I groaned as I woke up on the floor. I felt like I had been pummelled by a professional boxer and wondered what happened, then 35 years of memories flowed through my mind and I silently cursed at discovering I was now Kevin Janeway, captain of the USS Voyager, and we had just been brought to the Delta Quadrant on a distortion wave sent by the alien Caretaker.

I sat up and felt the bruises fade away, thanks to my Kryptonian body and wide set of powers. It was a relief to know that Q hadn't nerfed me or made my powers inaccessible, because that would have sucked. My eyes took in the wrecked bridge and I knew I didn't have a lot of time to act. I made myself invisible and blurred as I appeared next to the first officer, a stern woman I liked.

I didn't bother checking for a pulse and used my chronomancy power to rewind time for her by only a few minutes, to reduce the shock to her system, and healed her internal injuries. I then ran across the bridge instantly to the pilot. His console had blown up and part of his face was charred. Again, I didn't check for lifesigns and rewound time only just enough to return him to life and then healed him.

I blurred to several other people on the bridge and checked them before I healed their internal injuries and left the superficial things. I saw Tammy Paris stumble to the navigator's console and start punching buttons. I thought back to what I knew about the ship and thanked my new memories for being sharp after the brief tour I had taken of the new ship. I stepped to sickbay and saw the place was in shambles.

I only spent a moment rewinding time for the female doctor and the two medical techs, healed them, and then I stepped to engineering and did the same thing for the people that had recently died. I blurred as I moved through the entire department and healed everything but surface damage on everyone and then I was out in the hallway and doing the same for the rest of the crew.

I was only gone for a couple of minutes and I stepped back to the bridge. No one was looking, so I made myself visible again. “Report!”

Helen Kim pulled herself to her feet at Ops and started typing commands. “Hull breach on Deck 14. Comm lines to engineering are down. Trying to reestablish.” She said and hit several buttons.

I stood and looked around the bridge at the people scrambling to get things working, then hit my comm badge. “Repair crews, seal the hull breach on Deck 14.”

“Aye, captain.” A male voice answered.

“Casualty reports are coming in sporatically.” The female officer at the tactical station said. “Sickbay reports nearly everyone on the ship is hurt; but, there are no casualties.”

The people on the bridge paused briefly to look over at him and none of them saw my smug smile.

“I know. I can't believe it, either.” The woman said.

“Captain, there's something out there.” Helen Kim said.

“I need a better description than that, Miss Kim.” I responded in a casual tone.

“I... don't know. I'm reading... I don't know what I'm reading.” Helen Kim responded.

“Can you get the main viewscreen operational?” I asked and helped my first officer to her feet. She looked dishevelled and she swiped at her dirty uniform before giving up.

“I'll try.” Helen said and turned behind herself to another display and typed up a few commands.

The main viewscreen showed static for several seconds before it cleared up and showed a massive station array that looked menacing and it was also firing energy pulses into space. At least it was firing them away from us.

The whole crew on the bridge paused in their work again and stared at the screen. It was an ominous sight, to say the least.

“Captain?” Helen Kim asked as she ended the several beeps of warning. “If these sensors are right, then... we're 70,000 light years from where we were.”

The first officer, Lieutenant Commander Cavit, sucked in a sharp breath and started issuing more orders to get the bridge back to full functionality. The pilot resumed his seat with a soft curse, because his station was heavily damaged. I ignored both reactions and looked over at Helen.

“We're on the other side of the galaxy.” Helen Kim told me, her face showing shock.

I opened my mouth to make a joke, then changed my mind. Now was not the time for levity. “All right. Scan the Maquis ship for lifesigns.” I said and looked back at the main viewscreen. I didn't miss the looks of surprise from everyone nearby at my casual acceptance of the situation. “See if you can check that alien array as well.”

Helen hit a few buttons. “There's no lifesigns on the Maquis ship and no other humanoid lifesigns are within range of our sensors...” She paused as her console beeped at her. “...which also can't penetrate the array.”

“What about those energy pulses? Any idea what they are?” I asked and moved back to let a repair crew by with the remains of the flight console and the Betazed pilot, Lieutenant Stadi, helped them install it.

“They are massive bursts of radiant energy targeted at a nearby G-type star system.” Helen said.

“Try hailing the array.” I said.

“Engineering to Bridge.” A woman's voice said. “Chief Engineer Santos here. We've suffered severe damage and I've just stopped the possibility of a warp core breach.”

“Have you already secured all engineering stations?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. That was the first thing I did.” Santos said, a little proudly. “I wouldn't mind some extra help down here if you can spare it.”

