FIC: A Moment In Time (Watchmen/Star Trek/Tekken Crossover)
Righty. Here's a little more of my usual randomness for everyone. Welcome to a new fandom addiction of mine.
Title: A Moment In Time
Characters:
Jon Osterman, Kazuya Mishima, USS Legacy crew (part one)
Jon Osterman, most of the surviving Watchmen cast (part two)
Warnings: Obvious spoilers for just about everything. Also, it's a multi-crossover. WTF!
This is basically a sideline of a story I'm writing...which is the story of the USS Legacy, and her crew - captained by a resurrected Kazuya Mishima (shoosh). Most of the beginning of this story is explanation of what/how/why, so if you've never read anything else of mine...bear with me.
Notes: There are literally four stories that happen before this one, and all are works in progress. This is set post-Nemesis (if you're not into Star Trek in even a little way, this may not be the fic for you), and along the COMIC ending for Watchmen, NOT THE MOVIE. Thanks. :3
Disclaimer: Everything except the OC crew of the USS Legacy belongs to someone else.
Rating: M (mature) at the moment - you never know when language or nautiness will happen.
Edit: Less rambling, more coherent...
"Captain..."
"Yes, lieutenant?"
"What are you doing?"
A long pause. "...concentrating."
The pale-haired man, hardly a standout in any manner of speaking, drummed his stocky fingers against the side of the Ops station impatiently. "On what exactly, sir?"
The Captain turned his gaze from the ceiling to fix his dark eyes on the shorter officer. Tall, muscular, and with particularly distinctive Japanese features, his presence dominated the Bridge; not the least being his Samurai-like looks. "No offense Tim, but it's hardly anything you would understand." Unusually deep, remarkably smooth, the soft tone in his voice was enough to seemingly pacify the blonde officer.
As perpetual silence followed, the Bridge crew resumed staring at the starfield streaking on by. A quiet mission for once; it was not something the battle-ready crew of the USS Legacy were used to.
In fact, it had been one of the few times of peace and quiet the Starfleet vessel had seen in its lifetime. Born for war, its crew hand-picked likewise, the one-of-a-kind Sovereign X-class dreadnought had seen, survived and won more battles than many five-year-old vessels ever had in the entire fleet.
Her Captain was a proverbial man of steel: hardened from years of battles - hand-to-hand, gun-to-gun, ship-to-ship - he was unflappable to the point the crew had often considered him to be devoid of emotion. But that wasn't the least of what made him unusual; born unnaturally strong and trained to be a frighteningly efficient martial artist, Captain Kazuya Mishima was not a child of the 24th Century. He'd lived the majority of his life in the 20th and 21st Centuries, but had been placed in stasis during a world pandemic after becoming afflicted himself. Upon his awakening in the mid-to-late 24th Century, he had blended into life in the modern world surprisingly quickly - once the best Starfleet had to offer in the way of medical intervention had sorted a few minor bugs out. As a result, he hadn't aged a day since his resurrection despite having been around for a good fifteen years in modern times.
The USS Legacy's First Officer was something more of a mystery, oddly enough. Romulan, taller than the Captain, Torek T'Mor was an imposing figure; though, despite his physical size his youthful, almost 'innocent' features betrayed his rank.
His reupitation also betrayed him. He had escaped his own people when he was a mere sixteen years old - escaped a life of abuse, of mistrust - and prepared to join Starfleet. For ten years after graduating Starfleet Academy with honours he'd led an illustrious career, ending with being second-in-command of the ill-fated USS Taniwha - where he'd faked his own death to rejoin the Romulan Star Empire.
Peace between the two empires had long since been sealed - after the disaster with the Reman Warbird four years ago, the two empires had managed to succeed in expanding the non-aggression agreement into full-blown free trade and a military agreement. Both parties recognised T'Mor as having a huge stake in the success of the proceedings, but as he had re-joined Starfleet where he left off, there were those that questioned his motives.
Yet here he sat, amongst what would have once been termed a 'World-class' Bridge crew.
Tania Murphy - infallible Irish woman with nerves of iron - stood behind the Tactical station with a scowl on her face. She shoved a handful of her unruly orange hair out of the way of bright green eyes, running the fingers of her other hand deftly across the console; yes she looked the part of the cliche, and she hated it. It wasn't something anyone dared to bother her about, however; she was hardly an attractive, svelte woman and as the Chief of Security aboard one of Starfleet's finest ships, she was not the kind people tried to fight physically.
"Smith. Can ye run a passive scan f' tachyon particles?" Deep and husky, her thick accent cut through the silence on the Bridge.
"Huh?" Tim's azure orbs flicked over in her direction. Though he was not nearly as physically impressive as the commanding officers, his relative genius was what landed him the job; it didn't stop him from seeming just the average guy.
"Look. Fer. Tachyons." She growled through gritted teeth, enunciating every syllable as clearly as she could.
