Title: The Alternative Factor

Author: Odon

Fandom: Star Trek Voyager

Pairing: Torres/Seven, among others

Rated: PG-13.

Status: Complete. Series/Sequel: No.

Summary: As Voyager draws to the end of its seventh year in the Delta Quadrant, strange things begin to happen. Parody.

Warning: This story contains coarse language and homosexual references contrary to Paramount canon.

Disclaimer: No profit is intended in the writing of this story. Star Trek: Voyager and its characters are the property of Paramount and Viacom.

THE ALTERNATIVE FACTOR

by Odon

"All right," said Captain Janeway as she glared around the briefing room. "WHERE has it gone?"

The senior officers of the USS Voyager shifted in their seats and looked generally uncomfortable. Chakotay pretended to be engrossed in last night’s sensor logs. B’Elanna Torres appeared to find the surface of the table particularly intriguing.

As usual when no one else spoke up it fell to Harry Kim to be the one foolish enough to do so.

"There's a number of possibilities Captain," he said. "It might be a fault in the internal sensor array. I mean, Voyager’s a big ship. It could just be . . . crawling around somewhere."

Captain Janeway turned a cold look on the young ensign. "Just . . . crawling around somewhere," she said, her voice the quiet whisper of the grave.

Harry developed a sudden fascination with the contents of his padd.

"WAKE UP PEOPLE!" shouted Janeway, making them all jump. "We took a big risk bringing that Borg baby onto this ship, and now you’re telling me it’s gone missing? That no one has seen it in more than a YEAR? I want answers!"

"Maybe the little tyke’s got its own built-in cloaking device," quipped Paris. "After all, it is the next generation of Borg drone!"

"It’s possible that the subunit in question was pulled into a subspace whirlpool," said Seven of Nine.

"A subspace what?" asked Chakotay.

"A subspace whirlpool," said Janeway, looking grim. "I got caught in one just before I was assigned to Voyager. Nasty business, it sucked all my hair up onto the top of my head. Took me three years to get it down."

"Maybe the baby’s Borg technology makes it impervious to our sensors," said B’Elanna.

"And maybe your sensors are inefficient," Seven replied in a superior tone. "By scanning with an inverse polaron field we can__"

The former drone broke off, her eyes widening in shock. A full gamut of emotions flickered across Seven’s normally ice-like features. "Captain, my emotional inhibitor appears to have malfunctioned! I am experiencing strong feelings, particularly . . . love!"

"Love?" asked the Doctor, whipping out his medical tricorder.

"Yes!" cried the Borg, turning wide blue eyes on B’Elanna. "Lieutenant Torres, I have this irrational urge to copulate with you in a turbolift!"

The entire bridge crew gaped at her, their astonishment only compounded when Seven of Nine abruptly vanished.

"Ensign Kim, scan for subspace whirlpools!" cried Janeway, alarmed at the sudden disappearance of her Astrometrics officer.

"Yes ma’am . . . but shouldn’t that be LIEUTENANT Kim?"

"When did you get that, Harry?" asked Tom, noticing the extra pip on his collar.

"Don’t you mean, ‘When did you get that, SIR?’" said Lieutenant Kim testily. He sounded very different from the over-eager ensign they were used to – more like a hardened veteran of seven years in the Delta Quadrant.

"Captain, we may be experiencing a phenomenon known as Roddenberry’s Paradox," said Tuvix. "I believe it was Seven of Nine’s sudden attraction to an individual of the same gender that caused her to disappear. Although homosexual liaisons are supposed to occur on Starfleet vessels, for some reason we never actually see them. It is theorised that gay people are being pulled into a parallel universe where they can engage in such activities openly. This theory was verified by one Major Kira of the Bajoran Militia, who witnessed her bisexual self in an alternative version of Deep Space Nine."

"Then we’re shifting in and out of an alternate reality? That’s ridiculous!" scoffed Ensign Kashyk, former Inspector of the Devore Imperium. "What does the Chief Engineer say?"

"It’s possible," admitted Joe Carey. "A similar effect was experienced by a Lieutenant Worf who was posted to the USS Enterprise."

"But what’s creating this, and how do we stop it?" said Harry Kim as he suddenly gained the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Chakotay turned to their pointy-eared Security Chief. "How about adjusting the shield harmonics, er . . . I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name."

