Star Trek: Voyager--the rewrite (updated 25 October)

[RedImperator]

This is a little side project I've been wanting to do for a while, and with The Humanist Inheritance presently being reviewed by test readers before I begin editing yet again, now I have time to do it. It's a rewrite of "Caretaker", Voyager's pilot episode, done in the format of a novella, which I think reflects what the show could have been, rather than what it became.

I've endeavored to stick as closely as possible to the original televised episode, and I have retained as many details as possible. The idea isn't to fix all of the things I don't like about Star Trek in one go, or undo every silly idea every inflicted upon Trek fans by the writers, but to write something that I think a creative team with some degree of courage might have produced, without throwing everything established by TNG and DS9 out the window. I've also tried to keep as close to the original characters as I could, flaws and all (though I promise to make them less glaring when appropriate--please don't run away on first sight of Neelix, who I promise will be better).

I don't anticipate writing any more episodes; this is a one-shot project for me. I can't even promise I'll finish this one. But I hope you like it.

____________
Stardate 48307.5
Location unknown.

Red alert.

The first thing she heard was the red alert kalxon, wailing over and over, like a spike being jammed in each ear. She rolled over, groaned, opened her eyes, stared at the flickering overhead lights. She had a deep pain in her head, behind her eyes, dark red; the stuttering lights made it bloom brilliant white.

Red alert.

Her thoughts were quicksilver; flowing freely, conjoining and fissioning, squirting away when she tried to pin one down. She couldn't remember how she had wound up on the deck.

Without warning, she was overcome by a wave of nausea. She barely had enough time to turn her head to vomit. It tasted of coffee.

Confusion, pain, sensitivity to light and sound, amnesia, vomiting. Concussion.

Red alert.

She tried to get up, only for an explosion of agony to blaze through left shoulder. She collapsed back to the deck. Dislocated shoulder and concussion.

How long had she been here? Why wasn't anyone helping her? Where were the people running to their stations?

She opened her eyes again. The lights had settled down to a steady, even glow. It hurt her eyes, but it didn't worsen her headache.

She wormed over to one side of the passageway, so that with her good arm, she could grab a joint in the paneling. After two failed tries (both times landing on her injured shoulder, eliciting wails and tears of pain and frustration), she managed to pull herself up to her feet.

Red alert.

Red lights were flashing on and off up and down the passageway. The siren was still going; nobody on the bridge had turned it off yet. It set her teeth on edge, disrupted her already loose thoughts. Panels had fallen off along the walls. She smelled ozone and the telltale chemical stink of burning plastic; small fires from broken EPS conduits, killed by the fire suppression systems and automatic cutoff valves.

She caught her reflection off a dead LCARS panel (cracked horizontally across its entire length); her left arm appeared to be backwards. She needed to go to sickbay.

Red alert. They still hadn't shut the siren off.

There was a turbolift thirty meters down the corridor. She remembered that was where she was going when...when what? USS Voyager had suffered some kind of serious problem, an accident or an attack, and she had been injured. That much she could infer on her own. She had no more information than that. The intercom was silent. That by itself was ominous, because in the few previous Red Alerts she'd experienced in her heretofore uneventful career, the bridge had issued an uninterrupted stream of instructions and status updates over the intercom.

The bridge. The memory crystallized in her head. That's where she had been going. She had been called to the bridge. Voyager was in the Badlands, hunting Maquis, and they had called her to the bridge because the captain wanted advice from her science officer in that weird, dangerous patch of space.

She remembered her commbadge. I must have hit my head hard, she thought. The first thing she should have done was call the bridge for instructions. It chirped when she tapped it; at least that was still working. "Janeway to bridge," she said.

No reply. She tried again and got the same response. Sour adrenaline began pooling in her stomach. The silent intercoms, the howling klaxon (grating away at her nerves), and now this.

"Janeway to bridge," she said. When she got no reply a third time, she set her jaw and decided any more attempts would be just postponing the inevitable. "Computer: status of the bridge."

The computer's emotionless reply belied the horror it struck in Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway. "Structural integrity failure on Deck One," it said. "Explosive decompression in all compartments."

"Survivors?"

"None."

She took a deep breath before asking the next question. "Status of Captain Bujold."

"Captain Bujold is dead."

Damn it. "Status of First Officer Cavit."

"Commander Cavit is dead."

"Status of Chief Engineer Patel." He shouldn't have been on the bridge.

"Lieutenant Commander Patel is dead."

"What? How."