"Oh! Right, sorry." He set to work tapping at the console immediately.
T'Mor took the opportunity to turn around in his seat before Murphy, looking over his shoulder with one pointed brow raised. "May I ask why?" Though his voice was not quite as deep and penetrating as the Captain's, its soft, smooth baritone was a certain calming influence on the crew.
Murphy raised one ginger eyebrow. "I have a feelin' about somethin', sir. I feel as though somethin's out there."
"...what?" The Romulan's incredulous expression echoed the tone of his voice.
Murphy spat a few words under her breath - unaware that the sharp ears of the two commanding officers. Fuckin' males, do they ever use anything but caveman speak...
"I sense something too. Continue the scan." Mishima cut in before anything else could happen, though he shot his Chief of Security a glare.
No one really ever queried the Captain's decisions aboard the Legacy. For new officers and for those from other Federation ships, it was a highly unusual command structure that wasn't readily understood.
Too often people would forget the first few years of the Legacy's service. She had seen so much. She'd battled the Borg and come away in one piece; she'd battled upstarts from so many sources it made the head spin. The crew were bred for the same, and had been put to the test at least once. One particular instance involved a land battle on the surface of a planet occupied by rebels.
That battle seemed to be tipping in Federation favour after only a short few minutes. Most of the Legacy ground force were armed with Phaser Compression Rifles, but Mishima was one of the few strong enough and accurate enough to make use of a Photon Burst. The rebels had begun to retreat when the Photon Burst, instead of releasing a deafening charge of energy forth like a rocket, began to make a terrible squealing sound. As the shrill squeal got louder and louder, Kazuya threw it off his shoulder and turned to run...
...but it was too late. The weapon detonated, ripping to atoms everything within an immediate five-metre radius of ground zero, and leaving an impressive crater behind.
The USS Legacy's crew won the battle, but lost their captain.
The crew had struggled on for a few months without their captain - Starfleet didn't have the resources to immediately replace Mishima, and had temporarily appointed Commander T'Mor as the ship's commanding officer. While on a fairly mundane mission, the vessel had encountered a particularly unusual nebula; small and comprised of near-nonsensical elements, they couldn't help but detour to investigate.
As they neared the nebula the ship's counsellor had burst onto the Bridge, rambling incoherently and excitedly about a 'presence' in the cloud. As a Betazoid with some fairly impressive skills, he had proven invaluable to the crew in situations like these.
Needless to say, after a few hours of scanning, debating and hoping, they discovered that their captain hadn't been blown to bits entirely. His weapon had detonated at exactly the right frequency to dissipate him to atoms, but maintained his consciousness...
It hadn't taken him long to figure out how to draw himself into a different form; namely, a perfect facsimile of his old self. The nebula cloud was the easiest, most natural...but the hardest to communicate with, and it'd quickly outgrown its usefulness. After a short time the crew had realised that he was more than just a human, a mere mortal...he was something far more omniscient.
It was for that reason that here, today, they did not question whether they waste their time scanning on Murphy's hunch. With his abilities ever-expanding, Kazuya was a force to be reckoned with...potentially one of the greatest in the galaxy.
"Nope...coming up with nothing." Smith sighed, resting his hands against his station. "Nothing out of the ordinary for this part of space."
"Really?" Murphy tapped a few buttons. "Wha' about you, Cap'n?"
The Captain continued to stare casually at the ceiling before settling back to the viewscreen and the starfield. "Nothing. Nothing yet, anyway. I'm sure time will tell either way...Qo'Rath. What's our ETA?"
The Klingon helmsman ground his teeth. Surely you know the answer to that, along with all the other answers to the universe... "Eleven hours, sir." Rough, gravelly, the Qo'Rath's tone gave away none of his insubordinate thoughts - simply respect.
I can choose not to use those abilities, you know. The Captain's voice echoing noislessly in his head gave the Klingon a case of involuntary shivers...he made a mental note to keep his thoughts to himself for the rest of the day, and resumed grinding his teeth.
"Thank you Lieutenant. Now..." Kazuya glanced down at the panel at the end of his armrest. "One more minute before the night shift arrives. That makes it about four more minutes until we find out what's for dinner..."
***
"What the hell is this?" Jetrel poked at his meal tentatively with a fork. He was 'the other Romulan' on the ship, though he was the first of the two aboard the Legacy. As tall as the First Officer but slightly stockier in appearance, the Chief Engineer was often muddled with T'Mor. This was despite his more traditional hairstyle, harsher features and startling sky-blue eyes.
"...I think it's chicken." T'Mor was sitting opposite him at one of the longer tables in the mess hall; it made their subtle differences clearer to the crew who, even several years on, still had trouble from time to time. Torek was clearly the more youthful of the two, whereas Jetrel simply looked forlorn in comparison.
"Was chicken." Qo'Rath muttered. "I hate cooked bird."
