Myriad Universes: The Deceivers Part 2
Vaka Rangi Volume 1 is currently 33% off on Smashwords as part of the Eruditorum Press Holiday eBook sale with the coupon RT654, now through January 2, 2017. If you’ve got an eBook reader, are a fan of Vaka Rangi’s take on Star Trek and haven’t yet checked out the first volume of the revised version of this project, now might be a good time to do that!
The Geordis introduce themselves and exposit to one another. Our Geordi begins by recapping the events of last issue (or at least the parts of it pertaining to his and Deanna’s subplot), while Bearded Geordi claims his team was on an urgent mission to intercept a rogue star that had entered the Beta Argotha system on a collision course with its host sun. In their universe (because of course they’re from an alternate universe: Why on Earth would you ever suspect otherwise?), Beta Argotha has six planets instead of the five in our version of it, and the sixth is an inhabited world with no spaceflight capabilities and no way to divert the rogue star. On top of that, Bearded Geordi’s Enterprise had only *discovered* the Beta Argotha system a few days prior to the events of the story, thus giving them next to no time to react.
There is some technobabble explanations for why Bearded Geordi and his crew couldn’t have delivered the necessary payloads via remote control, or contacted their Enterprise for help after they crash-landed, and Bearded Geordi angsts that by the time his ship figures out what happens it will be too late. Unless, he says, our Geordi lets him use our Runabout (which wasn’t as badly damaged as the alternate Yutcan) to try and finish the job. In fact, he doesn’t say, or even ask: He demands our crew turn over the Yutcan, arguing that the mission must be completed no matter what. Geordi, however, flatly refuses.
Back on the Enterprise (that is, *our* Enterprise), Captain Picard has brought up Gul Erak’s charges with Tavorok. The fugitive Romulan naturally (and flippantly) denies them, says he has no idea what the Cardassians are talking about when they say he “committed a heinous crime against them”, and reasserts his claim that what the Cardassians want is access to the dilithium-eating virus he had been working on while in the employ of the Romulan Star Empire. Tavorok is thus certain that the Cardassians are lying, though Captain Picard remains guarded. At that moment, Commander Riker calls him: Another ship has just turned up-A Romulan Warbird. The Enterprise hails the Romulans and, after exchanging the usual pleasantries about the dangers of trespassing in the Neutral Zone, the Romulans request the Enterprise extradite a known criminal currently in their jurisdiction: Namely, Tavorok.
The Romulan Commander says Tavorok is a murderer, though denies Gul Erak’s claim that he has committed some atrocity against the Cardassian people. According to the Romulans, Tavorok was indeed a scientist “at the forefront of a number of scientific breakthroughs”, though he dismisses the fugitive’s story that his work had anything to do with creating an artificial dilithium virus to be used as a superweapon to cripple Federation starships.…