Hi. Blue Champagne here. :)

This story takes place somewhere during the fifth season of DS9, after "First Contact" TNGwise, and during the third season of Voyager.

Paramount owns Trek and all things Trek. Nobody's making any money from this.

I thought, what the heck. Why *not* cram all four Trek series into one story? Of course, I sort of had to make it a spoof...

R for truly atrocious language. <eg>

DEDICATIONS:

To the ever-hilarious Helmboy, first of all; also to

William "Damn I'm good" Shatner;

Leonard "SERIOUS ACTOR" Nimoy;

Nichelle "STICK these hailing frequencies" Nichols;

DeForest "I'm a DOCTOR, not an actor" Kelley;

James "Gravity well" Doohan;

George "Vote Sulu in 2000" Takei;

Walter "Tribblehead" Koenig;

Majel "Nepotism? What's nepotism?" Barrett;

Grace Lee "There's a party in my hair" Whitney;

Patrick "Royal Shakespeare Snots" Stewart;

Jonathan "Big Stud Movie Director" Frakes;

Brent "Dancin' Fool" Spiner;

Marina "There's a party in my hair" Sirtis;

Denise "R.I.P.? Don't count on it" Crosby;

LeVar "My eyes are my best feature, dammit" Burton;

Colm "Cuddly Irish guy" Meany;

Rosalind "Depth! Give me depth!" Chao;

Hana "I remember my lines better than some of the grownups" Hatae;

Gates "My friends call me Doorway" McFadden;

Michael "Manhandler" Dorn;

Avery "I talk the same way I sing" Brooks;

Nana "Accent's on the second syllable" Visitor;

Terry "I'm not a bisexual but I play one on TV" Farrell;

Nicole "Energizer Bunny" DeBoer;

Andrew "Manson eyes" Robinson;

Alexander "I wouldn't do Andy with a vaulting pole, so you G/Bers can just live with the UST" Siddig;

Colm "Lucked into another series" Meany;

Michael "So did I" Dorn;

Cirroc "Pajamas" Lofton;

Rosalind "Character development!" Chao;

Hana "Cute as a button" Hatae;

The various babies who play Kirayoshi;

Chase "Love 'em and leave 'em" Masterson;

Rene "Jellybaby" Auberjonois;

The lady who plays Kasidy Yates, who needs to lighten up just a little;

Max "Eat my dust, Bashir" Grodenchik;

Kate "There *was* a party in my hair but the police shut it down" Mulgrew;

Robert "Morose" Beltran;

Tim "I've played klingons and humans on Trek, too, three different series" Russ;

Garret "C'mon, lemme be a vicious bastard for once" Wang;

Robert Duncan "I am too as studly as Riker" MacNeil;

Robert "There *was* a party in my hair but we ran out of beer and then the place burned to the ground" Picardo;

Jennifer "Get a life, B.C., I mutated off the series" Lien;

Roxanne "Back in long shots" Dawson;

Jeri "No, I pay a girl to retain water for me" Ryan;

The guy who plays Vorik, whom I love and whose name I still haven't gotten off my butt and found;

And finally, to all you parody writers out there. We're such a twisted bunch, aren't we?

***********************

RUPTURE RAPTURE

***********************

(SCENE: ODO's office. He is at his desk, staring contemplatively at a padd.)

KIRA (Flying through the door in the grip of an external motive force and crashlanding on the desk): *Fuck* a DUCK!

ODO (lifts his padd out of her way and waits for her to come to a complete stop): Isn't our lunch date still one hour and thirty-two minutes away, Major?

KIRA: Bag lunch, Odo, what the *hell* is going on out there?

ODO: From here, it looks like a riot. Shall I pull a deputy from crowd control and begin an investigation to make sure?

KIRA: Why is everyone panicked?

ODO: My hypothesis is that it's the widening time-space rupture outside the station that's occurring as a result of another one of Commander Dax's mad-scientist schemes. Didn't she say she was going to try to get the wormhole to manifest itself as a merry-go-round whenever a ship went through?

KIRA: I heard it was a flush toilet. So she's screwed it up already? The writers must really have needed a plot device this week.

ODO (with a hmph of agreement): Just look at this. (He hands her the padd.)

KIRA (rolls off the desk, catching one of her stiletto heels on the edge in the process): What is it?

ODO: The script. You aren't going to believe what happens after the meeting in the wardroom.

(Kira keys the padd as several people slam into Odo's door, causing it to open and allow a couple to fall through. He belatedly locks it at the desk switch. Climbing to their feet as Kira gawks at the script are KASIDY Yates and DAX herself.)

DAX (absently brushing off the shoulders of KASIDY's jumpsuit): Hi, Odo. How's the stationwide panic going?

ODO: Still escalating. How's your project coming?

DAX: Shit, Odo, get over it, it's just one little riot. Why don't you change yourself into a giant valium and calm everyone down?

KIRA: Oh for godssakes. That new Enterprise that looks like a travel iron?

ODO: Apparently.

KIRA: Sisko's gonna be pissed.

KASIDY: He's already pissed. He sent me to tell you that he's assembling all the senior staff--plus Chief O'Brien, who's always in on these meetings despite the fact he's still a petit officer after something like two decades in Starfleet--in the wardroom to discuss the rupture. I got punched in the head as soon as the lift hit the promenade level--in the hairpiece, fortunately-- and I went back up to tell him to deliver his own frigging messages, but Dax said she'd come along to protect me. And she did, until somebody threw Bashir like a javelin and bowled us over with him right outside. Ain't no damn move in Klingon martial arts that can do much against that.

KIRA (glancing up from the script): Julian's out there? Shouldn't we, I dunno, drag him in or something?

DAX (turns around to peer out the transparent window in ODO's door): Uh, that might not be a bad idea. He's not moving much, though I guess that isn't surprising what with that Lurian standing on him screaming that we're all going to die. (Odo unlocks the door; Dax knocks the Lurian over with a shoulder block and grabs Julian's feet, pulling him in. As the door closes, the sound of the pandemonium outside is cut off again.)

JULIAN (holding his head): I want my mum...

KIRA: Why did you have to come and tell us about the meeting? Why didn't Sisko call us on the comm?

DAX: Internal comm's out.

KIRA: Why?

DAX: Someone forgot to pay the bill.

KASIDY (to JADZIA): Isn't that your job this month?

DAX: No, I'm taking the trash out. Kira's cleaning up the supper dishes, Miles is doing the shopping, and Julian's dusting, though from the looks of him we're going to have a few bunnies under the furniture. Yo, Julian. How you doing down there? (She prods the prostrate doctor with her toe.)

JULIAN: Let me die.

KIRA (yanking surreptitiously at her catsuit--ever since she had the baby, wardrobe is shoving the damn belt lower and lower down on her): How are we going to get to the wardroom? I'm not going back out in that.

(A ceiling panel suddenly parts company with its mates and clangs onto the floor. Through the resultant gap, Miles O'Brien's easily-flushed face pops, upside down.)

MILES: Hi. Thought you might be able to use a hand getting to the meeting.

KIRA (scrolling down the document on the padd): Wait a minute. You're not in this scene, Chief.

MILES: Are you going to complain about technicalities or come along and get to the wardroom while we've still got a station?

DAX: Good point. Come on, everyone. Odo, could you...? (As she is climbing up on the desk to get to the service duct the Chief is in, she gestures at the motionless doctor on the floor. Odo sighs, grows a couple more arms, and hoists Julian before turning to follow everyone else into the ceiling and out of his office.)

CUT TO

(Ops. As we pan around from the center, we see numerous blue- and gold-suited Fleet people, along with a bunch of brown- and red-clad Bajorans, scrambling all over, processing data, running computer projections, scanning the living hell out of everything in or outside the station for a distance of several parsecs, etc. The camera completes its circuit and halts at Sisko's office. We go through the door and see Sisko, tossing his baseball in one hand as he stares out the port.)

SISKO (In voice-over): Station log, supplemental. My best friend is still a blinkered science nerd and the rupture is still expanding. Bajor is sending a small fleet of sublight ships, and Command has rerouted the Sovereign-class vessel Enterprise to DS9; the Bajoran ships are for the evacuation of civilian station residents and the Enterprise is assigned to help us figure out how to close the rupture before all manner of God knows what starts falling through it, as is inevitable with space-time ruptures. They're not good for anything else, after all, unless you count emitting radiation that screws all our systems up. At its current rate of expansion, the rupture will contact the station in a maximum of three days. What exactly the results will be, we don't know yet, though I noticed Dax coming out of "Wills-R-Us" down on the Promenade before the news got out, and she's had a high call volume to the Trill Joining Board for the last couple of days. End log.

DAX (sticking her head in the door): Everyone's here, Benjamin.

(SISKO nods and replaces his baseball on the desk, then turns and follows her to the wardroom.)

(JADZIA sits next to WORF, who is glowering at her; she glowers back, then ignores him. JULIAN is sprawled half over the table, moaning softly; ODO is next to him, holding him up in his chair; MILES is on JULIAN'S other side; KIRA is squirming in her chair, grumbling something about catsuits and stiletto heels; KASIDY is leaning against the wall with her arms folded, nursing a huge gin and tonic. SISKO moves to the head of the table.)

MILES (petting Julian's shoulder): Heat of the moment, all right? I didn't realize it was you. I got a little overexcited and you were just a nearby aerodynamic object.

JULIAN: Stop touching me, rotting piece of stupid Irish--

MILES: I *said* I was sorry!

JULIAN: *Sod* your sorry, you barbarian tree worshiper!

JADZIA: It was pretty amazing, Julian. Too bad you couldn't really watch. Chief, did you throw the javelin in school?

KASIDY: More to the point, did you ever throw it at the headmaster's best friend and main squeeze at the same time? (She moves around the table and grabs JULIAN by the hair, lifting him upright, then pours half her bargain-economy-sized drink down his throat.) Jadzia and I weren't all that thrilled either. Pull yourself together. (JULIAN coughs on the gin and wrenches out of her grip, but remains upright under his own power.)

SISKO: If all that's been pleasantly settled, could we get to the reason for this meeting now? (He doesn't wait for replies.) Dax, would you tell us just what we're up against?

DAX: Okay...um, I was working on an...an idea I had and I guess subspace manipulation of wormhole n-space wasn't the best move, and now the wormhole, which itself seems to be still unaffected, at least until the rupture grows large enough to physically contact its spatial locus, is generating a space-time rupture in which--

SISKO: Dax. Would you tell us just what we're up against?

DAX: There's a big hole in spacetime out there and things are going to start falling through it if we don't do something.

SISKO: Thank you. What kinds of things can we expect?

DAX: Well shit, Benjamin, *I* don't know. I can't measure just what other places and times are being affected without the scanners that the radiation's screwing up. Have you ever noticed how that always seems to happen?

SISKO: Chief, what's your prognosis on adjusting those scanners? Chief...? (MILES, sunk in despondency, is staring into space.) Goddamn it, Doctor, will you forgive the Chief already? The man's going to be useless as long as he thinks you're mad at him.

JULIAN: I *am* bloody fucking well mad at--

SISKO: Forgive him! That's an order.

JULIAN (sighing) Right, right...Miles. I still love you and we're still on for darts tonight, if we're alive by then.

MILES (suddenly coming to life): If the radiation remains in the bands it's in now, it'll take about two hours. If that changes, who the hell knows.

SISKO: Get on it. Jadzia, assist the chief as needed. Doctor, would you go to the environmental station and use your clearance to flood the Promenade with anaesthezine gas? Make some kind of announcement first so anybody still in their right mind won't fall off the stairs or whatever; then get to the infirmary and get ready to treat a bunch of bruises and fractures. Odo, pull your people off the Promenade; we're going to need them when this joint starts waking up. Major, go change; watching you squirm is making me itch. Then check the ETA of the Bajoran fleet. Worf, make sure the monitoring of the rift continues unaffected; Kasidy, be a love and pour me one of those gin and tonics? Ice.

FADE OUT

BREAK FOR OPENING SEQUENCE, CREDITS, COMMERCIALS

FADE IN (SCENE: The bridge of the Enterprise-E. Everybody is on hand. GEORDI and BEVERLY are playing scissors-paper-stone since they don't have anything else to do on the bridge during routine cruising through space. PICARD is in the Captain's chair with just the tank part of the top of his uniform on over the pants, flexing idly as he contemplates his log entry; DEANNA, to his left, is waving one of those light-up sticks, used both in engineering and in the beauty salon, over her hair to go from nearly blonde and straight back to black and curly. RIKER, to his right, is trying to look rugged and succeeding more in looking haggard. He glances to the side at the buffed-out PICARD, who must be fifteen years older than RIKER is, and mutters something semi-audible.)

PICARD: What was that, Will?

RIKER (clearing throat) I just said that that Trill LC on DS9 is way more trouble than she's worth. I didn't think you could be a science officer and be that stupid. You know, *we've* never really had a science officer. We just use Data and Beverly when we need sciencebabble.

DEANNA: She's not stupid. She's a genius. That's the problem. Haven't you ever noticed that geniuses in the Trek universe are crazy and irresponsible? As witness our conn officer. Not you, Data, I meant Soong and that bigoted jerk who said he was your grandfather and then tried to kill you and take over your body. No offense.

DATA: None taken. This time.

DEANNA: Oops. Chip on board. I wonder (she shuts off her hair thing and looks around at the architecture) why they designed this bridge so dark and close. I feel like I'm already on a Cardassian space station.

PICARD: TPTB felt it would be more dramatic and realistic. Also this ship is smaller than the Enterprise-D. But you've never been on a Cardassian station.

DEANNA: (picks up a padd and taps keys) Not on screen, but it's not that much of a stretch to imagine I came aboard station in that double episode where Data started dreaming and Worf went looking for his father--let's see, where's the Continuum site--here it is, "Birthright", parts one and two. And fanfic...ah. Many stories now extant featuring me on the station. In that one there I got to sleep with Kira a bunch of times.

BEVERLY: And I got to hit the sheets with the stupid genius Trill in the second of those, which didn't exactly bite, what with her having seven lifetimes of experience...

RIKER: Oh for Christ's sake--not just fanfic, but *slash*. If we start dragging in fanfic, we'll never get through this. Can't we stick to canon?

DATA: Commander, this *is* fanfic.

RIKER: It is? Then why do we have a script?

PICARD: As a gag device.

DEANNA: And 'gag' is the word. Have you seen what happens after the meeting in the wardroom?