"We know..." Torek smirked. "We've been through this before."
A few pokes of forks later Mishima arrived at the table, sitting down in the spare seat beside T'Mor with a plate of the same.
Jetrel glanced up at him. "Did they say what kind of chicken this once was?"
As Tania also joined the table, he shrugged. "Apricot Chicken Curry, I believe." More game than anyone else at the table, he speared an inch-squared piece of orange-slathered chicken, and bit into it. A few chews and he hesitated...wrinkled his nose...and resumed eating.
Jetrel did the same, but could barely force himself to keep eating after stopping halfway through the first bite. "Oh my f-...Captain, make it better! Please! That's just offensive." He mumbled through his half-masticated mouthful.
"That would be cheating, Commander." Mishima flashed him a mischievous smirk.
"C'mon! Please! This is not chicken, or curry...there's no hint of apricot either!" Murphy whined, mouth full.
"Like I said...that would be cheating!" Scowling, Mishima took another mouthful as a very blonde Betazoid male joined the group at the table.
"Hideous! Disastrous! It's...it's..." The lilt in his voice gave him away as of the more flamboyant persuasion. "Come on, please, just this once Captain!"
"Hey, no queue jumping Amin!" The Klingon barked. "Us first!" He took a moment to scowl at the Japanese man at the other end of their group. "It's not like you need to eat anyway, you can't feel our pain..."
"But I do anyway." He dropped his fork on the table. "And I can taste it just as well as you can. Better, in fact."
All eyes pleadingly upon him, the Captain sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingers. "This better not become a regular event, alright?" He dropped one hand to the table; the other, he held out between everyone. Slender fingers spread wide, he hovered his right from one end of the group to the other. Following his path was a wave of transformation across each plate, the bomb site on each tray shifting, morphing, bubbling...
Each toxic-looking soup quickly became a veritable delight; steaming roast chicken to one side of the plate, vegetables and stewed apricots beside it, and a serving of rice padding out the last third of every officer's meal. The aroma wafting up from the table went from off-putting to simply marvellous; a marriage of juicy roasted poultry and fresh vegetable forcing everyone to salivate.
"Don't get too excited. I just rearranged a few things." Mishima scowled playfully down the bench at his officers, and silently resumed eating what was now a far more appetising meal.
"If I didn't value my life to such a degree, I'd kiss you..." Amin gushed in a rather over-the-top manner before digging in himself.
There were chuckles across the table, though more at the glare that the Betazoid received than the statement itself. "Don't make me turn you into something less bipedal..."
"Ooh, what'cha got there?" A blue-collared woman passed by with her plate of god-knows-what, grinning down at their somewhat different spread. Her tall hourglass figure was well-known throughout the ship, her notorious unavailability even moreso. Short, silky black hair and cerulean eyes along with a distinctly English accent, Josie was a crewmember easily committed to memory...
"None of your business, Davis!" Qo'Rath snapped, punctuating it with a cheeky poke of his tongue.
"Fine, I don't like you either!" She stalked off dramatically, nose high in the air, as the rest of the table laughed. Ah, good times - when the crew can get away with taking the mickey out of each other without any feelings being hurt.
As the meals began to disappear, the conversation of the rest of the mess hall overwhelmed what wasn't being discussed here. They had been given a gift - reprieve from the trainee cook's disasterpieces - and they weren't about to waste it with conversation. Still, as the two Romulans were the first to finish, they threw their forks down almost in unison, Jetrel leaning back with a happy sigh and Torek sitting forward on his elbows.
"So tell me," the latter began. "What's it like exactly, not having to eat and all...just doing so for the sake of it?"
Kazuya cast his eyes toward his First Officer, shrugging. "It's difficult to explain." He swallowed his final mouthful. "I exist on a completely different principal to everyone else here. I am matter or energy, whichever I choose to be at the time. I can manipulate either. I can manipulate time too, as you saw the other day." As he tidied his tray up and pushed it away, he sat back with a sigh. "I still don't fully understand it myself...that's why I tend to ignore it most of the time. It's easier being pseudo-human."
"What's it like, being not quite...you still have all the same senses as us, right?" Tania piped up as she too finished her meal. Oddly enough this was one of the few conversations that'd been had on this topic, openly, with the crew.
Perhaps it was Kazuya's discomfort with the idea of being so different. He shifted in his seat. "Essentially, yes. I can compact my presence into a perfect representation of my body before the accident, scars and all. My senses are fairly human as a result, albeit quite heightened. For example...I can smell that Qo'Rath here hasn't showered in over a day."
The Klingon scowled, wrapping his arms around his stomach. "I've been busy!"
"But don't you try and explore these abilities...see how you can use them?" T'Mor asked quietly.
"What do you think I do at night, sleep?" Kazuya gave his trademark smirk...despite his best efforts, it always appeared slightly evil.
"You snore." Torek smirked right back.
