I wondered whether to tone down the part in the holodeck in the last chapter but then I realised if guys were trapped on a spaceship for five years and then they were introduced to a holodeck, they wouldn't have a hope in hell of resisting it. So it's actually a rather realistic look at what they would get up to. Besides, it was way too funny. So I left it as is.

Sorry it took so long to get this next chapter up. Real life keeps catching up to me and I've had to travel interstate and back.

Chapter 18 – Aftermath

Star Trek Universe – Milky Way Galaxy - Voyager – Brig

After their 'adventure', or as some would say, 'misadventure' in the holodeck, Eli Wallace, Matthew Scott, Ronald Greer, Darren Becker and the three other soldiers from Destiny crewmembers found themselves in the brig. Eli had explained to his crewmates that Tom and B'Elanna noticed the grass suddenly grow to two metres around them. That's how they discovered there weren't alone in the holodeck. Everyone else in the brig moaned. They also realised that Destiny had gone to FTL at 10pm last night and wouldn't come out of FTL until 6:00pm tonight. They're going to be spending all day in the brig. They didn't know what was worse, being in the brig, or having to answer to Colonel Young when he inevitably finds out. Some of them were glad to be in the brig. At least Eli was smart enough to ask for his own cell. Spending all that time there, someone was bound to blame Eli for getting them into that mess. Eli was surprised that several hours had gone by and no-one had screamed or even raised their voice at him. It was late at night and they all just went to sleep.

It was early morning when they started talking. They were all still lying down. Although Eli was in a separate holding cell, they were all still within earshot as he was in the adjoining cell.

"It was fate." Eli spoke first. "Fate caused this."

"How could fate cause this?" Matthew asked.

"Things were going too good." Eli answered. "Something had to go wrong. Let's count the good things. We're all doing a much better job of repairing Destiny. We can now easily repair or replicate things with the replicator table. The Voyager crew members on Destiny with their tricorders can easily scan things with their tricorders and tell us what they are. We've all been eating our favourite desserts using the replicators on Voyager. We actually have the ability to go to our Earth now, but we're all now holding off on that because we're on our way to see futuristic Star Trek Earth."

"So fate is teaching us a lesson." Ronald remarked. "Yeah, I believe that. I let myself get too happy over the last two weeks. I should have seen that coming seeing how bad my childhood was. I joined the military to escape from all that. When you think the military is a paradise by comparison, you realise just how bad your childhood was."

"My kid doesn't know I'm his father." Matthew revealed.

"Yeah, we always lose what we want the most." Eli said.

"What have you lost?" Ronald asked. "You haven't lost anything. I heard your mum's doing okay. And I thought you loved it on both Destiny and Voyager."

"I am loving it. Being a sci-fi nerd and trapped on a futuristic ship, it felt like I was on my favourite sci-fi TV show instead of just watching it on TV. And apart from my mum I wasn't missing anyone. I have no girlfriend, no wife, no kids. I thought I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. So of course, fate had to rear its ugly head and teach me a lesson. Fate gave me Ginn just so it could tear her away from me."

They were all lost in thought as they contemplated how wild their lives had become.

Voyager – Shuttlebay

Dale Volker, Lisa Park, Tuvok, Marla Gilmore, Seven and a few other Voyager engineers had figured out how to connect the large DHD to the Stargate 1.0. They had left the fusion reactors switched off. They were looking at the smaller tablet DHD in their hands to watch the available list of Stargates grow on its display.

"7, 8, 9 stargates." Dale announced. "That's it. There are 9 stargates within range of this Stargate 1.0 while it is connected to the DHD 2.0."

"I thought they said the range only increased to half the galaxy." Marla noticed. "They did this same test yesterday on Destiny. We should only be getting about 5 or 6."

"Except that we are a lot closer now to the centre of the galaxy, seeing that Voyager has managed to cover roughly half the journey across the galaxy." Dale explained. "The centre of the galaxy is roughly 10,000 light years from here. I've seen a map of where we are in the Milky Way galaxy."

"Volker is correct." Tuvok confirmed. "Destiny's Stargate is not showing up on this list which means it is still at FTL. Otherwise the list of available Stargates would be ten. That still leaves us one Stargate short. It must be near the edge of the galaxy if it is out of range now."

"Aren't we still one short?" Marla asked. "Wait, hang on. Destiny has a dozen Stargate 1.0 models and one Stargate 2.0 in its shuttlebay. That means there are now 24 Stargates in the Milky Way galaxy. But I had a DHD tablet last night. When FTL dropped out of FTL, the list of available Stargates went from ten to eleven. The night before that, it went from eleven to twelve."

"Yeah, I noticed that." Dale said. "I know why. Here's a clue. The word 'available'."

