground transport. "To, uh, to what do we owe the pleasure?"

"My considerably older daughter has told me about the starship and what you all plan on doing," Missus Summers replied in a tone has hard as stone. "I'm coming with you."

With that the woman went to the rear luggage compartment of the ground transport to get her belongings, completely ignoring the surprised look on Mister Giles' and Doctor McCoy's face. The surprise didn't last long and, judging from the look on the Englishman's face, he was about to argue against the woman accompanying them back to the Enterprise. Seeing as how he needed to get to his new engines sooner rather than later so that he could begin to learn everything he could about them, he decided to step in.

"Don't even try, laddie," he said, putting a light restraining hand on the man's shoulder. "The young lass has already tried talking her out of it and it didn't work. I doubt you'll fare much better."

Giles looked at Elizabeth, who with a displeased look on her face, shrugged as if to imply 'I tried but it didn't work'.

"Very well," Giles said with some dissatisfaction. "I trust that you at least tied up any loose ends before coming here?"

"Yes. The bills will be paid for automatically and my employee at the gallery can handle things until I get back," Missus Summers replied with utmost certainty. "We will be back, won't we?"

"While we will need to examine the galactic situation and choose a course of action first, I imagine we will return every once in a while in order to ensure that nothing has happened during our absence," Giles replied after a moment's thought.

"Good. I can use those times to check up on the gallery and make sure that all the bills have been paid and that the gallery is doing okay," Missus Summers said, sounding satisfied that her old life wouldn't be completely abandoned by this new development. "So, when do we 'beam up'?"

"Just as soon as Cordelia gets here with Neras," Giles replied even as he looked about to see if said girl was approaching. "The less time the shuttlecraft remains in orbit waiting for us, the less chance there is that it will be detected by government satellites in orbit."

It was a sound choice and in keeping with the Prime Directive.

Even with their ties to the planet, it looked as though Elizabeth and her friends saw the sense in not contaminating the natural development of a pre-warp civilization. This Earth was still divided by ethnicity, nationality, religion, class and many other things. Both the introduction of advanced knowledge and their very presence could change all that in ways that could not be predicted. While he would not block them from tending to their terrestrial responsibilities, they'd all have to do the best they could to minimize potential contamination. When he had the time he'd look through the files onboard the Enterprise for additional options available to them to further conceal their presence from the inhabitants of late twentieth century Earth. He already had a few ideas about modifying the shields and one or two that'd involve manipulating the information being sent from the orbiting satellites down to the Earth. It'd take some doing but he still had all the knowledge he had from his old body and that meant he'd still be able to defend his title as a miracle worker.

Hearing a sound he knew to be caused by a ground transport, he turned to see one painted bright red coming into view from around a corner. However what really caught his attention was the fact that whoever was driving the vehicle had loaded it to capacity with boxes and suitcases while keeping it all from falling off due to judicious use of rope and tape. A piss poor job in his opinion but that was probably his engineering instincts talking. Keeping a federation starship running required attention to detail as well as a great deal of precision. Besides that, he always took a great deal of pride in his work so seeing someone else just slap something together that defied probability every moment it stayed together was offensive to be seen.

Once it got close enough everyone could see Cordelia in the driver's seat, with Neras sitting next to her in the passenger seat. The car came to a briefly screeching halt just behind Missus Summers' vehicle and that almost proved to be enough to snap the bindings keeping the various suitcases and boxes on or in the car. Looking at the others present, he could tell that the they were as incredulous about the sheer amount of things Cordelia wanted to bring with her.

"You do realize, Cordelia, the replicators aboard the Enterprise can provide you with many of the things you have here, yes?" Giles asked with a little difficulty as he tried to conceal his incredulity. "A suitcase or two, a box perhaps, would be reasonable. This… is excessive."

"As if! I might not be a geek like Harris or Rosenberg but even I've seen the fashion disasters those people wear!" Cordelia exclaimed as though the very idea of leaving her things behind was stupid. "If my old life is over then I'm taking as much of it with me as I can!"

"I tried to tell her to leave it behind but she wouldn't listen," Neras said, sounding exasperated by her 'student's' behavior.

"Like you're one to talk!" Cordelia snapped back angrily, looking at the Orion woman. "You might wear next to nothing but every bit of it is planned out to make males think with their little heads instead of their big ones! You know the value of clothes!"

"I never said I didn't!" Neras declared, turning to fully face Cordelia. "I also know when to dump dead weight!"

He could see that, unlike most of them, Cordelia and Neras didn't have the best of student-teacher relationships and it didn't look like it'd get better any time soon. As long as they were fighting each other Cordelia wouldn't learn what she needed to in order to handle her new status as an Orion female and this wouldn't sit well with Neras. After all, Cordelia was in many ways the woman's inferior both in knowledge of her species biology as well twenty-fourth century technology. If some wet behind the ears Academy cadet talked to him the way Cordelia was talking to Neras and ignored common sense, there'd be stormy seas ahead.

Hopefully once the lass had more time aboard the Enterprise she'd see that it had much to offer and be more inclined to listen to Neras as well as the rest of them.

"McCoy to Copernicus. You there?" Doctor McCoy asked, tapping his com-badge.

"Here and waiting," Xander replied through the com-badge.

"What happened to Willow?" Elizabeth asked, sounding surprised that it wasn't Spock's 'daughter' waiting for them.

"Zoey wound up having to bring back her parents to convince them that she was telling them the truth," Xander replied, sounding concerned about that. "I figured Willow would make a better tour guide than me."

"Well, you're gonna be doing the second one, 'cause mom heard the story and says she's coming with us." Elizabeth said, turning to her mother for a moment before looking away.

"Okay," Xander said casually, without a speck of worry.

"Okay?" Elizabeth said with some surprise. "What do you mean 'okay'?"

"Well, I figure you and probably Giles already tried to talk her out of it but if you're telling me she's coming, that means she wouldn't budge," Xander replied as though it were all completely logical. "If G-Man and you couldn't get her to back down, what makes you think I can? I just figured I'd go with the flow and save us some time."

A sensible lad Xander was. It was never a good idea to stand in a woman's way when she had her mind set on something.

"In any case, seven to beam up," McCoy said, sounding like he didn't want things to be drawn out any longer.

"I'll beam four of you up and then the rest of you," Xander said, sounding like he was already getting a lock on the first group. "It'll give us time to clear the beam in coordinates for the rest of you."

"Understood," McCoy said before turning to the group. "Take Missus Summers, Cordelia, Giles and me first. Energize."

With that Doctor McCoy proved to be quite the smart man.

By taking Missus Summers and Cordelia up first he'd momentarily be introducing a break period in the latter's arguing with her teacher and shock the former into silence. With McCoy and Giles up there as well, the two most rational people among them would be in the perfect position to handle the ladies, making it just that much easier on the rest of them.

He owed the man a drink in Ten Forward later.

The U.S.S Enterprise 1701-D

Captain James Kirk's POV

"You wanted to see us, Scotty?" he asked as he and Xander turned the corner into main engineering.