"...uh, how do you know he snores?" The other Romulan perked one pointed brow.
"My secret..."
"My body may snore, sure. But I'm not there with it." Kazuya scowled somewhat. "I explore, most nights - since I'm not in my quarters I simply leave my body behind so the ship's computer knows at least some of me is still on board." Sensing that everyone was expecting more of an answer, he continued. "Sometimes I just have a glance at nearby stars...have a feel of what they are made of. Sometimes I'll have a look at other galaxies...I've discovered a few things beyond there that I'm not exactly at liberty to share. I've learned how to create and break quite a number of things...at this rate I'll be giving our omnipotent friends a run for their money."
Before any more questions could be asked, a particularly loud and particularly Australian voice cut through the mess hall's silence. "Oi! Marcus! We're meant to be in Holodeck 3 in a tick! Get your arse down there!" A red-faced crewman and several others got to their feet sheepishly as the Aussie stomped back out at a great pace.
"Should give him a talking-to?" Torek grinned.
"Neh. Wait until he's hungover tomorrow morning, and wake him up early for his shift. Nice and loudly so his head rings." Mishima's face was without expression.
"That could work. Anyway...time for a shower and some much-needed R&R before bed. Thanks for dinner, Captain." Torek took his plates, disposed of them, and headed out of the mess hall with a contented smile. It wasn't long before the rest of the table - no, the rest of the room - was doing the same. The night was drawing on, and tomorrow, they would be at their destination.
***
The peace and quiet of his quarters was no longer something he could take for granted. Kazuya's former retreat now hummed noisily with the purr of the ship's power grid. Vibration from the nacelles - propelling the ship at Warp Six through open space - travelled down through every surface in the ship. He could feel it in every cell, every atom of his restructured body; it was less of an annoyance and more of an observation however, another way of exploring, sensing and being aware of his surroundings. He considered it almost a pity that no one else could hear or feel that same feedback as it were.
Tonight was different to others, however. Murphy's hunch had been a mere human hunch, but it had been surprisingly accurate; there was something out there, but Kazuya had no idea what it was exactly. Unusual particles? Yep. Strange movements thereof, throughout the entire sector? Indeed. But what else, he couldn't quite decide. A presence? Perhaps.
Bedtime was without ritual; simply stripping down to his boxers and hitting the sheets with an unceremonious thud, the Captain was soon staring at the ceiling idly. The Legacy's thrumming was more of a nuisance in the dead of the night. The being within the human body, the thing that was no longer exactly human, was as usual breaking through the facade, the control; soon it was no longer just the vibrations of the ship he could sense but every conversation, every footstep, every heartbeat. And now, there was something else out there...whispering to him, begging him to come and explore. Kazuya Mishima found it maddening. The Entity, intriguing...
It was time to let Mishima sleep. As his body drifted into a light slumber, Kazuya's true form watched the rise and fall of his own chest from above for a few moments. It was a sight he would never entirely get used to - disembodiment, being literally beside himself. The human that remained within would never fully understand most of what he witnessed, most of what he knew.
Finally he drifted out through the window and bulkheads, into open space. Because his velocity matched that of the Legacy it appeared to simply glide through space beside him, growing smaller and smaller as he drifted away.
These particles...there were more of them outside the ship. Nonsensical, impossible to properly read, he hadn't a clue what they were. Naturally, it simply heightened a curiosity he would normally ignore; leave it to Starfleet's scientists to do the probing, the exploring, the wondering. After all, it was more interesting to watch humanity's virgin eyes discover secrets of the universe he already had the answers for.
But here was something new. Something unexplored, unexplained. Perhaps it was a tingle of excitement that drove him onward - this was something unknown, as inconsequential as it may seem, but something new all the same.
Curiosity getting the better of him, Kazuya spread himself out across as much space in the area that he could whilst still keeping track of the USS Legacy; yes, there were more particles out here for sure, and they were growing denser as they grew closer to their destination. As he filtered by them, he pulled them with him; they posed no danger to life from what he could feel, but that was about all he could tell at this point.
Sweeping up as many of the particles as he could, Kazuya pulled them close into a nebula where they were most concentrated already. They would be safe here...he would be able to study them later. It had taken longer than he'd expected to round up as many of them as he could, and in just an hour or two he'd be due on the Bridge for another shift. He couldn't be bothered playing games with Time itself tonight...that priviledge was reserved for emergencies and emergencies alone.
The particles seemed happy sitting as they were placed. Just a little energy nebula, nothing special...but the Legacy would certainly start to pick it up tomorrow morning. He left it where he put it, safe and sound, and drifted back to the ship. With the shields down for casual transport, it was particularly easy to simply drift back in through the bulkheads and back into his waiting body. And what a sensation it was - the closest comparison he could draw would simply be squeezing back into well-worn, warm, comfortable clothing after going for a walk in the fresh, brisk morning air. The confines of a human body - even a faux one - were still familiar, comforting...something Kazuya would not give up for anything.