Marla thought for a bit before figuring it out. "The Stargates are too close together! Only the Stargate that supersedes the others will show up in the list!"

"Yay! Bingo!" Dale exclaimed. "Apparently they won't even show up as 'locked out' on the display. And the reason the list was eleven last night and twelve the night before is because they had picked up the Stargate 2.0 in that time."

"Let's continue." Tuvok brought them back on track. "Let's turn on the fusion reactors one by one and see how it affects the list of available Stargates."

Tuvok had modified the power setting on the fusion reactors so they could be powered on separately again. There were now 9 fusion reactors in the shuttlebay. Tuvok powered on the first fusion reactor. He raised it to 100 percent. He waited a minute for the DHD remotes to update its available list of Stargates.

"We have ten stargates in range." Dale announced. "It's picking up that Stargate at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy."

"But no Stargates in any nearby galaxies." Marla assumed.

"Let's turn on the next fusion reactor." Dale suggested.

Tuvok turned on the next fusion reactor. They waited one minute. They watched the DHD remotes in surprise as the list of available Stargates started to skyrocket.

"Umm, guys?" Dale called out. "It's picking up Stargates in a nearby galaxy. A lot of them."

"Yeah. That's what happened the last time we plugged fusion reactors into them." Marla pointed out.

"That's right but that was in the Stargate universe." Dale explained. "Now we are in the Milky Way galaxy in the Star Trek universe. We were surprised by the eleven we detected in this galaxy. The number of Stargates is still going up. I'm up to eleven thousand now. They're coming from two galaxies now. This second galaxy. I recognise the eighth symbol. It's the Pegasus galaxy. The other symbol. It came first. That has to be the Andromeda galaxy. Wait, if I'm picking up the Pegasus galaxy…" Dale started typing in co-ordinates. "Bingo! We have a match. I'm picking up the Stargate in Atlantis!"

"Don't dial it." Tuvok advised.

"Don't worry. I was just seeing if there is a match. There is. There is an Atlantis in the Pegasus galaxy. Or at least there is a Stargate in the same location where Atlantis is."

"That's incredible!" Lisa Park exclaimed.

"Sure is." Dale agreed then looked around. "I thought Eli was supposed to be here. He would love to see this. Where the hell is he? Has anyone seen him?"

"Umm." Lisa started but got stuck for words.

"Eli has been otherwise engaged. He will not be able to participate in this morning's activities." Announced Tuvok.

"By what?" Dale asked.

"It is not privy for me to say. Janeway's orders." Tuvok answerd.

"Not privy? Lisa, do you know anything about this?" Dale asked.

"I haven't got a clue." Lisa replied a little too quickly. Dale looked at Lisa. Her eyes were wide and she was apprehensive. She was hiding something.

"Lisa, what's going on?" Dale asked.

"I can't say." Lisa responded. Dale looked closely at her. He thought she was scared, but now it looked more like she was trying not to laugh.

Dale looked around at everyone. "Where's Matthew, Ronald and Darren?"

"They have been otherwise engaged as well." Tuvok answered.

"Okay then." Dale realised. "We'll continue with this test for now. Let's start up fusion reactor number three."

Voyager – Captain's Ready Room

At 6:00pm when Destiny had dropped out of FTL, activated its Stargate and contacted Voyager, Colonel Everett Young was notified that his presence was requested on Voyager as soon as possible. When he arrived, he was directed to the Captain's Ready Room. While he was in the ascending turbolift, he had wondered what happened. He wasn't told over communications and the people in Voyager's shuttlebay didn't know either. From what he could tell, it sounded like someone was in trouble. It couldn't be Rush. He was on Destiny and apart from a few dinners, he hasn't even been to Voyager for about a week. Come to think of it, Rush had been rather well behaved lately. Real good considering he was punched out by Samantha Carter last week. Had Rush done something previously that people on Voyager had only just found out about?

While they were waiting for Everett to arrive, Janeway and Chakotay were discussing how exactly to tell Everett. They had even flipped a coin to decide who was going to tell him. Janeway lost and had to tell him.

Chakotay offered. "I bet you a replicator ration that Everett bursts out laughing when you tell him."

"You're on. I haven't seen him laugh yet." Janeway agreed.

"He'll laugh."

"No, he won't." The door chimed. "Come in."

Everett entered. "What has Rush done now?"

"Rush?" Janeway asked. "No, not Rush. You better sit down for this."

Outside on the bridge, the relief crew manning the stations for the evening shift were wondering how Everett would react. About two minutes after he had entered, they all heard hysterical laughter. Janeway had lost the bet.