What he saw was definitely not what he'd been expecting to see when he'd originally been called to engineering from his quarters. It'd only been a couple of hours since they'd all returned on the Copernicus and he'd taken the time to settle more into the quarters he'd picked out the night before. It was a little different using the replicators, as Xander had called them, rather than the food synthesizers he was used to, but it hadn't taken him long to get used to it. He'd been in the middle of decorating when Scotty had contacted him and asked that he come down to engineering immediately. Given that his friend and former chief engineer rarely summoned him without a good reason, he hadn't hesitated to say that he was on his way before leaving his quarters. He'd met up with Xander at the turbolift and had been a bit surprised to find out that Scotty had also summoned his apprentice to engineering.

As they'd walked he'd assumed that Scotty was just going to give them a status report or perhaps mention a concern that would need to be taken into account when choosing the crew's next course of action.

That was not the case.

"That is NOT a normal Federation warp core," Xander said, sounding like he was having trouble making sense of what he was seeing.

Not that he could blame the young man since he was feeling much the same way.

Ever since the first Federation starship to bear the name Enterprise had undergone a refit, the warp core's appearance had remained fairly consistent: a central pillar with up to two horizontal tubes feeding into it. The central chamber was where the reaction happened at regular intervals, giving off a blue light whereas the horizontal warp plasma conduits gave off a mix of red and white light.

What he was looking at now though were three blue pillars arranged in triangle formation with four main warp plasma conduits and several smaller secondary ones that he'd wager spanned the entire length of the three pillars. The three central pillars still pulsed in a familiar pattern but now the warp plasma conduits likewise pulsed in a predictable pattern. The various display screens arrayed throughout engineering were also different, showing information that was familiar to him only on a basic level. He was no slouch in the area of starship systems, and with every ship he was put in command of he'd done his best to familiarize himself with his ship's systems. Not enough to replace Scotty as chief engineer but enough that he could conduct basic repairs or be coached through more complex ones via a method of communication.

What stood before him now… he felt like first year Academy cadet again.

"No, it isn't," he said as he turned to face an obviously upset Scotsman. "What is this, Scotty?"

"Damned if I know, Admiral. I came down here an hour ago to get familiar with main engineering and THIS bloody mess is what I found," Scotty said as he led them to an array of consoles a few feet from the three pillars. "I've done some digging and, according to the main computer, it's called a hyper-warp drive. I've only just scratched the surface but if what I'm reading is right this ship can go roughly fifteen hundred times faster than a galaxy class should be capable of."

"WHAT!?" both he and Xander exclaimed as their minds struggled to comprehend such a massive boost in speed.

FLASH!

With a burst of light in front of them a man in a Starfleet captain's uniform with black hair and a rather condescending look on his face.

"Well of course it's faster!" the man declared as though it should've been obvious. "The ships in this reality are capable of going from one corner of your galaxy to the other in weeks at the absolute most. Your Federation starships would take decades to cross the same distance. I could hardly expect you to do an adequate job of keeping order here if you were stuck in a small fraction of it."

While his mind was still having some difficulty comprehending what he was being told, he did have to admit that, if it was indeed the truth, then upgrades to a standard Galaxy class starship would be necessary in order for them to be effective. Nevertheless, it was astonishing to know that with the engines they had now it'd be possible to visit all four quadrants of his native reality inside of a single human lifetime.

"Any other upgrades we should know about, Q?" Xander asked, sounding somewhat suspicious.

"Not really. Your main deficiency was the range of your ship but with this new hyper-warp engine that shouldn't be problem anymore," Q replied, trying to sound like he'd shown some restraint.

Finally he was able to put a face to the name of the person who'd whisked him out of heaven and given him a second chance at life. Appraising the man with the same eyes as every other stranger met under suspicious circumstances he could tell immediately that it would be wrong to take anything Q said at face value. Q did not see humans or any mortal race as equals. If he had to define it, he would say that to Q humans were on the same level as the first bipedal life form ever to walk on the planet Earth and that was probably being generous. Still, the fact that such a being would choose humans to handle the task of keeping the galaxy from blowing up had to mean that he had at least some respect for the human race.

Not a lot but enough.

"Even if that's right, it's going to take that much more time for Scotty and Buffy to master these hyper-warp engines," Xander said, pointing out a potential complication. "I wouldn't be surprised if this wound up doubling the necessary training time they'll need."

"That won't do,." Q said, immediately shoving the training aside like one would an amateur's attempt at science. "The American military is due to open the stargate in one week. If they get to Abydos before you… to put it in human terms, 'they will be the pebble that starts the avalanche'."

"There's no way we can be ready to head out in one week," he said, knowing that even trained Starfleet personnel needed more time to acclimate to a new class of starship with upgraded systems.

"Of course there's a way," Q said with a bit of disappoint before he brought up his right hand.

Xander seemed alarmed at this and moved as though he intended to stop Q but he was too slow, too far away. Q snapped his fingers and instantly his mind was knocked for a loop so hard he didn't even realize that he'd dropped to one knee or reached out with one hand to grasp the master systems display table. As awareness returned, other things began to pop up that had not existed before and all of it could be classified under one word: knowledge. With every second that passed he found he 'knew' things he was certain he'd never read about or put into practice in the field. By the time he was back on his feet he knew enough about the hyper-warp engines that he'd feel comfortable using them, as well as helping with repairs if necessary. Indeed he believed that the gap in knowledge that'd existed between the launch of the Enterprise-B and whenever the Enterprise-D had been plucked from had now been filled.

As such it made the headache he was now feeling mostly worth it.

"Let me just speak for all of us when I say… OW!" Xander said, looking like he was handling things only a little better than Scotty was at the moment.

"Oh, quit your whining!" Q said with irritation. "You're perfectly alright."

"If by alright you mean feeling like a someone detonated a warp core in my brain then yeah, I'm fine," Xander said, irritated before setting his eyes on Q. "Look, Q, I know we've got a big job ahead of us but you need to keep in mind that we're a little more fragile than you are. I'd appreciate it if you didn't make any more improvements without asking permission first."

"Fine!" Q said with a roll of his eyes in exasperation. "I'll ask you lesser life forms if you want me to make your jobs easier or not next time."

At least with fair warning they'd be able to sit down before being knocked for a loop.

"Thanks for the download, Q," Xander said honestly, sounding like he genuinely appreciated the benefits of the action the entity had taken.

This seemed to take Q aback, as though he had never been thanked like this before, but the expression quickly vanished to be replaced by a look of supreme smugness.

"It's about time that one of you primates showed some gratitude!" Q said condescendingly as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, if you've got some spare time, there's something I'd like to talk to you about," Xander said, looking as though his headache was starting to subside.

"If I've got some spare time? Have you forgotten who I am?" Q asked as though he was beginning to doubt the intelligence of his chosen human helpers. "Still, I suppose it MIGHT be amusing to hear what you have to say. Let's talk."

With that both Q and Xander vanished in twin flashes of light, leaving just him as well as Scotty in engineering.

"What do you think the lad wants to talk to that cocky dobber about?" Scotty asked as he walked over to a nearby chair and sat down.

"I don't know but Xander has to have his reasons," he replied as he followed his old friend's lead.

"Here's hoping he'll tell us what they are later," Scotty said with a rueful grin.

He had to admit that he felt the same way.

It was beginning to feel like old times.