"Lieutenant Commander Patel was killed by a plasma conduit failure in main engineering."

Janeway needed to brace herself against the wall to remain standing. Depsite her own injuries and the damage up and down the corridor, she had been, until that point, allowed to indulge in the hope that whatever had happened to Voyager had been a minor accident, or at worst, that its worst effects were localized. Now that luxury was gone.

She realized she had no idea who was in command of the ship, who she had to report to (or where, but that was the next problem, to be dealt with later). "Computer," she said. "Who is the senior surviving line officer on Voyager?"

"Lieutenant commander Kathryn Janeway," said the computer.

Janeway was glad nobody else was in the corridor. This time she did fall; not, all in all, a very captainly thing to do.

The ship shuddered hard. There was a sound, a deep, almost subsonic booming, that carried through the deckplate: the warp core, going offline, in as violently a fashion it could without actually exploding and destroying the ship. Then main power failed, and all the lights went out.

[Vehrec]

*golfclap* My, my. Let me guess, Janeway was Voyager's science officer prior to their sudden displacement across 75,000 light years of galactic disc? No wonder they'll have to bring in all those junior officers and Marquis to crew the critical stations. This is shapeing up to fulfill some of that lost promise.

[Alan Bolte]

Moar. Seriously, this is awesome, and there isn't nearly enough of it. So far we've got one major change, and it's a good one; I'm looking forward to whatever else you have planned. On top of that, there's your writing, which is excellent (I look forward to purchasing THI, or whatever you rename it).

[Mayabird]

Bujold...why is that name familiar in this context? I'm doubting it has to do with Lois McMaster Bujold.
[line 2]

[Darth Fanboy]

Funny how Janeway is a science officer when it's apparent later in the series that science is something she knows little of.

If it were me i'd have made her Ship's Counselor or something ludicrous like that in order for her to really have credibility issues to overcome.

[Themightytom]

Funny how Janeway is a science officer when it's apparent later in the series that science is something she knows little of.

If it were me i'd have made her Ship's Counselor or something ludicrous like that in order for her to really have credibility issues to overcome.

yeah I think we all want to see the Ship's Pediatrist take command.
it looks very interesting, keep up the great work!

[Tsyroc]

Bujold...why is that name familiar in this context? I'm doubting it has to do with Lois McMaster Bujold.
[line 2]

The actress who was originally cast to play Janeway has the last name of Bujold. It was decided she wasn't working out so they brought in Kate Mulgrew.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Looks interesting, the lost promise of Voyager always bugged me.

[Themightytom]

Bujold...why is that name familiar in this context? I'm doubting it has to do with Lois McMaster Bujold.
[line 2]

The actress who was originally cast to play Janeway has the last name of Bujold. It was decided she wasn't working out so they brought in Kate Mulgrew.

yeah you can see her performance here. She definitely sucked. Mulgrew wasn't much better though with her nasally man voice and silly mannerisms.
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[Themightytom]

and i see we cant embed here, good to know..

[CaptainChewbacca]

Not like that you can't. It looks good. I wonder, will all the same characters still be present, though in different form?

It'll be interesting, with fledgling Captain Janeway with the brains and Commander Chakotay as the military/tactical brains. As I recall, he was supposed to have been something of a military strategic expert with the Maquis, though this was ANOTHER thread that was dropped.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Funny how Janeway is a science officer when it's apparent later in the series that science is something she knows little of.

To be fair, there's very few people on the show who know any science at all.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Oh hawt. I guess you can polish a turd into something not at all shit.

Good job Red!

[Soontir C'boath]

It looks to be very interesting. I hope this does go somewhere.

[Kodiak]

I like the idea of Chakotay taking on a more central role. From teh interwebs: "During his tenure in Starfleet, he was assigned as an instructor in Starfleet's Advanced Tactical Training and achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander." Sounds like he's plenty qualified

[RedImperator]

I like the idea of Chakotay taking on a more central role. From teh interwebs: "During his tenure in Starfleet, he was assigned as an instructor in Starfleet's Advanced Tactical Training and achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander." Sounds like he's plenty qualified

Voyager's writing staff really bungled the fundamentals. We were told Chakotay is a tactical genius, but never shown any of it. They did that over and over, when they didn't just forget character traits entirely.

I plan on making Chakotay a major character, though I don't have his character all the way pinned down yet. He won't be a neutered yes-man, but I think making him Tom Zarek to Janeway's Laura Roslin would be going too far in the other direction (if you didn't get that reference, go to Blockbuster and get the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica).

Janeway presents a different problem. Janeway was Jeri Taylor's Mary Sue, and so no matter what happened during the course of the episode, Janeway had to be right, and the scripts would more than occasionally turn backflips to make sure she was right, no matter what the cost in logical inconsistency, damage to other characters, and just plain bad writing.

As for scientific literacy, or lack thereof, it's important to remember that inside the story universe, Janeway was scientifically competent. The "crack in the event horizon" episode is a textbook case: Janeway was right. There was a crack in the event horizon of the "quantum singularity", and she knew how to technobabble it open. Out of universe, we all roll our eyes, and on this board, we decide, "Well, they must all be complete imbeciles", but if you take the episode at face value, Janeway's scientific knowledge saved the ship.

The challenge for me here is to write Janeway in such a way that she's scientifically qualified and that qualification impacts the plot, but without 1) revealing my own scientific limitations, or 2) saturating the story with technobabble. I think I have it mostly figured out, but that part isn't written yet and I never know for sure until it's down on paper.

I'm debating posting this in scenes or acts. Scenes would allow me to update more often, but I worry things will get too disjointed, and also denies me the opportunity to go back and revise a scene if I realize there's a problem later. It will be a few days before the next update.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If there's voting, I'd vote for acts. I'd gladly take 1 act every few days (or a week, even) rather than scenes coming out in dribbs and drabs.

Also, RI, if you need a science proofreader, I'm sure you can find six hundred or so volunteers here.

[Kodiak]

Do me one favor, and make sure they call it aeroponics instead of airponics. That aforementioned "Scientific Illiteracy" drove me nuts on a regular basis.

[Xon]

The challenge for me here is to write Janeway in such a way that she's scientifically qualified and that qualification impacts the plot, but without 1) revealing my own scientific limitations, or 2) saturating the story with technobabble. I think I have it mostly figured out, but that part isn't written yet and I never know for sure until it's down on paper.

You know, Janeway had a really good reason not to use the Caretaker array to return home. It completely and utterly fucked Voyager up, killed almost a 3rd of the crew and that was with the guy who knew how it worked using it.

Except in Startrek:Voyager, the ship was fixed before the end of the episode, the lack of crew had all of 15 seconds impact. And she destroyed the array not because it was too fucking dangerous to use but from some bizzare application of "Prime Directive" (all the locals had FTL drives anyway )

[Kodiak]

The challenge for me here is to write Janeway in such a way that she's scientifically qualified and that qualification impacts the plot, but without 1) revealing my own scientific limitations, or 2) saturating the story with technobabble. I think I have it mostly figured out, but that part isn't written yet and I never know for sure until it's down on paper.

You know, Janeway had a really good reason not to use the Caretaker array to return home. It completely and utterly fucked Voyager up, killed almost a 3rd of the crew and that was with the guy who knew how it worked using it.

Except in Startrek:Voyager, the ship was fixed before the end of the episode, the lack of crew had all of 15 seconds impact. And she destroyed the array not because it was too fucking dangerous to use but from some bizzare application of "Prime Directive" (all the locals had FTL drives anyway )

It did seem awfully convenient: Oh man, 30 crew members died. Good thing we found this EXTRA crew that can sub for them. Oh wait, we don't have a doctor. ZOMG! We have a holographic doctor! It's almost as though someone knew we'd be arse-f**ked by a senile alien machine.

[Xon]

If you count the number of crew killing on screen and by dialog, it ends up that about 2-3 times the max crew size was killed by the end of Season 7 of Votager.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If you count the number of crew killing on screen and by dialog, it ends up that about 2-3 times the max crew size was killed by the end of Season 7 of Votager.

Is that actually true, or a humerous exaggeration? Also, did you take into account parallel universes, duplicate voyagers, and reset-buttons?

[RedImperator]

Ten Days Earlier
Federation-Cardassian frontier

It hadn't been Chakotay's week.

"The Cardassian vessel is closing," said Tuvok. The Maquis raider shook under another phaser volley. Something important behind the captain's chair failed with a shower of sparks; they rained on the back of his neck, each one stinging like a mote of fire.

"B'Elana!" shouted Chakotay over the open microphone to Val Jean's engine room..

"I know, God damn it!" Down below, the engineer yanked a panel off the wall and tore into the mess of jerry-rigged machinery that kept Val Jean alive, cursing in Klingon and English.

Val Jean banked hard, faster than the inertial dampers could compensate. A'shadieeyah Mohommad, Chakotay's crackerjack pilot, was doing her best, trying to dodge the Galor-class cruiser's weapons fire. Mohommad had gotten them out of more than her share of impossible jams, but this time the Cardies were hanging tight.

"Weapons?" said Chakotay. It was more of a prayer than an order.

"Yes, some weapons would be nice," said Seska. His Bajoran executive officer had been a good luck charm for so long, he'd started to think they were invincible as long as she was around. So much for that.

"I'm really not in the mood for jokes," said Chakotay.

"Weapons inoperative," said Tuvok.

"B'Elana, is there anything--"

"How about I stick a broom up my ass and sweep the floor while I'm at it?" said Torres.

"B'Eleana, I need my fucking phasers!"

"How much do you need a warp core breach?"

"The Cardassians are going to give me one anyway if you don't get those phasers online."

"They won't need to bother in a minute!"

"They don't need to wait that long!"

Seska leapt out of her seat and dove into an open access hatch and started working on the weapons herself. Mohommad turned the ship again, but not in time to avoid a phaser hit amidships. Every alarm on the bridge wailed to life at once.

"Shields collapsed," said Tuvok.

"One more hit and we're done!" said B'Elana.

"Can you give me warp speed?"

"Are you crazy?" said B'Elana.

"Can you!?"

"I can give you one second. Maybe."

"Do it. Mohommad, how far are we from the Badlands?"

"Ten light years from the outer boundary."

"The Cardassians will be anticipating such a move," said Tuvok.

"I can't get us ten light years on a one-second burst," said B'Elana.

"There's another ship out there between us and the Badlands," said Seska. "We have to lure it here before we go to warp."

"Good idea," said Chakotay. "Tuvok, signal our surrender. Mohommad, straight ahead, one-quarter impulse. Keep us out of tractor range."

"What?!" said Mohommad and B'Elana together.

"You heard me! Just do it; I have a plan. You don't think we're actually surrendering to the Cardassians, do you?"

"I hope they think we're actually surrendering," said B'Elana.

"They are acknowledging," said Tuvok. "They have ordered us to heave to and prepare to be boarded."

"Maintain course and speed. Mohommad, B'Elana, prepare for warp. Set course for the Badlands; maximum possible speed on my order. Seska, how are the phasers coming?"

"You've got one shot, maybe two."

"Tuvok, target the Cardie. Manual aiming only. Hit them as close to their bridge as possible."

"Understood."

Seska returned to her seat, smeared with grease and grime, sheened with sweat, and bleeding from a cut on her forehead. With a motion so subtle nobody else on the bridge could have possibly seen it, she placed a hand on his. "This had better work," he said.

"It will."

"The Cardassian ship is repeating its order to heave to," said Tuvok. "They are threatening to fire if we do not stop."

"Maintain course and speed." Come on, you ugly yellow bitch. Where are you?

"The Cardies are closing in on us," said Mohommad.

"Full impulse on my mark."

"Tractor range in five seconds," said Tuvok.

Where are you?

"Three seconds. Two. One."

"Full impulse now!"

Val Jean leaped forward like a spurred thoroughbred. A Cardassian phaser blast missed them by meters.

"Standby for warp on my mark!" said Chakotay.

"Galor-class cruiser dropping out of warp at 227 mark 85, range sixty thousand kilometers!" said Tuvok, the slightest hint of a waver in his emotional control creeping into his voice.

"Fire phasers! Helm, engage!"

Val Jean fired two quick blasts at the first Galor, striking its shields just forward of its bridge. Then she leaped into warp and disappeared.

B'Elana had done better than she'd promised. They stayed at warp for five seconds, and momentarily hit warp six before the warp drive gave out.

"Viewscreen," said Chakotay.

The brilliant yellow and red gas clouds of the Badlands filled the entire forward view.

"Brilliant, B'Elana," said Chakotay.

"We don't have much time," said Seska. "We need to get the warp drive back in working order before the Cardassians figure out where we went."

No sooner had she said that than an alarm went off at Tuvok's station. "Cardassian Galor-class cruiser warping in sixty astronomical units from our position."

"How long until they spot us?"

"Three minutes on the outside to perform a sky scan," said Seska. "B'Elana, move."

"You don't need to tell me twice." She started banging and cursing on machinery. Seska and Tuvok joined her.

Two minutes later, the Galor went to warp. It was on top of them before Chakotay could even shout the alarm.

