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Complete, activating ship computers…
After several minutes, Tsukasa breathes a sigh of relief when the computer console finally activates.
“Thank GOD,” Tsukasa breathes, but something’s wrong. Instead of the man from earlier, the emergency ship hologram is a girl with green hair who can’t be older than them.
“Please state your name and position,” the girl says, but her voice is weirdly choppy.
“Is something wrong with her voice program?” Yoisaki asks.
“No,” Hoshino gasps. “Guys, that’s Hatsune Miku!”
“What?” Tsukasa asks. “Like she’s named after the ship?”
“No, the ship was named after her!” Hoshino explains. “She’s a virtual singer.”
Hanasato furrows her brow. “Like an AI?”
“No, she predates even the really early AI. Technically, she’s more like an instrument than anything else. People in the 21st century would write songs and have her sing it. But she and the other Virtual Singers became so popular they grew beyond that and had personalities and performed concerts. The ship was named as a reference to her, but I guess her actual image and voice bank were located in the files too.”
“Please state your name and position,” Miku says again.
“Uh, Cadet Tsukasa Tenma.”
“You are not in the crew manifest, entering lockdown mode-”
“W-wait abort!” Tsukasa says quickly. “Um check Captain Fitzgerald’s log, he probably mentioned something about having to punish some academy students?”
Miku quirks an eyebrow but then says “Playing captain’s log, Stardate 58973.01
What the hell does Admiral Tenma think she’s doing throwing these children at me. It’s bad enough a ship this advanced is being used to give some ambassadors-in-training a ride over to Jupiter, but now we’re punishing these brats?
If Admiral Tenma thinks I’m going to go easy on them just because they’re kids, they’ve got another thing coming. I’ve downloaded their academy records to my personal files, and I intend to make them absolutely miserable.”
Tsukasa’s never been more thankful that Captain Fitzgerald is a miserly old bitch.
Miku crosses her arms as if thinking, but doesn’t hold the pose very long.
“Designating Tsukasa Tenma acting captain.”
“Wait, what?” Tsukasa gasps.
“As a safety precaution, this ship requires someone to act as captain to perform any task.”
“What? There’s no Emergency Command Hologram?”
“To prevent a situation where the ship designates itself command due to malicious interference, the Emergency Command Hologram must be designated by official personnel, and if the program is not given a set point to deactivate such as rendezvousing with others, it is to go into lockdown and await pick up. Until we have a clearer grasp on the situation, command should fall to the person with the most training, which is noted as being Tsukasa Tenma, by approximately 1.5 Earth hours.”
“Wait, so there’s no one else on this ship?”
“I am picking up life signs from 20 adolescent humanoids, including yourselves.”
“So everyone on the original crew is just…. gone?” Azusawa gasps.
“There are no other humanoid life forms on this ship. The ship’s long-range sensors require repair, as well as many corrupted internal files.”
Everyone’s shocked but Tsukasa swallows. If he’s captain now, he better act like it.
“Alright, Hanasato, I want you to gather everyone and get them to the bridge. Hoshino, Yoisaki, you work with Miku to get the sensors working, see if we can find out where we are. Azusawa, start going through those files, see if you can figure out what that explosion was and where we are.”
Hesitantly, the others nod.
“Captain,” Miku says, “while that is going on, may I ask what led to this situation?”
Tsukasa slinks into the captain’s chair with a sigh. “Now that is a long story”
-
48 Hours Earlier
Starfleet Academy, San Francisco
“Do you know why I called you in here, Tsukasa?”
Tsukasa flinches under his mother’s gaze. “To thank us for saving the academy?”
That is evidently not the right answer, because Admiral Yakumo Tenma looks dangerously close to strangling him. “Saved the academy?! If you mean almost blew us up, then yes!”
“W-we didn’t, Rui knew what he was doing.”
“We have people more experienced in bomb defusal than people who aren’t even cadets!” Admiral Tenma pinches the bridge of her nose.
“‘Kasa, all I want is some indication that you gave any actual thoughts to the proper procedures before putting the lives of everyone in this academy at risk.”
“It would be a waste of time. When Toya bumped into Cadet Simmons he only heard a snipper about the bomb and we had to hurry.”
“And why did you think 16 teenagers, only five of whom are about to enter the Academy as proper cadets, would be better at this task than the full resources of the Academy?”
“We weren’t sure you’d believe us?”
