Seven scenes between 100 and 500 words.  Some connect, some don't.  Just seven random moments in the life of Maren O'Connor, eventual chief engineer of the USS Tesseract.   

Written for the Twelve Trials of Triskelion Ficlet Flashdance 2013.

Part Two of Star Trek: Tesseract

In 2378, the crew of the USS Voyager delivered a devastating blow to the Borg Collective when they destroyed a key transwarp hub to the Alpha Quadrant, and the Borg unicomplex.  They hoped it would be the end of the Borg threat.  They were wrong.

Nearly eight years later, the crew of the USS Tesseract -- the first official Starfleet mission of exploration to the Delta Quadrant – has found a quadrant in ruins, torn apart by the Collective and a new, more terrifying kind of Borg -- the Borg Resistance.  They are free of the Collective, free of established protocols, without cohesion or unity, and operating under cloak.  Their new superweapon could put an end to warp society as the galaxy has known it – but it’s also the only thing standing between the Borg Collective and its ultimate goal of assimilating or destroying the entire United Federation of Planets.

Now, while the Federation and its tenuous allies prepare for a full-scale Borg invasion, the Tesseract crew -- alone in the Delta Quadrant -- must find a way to finish what Voyager started, and one young ex-Borg Starfleet officer must decide whether to embrace his destiny ... or boldly defy it.

What did your father do in the war? 

One of the major battles of the Dominion War was the attack on Earth, by the Breen, on October tenth, 2375. Millions of human lives were lost. One of those was Michael Nolan, a Xenobotanist in Beijing. He left a widow, Gina Righetti Nolan, who was expecting their first child.

Season 2, 25th story

Max makes a shocking discovery that one of his ancestor's pioneering mathematical, and hitherto unknown, research into subspace and warp flight may have been unwittingly used by Zefram Cochrane. Faced with the paradox of whether his ancestor, John Weatherby, is the missing link to how mankind developed its first warp drive, Max asks of Ezri for them to investigate what happened all those hundreds of years ago back on Earth.

Seeking a way to send the Defiant many hundreds of years in the past, Ezri invites Seven of Nine to the station to implement untested work into time travel. The year Ezri wants to go to is 2053; the year where World War III ended due to nuclear Armageddon.

When the Defiant does go successfully back in time, Ezri and Max begin their investigations into John and his involvement with warp research. After some digging around, it falls upon Ezri to carry out one truly terrible decision; either way many lives will be lost and altered because of it.

Warnings: Adult situations and occasional strong swearing.

Chapters: 9    Table of Contents
Categories: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Expanded Universes
Characters: Bashir, Julian, Dax, Ezri, Holo, Kira Nerys, Seven of Nine, Weatherby, Max
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Warnings: Adult Language, Adult Situations
Series: Star Trek: The Approaching Shadow...
Completed: Yes    Word count: 28335    Read Count: 1656

March 2381 -- For two and a half years, Maren O’Connor has been the primary source of acceptance and encouragement in Icheb’s life at Starfleet Academy.  They’re so close people call them “The Collective” – but what happens when they’re forced to be apart?

(My entry for the "Outside the Comfort Zone" Weekly Prompt)

It's 2379, and Cadet 3rd-Class John Quigley's Starfleet career is about to end before it begins ... until help arrives from an unexpected source.  Sometimes it's good to have friends -- or friends-of-friends -- in high places.

(Rated T for language.)