I glanced around at everyone working. “I'm on my way.” I said and tapped my comm badge to end the call and walked around the middle seats on the bridge.

“Sir, there's no response from the array and the pulses are continuing.” Helen said.

“It seems they're not talking to us, so getting an explanation might take a while.” I said and patted her shoulder as I passed her station. “Keep a comm signal open to sickbay and redirect all minor casualties to the mess hall to give the medical personnel some extra space to work.”

“Aye, sir. I'll relay that to Chief Medical Officer Peterson.” Helen responded.

“Lt. Stadi, you have the bridge.” I ordered.

“Yes, sir. I have the bridge.” The man said and sat up straighter at his restored flight console.

I stopped at the turbolift at the back of the bridge and turned to look at the other people on the bridge. “Don't worry, everyone. We'll have Voyager back in fighting shape soon, then we'll find out why we were brought here.” I said and smiled. “If we don't like the answer, then someone is going to pay for what they did to us.”

Matching smiled met mine and I stepped backwards into the turbolift. The doors shut and I let out a breath.

“Main engineering.” I stated and the thing dropped slightly and the pulled me backwards. “Computer, remind me to tell someone in engineering about adjusting the inertial compensator in the main turbolift.”

It beeped at me and I nodded. I reached the right deck and walked fast down the hallway, nodding at crewmen running by me. Only one slowed down enough to salute and then started running again. I entered engineering and a spark went off by my head and I avoided it.

“Sorry about that, captain.” Chief Engineer Santos said and nodded at an ensign, whom ran over to secure the loose wires. “The place is a bit of a mess.”

“I can see that.” I walked right over to her main console where she was typing in commands faster than she was getting the results back. “What's the warp core's status?”

“We had a micro-fracture in the outer casing and I had to shut it down briefly to lock the magnetic constrictors to seal it.” Santos said and the console beeped at her. “Luckily, the dilithium chamber just reinitialized without a problem afterwards and the pressure is holding steady.”

“Good. That's good.” I said and patted her shoulder. “You keep working here and I'll head over to work on the ship's shields. I have a feeling we're going to need them as soon as possible.”

“Me, too.” Santos said. “I'll have the reserve battery power shunted to your station.”

“Thank you. I'm going to need it.” I said, kind of lying. It would help; but, I was going to cast a few protective wards using the shield emitters and also use some of my recently acquired knowledge to modify the shield frequency to disperse all energy beams. There was no way I was letting myself or my crew be hijacked again.

*

The Caretaker was becoming impatient. Almost none of the newest samples of DNA were compatible with his own. There was one possible one in the hybrid humanoid with facial ridges, thanks to her adaptable DNA. The preliminary tests were inconclusive, so more in-depth ones needed to be undertaken.

He scanned the second ship he acquired that day with a tetrion beam and combined it with his teleport system, only to mentally frown. The shields of the ship lit up and the combined beam bounced off of it. That shouldn't have happened. He knew they weren't an advanced species to counter his technology, because he couldn't have brought the ship here if they were.

He adjusted the modulation and the frequency, of both beams, and tried again. He physically saw the beam distort and be deflected with the energy shield. It was impossible. He was in desperate need of those biological samples and he had to have them right now. He brought the array's weapons online, intending to break the much smaller ship's protective shield, then an oddly powerful weapon fired from one side of the oddly-shaped ship.

Just as his own sensors detected that it was a tricobalt torpedo with a very high yield explosive warhead, it reached his ship and detonated, created a huge explosion that also created a subspace tear near his array, and it obliterated his partially charged weapons and destroyed his energy dispersal system. How was he supposed to supercharge the Ocampa's homeworld before he died?

When the little ship hailed him, he answered it automatically instead of ignoring it.

“Did that finally get your attention?” A male voice asked.

Yes. Yes, it did. The caretaker thought. It also made him wonder how many more of the things the ship had. He had been too focused on the biological samples to scan the technology with more than a cursory glance and that had been a huge mistake.

“I assume your silence is the answer we needed.” The male voice said. “Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

I thought I was doing it the easy way. The caretaker thought.

“The hard way is blowing up your array and salvaging what we need from your corpse.” The voice continued and the caretaker couldn't help but shiver at his own actions being repeated on himself. “Or we can do this the easy way and actually talk about what you were doing and why. Maybe we can help each other get what we really want.”

The caretaker was shocked to hear that, because none of the other ships or people he had brought here ever wanted to talk and just fired their useless weapons at his practically impenetrable hull, or what he thought was an impenetrable hull.

After a moment, he relented and sent them his signal for surrender. He didn't have much time left, and his efforts to do as much as he could for the race his people had wronged, were now amounting to nothing. All he could do was see if these people would be kind enough to finish his task for him.