“Tsukasa, stop insulting me,” Admiral Tenma says. “You eschewed proper protocol out of some misplaced sense of pride, right?”
“We were just trying to help you! Akiyama heard that the Youth Bridge Program was going to be shut down, and it was so good for me and the others and we thought—”
“God damn it Tsukasa!” Admiral Tenma says, slamming the desk. “Maybe we should call the program a failure if your thought is to prioritize dramatics over proper procedure!”
“But—“
“What, are you going to cite all the times Starfleet captains successfully acted on their own or bent the rules? You remember those stories because they make good stories. They stand out as a notable minority against centuries of captains who successfully protected people by following procedures. Not everything is a holo-novel that wraps up with a happy ending!”
Admiral Tenma sinks back into her chair. “This was one of the reasons the program was going to get shut down, Admiral Tillins thought that kids don’t have the maturity to do this, that’d be a waste to let you learn early. I’d love it if you could prove him wrong, but this is not the way. Yes, you managed to defuse the bomb and stop Cadet Simmons, but if a single thing had gone wrong, you would have put the whole of the Academy at risk. If you’d followed procedures, even if the bomb had gone off, the Academy would have been evacuated and no one would have been hurt.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well unfortunately, sorry doesn’t cut it. You’ll be receiving a citation, and this will be taken into consideration when it’s time to decide to accept you into the Academy proper.”
“B-but!”
“And you will all be punished. You’ll report to Deep Space 9 and Captain Fitzgerald’s ship, and he will punish you accordingly!”
“But Captain Fitzgerald hates kids! And everyone else, probably. He’s not going to give us a punishment, he’s just going to make us miserable to warm his cold, empty heart!”
“Maybe so, but then again, maybe you’ll learn to appreciate the chain of command but working under him.”
8 Hours Ago
Deep Space 9 - Docking Ring
Honestly, this is what Ena gets for letting Tenma talk her into anything. “We’ll just split up and find the bomb!” he said. “It’ll be fine!” he said. “Trust me!”
Well now not only is Ena being punished, she’s stuck working on the same ship as her Dad. He’s probably going to look at her and say her phaser technique’s still off (nevermind that she can beat Akito in hand to hand any day) and then make her run laps or something.
Lt. Barclay is showing them to where the ship is docked, happily explaining about his shiny new pet project.
“The USS Hatsune Miku is named for an ancient hologram, one of the most prominent ones we have records of from the 21st century. Based on the success of Voyager’s Doctor, we’ve incorporated greater holographic ranges and included more emergency holograms prepared for different fields,” he says excitedly. “After years of studying the Doctor’s mobile emitter, we’ve managed to replicate—”
“Lieutenant, they’re here for punishment, not a lecture.” Ena’s met Captain Fitzgerald before at some events with her dad, and she’s never seen the man smile once.
“W-well, yes, I know, I-I just thought they could—”
“Lieutenant.”
Lt. Barclay practically sprints away from there and they’re left with Captain Fitzgerald.
“I assume you all know how an Intrepid class Starship is laid out?” the Captain asks.
They all nod quietly.
“Good, then report based on your specialties. The head of your sections will give you orders to help with maintenance and prepare for a short trip to Jupiter. You will do exactly as they say, you will not cause problems, and if I hear so much as a whisper of complaint about your conduct from anyone, I’ll have you serve out the rest of your punishment in the brig.”
“C-can you do that?” Saki-chan asks.
“Yes, Ms. Tenma. I can. I have been given free reign to decide your punishment. So I don’t want to even know you are here, am I understood?”
They mumble a chorus of “yes sir,” and prepare to board, but Captain Fitzgerald puts a hand up.
“Which one of you is Kamishiro?”
Kamishiro straightens. “Yes sir?”
“When you go to engineering, you are not allowed to touch anything. Don’t even look at the warp core if you can manage it. You will simply hand equipment to whoever needs it.”
Ena can tell it’s taking Kamishiro everything he has not to shoot back a snarky remark. “Yes sir.”
“Good, you’re dismissed. Don’t drag your feet.”
6 Hours Ago
USS Hatsune Miku - Transporter Room 2
Degaussing the transporter room with a micro-resonator? Captain Fitzgerald must have been laughing to himself when he came up with this one.
Not that Mizuki minds. It’s not hard, it’s just supposed to be boring or humiliating. Sure they were raised by humans and have dyed their hair and grown it out, but they do know some some meditation and emotional control.