Voyager – Briefing Room – 6:30pm

Nicolas Rush, Dale Volker, Adam Brody, Lisa Park, Morrison, Camille, Marla Gilmore, Seven and Tuvok were waiting in the briefing room. Kathryn, Chakotay and Everett entered.

"Good evening people." Colonel Everett Young greeted them. "I believe you tested the Stargate connected to the replicated DHD. Does someone want to fill us in on how it went?"

"The test went rather well." Dale answered. "The DHD increased the range of the Stargate 1.0 from 300 light years to about 35,000 light years."

Everett asked. "Do you have any idea why it only increased the range to only half the width of the galaxy instead of the whole galaxy like the Stargate 2.0?"

Dale replied. "We can only assume that the DHD 2.0 can only do half the job and a Stargate 2.0 is required to finish extending the range to the whole galaxy."

"Fair enough." Everett surmised. "What about when you connected the fusion reactors to it?"

"That's where it got interesting." Dale continued. "One fusion reactor increased the range to the whole galaxy. The second reactor increased the range to pick up Stargates in both the Andromeda and Pegasus galaxies."

"Wait, hang on." Everett interrupted. "We're still in the Star Trek universe. There are Stargates in those galaxies?"

"Over 35,000 in the Andromeda galaxy." Marla answered.

"And over 20,000 in the Pegasus galaxy." Lisa added.

"Each time we turned on another fusion reactor, we picked up more galaxies full of Stargates." Dale continued. "Every galaxy that we could detect besides the Milky Way galaxy itself, has tens of thousands of stargates in them."

"You're kidding!" Everett exclaimed. "That means that it's the Milky Way galaxy which is the odd one out."

"It seems that way." Janeway agreed.

Everett assumed. "That would also mean that the Milky Way was once full of Stargates too, but they have since disappeared."

"Indeed." Tuvok agreed.

"So, the question now is, what happened to all the Stargates?" Everett asked.

"That at the moment is anybody's guess." Nicolas responded. "I am looking into that, but we need to find a lot more clues before anyone can give any reasonable explanation. All I can say with any certainty is it happened a very long time ago."

"Let's get back to the DHD 2.0." Janeway got them back on track. "How many fusion reactors will be required on Voyager with the DHD attached to reach from galaxy 40 to 29?"

"We estimate that to be around eleven." Tuvok answered.

"With both Seven manufacturing the fusion reactors and us replicating them, we should have enough reactors to open a gateway to Earth, our Earth, in about two weeks." Everett summarized.

"Excellent." Janeway said. "How are repairs going on Destiny?"

"It's going way better now that we've got our own replicator repairing and replicating equipment." Everett answered. "We're finally replacing all the kinos we've lost over the years and we're about to open a new section of Destiny."

"Glad to hear it." Janeway admitted. "Now back to the…incident…in the holodeck." Janeway saw Everett tense up and take a breath. When Janeway had told him about the incident back in her Ready Room, Everett had told them to wait until he managed to stop laughing before they all made their way to the Briefing Room. Everett wanted to make sure he could have a grim expression on his face before he faced the others. He also advised Janeway to take out a few details before she explained what happened, particularly so it doesn't become the laughingstock of the trip. Janeway started. "It appears that a few members of Destiny had taken it upon themselves to make an unscheduled visit of the holodeck. I won't explain exactly what happened, but they managed to sneak into a holodeck that was already running. They thought they could get up to mischief, but they were discovered by the Voyager crewmembers who were already there." Janeway looked around. They were all captivated.

Dale Volker looked around. Lisa Park looked like she was wearing a really good poker face. How much more did she know?

Everett Young continued with the explanation. "Those guilty of the incident are currently in the brig. They will soon be sent back to Destiny. This incident is to remain top secret and not to be discussed with anyone. You are also not to discuss this when you talk to people on Earth using the communication stones."

"I'm pretty sure we can keep this under wraps." Janeway finished. "Now we believe it will be another three weeks before Destiny arrives at the next Stargate. I'm confident we can all behave ourselves. Anything else before we go to dinner?"

"A few things." Everett answered. "First, now is a good time to change our roster of crewmembers. Lisa Parker and Dale Volker are also being sent back to Destiny. We'll let some other people from Destiny check out Voyager.

"Second, Destiny is low on fuel. We're inviting as many people as we can from Voyager onto Destiny tomorrow. We want you to see how Destiny refuels. I assure you, you will not be disappointed."

"Sounds interesting." Chakotay piped up.

"Sure does. Count us in. We'll announce it at dinner." Janeway said.

"Third." Everett continued. "Our cooks are getting better at making dinner and we've figured out how to use almost everything in Destiny's kitchen. We no longer need to keep coming out of FTL every night at 6pm. It's now time we skip a few days here and there for Destiny to cover more ground."