CUT TO

(The bridge of the starship Voyager. Everybody is on hand except B'ELANNA, who is in engineering looking for a missing piece of equipment, KES, NEELIX and VORIK. JANEWAY is running a glowing hair thing swiped from engineering over her head, getting her hair to grow back out and lighten up again. A makeup guy is reapplying CHAKOTAY's tattoo; CHAKOTAY notices that the camera's on him and swats the guy, who scuttles away. JANEWAY drops the hair/engineering tool thing on the deck behind the Captain's chair and clears her throat; she hasn't had a chance to put her newly relengthened hair up and so stuffs it in her collar as she begins.)

JANEWAY: Captain's log, stardate...oh, who gives a crap, every day's a holiday in the Delta Quadrant. In today's installment of Neelix's latest morale breaker, "History Appreciation Week", Ensign Vorik is giving a talk on the evolution of engine systems through the history of warp-driven space vessels. Fortunately I'm on duty. Kes is dragging along as many people as she can sweet-talk into going, and I've asked Tuvok to attend in case anyone tries to strangle Vorik. (She taps the control to end the entry.)

CHAKOTAY: I could take over here. I never have really been clear on why they need both of us up here sitting around scratching and drooling.

JANEWAY: I'd just be doing the same thing at the lecture. I don't suppose anyone has anything new to report?

PARIS: Not me. Tommy the Tadpole could be flying this tub.

HARRY: I'd still like to know why I don't have a chair. I mean, that sort of thing's all right for Tuvok, probably makes him feel like a big macho Vulcan who don't need no stinkin' chair, but my arches are killing me. Can I transfer ops to one of the science stations?

JANEWAY: They're in use, Wildman's scanning for the source of that odd radiation we started picking up a while ago. Shut down the console behind you and sit down on it every now and then, sweetie. Tuvok? I think it's time for the lecture.

TUVOK (sighs): Yes, Captain. (On his way past, to HARRY) Vulcans are not "macho". We are logical. And, in and of themselves, chairs do not stink.

HARRY: (muttered, as TUVOK leaves) Fucking would if *you* sat down in--

JANEWAY: Harry! Language.

HARRY: Sorry, Moth--Captain.

CUT TO

(The mess hall, where the tables have been moved aside and benches arranged in rows. VORIK is up at the front with a bunch of pull-down charts and a laser pointer which, judging from the condition of the charts, has been set too high, probably for purposes of crowd control should it come to it. KES is in the front row, looking attentive; TUVOK is next to her. He can sense that she's thinking VORIK is actually sort of cute, realizing she must be feeling the first stirrings of another false elogium--probably brought on by acute boredom--and making a mental note to lower the temperature in her quarters another few degrees. TUVOK sympathizes. If elogium is anything like Pon Farr, it can render an unattached person less choosy than a drunk frat boy at last call. For some reason, he is reminded of an earth saying he learned from Dmitri concerning the difference between a dog and a fox...how did that go again...)

VORIK: And as we can see from the modifications made by the chief engineer, Montgomery Scott, of the constellation-class starship NCC-1701...this specific modification being different in intent if not in type from the last we discussed...

KES (frantic whisper): Tuvok! Help!

TUVOK (calm whisper): Very well, though perhaps I should let this be a lesson in being too nice to those who may or may not deserve it. Imagine Vorik's voice as a noxious-smelling cloud which surrounds you...now my voice is like the wind, blowing the cloud away...your eyes are open, but you cannot see Vorik; you see only beautiful rolling hills and bright sunlight...

KES (eyes glazing): Ooohhh...

(Suddenly, the ship rocks and the alert signals start flaring and blaring. JANEWAY's voice comes over the comm.)

JANEWAY: Red alert. All hands to stations. This is not a drill...

CUT TO

(The bridge of the original Enterprise, NCC-1701, no bloody A, B, C, or D. Everybody is on hand. McCOY is standing around by the command chair like he always does when he's not haranguing somebody. CHEKOV is adjusting his wig and contemplating the invention of a device which would ensure that he didn't have to wear one of the blasted things any more. UHURA has her ear receiver in one hand, banging it on her board to get the wax out. SPOCK is bent into the uncomfortable-looking posture that is the only way for him to see into his hooded viewer. SCOTTY is at the engineering station, running some checks on system functions to test the modifications he's just made to the engines. SULU is nodding off and KIRK is trying to look as though he's contemplating the most intense and convoluted ethical and logistical problems in the galaxy rather than the legs of Yeoman RAND, who is surreptitiously nudging SULU awake before he breaks his nose on his board and gets in trouble.)

KIRK (tapping control on the chair arm): Captain's log, stardate it-doesn't-matter-because-the-dates-were-inconsistent-in-TOS. We have detected a never-before-encountered form of radiation for which Mr. Spock cannot locate a source. We are performing a sweep of the perimeter of the area in which said radiation is detectable in an attempt to determine a probable locus of emission. Needless to say, since this is a ship of exploration and peace, we are very interested in finding the source so that we may determine the best way to blow it up. (He closes the entry.)

McCOY: Dammit, Jim, we can't just go around blowing the daylights out of everything!

KIRK: Why not?

McCOY: Ummm...

UHURA: I don't think Gene would like it, for one thing. (She starts stuffing the receiver back in her ear.)

SULU (snaps awake and jerks straight up): The Great Bird of the Galaxy!

CHEKOV: Relax, George. It was just Nichelle hinting around about how she knows Gene better than any of the rest of us.

McCOY: Which Gene?

UHURA: The one I used to date, who's married to Chapel now. Speaking of Chapel...

CHAPEL (Stepping onto the bridge from the turbolift): Hi. Somebody called sickbay and told me I was needed on the bridge.

KIRK: That was probably the writer. She forgot to include you in the opening shot.

CHAPEL: When she remembered for godssakes Kasidy Yates in the DS9 segment? That actress hasn't even got her name in the opening credits.

KIRK: Neither do you, and she *still* hasn't remembered Jake and Alyssa Ogawa and a bunch of other people, so you're not alone. Come on over and stand around by my chair with McCoy. Spock, any luck with the sensor sweeps?

SPOCK: I believe I have discovered the locus of emission; however, I still cannot identify the phenomenon generating the radiation. For one thing, the closer we get, the less ability I have to scan. That fact is causing me to experience what I believe humans call "Deja Vu".

UHURA: (aka TOS's answer to CHIEF O'BRIEN, though maybe not to GEORDI): I'll crawl under your board and recalibrate everything. (Takes out her earpiece and gets into the turbolift to change into the jumpsuit she wore to rewire the communications board in "Arena". She would be using the head to change in, but there isn't one. They just have to hold it for five years, which explains the way KIRK talks.)

SPOCK: Also, since we encountered the radiation, I have been receiving...odd thought transmissions...panic...a strange euphoria...Mr. Scott's modifications, like being beaten over the head with a technical journal...

SCOTTY: Oh, kark. He's goin' all mystical on us, Captain.

KIRK: I noticed. Snap out of it, Spock, or I'll get M'Benga up here to slap you around. Chekov, plot us a course using Mr. Spock's data. Sulu, take us in.

CHEKOV and SULU: Aye, sir.

KIRK (to UHURA, who is emerging from an alternate wardrobe dimension where you can get completely changed during four lines of dialog): Let's get those sensors recalibrated, Lieutenant. I need to see what we're heading for.

UHURA (under her breath): The galaxy's lamest plot device, dollars to doughnuts. (Out loud) Right away, sir.

CUT TO

(The bridge of the Enterprise-C. Practically nobody is on hand, since they're all dead. TASHA is flying the ship into the space-time anomaly that will take them safely back in time to get destroyed by the Romulans in defense of the Klingons and prevent the Federation-Klingon war.)

CASTILLO: Steady as she goes...and we're...almost...

TASHA (shoving a charred body off her panel): Hey. Does that anomaly look funny to you?

CASTILLO: You know, now that you mention it...are you sure that's the right anomaly? Maybe we should pull over and ask directions...

ENSIGN AT TACTICAL: We're picking up a shitload of really strange radiation, nothing I've ever seen before.

(There is a flare of weird purple light inside the boundaries of the anomaly, then a larger one, and suddenly a giant merry-go-round appears, only to be swiftly swamped by the action of a churning interstellar flush toilet.)

TASHA: *Fuck* a DUCK! I'm reversing course!

CASTILLO: Too late!

(A blinding flash envelops the bridge and the Enterprise-C vanishes with a gurgle.)

CUT TO

(SCENE: DS9, Ops. Everybody is on hand except JULIAN, including JAKE this time, who is busily writing something on a padd as he perches on top of a console out of the way, KASIDY beside him. GARAK is standing around similar to the way McCOY does when he's got no reason in the firmament to be in the command center but wants to be around in case anything happens so he can bitch about it, but GARAK's thinking of going to the infirmary to bug JULIAN since as far as he knows, he hasn't got any lines in this scene. MILES, DAX and ROM are in the pit, tinkering and cursing; LEETA is sitting on the stairs in one of her off-duty baby-doll dresses, making googly eyes at ROM, and occasionally at JADZIA. SISKO is leaning against the wall by the replicator working on his third gin and tonic. KIRA, with a sybaritic smile on her face because she's barefoot and in a cashmere caftan, is sitting at her station, wondering if she maybe squirmed enough she could get SISKO to let her replace the damn wedgie-on-a-track chair she's stuck with. She wonders if Cardassians have only one buttock or something. WORF is at his station, making with the scans of the rupture as well as he can. ODO is approaching SISKO.)

ODO: The stationwide riot has been controlled, and Dr. Bashir reports that injuries are largely minor, with the exception of the Lurian Dax knocked off of him. Bashir's just letting him suffer.

SISKO: Only fair. Old Man, how's it coming over there?

DAX: Nearly through, Benjamin. Worf, disengage the sensors so Miles and I can reroute.

WORF: Disengaging...

KIRA: Captain, we're being hailed. It's the Enterprise.

SISKO: Ah. On screen.

(The screen flares to life. Picard has donned the rest of his uniform for the occasion.)

PICARD: Captain Sisko. A pleasure to see you again. Do you still hate my guts or are you over that?

SISKO: Mostly. A fan named Christine Faltz wrote a story called "Oh Captain, my Captain" in which a Q/shapeshifter sends me a dream that explains how none of the Locutus thing was your fault, so I think we'll get along. Well, the gin's not hurting, either.

PICARD: Excellent. By the way, we accidentally scattered a gaggle of sublight ships on our way in. It may take them a bit longer to get here than you previously estimated. (RIKER and GEORDI snicker.)

GEORDI (sotto voce) We kinda accidentally...sucked their doors off. (He high-fives with RIKER as both giggle. DEANNA rolls her eyes and covers them with one hand in embarrassment.)

SISKO: (sighs) Will you and your staff be beaming over?

PICARD: As soon as we dock. Permission?

SISKO: Granted. DS9 out.

PICARD: Enterprise out.

DAX: Benjamin, we've got the recalibrated sensors on line. Worf should be getting the data as soon as he reengages.

SISKO: Do so, Mr. Worf.

WORF: Aye, sir...(he spouts an obvious expletive in klingon.)

SISKO: What now?

DAX (who has lunged to the science station and flipped the big red power lever attached to the side): Yeah, we're getting some strange...for one thing, there's detectable psychic residue embedded in the outer plating, from the direction of the rupture; it's being generated along with the radiation.

MILES: What the hell is psychic residue? Brain snot?

DAX: Kinda. There's sort of a sneeze analogy if you want to work for it. Don't you remember that TNG episode "Eye of the Beholder" when Troi got zapped by the psychic residue of an empathic shipyard worker who killed two people and then jumped into the plasma stream in the nacelle? Same thing. She and Worf were fooling around seriously by then. In her vision, at least.

MILES: Seventh season. I'd been off the series for a while.

DAX: You know...if I...fiddle around a little with the general purpose external maintenance scanners...I might even be able to pick up some of it...since I *am* a genius and all...

SISKO: Have we got any telepaths in residence on the station? Everybody else has at least one, why don't we have one?

ODO: We don't have any the main characters ever interact with, not since the last time Lwaxana showed up, but her daughter will be along shortly.

SISKO: In the meantime, Dax, see what you can come up with.

DAX: Right...something about...I'm getting a bunch of engine specs for a Constellation-class starship. But they don't look quite right.

KEIKO (appearing in the rising lift, holding MOLLY's hand and carrying YOSHI): I wonder what *that* could mean.

MILES: Honey? What are you and the kids doing in Ops?

KEIKO: I don't know. I got a weird impulse to come here.

MOLLY: The writer likes us!

(All nod knowingly, making sounds of understanding.)

SISKO: Well, I'm going to go and meet our guests from the Enterprise--wait a minute. We don't have a transporter room on the station, do we? We just site-to-site all over the place.

(Everybody looks at everybody else, shrugging in uncertainty.)

SISKO: Chief?

MILES: Well, there's gotta be one somewhere. They've been mentioned occasionally. They exist on the station in the Mirror universe, because Kira and Julian seemed to assume they could get to one when they were stuck over there in "Crossover". But I don't think we've ever seen one, except on the runabouts. Maybe they were talking about cargo transporters.

SISKO: All right then, we'll assume they exist. I'm off to the main transporter pad. Meantime, everyone--

DAX: Uh-oh. Benjamin...there's something coming through the rupture.

SISKO: Oh, that's just perfect. Old Man, short-sheet somebody next time you feel like playing pranks, okay? Identify the object.

DAX: Running the data...it's a ship--

KIRA: (muttered) Big shock there.

DAX: --um, Federation, Starfleet registry ID signal...I've got visual. (The screen flames on. Tumbling end-over-end is the battered, burning, slowly disintegrating hulk of an Ambassador-class starship.)

MOLLY: *Jesus* CHRIST!

SISKO: I'm with you, kid. Can we get a tractor field on that ship?

DAX: I'm trying, I'm trying--I just wonder if the field won't finish it off; its structural integrity is shot to shit.

WORF: The Enterprise is hailing us again.

SISKO: Audio only, Commander.

PICARD: Captain Sisko! It is absolutely vital that that ship remain intact so that we can return it to where it came from! The fate of the Federation hangs in the balance!

MILES: On *that* shot-up bucket of bolts? Are you sure, sir?

PICARD: Chief O'Brien, that is the Enterprise-C.

MILES: (blanching) Oops.

PICARD: At least.

MILES: Dax, let me help you with that tractor field. We've got to keep that ship in one piece.

(LEETA clutches fearfully at ROM, who pats her consolingly.)

ROM: Honey, maybe you shouldn't be here...

LEETA: Of course I shouldn't be here! But the writer likes me, so she sprung me from Quark's.