The Captain's Ready Room

Q's POV

With teleportation complete he turned to see what the human wanted to talk to him about. He had to admit that the boy was showing at least a little more promise than he'd been expecting. In almost all of his most recent encounters with humans they'd treated him with disdain, contempt and outright rudeness, with not one of them showing gratitude for his help. Vash had been fun for a while since she had such a different view of reality than the usual Federation dullards, but even she began whining in spite of the miraculous opportunities partnering with him offered her. He'd tried luring her back with even more tempting offers and interesting locales but she hadn't taken the bait, so he'd given up on her.

Would Alexander prove to be made of sterner stuff than his twenty-forth century counterparts?

"SO… what is it you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked, making it clear he would be put out if it turned out to be a waste of his time.

"Simple. This ship needs a crew to run it," Xander replied from his position in the chair behind the desk. "Even if you automate every system on the ship, eleven people aren't going to be enough for the job. Fortunately I've got a plan."

"This should be good for a laugh," he said sarcastically to mask his genuine interest.

"Since you brought Jim here even though he'd been dead, that means you can bring back the dead, so I figure why don't we take advantage of that?" Xander said, quite serious about what he was saying. "I've made up a list of people who've died that'd be great for the ship's crew. Bareil Antos, K'ehleyr, Kestra Troi, Jennifer Sisko, Noonian Soong, Rene Picard, Robert Picard, Peter Preston, Marla Aster, Sito Jaxa, Paul Porter, Peter Durst, Kurt Bendera, Marie Kaplan, Jadzia Dax, Jack Crusher and… Natasha Yar. The rest of the positions can be filled by people who're qualified and can be trusted."

"You've certainly chosen a rather diverse starting lineup. What makes you think they'll sign on?" Q asked, using his powers to call up the information on each person.

"Because you'll offer them the one thing they want more than anything right now: life," Alexander replied, sounding more confident by the minute. "They give us five years of duty or die the right way and you send them back to their reality just as they are. Alive, healthy and only a year or so after their 'death'."

"What do you consider dying the right way?" he asked, feeling intrigued by what the young man was proposing.

"In the line of duty or self-sacrifice. We'll make sure they know from the get go that any attempted suicide will get them sent right back to the afterlife." Alexander replied, the metaphorical wheels in his head spinning.

"What if they protest?" he asked as he began to see what the young man had in mind in more ways than one.

"If there's reasonable doubt then they'll be given a chance to plead their case," Alexander replied, conceiving an answer immediately. "If they win, they get a second chance at the grand prize, but if they lose its off to the afterlife with them."

"What if they try to die on a subconscious level?" he asked, pointing out a possibility.

It was a fact that lesser organisms could be influenced by their subconscious without realizing it, so it was possible that while consciously one of Alexander's crew would want to fulfill their five year requirement subconsciously, they might be influenced to 'duck out early'.

"We can schedule monthly sessions with Lwaxana Troi," Alexander replied after half a minute of thought. "She isn't a ship's counselor like her daughter but telepathically she should be able to tell if anyone needs watching."

Indeed, a full telepath would be able to ferret out any subconscious suicidal tendencies a crew member might have and hopefully 'adjust' them to something more acceptable. However he was wise to the young man's true intentions and it was time to call him on it.

"Perhaps she'll think that YOU need watching, Alexander," he said in an 'I see through your efforts' tone of voice. "Did you really think you could trick me into doing a good deed? Reviving the dead and sending them home to their loving families! As the saying goes, you'll have to get up MUCH earlier in the morning to pull one over on me!"

"I wasn't planning on tricking you. Letting you know about the fringe benefits was supposed to be the next reason why you should agree to my idea," Alexander said so honestly he had to mentally shake his head with incredulity. "If the reality where all this comes from is anything like the TV show, then the Federation pretty much universally sees you as a pest at least and a monster at most. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people blame you for the people who died at Wolf Three Five Nine since you made the Borg aware of the Federation and Starfleet. Doing this might put you back in their good graces, if only a little bit."

He almost immediately dismissed the notion since he couldn't comprehend how simply returning a few mortals could possibly make Jean-Luc and the others like him when time travel and rewriting their histories to benefit them hadn't come close. Still, humans were a mass of contradictions and it wasn't entirely implausible that he might have gone about handling them wrong. If Alexander's idea worked, he might actually be able to have some fun with some of his Starfleet acquaintances without their bellyaching about it.

That had some appeal.

Then again he did so love to see Jean-Luc's face turn that wonderful shade of red whenever the two of them met.

With a thought he made a coin appear in his hand and he decided to let chance decide which path he'd take. Flipping it in the air, he let it fall to the ground. If it landed heads facing up he would agree to Alexander's proposal but if it landed tails up he would refuse. After all, it would certainly be more of a challenge for his chosen officers to try to find their own crew from the assortment of prospects this reality had available. Watching the silver coin hit the floor, he looked to see which side was facing up and, much to his disappoint, chance had chosen to favor young Alexander this time.

"Well, it seems that fortune favors the fool this time, Alexander," he said as he thought away the coin. "The dead shall live again as members of your crew and, if they perform to the best of their pitiful ability, they shall be returned home to live out their lives."

"And it has to be the exact same reality where they once lived, no more than two years after they first died." Alexander said, sounding quite determined on that point.

Obviously the boy had seen enough of his look-a-like on television to know that he often obeyed the wording of the deal but not the spirit of the deal.

"Fine. They'll be sent back to the same reality, same plane of existence and no more than two years after their original demise," he said with reluctance and annoyance. "Spoil my fun!"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be amused soon enough, Q," Alexander said with optimism "After all, you're Q the mighty! There isn't a single situation you can't make more interesting! Just… give us some warning and a fighting chance to come out of the situation intact… please!"

He had to smirk a bit at the boy's words and came to believe that this might turn out to be his greatest game yet.

"Oh, don't worry, Alexander. Contrary to what Jean-Luc thinks, every one of my little games with him had the chance for him to defeat me," he said, letting the smirk grow into a grin. "He just needed to find it. So will you."

With that he snapped his fingers to take him out of the reality and back to the one he usually travelled in order to collect the crew Alexander had requested. For some it might've been a few days for him to successfully bring all two thousand of them back to life but for him he could do it in the space between seconds. He chuckled at the chaos the young captain would have to cope with but, considering what he'd seen of the boy's old life and how things would've gone without his interference, Alexander would manage just fine.

It was as he looked at all those that had died in connection to starships called Enterprise that he came across one that he hadn't initially considered. He almost dismissed it out of hand given how much fixing up he'd have to do, but then again the person he was looking at would help to bridge the gap between now and the twenty-fourth century.

Plus, if he allowed the man's spawn to be brought back as well, then Willow would at least have some company.

Xander's POV

Well, of all the beds I've slept in, I'd have to say that this is one of the more comfortable, he thought as he woke up in the captain's quarters. Here's hoping Q comes back today with the crew I need or changing the future's gonna be complicated.

Getting out of bed, he went into the bathroom, stripped out of his sleeping clothes before stepping into the sonic shower. It'd been a novel experience the first time he'd used it after moving onto the Enterprise and he'd still go with a water shower if it became available as an alternative. Nevertheless, since he presently didn't have that alternative, so he'd make due.

