A meeting on the Cerritos

“So you’re telling us that you’re from another universe and you had been popping by all throughout your childhood up to your young adult years,” Captain Freeman asked you. She was pacing up and down the conference room. “Your people have a superiority complex and view going to other universes and messing around as a fun vacation.”

“That would explain why the Singing Gardners Pirate Fleet suddenly disappeared,” Shaxs grumbled, likely upset he never got a chance to fight the Gardner Pirates.

“Yeah, we would get access to the universe and then depending on who owns the access, the visitors would do whatever they want or follow a pre-set up adventure if relations with the locals are alright.” You explained. After being rescued from the holodeck, Mariner had dragged you back to the _Cerritos _and to her mom, the captain. You had let Sabine know it was fine and you allowed yourself to get dragged along with Starfire, Aelita, Shampoo, and Ahsoka following behind. “My parents kinda won access in a game of Strip Poker.”

“That sounds like Miss Daisy,” Mariner softened her glare slightly. “Then why haven’t you come back all these years? I thought you were dead! Everyone thought you were dead. Your birthday is a galactic holiday!”

“My birthday is a holiday?” You asked with wide eyes. “What did I do to warrant that!?”

“Your Shapeshifter Seeker Flower exposed hundreds of changeling infiltration and sabotage attempts,” Ransom explained.

“Millions of lives were saved across the Federation and Klingon Empire,” Captain Freeman said before pausing. “And some parts of the Romulan Republic.”

“Wow, and to think that if Mariner didn’t disobey commander Sisko’s orders, my flower would have been destroyed,” you say, winking at Mariner. You saw Mariner’s face and sighed,”I didn’t come back because well…I sort of couldn’t. The device used to come to this universe locked down after my shuttle was blown up and Starfire and I were teleported back. Anyone who was still in universe was given a ‘wrap up everything and come back’ message.”

“Why would it lock down?” Captain Freeman asked carefully.

“From what I remember, the device was one of the older models from near the beginning of universe exploration,” you explained as you recalled why it didn’t work. “If an explorer was almost killed, this device, if configured incorrectly, prevented more people from going in until everyone had used the emergency recall devices to leave. It only unlocks when a RD team uses its authorization to enter and decide if the universe is safe.”

“Then the device locked to this universe spent a lot of time being processed before being lost for a time, Mother and Father in Law spent a lot of time looking for it after buying the rights to the device and universe from the previous owner,” Starfire continued for you.

“Buy? A multiversal traveling society uses money?” Boimler snorted. Boimler and the other Lower Deckers (except Mariner) were standing to the side.

“Considering that you guys use Federation Credits, I would say the same thing,” you point out with a raised eyebrow.

“Those are credits, they don’t count,” Ransom said in defense of the ensign.

“The only difference is that citizens are automatically given them, they are still used to exchange goods and services just less so,” you pointed out. “Just because you don’t really use it doesn’t mean it's not money.”

“We’re getting off topic, you can debate money later,” Captain Freeman raised her voice. “Firstly, why haven’t we heard about your people before?”

“Well, it's no fun if y’all know we are about,” you said, mostly to remind her that her universe was considered a vacation spot. “And secondly, we have had very bad experiences with other universes finding out about us. The first and second Combine Wars reduced our universe’s population down to the low double digits. Percent I mean, lower double digit percentile” You were omitting that that particular statistic was misleading due to more than half of the population moving to other universes. But the explanation served its purpose in drawing sympathy.

“That must’ve been devastating,” Captain Freeman bowed her head slightly. “I could see why your people wouldn’t want to make their presence known.”

“Why are they called the Combine Wars?” Ransom asked.

“There are multiple versions of a multiversal empire called the Combine who go around conquering worlds, usually pre-warp ones, and sometimes whole universes,” Aelita spoke up as she relaxed in the comfortable chair. “I think the Fourth Combine War involved two or three Combine Empires teaming up to attack the Prime Worlds.”