MILES: Sheesh, does she like everybody?

WORF: *You* should complain, she adores *you*. I'm lucky whenever I get a line.

MILES: Try being gruff and cuddly, instead of gruff and psychotic.

SISKO: Everyone want to stop whining and explain to me about this ship?

(Transporter effect begins; sparkling columns spaced around KIRA's console resolve into PICARD, DEANNA, BEVERLY, DATA, GEORDI and RIKER.)

SISKO: Oh. Well, the hell with transporter pads.

(Enterprise crew look around a minute to get situated. SISKO sets his glass in the replicator and comes down to where they're standing to shake PICARD's hand.)

SISKO: Captain. Welcome to DS9.

PICARD: Thank you, Captain.

DAX: Okay, Miles and I have the field configured not only to where it won't tear the C up, it should help bolster the integrity fields. (As DS9 crew all stare at them, disbelieving): What?

MILES (shrugs): We work fast when we're desperate.

DAX: *Who's* desperate? I still don't know what's going on.

PICARD: Chief, Geordi, we'll need you over there. Hold that ship together.

MILES: Aye, sir. Commander, if you'd come as well?

DAX: As long as you explain what the hell's going on once we get there. Readings say the hull's holding pressure now; we should be fine for a while.

MILES: Right. Computer--(he, GEORDI, and DAX gather on one side of Ops.)

BEVERLY: Wait. I'd better go along. (She scoots over to them.)

MILES: Right, Doc. Computer, four to beam to the ship in the tractor field, bridge. Energize. (They sparkle and vanish.)

SISKO: And now if somebody would explain to ME--

WORF: Um, Captain...another object coming through the rupture.

SISKO: Well *shit*, is it another dead hulk?

WORF: No, it appears...at least in initial scans...it is difficult to be sure, Dax forgot to shut off the maintenance sensors...

KEIKO: For pete's sake. (She lets go of MOLLY, hands her YOSHI, and goes to the console WORF is at, bumping him aside with her hip. Due to his extreme startlement he is hard pressed not to fall over on her.) Captain Sisko, it's a Federation ship, Starfleet ID signal. It doesn't seem to be as messed up as that first one, though it's looking a little scroungy.

WORF: Professor O'Brien, I was under the impression you were a botanist...?

KEIKO: I'm also married to the guy who keeps all this equipment running. And if you think he ever shuts up about the details, try another think. Remember "Tribunal" and the vacation we tried to take? Captain, they're hailing us.

SISKO: Audio only. Keep the C on screen. This is Benjamin Sisko, commanding station Deep Space Nine. Identify yourselves.

JANEWAY: I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. Is this some sort of illusion? Any attempt to harm my ship or my crew will be answered with the deadliest force.

PICARD: *Janeway*? *Voyager*?

SISKO: Look, whoever you are, this isn't funny. We've got a serious crisis occurring and--

JANEWAY: And we don't? We just fell through some sort of twisted-space phenomenon, one of my engineers has bored my pet telepath into a dissociated trance state--what, Tuvok? Oh, that was you.

SISKO: If you don't believe us, you are welcome to beam over at your convenience. If you really are Voyager, you'll have no trouble with station security protocols.

JANEWAY: What assurance do I have of my people's safety?

SISKO: What assurance will satisfy you?

JANEWAY: We're beaming over armed. If our weapons are deactivated in the beam, my transporter officer will return us here prior to materialization.

SISKO (glances at ODO, who does not appear to like it, but nods): That is acceptable to my security chief. Please beam directly to Ops.

JANEWAY: Count on that. (Comm goes silent.)

ODO: (taps badge) Security, one team to Ops on the double.

(Transporter effect beginning; everyone clears the area as the security team emerges through various accesses into Ops. But there is only one figure materializing--no, two. As the effect dies, the beaming party is revealed as BEVERLY, carrying an unconscious and lightly smoking TASHA.)

DEANNA: Oh SHIT...

BEVERLY: Goddamn it, I said directly to the infirmary! Computer, energize! (As the two dematerialize, DEANNA throws herself forward, into the beam, and dematerializes with them.)

RIKER: That's it. We're screwed.

KEIKO: Why are we still here?

DATA: I can only surmise, Keiko, that our attempt to return Tasha to the past to defend the Klingon outpost will be successful--it simply has not been successful *yet*, from our viewpoint.

KEIKO: But Miles said it didn't work that way before. Everything was wrong until the alternate Enterprise crew actually got her back, in the Enterprise C, to the battle.

KIRA: (pulls out her copy of the script and scrolls) It says here...yeah, the Chief's going to be explaining that in his next scene.

KEIKO: Oh. Well, I guess we're all right then?

DATA: It would appear so.

(Transporter effect begins again. This time, figures resolve into JANEWAY and her trusty compression phaser rifle BETSY. She is standing in a defensive formation with TUVOK, B'ELANNA, TOM, HARRY, CHAKOTAY and KES, all of whom are armed with type-two phasers. Station security raise their weapons. So do the Voyager crew, right back at them. Everybody else emits exclamations of fear from various orifices and hits the deck, except MOLLY and YOSHI, who are having a great time and who in any case are below the line of fire.)

JANEWAY: Drop your weapons!

ODO: You first, whoever you are!

JANEWAY: Whoever *we* are? What are *you*?

ODO: A changeling. Drop the rifle.

JANEWAY: Why don't you just come on over here and *YIKE* (she ducks the streamer of arm ODO suddenly launches at the Voyager team.)

SISKO: Odo! Stop it! The special effects budget for this episode's been cut so we could afford to pay every blasted star of every blasted show!

ODO: Sorry, I forgot. (He retracts his arm.)

PICARD (getting up off the deck): Captain Janeway. I'm Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise. I believe we've met.

JANEWAY: IF you're Picard, yes, we have. Perhaps you could tell me under what circumstances?

PICARD: Admiral Kennewick's ball in San Francisco...the garden outside the mansion...the bushes in the garden outside the mansion...

JANEWAY (eyes widening): *Out*side? That was you?

PICARD: Indeed. But was it *you*?

JANEWAY (smirking): Ever get that gardening trowel out of--

PICARD (hastily): Yes, thank you. Captain Sisko, this is indeed Kathryn Janeway of Voyager.

ODO: Right. Security team, you're dismissed.

TOM: Does that mean we're home?

HARRY: There's no place like home!

B'ELANNA: We're home! We're home!

(The Voyager party's defensive circle turns into a festive dancing ring and they all begin to frolic about, singing about being home, except for KES, who is standing in the middle looking dazed. JANEWAY reaches through the gleefulness to nab her wrist and pull her close, lowering her rifle.)

JANEWAY: Perhaps we shouldn't start celebrating just yet. Things don't look quite right in this Operations center, and we've been disappointed before.

TOM: But we're *here*! Already! We're here!"

REST OF VOYAGER PARTY (a la Horton Hears a Who): We're HERE We're HERE We're HERE We're HERE...

HARRY (briefly stops dancing): Here...on Deep Space Nine.

(Rest of Voyager party stops dancing and seems to reconsider.)

TOM (joyfully, as knowledge strikes him): But we can LEAVE!

(Rest of Voyager party takes up words as a chant and begins dancing around again)

REST OF VOYAGER PARTY: We can LEAVE We can LEAVE we can LEAVE We can LEAVE...

JANEWAY: (sighs) Not yet we can't. Something's not right about this and I intend to find out what. Ahm, if someone could take our nurse and hydroponicist to your infirmary...? I think she's a little overwhelmed. She only just came out of a telepathic trance.

KEIKO (Stepping away from her console): I'll take her. Come on, honey. What's your name?

KES: (a little weakly) Kes.

KEIKO: Oh. Um...well, come on...Kes. (She takes Kes's hand and hoists YOSHI out of MOLLY'S arms with her free one. The four of them board the turbolift and begin to descend.)

(With the exception of JANEWAY, the Voyager party has formed a conga line and is shimmying around Ops. KIRA and ODO are back to back with their arms folded, looking disgusted. JANEWAY, SISKO and PICARD are edging toward SISKO's office. ROM and LEETA have joined the conga line. GARAK is taking the opportunity to rifle through classified files in the computer while everyone's distracted. RIKER and DATA approach WORF at his console.)

RIKER: Worf.

WORF: Commander Riker, Commander Data.

RIKER (as they all observe the Voyager dance troop): Something tells me that bunch is going to be awfully damn disappointed before the end of this episode.

DATA: I concur, although I have not read the script; Commander Troi is the only one who brought a copy. Do you suppose we might have earned the right to a commercial break?

KIRA (glancing up toward them and pulling the script padd out again): Ahhhm..nope, not yet. Believe it or not, there's one more--

WORF: Captain Sisko! Sensors detect yet *another* object coming through the rupture!

DATA: Ah. It appears you *are* at least as proficient at running the Ops equipment as is a civilian botanist.

(GARAK smirks broadly. WORF glares dangerously at DATA. All three Captains look disappointed at not making it to the relative peace of the office before the next disaster.)

SISKO (going to the replicator for another gin and tonic): You might as well tell us.

WORF: It is not debris; it appears to be a ship in good condition, and it is broadcasting an ID signal, but one which the database does not recognize.

DATA: (peering over WORF's arm): It is broadcasting an ID signal which, to be more precise, the database does not recognize any longer. Captains, it appears to be a very old-style Federation starship. Still quite functional, apparently.

WORF: They are hailing us.

SISKO (sighing): Let's get it over with. On screen.

(The picture changes from the view of Enterprises E and C and Voyager to the interior of the ship now approaching.)

KIRK: I'm Captain James T. Kirk of the starship--

SISKO, WORF and ENTERPRISE CREW: --Enterprise.

SISKO: Somehow this isn't much of a shock.

PICARD: Captain Kirk, I'm Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise-E. I'm afraid that rupture in spacetime you just came through has deposited you quite a length from your own time period.

KIRK (puzzled): What spacetime rupture?

PICARD: Why, the one...you know, that you just...ahm...

DATA: Their sensors are no doubt somewhat behind ours in their ability to detect and categorize infinitesimal factors of phenomena.

RIKER: And their ships probably can't see as well as ours can.

KIRA: Let me guess; a form of radiation you've never encountered that messed up your scanners so that you had to recalibrate?

KIRK (noticing Kira; eyes bug out): Why yes, as a matter of fact.

KIRA: Any odd telepathic occurrences?

KIRK: Yes, my first officer, he's Vulcan and highly...uhm...what did you say your name was?

KIRA (wishing she'd chosen something a little less gently figure-draping to put on than a lightweight cashmere caftan): My name's Kira Nerys. I'm first officer of Deep Space Nine.

KIRK (boggling): *You're* first officer? Miss...Nerys? Or is it Mrs.?

KIRA (paging down the script) God damn it. I should have kept my mouth shut. We weren't all supposed to know just how good I look in this thing until later, in the infirmary. Wait a minute, why do I go to the infirmary...? Oh. (She raises her head and calls across Ops to B'ELANNA, who is leading the conga line, which has switched to the bunny hop) Lieutenant! Look out for the--

B'ELANNA (looking over at KIRA): What? (She crashes templefirst into the jutting corner of the upper-level console the line is passing and falls backward into HARRY, who just catches her.) Starfleet...? D'ja get the numberatha truck...?

KIRA (stuffing the padd back in her voluminous pocket): Yeah, yeah, here we go. Come on, kid, give her here. (KIRA goes up to HARRY and appropriates B'ELANNA.) Grf! (KIRA pauses to stare at the camera and say to the writer) Why me, anyway? I mean, I'm strong, but I'm not very big.

{Same story with B'Elanna, Nerys. Just take her to the infirmary, will you?}

KIRA: All right, all right...c'mon, klingon girl, let's get you fixed up...

KIRK (tearing his gaze away from KIRA, who is slowly vanishing down the shaft on the lift, with B'ELANNA in her arms): I take it then that you gentlemen--and ladies--can tell me just what's happened to my ship? Such as how long, and how far, we are from the point in spacetime that we left?

SISKO: Spatial analyses would be easier here on the station, where we could compare star charts and other such references, but as far as time, you're something less than a century into your own future.

KIRK (considers briefly) Very well. May I bring some of my staff? I'll need their expertise.

SISKO: Your staff's input would be welcome. Please beam into our command center here; Mr. Worf, send the coordinates to the Enterprise's comm officer.

WORF: Aye, sir.

KIRK: We'll see you in a few minutes.

(The exterior view replaces the comm line picture. The three Captains look at each other.)

JANEWAY: Well. This will certainly be memorable.

PICARD: Agreed. Captain James T. Kirk...

SISKO: I think I need another...oh, forget it.

KASIDY: I...I'm developing...an uncontrollable urge...to go to the infirmary.

LEETA: (releasing her hold on TOM and allowing the dance troop to move away from her): Y'know...that doesn't sound like a bad idea.

JANEWAY: Now that you mention it...but no. And miss out on meeting James Kirk? Besides, my place is--ah. I believe our anachronistic colleagues have arrived.

(As KASIDY jumps down from her perch and into the turbolift, closely followed by LEETA, JAKE looks fascinated, padd at the ready as the TOS transporter effect starts up around KIRA's console.)

SISKO (To JAKE): Not yet, Jake. Take notes if you like, but promise you won't be sending the story anywhere until I've given you the all-clear.

JAKE: But Daaaaaaad...

(It turns out one of the materializations isn't TOS based. DAX solidifies at the same time as KIRK, SPOCK, UHURA, SCOTTY, RAND, CHEKOV, SULU, McCOY, and CHAPEL; everybody from TOS except the three guys in the gold shirts are carrying tricorders and assorted other black rectangular items with silver trim. DAX stares at the TOS crew, obviously about to start asking questions, when she is suddenly gripped by a distant look. So are UHURA and RAND.)

DAX: Ah, Benjamin, I uh, need to make, uh, a report, but I have to...I think I really have to...go to the, uh...

JANEWAY: Bathroom?

CHAPEL: You people have bathrooms!?

DAX: ...the infirmary! Right NOW!

UHURA (grabs DAX's arm): Which way's fastest, for gods' sake?!

DAX: C'mon, I'll show you! (UHURA, DAX, RAND and CHAPEL charge for the lift.)

(The camera begins to pan around, showing that we've lost about half the women in the place, including main characters. A few others are cursing and rubbing their foreheads, patently wondering what the hell their problem is--here they were, going about their business, when suddenly they're having this weird feeling...we pan over the mystified faces of the men, and some of the women who are aware of no odd sensations. Camera completes circuit and halts on the three--now four--Captains.)

SISKO: Captain Janeway, are you aware of any...um, imperative, still, to be somewhere else?