The attractive female alien glared at him. "It’s Kellin, and I’m your girlfriend you big oaf!"

"Sorry, I keep forgetting."

"Alternative realities? I don’t notice anything different," protested Tom Paris. He turned to his wife. "Do you, Kes?"

The Ocompan was sitting wide-eyed in her seat. "Captain, I’m feeling something strange . . . "

"That’s my hand on your knee," said the Doctor with a smirk. The less-competent Chief Engineer Carey had never been able to fully purge that Lord Byron subroutine.

"What is it, Kes?" asked Janeway, whose hairstyle had changed yet again (though that might have been perfectly normal).

Suddenly everyone turned into salamanders.

"Report, Lieutenant Paris," commanded a salamander with captain’s pips.

"Just a few more days at Warp Ten and we’ll be back in the Alpha Quadrant," replied another amphibian. "And our kids are doing fine, Kathryn. Cute little tadpoles, they are."

"I’m going to nail your tail to the wall for this when we get back," muttered Janeway as she grabbed a tongueful of caffeine-coated flies. "There’s no way the others at the Captain’s Club are going to let me live THIS down."

A salamander with a Borg ocular implant above one eye appeared on the comm screen. "Captain, astrometric sensors are picking up a temporal disruption__"

Everyone changed back into human form, staring incredulously at each other.

"What the hell was THAT?" said Janeway, putting her head between her legs to see if she still had a tail.

Voyager shuddered and the red alert klaxon went off. "Bridge to the Captain, we’re under attack!"

"Well things certainly appear to be back to normal NOW," muttered Paris. He bumped into Harry Kim as they charged out the ready room door. "Sorry Admiral."

"You incompetent idiots," yelled Chakotay as he stormed onto the bridge. "How is it we can scan for hundreds of light years, yet never pick up these bastards until they’re shooting phaser beams up our bums?!"

Janeway looked at Chakotay in surprise. That was more lines than Chakotay had said in the past ten episodes! She was supposed to be the one saying all that gung-ho stuff! But rather than protest Janeway just stood there like a lump of wood, wrinkling her facial tattoo in bewilderment.

Former Red Squad member B’Elanna Torres, her hands clasped behind her ramrod-straight back, gave Seven an arrogant look. "Your gratuitous displays of temper are inefficient."

"Load photon torpedoes!" ordered Chakotay as he took a swig of black coffee. A determined set had come to his jaw, a cold gleam to his eye, and a Riker-like beard sprouted from his chin. "Fire!" he commanded in a Jonathan Frakes tone.

"They’re hailing us Captain," said Tom Paris, who’d been reduced to the rank of soon-to-be-bumped-off extra.

The sound of hail bouncing off the hull filled the bridge and the usual Hardheaded Alien of the Week appeared on the viewscreen. Like many other such species they’d encountered, he was a humanoid with strange latex-like growths on his forehead and nose. A large pair of Force Ten sunglasses protected his eyes.

"Why are you firing on us?" roared Captain Chakotay, showing more balls than he had in seven seasons of canon.

"Don’t you know that your look is known as a Glare of Death, Captain?" said the alien, indicating his protective sunnies. He stepped closer to the screen and promptly tripped over a console in the darkened cabin. "We know of Voyager’s reputation. Declaring war on the Kazon. Raiding planets for fresh coffee. The Borg whose enormous breasts make resisting her futile. A Talaxian cook whose leola root stew is feared throughout the Quadrant. The impossible-to-kill Harry Kim." He squinted down at his panel. "And what’s this temporal flux I’m reading? Are you behind that as well?"

All of a sudden the view of the alien captain changed to the interior of a Borg cube.

Numerous drones were staggering around in their usual half-asleep state. "We are Bored," they droned (or something similar anyway). "Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistanzzzzzzz . . . " Their voices trailed off as the Borg fell completely unconscious. It was time to regenerate.

Chakotay rolled his eyes. "Remember the old days when these guys were Starfleet’s worst nightmare? Things have really gone downhill with the Collective since Voyager came to the Delta Quadrant!"

"Let’s massacre the bastards while they’re asleep," said the captain. "Lieutenant Commander Neelix, at my command fire three photon torpedoes armed with biogenic warheads. Crewman Tuvok, phaser any escape pods. And make sure you do it properly you green-blooded, pointy-eared Starfleet snitch!"

