Telvan's Leaps 1-3: What If?

Posted on Tue Aug 4th, 2020 @ 12:34pm by Captain Enalia Telvan

Mission: The Bulikaya Particle
Location: Various
Timeline: 2397

As Captain Enalia Telvan faded into existence, her first Bulukiya jump complete, her first thought was that it was freezing. It had to have been at most -50 degrees C on whatever remote planet she had been dumped on. Then in the dimly lit snow and ice-covered wasteland, she recognized something. A group of six people that she knew all too well.

Pulling her arms in tighter and rubbing her hands against herself to try and stay warm, she hoped that they weren’t who she thought they were as she shuffled towards them.

As soon as she saw the first of the faces, frozen in terror, she knew right where she was and what was going on.

She was back on Cetlik Seven.

The day she almost got her first crew killed.

In her reality their hair had all turned silver, a couple had lost limbs, and she had almost frozen them to death with a thermal fusion device. This meant that she had somehow been transported to an alternate reality where she had triggered the device early and failed to get them off the planet and away from the foot-long swarmers in time.

As she shuffled further into the group, she could see her old engineer with his legs torn off by the swarmers, locked in agony as he futilely tried to get the transporter online. She saw Schwein crushing them with her bare hands, her face twisted in rage. Sarika slicing through them with the hidden blades in her arms.

Then she saw herself. A look of subtle surprise locked on her face for all eternity. They had come here to freeze and exterminate the main hive after they had evacuated the colonists, then deactivate the device so the colonists could return. By now though... The whole moon would have long since been frozen and the colonists moved on.

Just as ice crystals started forming on her nose and she felt a strange tingling within her, Enalia reached out and pressed the deactivation trigger, beginning the thawing process and leaving a bit of her own skin behind, frozen in place as she vanished from that reality.

--------

A moment later, she was standing in a much warmer place, now looking around her own study. The fireplace was lit with a bright fire and after the cold she was in, it was a welcome sight. However, she assumed that this was also not her reality and was on guard.

Especially at the sound of a charging phase pistol behind her and the sound of her own voice. “Turn around slowly and tell me how you got in here, ‘fleeter.”

Holding her hands out to her sides as non threateningly as she could, she slowly turned around to be confronted by herself wearing the most on the nose pirate outfit she had ever tried on. It was little more than a bikini top with a black vest, shorts with a sash, holsters for three guns and a sword, swashbuckling boots, and a sea hat with a feather so big it looked like it made a thousand pimps cry out in envy. “There was an accident and I was transported to your universe. If things hold true, I should be out of your way any moment now.”

The time she spent in the last universe was what? About half a minute? It seemed like longer, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t long at all. Would she stay here that long? Twice that long? Until she did something? What was the trigger?

“I’m not buying it, ‘fleeter. I’ve had look alike assassins after me before and you’re by far the worst of them, coming in uniform and all that,” pirate Enalia replied with a sneer. “So you best give me a good reason not to kill you.”

“I could prove that I’m you and you’re me, just from different realities with a scan, but…” Enalia grinned that piratical grin of hers, knowing just how she thought. “I think I’d rather show you with my blade, wouldn’t you?” As she spoke, she reached over and pulled free a sword hidden in the fireplace tool rack. In her head she had been counting seconds and she had just passed 30 seconds - that meant this would take longer at the very least.

“Aye, to the blade with you then,” the pirate Enalia replied with the same grin as she swapped her pistol for her sword, not expecting the other-universe Enalia to know about the fireplace tool rack having a hidden sword in it.

Within several swings it was obvious that one was holding back. It was also obvious that they were trained by the same person. It was also obvious that one was out for blood.

“You haven’t trained against enough opponents,” the Starfleet opponent commented as she easily parried a thrust. It was far from easy as her counterpart in this universe was quicker, however she seemed to be far more experienced and thus had the upper hand.

“And what does that matter? I’m faster and stronger!” replied the piratical version, her grin turning to a sneer.

“Raw strength only goes so far. If you only fight a few opponents, you don’t learn how to take on a variety of different people and you leave yourself open.” With a quick flash of her sword, Enalia disarmed her opponent, the pirate’s sword flying straight up into the study’s vaulted ceiling and burying itself into the wood several centimeters. “Especially against people that have learned to use others’ speed and strength to their advantage.”

Now with the tip of a sword under her chin, the pirate Enalia was fuming but had to admit defeat. “And what is it that you want? You’ve bested me fair and square.”

Then she felt it - the same feeling deep inside her as last time, just as she hit sixty seconds. “Just learn to be better, I suppose,” Enalia called out as she dropped the sword and vanished.

--------

Commander Artan was asleep in her cot when Captain Telvan shimmered into existence on the other side of her cabin on the deep space monitoring station. Quickly taking stock of the situation, Enalia tried to stay still as she carefully looked around the room and assessed the situation she was in now.

There was a desk only a couple feet away so she reached over and tapped at the terminal, bringing up the display, lighting up the area around her. Thankfully, her in-universe counterpart seemed to be sleeping soundly enough.

A few more taps and she had her own service record. Commander... Not augmented... Father and sister ran a mining consortium... Mother passed not long after her birth due to complications. Joined Starfleet for a chance at a better future because a Captain Caldwell saved her during a mining accident and she wanted to help others in a similar fashion.

Then she felt it again - like a tingling. With a click, she shut off the desk terminal just in time before she vanished again.