JANEWAY: Yes, a bit, but nothing I can't handle. It feels rather like I've forgotten an errand I'd planned to run and can't recall what it was. Certainly nothing like what it looked like the lady in the blue jumpsuit, and your crew, Captains, experienced.

SISKO: It hit them just as you became aware of any such feeling at all, at about the same time Kasidy--

ODO: I have a strong feeling *I'd* better get to the infirmary.

SISKO: Not you too?

ODO: No deep-seated urges, but if there's something in the infirmary that's broadcasting a siren song to half the women on the station I'd better find out what it is.

SISKO: You're right. The infirmary's close to Ops, but we have no idea what the range of this phenomenon might be. Meanwhile--Ops to Bashir. Doctor, what's going on down there?

WORF: Sir, the internal comm functions are still disconnected due to lack of payment.

SISKO: I forgot. Well, I can talk to the Chief, at least--but I'll do it from the wardroom. If you'll bring your people and follow me, we can get his and Captain Picard's engineer's reports, and begin the various debriefings.

(All four Captains execute summoning waves to their respective crews and follow Sisko to the wardroom.)

FADE OUT

BREAK FOR COMMERCIAL (never thought you'd be so glad to see one?)

FADE IN (SCENE: You've got three guesses. No, come on, guess. Oh, all right, I gotta say it; the infirmary. JULIAN, our man of the hour (you'll see in a minute what I mean by that) is performing a few routine follow-up chores after the influx of the bruised and contused due to the riot control earlier. He is just starting for his office to finish up the deskwork when he sees someone beaming into the open area of the main room. He immediately starts preparing for another emergency, calling to a nurse and a couple of technicians who are still in the lab, and...it's a stunning blue-eyed redhead in a Starfleet uniform, holding a somewhat toasted but still stunning blonde in a Starfleet uniform; clinging to the redhead's shoulders is a stunning black-eyed brunette in a Starfleet uniform. He hurries up, taking the blonde from the redhead's arms.)

JULIAN: I'm Julian Bashir, CMO. What happened?

BEVERLY: Beverly Crusher, CMO, Enterprise. She has first and second degree electrical burns over about thirty percent of her body, concentrated facial, dorsal thoracic, right arm and right hip, plus a double cerebral contusion, blow central rear of the skull. There are minor internal burns, one that might be a problem.

JULIAN (to nurses) You heard her; let's prepare for surgery.

DEANNA (as she and BEVERLY follow JULIAN and an OR nurse and technician into the surgery): Will Tasha be all right?

JULIAN: Perfectly. We can repair all this within a half hour; she'll be back on her feet in two. Her name's Tasha?

BEVERLY: Natasha Yar. She was our security officer at one time. And she's...how shall I put this...very important to all of us, still.

JULIAN: I understand.

DEANNA (muttered) You think you do, all right.

JULIAN: Doctor, care to assist?

BEVERLY: Yes, thank you. It's all right, Deanna. Wait outside?

(Deanna nods and follows one of the technicians out of the surgery. She settles herself to wait in a chair near JULIAN'S office. A few minutes later, KEIKO comes in with KES and the children.)

KEIKO: Deanna--how is Tasha?

DEANNA: She's going to be fine, she'll be out of surgery in less than half an hour. (she smiles) Hello, Molly! (she reaches up to lightly touch the baby's head) and this must be Kirayoshi--and...(her gaze lights on KES and becomes riveted. KES's eyes, which have been a bit glazed-looking, suddenly clear completely and she drops KEIKO's hand.)

KEIKO: This is Kes, Deanna. Deanna Troi, uh, Kes. She was feeling disoriented, so her Captain asked someone to bring her here.

KES (still staring; her voice is especially deep and cellolike): You. You're the one I've been sensing.

DEANNA: I...me? Are...are you...you are. You're a telepath. But a...a partial one, like me...

KES: Not quite like you. I'm an Ocampa.

DEANNA: Ocampa...? I--was that *you*? I can *hear* your thoughts! And you aren't Betazoid!

KES: And I can sense your emotions...I can see the things you see...can you sense me?

DEANNA: Oh, yes, but Tash worried me so--(she abruptly stops speaking as she and KES continue to stare at each other. KEIKO has been looking back and forth between them and wisely decides to fade into the figurative woodwork as DEANNA and KES approach each other in mutual silent fascination, eyes still trained together. She vanishes quietly out the infirmary door with MOLLY and YOSHI.)

CUT TO

(BEVERLY coming out of the surgery where JULIAN is apparently concluding; KEIKO is back, sans children, watching DEANNA and KES from across the room. BEVERLY espies her and comes over, sitting next to her.)

BEVERLY: Keiko, it's good to see you--who is Deanna, um, chatting with?

(DEANNA and KES are now standing very close together, KES's gaze tilted up just a little to stay locked with DEANNA's. Both of them have dreamy smiles on their faces. KEIKO is turning slightly pinker than usual, and BEVERLY, after getting a serious eyeful of the telepathic two, is also beginning to clear her throat and look somewhere else.)

KEIKO: Her name is Kes. She was with the crew of another ship that came through the rupture. She said she was an Ocampa, whatever that is, and she's a partial telepath like Deanna. And I get the feeling what they're doing over there...

BEVERLY: Yeah, they're looking partial to each other all right. In fact, I'll see if I can get them into an exam room. I think Deanna'll appreciate it under the circumstances. (She gets up and shoos them gently, pressing her hands against their backs and walking them behind a partition. As she comes back, KIRA comes in, carrying B'ELANNA.)

BEVERLY (quickly): Goodness, what happened here? I'm Beverly Crusher, chief surgeon, Enterprise. (She unlimbers her tricorder.)

KIRA: Kira Nerys, first officer DS9, and according to the script this is Lieutenant B'Elanna something. No one's said her last name yet and it's not in the stage directions. She cracked her temple on the corner of a console in her joy at being home.

{Her last name is Torres, Nerys.}

KIRA: Huh? (She focuses on the camera) Oh, you. Thanks.

BEVERLY: Let's get her to a biobed...(they do so.) She's awake. Sort of. Are you in much pain?

B'ELANNA: FUCK yes *ow*...(she winces at having raised her voice and tries to reach for her head, but BEVERLY pushes her hand down.)

BEVERLY: Minor skull fracture...nurse? (She looks around; one of the technicians appears and BEVERLY requests a couple of instruments, which the woman brings. BEVERLY begins fixing B'ELANNA's head.)

KEIKO: What's going on up there, Nerys?

KIRA: Name it. We've got a ship from the wrong space, a ship from the wrong time, a ship from the wrong space AND the wrong time--the last of which, trashed though it may be, is apparently the most valuable thing in the Quadrant--

KEIKO: It is. (KEIKO gives KIRA the short version of the story of the Enterprise C from "Yesterday's Enterprise".)

KIRA: Wow. Okay, I get why everyone's so worked up about the derelict. We've got starship Captains dripping out the reactor vents, still no internal communications--if that wasn't Dax's job this month, whose was it?

KEIKO (glancing away in embarrassment) Uh...mine. I forgot I traded Dax to get out of doing the trash.

KIRA: Oh. Well, I won't tell. Have you called?

KEIKO: They say I have to come by the PhoneMart with the check.

KIRA: That figures. Hey, the klingon girl's coming around. (She and KEIKO go to the biobed where BEVERLY is helping B'ELANNA sit up. KIRA mutters to KEIKO): I don't think she's all klingon. She hasn't got any spinal ridge. Well, no more of one than we do, I mean.

B'ELANNA: I'm not. I'm half human.

KIRA: That explains the good teeth too.

B'ELANNA: I'd punch you if you didn't look meaner than I do, even in that tablecloth or whatever it is. Thanks for the lift, by the way.

KIRA: (as they grin at each other) No problem.

B'ELANNA: Do you know what Captain Janeway was talking about with all that maybe-we-shouldn't-celebrate-too-soon crapola?

KIRA: The reason you're here is--our science officer fooled with the wormhole, and now it's generating a dangerous spacetime rupture. We don't know what might be required to close it, if it can be closed. It might just eat us all. Also there might be more effects from going through it--to all of us, to spacetime itself, blah blah not my department, Captain Sisko and I are here to brood and speculate and demand answers. The rest of the staff handle details like why and how. Sisko and I represent Bajor and Starfleet.

BEVERLY: (smirks) Sounds familiar. On the Enterprise we...hm. That's odd.

KEIKO: What's odd?

KIRA: Yeah, what's...oh.

BEVERLY: OH.

KIRA: You mean *that*.

BEVERLY: Right. That.

B'ELANNA: OH.

KIRA: Uh-huh, there, see?

BEVERLY: What do you suppose it is?

KEIKO: What is *what*?

(The other three all look at her.)

KIRA: You don't feel anything?

KEIKO: Only the same things I was feeling a minute ago. What is it?

B'ELANNA: Oh my GOD.

KEIKO: *What*?!

JULIAN (from the surgery): Oh my GOD--(There is the sound of a wicked right cross contacting a dark, sculpted chin and TASHA, eyes wild, with a blue sheet wrapped around her at the hips and trailing on the floor (black rectangle time, no silver trim) comes staggering to the door of the surgery and through.)

TASHA: Beverly! Where's it coming from?!

KEIKO: TASHA! For God's SAKE get back in there! You were in SURGERY!

BEVERLY (focusing her eyes with a Herculean effort): Uh, yeah, Tasha, get back in there. How are you even conscious?

TASHA: *Conscious*? I feel *great*! I feel like a brand new gravity-gyro-stabilized compression rifle with two full cells sparking!

KEIKO: Uh...Beverly...speaking of two full cells sparking...

BEVERLY: Oh. Oh, yeah...I wonder...maybe I better...(she lurches off toward the exam enclosure where DEANNA and KES are, fumbling for her tricorder. KEIKO goes to TASHA and drags the sheet up, wrapping and tucking it so it covers her from the armpits down.)

KEIKO: I've got to admit you look okay...

TASHA (retucking complete, she slides down the wall to sit on the floor, eyes rolling back in her head): (inarticulate groan) It's like the best dream I've ever had...

B'ELANNA: Better...(she flops back down on the biobed, a vacant smile on her face.)

TASHA: I'd go find it but I think I'm close enough and I'd rather just sit here, you know?

KIRA: Yeah, oh yeah, I know...(she is leaning heavily on B'ELANNA's biobed, almost drooping off.)

(KEIKO, in frustration, leaves them all and goes to the exam room where BEVERLY, DEANNA and KES are. She halts in the doorway, amazed by what she sees. KES has broken into a sweat and is hyperventilating, clinging to the edge of the exam bed; DEANNA is running her hands up and down her own arms, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, murmuring softly.)

BEVERLY: Deanna, your heart rate, your endorphins, your...your--

KEIKO (seizing the tricorder from BEVERLY, who gasps and slides down the wall, eyes dilated): She's right, Deanna. I'd better get Julian. If I can. He didn't sound too good last I heard him--

DEANNA: No. (DEANNA'S eyes open. She has a placid look on her face that is belied by the expression in her pool-like...gentle...*burning* black eyes...)

KEIKO: Uh, oh. I've seen that look on Betazoid women before. Deanna, you're too young! And it's happening too fast! You're the one who told me--

DEANNA: Change. It's...(she closes her eyes and hyperventilates a moment along with KES)...it's her.

KEIKO: Her? Kes?

KES: No, silly, HER! Deanna. Elogium...oh...(she staggers to Deanna and falls against her, firmly running both hands down the sides of the counselor's face; they leave broad powdery yellow streaks. DEANNA moans in appreciation and KEIKO turns and bolts for help, dragging BEVERLY along behind her by the arm. Just outside the door she trips over KASIDY, who is sprawled in cataleptic bliss on the floor next to the OR technician and LEETA.)

KEIKO (spying, through the main door, a tide of people stumbling eagerly down the promenade toward the main door of the infirmary, led by DAX and the three TOS officers, who are putting on a burst of speed to arrive ahead of everyone else): *Fuck* a DUCK! (As DAX and the TOS gang stumble through the door, KEIKO is shooting past them to throw herself on the switch, closing and locking the entrance.)

OR TECH (who is a Vulcan) (in response to KEIKO's sentiment): That will not be necessary. This experience is quite sufficient unto itself.

(DAX's eyes cross, she grins a shiteating grin and keels over on a biobed. UHURA climbs up and collapses with her. RAND zombie-walks into the wall and slides down it not far from TASHA. CHAPEL takes off her tricorder and starts scanning everyone with the whistling medical whirligig, eyeing the readouts.)

KEIKO (to CHAPEL): You're okay?

CHAPEL: Depends on who you ask. I'm not feeling whatever Janice and Nyota are; I came along because they looked pretty bad and I thought I'd better stay close. Also I heard somebody mention bathrooms. Cheezit. Take a look at their endorphin levels.

JULIAN: (coming out of the OR holding his face) All right, what in blazes--my God.

KEIKO: Julian--it's Deanna, my friend Deanna Troi from the Enterprise, she's half Betazoid and she's in an exam room with a blonde girl who makes even me look bigger than Magic Johnson and they're in some kind of telepathic link and Deanna's going through the Change and she's WAY too young and--

JULIAN: The Change? The Betazoid Change? But Betazoid women don't broadcast when they--

KEIKO: Well Deanna is! The girl she's with is a partial telepath too, and--

JULIAN: What race?

KEIKO: Goddamn it, I forget! She's not from around here, though. She smeared some kind of yellow stuff on Deanna--

B'ELANNA (dreamily) The epasophor.

JULIAN, KEIKO, and CHAPEL: What?

B'ELANNA: Kes is Ocampan, she's from the Delta quadrant, the fit she's throwing is called the elogium and the yellow stuff on her hands is called the epasophor. She says it makes the mating bond possible.

KEIKO: And she smeared it on Deanna?

JULIAN: Uh-oh.

CHAPEL: I think I see a pattern. Of course, the audience saw it as soon as Deanna and Kes started making eyes at each other.

BEVERLY: (crawling out from behind B'ELANNA's biobed on all fours): There's no known technology...to block telepathic transmissions...I remember Data saying so in "Night Terrors"...so may I suggest...we beam them onto a runabout and...send them...hoo boy this is intense...send them out of range...?

CHAPEL: Could we maybe just separate them?

(There is a crash from the exam room and unison screams of "OHHHH GOD!!!")

JULIAN: I get the feeling that wouldn't do a lot of good by this time.

(There is a slooshing sound and ODO pours himself through an air vent, resolidifying as he hits the floor.)