"Sounds good." Janeway confirmed. "We'll do that."

"The third thing." Everett continued. "I've found a way to make this incident up to you. Apart from replicating fusion reactors, we've mainly been copying and repairing machines from Destiny. I believe there are a few things from Voyager you haven't thought of copying yet."

"Let's hear it." Janeway invited. Everett filled her in.

Later, when Lisa and Dale were walking along a corridor on their way to the Mess Hall for dinner, Dale asked Lisa what had happened in the holodeck.

"I can't say. Top secret. I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you." Lisa replied.

"Yeah. Well, my mind is going onto overdrive. I can pretty much imagine what happened." Dale said.

"Actually, I'm impressed you weren't there with them." Lisa said amazed.

"Well, put it this way. I'm glad I didn't know about it." Dale admitted.

Lisa laughed. "C'mon! I can't believe you said that!" They continued laughing on their way to the mess hall.

Voyager – Brig

After dinner, Colonel Everett Young had decided to see the detainees in the brig. The detainees were dreading this. As soon as he had walked in the door, they all stood up and snapped to attention. Although Eli was a civilian contractor and not a soldier, he decided to follow suit. They had all assumed that the Colonel would be furious. Their assumptions were correct. After two minutes of shouting at them, he decided to start questioning them.

"So who was behind this?" Everett asked. The soldiers all looked at each other.

"It was my idea." Matthew Scott answered.

"No, it was my idea." Ronald Greer answered.

"I made it possible. It's my fault." Eli intervened.

"We forced you. You didn't have a choice." Ronald said.

"I could have held out longer. It's my fault." Eli insisted.

"You warned us we could have gotten caught. We didn't listen. It's our fault." Matthew said.

"I gave in too easily." Eli insisted.

"Yeah, right." Ronald said.

"Looks like it's all your fault." Everett said, indicating all of them. "One thing, your time on Voyager is over. You're all going back to Destiny tonight. That is, to the brig on Destiny. You'll be spending another day there for you to think about what you've done. One last thing, we're covering this incident up. We've classed it as top secret. If this gets out, it will be the main thing everyone will be talking about if the Stargate program ever goes public. We won't even be telling Stargate Command about this. This event never happened, understood?"

"Yes, sir!" All the soldiers responded.

"Yes, sir!" Eli quickly responded, before the soldiers finished shouting it.

"Good! I'll be back soon to let you out. You'll go to your quarters to get your things and then we're all going back to Voyager." Everett turned around and left the brig. As he turned the corner, he saw Janeway in the corridor. He motioned for her to move out of earshot of the detainees. After they'd turned another corner, Everett spoke. "They surprised me."

"How so?" Janeway asked.

"They all accepted responsibility for what happened. They're taking the blame for it." Everett answered.

"They weren't always like that?" Janeway asked.

"Not really. When they first met five years ago, things were different. If this incident had happened back then, they all would have sidestepped the issue, made up excuses. None of them did that."

"They're all friends now." Janeway realised.

"Yes, they are." Everett also realised.

"The same thing happened on Voyager." Janeway admitted. "Over the years we all got to know each other. We were all calling each other by our ranks when we first started out. But now, we're all on a first name basis. Tuvok and Vorik are the only officers who keep it professional. But with the others, although most officers still call me Captain, I can't remember the last time anyone beside the Vulcans ever called anyone by their rank. Not even Seven."

"So, it's become like one large extended family on both our ships." Everett realised. "Yeah, you're right. I know personal details about some of my crewmembers I wish I didn't know."

"Same here." Janeway admitted. "This refuelling thing that Destiny can do better be good."

"It will. You might want to have an officer bring along a holocamera. It could make for an interesting program to have in the holodeck."

"We will." Janeway responded.

"Now let's go get those dopes out of the brig." Everett said.

Star Trek Universe - Destiny – The Next Day

Several dozen crewmembers, almost half the crew on Voyager, had accepted the invite to Destiny via the Stargate. Most of them had made their way to the Observation Deck. As Janeway had ordered, one of the crewmembers brought along a holocamera. As the Observation Deck wasn't quite big enough for everyone, some of them had made their way to a couple of corridors on the sides of the ship which had rather long side windows alongside them giving a generous view to the sightseers. They could see the star getting larger as they approached it.

In the Repair Bay, several people were waiting to see if the latest experiment would work. The console display on the replicator table beeped, signifying it had completed its task.

"Looks like it did it." Adam Brody stated.

"Before there was one, now there are two." Tom Paris announced.

"The Doctor will love this." B'Elanna said.

They all looked at the two replicator tables. Sitting on each of them was the Doctor's mobile emitter.