Mizuki’s had so much worse, honestly.
“Ah, Mizuki-chan! What are you doing?”
Mizuki turns to see Ena’s friends, Shizuku and Airi.
“Oh, wow, what are you guys doing here? You aren’t being sent on Ambassador missions already, right?”
Given the number of planets where the adults look similar to human children, Starfleet had started training younger ambassadors, but Mizuki’s pretty sure they aren’t official.
“Nah, we’re on our way to a conference on Jupiter,” Airi says. “What are you doing here?”
“Eh heh, long story short, we’re serving detention on this ship,” Mizuki explains.
“Oh, all of you?” Shizuku asks.
“Yeah.”
“Then Shi-chan is here?” Shizuku asks excitedly.
“Oh, yeah. I think she’s with Ena and Akito,” Mizuki says. “On the holodeck, I think.”
“Yay! I’ll go see her to cheer her up!” Shizuku says.
Suddenly, there’s an announcement, and a computerized man’s voice announces that they’re preparing to leave the dock.
“Huh? I thought we weren’t leaving for a couple of hours?” Airi asks.
Mizuki gets up and leaves the transporter room, sneaking into the hallway. A couple of ensigns are running down the hall.
“Couldn’t we send a shuttle?” one asks.
“The runabouts were damaged in that incident last week, besides our scaning’s more sophisticated,” the other says. “Besides, a mysterious craft appearing only a couple hundred kilometers away from DS9 and you don’t want to investigate?”
“I didn't want to investigate while I was in the middle of a bath.”
Mizuki grins. Starfleet Ensigns talk so much.
“What do you think’s going on?” Airi asks.
“Oh the usual, weird thing, gotta go check it out,” Mizuki says. “We’re probably the closest to being ready to go check it out and able to handle it if it’s a threat. Though honestly I think the Captain’ll have our heads if we try and ask anything about it.”
“Should we be concerned?” Shizuku asks.
“No, probably not. Consider it part of Ambassador training. You’ll probably end up on a ship that has to investigate a thing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, ok, then I’m off to see Shi-chan,” Shizuku says, leaving.
Airi takes off after her. “Yeah, see ya Mizuki.”
6 Hours Ago
USS Hatsune Miku - Bridge
Kanade has just been working in silence, reviewing some transcripts for her dad.
“What’s this?” her dad asks, and Kanade looks up from her PADD.
“Oh, I— uh made some notes. This language is tone based so I updated a couple of the accents.”
“Some of these are different than usual.”
“Yeah, uh the differences in tone are very stark so I made a couple extras based on music notation to add more variety to the transcript.”
“Oh, thank you,” her dad says, taking the extra PADD.
He’s disappointed in her, she can tell, that’s why they haven’t said more than a few words to each other after he gave her a task to do.
She was only trying to help her friends, she didn’t want him to be mad at her.
Suddenly, Captain Fitzgerald runs in.
“Everyone to your positions! We’re getting some strange tetryon readings from an unidentified craft that appeared approximately 1500 kilometers off of the station.”
“Could it be the Dominion?” one of the helms people asks.
“We don’t know that yet, that’s why we’re investigating.”
Kanade’s standing stock still while people rush around her, and Captain Fitzgerald finally seems to notice her.
“Why is one of the children here? Have her removed.”
“Apologies, Captain,” Kanade’s dad says.
Ena’s dad gets off the turbo lift. “She can report to the lounge, that’s where I told Ena and the others to stay.”
“Tell any of your little friends you see along the way to go there and sit still,” Captain Fitzgerald snaps. “Actually, computer, relay that order to all hands.”
Kanade nods and heads to the turbo lift.
The others are all already there by the time Kanade arrives.
“Hey Kanade,” Ena says, patting the seat next to her. “C’mon, we’re just talking.”
“What do you think it is?” Kamishiro asks, mischievously.
“I don’t think Captain Fitzgerald wants us snooping around,” Kanade says.
“Of course he doesn’t, he doesn’t want us here at all,” Tenma says.
“Well who’s fault is that?” Mafuyu mutters.
“Hey! I heard that,” Tenma snaps.
“Good. I told you we should just report and evacuate, but you wanted to defuse the bomb yourself.”
“We didn’t know how much time there was! We wouldn’t have evacuated in time.”