ODO: Doctor, I wouldn't open that door. There are about two hundred people--all women, come to think of it, who appear to have been lunching on opium poppies--sprawled in various attitudes for several hundred meters in all directions. The only reason, it appears, that they're not storming the place, is that it would be too much trouble.

JULIAN: For CHRIST's sake...

B'ELANNA: Maybe you should...ask the doctor...

BEVERLY: Ask me what? (giggle)

B'ELANNA: I mean OUR doctor, he knows about Kes's...uh...stuff...he's the EMH on Voyager...

JULIAN: There's a thought.

CHAPEL: (scanning B'ELANNA) Surprisingly enough, under the circumstances. This woman is high enough to drop on Shangri-La. And what happened to her forehead? Somebody run over it with a snow tire?

KEIKO: Let's call Voyager. We can use your office comm.

JULIAN: Right. (He and Keiko book it into the office.)

CUT TO

(JULIAN's office a bit later. He is talking with the HOLODOC on the comm. He has to do it over KEIKO, because she and CHAPEL have now succumbed as well and KEIKO is lying on the desk. As we listen to them talk, the camera pans around the infirmary to show that ODO has lined all eleven other blissed-out women up neatly on spare pallets and biobeds. As he stands around admiring his handiwork, moans and bumping-and-thrashing noises ripple out of the occupied exam room. He rolls his eyes and harrumphs, then liquefies and flows back out the air vent in the direction of Ops.)

JULIAN: So you're saying that this wouldn't have happened if Troi had been male?

HOLODOC: That's correct. According to the results of the computer biochemical simulation, the catalytic effect is dependent on the action of a metempsychic brain chemical all Betazoids possess; Betazoid males, however, do not possess it in sufficient quantity to initiate the spiral effect, due to higher levels of certain hormones that have the incidental effect of suppressing the first chemical's production. I haven't checked, but I would guess that's also the reason the transmissions are only being received by women, and I'd further speculate that said women are only drowning in generalized stimulation of the pleasure center--rather than rutting like alley cats--because none of them are either Betazoid or Ocampa. There are no female Betazoids on Voyager, or I'm sure we'd have noticed the problem by now.

JULIAN: I'd hope you'd notice it. I've got twelve drop-dead gorgeous women sprawled around my infirmary--locked in with me, in fact--in various states of animal ecstasy, and two more making extremely loud whoopee in an exam room, and I'm barred by professional ethics from doing anything about it but trying to find a way to *stop* it, of all insane things! Do you have ANY idea how frustrated I am right now?

HOLODOC: No. I'm a hologram and I still get more dates than you do.

JULIAN (groans): Please don't remind me. How far-reaching is the effect?

HOLODOC: According to my results, it should fade completely outside a radius of about one-half to one kilometer from the...uh...generation of the effect.

JULIAN: Looks like Doctor Crusher was right. The Orinoco it is, then. Wait just one moment. Computer, give me remote command of the Orinoco; route control to lab station two. (He sighs and gets up; the camera follows him as he walks through the infirmary, pausing to pick up Kira, who has rolled off her pallet, and put her back, smoothing her caftan down.) Very nice, Nerys. Cashmere?

KIRA: (blissful) Mm.

(JULIAN proceeds to the exam room where all the action is. The camera follows him only far enough to show DEANNA and KES from the shoulders up, but it's quite obvious they are extremely busy and are both liberally coated with yellow powdery stuff, hair and all. The camera follows Julian as he bends to pick up their clothes from the floor, then follows the clothes pile in his hands out over the censored zone. He drops the pile on them and the camera pans to him as he says)

JULIAN: (painfully forcing the words out) Computer, lock onto Commander Troi's signal and beam two directly to runabout Orinoco.

(We hear the transporter effect and see light playing on Julian's tortured features; then the effect fades.)

JULIAN: (sinking to the floor against the exam bed and burying his face in his hands) My God...what have I done? Who the hell am I, Sir Galahad? I'm a fool, I'm such a fool...

KEIKO: (smiling ditsily as she slides down the doorframe) C'mon, Julian, get it together...you've gotta...oh, wow...get that runabout off the station...

(He gets up to go to the lab and do so.)

KEIKO: (Patting his leg as he goes by, she smirks broadly) I knew we could count on you, Julian. (JULIAN hyperventilates in frustration a moment, then snarls at her and runs off to the lab as she giggles. She then levers herself up from the floor and wanders contentedly back to the main ward, where everyone is still pretty darn happy. She lies down next to KASIDY to wait for the elogiumChange rapture to fade.)

CUT TO

(The wardroom. It's pretty crowded. We pan around from the back of the room to the front; on the way we see, leaning against the viewports and looking up toward the front of the room, TOM, SCOTTY, HARRY, WORF, ODO, TUVOK, CHEKOV, SULU, McCOY and DATA, ROM and GARAK. We pan to the table, where CHAKOTAY, SPOCK, RIKER, PICARD, KIRK, and JANEWAY are sitting; JANEWAY is at the head of the table. SISKO is standing near the viewscreen, where MILES and GEORDI are seen in front of a view of a crumbly-looking Enterprise-C bridge. Some brown-suited Bajoran engineers, a couple of Fleet engineers in gold uniforms, and several disheveled and bad-hair-day-having ensigns and crew of the C, in old-style uniforms, are digging around in the wreckage, fixing anything that has any hope of being fixed. We have been hearing MILES in voiceover; he is still speaking.)

MILES: ...and that should about do it. She should hold together at least long enough to get a few shots off and make the Federation look good to the Klingon Empire. Commander LaForge has even managed to get the conn console running again, don't ask me how.

GEORDI: Oh, that was easy. When the ship entered the wrong spacetime rift, the helm computer couldn't reconcile the sight of the giant flush toilet with where it was supposed to be going--when it *knew* it was going the right way--which messed with its mind, like Kirk did with that M-5 piece of crap in "The Ultimate Computer"--and it blew up. I just hotwired it back together and convinced it that someone had slipped it an acid tab. It's fine now.

JANEWAY: Well. Thank heaven for small favors.

MILES: We'll be beaming back in a few minutes. Enterprise-C out.

SISKO: DS9 out. (He turns back to the room.) That's one problem solved. Captain Janeway, did your ship take much damage on your trip through the rupture?

JANEWAY: Some water from the hydroponics bay sloshed across the floor and shorted out an engineering tool/hairdo gadget Ayala was using, but that was the worst.

SISKO: Captain Kirk? How did you come through?

KIRK: Spock's head got stuck in the viewer hood when the ship lurched, and Scotty had to detach it from the console--the hood, I mean--so we could send Spock and the hood both to Sickbay and have them separated. And a bottle of Bones's Saurian brandy got knocked off the shelf; his quarters stink pretty bad. Scotty, was there anything else?

SCOTTY: Begorrah.

SISKO: I'm going to take that as a no.

(We see the door open and JULIAN comes in, carrying a padd.)

SISKO: Ah, Doctor. We've all got crew in the infirmary doing God-knows-what. Do you have an explanation? Is there a very specifically oriented black hole down there?

(JULIAN stands there a moment, eyes huge and chin trembling, then bursts into tears. At that moment, the door opens again and MILES and GEORDI come in. MILES bustles up to Julian and puts an arm around his shoulders.)

MILES: There, there, me lad--tell uncle Miles the trouble.

(Sniffling, JULIAN holds the padd out to him.)

PICARD: What is that, Chief?

MILES (taking the padd in his free hand): It's the script. He must've lifted it off the Counselor, unless he got Nerys's...

ODO: That one *was* mine until she snagged it.

MILES: Let me page back up...ah. Here it is...oh. My. (MILES flushes.) Well, you did right, me boyo. Nothing else would've been decent. Plus Kira would have thrown you through a viewport when she snapped out of it. (JULIAN, whimpering like Beaker from the Muppet Show, hides his face in Miles's neck.)

JANEWAY: What, already? How is my chief engineer?

MILES: I'd say she's fine. Better than fine, in fact, until the Orinoco gets full away. Tasha's okay, too.

JULIAN: (screaming against Miles, who is patting him awkwardly while perusing the script) I could have had any of them! Or ALL of them! All at once, probably. The greatest opportunity of my life and what do I do? I...I...*I behave like a gentleman*, that's what I bloody fucking do!

MILES: Julian...maybe I can help.

JULIAN: Miles, you know I love you, but it just wouldn't be the sa--

MILES (rolling his eyes): Not *me*, y'skinny-arsed git.

JULIAN (sniffle) Well, this *is* a B.C. story...

MILES: It ain't the bloody Image series, for God's sake. I was thinking of the holosuites.

JULIAN: That's not the same *either*! (Fresh round of sobbing)

SISKO: Chief, *what* is wrong with him?

MILES: Oh, he's just depressed because he could have had his brains fucked completely out fourteen ways from next week and he blew it.

KIRK: Wow. That *is* rough.

RIKER: I'll say. Ouch.

MILES: You don't know the half of it. Best-looking guy on the station, a doctor no less, and he can't get laid to save his life. Not since he got dumped by a Dabo girl for a Ferengi, anyway.

(JULIAN cries louder.)

MILES: Is it all right if I take him home, sir? I think he could use a shot of scotch and a nap.

SISKO: By all means, Chief. He's dripping on the rug. Feel free to take a moment and change your uniform before you come back.

MILES: (handing the padd to SPOCK): Here. (He conducts the sobbing JULIAN from the room.)

SPOCK: (scrolling the padd) (as his eyebrow climbs dangerously close to his hairline, threatening to disappear in his bangs) Captain Janeway, Captain Picard--I believe you may have a complication to deal with. (He slides the padd down the table and JANEWAY picks it up, holding it where PICARD can see it too.)

JANEWAY: (eyes enormous) "...she staggers to Deanna and falls against her..." *Kes*? *Our* sweet little Kes?

PICARD: Great Scott, we'd better not let Will see the script. His head would explode. Where does it say that staggering bit?

JANEWAY: Ahm...there, in the stage directions.

PICARD: Oh--wait. How does Keiko know how to use a medical tricorder?

JANEWAY: Your counselor is going through the Change?

PICARD: Apparently. We've seen the phenomenon before. It's a damn good thing she's been launched off the station in a runabout--to where, exactly?

JANEWAY (scrolling): It doesn't say. In any case, I'd imagine they're flying on autopilot.

CUT TO

(Ops; MILES and JULIAN are boarding the lift.)

MILES (still patting JULIAN, he slaps his own forehead with his free hand.): Blast. I forgot to explain about the temporal paradox.

JULIAN (wildly): *Sod* your paradox!

CUT TO

(The infirmary. The camera, starting just to the right of the main door, pans around the room, showing that our twelve heroes, blinking and adjusting their footgear and underwear, assuming they have either, as they sit up, are starting to regain the ability to think straight. When we reach KIRA, the camera takes an extra moment to demonstrate the outline of a padd under the cashmere. The pan finally stops on DAX.)

DAX: Well fuck *all*. THAT was one hell of a ride.

B'ELANNA: You said it. I may never need to bite anybody again. What do you all say we get together and buy Kes and Deanna a really nice gift? From Toys in Babeland, maybe.

LEETA: Ooh, good idea! The gift that keeps on giving.

KIRA (frowns) This is weird. I know who all of you are. And who the Betazoid and the little blonde are.

OR TECHNICIAN: (She appears to be having trouble focusing.) I would surmise we were involved in a sort of meld, possibly due to my presence, since I do not remember a telepathic awareness of any but those in this room.

TASHA: Hey, I'm naked under this thing.

KIRA: So? I'm naked under *this* thing.

DAX: (interested) You are?

KIRA: What can I say, it's cashmere.

UHURA (grins): Enough said.

BEVERLY: I'd better check us out and make sure we're all right.

CHAPEL: I'll help. (They both get to their feet and break out the bioscanners.)

RAND: Can I have a line? I haven't said a word this whole episode.

UHURA: Surely you're used to that by now. You're around to look good. Why do you think they nail that basket to your head every morning in makeup?

RAND: Everyone in this room is a fox, though! Even the OR technician, and she doesn't have a name yet.

KASIDY: Her name's...uh...I remember, it's on the tip of my--

KIRA (checking script) Sekhmet.

KEIKO: You poor thing.

RAND: I didn't *ask*, did I? Come on, just one decent line that doesn't make me sound like a stupid bimbo.

KASIDY: Oh, hell. I think I wet myself.

CHAPEL: See, Janice? You're in good company.

B'ELANNA (snorts): After that, I think we're likely all damp one way or another.

DAX: Can we talk about something else?

TASHA: What happened to my uniform?

BEVERLY: It got blown up. Doctor Bashir and I got rid of the remains before we treated you.

TASHA: Anybody here have a spare set of pants?

KIRA: Anybody here look like they have two butts?

DAX: I wasn't going to say anything, Nerys, but since the baby...

KIRA: Shut up. It's the damn fuscia catsuit.

KASIDY: Surely there's a replicator around here somewhere...(going to give TASHA a hand up from the floor): Let's find it. (They wander off to do so.)

BEVERLY: Looks like we're all back to normal. Nurse?

CHAPEL: You're asking me? Compared to your tricorder, mine's a Betamax. Plus I went to medical school nearly a hundred years ago.

DAX: Since I'm back, I suppose I better get started on the space toilet problem again. I could use some help. Anyone know anything about spatial anomalies or time travel or n-space or--

BEVERLY: We're TREK characters. We know all that stuff.

RAND: (sullen) Not all of us.

LEETA: (nods wistfully)

DAX: Okay, let me be more specific. Who here besides me is a good engineer?

(B'ELANNA and UHURA raise their hands.)

UHURA: Just don't put me in charge of a warp core. I'm more of a computer-electronics type. Besides, I'd get distracted and translate the sound effects into Swahili or Mandarin Chinese or whatever. In four-part harmony.

DAX: Okay, who's got it down, besides me, in the scientific method--hypothesis, test, theory, and the logical deduction you've gotta do that goes with it? Only raise your hand if you haven't already.

(BEVERLY, SEKHMET, KEIKO, and CHAPEL all wave.)

BEVERLY: Me especially. I out-deducted Mrs. Columbo in "Suspicions" and "Remember Me".

DAX: Cool. All right, who have we got besides me who can kick butt if anything goes wrong and someone tries to interfere with the work?

(KIRA raises her hand.)

TASHA (yelling from the next room): Right here! I can open hailing frequencies, too.

UHURA: (snorts) Color *me* happy. Consider the job yours.

DAX: We're going pretty good, here. We have anybody who doesn't mind running errands, taking notes, that sort of stuff?