Once he was satisfied that he was clean he got out of the shower and picked up his sleeping clothes before putting them into the replicator to be recycled. They'd just been the first set of Starfleet pajamas he'd seen in the database that looked half decent. While the others might've been able to fit into the same night clothes they'd worn prior to Halloween, he'd grown up quite a bit both in overall size as well as in muscle mass. His old pajamas would've torn if he'd tried to wear them the first time he made a big move so he'd input his measurement parameters into the search and made a quick selection. Going over to the wall dresser, he pressed the button to cause the chosen shelf to pop out and he began to pick out the various components of his captain's uniform.

He'd considered replicating a Next Generation uniform, thinking it'd only have been fitting considering it was the Enterprise-D he was on, but decided against it. He'd never been able see the Next Generation as anything else but dual colored jogging suits. Even the variation he'd seen on the show Deep Space Nine were just jogging suits in his mind. At least with the uniforms shown after the second Star Trek movie looked like genuine uniforms, so he'd replicated a week's worth before storing them away in the dresser.

With speed born of secondary familiarity it didn't take him long to get fully dressed and he moved to the door to head to the bridge, since Jim was planning on starting his lessons as captain today. However, when the doors parted after sensing his approach, he beheld a sight that he hadn't been expecting: the hallway had people going up as well as down it that were not present the day before. It was only when he noticed that they weren't all wearing uniforms from the same time period that his mind realized the truth.

Sometime during the night Q had made good on delivering to him a crew and, while he didn't see anyone from his specific list, there was enough variation in gender and race to confirm that the rest of the crew positions had been filled. Personally he would've preferred it if he'd been notified the moment the new arrivals had flashed onto the ship but he could only presume that the night shift chose not to wake him.

Nice of them but just the same I'll tell them that I'm the co-captain here and I should've been told, he thought as he left his quarters behind and made his way to the nearest turbo lift.

"Bridge," he commanded to the audio sensors built into the interior that were connected to the ship's main computer.

As the familiar hum of the method of inter-ship transportation filled the air he wondered if Q had gone as far as to assign the new arrivals to their positions or if the omnipotent being had left that in his and Jim's hands. Thinking on it a bit, he decided that the 'superior being' reveled in making things harder for his human playthings, so doing something as nice as taking care of crew assignments would've been out of character. It'd probably be up to those who'd been aboard ship prior to the new arrivals to assign the heads of the various departments and sections, then leave them to pick their subordinates from what remained. It was unlikely that the higher being would've given them more crew than there were vacant positions, so it'd all work out in time.

Before long he arrived at the bridge and he beheld a sight that was both familiar and not at the same time: a bridge with every station occupied and its occupant diligently at work. Jim likely had taken to assigning the new arrivals as he learned of them to whatever position was both vacant and compatible with their prior 'work experience'.

"Captain on deck!" came a declaration from his right causing him to turn to the speaker.

What he saw was both familiar as well as not.

When he'd given Q his list of people he wanted to have as crew, he had included Lieutenant Natasha Yar because he felt that her death had been senseless. However the Lieutenant Yar currently manning the tactical station, the one that for much of the TV series had been manned by Worf, was not the same version. This version was the one from an alternate timeline where the Enterprise-C vanished from the battle over the Klingon world Narendra Three, causing a sharp drop in relations between the Federation and the Empire. So sharp that in that timeline the two governments were at war with one another, with the former facing imminent defeat at the latter's hands with the date of surrender being less than half a year away. The main differences between the two being a decidedly more ordered haircut, a silver belt with holster and a few other cosmetic changes from the mainstream uniforms.

"As you were," he said, not wanting to become the center of attention just yet.

Walking down the side ramp to the main area, his 'father' was in the captain's chair reading something on a data pad before looking up and smiling at him.

"Sleep well?" Jim asked, handing the pad off to a nearby ensign.

"Yes. Thanks for asking," he replied before letting his gaze drift about the bridge. "Anything noteworthy on the nightshift?"

"I think you know what happened overnight," Jim said, getting out of the captain's chair to stand before him. "Care to explain?"

"Sure but not here. In the ready room," he replied while gesturing to the captain's ready room. "We can spill the details to the crew after assuming they don't know already."

"Lead the way," Jim said with a nod towards the door on the left side of the bridge. "Lieutenant Yar, you have the con."

"Aye, sir," Natasha said with the utmost professionalism one would expect of a Starfleet officer.

It took only a handful of steps and a parting door before he and Jim were inside the ready room but he made sure to wait until the doors closed before he said anything.

"So… how surprised were you when our crew number jumped up by a couple of hundred?" he asked with a bit of amusement both in his tone as well as on his face.

"Quite a bit," Jim replied with a matching grin. "It's not every day ten people flash into existence in front of you and hundreds of others start calling asking for answers. What'd you do?"

"I knew we'd need more than just us to run the Enterprise and deal with the Goa'uld, so when Q flashed us away to have some privacy I told him about an idea I had," he replied even as he casually strode over to the fishbowl embedded in the wall of the room. "As you know in this reality you, your crew and everything you know is fiction. Well, I've been a fan of your 'fictional world' for a long time and never missed an episode. I saw many things, got to know many characters, and liked all of it pretty much. Still, there were a few characters I liked so much I was quite sad to see them go. SO… I figured why not see if I could get Q to give them another shot at life."

"He brought them back from the dead?" Jim asked, sounding astounded and a little disbelieving of what he'd been told.

"Dunno. Maybe he brought them back from the dead, maybe he just snatched them a split second before they were fatally wounded, replacing them with copies or maybe he just made exact copies of the originals and gave us those copies," he replied, postulating a few scenarios that to him sounded plausible. "Your guess is as good as mine. Whatever the case, the deal they've been given is simple: five years of duty aboard this ship or a suitably meaningful death. Manage one or the other and each of them will be sent back to their native reality alive and well a little while after they 'died'. Sounded like a good deal to me."

"And why would Q agree to this?" Jim asked, sounding like he was in the process of coming up with a few theories of his own.

"I told him that he might be able to get on the Federation's good side if he brought a couple of their best people back from the dead. Seeing as how most of Starfleet see him as a galactic pain in the ass at the moment, I thought he might be interested in changing that." He turned towards his mentor, "Besides that, I figured the chaos of dumping people Picard knew back into the mix would be entertaining enough to get him to agree."

"Well, I'd say it worked," Jim said with his amused grin evolving into a smile. "A ship wide crew count confirmed that, minus the civilians on board, we have a full complement of Starfleet officers."

"I figured as much with all the busy little bees buzzing about the bridge," he said, looking at the door leading to the aforementioned bridge. "Did they choose their own duty assignments or was that you?"

"I made a few choices but most of them just went with whatever station they used to be assigned to," Jim replied after a moment of thought.

"We'll have to figure out who goes where more permanently when we have the time but for now we'll let them work where they want to," he decided since he'd need to review the files of each crewmember before placing them where they'd do the most good. "So… how do you want to handle this? There can't be two captains."

"Don't worry. Most of the officers come from after my time so they've mostly decided to call me by my former rank of Admiral, so you'll officially be recognized as the Enterprises' captain," Jim replied, not sounding worried about the situation. "As for Scotty and the others, I'm sure they'll make it clear that you and your friends have final say on the important decisions. We're here to teach after all not lead."

"Rrright… because a ship full of trained Starfleet officers are going to listen to a couple of strangers who shouldn't be more than lieutenants or lieutenant commanders at their age," he said, somewhat skeptical of how the crew would react to orders coming from him or his friends.