“You can’t know that,” Ena adds. “Hell maybe defusing the bomb was the wrong play. It was some homemade thing, right? Probably could have contained the explosion in a force field if we told someone.”
“I didn’t think we’d all get punished,” Tenma says.
“‘Course not, because you only think about yourself,” Ena replies.
“Why you—”
“Ok!” Mizuki says, coming between them. “Why don’t we all just blame Cadet Simmons! He’s the one who was so butthurt he wanted to blow up the academy.”
“Y-yeah!” Emu says, her completely dark eyes shining. “We don’t need to fight, we’re a team!”
Ena scoffs. “A team? We’re classmates, that’s it.”
“W-well that’s not fair. We’ve all been studying together for a long time now,” Azusawa adds. “We’ve been through so many training exercises and simulations, I think we’re more than just classmates.”
“Oh yeah? Call Akito by his first name.”
Azusawa flinches. “W-well. Um… Shin— I mean, Akito’s very scary.”
“Oi, Ena, lay off her,” Shiraishi says. “Look this sucks but there’s no need to keep fighting over it. Let’s just get through this and move on.”
Ena scoffs and rolls her eyes. “I hope this doesn’t take too long. The Captain probably won’t count this towards our detention hours.”
Honami steps up. “Why don’t we all take this time too—”
Suddenly, the entire ship jerks violently, and Kanade feels her head hit a wall before everything goes dark.
45 Minutes Ago
USS Hatsune Miku - Mess Hall
“Senpai? Tsukasa-nii, please wake up!”
Tsukasa opens his eyes to see a purple-haired half-vulcan staring at him.
“Toya? What happened?” Tsukasa asks.
“We’re not sure, the ship’s running on auxiliary power, I think,” Toya says.
“Is everyone alright?” Tsukasa asks. Looking around, everyone else is getting off the floor and looking pretty banged up by how the ship lurched.
“W-we’re not by Deep Space 9 anymore,” Honami says.
“What? What do you mean? Where are we?” Tsukasa asks.
“I don’t know, I don’t recognize any of these stars.”
Tsukasa walks over to the comms and presses it. “Hello? We have people injured in the Mess Hall.”
No response.
Tsukasa sighs. “Damn it. Ok, Asahina, Toya, Saki, you get the injured to med bay. I want… uh Hoshino, Azusawa and Yoisaki to come with me to the bridge.”
“Can I come too?” one of the ambassadors— Hanasato— asks.
“Uh sure. Rui, take whoever you need down to engineering, see if they need help getting the lights on. Everyone else be on the lookout for any other crew, try and figure out what happened.”
“Why’re you in charge all of a sudden,” Shinonome mutters, but Akito-kun glares at her.
“You’ve got a pretty big bump on your head, dummy. No complaining until later.”
The ship seems to be running on bare minimum emergency power, only life support is on. Tsukasa leads his motley squad to the bridge through the dark jefferies tubes, and when they finally arrive, there's still no one there.
“Dad?” Yoisaki asks.
The lights turn back on, and Azusawa rushes to the nearest computer.
“The computer’s completely offline, it’s in safety mode,” Azusawa says.
“Can you get it working again?” Tsukasa asks.
“Um, yes it will take a bit and requires multiple hands. J-just do what I say.”
Present
USS Hatsune Miku - Ready Room
“How could all the adults have just disappeared?” Shinonome asks.
After recapping Miku on what happened, they’re all gathered to figure out the next steps. Luckily the med bay was fully stocked, but the Emergency Medical Hologram was offline.
“We can’t figure out anything,” Nene says. “The attack was clearly targeted, it destroyed pretty much all relevant information.”
“Miku looking like, well, Miku must be because this image was left as a placeholder file, and thus not worth stealing,” Hoshino says. “Probably why the logs were left intact.”
“Only certain logs too, the virus probably searched for relevant info,” Nene says.
“Why leave life support on at that point?” Ena asks. “Why not, you know, pull a Romulan, kill everyone, and steal the ship?”
“Maybe the Miku isn’t interesting to them. Like whoever we’re dealing with sees the Miku as baby stuff,” Mizuki says. “Er no offense, Miku.”
“Why would I be offended?”
“I think it’s defensive,” Kiritani says. “They don’t know who we are, so they took as much information as they could and left.”
“That would align with what I saw in Astrometrics,” Honami says. “I’ve compared all known star charts, and we’re nowhere near federation space. We’re not in a place that’s been charted.”