RAND (sighs) Fuck it, I'm in. (She raises her hand.)

DAX: (smiling at LEETA) And who wouldn't mind sticking around just because I happen to think she's cute as a bug?

LEETA (smiles and simpers at DAX).

DAX: Neat. Last but not least, who's got a big ship we can use to load our gear in and get out to the rupture if and when we need to?

KASIDY (re-entering the room with TASHA, who is in a fuscia catsuit and stiletto heels.) Give it a rest, Dax, you've got me.

DAX: Great! Come on down to my lab, everybody, I've got some etchings to show you.

KEIKO: Jadzia, you're such a lesbo.

DAX: Blame my symbiont, my little botanist cupcake. I got the best of all worlds in here. (Wags eyebrows suggestively. KEIKO cracks up.)

KIRA: (To TASHA) Shit, lady, what are you doing in *that*?

TASHA: I couldn't get the replicator to give me a Fleet uniform in my size, so I cussed at it, and it thought I was you. How you do stand these heels?

CUT TO

(The Rapture Dozen is gathered around the infirmary entrance, waiting for DAX, who is poised in a martial fashion, to unlock and open the door.)

B'ELANNA: How bad can it be out there now? Doctor Prettyface got out all right.

KEIKO: He's different. Women look right through him. Us, they'll see.

DAX: Ass-kickers to the fore. (B'ELANNA, KIRA, TASHA and SEKHMET approach the door and form a defensive line. DAX hits the juice button. The doors open; with the exception of about three dozen people who are still hanging around looking dazed, Promenade traffic seems normal. DAX beckons and the Rapture Dozen file out onto the Promenade.)

KIRA: I wonder why everyone wasn't affected.

SEKHMET: I would speculate that genetic factors, including those related to innate telepathic ability through aspects either primary or secondary, or both, determined the speed in which and the length to which individuals were affected.

BEVERLY: And it's probably a person-to-person thing.

(Rapture Dozen is forced to dodge a small herd of Bajoran women who have recovered from the Rapture and are thundering toward the shrine of the Prophets, to 1) give thanks for the blessing and 2) ask what they did right so they can do it again.)

B'ELANNA: Y'know, we'd all better hope that the Ocampa never make it to the Alpha Quadrant as a species. Or at least not to Betazed.

UHURA: *I* hope Kes and Deanna don't starve to death.

(DAX starts to speak, with a wicked look on her face.)

KIRA: Don't say it. Not if you want to live.

DAX: Party poop.

CUT TO

(Dax's lab. Which, according to the view we had of it in "Babel" when MILES fixed the shrieking circuitry and all the power went out when he did, is not all that big, so there are people perched on every available surface, including each other, in some cases. DAX is standing up by the largest viewscreen, from which spot she has been lecturing. She is now, along with everyone else, listening to BEVERLY expound.)

BEVERLY: ...so you see, it can't be a simple phase-variance problem, because Lord Bramstoke is *left-handed*, which means the reading glasses were already missing; therefore, Lady Cruller could not possibly have heard the grandfather clock strike 9 pm.

DAX: Huh. Wouldn't have thought of that. (She makes a notes on a padd). Okay, what does everybody else think?

B'ELANNA: Sounds like a software problem to me.

UHURA: Yeah. Did you remember to include "...and don't start generating a dangerous spacetime fissure" in the programming somewhere?

DAX (Tapping keys): Yes, that's in here. Right after the "Second option: flush toilet" line. Maybe I overlooked another line that invalidated it.

KEIKO (from TASHA'S lap): If you ran the simulation again, someone might spot something else you haven't considered. Low speed.

DAX: Good idea. (She turns to manipulate controls on a board; the main screen becomes animated, blanking and then showing a schematic of her wormhole n-space manipulation device, which, from the outside, appears to be an IBM mainframe, circa 1962).

CHAPEL: Hey. That looks familiar.

DAX: I know, sorry. We had to cut the effects budget so we could pay everybody. Here...(smaller screens around the room flash to life with the same schematic so that all can see okay. As everyone watches the procedures and computer explanation closely, B'ELANNA speaks pensively.)

B'ELANNA: You know who we need down here?

KIRA (grunts, trying to get resituated, as she has just toppled off the fraction of console top she has been perched on into a knot of people seated below): Some chick with a whip and a chair? We could use some organization. Ow! Watch your elbows, that was my tit.

KASIDY (from under KIRA's caftan as they get KIRA upright again): You're complaining? This is a side of you I've never seen, Nerys. Not so close up, at least. You're right, it *is* just the catsuit.

KIRA: Thanks, Kas. Sekhmet, are you okay?

SEKHMET: (Blinking dazedly) What? Oh. Yes. I have been...distracted since our experience. I am fine.

B'ELANNA: We need Captain Janeway. She's a whiz at astrophysics. Though if she *wanted* to bring a whip and a chair...

DAX: The rest of our Captains are probably going to need her. Except for Benjamin, who knows which end of a circuit spanner to pick up, at least, they're all pretty dense when it comes to science.

SEKHMET: Halt playback.

B'ELANNA: Yeah, I caught that too...in the mechanism itself, not the result extrapolation.

BEVERLY: Caught what?

DAX: Computer, take playback five seconds previous and resume, same speed.

UHURA: There! What the--?

KIRA: Computer, freeze playback!

BEVERLY: Oh, yeah--I see it.

CHAPEL: Want to let the rest of us in on it?

SEKHMET: Watch. Computer, isolate section 14-22 and enhance. (The selected portion expands to fill the viewscreens.)

TASHA: It's...it's a...

KEIKO: It's...

B'ELANNA: Gag! It's a macrovirus! Goddamn three-legged harpooning piece of SHIT, what's it doing in the Alpha Quadrant? And *what's* it doing in a computer simulation?

SEKHMET: Obviously, it is a computer macrovirus.

(Three members of Rapture Dozen turn around and start whapping her over the head with the flats of their hands.)

B'ELANNA: Stop that! She's right. I mean, look at it. The only problem is how do we get it out of the program?

(CHAPEL and BEVERLY get to their feet, whipping out med(i)kits.)

BEVERLY: Stand back. C'mon, Nurse.

CHAPEL: Right. This looks like a job for...antivirals!

(CHAPEL picks her way over to BEVERLY as everyone else squishes into the farthest corner of the room from the main console. CHAPEL gets out a big TOS hypo and fills it from her kit. BEVERLY gets out a small TNG hypo and fills it from *her* kit. They both assume studly postures and:)

BEVERLY: Wonder Twin Powers--(they smack the hypos together)

CHAPEL and BEVERLY: ACTIVATE! (Lightning flashes, they pull the hypos apart and slam them into the console, injecting the living fuck out of it. On the screens, the three-legged macrovirus goes rigid, then begins to deflate, then falls out of the frame completely. CHAPEL and BEVERLY blow smoke from the business ends of their hypos, twirl them expertly, and thrust them back in their respective med(i)kits.)

DAX (sobbing with joy): *How* can I evah *thank* y'all?

KASIDY: Who *were* those masked medical professionals?

(Five of the Rapture Dozen turn around and start whapping her over the head with the flats of their hands.)

KIRA: All right, all RIGHT, enough with that. Look at the schematic.

(Everyone abruptly focuses on the viewscreens. With the computer macrovirus gone, the schematic is adopting its correct form and reconfiguring. All stare in fascination.)

DAX: Of course! It's so simple! I know just what we have to do to stop this threat--but it's risky, and I don't think Benjamin would go for it. I'm going to need all your help.

RAND: I'm glad someone does.

DAX: Yeoman, take notes.

RAND (sighs and unlimbers her tricorder to do so.)

DAX: Okay, we split up into groups and meet back in cargo bay seven, and get everything aboard Kasidy's transport shuttle and then to the Xhosa. Here's lists of the components and tools I need and where to get them...(she's entering information on a padd as she speaks, and transferring it to several others.) Kasidy, head for the Xhosa and clear us out a bay on board. Make sure it's wired for bear. We'll need an engineer in most of these groups...okay, Uhura, Beverly, Kira, you head for the Enterprise E and raid the engineering section. Here's your list. Sekhmet, Rand, you'll find all this in Parts and Storage bay four here on the station. (Hands Sekhmet a padd.) Keiko, can you get into the Chief's workroom? Take Tasha with you. I think you'll recognize most of this stuff. (Hands Keiko a padd.)

KEIKO: (Examining padd) Miles isn't going to want to part with these...

DAX: That's why I'm sending one of the ass-kickers with you, in case. Sneak in through a service duct. Okay, what else...B'Elanna, you'll know where to find this stuff in your own engineering deck. Take Chapel. And last but not least...Leeta. (Dax smiles.) I'm going to need help moving things from my lab to the cargo transport. Sound good to you?

LEETA (grins and nods; Dax winks at her.)

ALL EXCEPT LEETA AND DAX: Jadzia, you are SUCH a lesbo!!

LEETA: (Stamps petulant high-heeled-ankle-boot-wearing foot, green-and-brown-checkered baby-doll dress switching fetchingly, fists with nicely applied nails clenched by thighs) Why? Just because she's smart and tall and strong?

KIRA: No, honey. Because she sleeps with women.

LEETA: Oh.

DAX: (to Kira, sardonic expression) Turned *you* down, didn't I?

KIRA: And you're *still* regretting it!

UHURA: If it were being smart and strong, everybody here'd be--well, with a couple of exceptions...

RAND: (evil glare) Who *shall* remain nameless, unless you want that stupid earpiece permanently embedded in your cochlea. What is it with that, anyway? It *looks* like you think UHF is brain food.

DAX: (finally losing patience) Except for Sekhmet, the Pon Farr poster child, is there anybody in this room who hasn't worked both sides?

ALL (silence)

DAX: And has ANYbody not yet looked around this lab and thought "smorgasbord"?

ALL (silence)

KIRA: If you can hit the sheets with someone from a different *planet*, what's so scary about someone from the same gender?

DAX: Right, then, enough with the dyke jokes. They're fun but we've got a high-tech scavenger hunt to go on.

CUT TO

(The Orinoco, interior shot, starting abaft of the rear cab console, across the transporter pad--then up over the console and up slowly toward the front of the craft. The place is positively coated with yellow powdery stuff. The camera pans up to the roof and then down across the front viewports, which have big clear hand-shaped streaks across them through the yellow powdery stuff so they can be seen through; the camera pans to the front control chairs.)

(The following conversation takes place in telepathic echo-chamber voice-overs.)

DEANNA: (In Pilot's seat; she is so thickly coated with epasophor she might as well be wearing a gold catsuit, but that's it.) It's too bad nobody smokes in the twenty-fourth century, or we could be blowing rings around each other.

KES (giggling with her, also in catsuit, in the co-pilot's seat) That's the worst joke I've heard in a while.

DEANNA: Somebody grabbed my copy of the script, or I could have shown you something even stupider. (She squints out the port.)What's that?

KES: Ahm...a reason to get dressed?

DEANNA: Good idea.

CUT TO:

(A service conduit. KEIKO and TASHA are both curled up therein. KEIKO has a couple of tools and is trying to jimmy the lock of a hatch at the end of the tunnel.)

TASHA: The Chief locks the service accesses to his workshop?

KEIKO: He's got some very delicate equipment in there, not to mention it being valuable...okay...and I think that...does it. (She taps the panel. White vapor comes shooting out from all sides of the tunnel and another door descends like gangbusters to block the hatch with a loud CLANG, all of which sends KEIKO and TASHA scuttling like crabs on No-Doze. They round a corner and pause to get their breath back.)

TASHA: I thought you'd seen the Chief do that a hundred times.

KEIKO: I have. I left out a step.

TASHA: What?

KEIKO: The one where I call one of Miles's technicians and ask her to do it for me. Come on; I guess we'll have to go to plan B.

CUT TO

(Parts and Storage bay four, DS9. RAND is stacking things in boxes and then stacking the boxes. SEKHMET is not in the shot.)

RAND: I'm glad this stuff is labeled. Here, let me shove this stack out of sight in case someone comes...there we go. Are you going to be much longer?

SEKHMET: (In voice-over) Someone *is* coming. The constable's deputies patrolling for thieves, no doubt...

RAND: You mean like us. I guess someone noticed when we shorted out that security field?

SEKHMET: Precisely. I suggest you get under cover.

RAND: (Casting frantically about) Where? I can hear footsteps from both sides!

(Over the stack of storage containers behind RAND, a long slim arm in a DS9 jumpsuit sleeve appears. Hand at end of arm seizes the back of RAND's collar and hoists.)

RAND (kicking and waving her arms, tricorder strap flailing, as she ascends): ow ow ouchouchouchouch HEY, WEDGIE, DAMMIT! (She is lifted over the stacked containers and, knocking a couple over with her kicks, disappears behind them.)

SEKHMET: (In whispered voice-over as two brown-suited deputies come through, poking around, then continue on): My apologies. It seemed the logical course.

RAND: (Also in voice-over) Sure, sure. Vulcan strength my pinched-in ass. Cranky, are we? Pon Farr coming around a little late this time out?

SEKHMET: Interesting that you should ask...

CUT TO

(The wardroom. The Captains and first officers, except KIRA, are still there; everyone else has vacated the place.)

SISKO (In voice-over, as camera pans down from the ceiling to circle the table, showing how exasperated everybody looks.) Station log, supplemental. Our crew who were affected by the, uh, telepathic phenomenon created by Commander Troi and Captain Janeway's nurse, Kes, are still missing. Due to internal communications being offline, we cannot scan for their signals nor attempt to contact them. Odo has people searching the station, but so far, we've had no results--it's as though they're trying not to be found.

PICARD (replying to something KIRK said): No, I don't see how we can tackle the rupture effectively without Captain Sisko's science officer, with all due respect to Mr. Spock, though my people are already working on the problem on the Enterprise-E.

SPOCK: With your permission, Captain, I would like to return to the Enterprise so that I may gather what data I have already collected, then beam to the Enterprise-E and join the effort there.

(PICARD and KIRK look at each other; both nod.)

JANEWAY: And if you would, send a copy of all relevant data that you--and the E crew--have compiled--here to the station; I'd like to take a look at it.

SPOCK: Aye, Captain Janeway. (He leaves the room.)

(The viewscreen lights up to reveal a guy in a gold E uniform, holding the back of his head as he weaves back and forth in front of the comm pickup.)

GUY: Billings to Captain Picard.

PICARD: Picard here. Go ahead.

BILLINGS: Sir, three other security officers and I just got the crap knocked out of us by a gorgeous little Bajoran woman in a nightgown.