"It won't be any different from getting new crew. They've handled it before. They'll handle it now," Jim said, not showing even a bit of pessimism. "Just do your best, listen to those with experience and it'll work out fine."

He hoped his mentor was right or he'd have a mutiny on his hands reward from Q be damned.

Enterprise-D Briefing Room

Willow's POV

It was just past mid-day when she arrived in the main briefing room to attend an official meeting of the newly established command staff of the Enterprise-D.

The purpose of the meeting was to set eyes on those who would share the duty of keeping the ship running smoothly and to officially discuss what their first move would be against the Goa'uld. She had spent some time reading entries in the ship's database concerning the Goa'uld System Lords and the methods they used to govern their respective territories. The part of her that was human likened the pretenders to true deities to be megalomaniacs that for centuries had directly or indirectly caused the deaths of billions of sentient beings. On moral grounds this conduct had to be opposed but the method of opposing the Goa'uld needed to be carefully determined so as not to exceed their ability to execute. She had several recommendations but she would wait until Xander outlined his plan before submitting her own ideas as alternatives.

Looking at the table, she identified those she could while committing the faces of those she could not to memory for later investigation.

The first she recognized as special emissary K'Ehleyr. The woman was a Klingon-Human hybrid who first appeared in the television show as an ally. In the episode a Klingon sleeper ship was about to become active crewed by Klingons that'd last been awake before their people had been at peace with the Federation. From what she recalled about the episode, K'Ehleyr chose to favor her human side rather than her Klingon side. That didn't mean that the woman didn't occasionally let her inner warrior out to play but it happened more by accident. Unofficially she was Worf's mate and the mother of their child, Alexander. Officially the woman had never publically acknowledged herself as anyone's wife and, when the conditions for doing so appeared, the character was killed off. Based on body language and facial expressions, the woman was mildly uncomfortable but that was understandable considering the present circumstances.

Finding oneself back among the living, in an alternate dimension that may or may not be similar to the one remembered, could unnerve the most stoic individual.

The next was a man in his mid-twenties that she almost mistook for Lieutenant Commander Data but, when she took note of his skin and green eyes, she realized he was a human, not an android. After reviewing her memories she concluded that this was most likely Doctor Noonian Soong, Data's creator, albeit a great deal younger than he'd been at the time of his death at the hands of his 'son', Lore. If an opportunity to speak with him later presented itself she would be interested in discussing his knowledge of cybernetics and how he came to create his android sons. The science of the Star Trek universe had fascinated her when she was human and her transformation into a human-Vulcan hybrid had not lessened this at all.

To his right was a woman she instantly recognized as none other than Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax. She remembered this woman because it was only four months ago that the episode aired that showed her being killed by Gul Dukat, who had been possessed by a Pah-wraith. It had been a momentous event since Jadzia had been a member of the main cast and had strong bonds to the rest of the main characters. It was therefore… gratifying… to see her alive once more. If her suspicions about what Xander discussed with Q turned out to be the truth, then she would do her best to ensure that the Grim Reaper would not visit her again anytime soon.

The remaining people she knew as those transformed by Q and the Halloween spell, along with those that had been summoned to act as mentors to the transformed. She presumed that the new additions had been selected due to their experience and potentially useful knowledge but there could be other reasons. It would be pointless to speculate further until she learned who had been the one to choose who would attend the meeting, so she suspended her pondering to be resumed at a later date.

"Now that Willow has arrived we can get started," Xander said from the seat usually occupied by Picard in the television series. "I know you've all got questions but we're a little pressed for time so I'll give you the summarized version. If you want to know more you can consult the ship's database. I'm pretty sure Q put most of what we'll need to know there."

"What do you mean 'most'?" Lieutenant Dax asked, sounding suspicious of the information.

"I'm not an idiot, Lieutenant. Q might say he wants to help but he's a trickster at heart," Xander replied honestly. "I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he 'forgot' to add some information to the database since it'd be 'fun' to watch us deal with it on our own."

"If he's omitted some facts perhaps he tampered with others," K'Ehleyr suggested with suspicion and a bit of hostility. "We have no reason to trust anything he's said or given us."

As much as the woman might dislike her Klingon side, it was interesting to note that her reaction to Q closely mirrored Worf's in many ways.

"Q might treat us 'lesser life forms' like toys for his fun but he's also helped the Federation," Xander pointed out, countering the Klingon-human hybrid's hostility. "If not for him Starfleet wouldn't have learned about the Borg until they showed up right on the Federation's doorstep."

"If it hadn't been for Q, the Borg never would've shown up at all," Lieutenant Dax stated icily, clearly remembering the number of lives that had been lost to the Borg.

"You do not know that. To my knowledge the Federation has never had a way to predict the expansion of Borg space or which star system it will invade next," she pointed out as she sat down in a vacant seat. "For all you know the Borg planned to invade the Alpha quadrant long before Captain Picard and his crew encountered them. The meeting may have accelerated their plans but that was likely a calculated risk. Better to learn of the threat ahead of time and hasten its advance than to have it arrive without warning."

Dax didn't have anything to say in reply to that and, before anyone else could speak, Xander launched into an explanation of how they all came to be in this dimension as well as the reason for the transference. He did not go into great detail, keeping his explanation short and concise, but made it clear that taking this reality down a different path was the primary mission.

"According to Q, Earth, or more precisely the American military, plays a major role in galactic events after they travel to Abydos for the first time. Things turn out okay for the most part," Xander said as current events came into the explanation.

"Define 'okay'," Doctor Soong said, sounding like he had his own ideas on that matter.

"Three galactic empires toppled, several deadly diseases cured and Earth becoming what could be called the dominant power in the galaxy," Xander said, keeping his statements a little too lean on details. "The empires in question were threats to human freedom, to say nothing of continued existence before you start implying that Earth becomes imperialistic and aggressive. I wouldn't be surprised if what they begin one day leads to this dimensions variation of the Federation."

"If the future turns out so amicably then why change it?" Dax asked with polite curiosity, apparently having shelved her mistrust of Q's intentions for the time being.

"According to Q they come close several times to obliterating this reality and potentially threatening several connecting ones. He seems to think we'd do a better job of handling future developments than they did," Xander replied as he turned to face the Trill. "Considering some of the mission reports from the team known as SG-1, I can't say I disagree with him. They did the best they could with Earth's current level of technology but combine those limitations with the current political landscape, both internal as well as external, it's a wonder they did as well as they did."

"So what's your plan?" K'Ehleyr asked with measured curiosity.

"Assuming no one comes up with a better one, I plan on using the Goa'uld's natural tendencies to our advantage," Xander replied before tapping the controls built into the table before him. "According to what I've read about them, they're almost constantly scheming against other to improve their status. Even with their ruler Ra keeping a loose semblance of order between them all, it's not out of the ordinary for these System Lords to go to war with each other."

"Wouldn't Ra intervene?" Dax asked, sounding like she was trying to put the proverbial puzzle together. "He wouldn't make a very effective supreme ruler if he just let them do whatever they wanted."

"From what I read, 'supreme ruler' basically translates to 'I have bigger guns and more warriors than anyone else'. He didn't so much keep the others from fighting one another as he did use his superior military might to overpower those weaker than himself," Xander replied, briefly pausing. "It read less like a group of feudal lords and more like a collection of criminal gangs vying for territory and resources. They only ever join forces when there's a common enemy to be fought and the rest of the time they scheme to kill their rivals or invade their territory. In Ra's case, he probably leaves the others to do whatever they want until it threatens what he considers his or he finds a way to benefit from intervening."

