stepsideways | action ][ ᴏɴᴇ

Oh.

Bugger.

Wait. It's not his fault this time! Awesome.

"Hello! Welcome to Burby," Alec says, wandering over, deciding to still pretend to be called the Doctor.

Because.

Oh good, it's this guy. Wesley's not exactly going to just go ahead and accept everything he says right off the bat, but that doesn't mean he won't ask for whatever information he can.

"Burby? Is this where you all came from?"

Why doesn't anyone ever believe him? Honestly.

"Well, in a sense, yes. We're all stuck here."

"Stuck? So everyone was just... pulled here out of their homes, the way I just was?"

"A lot of people I've noticed were traveling when they ended up here. At least walking from one place to another" Alec says. "But essentially, yes. Getting pulled in at crossroads is a traditional way to get into Fairy by accident."

"Fairy. Is that the name of this... what is this, exactly?" He hasn't pinpointed the nature of it, exactly, but if its behavior is any indication... "Some kind of a dimensional nexus?"

Alec brightens. "Yes! Exactly!"

While the uniform would certainly be familiar to her, it's the Starfleet signature his combadge carries that Captain Janeway recognizes, as she doesn't catch sight of him until after her tricorder's alerted her to his presence and she heads off in his direction. She, of course, doesn't have the luxury of explaining how she got here other than a temporal transport gone horribly wrong. What had seemed to be an impromptu mission successfully completed, done and over with, was now... Well, whatever was going on here.

If Q was involved, she was going to kill him, omnipotent being or not. She didn't have time for his games, his lessons for humanity, mating requests, civil wars, or frustrating sense of comedic timing.

...and that was not one of her crewmen, wearing a style of uniform she hadn't adorned since she was a Commander on the Billings. She hated time travel.

"Good evening, Ensign."

Meanwhile, Wesley has definitely not seen the uniform that Janeway is wearing. But his tricorder picks up her own badge's signature, and it's certainly not far enough off from Starfleet aesthetic for him to chalk it up to a temporal disruption.

Which is exactly the kind of complication that would be thrown into this sort of thing, isn't it? Apparently it's not as simple as he'd started to theorize - which is already pretty far off from anyone's definition of simple. Glancing over her pips, he trusts that much hasn't changed.

"Captain."

Caught off guard there initially, but he straightens up quickly and gives an attentive nod.

"Ensign Wesley Crusher, USS Enterprise."

Crusher she recognizes, if only by virtue of having spent several months pouring over his mother's entries to the Federation database in regards to the Borg and that which had aided the Doctor in the numerous surgeries following Seven of Nine's liberation from the Collective. But when her eyebrows lift in obvious surprise, it's, "Enterprise," that she mutters.

Well. That was certainly something.

"Captain Kathryn Janeway, USS Voyager." Taking notice of the straightening of his spine, she holds up a hand. "At ease. This is far from setting demanding of proper posturing."

He nods at her introduction, and he does ease up the tension in his posture a bit, but doesn't entirely relax. Under the circumstances, he couldn't really be expected to.

"Captain. Did you just arrive here as well?"

A nod, a pursing of her lips. "Yours is the first Federation signal I've picked up since--" Being beamed away from the Relativity and back to the 24th Century. Not... here. Wherever here was. She couldn't share those details with him, of course. Temporal Prime Directive. "--departing. Had I known transporters were going to drop me off here, I would've insisted upon taking a shuttle."

"I'm not even sure how to make sense of how everyone got here in the first place."

He shuts his tricorder and returns it to its pocket, at the side of his uniform, and glances around with a frown.

"Some of the individuals here wound up aboard the Enterprise, just before I left. When I found myself pulled here, we were still working on figuring out how."

Were Voyager in her proper place in the Alpha Quadrant instead of lost in the Delta Quadrant, she'd ask which Enterprise he meant. But, being that detail wasn't included in any of the little communication they've had with Starfleet Command and home, and Seven of Nine hasn't been forthcoming with any of the details pertaining to the Borg's most recent encounter with Jean-Luc Picard and his crew, she's only aware of there being one Enterprise in service, and that's the D. Not the E, even though the D was destroyed the same year she and her vessel were lost.