SISKO (sliding down in his seat, covering his face, as everyone looks at him): Hey, I never *requested* the Tasmanian Devil...

PICARD: Do you have her in custody? If so, bring her to the station. She's Captain Sisko's First Officer.

BILLINGS: She *is*?

SISKO: For the moment. I'd hate to lose her, though. I could go into "Man Called Hawk" mode and she'd still make me look pacifistic.

BILLINGS: Well, it's academic. She's well and gone, and we've got some components missing from engineering and the main computer lab...and this is the oddest thing, sir. Mendez insists that Dr. Crusher and a small dark woman in a red shortsuit and go-go boots were with her. The small woman had a padd and was pointing things out to the Bajoran and the Doctor.

KIRK: Uhura. (He rolls his eyes and sighs. Poor guy. Women with brains and initiative, what can he do...?)

PICARD: Thank you for the information, Billings. Picard out.

(Screen blanks.)

JANEWAY: I think we have to assume that whatever that phenomenon was, it's affected their minds somehow.

SISKO: Let me try something. Computer, put me through to freighter Xhosa. (To others) I should be able to contact Kasidy, if she's there; the Xhosa has its own comm account. And if their minds have been affected, I should be able to tell with Kasidy.

(Screen lights to show KASIDY in Captain's chair. (I know, we've never seen one on the Xhosa. Take my word for it.) She smiles brightly.)

KASIDY: Hello, Ben.

SISKO: Kasidy. How are you feeling now?

KASIDY: Oh, I was just a little faint; I thought I was eating mincemeat for lunch and it turned out to be rokeg blood pie.

JANEWAY: (mutters) Either way...

SISKO: I don't suppose you've seen Dax or Leeta, or any of the visiting crew who left Ops when you did?

KASIDY (nods): I saw them in the infirmary, but I wasn't there long.

SISKO: Then none of them are there with you?

KASIDY: (Shakes head) None of them are on the Xhosa, Ben.

SISKO: Well, if you do see any of them, would you call? And tell them we're looking for them, too.

KASIDY: If I see any of them, I'll tell you before I tell anyone else.

SISKO: Thanks, Kas. I appreciate it.

(KASIDY nods and smiles again. Screen blanks.)

CUT TO

(Bridge of the Xhosa. Smile slides from KASIDY's face like a trowelful of wet cement. She folds her arms and sighs.)

KASIDY: Dax, this had better work. When it's all over I'm gonna be sleeping alone for a month. But then, you will be too. Maybe we could work something out...

CUT TO

(Corridor, DS9. KEIKO and TASHA are coming up it at a trot, glancing furtively around; they reach a door and stop. KEIKO touches the signal, which chirps.)

MILES (In voice-over): Come in. (KEIKO and TASHA do so; the camera pans around and follows them in. We are in MILES's workshop. He puts down his tricorder and comes to take

KEIKO's shoulders.) Honey! Where've you been? Odo's people have been beating the bushes for hours...Lieutenant. Glad to see you up. Uh, nice outfit.

TASHA (smiling): Thanks, Chief! (Almost too fast to see, over KEIKO's shoulder, she bops him in the head. His eyes cross and he sags; KEIKO nearly gets squished as TASHA jumps forward to help her catch him.) Sorry, Chief. Nothing personal.

KEIKO (lowering MILES gently to a bench): It's for the greater good, honey. Okay, Tasha, where's that list?

TASHA (pulling a padd from her fuscia uniform front) Right here. Where do we start?

CUT TO

(A cargo bay aboard the Xhosa's non-transporterable cargo shuttle. Inside, amidst a large pile of tools and components, is the IBM mainframe. Amidst the IBM mainframe is DAX, ripping things apart. Standing to the side is LEETA, who is holding a padd and staring at it, and an activated computer screen. The comm screen's on, too, showing KASIDY.)

DAX: Subspace emitters.

LEETA: Right.

DAX: N- and normal space emitter connection routers.

LEETA: Check.

DAX: Anybody seen any of the other Rats? I'm pretty much at a standstill until I get hold of some of those tools.

KASIDY: I checked the incoming message log; Kira, Beverly and Uhura've been seen, unfortunately, but the guy said they'd been and gone. So unless they run into some kind of trouble between there and--(The main hold door goes *whine* and starts lowering. LEETA dodges over to peer out, then relaxes.)

LEETA: About time!

UHURA (Rolling over the door's edge--with a couple of big tool kits balanced on her shoulders--so that the door doesn't have to open all the way and reveal the mainframe to God and everybody): We were seen in engineering supply. The major had to kick some butt.

KASIDY: Was anyone hurt?

KIRA (having slid her own various burdens down the slant of the door into the hold): Heck no, I know how to knock somebody out without damaging them. We're here to save the day, not dick people up. You all right back there, Beverly? (She rolls down the door to the floor in a flurry of white cashmere as BEVERLY appears in the long gap behind her, hoisting the largest containers yet, one at a time, the camera only able to see her flying hair, her vicious expression, and her white-knuckled hands on the handles and edges of the cases as she swings them in with a grunt per.)

BEVERLY: Peachy. Damn all heels, though. (She shoves the containers through to KIRA and LEETA and climbs in.)

KIRA: Tell me about it--try bitching a lot. It worked for me, and I'm shorter than you are.

BEVERLY (swearing and attaining her feet) That's because you're in fanfic right now. Don't get your hopes up as far as the regular gig.

KIRA (sighing) Yeah, yeah, lemme enjoy being barefoot.

KEIKO (In voice-over, voluable whisper) Don't shut the door! Someone get out here and help us with this!

(KIRA and LEETA run to do so.)

KIRA: Hold on!

DAX: Nyota! (Gradual but brilliant smile) I'm glad you're back. The Xhosa isn't armed; we're going to have to mount dimensional focalizers, since we can't jack into a phaser array, and I need a translator engineer between me at the programming end and B'Elanna, whenever she gets here, out on the hull torching the main pieces in and hooking them up.

UHURA: (Smiles) Tell me what you need.

KASIDY (alarmed) You're gonna do *what* to my ship's hull?!

CUT TO

(The Orinoco. DEANNA, putting down an unidentifiable tool, is emerging from the floor, where several of the access panels have been removed. She climbs up into the pilot's chair and grins at KES, who, at co-pilot, seems to be running some kind of checks. KES taps a final key, nods, and grins back at DEANNA.

The epasophor explosion has been damped somewhat, the consoles and the ports cleaned off. Our heroes have visible skin again. DEANNA only has on the tank of her uniform top over the pants; KES is wearing the gauzy part of her forest-green outfit, but not the velvet overwrap. She still has epasophor in her hair, and DEANNA's hair, loose, hangs halfway to her waist. It appears to be tiger-striped.

Deanna blows a loose curl out of her face and starts setting the access panels back in place before putting the tool kit away. Smiling, Kes gets up and approaches with the comb, beginning to reorder Deanna's hair and get the rest of the yellow out of it. Deanna smiles fatuously back at her, gets into the pilot's chair again and looks back out the port, brings up a scanner view of the ships ahead of them, and magnifies it.)

CUT TO

(Voyager, the engine room. B'ELANNA and CHAPEL are on the upper level around the core. B'ELANNA is under a panel that she's pulled the floor cover off of; CHAPEL is crouched next to her, scrolling on the padd she's holding.)

CHAPEL: No, I'm sure it says picowatt, not megawatt.

B'ELANNA: Well that's just nuts. I hope Dax knows what she's doing...I'm bringing the megas anyway, just in case. You can carry them.

CHAPEL: I'd rather carry something called pico than something called mega.

B'ELANNA: I'm taking the touchy stuff. I hope I can get these damn things back before anything too drastic happens. I'm covering my tracks like crazy here.

VORIK (In voice-over, from lower level) Lieutenant Torres?

B'ELANNA (whispered) Shit, not Vorik--yeah! What is it, Ensign? I'm a little busy right now!

VORIK (ascending ladder) I wished to determine whether you knew of these odd path changes in the program data routing--

B'ELANNA: Oh, yeah, I'm just running a few tests, nothing to wor--goddamn it. (The camera lifts from her supine lower half as she scoots out of the console, showing Vorik's head emerging over the blue-carpeted second-level as he comes up a ladder facing the opposite wall. B'ELANNA grabs CHAPEL's shoulder in one hand and covers her mouth with the other, and proceeds to drag and then stuff her completely under the console she had been inside. CHAPEL's go-go boots kick in spastic distress as B'ELANNA uses the panel to shove her feet in all the way, then shoves the panel in.

B'ELANNA: You're smart enough not to make any noi--yeah, Vorik, what can I do ya for? Quick now, I've got things to do--

CUT TO

(The bridge of the Xhosa. KASIDY is exchanging temporary farewells, over the comm, with the last member of her crew who have all, at her insistence, disembarked for a little R&R aboard station.)

DAX: (Hiding around the corner) Is the comm off?

KASIDY: It is now. Come on in. (DAX comes in with BEVERLY, passing several open panels. From underneath one the tunefully rendered strains of "Beyond Antares" drift.)

DAX: (Pausing to crouch and peek in) Everything going all right in there?

UHURA (sings): Just fine, thanks...

DAX: (grinning as she stands) Sounds that way. (She loses the smile as she comes up and sits down at the helm, hearing BEVERLY.)

BEVERLY: I wish we'd been able to wait the shuttle for Chapel and B'Elanna.

DAX: I know, they're going to hit bay seven and have to transport again. Rand and Sekhmet can transport their stuff all right, if they have to, though I hate to point up where they are like that, but B'Elanna's bringing some delicate--hey. We're being hailed from the station.

KASIDY: Whoa. Don't answer it.

DAX: (Fooling with controls) We don't want Benjamin wondering...*you* answer it. (DAX slides from her chair out of pickup range, and CRUSHER hides behind the captain's chair, just as the bridge door swishes open and KIRA and KEIKO come in, followed by LEETA. They all get one look at DAX and CRUSHER and drop.)

KASIDY (answering hail): Xhosa. Go ahead.

(There is a crashing sound and the viewscreen flares to life, showing an untenanted shot of Parts and Storage bay four. A flash of red and blonde, then one of blue and black, zip across the screen.)

RAND: HELP!

KASIDY: Rand! What is it?

RAND (who can be seen climbing a stack of containers about half in pickup range): This Vulcan chick has gone bonkers, that's what! She's looking at me like my prom date did after our second six-pack!

BEVERLY: Can you stun her?

RAND: Whaddaya, think there's a holster in my bra?

KEIKO: That *would* explain one thing, at least. Well, two.

DAX: (Sticking her head over the edge of the console in time to see SEKHMET moving into the frame, her fingers folded together under her chin, her eyes rolled halfway back in her head.)

Oh, shit. You ever seen a Vulcan in the plak tow? No? Now you have. Blame our amorous medical associates. I'm surprised she lasted this long.

BEVERLY: Plak tow? That's the blood fever, it happens when Vulcans go into Pon...uh, oh.

KASIDY (anxiously) We could beam them out--or at least Rand--

DAX: Not and get all the components, we don't have the kind of sensors that could tell us where they all are, without help on that end. And if we take Rand out, we've got nobody over there but a Vulcan with the IQ of a baboon in heat, and if we take Sekhmet, she'll--

KIRA: Beam *me* over there!

BEVERLY: (frowning) But--

KIRA: I know what I'm doing.

RAND: (Faintly, over the comm): Beam her, dammit! I'll never survive sex with a voracious Vulcan!

KIRA: They could be found any time, and then where are we? Come on! (She breaks for the door, followed by UHURA, who has emerged from the console she was in, to see what all the shouting is about.)

(KEIKO comes and sits in the navigator's chair next to DAX; LEETA comes up and sits in DAX's lap; everyone's gaze is trained on the screen. The door opens behind them and TASHA comes in, wondering what's up. DAX explains.)

TASHA (nodding) It's about damn time for this gag.

KASIDY: There's Kira.

(KIRA has dodged into the pickup's range, between SEKHMET and RAND, the latter of whom is climbing off the containers in relief.)

RAND: Thank all Gods.

KIRA: (To SEKHMET): I challenge you! Rand is MY mate!

RAND: We don't have to prove that right here, do we?

BEVERLY: Oh, smooth one, Kira, you're dead!

(SEKHMET drops her folded hands and lets her eyes roll down, staring at KIRA with a give-me-a-fucking-break look on her face.)

KIRA: Er...yeah, me and Rand, I guess that is pretty unbelievable, even to a Vulcan in plak tow. Hm...how about this? (She whirls on RAND.) I challenge you for Sekhmet!

RAND: Uh...can you make it quick?

KIRA: Quick as I can. (RAND closes her eyes. KIRA socks her a good one on the jaw, knocking her out of the frame.)

RAND: OW! I give! She's yours! Have fun!

(KIRA turns back to SEKHMET, who picks KIRA up, throws her over the cargo containers out of pickup range and jumps over to join her, doing a swan dive.)

RAND: (Staggering into the comm frame, holding her face and wiggling her jaw back and forth. Her head basket is now sticking out to starboard at a forty-five degree angle.) Let me just pull all this stuff together...the tools and components, too...

LEETA: How's she going to get everything here? She can't carry it all alone.

KEIKO: There'll be a cargo transporter in the bay. Can you work one, Rand?

RAND: Of course not, I'm a yeoman, not a techni--wait a minute. (A look of dawning creeps across her face as she releases her jaw.) I think I...I'm having a psychotemporal experience...I...of course! A future memory! A child could do it! A little child could do it! I can operate the transporter! I'll see you all in a minute!

DAX: Hurry, you may not have much time for all of it!

(RAND vanishes from the frame and we are left with a view of the containers. They are getting a bit jostled. A snowstorm of white cashmere scraps is flying out on all sides. Inarticulate shrieks and gasps. The picture abruptly cuts off.

(There is a solemn silence on the bridge.)

CRUSHER: If she couldn't fight Sekhmet, she had to...you know...or Sekhmet would die.

DAX: (gently setting LEETA on her feet and standing up.) Friends and compatriot members of the Rapture Dozen, I would like to publicly thank my friend and first officer Kira Nerys, who has sacrificed herself to save DS9, USS Voyager and three starships Enterprise, not to mention fellow Rapture Rats Sekhmet and Rand. We will observe a moment of silence. (LEETA, whimpering like Beaker from the Muppet show (which is much cuter coming from her than from JULIAN) hides her face in DAX's shoulder. DAX puts a comforting arm around her.)

(The solemn moment proceeds. A minute later, KEIKO speaks.)

KEIKO: Nice knowing you, Major. I bet you kick ass in the next life, too.