"But what about mercy, compassion and all our other Federation ideals?" protested Ship’s Counselor Annika Hansen.

"Fuck ‘em," said Captain Seska, as she groped Chakotay’s ass. "Hail the Equinox, Chuckles. Ask Captain Ransom how his experiments on those aliens are going."

"Captain!" said Ensign Jonas. "I’m picking up a disturbance in the space-time continuum__"

An attractive alien woman replaced the Borg cube on the viewscreen. "Greetings, strangers to our world," she said, her foot-long tongue flicking sensuously. "I am the Kunni Lingus of Tribade Sixty-Nine. You are welcome here, especially if you are female and good in bed."

"What happened, Ensign Janeway?" asked the Emergency Command Hologram, surprised at this unusual First Contact. "I seem to remember something about encountering the Borg."

"According to our scans Captain, there are five billion lesbians down there!" said Janeway in alarm. As an attractive yet expendable ensign she was particularly vulnerable. If she beamed down to this planet on an away mission she'd undoubtedly be eaten alive!

"That’s impossible!" said Chief Medical Officer Paris. "There’s not five lesbians in the whole Star Trek universe, let alone five billion! Where did they all come from?"

"It is possible that the alternative reality shift has created a higher incidence of homosexuality," said Morale Officer Tuvok, as he groped Chakotay’s ass. "What is your opinion, Lieutenant Torres?"

"Don’t ask me. I’m a soldier not an engineer," said Security Chief Torres, as she fondled Seven’s tits. "I don’t know any of that fancy technobabble stuff."

"I’m picking up a subspace disturbance that might be causing it," moaned Seven of Nine. "It’s a Starfleet shuttlecraft in a state of temporal flux. It looks like something out of . . . Batman?"

"On screen! On screen!" ordered the President of the United Federation of Planets, Harry Kim.

Janeway was surprised to find herself staring back at her from the viewscreen, looking even older and crazier than usual.

"Sorry about that," said Admiral Janeway. "I had a slight problem adjusting the chronodeflector. You should all be back to normal now. Or whatever is normal for you."

"What do you think you’re doing?" sputtered Captain Janeway. "I mean what do I think I’m doing . . . I mean . . . you know what I mean! This is a direct violation of the Temporal Prime Directive!"

"Prime, schmime," scoffed the admiral. "Federation parameters, Starfleet regulations . . . I went 23 years without sex because of that rubbish, and look what it’s done to me!" she shouted, indicating her white hair. "Well I’m going to change things. Kathryn, I want you to have sex with Chakotay. Hell, have sex with anybody! Just stop being such a sanctimonious bitch and GET LAID!"

"But I’m already involved with Seven!" protested Chakotay. "We’ve gone from First Date to First Contact in just fifteen minutes of screen time. I just hope the sex lasts longer!"

"Well I’m going to change all that," said Admiral Janeway, punching madly at her control panel. "Seven of Nine can bang B’Elanna for all I care. You know on second thoughts, I’ve always fancied Tom Paris. I think I’ll change the timeline so that she will!"

"WHAT?" shouted B’Elanna furiously. "You keep your hands off Tom, and even if you stranded us in the Delta Quadrant for seven THOUSAND years there’s no way I’d screw that stuck-up, arrogant petaQ of a Borg dro__"

"CAPTAIN!" yelled Kim. "I’M PICKING UP A MASSIVE TEMPORAL DISTURBANCE FROM THE TIMESHIP IT’S COMING RIGHT THROUGH OUR SHIE__"

B’Elanna Torres watched the Borg baby playing with her own child and sighed.

"Begin personal log, Stardate . . . ahh bugger it. Suffice to say we’ve just begun our EIGHTH year since the good Captain stranded us here in the DQ and we’re still not home. It’s been a lousy day. Had another argument with Tom over him shagging the captain to get his pips back. Been working my butt off, as the turbolifts seem to be breaking down for no apparent reason whenever Seven of Nine and I are inside. Maybe her Borg systems are affecting them in some way."

"About the only good thing that’s happening is Seven and I seem to be getting on a lot better now."

"In fact there are times when I find her quite . . . attractive."

THE END