"So what do you propose we do?" Buffy asked from her seat next to Montgomery Scott.

"According to the reports of SG-1, it's the encounter with Ra on the planet of Abydos that starts everything. Ra learns that Earth's evolved enough to be a threat and SG-1 kill him as he tries to leave the planet. This causes a power vacuum amongst the System Lords and prompts the Goa'uld Apophis to personally travel to Earth to investigate resulting in the formation of the SGC," Xander replied as images of the various System Lords appeared on the screen behind him and a visual depiction of the System Lord hierarchy hologram appeared above the table before him. "I propose we orchestrate a chain of events to incite the Goa'uld to fight amongst themselves without letting Earth enter into things at all. Then, while they're fighting each other, we 'nudge' Earth and a few other potential allies in the right direction so that when they eventually do clash with the System Lords, the risk'll be cut in half. Maybe more."

"You're proposing that we interfere in the natural evolution of Earth and perhaps other alien worlds?" Dax asked rhetorically, opposition in her tone. "That would be a direct violation of the Prime Directive!"

"And if we were in the Federation I'd be worried about that but we're not. We're not even in the same dimension as the Federation," Xander said, not backing down in the least. "I understand that the directive is important to you but it's just not practical in this dimension. The rules of the Federation and Starfleet were made with the idea that both organizations would be there to support them and each other. That's not the case here and I'm not about to pretend as though it is."

Dax looked like she would say more but Xander beat her to the punch.

"I'm not saying I'm throwing the entire rulebook out the airlock," Xander said trying to formulate a compromise. "I'm just saying… we should treat them less like rules and more like guidelines. Follow them up to the point where they hinder our objectives more than help them and then we use our own best judgment on what to do next."

"And 'we' know better than two centuries of the most intelligent members of the Alpha Quadrant?" Dax asked with a challenging rise of her left eyebrow.

"Tradition and history should never stand in the way of trying new things," she replied, showing her support for Xander's proposition. "You along with the majority of the Enterprise's current crew are also being significantly compensated for your assistance. One would think it would be enough incentive for you to overlook any violations of Starfleet directives or orders."

"Are you saying you'll send us back without this 'incentive' if we refuse to turn a blind eye to your actions?" Dax asked, sounding decidedly less friendly at the moment.

"At the moment only Q can send you back and it's up to him if you go empty handed," Xander replied in an effort to defuse the conflict. "I'd certainly prefer it if everyone went home happy. Maybe we could use this initial mission as a test bed. Let me and my friends take the lead so we can show you how we plan on handling things. If you still have issues at the end, I'm willing to discuss alternative methods provided they prove effective. Is this acceptable?"

"It's acceptable," Dax replied, sounding like she'd be watching all of them with the utmost attention to detail.

Hopefully the Trill would not allow her devotion to the laws of the Federation and Starfleet to unfairly taint her final judgment.

It would be unfortunate if they were forced to return more crew to their native dimension than they could safely do without.

Automated systems could only do so much.

Governor Bartlet's POV

"This… this is unbelievable," he said as he looked at the room called Ten Forward.

"I know. It's one thing to see things like this on a TV show," Abbey said, sounding like part of her mind was still trying to come up with reasons not to believe what she was experiencing. "It's another to be right in the middle of it."

THAT was the mother of all understatements in his opinion.

On Earth (and BOY didn't it feel unreal to think that) he knew things about the world around him that only the extremely nerdy were aware of. This knowledge gave him a feeling of control, of purpose, that made him feel safe as he navigated each day. He knew what was and what wasn't possible. He knew how each piece of the puzzle fit together for the most part and anything he didn't know he could find a book that could tell him.

Here… it felt like he was a lone leaf being tossed about in a hurricane with only vague promises of safety and little control.

Zoey was in that environment.

"We have to talk with Zoey. Soon. Now, if possible," he said, going with his gut instinct.

"As long as it's talking as well as listening and NOT yelling, then I agree," Abbey said with a tone she always used whenever he was about to give someone a royal decree.

"There won't be any yelling," he said, trying to convey that the very idea that he'd yell at his own daughter was ridiculous.

Her look told him she wasn't buying it.

"I just don't think that our little girl realizes what she's getting into," he said, trying to get her to see his side of things. "She's going into space to fight against an empire of tyrants and God knows how many of their soldiers because a cosmically powerful alien told her to. She shouldn't have to do that! That's a job for the military!"

"If this Q is to be believed, the military did handle it and came close to blowing up all of creation," she said, pointing out the flaw in his statement. "As for realizing what she's getting into, I think she knows more than you think she does. She's been a fan of the Star Trek series since she was seven and has asked me to tape it for her when she couldn't sit down to watch it."

"She's a Trekkie?" he asked, a bit of surprise in his voice.

"She doesn't have Star Trek toys and collectibles if that's what you're worried about," she replied with a bit of an amused grin. "She can quote lines from her favorite episodes, though. I'd have thought finding out she chose a Star Trek uniform for Halloween would've given you a hint."

"When did she say she was dressing up in a Star Trek costume?" he asked as he tried to recall being informed of his daughter's choice of Halloween costume.

"The afternoon Halloween day? She called us and let us know what she'd be doing that night because you insisted on making sure she didn't get into any 'funny business' that you couldn't be around to stop," Abbey replied with growing amusement at his past actions as well as his ability to forget certain actions.

After hearing her describe what'd happened, he did vaguely recall that conversation over the phone but the fact that he didn't recall it with perfect clarity from beginning to end indicated how interested he'd been in the specifics.

"So you're saying that because she's seen the show she knows what she's getting into?" he asked, sounding somewhat dubious.

"That and she now has these… these… memories of someone else's life inside her head. A life sworn to a space faring organization aboard a spaceship," she replied, showing that she was still coming to terms with that fact. "I saw her show us around our room and teach us how to use a… a replicator. She knew exactly what she was doing and didn't hesitate. If the others are like that, too, then they know what they're doing. We should trust them."

"We should trust a group of strangers with fake memories shoved into their heads to look after our little girl? We should trust fake memories that let her run futuristic appliances to keep her safe on this ship?" he asked with some incredulity and skepticism.

"Yes, because if we try to tell her that she can't, she'll say that she will just to assert her independence," she replied in the tone she got when she was trying to make a point. "She's always tried to get people to see her for who she is and not the daughter of the governor of New Hampshire. This… this probably looks like the perfect opportunity to come into her own."

"No kidding," he said, thinking that his little girl could've chosen something a little safer and closer to home if she wanted to step out of his shadow.

He'd known the moment he'd chosen to embark on a political career that it wouldn't just be him that it'd affect but every member of his family. Anyone given the power to affect things on a state level inevitably came under the scrutiny of the press, as well as any political rivals, gained from taking office. It also meant that both groups of peeping toms would look into anyone close to him to any kind of dirt that they could use to their advantage. As a result, precautions had to be taken and certain individual freedoms curtailed for the good of the people he cared about. He knew that Zoey understood the need for this and that there were things that just a part of the package of being the daughter of a United States governor. However it was also understandable that she'd want to establish an identity she could call her own in addition to being the daughter of a United States governor.