Title: A Moment In Time
Characters:
Jon Osterman, Kazuya Mishima, USS Legacy crew (part one)
Jon Osterman, most of the surviving Watchmen cast (part two)
Warnings: Obvious spoilers for just about everything. Also, it's a multi-crossover. WTF!
This is basically a sideline of a story I'm writing...which is the story of the USS Legacy, and her crew - captained by a resurrected Kazuya Mishima (shoosh). Most of the beginning of this story is explanation of what/how/why, so if you've never read anything else of mine...bear with me.
Notes: There are literally four stories that happen before this one, and all are works in progress. This is set post-Nemesis (if you're not into Star Trek in even a little way, this may not be the fic for you), and along the COMIC ending for Watchmen, NOT THE MOVIE. Thanks. :3
Disclaimer: Everything except the OC crew of the USS Legacy belongs to someone else.
Rating: M (mature) at the moment - you never know when language or nautiness will happen.
Edit: Less rambling, more coherent...
"Captain..."
"Yes, lieutenant?"
"What are you doing?"
A long pause. "...concentrating."
The pale-haired man, hardly a standout in any manner of speaking, drummed his stocky fingers against the side of the Ops station impatiently. "On what exactly, sir?"
The Captain turned his gaze from the ceiling to fix his dark eyes on the shorter officer. Tall, muscular, and with particularly distinctive Japanese features, his presence dominated the Bridge; not the least being his Samurai-like looks. "No offense Tim, but it's hardly anything you would understand." Unusually deep, remarkably smooth, the soft tone in his voice was enough to seemingly pacify the blonde officer.
As perpetual silence followed, the Bridge crew resumed staring at the starfield streaking on by. A quiet mission for once; it was not something the battle-ready crew of the USS Legacy were used to.
In fact, it had been one of the few times of peace and quiet the Starfleet vessel had seen in its lifetime. Born for war, its crew hand-picked likewise, the one-of-a-kind Sovereign X-class dreadnought had seen, survived and won more battles than many five-year-old vessels ever had in the entire fleet.
Her Captain was a proverbial man of steel: hardened from years of battles - hand-to-hand, gun-to-gun, ship-to-ship - he was unflappable to the point the crew had often considered him to be devoid of emotion. But that wasn't the least of what made him unusual; born unnaturally strong and trained to be a frighteningly efficient martial artist, Captain Kazuya Mishima was not a child of the 24th Century. He'd lived the majority of his life in the 20th and 21st Centuries, but had been placed in stasis during a world pandemic after becoming afflicted himself. Upon his awakening in the mid-to-late 24th Century, he had blended into life in the modern world surprisingly quickly - once the best Starfleet had to offer in the way of medical intervention had sorted a few minor bugs out. As a result, he hadn't aged a day since his resurrection despite having been around for a good fifteen years in modern times.
The USS Legacy's First Officer was something more of a mystery, oddly enough. Romulan, taller than the Captain, Torek T'Mor was an imposing figure; though, despite his physical size his youthful, almost 'innocent' features betrayed his rank.
His reupitation also betrayed him. He had escaped his own people when he was a mere sixteen years old - escaped a life of abuse, of mistrust - and prepared to join Starfleet. For ten years after graduating Starfleet Academy with honours he'd led an illustrious career, ending with being second-in-command of the ill-fated USS Taniwha - where he'd faked his own death to rejoin the Romulan Star Empire.
Peace between the two empires had long since been sealed - after the disaster with the Reman Warbird four years ago, the two empires had managed to succeed in expanding the non-aggression agreement into full-blown free trade and a military agreement. Both parties recognised T'Mor as having a huge stake in the success of the proceedings, but as he had re-joined Starfleet where he left off, there were those that questioned his motives.
Yet here he sat, amongst what would have once been termed a 'World-class' Bridge crew.
Tania Murphy - infallible Irish woman with nerves of iron - stood behind the Tactical station with a scowl on her face. She shoved a handful of her unruly orange hair out of the way of bright green eyes, running the fingers of her other hand deftly across the console; yes she looked the part of the cliche, and she hated it. It wasn't something anyone dared to bother her about, however; she was hardly an attractive, svelte woman and as the Chief of Security aboard one of Starfleet's finest ships, she was not the kind people tried to fight physically.
"Smith. Can ye run a passive scan f' tachyon particles?" Deep and husky, her thick accent cut through the silence on the Bridge.
"Huh?" Tim's azure orbs flicked over in her direction. Though he was not nearly as physically impressive as the commanding officers, his relative genius was what landed him the job; it didn't stop him from seeming just the average guy.
"Look. Fer. Tachyons." She growled through gritted teeth, enunciating every syllable as clearly as she could.
"Oh! Right, sorry." He set to work tapping at the console immediately.
T'Mor took the opportunity to turn around in his seat before Murphy, looking over his shoulder with one pointed brow raised. "May I ask why?" Though his voice was not quite as deep and penetrating as the Captain's, its soft, smooth baritone was a certain calming influence on the crew.
Murphy raised one ginger eyebrow. "I have a feelin' about somethin', sir. I feel as though somethin's out there."
"...what?" The Romulan's incredulous expression echoed the tone of his voice.
Murphy spat a few words under her breath - unaware that the sharp ears of the two commanding officers. Fuckin' males, do they ever use anything but caveman speak...
"I sense something too. Continue the scan." Mishima cut in before anything else could happen, though he shot his Chief of Security a glare.
No one really ever queried the Captain's decisions aboard the Legacy. For new officers and for those from other Federation ships, it was a highly unusual command structure that wasn't readily understood.
Too often people would forget the first few years of the Legacy's service. She had seen so much. She'd battled the Borg and come away in one piece; she'd battled upstarts from so many sources it made the head spin. The crew were bred for the same, and had been put to the test at least once. One particular instance involved a land battle on the surface of a planet occupied by rebels.
That battle seemed to be tipping in Federation favour after only a short few minutes. Most of the Legacy ground force were armed with Phaser Compression Rifles, but Mishima was one of the few strong enough and accurate enough to make use of a Photon Burst. The rebels had begun to retreat when the Photon Burst, instead of releasing a deafening charge of energy forth like a rocket, began to make a terrible squealing sound. As the shrill squeal got louder and louder, Kazuya threw it off his shoulder and turned to run...
...but it was too late. The weapon detonated, ripping to atoms everything within an immediate five-metre radius of ground zero, and leaving an impressive crater behind.
The USS Legacy's crew won the battle, but lost their captain.
The crew had struggled on for a few months without their captain - Starfleet didn't have the resources to immediately replace Mishima, and had temporarily appointed Commander T'Mor as the ship's commanding officer. While on a fairly mundane mission, the vessel had encountered a particularly unusual nebula; small and comprised of near-nonsensical elements, they couldn't help but detour to investigate.
As they neared the nebula the ship's counsellor had burst onto the Bridge, rambling incoherently and excitedly about a 'presence' in the cloud. As a Betazoid with some fairly impressive skills, he had proven invaluable to the crew in situations like these.
Needless to say, after a few hours of scanning, debating and hoping, they discovered that their captain hadn't been blown to bits entirely. His weapon had detonated at exactly the right frequency to dissipate him to atoms, but maintained his consciousness...
It hadn't taken him long to figure out how to draw himself into a different form; namely, a perfect facsimile of his old self. The nebula cloud was the easiest, most natural...but the hardest to communicate with, and it'd quickly outgrown its usefulness. After a short time the crew had realised that he was more than just a human, a mere mortal...he was something far more omniscient.
It was for that reason that here, today, they did not question whether they waste their time scanning on Murphy's hunch. With his abilities ever-expanding, Kazuya was a force to be reckoned with...potentially one of the greatest in the galaxy.
"Nope...coming up with nothing." Smith sighed, resting his hands against his station. "Nothing out of the ordinary for this part of space."
"Really?" Murphy tapped a few buttons. "Wha' about you, Cap'n?"
The Captain continued to stare casually at the ceiling before settling back to the viewscreen and the starfield. "Nothing. Nothing yet, anyway. I'm sure time will tell either way...Qo'Rath. What's our ETA?"
The Klingon helmsman ground his teeth. Surely you know the answer to that, along with all the other answers to the universe... "Eleven hours, sir." Rough, gravelly, the Qo'Rath's tone gave away none of his insubordinate thoughts - simply respect.
I can choose not to use those abilities, you know. The Captain's voice echoing noislessly in his head gave the Klingon a case of involuntary shivers...he made a mental note to keep his thoughts to himself for the rest of the day, and resumed grinding his teeth.
"Thank you Lieutenant. Now..." Kazuya glanced down at the panel at the end of his armrest. "One more minute before the night shift arrives. That makes it about four more minutes until we find out what's for dinner..."
***
"What the hell is this?" Jetrel poked at his meal tentatively with a fork. He was 'the other Romulan' on the ship, though he was the first of the two aboard the Legacy. As tall as the First Officer but slightly stockier in appearance, the Chief Engineer was often muddled with T'Mor. This was despite his more traditional hairstyle, harsher features and startling sky-blue eyes.
"...I think it's chicken." T'Mor was sitting opposite him at one of the longer tables in the mess hall; it made their subtle differences clearer to the crew who, even several years on, still had trouble from time to time. Torek was clearly the more youthful of the two, whereas Jetrel simply looked forlorn in comparison.
"Was chicken." Qo'Rath muttered. "I hate cooked bird."
"We know..." Torek smirked. "We've been through this before."
A few pokes of forks later Mishima arrived at the table, sitting down in the spare seat beside T'Mor with a plate of the same.