KASIDY: Amen to that.

(The door opens and CHAPEL and B'ELANNA enter. CHAPEL has bits of electrical insulation clinging to her uniform and hair, and sports a disgruntled expression. Her pantyhose look pretty bad.)

B'ELANNA: We just heard a really weird thing over the comm speakers in the forward bay.

DAX: By any chance, might it have been Vulcan love poetry and Bajoran profanity?

B'ELANNA: Uh...

(KASIDY explains the situation. CHAPEL and B'ELANNA frown in concern.)

B'ELANNA: Do you think there's any hope?

DAX: (Sighs) Was your mission successful?

B'ELANNA: Yeah, though it looked a little grim there for a minute. I had to cold-cock my own transporter chief.

CHAPEL: And that Vulcan teenager.

B'ELANNA: Yeah, but that's a good thing, see.

RAND (Over comm) Rand to Kasidy. I'm aboard. Nyota says we have everything except Sekhmet and whatever might be left of Kira.

BEVERLY: (To DAX:) You can't *really* mean to leave without Sekhmet and Kira! Sekhmet may need medical help, and there's a chance Kira's still alive! It'd be...it'd be inhuman!

(Everybody looks at DAX, then back at BEVERLY.)

BEVERLY: All right, I walked into that--but I've both boffed and rooted around inside a couple of your people, joined and all, and there's not that much difference. What I mean to say is, we've got to at least try to get to them, now that we've got everything else we need aboard!

DAX: I hate the idea of leaving them too, but we have to consider the larger picture--and if we wait too long and get caught, or if whoever goes to get them gets grabbed--

BEVERLY: (imploring, to KASIDY) Captain Yates!

KASIDY: Hey, I'm just the wheels here. Commander Flush Toilet is in charge.

(Comm bleep. DAX turns to her board.)

DAX: Oh for chrissakes--someone's signaling from the lock!

TASHA: Should I answer it? I know how to talk to security teams.

KASIDY: This is Yates of the freighter Xhosa. Thanks, but we're registered to vote, we gave at the office, we're ready to die, we don't take Avon, we--

KIRA: Damn it, Kasidy, open this fucking door! We're sorta conspicuous and it's drafty. And I'm about to lose my grip on the script.

DAX (slapping the lock controls as there is much confused rejoicing) What happened? How did you--oh gods, did you--

KIRA: Boy, you folks have short memories. Let's just say there isn't much that can hold up long to the horniest woman in four different series. Which is why I go through men like Kleenex.

TASHA: (eyes huge) You mean Sekhmet...she's all right, too?

KIRA: Got her right here, asleep but okay, with a grin on her face that likely means she's dreaming about having a Marlboro.

ALL: (stunned)

KEIKO: It took you all of maybe--five minutes? To *wear out* a VULCAN IN PON FARR?

KIRA: Hey, we're short on time...but I gotta admit I'll probably never lay down five better minutes of work.

ALL: (Stunned, still, as they listen to KIRA carry SEKHMET through the lock and start the outer boarding passage door lock)

KIRA: You people all right up there? Thanks, Uhura, Rand...

TASHA: (Beginning a chant that the others quickly pick up) Ki-RA, Ki-RA, KI-RA, KI-*RA*... (chant gradually speeds up and gets louder until it dissolves in whoops and applause and high-fives. BEVERLY begins to jazz-tap in a circle around the captain's chair.)

KEIKO: Our hats are off to you, Major!

B'ELANNA (performing a three-way bump-and-grind with TASHA and KASIDY): Yeah, you're the *stuff*, lady!

DAX: And maybe I shouldn't have been so hasty with that turn-down...what do you think, Leeta?

(LEETA grins and pats DAX's anatomy.)

KEIKO: (taking the helm) Let's get moving!

(Fade as we...)

BREAK FOR COMMERCIAL

FADE IN

(SISKO'S office. Camera pans around to show JANEWAY, PICARD and KIRK flanking him where he sits in his desk chair, looking at his computer screen. JANEWAY is briefing everyone on her findings.)

JANEWAY: ...and I believe that this is the solution she intends because of the nature of the rupture, the way it was caused, the specific equipment stolen and taken aboard the Xhosa, and the fact that the Xhosa is managing to hide its position in sensor ghosts--they knew we'd try to stop them. You see, I think she intends to knock the rupture into a reversal of its own formation.

SISKO: And this will accomplish what?

JANEWAY: If it's done just right, it should set in motion a retraction of all events that have occurred back to the point of the rupture's initial appearance.

PICARD: It would alter the past?

JANEWAY: That's right. Not only that, but if the pulses aren't set precisely, it might cause the reversal back to some point between the rupture's formation and the initiation of the emitter pulses, which means the past would be altered only to a point--the rupture would still have formed, and the universe would be caught in a repeating loop as events play themselves out over and over again.

KIRK: Hell, we get more than enough of *that* during rerun season.

SISKO: There must be some reason Dax would settle on such a dangerous course of action. What will happen if the rupture isn't closed soon?

JANEWAY: At this rate of expansion, it will have engulfed the Bajoran system in a little over a month, but there is a more immediate danger; there's no way to tell what will happen if it contacts the wormhole directly.

PICARD: What possibilities do you see?

JANEWAY: For one thing, we could all wind up in the Q continuum. (elaborate shudder)

SISKO: (tiredly) Ah, shit, not with him again...

KIRK: What's so wrong with this Q thing?

PICARD: (who has turned pink and is pulling his jacket tighter) Trust us!

SISKO: But that's not a certainty?

JANEWAY: No, no. This situation is unprecedented. We have only theoretical models to go by, and none of those so far have involved merry-go-rounds or toilets.

KIRK: Is there any way to close the rupture besides the tall babe's plan?

JANEWAY: I haven't found one yet, nor has Mr. Spock or Captain Picard's people--which doesn't mean there isn't one, and the alteration of the past alone is enough reason to be cautious about this solution.

PICARD: Yes, it's important to be sure that this is an aberrant timeline and we would be reinstating the proper past, not changing what must be.

SISKO: Swell. The time cops are going to be all over my ass.

KIRK: Yeah, they're not too fond of me, either.

JANEWAY: There is one other thing; Dax must intend to send a message to her past self in some way, or she'll only go ahead with her plans again--creating the same causal loop an error in the pulse frequency would.

SISKO: She may know something we don't. She's pretty bent, but she wouldn't go running off into something like this without reason.

JANEWAY: Not to mention she's convinced members of all our crews to help her, pretty much all of whom would have to understand the ramifications of Dax's plan.

SISKO: Well, I suppose it's more my responsibility to get to the bottom of this than anyone else's, plus the Defiant's sensors should have an easier time of tracking the specific whereabouts of the Xhosa than we can manage from the station here. Besides, you and Captain Picard, Captain Janeway, have missing people to hunt for, assuming the rest of our crew are all on the Xhosa.

JANEWAY (checking script): Yes, they're all there. Plus a couple of extras. What's Ezri?

KIRK: Isn't it a kind of torte?

PICARD: I thought it was a color. Rather like teal.

CUT TO

(The bridge of the Xhosa. KEIKO is still at conn. BEVERLY is at internal systems. UHURA's boots are visible under the console she's presently working on. RAND, dressed in a Final Frontier Madonna bra, tap pants, hose and go-go boots, is transferring data from her tricorder to the computer. TASHA, DAX, B'ELANNA and LEETA are not present. KASIDY is slumped in a strangely familiar pose in the command chair, leaning to one side, brows lowered, chin braced on a fist as she stares at the viewscreen. CHAPEL is covering the stand-around-by-the-Captain's-chair post. KIRA, dressed in a red TOS jumper and her earring, and having a dreamy smirk on her face, is seated at a station, idly running data. SEKHMET is asleep in the floor next to her, also dressed in a red TOS jumper and nothing else, with her head resting on KIRA's leg. She is smiling.)

KIRA: Uh, Kasidy...I was wondering if it'd be okay if I asked Uhura or Dax to get the data clip out of your security monitors and get rid of the shots of me coming aboard wearing nothing but my earring, a padd and a naked Vulcan? I know a Ferengi who'd devote the last fraction of energy he has to getting hold of it if he ever found out it existed.

KASIDY: (Slowly raises her head and looks at KIRA, then grins.) Okay. But I get a look at it before they scramble it.

KIRA: (snorts) Pull it up and put it onscreen. I don't care if *you* folks see it. And Sekhmet wouldn't care if you lit her hair on fire.

UHURA (nearly dislodges her earpiece banging her head on the top of the console she's under in her haste to scoot out; she is also in a Madonna bra and tap pants): Shouldn't we call...who's not here...Dax and B'Elanna and Tash...?

KEIKO (muttered): Oh my...

RAND (pulls a stylus out of her hair and bops KEIKO on the head with it) Give THAT one about a two.

KEIKO: I can't help it. I have kids. Uhura, you forgot Leeta.

KASIDY: Say, Keiko--how come you know how to pilot a freighter?

KEIKO: I knew how to run Worf's console and interpret the scans on that medical tricorder, didn't I? The writer doesn't think I get enough to do.

KIRA: She can do that?

KEIKO: Sure. It's fanfic.

KIRA (to camera) You think I could have my caftan back? This thing's pretty comfy, but Uhura's going to catch a chill.

UHURA: Nah, it's warm in the circuitry.

{No, Nerys. Keiko knowing how to do everything is my comment on her being underdeveloped on the show, Rosalind Chao's preference to be a semi-regular notwithstanding. Besides, I think you look cute like that.}

KIRA: Oh. Thanks.

BEVERLY (puzzled): Kira, who are you talking to?

KIRA: The writer. Over there. The little black-haired chick.

BEVERLY: I don't see anyone.

(The bridge door opens and DAX and B'ELANNA come in, looking embarrassed.)

DAX: Hi, everybody. The good news is we've nearly got the emitters up and running, and Uhura's finished hooking up the scrambler she built that'll keep anyone from fixing our position too closely for a while. The bad news...um...we were running a test and we sort of had the intertemporal monitor on "suck" instead of "blow", and, um...

(Looking dazed, onto the bridge steps EZRI DAX, being steadied by LEETA.)

DAX: ...we are now the Rapture Thirteen.

EZRI: Hi. What's going on? Why's everybody...

LEETA: Let me explain. (she puts an arm around EZRI and drags her off to the other end of the bridge.)

DAX: Evidently she's a future host of mine.

KEIKO: Head trip, big time.

KIRA: Hey, Kas--we've got a ship coming in. Seems to be heading straight for us.

UHURA: That shouldn't be possible. What kind of ship?

KIRA: Nothing I recognize, no ID signal...

KEIKO: We've got a transmission coming in from...it looks like it's from the same ship.

KASIDY: On screen.

(The screen lights. SEVEN, in a blue catsuit, is seen with the interior of the Delta Flyer behind her.)

SEVEN: This is Seven of Nine of the starship Voyager.

B'ELANNA: The hell you are.

SEVEN: Your confusion is not surprising. I have apparently passed through a temporal/spatial rupture of some sort; according to the chronometers I have lost several years of time, which would mean you have not met me yet, but I assume by your presence here that you also--

B'ELANNA: Who are you again?

SEVEN: As I have stated, I am Seven of Nine of the starship Voyager.

UHURA: How come you can see where we are?

SEVEN: This ship, the Delta Flyer, has unusually accurate--

KASIDY: If you're Voyager crew, what are you doing in the, what is it, Delta Flyer?

SEVEN: (Rolls her eyes and settles in to deal with a bunch of stupid non-Borg asking irrelevant questions.)

CUT TO

(SEVEN of Nine is standing in the shuttle receiving bay in front of the Delta Flyer. KIRA, JADZIA, and B'ELANNA have come to meet her.

DAX: Go for it, B'Eybi.

B'ELANNA (stepping forward) You claim you're from Voyager. So who's the Captain? Who's the Ops officer? Who bit my butt for better duty day before yesterday?

SEVEN: Our Captain is Kathryn Janeway. Our alpha-shift Ops officer is usually Harry Kim. And as for who most often likes to bite your--

B'ELANNA: She's the goods!

DAX: Check it out.

KIRA: Fellow Rats, we are in the presence of GREATNESS!

SEVEN: Greatness. Explain.

DAX: (smirk) It means that you have achieved the pinnacle of what any of us can hope to achieve in a certain area. Perhaps, even, you have overshadowed us and gone beyond what we'd *want* to achieve. By the way, where the hell do you keep your internal organs? In those things? I could never achieve that.

B'ELANNA (from inside Delta Flyer): Hey, Jadz. Achieve this.

DAX: What?

B'ELANNA: This could be a lot of help. Come see.

(KIRA and SEVEN climb in too.)

SEVEN: I must ask you not to adjust the control settings.

B'ELANNA: How can you compensate for galactic stellar drift if your navacomp hasn't got--

SEVEN: You would be referring to the Flyer's chaos equivalency monitors.

DAX: But stellar motion isn't chaotic.

SEVEN: It is if you're lost in the Delta Quadrant with Tom Paris at the helm.

DAX: Look at this--say, Seven, I'm having a problem controlling the wake and exterior harmonic resonances in the pulse gun array I'm building; they keep drifting back on each other and creating interference, and it throws off my calibrations because I'm constantly having to compensate. Do you understand how this stuff here works?

SEVEN: I built large portions of it.

(B'ELANNA and DAX grin and do a high-five.)

B'ELANNA: Hot DAMN!

DAX: C'mon, Seven, you're our newest Rat. We're working on a way to get you home, but we need your help.

SEVEN: Home? Of course. What do you require?

KIRA (beckoning): Right this way, Chesty Morgan.

(DAX grabs the curiously exploring B'ELANNA's arm and drags her off the Delta Flyer by main force.)

DAX: Let's go, B'Eybi. We've got a lot to do and not much time to do it in.

B'ELANNA: Right, yeah, I'm coming...

SEVEN (to B'ELANNA): "Baby"? Explain.

KIRA: It's a pet name.

SEVEN: A pet name? Is "Rat" a pet name?

DAX: The writer's being cute. We had to scavenge most of what we needed for this project; there wasn't time to get hold of it any other way. And we've been sneaking around a lot.

B'ELANNA: Still..."Rat"...

KIRA: S'better than "Cockroach". And scavenge? We stole it.

DAX: Details.

SEVEN: And "Chesty Morgan?" Also a pet name?

CUT TO

(The bridge of the Defiant. Most everybody from DS9 who's left is on hand, except for WORF, whom SISKO has left in Command of the station.)

CUT TO

(Ops. Camera zooms in on SISKO's office, to WOR