“That was a bit farther than I expected you to go; but, I accept.” The male voice said. “I'm Captain Kevin Janeway and I look forward to working together.”

The caretaker felt something he hadn't felt for a very long time. A glimmer of hope.

*

It took two days to jury-rig a power converter between two mostly incompatible systems. The Caretaker's array had vast amounts of power that it had been shunting to the Ocampa's planet, only our experimental tricobalt device had destroyed the dispersal system with his weapons.

Once it was in place, Voyager's engineers reconfigured all of the industrial replicators to produce array components, thanks to the shared plans from the Caretaker. We had agreed to give the distribution system and one of his main reactors to the Ocampa, and we would adapt it for planetary use and safety.

We rebuilt the necessary system to send us back to the Alpha Quadrant, with several backups and redundancies, and we also set up the self-destruct system to handle removing the very dangerous array from being abused after the Caretaker's death.

He had been offered genetic modification to either rejuvenate himself or to produce a hybrid offspring, and he refused. With us handling the care of the Ocampa, and doing a much better job of it, he lost his desire to reproduce a child to take over.

The Kazon, a warrior race that oppressed the Ocampa, and anyone else they thought was weaker than them, showed up with several battle ships. They had noticed the energy pulses had stopped and followed them back to the array. It had fought them off many times before as single ships, so they brought six of them this time.

After they refused to retreat and started attacking both the array and Voyager, neither could allow them to either disable the array or take it over before it send Voyager home or self-destructed. Since the caretaker himself was against killing, the Maquis captain, a woman named Chakotay, offered to fight on his behalf. The caretaker handed controls of his restored weapons to her.

Kevin Janeway wasn't an idiot. Even though he allowed the Maquis captain to do so, he knew the woman was going to turn on the Federation as soon as the Kazon were taken care of. He activated the ship's special shields without changing from the Yellow Alert notice to Red, to not give away they were active.

Everyone on the bridge gave him appreciative looks at the deception and the fight with the Kazon was over quickly. Their ships were disabled for the most part. A couple blew up when their engine rooms were targeted and lost containment. The people on Voyager were sad at the loss of life and the Maquis cheered for it.

“I believe this is where we part ways, Captain Janeway.” Chakotay said and she smirked evilly. “I'm sure you'll have your ship repaired in a few weeks and can follow us home if you activate the array again.”

No one on the bridge missed the implications of being disabled like that with all the Kazon ships around them, not to mention more arriving later to check on the battle.

“You're leaving us to die?” Kevin asked her, pointedly.

“Of course not, captain! I would never do such a thing.” Chakotay said and her eyes moved over to Tammy Paris. “Have a good life.”

The smirking woman hit the commands and the array fired several weapons at Voyager... and nothing happened. The beams bounced off and the energy globes were absorbed by the shields.

“Wh-what? How? There's no way you could have adapted to the unstable energies so quickly!” Chakotay exclaimed.

“That's because we didn't.” Kevin Janeway said. “We installed the same dispersion system into Voyager that the array has.”

Chakotay's mouth dropped open from shock.

“Tuvoc? If you would.” Kevin Janeway said and Chakotay gasped, whirled around in her command chair, and looked right into the mouth of a Starfleet issued phaser.

“You can take this act as my formal resignation.” The female Vulcan said and fired.

Chakotay yelled and was half out of her seat when the stun ray hit her and she collapsed to the floor. The Vulcan woman checked her pulse and nodded, secured the prisoner with cuffs, and sat in the command chair that was also the pilot's chair.

“Good work.” Kevin said and smiled. “When can I expect you back at your post on my bridge, Lieutenant?”

“As soon as I hand over all the Maquis captives, captain.” Tuvoc said. “I will need the chief medical officer's help to disperse medical grade anaesthesia through the life support system.” She stated and released the weapons controls back to the caretaker, whom then handed them right to Voyager.

“She'll beam over as soon as you send her the coordinates.” Kevin responded.

“Thank you, captain. Tuvoc out.” The female Vulcan said and the screen cut off.

“Well done, everyone.” Kevin said and hit the intercom to reach the entire ship. “Well done, everyone.” He repeated. “We've made it through another harrowing battle in unknown space and this ship and its crew have proven themselves triumphant once again.”

Several cheers came back over the intercom.

“With one of the array's reactors adding to our own warp core, we'll never have to worry about energy consumption again. So, go wild and celebrate when your shift's over... as long as you stick to sinthehol.” Kevin said and a few people on the bridge chuckled. “Captain out.”