Jetrel glanced up at him. "Did they say what kind of chicken this once was?"
As Tania also joined the table, he shrugged. "Apricot Chicken Curry, I believe." More game than anyone else at the table, he speared an inch-squared piece of orange-slathered chicken, and bit into it. A few chews and he hesitated...wrinkled his nose...and resumed eating.
Jetrel did the same, but could barely force himself to keep eating after stopping halfway through the first bite. "Oh my f-...Captain, make it better! Please! That's just offensive." He mumbled through his half-masticated mouthful.
"That would be cheating, Commander." Mishima flashed him a mischievous smirk.
"C'mon! Please! This is not chicken, or curry...there's no hint of apricot either!" Murphy whined, mouth full.
"Like I said...that would be cheating!" Scowling, Mishima took another mouthful as a very blonde Betazoid male joined the group at the table.
"Hideous! Disastrous! It's...it's..." The lilt in his voice gave him away as of the more flamboyant persuasion. "Come on, please, just this once Captain!"
"Hey, no queue jumping Amin!" The Klingon barked. "Us first!" He took a moment to scowl at the Japanese man at the other end of their group. "It's not like you need to eat anyway, you can't feel our pain..."
"But I do anyway." He dropped his fork on the table. "And I can taste it just as well as you can. Better, in fact."
All eyes pleadingly upon him, the Captain sighed and rubbed his temples with his fingers. "This better not become a regular event, alright?" He dropped one hand to the table; the other, he held out between everyone. Slender fingers spread wide, he hovered his right from one end of the group to the other. Following his path was a wave of transformation across each plate, the bomb site on each tray shifting, morphing, bubbling...
Each toxic-looking soup quickly became a veritable delight; steaming roast chicken to one side of the plate, vegetables and stewed apricots beside it, and a serving of rice padding out the last third of every officer's meal. The aroma wafting up from the table went from off-putting to simply marvellous; a marriage of juicy roasted poultry and fresh vegetable forcing everyone to salivate.
"Don't get too excited. I just rearranged a few things." Mishima scowled playfully down the bench at his officers, and silently resumed eating what was now a far more appetising meal.
"If I didn't value my life to such a degree, I'd kiss you..." Amin gushed in a rather over-the-top manner before digging in himself.
There were chuckles across the table, though more at the glare that the Betazoid received than the statement itself. "Don't make me turn you into something less bipedal..."
"Ooh, what'cha got there?" A blue-collared woman passed by with her plate of god-knows-what, grinning down at their somewhat different spread. Her tall hourglass figure was well-known throughout the ship, her notorious unavailability even moreso. Short, silky black hair and cerulean eyes along with a distinctly English accent, Josie was a crewmember easily committed to memory...
"None of your business, Davis!" Qo'Rath snapped, punctuating it with a cheeky poke of his tongue.
"Fine, I don't like you either!" She stalked off dramatically, nose high in the air, as the rest of the table laughed. Ah, good times - when the crew can get away with taking the mickey out of each other without any feelings being hurt.
As the meals began to disappear, the conversation of the rest of the mess hall overwhelmed what wasn't being discussed here. They had been given a gift - reprieve from the trainee cook's disasterpieces - and they weren't about to waste it with conversation. Still, as the two Romulans were the first to finish, they threw their forks down almost in unison, Jetrel leaning back with a happy sigh and Torek sitting forward on his elbows.
"So tell me," the latter began. "What's it like exactly, not having to eat and all...just doing so for the sake of it?"
Kazuya cast his eyes toward his First Officer, shrugging. "It's difficult to explain." He swallowed his final mouthful. "I exist on a completely different principal to everyone else here. I am matter or energy, whichever I choose to be at the time. I can manipulate either. I can manipulate time too, as you saw the other day." As he tidied his tray up and pushed it away, he sat back with a sigh. "I still don't fully understand it myself...that's why I tend to ignore it most of the time. It's easier being pseudo-human."
"What's it like, being not quite...you still have all the same senses as us, right?" Tania piped up as she too finished her meal. Oddly enough this was one of the few conversations that'd been had on this topic, openly, with the crew.
Perhaps it was Kazuya's discomfort with the idea of being so different. He shifted in his seat. "Essentially, yes. I can compact my presence into a perfect representation of my body before the accident, scars and all. My senses are fairly human as a result, albeit quite heightened. For example...I can smell that Qo'Rath here hasn't showered in over a day."
The Klingon scowled, wrapping his arms around his stomach. "I've been busy!"
"But don't you try and explore these abilities...see how you can use them?" T'Mor asked quietly.
"What do you think I do at night, sleep?" Kazuya gave his trademark smirk...despite his best efforts, it always appeared slightly evil.
"You snore." Torek smirked right back.
"...uh, how do you know he snores?" The other Romulan perked one pointed brow.
"My secret..."
"My body may snore, sure. But I'm not there with it." Kazuya scowled somewhat. "I explore, most nights - since I'm not in my quarters I simply leave my body behind so the ship's computer knows at least some of me is still on board." Sensing that everyone was expecting more of an answer, he continued. "Sometimes I just have a glance at nearby stars...have a feel of what they are made of. Sometimes I'll have a look at other galaxies...I've discovered a few things beyond there that I'm not exactly at liberty to share. I've learned how to create and break quite a number of things...at this rate I'll be giving our omnipotent friends a run for their money."
Before any more questions could be asked, a particularly loud and particularly Australian voice cut through the mess hall's silence. "Oi! Marcus! We're meant to be in Holodeck 3 in a tick! Get your arse down there!" A red-faced crewman and several others got to their feet sheepishly as the Aussie stomped back out at a great pace.
"Should give him a talking-to?" Torek grinned.
"Neh. Wait until he's hungover tomorrow morning, and wake him up early for his shift. Nice and loudly so his head rings." Mishima's face was without expression.
"That could work. Anyway...time for a shower and some much-needed R&R before bed. Thanks for dinner, Captain." Torek took his plates, disposed of them, and headed out of the mess hall with a contented smile. It wasn't long before the rest of the table - no, the rest of the room - was doing the same. The night was drawing on, and tomorrow, they would be at their destination.
***
The peace and quiet of his quarters was no longer something he could take for granted. Kazuya's former retreat now hummed noisily with the purr of the ship's power grid. Vibration from the nacelles - propelling the ship at Warp Six through open space - travelled down through every surface in the ship. He could feel it in every cell, every atom of his restructured body; it was less of an annoyance and more of an observation however, another way of exploring, sensing and being aware of his surroundings. He considered it almost a pity that no one else could hear or feel that same feedback as it were.
Tonight was different to others, however. Murphy's hunch had been a mere human hunch, but it had been surprisingly accurate; there was something out there, but Kazuya had no idea what it was exactly. Unusual particles? Yep. Strange movements thereof, throughout the entire sector? Indeed. But what else, he couldn't quite decide. A presence? Perhaps.
Bedtime was without ritual; simply stripping down to his boxers and hitting the sheets with an unceremonious thud, the Captain was soon staring at the ceiling idly. The Legacy's thrumming was more of a nuisance in the dead of the night. The being within the human body, the thing that was no longer exactly human, was as usual breaking through the facade, the control; soon it was no longer just the vibrations of the ship he could sense but every conversation, every footstep, every heartbeat. And now, there was something else out there...whispering to him, begging him to come and explore. Kazuya Mishima found it maddening. The Entity, intriguing...
It was time to let Mishima sleep. As his body drifted into a light slumber, Kazuya's true form watched the rise and fall of his own chest from above for a few moments. It was a sight he would never entirely get used to - disembodiment, being literally beside himself. The human that remained within would never fully understand most of what he witnessed, most of what he knew.
Finally he drifted out through the window and bulkheads, into open space. Because his velocity matched that of the Legacy it appeared to simply glide through space beside him, growing smaller and smaller as he drifted away.
These particles...there were more of them outside the ship. Nonsensical, impossible to properly read, he hadn't a clue what they were. Naturally, it simply heightened a curiosity he would normally ignore; leave it to Starfleet's scientists to do the probing, the exploring, the wondering. After all, it was more interesting to watch humanity's virgin eyes discover secrets of the universe he already had the answers for.
But here was something new. Something unexplored, unexplained. Perhaps it was a tingle of excitement that drove him onward - this was something unknown, as inconsequential as it may seem, but something new all the same.
Curiosity getting the better of him, Kazuya spread himself out across as much space in the area that he could whilst still keeping track of the USS Legacy; yes, there were more particles out here for sure, and they were growing denser as they grew closer to their destination. As he filtered by them, he pulled them with him; they posed no danger to life from what he could feel, but that was about all he could tell at this point.
Sweeping up as many of the particles as he could, Kazuya pulled them close into a nebula where they were most concentrated already. They would be safe here...he would be able to study them later. It had taken longer than he'd expected to round up as many of them as he could, and in just an hour or two he'd be due on the Bridge for another shift. He couldn't be bothered playing games with Time itself tonight...that priviledge was reserved for emergencies and emergencies alone.
The particles seemed happy sitting as they were placed. Just a little energy nebula, nothing special...but the Legacy would certainly start to pick it up tomorrow morning. He left it where he put it, safe and sound, and drifted back to the ship. With the shields down for casual transport, it was particularly easy to simply drift back in through the bulkheads and back into his waiting body. And what a sensation it was - the closest comparison he could draw would simply be squeezing back into well-worn, warm, comfortable clothing after going for a walk in the fresh, brisk morning air. The confines of a human body - even a faux one - were still familiar, comforting...something Kazuya would not give up for anything.