“So a strange ship appears out of nowhere, so you search their computers and capture the crew,” Momoi says.
“And us?” Shiho asks. “Why were we left alone.”
“Maybe it’s simple,” Hanasato says. “Maybe it’s because we’re kids.”
“Oh so they’re nice enough to leave on the life support and have us floating in the middle of nowhere but they won’t do whatever they did to the adults?” Ena asks. “How polite.”
“Well if that’s the case, maybe we can negotiate with them!” Tsukasa says. “If we appeared out of nowhere and they thought we were invaders, let’s just try and talk it out.”
“I think I can get the engine working pretty easily,” Rui says.
“We can work on getting the rest of the emergency holograms online to help Miku,” Shiraishi offers.
“And then we’ll start scanning for any sort of residue left by the ship,” Shiho finishes.
Tsukasa nods. “Well everyone, you know what to do. Let’s find the adults and get the hell out of here.”
USS Hatsune Miku - Bridge
After several hours they’re set to go. Shiho’s found a suspicious ion trail, so Ichika follows it.
Tsukasa’s thought a lot about sitting in the captain’s seat, but he never thought he’d be this tense. Aunt Kathy always left out just how long space travel can be in her stories.
“Hey, Tenma-senpai,” Shiraishi says, snapping him out of this thoughts. Toya’s with her. “Er, Captain?”
“What’s up, Shiraishi?”
“Well, the good news is, we’ve got the holograms working,” Shiraishi says, “the bad news is… well see for yourself. Miku, activate Emergency Command, Security, and Medical holograms.”
Miku appears along with two adults, a blue-haired man and a woman with chestnut brown hair, another hologram with pink hair who looks around 18, and two blond holograms in security uniforms that can’t be older than 14.
“Um, why are the security holograms so young looking?” Tsukasa asks.
“They’re the Kagamines! The boy is Len and the girl is Rin!” Ichika says from her seat.
Shiraishi says. “We think they’re more placeholder files. Looks like the program used the ancient Virtual Singers for all of them. The problem is we can’t change the parameters of them.”
“Why not?”
“Because our dad didn’t want us to be forcibly reprogrammed,” the pink haired medical hologram says.
“Your dad?” Tsukasa asks.
“The Voyager Emergency Medical Hologram, also known as Schweitzer, Schmullus, Doc, and so on.”
“Of course, I’m sorry,” Tsukasa says. “And do you have a name?”
“Megurine Luka.”
“We all have names,” the blue-haired man says. “I’m KAITO, and the woman next to me is MEIKO. We’re designed to help with command.”
Tsukasa lights up. “So we can get the Emergency Command program running if I just designate one of you captain?”
“Unfortunately that part of our program is corrupted. We can’t otherwise access the command information,” MEIKO says.
“It’s just not in your database?”
“No, it's more like, we can’t access it unless you ask,” KAITO says. “Whereas when the command program is active we’re able to be more dynamic and think on the fly, that information isn’t accessible right now.”
“Oh, ok,” Tsukasa says. “Then I’ll remain captain for the time being. I guess, you all can deactivate yourselves right?”
“Yep,” Luka says. “Our dad really wanted us to have that.”
“He made sure we had all sorts of capabilities,” KAITO adds before MEIKO elbows him.
“Great, well, I guess if you don’t have any suggestions for this situation, you're dismissed.”
The holograms all disappear, and Tsukasa sinks back into the chair. “Shiraishi, head to engineering and see if Rui needs any help.”
Shiraishi nods, but Toya stays behind.
“Can we speak in private?”
Tsukasa nods, and they head to the captain’s ready room.
“Something wrong, my love?” Tsukasa asks.
“You’re stressed,” Toya says.
“My love! You’re telepathy’s gotten even stronger if you can–”
“Senpai,” Toya says, frowning. “Please stop. This is a terrible situation, and you do not need to force yourself to remain calm.”
“And here I was hoping you might have some Vulcan advice for staying calm,” Tsukasa says.
“You know I’m not very good at that,” Toya says. He’d always embraced the emotions of his human half, much to his father’s disappointment.
“I know, just trying to lighten the mood, I’m sorry.” Tsukasa says.
“We’re all worried, you don’t have to hide it,” Toya says.
“Yes, I do,” Tsukasa says. “We're all here because of me. I’m the most experienced. I can’t let my nerves affect the others.”
