The Fortyseventhspace Quarantine Zone was quiet, as it had been for the past year and a half. Though the portal to Fortyseventhspace was destroyed when Evil Braxton blew up the Relativity-G, the major powers of the galaxy saw fit to set up a warning system should anything out of the ordinary occur.
You might think this a stupid idea. To be sure, in any rational universe this would be a stupid idea. The portal had indeed been blown skyhigh. There was nothing left. At all. Not even a subspace instability.
But this is Star Trek. A universe where nobody ever stays dead. Except for Evil Braxton. He's staying dead. Anyway, nobody ever stays dead. And nothing ever stays destroyed...
And so nobody should have been suprised when something did stir in the Quarantine Zone...
***
At the same time, the evil crew of the evil Excelsior were still hiding out from both the Federation and the Vaadwaur. Most of the repairs had been completed, but the senior staff was still trying to figure out what to do next...
The evil Admiral Janeway sat alone in the dark in her ready room. She muttered to herself, "If we head towards the Federation, we'll be arrested and thrown back in prison. If we head towards the Vaadwaur, Gorei will probably have us skinned alive. Why couldn't it be Borg? I'm really good at fighting Borg. Everything else... not so good."
"Go back to Vaadwaur space..."
"Who said that? Zo'or, is that you?"
"Uh... No, not me."
"It is too you! I'm sending someone down there to kick your rear end right now!"
"Aw..."
"And I'm sure you're doing some sort of stupid hand gesture. Stop it now!"
"Aw..."
Janeway's plan to have Zo'or beaten up was interrupted when warning klaxons started going off on the bridge next door. Janeway stormed out of her ready room. "What's going on out here?"
The senior staff all pointed to various screens around the bridge. Every one of those screens was flashing the number 47 over and over and over.
Dark Helmet asked, "Admiral, do you know what this means?"
"Okay, fine! I have no idea what it means! But you're all evil! Do something like hack into subspace communications or whatever and find out what it does mean!"
***
At the same time, the Relativity was having the exact same problem. Kes turned to Braxton. "What's going on?"
"It's the 47 Directive."
"What's that?"
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
"Really?"
"No, not really. But didn't I sound really cool when I said that?"
Sulu rolled his eyes. "The 47 Directive means that something is happening inside the Fortyseventhspace Quarantine Zone and that we should head there right away."
Braxton looked at Sulu in a most confused manner. "Hey... How did you know that?"
"Starfleet briefed all Starfleet captains on the 47 Directive. And I, no matter how often you try to think otherwise, am a captain!"
"Oh. Anyway, set a..."
"Set a course for the FQZ. I know. I did that minutes ago."
"Uh... Very well then. Carry on."
***
While the Relativity raced towards the FQZ, the evil crew of the evil Excelsior was recieving an evil transmission...
Rand's console started beeping. "Admiral, we're receiving an evil transmission."
"I gathered that from the narration. Who's it from?"
"I'm not sure, but it's coming in on our Super Secret Really Evil Frequency, which means that only members of our crew know it."
"But every member of our crew is onboard."
"Not everybody. It could be several people."
"Like who?"
"It could be Inspector Gadget, but he's a Borg drone now."
"Inspector Gadget?"
"It's a long story. Actually, it's a short story, but it's not all that interesting."
"Oh."
"It could be Evil Braxton, but he's not only merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead. It could be Bester, but I'm fairly sure he's dead too. And if memory serves, that leaves only..."
Zathras and the Apocalypse Box came onscreen. Janeway scowled. "You two! How dare you call us after you skipped out on us! We still haven't found a decent target for target practice yet! We've been using Dark Helmet's collosal helmet as a stopgap measure!"
Zathras responded. "Zathras sorry for bothering Admiral, but Zathras calling to warn Excelsior."
"Warn us? About what?"
"Not what. Who."
"Okay, about who?"
"The One."
"Who's he?"
"Not he. They."
"But I thought you said you were warning us about The One."
"Zathras is."
"But 'they' denotes more than one."
"The One who was, The One who is, and The One who will be."
"But that makes three."
Before things got even more confusing, the Apocalypse Box interrupted. "Never mind what he's saying, Admiral. I'm sure you recall the fact that, two years ago, the Excelsior was sucked into the Babylon 5 universe."
"Yeah yeah. Get on with it."
"Anyway, the Excelsior's mere presence in the Babylon 5 set off a chain reaction. Star Trek's lack of continuity and questionable plot twists have now infected this universe, causing all sorts of havoc!"
"Such as...?"
"For one thing, all the crew of Babylon 5, who died centuries ago, have suddenly reappeared. And they're not happy about it. At all. They're bent on destroying the source of the infection."
"Us?"
"All of Star Trek!"
"Egad."
"No kidding. Just giving you a heads-up on the situation. Apocalypse Box out."
The viewscreen went back to showing space. Janeway thought for a moment, then said, "Well, that was nice of them. No wonder they never fit in around here..."
***
Meanwhile, deep within the FQZ, quite a few Babylon 5 ships had emerged, including the White Star Fleet. Leading them all was the Agamemnon, captained by none other than President John Sheridan. "At last we will reveal ourselves to Star Trek! At last we will have our revenge!"
Ivanova, who was standing right beside Sheridan, replied, "Wrong sci-fi universe, sir."
"Oh. Then... Get the hell out of our galaxy!"
"We're in their galaxy, sir. Remember?"
"Oh. Well, I suppose I should prepare for our assault. Where did I leave my battle plans?"
"You set them on the floor next to your chair."
As Sheridan bent down to pick up his plans, several knives narrowly missed him. He looked at the knives, which had gotten stuck in the wall beyond him. "Where did those come from?"
Everyone looked around, except for Lennier, who whistled innocently.
Garibaldi spoke up. "Captain, I don't like the look of what these sensors are picking up."
"You never like the look of anything, Garibaldi."
"That's because I'm paranoid. Speaking of which... You came into my room and moved my furniture around, didn't you?!?!"
"No."
"Right, that was me. Heh heh. Nevermind."
"The sensors, Mr. Garibaldi?"
"Oh. They're picking up a huge amount of ships converging on our location."
Sheridan got up to look at the sensor readings himself. He narrowly missed several PPG shots. Again, everyone looked around except for Lennier, who was again whistling innocently...
***
Outside the FQZ, a small fleet of Federation ships had gathered to fight the invaders. Braxton peered at the viewscreen, as if looking for something amongst the fleet. "Well, where the heck is he?"
Yar asked, "He who?"
"Admiral Picard. Doesn't he usually show up to lead these fleets?"
***
Quite some distance away, Admiral Picard's Flagship was parked at an orbital Exxon station. Admiral Picard watched on as one of his nameless subordinates filled their deuterium tank with the 29th Century equivalent of a gas pump. "How much longer is this going to take?"
"Well, the ship's deuterium tank is pretty big, and this pump is kind of slow. It'll probably take a few hours, sir."
Picard sarcastically replied, "Wonderful. I knew that we should have gotten the tank filled days ago. Well, at least this isn't the worst thing that could happen, like Braxton taking command of the fleet..."
***
"I'm taking command of the fleet!"
Ducane raised an eyebrow in typical Vulcan fashion. "Why should you be in command, sir? Everyone of those ships out there has a captain that's more qualified than you."
"Yes, but this is my show! Therefore, I get to be in charge! Hah!"
"Well, you've got me there..."
"Mr. Sulu?"
"Captain Sulu!"
"Whatever! Take us into the FQZ. Maximum hyperwarp!"
***
Back on the Agamemnon, the bridge's walls were covered in scorch marks, bullet holes, and dents. Sheridan took a look around and remarked, "I think someone may be trying to kill me..."