He just didn't want her to establish it so far from home where he didn't have a prayer of helping her if she got into trouble.

"Besides, if she really has telepathy now, it's going to be impossible to lie to her, so you might as well be honest with her and try not to give her a headache by thinking too loudly." Abbey said with a bit of levity in her tone.

That was another thing he wasn't too crazy about.

Before he and Zoey were on even ground when it came to talking with each other in that neither of them truly knew what the other was thinking. Sure, they could use past discussions as reference material to try and hypothesize what was going in the other person's head, but it was still hit or miss. However, as he'd learned from his last discussion with her, the equilibrium was gone as she'd been able to effectively end half of his sentences before he could. It'd thrown him completely off guard and had ended with the two of them agreeing to meet in Ten Forward to finish their discussion on her occupational future.

"When did life suddenly get so complicated?" he asked at a volume only a little above a whisper.

"It's always been complicated. It will always BE complicated," she replied as she put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "A person handles one complication and life gives them a new one to deal with. The best anyone can do is use what they have to deal with each one as they come and hope that it'll get easier eventually."

He didn't like it but Abbey had a point.

"At least on board the Enterprise Zoey'll have a lot more resources to work with than most people and she won't be alone," she said, sounding confident in their child's safety.

Looking around the room at the various humans and aliens in uniform, he had to admit that, with over a thousand people on board and all of them trained to render aid to their shipmates, Zoey wouldn't come to harm easily. When he'd spoken with Captain Kirk and his protégé Xander, he didn't get the feel that they would be reckless with the Enterprise or the crew that served aboard it. With both of these facts taken into account he was moderately reassured about his little girl's safety but there was still that little handful of fear that wouldn't go away.

Noticing the door to Ten Forward open, he was pleased to see the object of his concern walking in and within seconds spotting him and Abbey before walking over to them.

"Sorry I'm late," Zoey said as she took a vacant seat at the table. "Missus Troi wanted to make sure that I could keep my mind quiet before she ended the lesson."

"Don't worry about it, honey," Abbey said brushing off the delay like it was nothing. "Your father and I were just enjoying Ten Forward."

"No, you were enjoying Ten Forward," Zoey said, turning to look at him with a knowing look on her face. "Dad was revving up his overprotective father engine."

This caused a spike of anxiety in him as his mind thought for a moment that his daughter had read his mind with her telepathy but then Zoey put a comforting hand on his.

"No, I didn't read your mind, dad. I just know you that well," Zoey said with the same smile she used when she'd managed to pull one over on him.

This dispelled his anxiety for the most part but it'd likely be an hour before it went away completely.

"Now would you like anything to drink before I show you around the Enterprise?" Zoey asked, moving things along to the reason why they were outside the guest quarters they'd been assigned to.

"Sure," he said, figuring a good drink would help settle his nerves.

"No," Abbey said right after, giving him one of her looks.

Damn. Ever since I got that diagnosis she's been watching me like a hawk, he thought with a disappointed sigh. At this rate the only time I'm going to be able to eat or drink what I want is when she's visiting her folks.

"No," he said reluctantly as he turned away from his wife and back towards his daughter. "Let's see what the Enterprise has to offer."

With that the three of them got out of their chairs and proceeded to the nearest sliding door of Ten Forward and he brace himself for science literally centuries ahead of what he understood.

Captain's Ready Room

Enterprise-D

Xander's POV

BEE-BEEP

"Come!" he said as he continued to review the information on the Goa'uld Sokar.

The door to the ready room parted to reveal his security and tactical officer Lieutenant Natasha Yar and, judging from the look on her face, she had something serious to talk to him about. Truth be told he'd been expecting this once word got around the ship about what he planned to do and what he was asking them to do. All of them were from a universe, a time period, wherein the Prime Directive was considered to have the same weight as the Ten Commandments. True, if the crew respected and, in some cases, admired their commanding officer enough, they'd be willing to cross that proverbial line, but he didn't have either. So while their training had them doing their duty, it was only a matter of time before someone of sufficient rank approached him to try and talk him out of his plan. Quite frankly he'd been expecting it to be Jadzia since, with the Dax symbiote inside of her, she had more than enough experience to convince him to do just about anything. If he had to guess, Yar had been sent with the intention of hammering him with the strategic and tactical reasons why playing puppeteer with the galaxy was a bad idea.

In order not to seem like a captain who didn't listen to his crew, he'd keep an open mind and let her say what she wanted to say.

"How can I help you, lieutenant?" he asked, figuring that that was as good a way to open the conversation as any other.

"There's something I believe needs to be discussed further, Captain," Yar replied, sounding like she was solid in her position.

"I presume your referring to my plans for the ship's future?" he asked, feeling just as solid in his guess about the reason for the present discussion.

"Yes, sir," Yar replied before tensing up a bit. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted," he said, personally preferring honesty from those under him rather than something prepared or sugarcoated.

"I've been reviewing the data Q put into the database about the previous timeline and, while I agree that there were too many close calls connected to the SGC, I believe there's a simpler way of keeping Earth safe from them," Yar said, remaining at attention on the other side the desk. "We transport the stargates on Earth up to the Enterprise. If they never leave the planet then they can't encounter the Goa'uld and the System Lords never have a reason to visit Earth. As far as they know both of the stargates are buried in either ice or dirt."

"True. I take it this is out of concern for the Jaffa?" he asked after a moment of internal debate.

"Yes, sir. The file on them makes it clear that the System Lord's treat them like cattle, attack dogs, and don't care how many lives are lost in the pursuit of their goals," she replied, sounding like she'd put some thought into her words. "If we do what you propose, we'll be starting a multi-front war where countless Jaffa will die for their masters. They're conditioned from birth to treat the Goa'uld as deities and, when they come of age, their immune system is destroyed and replaced with a larval form for the Goa'uld. They're victims, Captain, and if we instigate a civil war we'll be as responsible for the Jaffa deaths as the System Lords they answer to."

Both the suggestion and the ramifications of his proposed mission plan were things that he had considered from the moment he gained a basic grasp of the galactic political landscape. For all the changes they'd been through since they'd been plucked from Earth and seeded amongst the stars, the Jaffa were still human beings. Like Tasha just said they were victims treated like cattle by the Goa'uld symbiotes calling the shots and would die by the thousands if everything went according to plan. Xander Harris might not be able to grasp numbers like that but the memories he'd inherited from the time Jim was in the driver's seat of his body filled in many of the blanks. After all, the Enterprise-D itself had a crew of over a thousand and some of the ships in the Star Trek universe were known to have ten times that number of people on board. While the Constitution-class Enterprise and her crew had primarily been a vessel of exploration, Kirk had more than a few memories of ship-to-ship battle where he was forced to destroy the enemy. Jim had read the after action reports and the lists of the dead.

With these memories he knew that instigating a multi-front civil war amongst the Goa'uld was likely to make anything Jim had experienced seem like small potatoes by comparison in terms of body count.

"I… did not come up with this plan arbitrarily, lieutenant," he said letting a bit of his true self slip past the professional demeanor he was trying to project. "I'd considered transporting up the stargates but there were too many potential problems."

"Such as?" she asked, wanting to know more probably to pass along to the others.