“Just because you were designated Captain doesn’t mean anyone is really expecting you to act like one.”
Tsukasa flinches. “All the more reason I need to step up.”
“W-wait, Senpai–”
“Why don’t you go help Asahina check up on the stock in sickbay. In case anyone’s injured when we find them.”
Tsukasa leaves and heads back to the bridge.
“Miku?” Tsukasa asks.
“How can I assist, Captain?” Miku asks.
“Do you sing?”
“Yes, I am capable of it.”
“Ichika, you know Miku’s songs, right? Can you recommend one?”
Ichika thinks for a moment. “Tell Your World?”
“Great, Miku can you sing that? I think we all need a bit of a pick-me-up right now.”
Miku starts singing. It’s a little odd. They have holograms that sound unmistakeably human these days, and yet the mechanical tone of her voice is charming on its own.
Now all that’s left is do wait until they reach their destination.
-
Much later, Akiyama makes an announcement.
“We’re picking up a ship!” They announce.
Tsukasa swallows. Go time. “Hail them.”
He straightens in the captain’s seat, and someone comes up on the view screen. She looks like a human woman with yellow skin, large black eyes, and antennae, but if Tsukasa knows anything it’s to never trust first appearances.
“I’m Tsukasa Tenma, the acting captain of the Federation Starship Hatsune Miku,” Tsukasa says, keeping his voice even. “We believe there was a misunderstanding earlier. Our ship was displaced and members of our crew were taken. We believe there was a misunderstanding and our appearance was taken as an attack.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, little Queen,” the woman says. “I am Queen Lyaz’za, and we are of the Mitae. We do not know what happened to your crew, but we pride ourselves on being protectors of children. Anything we can do, we will.”
“Hold on just one moment,” Tsukasa says.
“I think they only have one word for leader,” Emu says. “So Queen and Captain are synonymous.”
“What?”
“That’s what you were wondering.”
Tsukasa sighs. “Yes, but that’s not the immediate concern, Emu.” Tsukasa says. “Please tell me you were listening to her thoughts as well as mine?”
The pink-haired betazoid nods. “Oh she's lying.”
“Yeah, thought so,” Akiyama says. “I mean without the adults around, how can she tell if we’re kids or we’re just short.”
“Well we can’t dismiss the idea that they have some sort of sense for it,” Tsukasa says. “Azusawa?”
Azusawa frowns. “I’m picking up life signs from the crew but…”
“But what?”
“There’s not nearly enough.”
Tsukasa swallows. “We’ll get there when we get there. For now, Miku, tell Kiritani and the others to come to the bridge.” Tsukasa taps his comm badge. “Bridge to transporter room, we’re going for plan B.”
“Got it,” Nene says over the comms. “Give us the signal.”
Kiritani arrives on the bridge with the other ambassadors in training.
“You think you can keep her distracted?” Tsukasa asks.
Kiritani nods. “Leave it to me.”
“Alright,” Tsukasa turns to Hoshino. “Hail them again.”
Lyaz’za appears on screen again.
“Hello, ma’am,” Kiritani says, flashing a brilliant smile. “We’d like some information on the surrounding area so we can figure out where to stop for repairs.”
-
USS Hatsune Miku - Transporter Room 2
“Ok. You’ve got your mobile emitters?” Ena asks.
“Yes, of course!” Rin says. “Just because we look small doesn’t mean we’re really kids. Honestly we should be leading.”
“Yeah if your data wasn’t all scrambled,” Ena mutters.
“Hey!”
“Hey, task at hand,” Akito says.
Ena sighs. “Right. How much longer, Kusanagi?”
“We need Rui to jam their sensors while Tsukasa distracts them, give it a little time.”
Kanade’s stone faced, but she’s clutching her tricorder so hard her already pale knuckles are even whiter.
“Ok, everyone focus, this is an in-and-out mission. We go, the Kagamines grab the computer data that was stolen, we grab the adults, then we get out of here and find the rest of them,” Ena says.
All of their comms beep.
“Ok everyone, you’re good!” Tsukasa says.
They get on the transporter pad, with Ena, Akito, Len, and Rin surrounding Kanade so they can phaser anyone who shows up. Kusanagi is supposed to beam them into an empty part of the ship near the crew, but it’s based on Kamishiro’s readings so Ena’s not ready to bet her life on it.
