1 - Catching up on the past

Captain Jim Hawkins, commanding officer of the Federation flagship USS Scorpion, was bored. In fact, he couldn't remember a time when he'd been more bored. You'd think that being the CO for the most prestigious ship in the Federation would be an exciting affair, but it wasn't.

The Federation flagship was used to transport the Federation President around as he travelled from world to world. The only problem, however, was that the President didn't travel anywhere these days, and so the Scorpion spent all its time in Earth orbit. It couldn't even go to Mars for a quick journey, just in case the President needed to be evacuated at a moment's notice.

President Spock never went anywhere without a transponder device, allowing immediate transportation onto the flagship should he be threatened in any way. For that reason, the ship could not go anywhere without the President onboard. As a result of this, the Federation flagship had become the ship that no one wanted to serve on.

Hawkins had occasionally pondered how he'd ended up with this command. It was supposed to be a promotion, a reward for his years of service to Starfleet and the Federation, and yet it instead felt like a demotion. The USS Scorpion, one of the best ships in the entire Federation, had been reassigned to earth shortly after the Cardassian crisis involving the Erratan Galactic Republic, or EGR as everyone called them.

After the Cardassians were destroyed and the Federation President resigned, it looked like the Federation was in a shambles, without any strong leadership. When Ambassador Spock stepped up to the plate and took on the role as the new Federation President, a lot of people thought things would be different. And they were, just not in the way people thought they would be. Spock took a more peaceful approach with the EGR, and instead of resisting their influences, as many people thought should have been done, he instead created a stronger alliance with them.

It wasn't until President Spock requested the USS Scorpion as his flagship that Hawkins was able to find out the principals behind Spock's leadership.

"It is not logical to act against that which can easily destroy you," was Spock's comment during a meeting he'd had with Hawkins, the new CO of his flagship at that time. "A wiser plan would be to act only when the lion is sleeping."

"You have plans to act without their knowledge?" Hawkins had asked, surprised.

"Every lion must sleep, Mister Hawkins, regardless of its knowledge about the intentions of those around it. It hopes that their fear of it will keep them subdued."

The President offered nothing more during that meeting, changing the subject to something else. Nor had he ventured any further discussion, but Hawkins had never forgotten, and he had been happy, at least for a little while, to be in a position of usefulness for when the President might decide to act upon his cryptic intentions.

Something else he'd never forgotten was that the Erratan Galactic Republic had only entered this galaxy because of him, and he had not been able to correct it.

Just over 3 years ago, when he had been sent on a mission to retrieve stolen Starfleet technology, he had encountered a new race called the Kaerine. They lived where subspace was relatively nonexistent, which meant warp drives were useless. Instead, they had jump gates that used a technology allowing them to 'jump' from one area of space to another, bypassing the need for warp or subspace drives. These gates used something that was called 'hyperspace', which allowed for almost instantaneous travel over many dozens of light years, from one gate to another.

Upon entering this area of space, the USS Scorpion encountered some problems with their new slipstream drive, which was being interfered with by the subspace 'shallows'. The effect of the interference was such that Hawkins' quantum frequency was altered, and he was transferred into an alternate dimension that matched his new frequency. The universe is made of energy, and that energy has a quantum frequency that makes up everything within it. Hawkins' quantum frequency was altered, which caused him to slip into another universe that matched his new frequency.

Upon finally returning a couple of years later - only a year ago - and finding that the EGR had entered this galaxy and caused so much havoc, Hawkins discovered that the same quantum fluctuations that were caused by his ship's slipstream drive had also activated one of the apparently inactive jump gates, which is how the EGR were able to come through into this galaxy.

Hawkins had trouble understanding how major and catastrophic events could be linked to him. Wherever he went, 'destiny' seemed to follow him, one way or another. He had entered another universe back when he was a lowly Lieutenant, where the Federation had split because of a civil war. In a short space of time, he had ended up not only in charge of that universe's Deep Space Nine, but also as Bajor's Emissary, similar to what happened to Benjamin Sisko in this universe. He not only saved the Bajorans from the Cardassians, but he also managed to reunite the Federation into one single, peaceful organisation, instead of the fractured, warring states it had been.

While carrying out that 'role', he'd managed to meet Sisko himself (who had joined the beings in the wormhole) and discovered that there was only one wormhole throughout all the various universes. He had used that to get back to his own galaxy again, after 5 years as the Emissary. However, he'd tweaked the time travel aspects so that he returned to his galaxy - and ship - only minutes after he had originally left it in the other alternate galaxy. To them, only minutes had passed since they'd left him behind, but for him, 5 years had passed and he was waiting for them as they returned to the home galaxy. Much to their surprise, of course.

When he was thrown into yet another alternate universe some months later in Kaerine space, he had wondered if fate was playing some kind of game with him. He was close. It turned out to be Q, the God-like being who had played with Captain Picard and the USS Enterprise, and Captain Janeway and the USS Voyager. Captain Hawkins was next in Q's bag of tricks. This one involved more Borg. Luckily he'd managed to come through after 2 years of being stuck there, finally making it back to his home galaxy. He was almost ready to retire, but Starfleet placed him in command of the USS Scorpion again, but this time serving the Federation President.

And here he was, bored. He actually missed the 'old days', where he didn't know from one day to the next if he'd still be alive, or even if he'd still be in the same universe. He also missed his old crew. Most of them had been transferred to other ships, or killed in action, while he was away in the other universe. Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to get any of them reassigned to this ship again.

'Captain, you have a message from Starfleet Command,' his XO called over the communicator.

"I'll take it in here," Hawkins replied, sitting up in his chair and wondering what they wanted.

'Aye sir,' the XO replied.

After a moment his terminal beeped at him, and he pressed the button to answer the call.

To be continued...