Funny what a few months time difference does. Or a few years -- more than a few.

"Do you think it's possible you were caught in the wake of their departure?" Though, that didn't exactly explain how she got here.

Edited 2013-02-10 05:11 (UTC)

As far as Wesley knows, there's only one ship named Enterprise currently in service - of course, she's still got a few years of service left in her at the point he comes from. He's already considering a few discrepancies that certainly point to him being from some time earlier than Captain Janeway. Though he's already encountered a few individuals from entirely different realities - some temporal inconsistencies hardly seem surprising. He doesn't know of any Voyager in service, and he does still study up on the fleet, now and again, even if he doesn't pore over schematics with the same sense of fantasy he did before he'd been assigned a real post.

"That's what I had been assuming, though we had no idea exactly how. We didn't detect any kind of temporal anomaly, and I'm still not detecting so much as a single chroniton particle - not that my tricorder's been that consistent here. And from what I've heard talking to people here, a lot of them just wound up here, without any kind of explanation. Which means we need to find some commonality..."

His thoughts running away with him, he stops for a moment. Time to address... time.

"Captain, can I ask what stardate it is, where you came from?"

Time. This was going to have to be addressed, and there were certain things that were going to have to be shared, unavoidably so. She hated having toe that fine line between what was appropriate and what was forbidden by the Temporal Prime Directive - even more so that this wasn't her first time having to do so.

"Stardate 52861.274, as of the last log entry I made." On November 11th, 2375 at 8:45 in the morning. She hadn't yet calculated how much time had passed between then, the temporal distortions aboard Voyager, leaping into the future, past, and back again, only to end up in this place. "I suspect I'm a little farther ahead than you are, Ensign. Though it's unlikely we would've crossed path if you were properly aligned with me." Which she will get to the details of that at some point.

"That's definitely ahead of me... the last I checked, it was stardate 44291.7. There isn't even a ship called Voyager serving in Starfleet when I'm from."

And he has to resist the temptation to ask her about what she means - if she's ahead of him, then he knows he shouldn't pry, no matter how curious he is about it.

"Not that it's that surprising, with anything that could have brought all of us here. Everyone else that I've spoken to seem to be from some pretty widely varying backgrounds."

"She hasn't been commissioned yet." When they'd left Deep Space 9, her ship had been one of the most advanced, top of the line ships in the entire fleet. Fresh off the fleet yards with innovative bio-neural gel pack technology - they'd likely had that place on Starfleet's mantle stolen from them a few years ago, as there was no telling what sort of advancements had been made in their absence.

Which brings her to her next point, for it wasn't as simple as her having been pulled from another point in time, but another point in time from the far other side of the galaxy.

"My ship's last known position was over 65,000 lightyears from Earth - in the Delta Quadrant. I think it's safe to say that we're something of a jumbled mess of displaced refugees."

And for Wesley here, there isn't even a Deep Space 9 yet. The time difference isn't the biggest point for him, though - not once she explains their position and his eyes light with amazement, widening at 'Delta Quadrant'.

"The Delta Quadrant? How did you wind up there? It wasn't Q, was it?"

And then he gathers himself a bit, having been a bit carried away with his wonder.

"Um, if I can ask, Captain." Sir? Ma'am? Uh-oh.

Ahh, the good ol' days when Deep Space 9 was still Terok Nor and Odo was looking awkward in that Cardassian armor. Good times, good times. (Only not.)

"Oh, no. Not Q, which I'm not sure whether to count that as a fortunate or unfortunate circumstance. At least I can reason with Q on most days, but I'm afraid we were hauled to the other side of the galaxy by an entity known as the Caretaker who'd had... somewhat noble desires, albeit misguided." Very misguided, though she'd come to understand them in the end. "Once we arrived, it was impossible to be sent back," because she destroyed the Caretaker's array to save the Ocampa, "so I did the only thing I could do: Set a course for home."

Long story short. And it'd be ma'am, if he asked or used sir and gave her the opportunity to correct him. Just like an eager young Harry Kim had done on his first day on the bridge, when he'd been practically tripping over himself in attempt to appease his new captain. He'd certainly come a long way since then.