That crazy bastard comes through though, because there’s no one in the hallway.
Kanade holds out her tricorder. “This way!” She whispers.
Len and Rin run along with them until they find a computer.
“Beam back as soon as you’ve accessed the info,” Ena says.
“We know!” Rin hisses back.
Ena, Kanade, and Akito head down the hallway and arrive at the door.
Kanade gets to work and soon the doors slide open.
The first thing that hits Ena is the smell of blood. It’s overwhelming.
The room is dark, and there are small, three foot maggoty-worm things eating out of a grotesque mound of flesh and bone..
“Oh god,” Akito says, covering his mouth.
The maggots are too busy chowing down to notice them, and a quick scan of the room shows that there are more flesh mounds, some with blue blood, some with green in a room that is very, very large. Easily there could be a thousand maggots in here.
“Dad!” Kanade whispers, running over to the far side of the room.
“Kanade?” He mutters as she kneels down to scan him with the tricorder. Next to him is Captain Fitzgerald and-
“Dad!” Ena cries. “Tenma! We’ve found them!” She rushes over, pinning a comm badge to his chest and helping him up while Akito does the same with the Captain.
“Good, Len and Rin have made it back too.”
“What are you kids doing here?” Fitzgerald asks.
“Rescuing you, duh,” Ena says. “Nene, six to–”
“Belay that!” Fitzgerald snaps. “Kids this is very important when we were at Deep Space 9-”
“Explain on the ship!” Ena says. “Then we’ll get the heck out of dodge and find the rest of the crew.”
“Ena, the rest of the crew is here.” Ena’s dad says.
“What?”
“The Mitae, they reproduce by implanting their eggs into mammals,” Kanade’s dad says. “And then when the eggs hatch, they eat their way out of your body, and then feed on what’s left.
“We’ve already been implanted, we don’t have much time,” Captain Fitzgerald says, “which is why you kids need to shut up and listen. When we were at Deep Space 9, the unidentified object was a ship with a tetryon engine, capable of crossing vast amounts of space in seconds. The ship’s captain asked us to protect it, and said that people would be after it, before dying. They were testing the engine in hanger bay 1 when it accidentally blasted off and launched us all the way here. We had just enough time to conclude we’re in the far end of the Beta Quadrant before the Mitae showed up.”
“I see the shuttle!” Rui says over the comms.
“Good, it’s going to be your best bet at making it home quickly. Otherwise it's about a 7.8 year journey.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Ena asks. “The Hatsune Miku has a crew compliment of 150. We’re sixteen barely cadets, four ambassadors, and six damaged holograms! We can’t do this!”
“You’re going to have to.”
“Captain,” Tenma says over the comms. “There has to be away we can get you all out of there safely.”
“If we had your pattern buffers in the transporter, we could bring you over and leave the eggs behind!” Nene suggests.
“Yes! Yes of course!” Kanade says.
“We’d just need to either sift through the data!” Nene says. “O-or we’d need some genetic material. I’ll tell Miku to check your rooms and Luka to search Med Bay. We can– AAAH!”
“Kusanagi?! Kusanagi, what’s wrong?” Ena asks.
“We’re under attack!” Tenma says. “We’ve got to– GAH! Damn it! RAISE SHIELDS!”
“You kids have to get out of here!” Ena’s dad says. The first thing they’ll do is–”
Suddenly the door slides open.
“H-how d-d-d-dare you!” Lyaz’za says, twitching. “We did not target your children! And you you attack oursszzzzzz?!”
She lets out a high pitched cream before transforming into a large seven foot tall insectoid with a mass stinger and atrophied wings.
Her forearms remain mammalian, though with three fingers, and are over twice the length of her buddy and pulsing with veins she reaches out to attack them.
Akito's quick on the draw and phaser’s her hand away. “Go! Go!” He shouts.
Ena and Kanade pull their dads towards the door, and Captain Fitzgerald follows. They duck under her middle arms that yank at Ena’s hair, but with her own phaser she fends her off, and Akito follows them afterwards.
“Tenma, we got caught!” Ena screams.
“Y-you need to disable their weapons, we can’t beam you through the shields!” Tenma says.
“With our parents, right?” Kanade pants.
“Uh, right! Right! Luka can– AH!”
“Kanade, the ship’s map, can you read it?” Kanade’s dad asks.
“Oh!” Kanade examines the diagram. “If it’s similar to other insectoid languages, then the bridge would be down the hall and to the left.”
