Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newshosting.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!yellow.newsread.com!news-toy.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!POSTED.newshog.newsread.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated Approved: ascem@earthlink.net Organization: Better Living Thru TrekSmut Sender: ascem@earthlink.net Message-ID: From: "Layla V." MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEML@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEML-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: NEW VOY "Absolute Power" Prologue 1/21 (C/P, J, AU) [NC-17] Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 303 Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:55:04 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.142.218 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: newshog.newsread.com 1092142504 209.198.142.218 (Tue, 10 Aug 2004 08:55:04 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 08:55:04 EDT Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated:82600 X-Received-Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 05:55:10 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) TITLE: "Absolute Power" Prologue (July 2004) AUTHOR: Layla V CONTACT: v_layla@hotmail.com WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/laylatrek ARCHIVING: Personal website, CPSG, Cha_Club, ASCEML SERIES: Star Trek Voyager RATING: NC-17 for violence, sex and language PART: 1 of 21 CODES: C/P, J/m, P/T implied, All Voyager characters, AU, Angst, H/c, OCC SUMMARY: Voyager's encounter with an intergalactic STORY NOTES: Evil!Janeway alert. Diehard Janeway fans would probably not enjoy this much. This is not a Janeway most of you saw in canon, but I must admit this portrayal is still based on glimpses I saw of the character on screen at times. I have simply grabbed hold of those few 'enlightening' moments and taken them in a whole new twisted direction. Janeway's background is loosely built around events from Jeri Taylor's 'Mosaic', which I have *not* read, so if you find any discrepancies, it would be best to take them in stride. It's an AU after all. Written for the Die J/C Die contest 2004: http://www.geocities.com/thespiritwalk/jc.html DISCLAIMER: All characters, other than the original ones created by me, are owned by Paramount. I am merely playing. No copyright infringement is intended. NOTES: Thank you, Britta, for your clearheaded suggestions Prologue **2376 Indiana, Earth, the Alpha Quadrant** The sunlight filtering through the beautiful mahogany Victorian screen sprinkled generously on the floor of the sun porch. The polished marble gleamed underneath her bare feet, her shoes uncharacteristically left somewhere inside the house at this time of the day. It was noon, a time of invigoration and activity for the Madame's usually alert disposition. But the old mathematician's discerning mind was indefensibly occupied with thoughts of dismay. An old faithful orderly peeked out at the lady of the house from the shadows inside, and furrowed his brows in concern. It was old age, he thought. Age, and the loneliness and grief of losing so many people she'd loved in her lifetime, he assured himself, as he clucked sadly and shuffled back to his chores. But he was quite mistaken. It wasn't age that troubled the Madame right now. Far from it. With a veined fine-boned hand, she picked up the datapadd from her lap, flicked on the display with her thumb, and stared at the numbers and words once again. As it had done each time she'd read this message in the last forty-eight hours, her heart stopped for one long breathless moment, as she swallowed hard, her eyes blinking back the wetness that suddenly crept beneath her eyelids. Her sorrow was as black and deep as it had been all these years, and as new and suffocatingly fresh as it had been that fateful day so many years ago. With a staggering sigh, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the cushioned backrest of her chair, biting her lower lip in pain. Twenty-four years. Twenty-four long, painful years of lies and deception and treachery. Of a strange and silent investigation--a painstaking search for a truth so terrible that it was unimaginable to think that a thing like that could've actually occurred. A shuttle crash that had devastated an entire family. Two lives lost and yet so many more broken down by grief. The grief, which had been so obvious to everyone: the pain that had been so publicly and heartbreakingly displayed in front of an entire audience. Was it all a deception? An elaborate façade erected simply to hide a hate so vehement, so intense that it had taken twenty-four years to unravel its many despicable, befouling layers? She shook her head in a denial, which was almost futile. The figures and the words told her that the evidence had finally been laid bare, was out in the open. The shuttle crash had not been an accident. After twenty-four years, Starfleet had found an active code hidden in the recovered debris--the activator switch of the disruption program that had apparently caused the crash. A code that had been very painstakingly and very deliberately timed and programmed by someone who was very, very good. Starfleet were now only searching for the identity of the individual that secret code belonged to. The moment they had it, they'd know who was responsible for the crash all those years ago. But it was silly, wasn't it? She already knew whose code it was. They had to be wrong. They had to have made a mistake somewhere. With a shaking hand, the old woman punched the console closed, letting the datapadd fall back into her lap, and closed her eyes once more. They surely had to have made a terrible, terrible mistake. # # **2376 A lone starship in the Delta Quadrant** Her limbs tangled in sheets soaked with her own sweat, her dream hot and furious in its utter and total vehemence. A voice came to her through the thick fog that was her mind. *I'm warning you*, it said, the usually tempered tones pitched low and hoarse, dangerously insolent in anger. *I won't let you cross that line again*, the voice stressed insultingly, as it crossed the line itself into naked rebellion. Her fingers clenched into tiny balls and her nails dug into her palms without mercy, as the bed sheets bunched beneath her, her body coiling in hate, a low growl rising from her throat. *Then you leave me no choice*, said her own voice--the tones icy and ruthless, coming out of lips thinned with distaste. No choice. There was no other choice. Never had been. Never would be. She tossed and turned on her bed. The