"The Doctor finally has a backup mobile emitter." Tom announced. "He's going to think it's Christmas!"

"Our own replicators can't even copy the mobile emitter. It's too advanced." B'Elanna said amazed.

"Destiny continues to surprise." Tom admitted. For safety reasons they made sure the Doctor was left in sickbay on Voyager, not in the mobile emitter. They didn't want to risk the Doctor somehow being damaged or destroyed if the replicator malfunctioned.

"Mission successful." Adam turned to an engineer. "Bring in the repair bot."

"Oh, crap, the time." Tom suddenly said. "Destiny is about to refuel. We'll be in the observation lounge watching Destiny refuel." Tom and B'Elanna hurriedly left the repair bay.

"You're going to love it." Adam said to them as he watched them leave. Right after they left, Dale Volker walked in.

"Hey Adam!" Dale greeted.

"Hey! How was Voyager?"

"Great! It had its moments this time." Dale looked down at the replicator bench. "What is that?"

"Oh great. They forgot it." Adam called out to Tom and B'Elanna. "Tom! B'Elanna! You forgot the mobile emitters!"

"Too late." Said the engineer who was wheeling in the repair bot on a trolley. "They've already disappeared in the elevator."

"They'll be back." Adam muttered.

"Is that the mobile emitter that the holographic doctor has on Voyager?" Dale asked.

"That's the one. Or, should I say, that's the two." Adam answered.

Dale was lost in thought for a moment, before asking. "Adam. Can you do me a really big favour?"

"Depends what it is."

"Oh, believe me, you're going to love this."

On the top deck, Kathryn Janeway had joined Everett Young on the bridge.

"You're about to find out what Destiny can really do." Everett told her. "We've decided to leave Destiny on automatic. We'll let it refuel itself. We'll watch."

"This has certainly piqued my interest." Janeway admitted. "I can't wait to see what will happen."

"You're certainly going to love putting this in your report." Everett said.

"All I see is a great big star in front of us." Janeway pointed out. The star was now filling up most of the forward view.

"That is correct." Everett confirmed. "And it's going to keep getting bigger."

On the Observation Deck, dozens of people were watching the star as it filled the forward view.

"I fail to see why I should witness this." Seven stated.

"C'mon Seven." Harry Kim said. "I believe this is one of those situations where even you should be impressed. Aren't you impressed, Tuvok?"

Tuvok raised an eyebrow before responding. "Intriguing."

"I guess that's all we're going to get out of you." Tom Paris said, who had just arrived on the Observation Deck with B'Elanna. "Where's your adventurous spirit?"

"I am enjoying this. I do not need to express it like you do." Tuvok answered.

"Are you recording this, Harry?" Tom asked.

"Certainly am." Harry replied. He was holding the holocamera out in front of him.

They continued watching as Destiny got closer and closer to the star. Destiny started raising the nose as it got closer, so it was flying just above the fiery surface. Then it lowered its altitude and it disappeared into the fiery flames of the sun.

"Are we actually in the sun?" Janeway asked amazed on the bridge. She was looking out of the forward viewscreen, which was now filled with bright waves of colours as it flew through the searing fusion of the chromosphere, the top layer of the sun. The bridge was filled with a kaleidoscope of bright colours of white, yellow, orange and red.

"You better believe it." Everett replied. "This is how Destiny refuels. It is solar powered."

"Incredible!" Janeway exclaimed.

"Destiny was launched a really long time ago." Everett continued. "Back then, there was no dilithium and no ZPMs. But there's an awful lot of stars out there."

"They sure don't make them like they used to." Janeway remarked.

Several decks below, Harry and his friends looked on wide-eyed in the observation deck.

"Now this is one way to refuel." Harry said in amazement. "Remind us not to try this in Voyager."

"Destiny is really showing off now." Tom said amazed.

B'Elanna remarked. "I would have ticked this off my bucket list if it was on it."

Seven observed. "Impressive. It is amazing a ship with this capability was constructed so long ago."

"It most certainly is." Tom agreed.

"Starfleet is going to be so impressed when they find out what this ship can do." Harry said astonished.

Star Trek Universe – Voyager – Sick Bay

B'Elanna Torres, Tom Paris and Harry Kim all entered sick bay. They were going to activate the Doctor but they saw him in his office typing away at his computer. He looked up as they entered.

"We just got back from Voyager and we've got a gift for you, Doc." Harry announced.

"I've got to admit I don't usually get a gift." The Doctor remarked.

"Just because you're not flesh and blood doesn't mean you shouldn't get a present now and then." Harry said.

"Here it is." B'Elanna announced. She held out a mobile emitter.

"Very funny." The Doctor remarked. "Last time I checked, that was mine."

"Really? How about this?" Tom asked. He held out another mobile emitter.

"Two of them?" The Doctor asked.

"How about this?" Harry said as he held out a mobile emitter.

"Or this?" B'Elanna held out another mobile emitter in her other hand. Four mobile emitters, all identical.

"Oh. That replicator table they found on Destiny." The Doctor realised. "If it can replicate this, then it's better than our replicators."

"Don't get too excited. We haven't run any diagnostics on them yet." B'Elanna said. "We don't know if the other three work."

"We admit we don't even know which one is the original." Tom confessed. "We had them together in one bag."

"We'll let you test them out. Bye." Tom said.

"By the way we've ended our stay on Destiny. We'll be on Voyager for the time being. Bye." B'Elanna said as she followed Tom out of sickbay.

"I hope all those emitters work. Bye." Harry said as he left sickbay.

The Doctor held up the four mobile emitters in his hands. "These should come in handy." He said to himself.

Star Trek Universe - Destiny – Brig - The Next Day

Eli, Matthew, Ronald, Darren and the other three soldiers were in the brig on Destiny. It was a room which had been assigned as the brig because it had one door and no windows. They all looked up as the door opened.

"All right, you deviants." Colonel Everett Young greeted them. "You've spent one day in the brig on Voyager and one day in the brig here on Destiny. I'm not letting you lazy layabouts waste anymore time in here. So time's up. You're outta' here. This doesn't mean you're off the hook. You'll be on cleaning duties for the next week. But for now, it's ten minutes until dinner. You're all on Destiny for the rest of the trip. No more trips to Voyager. Now get out of here." They all quickly left the brig.

Destiny – Officer's Mess

The Officer's Mess was nearly full of Destiny and Voyager crewmembers commencing their dinner. Outside in the corridor, Matthew, Eli and the other recent occupants of the brig spotted Lisa Park about to enter the Officer's Mess.

"Lisa!" Matthew called out. She stopped and faced him.

"umm, hi." Lisa said nervously with a smile on her face.

"Lisa, I have to know. Please tell me that you did not tell anybody."

"Do you mean…are you talking about…" Lisa struggled to say. She noticed they were all looking at her intently.

"The incident. Have you told anyone about the incident?" Matthew asked.

"No. Of course not. I'd never do that." Lisa said a little bit too quickly.

"Okay then." Matthew said, not entirely convinced. They all entered the officer's mess. As they made their way over to get in line to where the dinners were being handed out, they noticed the usual noisy hustle and bustle around them quieten down. Eli, Matthew, Ronald, Darren and the other three soldiers from the brig looked at everyone around them. Everyone quickly looked away from them and continued having their dinner. It looked like a lot of people were smirking and trying not to be noticed. One by one Eli, Matthew and the others received dinner and they walked over to a table. The table had only one occupant already there, Chloe Armstrong. The ex-brig members were getting more and more nervous as they continued to look around at everyone as they approached the table. It looked like everyone was trying their hardest not to laugh.

They all sat down at the table, including Lisa Park. Matthew sat directly across from Chloe. Although everyone else was smirking, Chloe was glaring directly at Matthew. Her lips were in a straight line. Her eyes were looking directly at Matthew's eyes. It looked like she was shooting daggers at him through her eyes. From Eli's point of view, it looked like Chloe was trying to incinerate Matthew with heat vision. They realised no one was talking and everyone was trying to steal a glance at the newest arrivals when they weren't looking. They all started eating for about a minute before everyone at Chloe's table eventually started looking at Lisa Park.

Lisa realized everyone at the table beside Chloe was looking at her, and none of them were happy. The tension was building more and more. She tried to continue eating. But It quickly became too much for Lisa and she quickly grabbed her dinner plate, utensils and cup, stood up and quickly hurried, almost running, out of the Officer's Mess. She will have her dinner elsewhere. After she had left, everyone's eyes settled back on Chloe's table. Matthew and the others did not know what to do. They very uncomfortably resumed eating their dinner. The only sound in the room for the next two minutes was the kitchen utensils on the dinner plates.

Suddenly, from another table, Vanessa James said, rather loudly, "Computer, remove grass."

The whole room suddenly erupted into very loud laughter. Apart from the people at Chloe's table, nobody could hold it in. Everyone was howling in fits of laughter. People who were drinking at the time suddenly spewed their beverage over their dinner plates as they lost it completely. It was as if everyone had heard their best joke. Some were laughing so hard they were crying. This was too much for the people at Chloe's table. They decided to copy what Lisa Park did. They got up, picked up their dinners, utensils and cup, and started to walk out of the Officer's Mess. They looked around as they walked. Everyone was still laughing, including Nicolas Rush, who was trying but failing to keep a straight face. Eli was last to start moving.

"C'mon Eli. You don't have to leave." Vanessa called out. "We know you still had your clothes on."

"I'm out of here." Eli responded. He continued and followed the others out the door. Well, it looked to everyone else that they will be eating dinner elsewhere on Destiny. Chloe was left alone at the table. She resumed eating, and glared at anyone who looked at her, until they resumed eating their own dinner. Eli, Matthew and the others settled on a nearby briefing room which also had tables and chairs and finished their dinner there.

There were half a dozen crewmembers from Voyager in the Officer's Mess, including Harry Kim. They were laughing along with everyone else. Harry was glad that Tom Paris and B'Elanna had decided to end their stay on Destiny earlier that day. When they took the mobile emitters back to Voyager, they took their luggage with them. They had correctly assumed that the secret would have gotten out. They also assumed the secret would get out on Voyager as well, but they preferred to be on familiar ground when it happened.

A few tables away from Harry Kim sat Adam Brody. Adam started to pull a device out of his shirt pocket.

"Wait, leave that there." Dale Volker quickly said.

"When should we tell them about this?" Adam said.

"I'll leave it for now. We'll spring this on them in about a week. Eli would be the best person to figure out how it works. Just let everyone think that there are only four of those devices for now."

Adam put the mobile emitter back in his pocket.

Colonel Everett Young caught up with Lisa Park later that night. Lisa swore to Everett that she only told one person, Vanessa James and that she swore her to secrecy. Lisa also said that several Voyager crewmembers also spilled the beans about the holodeck incident. Too many crewmembers had come up to Lisa asking was it true? Everett was torn on how to punish Lisa. She had breached confidentiality, but the people on Destiny had decided years ago to not to bother keeping secrets on Destiny, because being stranded on Destiny, who were they going to tell? Lisa Park, however, found herself on cleaning duties alongside Matthew, Eli, Ronald, Darren and the others.

Destiny

Several days later the three repair bots managed to repair enough of Destiny to open another section. They were hoping for another incredible lab or workshop. What they found instead were more crew quarters which could comfortably accommodate up to an extra fifty people. Both Everett Young and Kathryn Janeway thought this was good news. This allowed another two-dozen people from Voyager to move to Destiny to help with repairs and to study Destiny. As Voyager was just hanging out by the intergalactic wormhole, it no longer needed to be fully manned. It also allowed Destiny to stay at FTL for a few days at a time. This allowed Destiny to cover more ground. People from Voyager were more than happy to move to Destiny as it provided a change of scenery. They had also already learned that although Destiny looks like a derelict ship, it was incredibly advanced and built to last.

The people on Destiny didn't have to worry about not having access to a food replicator on Voyager. There were enough cooks on Destiny, and they still had enough food obtained by the initial run on Planet Tareeno, that they were capable of cooking terrific meals. Dinner on Destiny was just as appreciated now as they were on Voyager.

The EMH Doctor was also sent to Destiny while Tom Paris took his place as the Doctor on Voyager. On Destiny the Doctor was assigned several shifts with Tamara Johansen. Among the many gadgets the Doctor took with him was both a medical tricorder and a standard tricorder. The standard tricorder was used for scanning the gadgets in Destiny's infirmary. TJ subjected the Doctor to an endless series of questions on medical procedures that had stumped her during her time on Destiny. Although there was an instruction manual in Destiny's memory banks, it was in Ancient, not English.

The instruction manual was where the EMH Doctor's skills really shined. He was able to download what the crew of Destiny had already managed to translate of the Alteran language in one second. He then scanned through the Ancient manual at the speed of a computer. He was able to combine his medical knowledge to figure out what the most correct translation is. There were different names for diseases, viruses, cancers and procedures, but the Doctor was able to read the symptoms to figure out what the corresponding English name was for most of them. The only diseases he couldn't translate were the unknown diseases which humans didn't suffer from today and had no translation. To summarize, the Doctor was able to do in one minute what would have taken a team of professionals over a year to do.

TJ was glad to finally know what all the gadgets in the infirmary did. The Doctor was impressed by what TJ was able to accomplish with the limited training and resources she had. She was capable of thinking outside the box.

Two weeks later Destiny reached the location of the second Stargate on their course to Earth. The planet was uninhabited by any intelligent life, only animals. It was buried as expected. Just as before, the Delta Flyer was used to excavate it out of the ground by using phasers and brought it up to Destiny by tractor beam. Destiny continued on its course for Earth.

One week later they had managed to open another section on Destiny. This section revealed the fusion power storage units where Destiny stores its power when it flies through a star. Tuvok and Seven inspected them and scanned them with their tricorders. They had been told earlier that the power storage units could only store a fraction as much power as they used to. Tuvok advised them that based on his scans, Earth should be able to repair them.

Although they now had enough fusion reactors to do a supply run to Stargate Earth using shuttlecraft, they had decided to hold off for now. The main reason for this was that everyone now wanted to check out 24th century Star Trek Earth. The other reason was that Star Trek Voyager resembled a luxurious cruise liner and nobody minded being on Destiny anymore considering it was in much better shape. Another reason was that resources were no longer an issue considering that Voyager's replicators can replicate most essential items such as toothbrushes, shampoo and electric shavers. The reason they gave Stargate Command, when they used the communication stones from Voyager during the times when it was on the Stargate Universe side of the intergalactic wormhole was that the fusion reactors required more testing before attempting several large Stargate jumps.

Destiny – Forward Section – One Month Later

Colonel Everett Young was walking along a corridor. He had heard rumours of two dozen Destiny crewmembers having a "nightclub" style of party twice a week late at night somewhere in this section. This was the same section that Eli and Chloe found accidentally when they were running from the Lucian Alliance when they managed to board this ship a few years ago. They had hidden themselves in the elevator and the elevator brought them here. For awhile, the elevator was the only safe way to reach this section. Now that they had four repair bots and people from both Destiny and Voyager repairing the ship, there were a few ways to walk here now.

Everett thought he would be wandering corridors for quite awhile trying to find where they were. But as he turned a corner, he could hear thumping music. It reminded him of the days back on Earth when he would go nightclubbing back in the 1980's. He let the music guide him closer. He could now hear the base music and the subwoofers vibrating the corridor. Where the hell did they find base speakers and a subwoofer? He thought. The only speakers on Destiny are intercom speakers. He had kept track of all shipments from Voyager to Destiny through the Stargate. There is no way they could have smuggled giant speakers through. He'll find out in a few seconds, though. He was standing right outside the closed door. Well, here goes nothing. Everett pressed the button on the door. The door whooshed open. The loud music greeted him first.

"What the hell?" Everett stammered out loud. He was expecting to see up to twenty-four people. He found about thirty people in there. They were all dancing. One by one they all looked at him and stopped dancing. Somebody turned the music off. There was now silence. Everett scanned their faces. Matthew Scott, Ronald Greer, Darren Becker, Eli Wallace, Adam Brody, Dale Volker and several other people from Destiny. Then he recognised Chloe Armstrong, Lisa Park and a few other female crewmembers. There were even about a dozen people from Voyager here. From what he could remember, all of them were ensigns, none of them had a senior rank. Everybody was looking at him in shock. Wait, not all of them. There were a lot of good-looking young women here. They were not shocked at all. They were just smiling. Some were wearing mini-skirts and tank tops. Others were wearing short dresses. Where did they get those clothes? Although the light had been turned down by about half to resemble a typical nightclub, there was still enough light for him to realise that he didn't recognise any of the smiling girls. He had seen all the crewmembers on Voyager so he would have remembered these good-looking girls. Those girls were really easy to tell apart from the Destiny crewmembers because they weren't wearing the standard "office style" clothes that the civilian contractors received from Tareeno or the military clothes that the soldiers wore or the Starfleet uniforms that the Voyager crewmembers were. He was about to ask who the girls were when he spotted them. The devices. On the upper arms of the girls. He'd seen them before. On the EMH Doctor.

Mobile emitters.

He remembered the EMH Doctor wearing one when he visited Destiny to help out TJ in the infirmary. Those girls. They're not real. They're holograms. Holy crap! They couldn't get to the holodeck anymore. So they got creative and brought the holodeck to Destiny. Or at least the holographic characters. Man! They're resourceful! And creative! It was their creativity that managed to keep them alive on Destiny all those years. It looks like they've found a new outlet for their creativity. Then he saw the massive sound system in the distance. He also spotted a mobile emitter on it. Ha! The sound system was also a hologram!

What the hell was he going to do about this? It's way too much. He'd be putting half the crew in the brig. There was only one thing he could do about it.

"I was never here. Carry on." Everett said. He then pressed the button and the door whooshed closed in front of him. He turned and walked down the corridor back to his quarters. When he turned a second corner, he heard the music come back on.

When he had first opened the door, he spotted Chloe dancing with Matthew. Well, at least those two have gotten over their differences. It looked like those ensigns from Voyager have decided to stay mum about those mobile emitters as well. He figured if people wanted to have fun then they'll find a way. Well, they'll be on Earth, that is, Star Trek Earth, in less than 2 weeks.

I had to summarise bits here and there or they would never get to Earth.

Next chapter: They finally get there. Earth!