"Well, for one in order to beam them up we'd need to take the Enterprise back into Earth Orbit and scan for the present location of both stargates. The technology of this time period may be antiquated by twenty-fourth century standards but I think they'll still notice the Enterprise's approach and, with one of the stargates in the custody of the American military, they'll notice a beam out," he replied, putting forth his reasons. "Getting an eyeful of a supposedly fictional ship coming into orbit and having military property stolen out from under their noses will definitely get the undivided attention of just about every government with a satellite within range. In my opinion that would constitute a much greater violation of the Prime Directive than giving them a covert nudge from time to time."

"If you don't think the Enterprise can get close to Earth without being detected, how do you plan on 'nudging' Earth in the right direction?" she asked, looking like she thought she'd found a flaw in his plan.

"I've got three options on that point. The first involves letting them use the stargate to do some exploring. With the files that Q has provided concerning not just SG-1 but all the teams of the SGC, we have a pretty good idea of where they'll be and when. If we get there ahead of him we can arrange for them to meet some friendly alien colonists willing to share their advanced medical and technical knowledge with them. We can even sprinkle some tidbits of wisdom in with it to get people thinking about a unified Earth," he said, outlining the ideas. "The second option is to have engineering construct a working model of the phasing cloaking device developed by a secret group of Starfleet Security. While it might be illegal to exist in your native dimension due to the Treaty of Algeron, there's no law against using it here. There are no Romulans here to complain and it would let us approach Earth without being spotted. From there we could make sure that the right information got into the right hands to get things going in the desired direction."

"And the third option?" she asked with an unusual tone.

"The third option would be more long term and would involve Governor Bartlet. If we could give him historical data stretching from where history diverges between this universe and yours to the formation of the United Earth, he might be able to get the ball rolling." He felt a little more unsure about this one. "It won't be easy since there aren't any Augments running around and there hasn't been a third world war but I'm hoping that if he studies the history files on your Earth, he might be able to do something without those hellish experiences."

"Couldn't we just use the phase-cloak to get close enough to Earth to beam out the stargates?" she asked, pointing out a way to overcome the potential contamination of the human race.

"Unfortunately, based on what I've read about the device, we wouldn't be able to use the transporters while it was active. The phasing affect would destabilize the pattern of anything we tried to beam up," he replied, remembering his efforts to explore the device's possible applications. "Given the lack of knowledge about the interaction between the three variables, I don't feel we should tempt fate by dabbling."

Indeed, based on the files about the device, the crew of the Pegasus had only done tests on the ability to turn invisible and phase through solid matter. The mutiny of the crew occurred before any experiments could be conducted to see what would happen if they tried to use any of the other ship systems while the device was still active. One log entry made by the scientist in charge of the field test did contain some theories about what MIGHT happen and most of the possibilities were significantly dangerous to ship and crew. Given that this was officially his first command, he refused to put his ship or his crew in unnecessary danger.

He watched as Lieutenant Yar tried to come up with other reasons why they should avoid breaking the Prime Directive as well as possible methods of protecting Earth from the Goa'uld. In anticipation of a discussion like this he'd tried to explore the various options that'd allow his goals to be met while keeping his Starfleet crew amiable. Unfortunately most of the plans that abided by the directives and orders of Starfleet weren't very effective in the long term. Due to his limited resources as well as the fact that the Enterprise couldn't be everywhere at once, any Federation methods of resolving problems would be patch jobs at best. Without a ship willing to remain in a given area until the problem was completely resolved, they'd have to rely on those left behind to keep things going in the desired direction.

Considering that their enemy controlled a sizeable amount of space and regularly fought over territory, any help they provided the needy would last months at best before reverting.

"I know you're all… uneasy about going against your training," he said, hoping to put his security chief more at ease. "Going against something you believe in his never easy. All I ask is that you and the crew recognize that our present circumstances make strictly following the ways of Starfleet as well as the Federation impractical. If we're to survive and make any sort of difference in this dimension, we need to be able to move outside our comfort zones when necessary."

Yar seemed to think about his words for a moment and, if he was any judge of body language, she seemed willing to show some flexibility with regards to the rules.

How much flexibility would depend on just how far he wound up pushing the envelope and what the consequences of doing so turned out to be.

"I understand, sir," she said, apparently ready to wrap up the discussion.

"Then resume your duties, lieutenant," he said, taking on a tone more in keeping with a commanding officer. "Once we drop off Governor Bartlet and his wife we'll be heading straight for the Entac system. According to the database, the System Lord Sokar has plans to annex the system into his empire in the near future. That means he'll be sending scouts to learn all he needs to about it. We'll use that as our opportunity to obtain the needed incriminating evidence to plant in the Abydos system after destroying Ra's ship."

"What sort of evidence would you be looking for?" Lieutenant Yar asked, sounding like she planned on drafting mission details after she left.

"Ideally hull fragments from one of Sokar's ships, if not an entire ship. Convincingly damaged, of course, to suggest that the ship engaged Ra's vessel and destroyed it, only to succumb to critical systems failures. A few bodies of Sokar's Jaffa would be needed and we'd have to alter whatever records were on the ship to mesh with our version of events," he replied, having already considered the possibilities. "Depending on whether or not we can block any ship to surface transmissions between Ra's vessel and the Jaffa on Abydos, we may need to dispose of them in order to prevent any contradictory reports from making it to the other System Lords. If we do the job right, any System Lord that comes to investigate will have more than enough to place the blame for Ra's death on Sokar's shoulders."

"Which will spark the civil war you hope will keep them from going to Earth or noticing the activities of the SGC," Lieutenant Yar said, following that train of thought.

"Yep. Then all we have to do is make sure to keep ahead of their missions and make sure to scrub the planets they visit clean of Goa'uld and Jaffa presences," he said, showing his plan following the events in the Abydos system. "They might get bits and pieces of clues that something happened on those worlds but, without something more substantial, they won't go looking for trouble where there isn't any."

"And if you're wrong?" Natasha asked, more curious than argumentative.

"We'll be dropping a sensor satellite in the Terran star system keyed to look for hyperspace arrivals and ships matching those used by the Goa'uld. They'll let us know if there's any trouble," he replied, confident that the satellite would do its job. "Well, it will once we drop a few subspace amplifier satellites in the right spots."

He'd already sent a request down to engineering to have the amplifiers built, with every effort made to maximize their range since it'd take forever to establish a communications network capable of covering the entire Milky Way galaxy. If they could at least make one strong enough to reach the equivalent of five days away from Earth at maximum warp, he'd be satisfied.

"Very well, sir. It sounds like you've got things well in hand," Lieutenant Yar said, sounding like her curiosity and concerns were satisfied for the time being. "With your permission I'll return to my duties."

"Permission granted," he said with a nod of his head.

Watching as his security chief left, he couldn't help but feel as though there was something more he could say in order to reassure her that she could trust him.

What he came up with was honest but hardly the inspiring words of a competent captain.

"I know you do don't know me and I don't know you. Not well enough to trust one another," he said, causing her to pause just before she would have triggered the door's sensor, "but the one thing we both have in common is that we want to keep this ship and crew safe. That's common ground enough, right?"

"Yes… I guess it is," she replied before proceeding towards the door.

With a swish and a swoosh he was alone with his thoughts once more, hoping that he wouldn't screw things up.

Let this be the one thing he'd manage to get top marks in.