“I would love to chit-chat more about your people’s history but why exactly have you come back after so long? And why would you talk about your origin if your people don’t like others knowing?” Captain Freeman finally sat down and interlocked her fingers with her elbows on the table.

“Yeah and why did Starfire say Mother and Father in Law? What about that?” Mariner demanded while leaning forward interrogatively.

“Well, it sort of ties all together,” you take a breath and hold Aelita’s left hand and Starfire’s right. “We are on our honeymoon.” Mariner’s eyes snapped to your and your wives’ hands and spotted the wedding bands. Her jaw dropped, her flabbergasted expression created a slight smirk on your face.

“Married! You got married?!” Mariner yelled as she stood up, knocking her chair over onto Boimler’s foot.

“Yeah, two days ago, a big blow out, almost as big as when mom and dad renewed their vows,” you smile at the fresh memories and of the distant past. To your surprise Tendi the Orion girl shuddered and rubbed her side.

“So much caramel and teeth, so sticky and sharp,” she whispered, causing her crewmates and senior officers to stare at her. She noticed the stares and asked, “What?”

“Didn’t know you were there, what happened to Telosan Prime the Federation is still cleaning up,” Doctor T’Ana commented while rubbing a patch of her fur on her leg. “Those Caramel Mugatos were killer.” Tendi gulped and looked around for a brief second.

“Um yeah, I just happened to be around and got caught up in the fighting,” she said though you knew that your parents invited some of their pirate friends. In fact, you were fairly sure you spent part of the night with an Orion who looked a lot like Tendi though with how much the punch was spiked, it was probably someone else.

“I could show you pictures of the wedding,” you say, bringing out your phone and starting to pull up the wedding album. “We wanted to invite you Mariner but the TMPM or TransMultiversal Portal Maker–”

“Most call them universe orbs,” Aelita chimed in.

“Was only delivered on the day of the wedding, we wouldn’t have been able to track you down in time,” you and Starfire really had wanted Mariner around since she was a great friend but even with all the technology and magic that the Prime Worlds had, it would be a big ask to find her in time. “We really couldn’t have delayed the wedding either. With all the stuff that happened since we were last here, Starfire, Aelita, and I wanted to get married as fast as possible. Starfire’s ****, my stranding on a trash world, and the babies on the way, we really needed to get a hurry on.”

“Wait, Starfire’s pregnant too?” Mariner asked as she looked at Starfire to try to see if she could spot anything. “I mean I could tell her boobs are bigger and her hips wider and her hair is doing that cool glowing thing and I really should have put it together earlier.”

“We found out that Starfire was pregnant a few weeks ago while Aelita is about seven months along,” you said excitedly.

“Both times were quite the surprise. We found out I was pregnant after James and I were rescued from a pocket dimension and we found out Starfire was pregnant when she suddenly formed a cocoon,” Aelita pulled out her own phone and started showing her ultrasound pictures.

“Sorry for the distress I caused you,” Starfire bowed her head. You and Aelita were quick to reassure her while the other viewed the images.

“Ultrasound? No one has used that in centuries,” Captain Freeman said with suspicion in her voice.

“My people do a lot of things traditionally, here’s a holo scan recording,” you say as Aelita pressed a few things causing a 3D hologram to pop out. The image of two little babies floating around each other, occasionally twitching.

“Awww, you’re having twins,” Tendi cooed. You smiled at the response to your kids' adorableness.

“Yeah, we’re going to Risa for the honeymoon to get in as much fun and relaxation as we can before the kids arrive,” you explained. The bird headed guy in one of the chairs perked up and stopped playing with some dolls he had.

“Oh, you’re going to Risa as well? We’re heading there for a symposium and shore leave,” Mister Migleemo informed. You were surprised at this and started thinking about how this could squeeze into your honeymoon plans.

“Really? Then you wouldn’t mind us following y’all there?” You asked, figuring it would make a safer/more interesting trip there. “Safety in numbers and all. We’ve already been dragged into a space race by two reality warpers, ran into a cosmic string, and the holodeck malfunction/Q thing.”

“I don’t think that would be a problem.” Captain Freeman replied. “Though, a cosmic string said? Would you mind if we send over a team to make sure your ship doesn’t have any hidden damage?” You look at Aelita and after she thought for a moment, cutely shifting her jaw, she nodded.

“That’s perfectly fine with me though Sabine is going to kill me for it,” you chuckle at the image of an angry Sabine going after you. After a bit of back and forth, and some ribbing from Mariner, the meeting was wrapping up and you were getting up when Shaxs asked a question.

“Say, how come you are bringing so many other people on your honeymoon? It’s usually just the newlyweds going on their honeymoon?”

“Oh well,” you start to say, ready to give an excuse/coverup your harem slaves.

Several light years away on the Sh’vhal

“T’Lyn, you did not report for your shift at the tertiary subspace monitors until it was approximately four hours and 23 minutes past its beginning,” Sokel, the captain of the Sheval, commented as T’Lyn entered his ready room. T’Lyn walked up to him until she was standing a few feet away from her captain.

T’Lyn stood ramrod straight with her arms crossed behind her back. She had her chin length hair held back by a silvery headband and was attired in long gray and white robes as was the typical uniform on Vulcan ships.

“My apologies sir,” T’Lyn said in the classic Vulcan tone. “I had been transported away from the ship and made part of a Q based event.” Sokel raised a single eyebrow which was the most emotion Sokel has shown in a year.

“Elaborate.”

“Myself and several other females of a variety of races had been taken to a malfunctioning holodeck and had mixed in with a large number of holodeck characters,” T’Lyn reported, giving a rundown of the creatures she and her allies had fought and encountered. “In addition, there was an environmental hazard and triggered premature and **** Pon farr or similar states in all the females except a few. The test appeared to involve there being a singular, non-holographic male within the environment who was then pursued by the females.”

“And were you one of the pursuers?”

“I was,” T’Lyn bowed her head a little, in partial shame. “I had been successful in my pursuit of the human male. Once mutual activities occurred, my state faded and once the male had fled once again when Orion pirates appeared. I had moved through the holographic ship, which had connected to a random assortment of rooms, planets, and ships, to attempt to assist him in escaping the other pursuers. He had been injured.”

“Were you able to assist the victim?” Sokel asked while picking up a PADD and started writing notes, likely for a report to send to Vulcan High Command.

“I was not. In my attempt to locate the victim, I was **** to flee a carnivorous quadruped mammal approximately 2.2 meters tall that was eventually dispatched by a holonovel character with a kinetic based weapon. I, along with one T’Pel and one T’Rella, settled inside a partial bar and mediation room where we assisted a potentially hybrid Romulan or Vulcan pregnant woman until a StarFleet team had fixed a holodeck malfunction. Q then returned my person to the Sh’vhal. Q had claimed and I quote ‘I do not care where you go but you cannot stay here.’”

“Fascinating,” Sokel said while continuing to write the report. He left T’Lyn in silence for a few minutes while filling in more items in the report. Eventually, he set down the PADD. “What did Medical Officer Skenn say?”

“Medical Officer Skenn repaired a few bruises and noted brain activity that appeared similar to what should be expected after a regular Pon farr however there were some anomalies,” T’Lyn reported, her eyes shifting to the right slightly which Sokel noticed and noted for investigation.

“Very well, return to your station, I will note this event in your record, it will not interfere with your transfer to StarFleet in 29 days. Dismissed,” Sokel ordered as he walked over to a computer interface. T’Lyn acknowledged Sokel and turned to the exit. In the door frame, T’Lyn’s steps slowed nearly unnoticeably before she left the room, a hand briefly touching her stomach.