"I don't see the harm in discussing the basics."

Lin doesn't know what the tricorder is, but she recognizes that uniform. She had several irritating conversations with crewmembers of the vessel, who seemed concerned about her apparently anachronistic mode of dress and possible level of threat to the ship. Since she hadn't wanted to be on their ship anyway, these conversations had not gone well. The security team was just as suspicious as her officers would have been, in a similar situation, so she couldn't exactly blame them, but she wasn't entirely pleased to see the boy either.

"What are you doing here?" she says, approaching him with an air of authority. Did they leave behind a scout or a spy?

The boy, for his part, isn't very much pleased to be here, either. It hadn't seemed - and certainly not to him - like the intruders aboard the Enterprise were malicious, or even intentional, but having been apparently dragged back with them didn't do wonders for his mood. Which means he can't keep the frustration from his tone.

"Trying to figure out an answer to that, actually."

"Your people left you?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Left me?" He's not entirely sure what she means like that, and is openly bewildered. He shakes his head after a moment. "It looks to me like I got swept up in whatever brought people onto - and off of - the ship in the first place."

Well, scratch the scout theory. He practically bled earnestness.

"Unfortunate," she said. "I'm afraid you won't be going back any time soon," she explained matter-of-factyl.

That is exactly the kind of thing that he, as a now-full-fledged member of the Enterprise crew, refuses to accept. Even if he turns out to be wrong.

"I need to get back to my ship. When I left, we were trying to figure out how people had wound up on board in the first place - I'm sure they're still working on that, and they'll figure out a way to establish a connection soon."

This is the Enterprise he's talking about. There's nothing they can't figure out, and his faith in that can't be shaken - nor is he ready to accept the possibility of being away from them for long.

For his sake, Lin hoped so. She was pretty sure that no one from her own world would be able to figure out how to bridge the gap. Perhaps an Avatar could do it, but Korra wasn't very well-connected to the spirit world at the moment. She, at least, was stuck.

But his confidence must have come from somewhere.

"Have they seen this sort of issue before?"

"Not exactly like this... we seem to be in some kind of a dimensional nexus, and there are a few means of us getting here that are theoretically possible. Disturbances in space-time, dimensional rifts, temporal anomalies - whatever it is that's caused people to come here, or to leave here, they should be able to determine what it is and how it happened. I guess it could take a while, but I know they'll be able to figure it out."

Because they always figure it out. He just wishes he were in Engineering with Geordi and Data, helping them whittle down the possibilities.

Lin listens and nods. She doesn't quite understand what he's talking about, but at least someone sounds like they get what brought everyone here. That's a good sign. Maybe he's right, and maybe his friends can help everyone get home. She won't count on it, though.

"There's a hotel here that will give you a room, briefly. In case your people take their time."

All a bunch of theories, nothing he can pin down from where he is - not yet, not with the readings he's getting from his tricorder. He's still mulling over the words of The Traveler, internally, hoping he can find a way to connect that to his current situation.

"They might need some time... and shelter isn't a bad idea. Thanks."

"No need to thank me. It's my job," she answers, as if this should be an obvious conclusion. "...What is that thing?" she asks after a moment, pointing to the tricorder. It doesn't really resemble her own slender device, so she's curious.

"Oh... it's a tricorder. I'm trying to gather information about our environment, how I got here - or really, how everyone got here, and onto the Enterprise. But I'm not really picking up anything too helpful."

Inconsistent, and with none of the usual evidence of spatial or temporal anomalies. Of course, the boy's curious, too -

"What's your job?"

She's not sure what the little object can observe, so it doesn't surprise her that he isn't picking up any useful information.

"Chief of police," she answers. "If you need me, my office is down that way." She points.

That's both comforting and not, in a way. Comforting that the people who are here have decided that a certain amount of order is worth being established, and not comforting in that they've been here long enough to decide to do so. Outwardly, he nods.

"I'll definitely keep that in mind."

This is where it occurs to him he hasn't introduced himself yet - so he does.

"I'm Wesley, by the way. Wesley Crusher."