Lennier continued to whistle innocently.
Lyta Alexander suddenly shouted, "Oh my God!"
"What?"
"I sense that the fleet is moving towards us!"
"Prepare to engage the enemy and deliver well-known B5 quotes!"
"Oh my God!"
"Now what?"
"I'm turning into Deanna Troi with the whole 'I sense things' mumbo jumbo!"
And with that, she ran off the bridge crying. As she did so, the Federation fleet jumped out of hyperwarp right in front of the B5 fleet. Braxton's face appeared on the Agamemnon's viewscreen. "Hey... You're not Species 474747!"
"Them? They wouldn't hurt a fly..."
"They tried to destroy us all less than two years ago!"
"Yes, but your universe has infected our universe with it's horrid writing! Species 474747, the most evil aliens ever, now are sweet aliens that could never hurt anyone!"
"Hey, that sounds like what happens in our universe all the time!"
"You're not operating on all thrusters, are you?"
"Silly man, I don't have thrusters..."
While Sheridan muttered something under his breath, Ducane shoved Braxton aside. "What exactly are you doing here?"
"Your Excelsior came to our universe and caused all our continuity to be destroyed! I should have been dead centuries ago!"
"Are you sure about that?"
"Of course I'm sure! I knew 20 years in advance that I was going to die! I even had this Death Clock built!"
Sheridan held up his death clock. On it was written "Sheridan's Death Clock, Designed by Hubert J. Farnsworth," and sure enough, it indicated he should have died centuries ago. "And not only that, but everyone else is alive too! Take Sinclair back there for example!"
Sinclair waved from the background.
"Not only has Sinclair been dead much longer than we have, he should be Minbari!"
Ducane thought for a moment. "Hmm... That does sound like our universe. It seems like our captain is always commenting that someone should be dead."
"Anyway, we have come here to exact our revenge by destroying your universe! Only then will our universe be restored to normal!"
Dax responded, "Well, you could use a continuity stabilizer..."
"A continuity stabilizer? There is no such thing!"
"Of course there's no such thing! That's the beauty of living in Star Trek! Every problem can be solved with a previously nonexistant device that can be built with stuff you have laying around! It's called Treknobabble!"
"Really?"
"Really. If your continuity is as bad as you say, you can probably build a continuity stabilizer back home!"
"Very well. But I still want to destroy the Excelsior. They must pay for setting this whole thing in motion!"
Ducane shook his head. "We have no idea where the Excelsior is right now, but I assure you that they'll get what's coming to them. They're wanted by pretty much everyone in the galaxy right now."
"Well... I guess that's acceptable. Goodbye."
And so, the B5 fleet turned around and headed home as Lennier continued to try and assassinate Sheridan, Londo and G'Kar continued to strangle each other, Sinclair continued to be boring, Cartagia and Clark played another round of "Who's the Crazier Ruler?", and so on...
***
On the evil Excelsior, Rand finally came up with something. "I've finally managed to intercept a transmission. Braxton got Sheridan to go home without even firing a shot..."
Janeway scowled. "Rats."
"But I thought having an episode that didn't depend on glitzy special effects and explosions was a good thing."
"Glitzy special effects and explosions hide the fact that we're really ineffectual villains at heart. Oh, and send somebody down to beat up Zo'or..."
***
You know the next episode has to be weird (even by Series ? standards) when both Q and Dr. Chaotica show up!
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
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You know, if you read this episode from a kinda crooked angle, it actually sorta makes sense! I think I've been reading these too long...
The Lennier assassination attempts were great, and the Lyta/Troi crossover was quite disturbing, but I was hoping for more Sheridan. Oh, well -- it was still hilarious!
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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So that's what things'd be like if Professor Farnsworth had given the death clock to Sheridan. *sigh*. A man can dream though, a man can dream...
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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Still, I love the idea and comments about the continuity stabilizer... ROFL
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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