“Yes, right near the shuttles, I thought so,” Kanade’s dad says.
“We’ll take the lead,” Fitzgerald says. “It doesn’t seem like they’ll risk harming their children.”
“Ena, phaser,” Ena’s dad says. Ena passes it to him, and they sprint down the hall.
“This the place?” Captain Fitzgerald asks.
“Yep,” Kanade’s dad says
“Good.”
Kanade frowns. “Wait but this is–”
Captain Fitzgerald slams open the door and Ena’s dad comes up behind them and shoves Ena, Akito, and Kanade into a shuttle.
The door slams shut behind them, and an alarm goes off announcing shuttle launch.
Ena slams her comm badge. “Dad, what are you doing?”
“We’re going to set the ship to self-destruct to give you all time to escape,” her dad says.
“What?! You don’t have to do that!”
“Ena, Akito,” Ena’s dad says. “I’m so happy you came for me. You two are the things I’m most proud of in all my years.”
“Dad, stop!” Akito says. “Don’t talk like you’re going to die!”
“Tell your mother I love her, and that I'm sorry.”
Next Kanade’s dad comes on over the comms. “Kanade,”
“No. Please, God no,” Kanade whispers, tears in her eyes.
Ena is frankly slamming on buttons trying to get the shuttle door to open.
“Kanade, I love you so much,” Kanade’s dad says. “You’re amazing, you know what? You have a gift for languages, music, anything you set your mind to. You’re already leagues more clever than I was at your age, you’re probably more clever than I am now. You have a way of understanding people Kanade, and you have a way of hearing what’s at the heart of the matter. You’re gonna get home just fine, I know it.”
Kanade has curled into a ball and is sobbing softly.
The shuttle bay doors open and the ship is launched into space towards the Hatsune Miku.
“Tenma!” Fitzgerald says over the comms. “I guess you can consider this your own Kobayashi Maru.”
“Sir!” Tenma gasps. “Please there has to be another way!”
“These eggs are about to hatch, we don’t have much time, so I am officially designating you captain after I’m gone. Your mission: get the Hatsune Miku and her remaining crew home in one piece.”
“But—”
“You're a pain in the ass,” Fitzgerald laughs, “just like all the best captains. I’m not worried about you at all. Either we shut down their weapons or we make the ship blow, whatever happens first. Either way as soon as you get that shield down, beam the others up and set a course straight for Earth.”
“Luka’s going through the medical database, we’ll–”
“Show some respect! I’m still in charge while I’m breathing!”
Through the comms they can hear phaser fire and sounds of a fight, and then furious button pressing.
Then that scream again.
“YOU CRETINZZZZZZZ! DESIST AT O-O-ONCE!” Lyaz’za shouts.
“Word of advice, you shouldn’t have killed all our friends if you wanted me to do anything you say,” Fitzgerald says.
“WE MUSSSSSST! TO P-P-P-PROTECT–”
“Your kids?” Kanade’s dad says. “Yeah, us too!”
Then there’s phaser fire, and Lyaz’za screaming, and the explosions start to engulf the Mitae ship as the shuttle heads back towards the Miku.
24 Hours Later
The USS Hatsune Miku - Bridge
No one’s spoken more than they needed to in the time it took them to find an asteroid and stop for repairs, and now it’s Tsukasa’s turn to break that mournful silence.
“150 crewmen served aboard this ship,” Tsukasa says. “And because they were good people, they stopped everything to help a stranger in need. One could say it cost them their lives, but I don’t think that’s fair. Cost implies it was a mistake. They were Starfleet, through and through, and they would never consider the act of helping someone a mistake.
Although we are less than a quarter of that number and have much less than an eighth of their combined experience in years, we’re the only ones who know what happened to them. We’re the only ones who can ensure that they’re remembered properly. We’re the only one who can carry on their wishes, and their wishes were for us to get back to Earth. It won’t be easy. We’ll have to fight tooth and nail every stretch of the way. Optimistically it'll be a little under 8 years. Realistically we’ll be dead long before that. But I’d rather die trying to get home than sit around waiting to die without anyone there knowing what happened to us.
Does anyone disagree?”
No one, not even Ena, says anything. Determination is the only thing that breaks the heavy air of sorrow.
Tsukasa nods. “Good. Then Miss Hoshino? Set a course for home.”