"Lin Bei Fong," she answers, with a nod. "You can call me Chief Bei Fong. If you find out anything interesting with your scanner, I'd appreciate it if you shared. I'm afraid that I haven't discovered much with my own investigations."

As much as she'd tried, unfortunately. The ground feels so odd once you get toward the edge of town.

"Of course. I'm with Starfleet, which means something where I'm from. In someplace like this, it still means that if I find a way to help people who need help, it's my duty to help them - whether that's finding a way to get us all safely back where we belong, or just helping us understand where we are a little bit better."

Spoken earnestly and passionately by the eager young Ensign.

He's certainly devoted. She's never heard of Starfleet, but she likes the idea. It sounds like the way a police officer is supposed to act. He looks young to be a recruit, but they look younger and younger every year.

"It sounds like an admirable organization," she answers.

Shirley was not feeling particularly sociable, much less like explaining Burby to someone. Fortunately for her, she had found something better to do than be in plain sight at the moment. It had occurred to her that people were disappearing and... no one exactly knew where they went? She personally liked to think that they went home, but Science demanded concrete answers and who was she to say no?

Honestly, it would probably be better Science to tail all of the newcomers, but some of them might notice and also being in more than one place at once would be difficult. So she chose Wesley as her primary target because she recognized him - or at least his uniform - as being from a place that she had been to previously, and also because he happened to show up as she was deciding to do this. But there were other reasons! Like the fact that he didn't fit the profile of the typical male newcomer to Burby - which might mean that he wouldn't stay long - and the fact that he was young and fluffy and probably wouldn't notice. And if he did could maybe be distracted easily?

Yes. So. Wesley was being tailed. Because Reasons. And Science.

Wesley would certainly be on board with applying Science to the situation, if he were aware of the part he's currently playing in it. Of course, he isn't just yet, as he makes his way around with the tricorder. Its readings aren't precise, prey to unknown interference (perhaps just the nature of this place itself, by Wesley's estimation), but there are life sign signals.

He turns slightly in the direction of her reading, and peers in that direction - but after a few moments, it fades, and he shrugs it off as another anomalous reading.

So he turns away again, resuming his gradual walk as he glances periodically from the tricorder to his surroundings and back.

Hey. Hey. She didn't know people in that universe had person-detectors! That's cheating. But apparently his is all woobly, so it's no big deal. Buuuuut he's going to get more suspicious as time goes on, if he keeps getting readings. Even woobly ones. Better to come out of hiding and risk suspicion than to be found and DEFINITELY LOOK SUSPICIOUS.

(Maybe these things can be circumvented with tinfoil or something? That's an experiment for another day, though.)

So, yes, while he's looking the other direction she silently emerges from her hiding place and pops into existence like she was totally always there. There's a way this effect can be achieved quite easily, and it is called "looking as relaxed as possible," which she does quite well. She's totally been sitting on this bench for at least five minutes, what are you talking about?

It's odd but not entirely unexpected that his instruments are so shaky. But then he glances back again, at that bench, and spots Shirley sitting there. Had she been there a moment ago? He doesn't think so, but it's possible. He's certainly not in optimal form, given the circumstances.

"Hello?"

He takes a step in her direction, but doesn't close the distance immediately. He's in an unknown environment and not entirely certain how he'll be reacted to.

"Hello," she replied with a smile that is apparently meant to reassure him, but not to beckon him closer - friendly, but not overly so. She swept her gaze up from his feet - shoes not intended for the outdoors, trouser legs caked in a little bit of mud (it had been raining recently), device held at an angle and distance from the face that indicated a certain dubious relationship with it at present - to his face with its uncertain expression, as though taking it all in for the first time.

"Lost?"

He stands back warily, and slips the tricorder away for the moment.

"It would seem so."

And, staying where he is, he looks over her. He's fairly certain she wasn't there before, but it's not as if he has anything to hide at the moment - certainly, he's got no more idea of what's going on than anyone else does. Which, for the record, is a terribly frustrating experience when you're used to seeing these sorts of things so clearly.

"Though I'm starting to get the feeling I'm not alone there."

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