"We have warp!" said B'Elana.

"Helm engage!"

They had to drop out of warp at the edge of the Badlands, not even Mohommad daring to run through the dangerous patch of disturbed space faster than light until she got her bearings. The Maquis had mapped the whole area (at no small cost in blood) and a skilled navigator like Mohommad could warp through safely, but not quickly.

And the Cardassians were starting to map the place, too.

"Let's move," said Chakotay. "I don't want to hang around here all day."

"I'm working as fast as I can, boss," said Mohommad.

And then the Cardies were on top of them again.

"Go!" shouted Chakotay, watching the two cruisers approach on the viewscreen like orcas bearing down on a wounded seal. Val Jean leapt to warp again, with the Cardassians baying at their heels. One followed at a distance while the other closed in--so when Mohommad dropped Val Jean out of warp to turn, one would overshoot, but the other wouldn't.

"They're going to wait until we're in open space and then they're going to attack," said Chakotay.

"This isn't right," said Seska. "They weren't supposed to follow us in here."

"Maybe you should tell them that," said Chakotay.

The ship dropped out of warp, turned with thrusters, then leapt into warp again. Mohommad had free reign with the ship, taking them through the twisting warren of safe passages through the Badlands without asking Chakotay or anyone else for instructions.

"They are still pursuing," said Tuvok.

"I'm taking us into the Rat's Nest," said Mohommad. "If the Cardies have charted that, I'll eat my scarf."

They turned again, and then Mohommad opened up the warp drive to full power. Something went bang and caught fire; B'Elana cursed and screamed and hammered on machinery with a wrench (B'Elana referred to such outbursts as an ancient Klingon mechanics' ritual).

Ahead of them was a vortex of raging plasma storms. The Rat's Nest was a network of passages interlaced through one of the most violent regions of the Badlands; the storms had been particularly bad that whole year. From a distance of a few light years, the tendrils of hot gas seemed motionless; Chakotay knew that was only because they were so enormous and so far away. The tips were flailing at half the speed of light and could boil away entire planets. Mohommad and the Cardassians could avoid those, but the smaller bursts that popped up at random outside the safe areas could smash a passing starship with ease. Sometimes they popped up inside the safe areas, too. Especially in the Rat's Nest.

Val Jean began rattling. "What the hell is that?" said Chakotay.

"Subspace is very disturbed around here, boss," said Mohommad. Val Jean started vibrating more violently, occasionally getting buffeted hard.

"We're going to have to drop out of warp if this keeps up," said Torres. "The engines don't like this at all."

"I see a spot," said Mohommad. "Dropping out of warp."

They fell below superluminal speed in the middle of a calm patch a few million kilometers across, surrounded by vast clouds of hot gas.

"The Cardassians overshot us. They are in the middle of a cloud."

"On screen!"

The two Galors were being buffeted by plasma and repeatedly slashed by energy discharges. One took a shot right across the bow that penetrated the shields and tore away part of the hull.

"Let's move," said Chakotay. Val Jean warped away, leaving the Cardassians behind. A few minutes later, when Mohommad had to turn again, Tuvok checked their long range scan.

"Are they following us?" said Chakotay.

"Negative. They are leaving the Badlands."

"They had enough for one day," said Seska.

Chakotay leaned back in his chair and smiled for the first time all day. The adrenaline of combat was draining away, leaving him in a euphoric haze that was practically post-orgasmic.

Speaking of...

"Mohommad, you have the conn. Take us through the Rat's Nest and out the other side of the Badlands. Make sure there aren't any Cardassians on the other side waiting for us."

"That's Federation territory, sir."

"Cardies, Starfleet, what's the difference? Keep us out of trouble."

"Will do, boss."

Chakotay went back to his cabin. Seska followed, a discreet amount of time late. Afterwards, they were both dozing when some tremendous force like a collision shook the whole ship, tossing them both out of Chakotay's bunk onto the cabin deck.

#

[CaptainChewbacca]

Now THAT is a badass group of freedom fighters led by a tactical genius.

Lolz for 'Ancient Klingon Mechanic's Ritual'. Also, I like that she actually HAS a wrench. Bonus points on a muslim pilot who wears a hijab.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Very, very good. Very well-done Maquis guerilla warriors.

Personal Preference Nitpickery:

"B'Eleana, I need my fucking phasers!" Just doesn't sound right to my mind's ear. I can't picture Chaoktay yelling that without it sounding a bit silly. I don't know.

Otherwise, it's spot-on.