nails digging into her palms cut through the flesh in their anger, and hot blood trickled out of the tiny wounds. But she remained caught in her never-ending nightmare, never waking up to notice the damage she'd caused. # # The vision was disturbing on more levels than one. The alien vista laid out before him was a piercing, biting, frigid blue. The leaves, the trees, the flora at his feet; even the grass stirring restlessly in the acrid foul wind blowing down the high ground--all the same shade. The sights were like nothing he'd ever seen on any world in his long lifetime. Neither on the hundreds or so Federation outposts he'd visited back home. Nor on any of the worlds he'd come across in the Delta Quadrant. The sky was a burning hot red, the color of Human blood, clouded with heavy plumes of smoke--undoubtedly the source of the burnt caustic stench. The surroundings were hostile, the air dense with condensation and painfully suffocating--unlike the welcoming thickness of his homeworld's clean air. Even the forest floor somehow seemed alive--eerily moving, shifting, buckling under his feet. And when he looked closely, he saw that it indeed *was* alive. Hundreds and thousands of tiny arachnid-like creatures poured out of the quaking, fractured earth. Their gleaming, black, segmented bodies covered in a chitinous exoskeleton, from which protruded pairs of claw-like limbs--retracting and extending endlessly in an ominous dance of destruction. From their deadly fanged orifices came menacing hissing sounds, terrifying and utterly baneful in their snarling message, making the hairs at his nape rise in disquiet. But it wasn't the frigid, forbidding blue of the foliage, wasn't the blazing crimson sky, wasn't the malevolent earth swelling with the creatures bursting out of its hidden black depths, that brought him to his feet in consternation. What sent the shiver down his spine was the sight of the strangely familiar being standing before his eyes, struggling in the midst of all that chaos. A large Terran wolf--a male of the species--stood before him, surrounded by the menacing creatures. Looking utterly displaced in the harsh alien environment, the animal bared its canines and snarled in fury as the creatures pinned it down. Its thick shaggy coat, which should have been a shining silver-gray, seemed marred with hideous scars streaked with what could only have been blood. He watched as the spidery beasts attempted to climb the canine's limbs repeatedly, watched as the wolf strove and fought against the creatures, its growls low and loud with agitation. He felt his heart lurch in trepidation as the aliens' fangs sank in the warm fur-coated flesh, making the animal howl in pain, even as it snapped its jaws and wrenched at the malicious creatures in defense, its incisors sinking into and crushing its tormentors in single, lethal bites. However it was one, alone, and faced with brutally uneven odds--as the moment it would get rid of one creature clinging to one part of its bloodied body, another would attack it from elsewhere, once again sinking its claws into its flesh. Standing there, watching this gory conflict proceed before him, he became aware of the dire futility of the situation. The wolf would fight to its last breath, but would ultimately succumb to its tragic fate--the realization unexpectedly filling him with an illogical surge of pain. Yet, as was the case in all unforeseen visions, there was more to this situation than met the eye. His attention was suddenly, unexpectedly, diverted as a long distraught cry sounded through the cold harsh forest. His eyes flew to the burning blood-streaked sky, where he saw a bird flapping between the stifling clouds of smoke. His eyes widened as he realized it was a Terran eagle, a large, long-winged specimen, hovering in the sky, shrieking in anger. His brow furrowed as he noticed the wolf's sudden distraction at the bird's appearance, its growls sounding more and more pained and furious. Suddenly the soaring bird screeched and plunged down at the entrapped wolf, its talons extended, its gold-feathered wings whipping at near-light speed. With the raptor's sharp beak ready for grasping, it attacked the spidery creatures, seizing them with its curved long claws, tearing them into pieces. As he watched, a strange tableau of events unfolded before his eyes. Over and over, the eagle rose high into the sky, screaming in frenzy, and then dove down at the surrounded wolf--attacking the alien creatures, trying to defend the wounded animal. With this new attack coming, the arachnids too diverted part of their attention to their new nemesis--leaping into the air to attack just as the eagle plunged down at them. He felt his disconcertion grow as he saw the wolf disregard the spiders sinking their fangs into its own flesh, and instead snarled and snapped at the ones that leapt to attack the bird. Its growls grew louder with each passing nanosecond, as more and more creatures attacked it from all directions; and the eagle screeched and plunged down to attack them, striving to save the wolf. Such an uncanny, inexplicable combination: the eagle shielding the wounded wolf, the wolf forgetting its own pain to protect the eagle--two counterparts that couldn't have been more dissimilar, more contrary than the other. What was the link between the two animals? He strained to comprehend as the cries of the fighting beasts filled his senses. And then the vision ended, suddenly, and as abruptly, as it had begun. He blinked through the swirling plumes of smoke coming out of his meditation lamps and tried to bring his thoughts into order. He was in his quarters, his surroundings as calm and quiet as always--and yet he felt a discordant confusion in his mind, a whirling cacophony of increasing alarm. He slowly rose from his sitting position on the floor, brought his robes closer around him, and walked to the viewport. Stars streaked by the window as the ship made its way across uncharted space at warp speed. A premonition; an omen of things to come. There was no logical explanation for the uninvited vision, other than the conclusion that it was a forewarning of some sort. As he looked at the stars, the Vulcan impelled his inner calm to return, for his mental shields to reassert themselves--as they'd done so many times in his life. But his ears continued to ring with the jarring echoes of the wolf's painful howls, and the eagle's affronted shrieks. The stars streaked by long into the night, and his discomfiture remained his everlasting companion. # # Continued in Chap 1a _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML. NewMessage: